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plumzlovesfics · 4 months ago

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Silver Spoons: Ominis x female reader oneshot

Wordcount: 2948

Warnings: angst, mentions of past violence

NO BETA YAY and not edited.

tag list: @whalesongsblog @heylorrain @rosewoodcafe @butternutt613 @zetadraconis11 @morelikeravenbore @girl-named-matty (cuz you like angst hehe) oh and @ps-cactus cus i shared the song with you.

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Ominis stood by his dresser fixing his tie once again, his skilled fingers easily tying the knot after years of practice. It was a mindless thing, something that drew his mind from what was coming. Something that shouldn’t be as nerve wracking as the anxiety it was inducing in him.

Your family had invited him to a family dinner at your childhood home. He had yet to meet your family and it was something he had always been hesitant about. You, of course, didn’t understand why he worried, insisting that they would love him, that “they didn't bite.”

But how could he know? Not everyone’s family was like them. If people knew his and their cruelty, they wouldn’t even hesitate to assume he was the same. How could he be sure it wasn’t the same? How could he be sure your family was as warm, open, kind and loving like you were?

He felt for his cologne, his hand slightly shaking as he sprayed it on, breathing deeply of the familiar smell grounding him. The smell that clung to your skin, that said you were his no matter what. It doesn’t matter, he tells himself. Even if they hate me, she never will, she’ll never leave.

One by one, through your words, your comforting touch, your gentle kiss on his cheek as you thanked him for helping you fasten your dress, the insecurities in his heart were unrooted.

You loved him, you were his, you were like the sun always shining, that was all that mattered.

Even if they were cruel, even if they were cold, even if they disapproved, your love burned hot.

“You’ve got this Ominis, you’re the most amazing man I’ve ever met. They’ll love you, I promise,” you sang as the pair of you walked up the path to your childhood home, swinging your hands, fingers interlocked.

He paused, pulling you close and brushing a piece of hair behind your ear before cupping your cheek. “As long as you love me, that’s all I need. Promise you’ll always love me?”

You laugh softly, reaching up to touch the hand on your cheek with one of yours, “I promise.” You seal it by pressing a soft kiss to his lips, and it gives him the strength to knock on the door.

Their voices are kind, their bodies warm as they pull him into welcoming hugs that he has to fight the urge to tense from. They tell you the garden is in the back garden and lead you through the house. His hands trace the walls as he feels his way around. His fingertips come across the edges of old wooden frames, likely holding your smiling face, the inscriptions reading your praises, moments frozen in time from your life. The day you left for Hogwarts, when you won the house cup, your Quidditch victories, the day you graduated.

You were well loved, and he hates the slight pang of jealousy he feels, and the one of guilt that his family was the way they were. If only he had met your family when he was still 15, before the danger of being a Gaunt’s lover had affected both your lifes. Before he had to give a false name, a fake accent. Now no one knew Ominis Gaunt still lived, only Owen Grant remained. Perhaps someday it would be safe, and he’d be able to throw a party in a house of his own, as Ominis. But that was a foolish dream, meant for people not like him, people that had been loved.

In a house where it was okay to play outside until the sun was low in the sky, a light left on to guide you in from the dark. Where you were called to the table where a warm meal was set for you. Where you sat around holding hands and shared what you were grateful for. A home.

As Ominis sat next to you at the long table under the warm evening sky, listening to your family visit and asking each other how their days had been, how his day had been, he found himself thinking about how rich you were. Silver spoons could never compare to the love poured into every spoonful of warm stew that steamed in his bowl. That was wealth, not heaps of gold.

He laughs with you at the stories of you coming home with scrapes on your knees, always a clumsy one, tripping over things. But he can’t help but flash back to the memories of when he would fall, because he’d been tripped or doubled over in pain, red lightning engulfing his small body. He’s so lost in thought he doesn’t hear what your mother asks you.

“Speaking of kids honey, when are you and Owen going to have any? I’d love grandkids, though I would love it if you got married first. People do talk, you know.”

You laugh, “Oh I don’t know mom. I have tried talking to him about it before but he isn’t sure he is able to.”

“He’s infertile?” She asks worriedly.

“Oh, no not at all…it’s just…” you trail off. You can’t tell them he fears his blood, fears his ability to be a good father because of the love he was never given. That he was a Gaunt, not Grant.

Your mother turns to Ominis. “Why aren’t you able to have kids Owen?”

Ominis doesn’t answer, and you touch his arm making him jerk out of his thoughts, his knee flying up and hitting the underside of the table making the good wine spill all over the white tablecloth. “What?...oh, oh no, I’m so sorry I-” he starts to stammer, panickedly dabbing at it with his napkin when they start to laugh.

