Ruination
A gentle breeze swept across the cratered and ruined chamber, kicking up long-dead embers in its wake.
Ash bolted upright sucking in greedy lungfuls of oxygen as the Room returned her most precious necessity.
Each breath was laborious as if the magic had burned her lungs as it blazed through her. Her body trembled on the blackened marble floor, every muscle aching from the torturous heat and exertion.
She had never felt pain like that.
She reached a shaking hand up to her face and wiped at her nose. She stared at the blood covered fingers.
Ash considered herself a master of pain— had consumed more of it in her youth than others would their entire life.
But holding onto the magic, trying to stuff it back into the abyss inside of her, as it ripped through her very being— left her body raw and her nerves flayed.
It felt as if she had gripped a rope as it was pulled through her hands— as if she had played a game of tug-of-war against God himself. She had lost, and her body ached.
All magic had a cost. Dark magic chipped at your soul. But this magic? This was something entirely new— crafted from the Pandora’s box of human emotion. The swirling mass of ancient magic inside of her was born of anger, torment, fear, and despair.
And it seemed this magic’s cost was suffering. Either her own— or those she destroyed with it.
Ash rubbed at her throat, her vocal cords frayed from her screams.
She felt hollow.
Her eyes flickered around the Room, taking in the destruction. The once pink and gold walls, covered only sporadically in charred marks, had none of their original color remaining. Instead only pitch-black scars from the chaotic dance of flames painted the walls. The vinery that had slowly begun regrowing was reduced to charred shells, flaking away in the breeze that Room mercifully provided to cool her burning body.
Blackened wooden debris littered the floor, remnants of furniture reduced to mere husks.
Her worn armchair was reduced to dust.
The potions table that Ominis had repaired was once again in ruination.
The shelves that once cradled an assortment of alcoholic comforts now stood shattered and empty, their contents lost to the storm of magical fury.
Yet, a small mercy existed in the Vivariums—intact and untouched, the inhabitants within blissfully unaware of the chaos that had transpired.
Tears of frustration filled her eyes as she sat at the epicenter of it all.
She had wanted to get that piece of herself back— that part of her that was unafraid and powerful.
But that girl didn’t exist anymore. She couldn’t exist anymore because she would never touch that magic again.
No, she would shove it down for as long as she could and she would deal with the small eruptions of magic as they came. She would distract herself.
Her throat bobbed.
How would Sebastian react if he saw the devastation painting every corner of this room? How would he feel when she told him that she would never tug on that thread again?
She could picture his face twisting in disbelief and anger. Here he was doing all the hard work of translating a tome for her problem— to help stop Harlow when that has nothing to do with him.
And yet she couldn’t do anything Sebastian asked of her.
She curled into a ball, her chin resting on her knees, and stared at the charred remains of some painting she had once loved.
She didn’t know how long she sat there, in the epicenter of her destruction— long enough for her legs to fall numb and the trembling of her limbs to cease. Long enough for the Room to begin to put itself back together again.
The scorched walls remained without her having to ask.
She knew where she could find both.
She could sit and wallow in self-pity or she could make herself useful.
She forced herself to stand, and her body screamed in protest. She needed a Wiggenweld, and a drink.
Every step sent a tremor of pain through her, but she kept moving before she could change her mind.
Her eyes caught a glimpse of her fractured reflection in the shattered mirror hung over remnants of a Herbology table. She froze, her heart hammering in her chest as, for an instant, her own gaze stared back with eyes blood-red instead of green. She blinked and the vision vanished.
Not true then. A trick of the light—or a pain induced hallucination.
She stared at the pieces of her reflection, shards of glass that didn’t fit together any better than she did. Nothing but green eyes stared back.
She forced her eyes away, and shuffled towards the door. Every step sent a bolt of lightning through her nerves but she pushed herself onwards.
The bustling sounds of the castle reached her ears as she shut the door to the Room behind her and watched it fade back into the stone wall.
Her bare feet carried her down stairwells and past students who she assumed stared as she walked past in soot covered pajamas. She didn’t know for sure— her gaze was firmly locked on the ground beneath her.
