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sallowsangel · 3 months ago

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✨Last Light, chapter one.

Sebastian Sallow x F!MC | Romance | Canon Divergent | Mature

Dark magic requires a sacrifice. This is Sebastian's...

3.4k words, SFW.

👉 read on wattpad | ao3

N'abandonne Pas.

— s t i l l.

Feldcroft hadn't changed much in the intervening years since Sebastian had left it behind. In fact, from his vantage point overlooking the tiny summer-tinged village, with the fremescent ocean to his left and jagged rocky outcroppings to his right, he felt certain Feldcroft hadn't changed a whit in the hundreds — possibly thousands — of years since it was founded.

And it likely never would.

He, on the other hand, had undergone so many changes in the seven years since his departure that he was virtually unrecognisable as the belligerent seventeen-year-old he'd been when he'd last stood on this spot. Certainly, he'd left behind the rounded cheeks and awkward physique of his boyhood to grow as tall and broad-shouldered as his father had been — but more than that, he'd changed in ways that couldn't be seen from the surface. Where once he'd stood on this spot as a boy, afraid of his future and desperate to untangle the threads of fate that bound him to tragedy, he now stood a man: one who'd crawled through the dark pits of despair to emerge with a stitched-together soul and a scarred heart.

Fragmented, yes, but intact.

Or so he'd thought, until the moment he'd stepped foot in the village where the bones of his regrets lay, where the memories of his past, like fog rolling in from the ocean, settled thick and heavy between the cracks in his shattered spirit.

Being back in Feldcroft was as disarming as a swift kick to the nether regions — and far more painful.

With a resigned sigh, Sebastian set off toward the village, sweeping his wind-tangled hair from his face as he went; grown as he was — with a grown-up career and grown-up money — he'd never quite figured out how to tame his unruly curls, and had subsequently given up trying. As a fully-trained Healer, his scruffy appearance didn't exactly reflect the respectability of his profession, but what did his patients care for his hair if they were sprouting horns or accidentally poisoning themselves? Besides, with nobody to fuss affectionately over the state of it, he saw no point in trying to force his chestnut locks into a state of conformity it didn't want to be in.

Across the way was Uncle Solomon's cottage, nestled as it had always been between fields of summer crops and grazing sheep. It was no longer Solomon's, of course — the man had been dead for close to a decade, after all — but seeing it again now, largely unchanged even after all these years, seemed to snuff out all the light that Sebastian had fought to claw back from the clutches of his grief.

Suddenly, he was ten years old again, freshly orphaned, tearfully refusing to set foot in his new home while Anne, his twin, his comfort, patiently talked him through his meltdown; he was fourteen, pouring over stolen books in the small, cold shed behind the house, his fingers frozen stiff in the frigid night air; fifteen, caught in another towering row with his uncle, whose mood swings were always directed at him, the troubled twin, the nuisance child. He did not look toward the small graveyard where Solomon's bones lay. He'd never visited before, and he never would — for what could he possibly say at the resting place of the man he'd murdered?

He pushed the thought away. He wasn't here to reminisce, he was here to dispense his much-needed medical skills to the residents of the greater Scottish Highlands, who hadn't seen a modern Healer this side of the nineteenth century.

Still, the sooner he got out of Feldcroft, the better.

Verity Bullock was apparently the name of his first patient of the day, but Sebastian couldn't quite believe that a name that roughly translated to truth and bullshit was real. Still, questionable pseudonym or not, when he'd received an owl the night prior requesting his assistance in dealing with "memory problems", he'd replenished his medical supplies, consulted his texts, and outlined a detailed care plan, confident that he'd help this poor woman remember all the things she'd forgotten. — After all, Sebastian considered himself something of an expert on memories.

Verity (quote unquote) lived on the far side of the village. He could just make out the tiny stone cottage in the distance, a ribbon of smoke unfurling from its crooked chimney despite the temperate weather, windows blinking cheerily in the morning sun. Curiosity propelled him toward it faster than he would've approached any other dwelling in the village; in his youth, the small structure had been nothing but a ruin, a crumbling relic of some long-forgotten Feldcroftian resident, but one in which he'd sought refuge when the arguments with Solomon had turned into full-blown screaming matches. Now, though, evidenced even from afar, the cottage had been given a second life, its tiny front yard a veritable explosion of bright flowers and creeping vines, a rambling mess of yellows and creams and blush-pinks barely contained within a white picket fence.