Ominis is thrown at how easily they brush it off, hurrying to help him clean it up, saying “oh it’s nothing. Could happen to any one of us.” Under his golden locks he still bears the jagged cuts of a glass bottle from the last time he’d spilled expensive wine, before feeling for every crystalline piece, whimpering every time one pierced his small hand, staining the pale skin red.

Was this how it was supposed to happen? In a normal family? Ominis was sure it was, but he couldn’t comprehend it. Even when he lived with the Sallow’s he eventually had to learn to walk on eggshells there too. This couldn’t be real, it must be an act. No one was so kind, except you.

~~~~

After it’s cleaned up he’s offered second helpings but he refuses, his stomach turned with the resentment he feels towards the whole situation. He could fend for himself. He wasn’t incapable of cleaning up glass, he wasn’t too skinny as your grandma said. “No thanks,” he snaps, leaving you to apologize for him, causing his cheeks to burn with even more embarrassment.

When you leave they still hug you both. They tell him he’s welcome any time, twisting the knife of guilt even deeper into his heart, and the unfair irritation grows at their fussing over you.

Once you are in the carriage he can finally breathe in relief, free of the suffocating warmth. Your head rests against his shoulder as you ride in silence for a while, wanting to give him a moment before you ask the question that has been bothering you.

“Ominis?” you ask tentatively.

“Yes love?” he’s gently stroking the back of your hand with his thumb, content and relaxed.

He loves how sweet your voice is, like sugar, and smooth like liquid chocolate. It calms him, until he picks up the taint of concern in your gentle prodding.

“What’s wrong? Why did you snap at my mother like that? She was just trying to help.”

He tenses, an air of pride creeping into his tone. “It’s just she was treating me as if I’m incompetent. I know I’m blind but I can do things for myself.” He huffs softly.

“Sweetheart, it wasn’t that at all. We help one another in my family. Besides, you wouldn’t have spilled the wine if we hadn’t startled you with her question.”

He pauses a moment, “What question?”

He senses your hesitation, making his anxious irritation grow even more. “What question?” he demands impatiently.

“She…she wanted to know when and if we’re going to have children.”

Children. You were asking about children…again.

He tries to take a breath to steady himself, to rein in the anger, the fear, the disgust. All the overwhelming and complicated feelings that surfaced whenever he thought about his line.

“Darling, we talked about this. I don’t want to have kids, I don’t want my bloodline to continue.”

You sigh, and he hates the pain hidden in it. “I know love, but I’ve been thinking...what if they aren’t like your family? They’ll be ours. We’ll raise them differently. I have an ancient power just like you that I can’t control, that I could use for evil but I don’t. Just like you don’t. It’s a choice, not a fate. We aren’t a certain way just because our families are. Because of where we’re born.”

He hates how sensible you are, how reasonable and true your words sound. Because he wants to believe you, he wants to feel you swelling with his child, something that is part of you both, something that makes you more his and binds you completely. But he’s too scared of the risk.

“It doesn’t matter!” he suddenly yells, making you jump. “You grew up being fed love by the spoonful, people cared to ask about you,to treat your wounds. You were cherished. I was kicked around, left in the dark and the cold to fend for myself. It doesn’t matter about my blood as much as it matters about how I was raised. I don’t know how to love a child, how to give affection. I have a terrible temper, most of the first years were just frightened of my presence alone!”

You try to comfort him, to reach out and take his hand but he yanks it away from you, causing his elbow to dig into your side, making you gasp and tears spring to your eyes. Still, you try, your voice shaky as you try to soothe him, hoping to assure him that he did know how, he loved you.

“Ominis…I understand and..”

“How could you possibly understand!? Your mother did a great job raising you, my mother took one look at me and left me to the snakes to cradle! Your father would die to protect you, my father wanted me to die. You want kids? Marry someone else! Because I will corrupt every damn branch of this precious family tree you want me to become a part of! So leave it!”

All the hope you ever had was knocked out of your chest, his cruel words, his jealousy and bitterness murdering the dreams you’d tended to so carefully. There would be no cottage in the countryside, no little girls dancing on his toes like you had, their eyes a reflection of his own. He would never play piano lullabies, or brush the sweaty hair from your face and hold your hand as you worked to give him the one gift you wanted to give him more than anything, his own family.

“Okay, I’m sorry I brought it up. It won’t happen again.” He hears you whisper before you turn away towards the carriage window to watch the summer rain that matched your silent tears.