The resonant chime of a clock echoed, marking the passage of time. Midday had arrived, casting a harsh light on the reality of her disheveled state.
A first year brushed past her as she turned a sharp corner, short enough that he caught her eye as he blanched and mumbled an apology.
She didn’t respond, only increased her stride until she reached the tucked away grandfather clock she seemed to be drawn to in every crisis.
She numbly tapped her wand against the clock face and forced her feet to carry her just a little further.
Silence and chill greeted her as she entered the Undercroft and she didn’t know whether she was relieved or disappointed to not find a certain brunette hunched over a book.
Determined to push aside the ambivalence, she forged ahead, dragging her aching body across the chamber until she reached a stack of barrels near the back of the room.
Her jaw clenched against the pain, Ash forced herself to bend and stretch, maneuvering to access a barrel hidden behind two others. Digging through her hidden stash, she retrieved a dusty bottle of firewhiskey and a vial of Essence of Dittany.
It wasn’t a Wiggenweld but it would do.
She swallowed the potion, the earthy taste coating her tongue before she followed with the cinnamon burn she had dearly missed. She dropped down onto the floor and leaned her head back against a barrel as the gnawing pain ebbed to a dull throb.
Her eyes burned holes into the pensieve across the room and she swore she heard the echoes of laughter and the whisper of secrets filling the silence around her.
Another swig of the whiskey.
Why did she ever stop drinking?
___••___
Three hours later, and half a bottle gone, the pain ceased to nothing but glorious numbness. She barely registered the screech of the gate and the mumbling of curses.
Black shoes entered her field of vision before the individual dropped to a squat and she was met with concerned brown eyes. Messy curls fell on his forehead and the haze cleared from her mind.
“Sebastian.”
Her voice cracked and splintered like broken glass, her vocal cords protesting at the usage so soon after they had been shredded.
“Why is it that every time I find you in the Undercroft you are half dead?” Sebastian hissed, his hands grabbing the sides of her face gently as he examined her for injuries.
“This is only the second time.” She croaked, her voice slurring.
“That’s twice too many, what happened?” He asked, wiping at the soot and blood under her nose and mouth. She noticed his eyes flickering to the alcohol bottle at her bare feet.
“I tried to grab the magic.”
Sebastian gaze leapt back to her own. He stared at her, his eyes flickering across her face, “You tried to take control of it?”
“Yes.” She whispered.
He murmured a quick Scourgify, the soot vanishing from her skin. His thumb traced over her cheek as he spoke, “Tell me what happened.”
Ash let out a breath, her eyes fluttering shut as she thought of the suffocating darkness inside of her, of falling through it, falling until she reached that chasm inside of her.
“I tried to practice without it—just normal spells.” She mumbled quietly, “The magic reacted to me-my frustration. I decided to try to touch it.”
She squeezed her eyes tighter, “I wanted to pull just a thread of it out. But…”
She stopped herself. She heard Sebastian move from his kneeling position to a seated one at her side, his thumb dropping from her face. He spoke in a low murmur, “But?”
“But I tried to pull back and it grabbed me.”
She could still feel the way the tendrils of power wrapped around her arms. Could still feel the inferno that flooded her body as she screamed and screamed—
“So you stopped yourself, and it took control?”
Ash didn’t answer—didn’t need to.
“I’m not touching it again Sebastian.” She breathed. She opened her eyes and readied herself to see the disappointment or anger on his face.
She saw neither when his eyes met hers.
He nodded slowly, a look of contemplation on his face, “Then we focus on suppressing it.”
His ready acceptance caused her to blink. There was no fight, no argument, like she had expected. She had no response, her tongue felt like lead in her mouth. She shoved down the warmth that threatened to overcome her at his kindness— that he said we.
Without the full use of her magic she felt useless. She could barely produce a handful of spells before she turned into a raging inferno— and yet she would have stop Harlow. The firewhiskey swimming through her veins was the only thing stopping her panic.
Sebastian leaned forward and mumbled a diagnostic charm. Orbs of color danced around her body at varying positions. His eyes moved around, taking in the reds and blues and greens floating around her.
