Of Crimson and Cracked Blue
Saturday, 3rd September 1892,
Feldcroft had only ever been an imitation of home for Anne, and it had been even less than that for Sebastian. Home, for the twins, was a cobble-stoned house several miles north of Hogwarts with an overgrown garden and a front door of midnight blue. It was three bedrooms and a kitchen with mismatched cupboard handles their mother had bought on a whim one afternoon from a traveling vendor. Home was a library that was bigger on the inside, with a crimson settee covered in cushions and a stained glass window that looked out onto the highlands. Home held echoes of their childhood when the world had been giggles and music and sunshine over bare feet in the garden. When the only monsters they knew stayed hidden between the pages of the books their father would read them.
But not all monsters had a face, and not all lingered between the pages of books or hid in the shadowy places below their beds. Some disguised their intentions within the innocence of light and warmth, and in the end, it made them all the more cruel.
Home had been left behind when the twins had watched four become two in the cellar study, and life had traded their mum and dad for the ability to see winged skeletal horses in front of carriages that had previously pulled themselves.
October of Sixth year had brought the twins' seventeenth birthday and the inheritance of the cobblestoned home left to them by Alastair and Catrìona Sallow. With Solomon cold beneath the earth and Sebastian nowhere to be found, Anne had left behind the small London Flat Ominis had surreptitiously rented using ‘ Gaunt Funds’ —the small cottage in Feldcroft having been carefully avoided since the events in the catacomb— and found home once again in the place of her childhood. So, it was to that cobblestoned house with the blue door that Clara and Ominis had traveled to nearly every Saturday since.
The curse left Anne weak and sickly, even on the best of days, and the use of magic exacerbated her condition. The more complex and powerful the spell, the more her body suffered. Much like it had in the days following Solomon’s death when the force of the magic she had used to dispatch the army of inferi, destroy Slytherin’s spellbook, and apparate home had set off repeated flares of excruciating pain that had left her bedridden for days.
The knowledge of it had seen Sebastian distraught.
Clara had never known him to regulate his emotions well, and she remembered that night in the Undercroft with startling clarity. The exact shade of red that had splotched beneath his freckles and the salted drops of candle-lit gold that had glittered over his cheeks and clung to his lashes while they’d stood together and he’d screamed and sobbed and begged Ominis to take him to his sister. But Anne had been adamant in her decision to cut him off. As the letter had stated, she needed time, and true to her wishes, Ominis had refused to tell the freckled boy where the other half of his soul had disappeared.
Sebastian had cried, and so had Ominis. In the end, the only solace the blond could offer was that Anne had refused to turn Sebastian over to the DMLE for Solomon’s murder.
Anne had not wanted her brother to spend the rest of his life in Azkaban.
The knowledge hadn’t seemed to comfort him much, and Sebastian had vanished only a few weeks later.
Clara’s resulting friendship with Anne had come as a somewhat unexpected silver lining in what had otherwise been two years of consistent nightmares. There had been a time— shortly after Solomon’s death— when Clara had questioned if Anne had blamed her for Sebastian’s downfall. If she felt her brother’s foray into the dark arts had been no more than a passing curiosity until Clara had walked beside him and stoked the wildfire that was Sebastian Sallow. But from brief conversations on the matter, it seemed Anne felt her brother's actions had been no more than a sort of desperation that had left him blind to the depth of destruction in which he’d been dipping his toes.
Still, Anne was not wholly aware of the entirety of Clara’s own actions, and if Sebastian had been dipping his toes, then Clara had jumped in and splashed around in the decimation. He may have taught her the unforgivables, but Clara still wasn’t confident which of them had actually played the role of the serpent.
With Solomon dead and Anne refusing to speak to Sebastian—even if he had been around—Anne’s care had fallen to Ominis and, by extension, to Clara, and weekly dinner had become the norm.
The idea had been Ominis’, and dinner had quickly become a thinly veiled excuse for something more . They all knew it, though none of them spoke of it. Nothing was said when Ominis and Clara began to show up at the Sallow home far earlier than expected, arms laden with a week’s worth of groceries. Nobody mentioned when one of them would begin to prepare ingredients for the week, and the other would set about completing any household chores or additional maintenance Anne had been unable to accomplish on her own.