Making house calls in the Scottish Highlands was decidedly not how Sebastian planned to spend a summer during the highest point of his career, but his superior — a formidable ex-Auror-turned-Healer named Seewell, who, ironically, had a scar across one eye and burn marks across the other — had insisted that no Healer was worthy of the job title without several years of "field work" under his belt.

— Or so the official story went.

On record, Sebastian's summer sojourn into the Highlands was simply a chance to "further his ongoing education."

Off record, it was a banishment.

Regrettably, Seewell's extensive experience fighting the Dark Arts had eventually clued him into the fact that all of Sebastian's patented cures had their roots in long-forgotten, archaic forms of magic. — Dark magic, if one wanted to get technical about it, which Seewell most certainly did.

It was ridiculous, really. Sebastian's cures were so effective that his latest spellcraft — one that significantly slowed the spread of Venomous Tentacular poison — had earned him glowing praise from the Minister of Magic himself, who'd declared him the "best Healer St Mungo's had seen in living memory" and "an asset to the magical community at large". High praise indeed for someone who'd secretly taught himself the Unforgivables at age fifteen.

But Seewell, like most Ministry employees — nay, most law-abiding citizens of the magical community — simply couldn't condone the questionable sources of Sebastian's cures, even if they did save lives. So, like a Muggle soldier being deployed for duty, Sebastian had been shipped out from London to complete a summer-long stint in the warzone of his childhood while Seewell figured out what the bloody hell to do with him.

The scent of jasmine and rose should have been the first sign that something was amiss, wrinkling his nose when he reached the gate of the little cottage. Suddenly, his stomach was churning with something far worse than first-day-of-work-at-the-scene-of-his-childhood-trauma jitters. He held his breath, but it was too late: the association was too strong, and before he could turn tail and run, his brain conjured visions of blue eyes and auburn hair, of freckles across cheeks, and pouty, downturned lips—

A small groan of longing and regret dislodged itself from his chest — a sound he hadn't made since he was fifteen.

As if he hadn't already faced enough ghosts from his past, the familiar smell — her smell — didn't just dredge up the painful memories from the seldom-visited corners of his mind, but tore them out and flung them at his heart, hitting him with a force that nearly buckled his knees: a blue dress, laughter like the high notes on a piano, lips stained ruby with strawberry juice. And that smell: soft skin heady with the scent of fucking jasmine and fucking roses. If he could purge the smell from his memory, claw it from his brain, wipe it from the face of the earth, he'd do it —

If it meant he could just forget her once and for all, he'd do it...

But memories were funny like that: the ones that hurt the most were always the hardest to erase.

Up the garden path, dodging around a scattering of chickens and a disgruntled ginger cat, his knock on the cottage door a moment later was not the calm arrival one might expect of a visiting Healer, but a call for help from a grown man seeking refuge from fucking flowers. Gripping his leather satchel with clammy hands, he was just wondering how long it would take Seewell to find out he was terrorising his patients over their garden choices when the door flew open—

Sebastian staggered back.

Surely, he was losing his mind; surely the blue eyes and auburn hair that greeted him on the other side were just remnants of his memories, his mind playing tricks, his sanity cracking, because there was no way — no fucking way — he'd come all the way from London to Feldcroft just to knock on her door.

The memories that flashed before his eyes then were a mere echo of the reality before him: jasmine and roses, stronger now; a blue dress, like the one she'd been wearing on the last day he'd seen her; eyes that searched his own and saw everything he'd ever tried to keep hidden.

Truth and fucking bullshit was right. Wasn't she supposed to be in France? What the fuck was she doing here?

His satchel fell to the ground with a dull thunk as the girl he'd been trying to forget looked him in the face for the first time in seven years, her expression of shock a perfect mirror of his own. Only she wasn't a girl any more. She was older now, her red hair a shade deeper, less vibrant than it had been in their youth, her face a bit longer, thinner — but Merlin, her eyes were just as he remembered them.

Vivid. Unforgettable.

Something like recognition flashed in their blue depths. But that was impossible — seven years ago, Sebastian had made sure she'd never recognise his face again.