“When did you learn that?” She asked, raising a hand to touch one. He laced his fingers through hers and brought them away from the yellow orb floating near her chest. The warmth spread through her like fiendfyre at his touch and she suppressed a smile.
“After the last time you scared me half to death.” He mumbled.
“So prepared.”
The corner of his mouth quirked upwards, “One of us has to be.”
He analyzed the colors that meant nothing to her until he was satisfied with whatever he saw. He waved his wand and the diagnostic disappeared. The fingers of his other hand stayed threaded through hers for another heartbeat before he was up and walking across the room.
Her eyebrows furrowed, “Where are you going?”
She hated that her words were slurred and she glared at the bottle of firewhiskey.
He didn’t reply, just stalked to the far end of the Undercroft, to a small table huddled near the various chalk boards. He picked something up before murmuring a summoning spell, causing one of the rolling blackboards to follow behind him as he made his was back to her.
“You couldn’t have collapsed at a more convenient spot? Perhaps near the entrance?” He asked, a smirk pulling at his lips as his magic finished dragging the board near her.
She flipped him off and he chuckled before sinking down beside her again. His hands stayed to himself this time and she couldn’t help but ache at the missing touch.
Her eyes flickered across his messy scrawl littering the board, symbols and question marks the most frequent guests upon the black canvas.
Sebastian wordlessly passed the encrypted tome to her along with his smaller green journal. She flipped through the pages of his writing, her fingers absentmindedly tracing the loops of his letters before moving to the next page. She reached the section near the back of the journal
“You translated more?” She murmured.
“Just a time period, at least of the first two entries. The experiments began in 1501.” He sighed, leaning his head back against the cold stone wall. “I counted the pages of this tome. 342 entries. It’s going to take me practically a year to finish translating it.”
Ash’s heart sunk. They didn’t have a year to waste. No, they had months at best before Harlow made a move, possibly only weeks. They would need to find some other lead on Harlow’s location, or Bragbor’s journals, or something to help them determine what his plan was.
Her mind began racing. She would need to go back to the library or find another poachers camp—
Sebastian pulled his wand from his side and tapped the cover of his emerald notebook and she watched with raised brows as a duplicate of the journal fell into her lap right beside the original. She picked up the result of that impressive feat of magic and thumbed through the pages. Empty. She looked up at him, her confusion written clearly across her face.
“Figured if you aren’t practicing your magic, then you can help me translate.” He answered her unspoken question, and grabbed the tome from her lap. He opened it, placing it between them. “It will be faster with both of us.”
“I don’t know runes or the goblin language—“
“Then it’s great that you have a fantastic teacher at your disposal.” He smirked.
She bit the inside of her cheek, her eyes flickering between the rich brown of his own, and the tome, “I’ve had too much firewhiskey to be productive right now.”
He turned his attention to his journal, flicking his wand and vanishing the half-empty bottle. “You’ve been drunk for the entirety of sixth year and most of seventh; I believe you are quite high-functioning.”
Her cheeks burned at his words and she dropped her gaze to the empty journal in front of her, “High-functioning drunk, the pinnacle of achievement.” She murmured, and let out a sigh, “Alright Professor, teach me your runic secrets.”
Sebastian smirked, amusement in his eyes, “Let’s start with the basics.”
___••___
The hours passed in a blur of ancient symbols and murmured words. As the afternoon waned, the once empty pages of her journal now bore the intricate strokes of runic characters.
Sebastian, much to her chagrin, was a fantastic teacher. He was patient, growing frustrated only once during their session in which she had snapped her quill to prevent herself from having to suffer any longer. He had glared at her, mumbled something about her being a brat, and tapped his wand against the quill, mending it instantly.
She shouldn’t have been surprised at his adeptness, his parents had been Hogwarts professors themselves. She wondered then, during their hours of her tracing runes and him murmuring encouragement, if he planned on becoming a professor himself one day.
She had found some of the symbols familiar from the rare occasions she had attended her Anceint Runes class. Most however, were a weave of jagged and curved lines that took a frustrating amount of time to decipher and copy. Her hand ached by the time she dropped her quill and pronounced herself dead to the world.