Even more than an excuse for Clara and Ominis to help, dinner gave Anne an excuse to cook. It was a love she’d inherited from her father, and almost nothing could brighten her face more than taking the ingredients she’d grown in the small garden behind her house and scurrying around the kitchen amid a collection of pots and pans. Though Anne’s wand often lay unused, Clara could have been convinced magic had been sprinkled within the herbs and curled within the masterful blend of flavors, textures, and aromas.
Anne always cooked, and nobody mentioned if Clara or Ominis hands did most of the work while Anne delegated from the couch because she’d grown too tired to continue and needed to lie down part way through. Nothing was said if Anne became so exhausted she fell asleep, and Clara and Ominis ate dinner alone.
Nobody mentioned that it was happening more often than not nowadays.
The facade was so fragile a strong wind might have shattered it, yet they worked tirelessly to maintain the thinning fabric.
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This Saturday had been one of the good ones, and Anne had not been too exhausted to join them as they ate. Though the knowledge did little to soften the tension, Clara could see twitching at the corner of Ominis’ jaw or the sharp rapping of his fingers over the woodgrain.
“Exactly how often are you expected to travel to Hogwarts to conduct these tests? Do they not have the decency to come here?” The blond stabbed through a roast potato as though it had personally affronted him, and the metal of his fork clinked against his plate.
He’d been in one of his irritable moods all day. Since that morning; when Anne had confessed her visit to the Hogwarts Hospital wing and explained her agreement with Healer Fawley the Experimental Research Department . If Clara hadn’t already known Anne had kept the information from him, the blond’s reaction would have been evidence enough. He’d been—if only temporarily— kept in the dark, and Ominis’s bite too often sheltered his hurt or masked his concern.
Still, Clara credited herself with not kicking him under the table. Hurt or not, the blond’s ill-tempered jabs were starting to draw her already fragile patience to the breaking point. Then again, these days, most things had the unfortunate habit of shredding her patience.
Anne shrugged and took another swig of her pumpkin juice. “Around once a month or so, according to Healer Fawley.”
If Clara could pride Anne on one thing, it would be her ability to be completely unperturbed by the snip of Ominis’ tongue. Perhaps that was why they worked so well together. Anne’s sweet could always temper his sour.
The skewered potato hung on the end of his fork, uneaten. “I still fail to see why they can not come here . Surely, any assistance you give them should not come at the expense of exhausting yourself with travel. Especially when it may not be to your benefit. I do not want to see y–”
Clara did not miss the thin hand that settled on the blond’s leg under the table or how his lips snapped shut at the little squeeze it offered.
“It is only to Hogwarts, and Noreen has been kind enough to allow me to connect our fireplaces via the Floo Network for any dates I’m needed there. I’m sure I can manage that much.”
Ominis did not speak and bit down on the now thoroughly cooled spud. No doubt to stifle his retort.
Anne sighed and leaned forward onto hands tucked beneath the overlong sleeves of a cable-knit sweater she’d borrowed from Ominis. “Healer Fawley is one of the first who’s not spoken to me as though I’m some poor soul on death's door. I appreciate that he’s been reserved with his expectations, and if allowing him and the rest of his department to conduct a few simple tests and study a few vials of my blood could help someone in the future, then who am I to deny that?” she shrugged, and the sweater shifted around her thin shoulders “Who knows maybe….maybe they will find something that can help me–“
Solomon had heard Anne’s prognosis and leapt to bruise his fists at the doors of acceptance. Sebastian had planted his feet firmly in denial and grown roots too deep, even while his fingers burned and blackened with the destruction of the hope he clung to. Anne, it seemed, had found the balance between the two. She sat with her back against the doors and turned her face to the flickers of golden warmth behind stormy grey clouds.
Acceptance did not mean she’d given up entirely.
“—Besides, if I grow tired of it, I’ll just tell them to sod off.”
Clara snorted into her pumpkin juice and Ominis tipped his head down.
It was a moment before she could collect herself enough to notice the pressure of the question against her conscience. A needle of thought too thin to have been acknowledged the day before amidst her mind's wash of nightmarish images now resonated with a sharp sting that would not be ignored. “Why is it that Healer Fawley has only now reached out?”
The question knit between Anne’s brow, and tilted her head. “What?”
“You’ve dealt with this curse since the Fourth year. Why wait all this time?”
The bend of Ominis’ neck straightened, and the crease that had furrowed Anne’s brow twitched the blond’s together even as her own deepened. His head turned toward her, nose tipped toward the beat of his heart beside him.