Stunned into stupidity, he blinked at her once, twice, willing his mind to banish the cruel vision of beauty and heartache before him. But the moment stretched on, and she didn't vanish—

She was real.

He cleared his throat and dislodged the name he'd not spoken aloud in seven years except in his dreams:

'Aurélie.'

Aurélie blinked at him once, opened and closed her mouth... then neatly slammed the door in his face.

~x~

Average Mandrakes.

— t h e n.

'Aurélie! You need to see the nurse!'

In what had quickly become his usual morning routine, Sebastian was chasing after the swish of a long red braid through the crowded corridors, dodging student and Professor alike in his pursuit to keep it in sight. But every time he drew near, the owner of that hair — an infuriatingly stubborn French girl — would pivot out of his reach, grumbling insults under her breath that he didn't need to translate to understand: after all, "fuck off, Sebastian!" was as easy to understand in French as it was in English.

'Aura! Wait!'

Groaning with frustration, Sebastian balled his hands into fists as a group of Gryffindor girls decided that the best place to stop for an idle chat was directly in front of him.

'Move!' he snapped, losing sight of the auburn-haired, pain-in-the-arse girl he was trying to talk sense into. But the blockage of crimson and gold only encircled him, giggling and twittering like a flock of Fwoopers determined to drive him insane.

'She doesn't want to talk to you,' tittered one.

'You should talk to us instead!' shrieked her friend.

Not fucking likely.

He shoved past them, bounding forward in time to catch the elusive flash of red as it disappeared around yet another corner. For someone who'd just had another one of her fainting spells, it was embarrassing how easily she outran him.

'Aurélie! For once in your life,' he called after her, panting, 'stop being so dramatic!'

Also not fucking likely.

A month. A whole bloody month of chasing after, arguing with, and generally lamenting the existence of the most annoying girl to ever walk the face of the earth; one long, agonising month since she'd shown up at Hogwarts as the new fifth year, the new mystery, and completely derailed life as he'd known it. — Not that his life had exactly been "on track" before her arrival, but if he was the out-of-control locomotive, then she was the broken track that had sent the whole bloody lot careening off the rails and into a ravine, explosions and all.

With everything else Sebastian had to worry about, the very last thing he needed to contend with was a hot-headed, easily-offended, too-smart-for-her-own-good Ravenclaw who argued with everything he said.

Yet here he was.

When he finally caught her by the elbow, she whipped around to face him, red hair and Ravenclaw cloak splaying out around her in an over-dramatic display of defiance. Sebastian knew better than to laugh when she was cross at him, but it was a struggle: when he wasn't torn between being completely infuriated or speechlessly flabbergasted over her over-the-top flair for dramatics, he found her little scrunched-up face and tiny clenched fists downright bloody hilarious.

'And what am I supposed to say when I get to the infirmary?' she hissed, her eyes narrowed to slits. '"Hello, Nurse Blainey, you wouldn't happen to have a cure for Average Mandrakes laying about somewhere, would you?"'

Unable to help himself, Sebastian let out an empathic snort of mirth at the mention of "Average Mandrakes". Granted, the ridiculous code name she'd made up for her Ancient Magic was so absurd that nobody who overheard it would ever guess its true meaning, but he couldn't take her seriously when she unironically started ranting about her less-than adequate Mandrakes. In fact, the first time she'd used it, which had been mid-rant about how wrong he was about something-or-other, he'd laughed for a solid five minutes before he could form a coherent sentence.

'Give yourself some credit, Aura!' he'd gasped, clutching his sides while she glared daggers at him. 'Your mandrakes are well above average!'

That particular comment had earned him another round of her formidable French scorn, but he'd been laughing too hard to care.

He wasn't laughing now, of course, but bloody hell, he was close.

'You know I don't like using my magic.' Aurélie lowered her voice. 'You saw what I did to that troll.'

She cast a furtive glance over his shoulder. Behind him, Sebastian could hear the ever-presents whispers that chased her through the halls, feel the prying eyes poking holes into his back, desperate to hear a scrap of conversation, a crumb of gossip to feed the rumour mill. He wasn't the only one infatuated with her — the mystery girl from Beauxbatons, the orphan, the witch who could conjure lightning from the ether with her bare hands. But the difference between Sebastian and the rest of them — those who speculated, those who wondered and whispered and gossiped — was that he knew.