Sebastian merely chuckled and stretched as he stood from the floor, “After potions and divination tomorrow, we’ll start working on the next page of the tome.”
She watched as he turned, his wand raised in the midst of summoning what she assumed was a table over to their little corner in preparation of tomorrow. A surge of courage bubbled from her lips, though she couldn’t blame the now waned inebriation on her inexplicable need to talk about this.
“You fingered me.”
He stopped in place rigid. The summoned table screeched to a halt against the floor at the dropped spell. “Yes.”
“And then you ignored me for three days.” She said, staring at his back. He tensed, and turned around to face her. She noticed that his eyes didn’t meet hers and instead focused on the wall behind her. She didn’t like the implications of that.
“I wasn’t ignoring you,” he huffed, “I was working on the—“
“You stopped coming to the library, even Ominis noticed.” She interrupted, her throat bobbing. So he did regret it— if he was lying like this. She shouldn’t keep pushing, she was bound to get her heart ripped from her chest if she pursued this line of questioning. And yet she couldn’t stop herself.
“Did you not want to do it?” She asked, her voice a mere whisper at this point.
His eyes snapped to hers, emotions swirling in the depths of his gaze, “Of course I wanted to do it.” He clenched his jaw, “Do you know how—“ he scoffed, running a hand over his face. “Just because I wanted to doesn’t mean I should have.”
Ash frowned, confusion knitting her brows. The relief she felt from his words, from the fact that he didn’t regret it, was short lived when she saw the tension radiating his body.
He stared at her and she saw the guilt flash across his face, “You weren’t yourself. You were on some potion that riled your emotions and I shouldn’t have taken advantage—“ He stopped himself, his jaw tightening as he hung his head.
Her face fell, the lines between her brows softening, “I told you that night that my mind was my own.” She let out a breath, pushing herself into standing position and ignoring the numbness in her legs from sitting for so long. “Sebastian, look at me.”
He tilted his head up, his brown eyes meeting hers. Ash fought through the fear that tightened around her throat, trying to stifle what needed to be said.
“The potion didn’t do anything but clear my mind enough for me to…to ask for what I already wanted.”
She left heat lick up her spine as he stared at her, his back straightening, the guilt slowly fading from him.
“And what is it that you want, Ash?” His voice was low, and he took a step towards her.
“Ask me what I’d do for you.”
“What would you do for me?”
“Anything.”
His words echoed through her mind and the memory nearly pulled the confession she wished to voice right from her parted lips. But there was a difference between a friend helping her with her magic, and what she truly wanted— and the possibility of that hard rejection, of the shattering of their newly mended friendship— She clamped down on that need, on those words that fought up her throat, and she buried them.
“I want to forget this burning pit inside of me. I want a distraction.” Not a full truth, but not a lie either— enough of a truth that she could meet his eyes. And enough of a truth that she could satiate that desire to touch him, to have him touch her. It would be enough.
He didn’t even blink at her words. His feet brought him to her, until he was standing close enough that his breath brushed over her face. Sebastian gave her a smirk that she swore didn’t quite meet his eyes, “Then let me be your distraction.”
He placed a hand on the wall above her head, leaning in until his mouth brushed the shell of her ear. She shivered at the contact, her eyes fluttering closed as the heat from his body melted into her.
“Anytime that power of yours slips its leash,” he murmured, his words dancing on the edge of a purr, “you come to me and I’ll make it heel.”
Her throat bobbed, and she fought back the sound of pleasure that threatened to fall from her lips. She felt his smile against her neck before he pulled away, leaving a chill in his place.
He stared at her, hunger darkening his eyes. She knew she must look a sight— flushed skin, lips parted, and pupils so wide her green irises practically black.
He laced his fingers through hers at her side, and gave her a soft tug, pulling her towards him. He turned and began walking towards the gate. Her confusion must have been palpable, because he spoke without sparing her a glance.
“I doubt you’re in need of a distraction considering your magic took you for a ride earlier. You need food, I hear the Great Hall has shepherds pie, though I’m sure you and I can dig up some vanilla macrons in the kitchens, what do you say?”
She couldn’t help but grin.