Anne’s lip tugged down at the corners and tightened. “Healer Fawley did reach out when it first happened. At least, that’s what he told me when I questioned him on it. I don’t remember it; everything was so hazy and painful in those first weeks before they got my regimen of potions set. I hardly remember anything. But as I was underage at the time, the decision wasn’t mine to make and—”
Her voice faltered, though Clara hardly needed to hear the rest. Ever the pessimist Solomon Sallow had given up before a Healer ever looked at his niece, and “Experimental” may as well have been synonymous with the dark arts. Clara only wondered if Sebastian had known. Had the knowledge only furthered the wedge already driven between Uncle and Nephew and fueled the maelstrom of emotions that had come to a catalyst and exploded within the catacomb.
“--well… when I received correspondence from Healer Fawley a few weeks ago, I supposed it couldn’t hurt to assist them.” A small laugh shook from her nose and unfolded the frown that had pulled at her lips. “Besides, I know Sebbie…Sebastian would want me to keep trying… No matter how minuscule the odds.”
Her voice faltered only slightly at Sebastian’s name. Anne had not mentioned her brother in weeks, and she rarely talked about him. Sebastian had become a near-forbidden topic that hid in the darkened corners alongside Solomon or any mention of catacombs. Though, From the brief conversations she had allowed on the subject, Clara had surmised that the grief and anger within her feelings on her twin were so tangled and woven together that she’d had a difficult time separating them from one another. Lately, however, Anne’s anger had begun to taste more like sorrow or maybe regret, and she had begun to wonder how furious Anne still was.
Clara’s fingers found the rough edges of the Protean Charmed Parchment within the pocket of her trousers. She’d taken to carrying it with her, not for the first time that day; she wondered if she should mention her recent communication with the other Sallow. Still, threads of hesitation bound her tongue, and the words crumpled against her teeth.
Had Sebastian left Anne a Protean Charmed Parchement as he’d left Clara? She supposed he must have. Anne was the most important person in his life.
Had she secretly been in contact with Sebastian this whole time?
Had she shredded the yellowed page in a flurry of tears?
Or had Anne seen the parchment and left it unused? Too hurt and angry to make contact with the shared part of her soul.
“Well, enough of that.” The flicker of a familiar mischievousness glinted behind her eyes, and the brunette stood and pushed herself away from the table toward the counter, where sat a large wooden pie box. She fumbled a moment with the lid and pulled out a small tray piled with twisted pastries, smothered in gobs of caramel and topped with a sprinkling of nuts and cinnamon.
She grinned and gripped the tray in front of her. “I’ve made sticky buns while you two were out weeding my vegetable patch this morning.”
Ominis sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger. “Anne dear, you were meant to be resting while Clara and I were in the garden. Not baking.”
Anne giggled, and there was a moment. Just a moment, where Ominis turned his lips down to hide the smile they all knew tugged the corners of his mouth. A moment, Anne clutched the plate of sticky buns and beamed below the lamplight. A moment, the air breathed with the essence of Anne Sallow: Caramel and vanilla and baker's sugar.
Just a moment when they tricked themselves into believing the lie that was fine.
Then Anne whimpered.
A sound so soft shouldn’t have rung in Clara’s ears like cannon fire or seen Ominis leap to his feet with such uncharacteristic force the chair toppled behind him.
The sticky buns fell next. One after another. Summersaulted and tumbled to the ground alongside the clatter of the tray.
Then her pain rent the serenity of the quiet evening, and the young woman fell to the ground, jarring bones in a torrent of crimson and strangled cries. Skeletal fingers clenched to white over her abdomen as waves of blood spilled from between open lips to pool over the worn floorboards.
Ominis reached Anne first, fell to his knees, and pulled her shaking body against his as she screamed and convulsed. He rocked her slowly back and forth, head tucked into the junction of her neck and shoulder, and muttered something Clara couldn’t make out beyond the sound of her own breathing.
The pools of crimson met Clara’s knees above the wood that dug into her bones. She paid it no mind. The complex network of motions and delicate syllables of the soothing spell had taken Clara weeks of practice with Nurse Blainey in Sixth year. A treatment for the effects of the cruciatus curse, it had proved the best method to calming the waves of pain that racked the frail woman’s body. Slowly, an intricate latticework of soft golden light settled over her before it sank into her skin, and Anne slumped against the blond with a trembled exhale. Ominis pressed his lips to her shoulder and traced soothing circles along her arms.