He wished you would tell him off like you did sometimes. To fight back with your stubborn fiery passion and not let him win. Your quiet submission and the smell of salt killed him. You were so sweet, he was mean. You were kind, and he was cruel. Maybe in another life he would have been like you. Had your big heart, been strong enough to keep getting up, brave to hope. Maybe he could have grown into someone good, someone worthy of love. But he didn’t.

He wasn’t. He was a hurt, lost, bitter boy born to a family that despised him. Taught to fear, taught to submit and accept life as it was, not what it could be. Someone who hurt others to protect themselves. Because it was easier being down in the dark dirt if someone else was too.

The apartment you share feels huge without your voice filling the silence, without your presence next to him, without your scent permeating into every crevice of his body. You’re not gone, you’re just…distant. You don’t speak, you barely eat and you stay in your room while he sleeps on the couch. You didn’t kick him out, he just chose to stay there. He doesn’t eat at all, punishing himself for hurting you. Why did you love him, why did you stay?

It’s been only two days but it could have been two years when you come out into the kitchen and silently start moving around, preparing something. He listens but doesn’t move from where he sits on the couch, disheveled and miserable. He starts when you speak, standing near.

“Ominis, I made you some toast and tea. You should eat something. Please, love?”

You…you made him something? He thinks of the glasses scattered on the floor, the bitter medicine that numbed his pain and feels ashamed. Here you were, checking on him, caring for him when he’s hurting when you’re the one who needs it most. He hurt you, not the other way around. And it hits him all at once, leaving him humbled and shaken, guilt deeper than the sea.

Ominis collapses to his knees in front of you, bursting into tears, his hands clutching at your ankles. “I’m so sorry, I’m so so sorry love. I don’t deserve you, I don’t deserve this. Why are you-” but you cut him off, setting down the tray and sinking down to join him on the floor.

He feels up the arms holding his hands to your face, bringing it to his so your foreheads lean together. He listens to your soothing cooing, as your thumbs brush away his tears as he rambles on about how you should hate him, how he thought you would leave, how you should.

“Ominis, sweetheart,” you laugh softly. “Real love doesn’t have to be earned, it’s given.”

“But why?” he whispers.

“Why what sweetie?” you say pulling back just enough to look in his eyes.

“Why do you love me?”

“Ominis Gaunt I love you because you are a loyal, extremely intelligent, moral, resilient, kind, gentle,and sweet man. You treat me like a lady, you are devoted and protective, and aren’t afraid to be vulnerable. You are honest, a trait I value more than anything. And you always aim to do what’s right. Here you are, not too proud to ask for forgiveness, which I’ve already given.”

“Already given? I crushed your dreams, I was cruel with my words.” He protests, shocked.

“My dream is you Ominis, children or not. And you were hurt and scared. It’s expected.” You reply simply, as if it’s the most easy thing in the world to understand.

He kisses your forehead, before burying his face in your hair, murmuring against your neck.

“I love you. Merlin, you’re amazing. I don’t deserve you.”

“I love you too,” you reply, gently rubbing his back. “And don’t worry about it. In another life we’ll have kids, in a better one. We don’t need them to be happy.”

“No.” he says, determined to no longer be selfish. To look for the bright side like you.

“No?”

He removes himself from your hair and takes a deep breath taking your hands in his. “I want to try, I do., I want kids. I want us to be the ones making a better world, through more of you. The love you’ll pass to them will keep spreading light. I trust it will be enough to outdo my darkness.”

“You’re serious?” You ask, barely able to believe your ears.

“I’m serious.” And then he kisses you, soft and sweet and all is right in the world.

Two little girls dance in the grass as piano music drifts out the window until their mothers voice calls them in, sending them racing to get to the table first. One trips and skins her knee, her little voice full of tears. “I’m bleeding, I’m bleeding. I’m going to die! Mommy, Daddy help!”

Her father scoops her up, laughing softly. “Love, this is only a scratch. It isn’t fatal, we’ll have it patched up in no time okay?” A bandage and a kiss later she joins her sister for a bowl of stew.

“How was your day, girls? Did you find many frogs today?” Her mother asks, flying a spoon into their baby brother's mouth, the silver glinting in the late afternoon sun.

As Ominis listened to his darling girls babble about butterflies, and frogs, and birds he couldn’t help but think back to a few years ago where he never would have thought he’d have a family. When he didn’t think he’d be able to love because he’d never had it and because his blood would destroy everything.

But we’re not always the product of the love we didn’t get as children, we’re the love we give away. We chose our lives, we chose our families. He chose her, she chose him. He gave her love, and she gave him children. Not Gaunts, but their kids, his kids, his family tree. One that would never not know love, and for that he was very grateful for the most.

And they lived happily ever after...

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