He knew the truth about what really happened in Hogsmeade.

He knew the secrets she kept that the others only guessed at.

Out of all of them, he was the one she trusted to safeguard it.

'Yeah, you saved Gladrags from being pummelled to dust,' he muttered back, tuning out everything but her wide blue eyes locked on his. 'You brought down a troll with a strike of lightning from a cloudless sky.'

'But what if that troll had been an innocent person?'

'Please,' he snorted. 'You're not the type to go around blowing up innocent bystanders, trust me.'

Although sometimes when you're cross at me...

'But I could have done it on accident!'

'But you didn't. Listen to me,' — he stepped closer, surprising even himself with his boldness — 'You're a hero, Aura, not a danger. Mr Hill won't shut up about you, says he owes you free robes for the rest of your life. The whole village is in awe of you. Your magic — I mean, your Mandrakes only need a bit of... tending too, that's all. You don't water them enough. They're... wilting.'

'Sebastian, be serious!' She threw her hands up in frustration, forcing him back a step. The familiar scent of jasmine and roses hit him squarely in the face, and he wondered, not for the first time in his life, how she always managed to smell so sodding lovely all the time.

'I am being serious,' he replied with a grin that suggested otherwise. 'I keep telling you it's dangerous to suppress your magic—'

'Oh, so you're a Healer now, are you?'

'I know more than those useless buffoons at St Mungo's do. I mean it, Aura, you wouldn't keep fainting all the time if you only stopped fighting it.'

Aurélie rolled her eyes. 'Non,' she said, dragging the word out in her accented voice. 'I keep fainting all the time because out of everyone in this Merlin-forsaken school I could have befriended, I got stuck with you!'

She jabbed an accusatory finger at him. Sebastian grinned wider than ever.

'Darling,' he purred, letting his voice drop low and deep. 'You're not the only girl who swoons at the sight of me.'

Slytherin's by nature weren't the popular sort. Choosing instead to align themselves with a very select few for whom they lived and died, they left the self-aggrandising to the Gryffindor's, the monotonous study groups to the Ravenclaw's, and... whatever was leftover to the Hufflepuff's. In short, Slytherin's didn't make friends, they made deep, infrangible bonds that were broken only by betrayal or death.

For Sebastian, his select few had always been limited to his twin sister Anne and his best mate Ominis. But after Anne's curse had pulled her out of school, and Sebastian's desperation to cure her with so-called "questionable methods" had driven a wedge between him and Ominis, that small circle shrank down to a dot so tiny that Sebastian had spent all summer between fourth and fifth years by himself.

So when Aurélie Collins showed up and threw the Sorting Ceremony into disarray, she was the last person on earth Sebastian ever expected to befriend. — That is, until she'd effortlessly Stupified him on her first day, "accidentally" blew up a rogue mountain troll with her inexplicable magical abilities the next, then proceeded to completely ignore his existence until he'd rescued her from the dungeons after she'd gotten lost on her way to the greenhouses.

After all that, Sebastian had found himself with a brand new — albeit extremely reluctant — new friend. Or, as he'd embarrassingly blurted out one afternoon when he was trying too hard to be charming, a "kindred spirit".

Often when he spoke to her, Sebastian found himself so far on the opposite end of charming as to come off as irredeemably stupid. Ominis was quick to accuse him of being "smitten", but Sebastian figured it had more to do with her being a Ravenclaw than it did with him harbouring any deeply buried, incredibly confusing affections for her. She was simply too quick, too clever, too witty that it threw him off guard. Besides, Sebastian Sallow didn't do smitten. And if he did, he certainly didn't do smitten for a girl who made him want to tear his hair out every day.

... Still, after the "kindred spirit" comment had only earned him a silent yet distinctly French look of scepticism, he was careful to maintain his usual Slytherin air of mystery and cool detachment thereafter.

This time when she stormed away from him ('Sebastian Sallow, you do not make me swoon!'), Sebastian came guffawing after her.

'No?' he grinned. 'All your swooning says otherwise.'

'Don't push it.' She threw him a severe glance, but there was a reluctant smile playing on her lips that he so loooved to coax from her when she was cross at him. 'I could very easily change my mind about being your friend, you know.'

'You won't.'

'I might.'

Sebastian laughed. 'You won't.'

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