Still knelt beside the two cradled together, Clara began rummaging through a box of potions– hastily retrieved from a nearby cupboard. The glass cylinders clinked together as she pulled vial after vial: Blood replenishing, Wiggenwelds, Calming draughts, and various other analgesics. Each pressed into the hand of the blond and coaxed between Anne’s lips with haunting routine.
If cruelty held up a mirror, it would see the image of a slender blond sitting in a pool of blood, holding a pallid girl with scarlet-tinged lips and sweat-soaked hair, trembling with the remnants of pain that had fractured her body. And cruelty would number the days between them.
Less than a year.
That was the latest estimation they’d been given before there would be one less seat at the table.
Before, one boy would have his soul torn apart and the other his heart.
Before, Clara would lose the closest thing she’d ever had to a sister.
Cruelty would count Anne lucky if she saw summer.
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Thin cracks had spiderwebbed through the indigo paint that adorned the door to the Sallow home. Beyond, the heat of the late summer day had reached sticky fingers into the night star-strewn night and drawn away any chill that might have suggested Autumn waited in the wings for her yearly debut.
With the worst of Anne’s pain settled, Ominis had carried her to the first bedroom off the hall. With the door left slightly ajar, Clara could see as he tucked the blankets around her and lay down to trace gentle fingers over her cheeks and along her jaw. The home that had welcomed three with the sunrise suddenly felt overcrowded, and Clara had taken her leave.
Her boots crunched footsteps over the dirt, and aching bones sagged her body to the carpet of softly waving green beneath the branches of the tree that marked the edge of the property. Slowly, she pulled the thick waves of white blonde hair around her shoulder to find the ends clumped together with dried crimson. A quick cleansing charm banished the remaining blood, and Clara worked her fingers through to twist the unruly mass into a loose braid.
She couldn’t say how long she waited before the door creaked open, and Ominis stepped into the summer night. He remained standing near the house, nose tipped to the sky and breaths too shallow to be steady. Clara said nothing about the quick brush of Omini’s sleeve over his eyes as she approached him, and he didn’t protest when she reached over to squeeze his fingers.
Irritable mood or not, he was the closest thing she’d had to a brother. She didn’t relish in his pain.
“Omi-”
“I know, Professor Weasley will have our heads if we’re not back by curfew–” He worked his jaw a moment– “Kipley.“
The house elf appeared with a sharp crack that shattered the otherwise quiet evening. “Yes, Master Gaunt?”
He exhaled through his teeth, a low, sharp huff that sounded so much like a hiss Clara might have thought he’d resorted to parseltongue had she not known his reluctance to use it. “Just Ominis, please, Kipley. Are Father and Mother out?
The little elf shifted, hands clasped behind her back. “Oh, yes, they is both being at the Estate in Toulouse, Master Gau– Master Ominis.”
Ominis pursed his lips at the use of the title but seemed resigned to it. “And what of Marvolo?”
“Yes, he is out as well.” The little elf glanced around, green eyes darting up to Clara and back to Ominis before she tilted forward on her feet and cupped a hand to the side of her lips. “Kipley should not be saying so, but Kipley believes they should not be returning for a few days if Master Ominis should need Kipley’s help.
The twitch of a smile seemed all he could muster. “I should like you to stay with Miss Sallow for the night and tomorrow if you are not otherwise needed.”
The elf beamed and nodded vigorously; a little pouf of white curls bounced with the motion. “ Oh yes, Master Ominis, Kiply will see to Miss Sallow.”
“Thank You, Kipley. You must please come find me immediately if her illness worsens again.”
The elf nodded, bowed, and bounded away up the grass and through the door.
His throat bobbed once, and pale, redrimmed eyes turned Clara with uncanny accuracy. “ Anne’s asleep. We need to get back before we get detention. Kipley can stay with her until I can send for Nurse Shaw in the morning to check in and replenish the potions.”
Clara raised her eyebrows. "You know, Anne will be furious at you for sending the nurse twice in one week. She barely tolerates once."
Ominis exhaled a sharp sort of half-hearted laugh through his nose. “I am quite aware.”
Clara squeezed his slender fingers beneath her own. Ominis nodded, and together, they turned on the spot and vanished with a small ‘pop’ that echoed through the otherwise quiet night.
The snap of apparition did not see the small barn owl alight on Anne’s bedroom window ledge.
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It didn’t see the tightly wound scroll bound to its leg.
*
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And it didn’t see the messy scrawl of words inked within.