Chapter 1
Reminder: This story is edited and some ideas suggested by an AI
***
Hogwarts School for Witchcraft and Wizardry. The dream school for every little wizard boy and witch girl. The gateway to the wizarding world. The place where Sebastian Sallow's parents worked, and fed his curious mind with hope for the too few years he was still with them.
"SLYTHERIN!!!"
And not only that, but he and Anne were sorted into the same house as their parents too!
"HUFFLEPUFF!!!"
"RAVENCLAW!!!"
"GRYFFINDOR!!!"
In all the excitement of finally being at Hogwarts, he never would have imagined his biggest struggle of school life would be a fellow student...
Sebastian still remembers the day he first saw her. Two years ago, at the sorting ceremony when a girl with hair that changed colors the whole way up to the sorting hat was sorted into Gryffindor.
The girl with the color-changing hair, who had seemed shy at first, quickly shed her timidity and became more popular than anyone in their year. She became more popular than the idea a Gaunt was in their year when she transformed into Headmaster Black during their first Transfigurations class, became friends with all her fellow Gryffindors and even more outside her house.
Including his sister, Anne...
Sebastian didn't care for the jokester of Gryffindor from that first Transfiguration lesson, but he especially didn't like how she stole Anne away into her chaotic charms.
And then the taunting and ribbing...
"Sallow!"
"She's calling for you again, Sebastian." Sebastian rolled his eyes at Ominis' reminder of the blond-haired witch sat with his sister at the Gryffindor table.
"My, she is vexing, isn't she?" Ominis offered him a half smile in return for his response to the metamorphmagus that adores the notion of calling for him even though they just returned to Hogwarts yesterday.
"Well, you two do have a tradition to keep, do you not?" Sebastian wouldn't necessarily call it a tradition, per say.
The past two years, they've started the year the same way. Transfiguration, then the end of the school day is mock dueling with Charms in which he has both times beat the jokester bane of his schooling.
Two times doesn't make a tradition. Sebastian would be more apt to say it's a lovely beginning to a new year.
She may have him bested in Transfiguration, but he's the best duelist in their year, and bloody brilliant with his charms.
"Seb." Sebastian perks up at his sister's voice, lifting his eyes from his mug of pumpkin juice to meet Anne's eyes across the table.
"Whatever she wants–"
"A few people are starting a dueling club." Oh?
"A dueling club?" Ominis questions it like it's a joke, but Sebastian's interest certainly has peaked. Because they've always had to sneak about the last two years, magic is frowned upon outside of the classroom.
But the notion that it's forbidden just makes it all the more tantalizing, doesn't it?
"Lucan Brattleby is organizing it. He's arranged a meeting in Hogsmeade this weekend, but you have to be invited by him or his brother." Brattleby? That scrawny Gryffindor with the loud mouth?
"So, are we to take it that the three of us are invited then, since you're telling us?" Sebastian asked as Anne finally sat down at their house table with them. He knows his interests are found more in the concept of finally having a place to duel without risk of detention, but can't help the happy flutter in his chest at finally having his sister sit at the Slytherin table for a change.
"We are." Anne answered, which only furthered his happiness. "The first meeting is at the Three Broomsticks this Saturday. However, there seems to be an issue."
An issue? What kind?
"Does it have to do with the news of last night?" Ominis asks before Sebastian can even wonder. "That we require not just a permission slip this year, but also to attend in pairs?"
Pairs? When was that mentioned at the feast last night? Sebastian surely would have noticed the announcement, but he can't find the memory!
"Who would you ask, Ominis?"
"I can hardly imagine, Anne. I hadn't entertained the notion of attending Hogsmeade, in fact. Our studies are more important to me."
"You'll go with us, then." Sebastian could hardly stand the idea of someone with potential ulterior motives taking his sister to Hogsmeade. He can escort her, or Ominis can. He has no worries with his best friend.
"Parties of uneven numbers are also not permitted." Ominis squashes his protective measures, and Sebastian wishes he could see the glare he sends his way. "I may be blind, but I can still feel your eyes on me."
"Then you'll take her, won't you, Ominis?"
"Now, hold on–"
"Who could be more suitable for the task than you–"
"But that would still leave you lacking a partner, Sebastian." Anne interrupts Sebastian from volunteering his friend to be his sister's date to the village. "I have an idea, however."
Suddenly, Anne's visit to their house table makes sense in Sebastian's mind. "No."
"But...but I didn't even finish!"
"I won't be her date to Hogsmeade. I would sooner take Reyes." Sebastian continued while tearing bits of a roll to pieces on his plate. And that's saying something, considering just how infuriating Imelda Reyes is. He'd sooner listen to Mandrakes scream than have to listen to Imelda for an entire visit to Hogsmeade.
"I would sooner fly into the Black lake than go with you, Sallow." Imelda's voice carries from down the table, Sebastian snorting back a laugh behind his mug of pumpkin juice. Quite a lovely idea, that is.
Anne's glare against him kills his desire to laugh, however. "If you won't take her, then I won't go with Ominis."
"Am I hidden by a disillusionment spell to you two today?"
"Then I will take you myself and Ominis can find another partner."
"You would really rather obliterate your future chances with a girl by taking your twin to Hogsmeade than just go there once with my friend?"
"Yes." Because Sebastian Sallow doesn't care about his romantic future with girls. What he cares about is protecting his family and making the most of his education for his future.
Anne stands abruptly in front of him, still glaring at him as if he's an insufferable git, before stepping over the bench and storming back over towards the Gryffindor table without another word to him.
"I do not believe that'll be the last you hear of that." Ominis speaks up after a minute of silence between them.
"I believe you may be right." Knowing Anne, he's going to hear about it every day until he either agrees to take her Gryffindor best friend, or finds another Hogsmeade partner for himself.
***
"Today, class, you will be brewing the invisibility potion." Professor Sharp's stern introduction into a new year of potions is usually a delight to Sebastian. "However, I will be pairing each of you up based on your performances from last year. From absolutely brilliant to absolutely barmy."
However, being paired up with anyone besides his best friend or sister ruins the joy he'd normally take from it.
"Gaunt and Weasley."
"Reyes and Sweeting."
"Prewett and Blume."
Professor Sharp has already done away with his first option and back ups!
"Sallow and Elsie."
Oh no...
"Which Sallow, sir?"
"Mister Sallow and Miss Elsie." Professor Sharp's gruff response has Sebastian slump in his seat.
And here he considered Professor Sharp one of his favorite professors...
"Miss Sallow and our new transfer Miss Onai."
The new year isn't off to as good a start as Sebastian had hoped for...
Seats are rearranged and cauldrons and ingredients whisked about faster than Sebastian would have liked, he would have preferred to take as long as possible to get everything together. Make the time before having to sit next to her for the rest of class drag out.
"You always were bloody brilliant at potions, weren't you, Sallow?" Sebastian doesn't want to converse with her, he just wants to get this potion brewed and hopefully head off to next class early.
Who'd think Sebastian Sallow would ever want to get to class early?
"I'm surprised he paired us up, aren't you?"
"Bloody barmy." Sebastian answers her before he even realizes his mouth has opened, teeth clacking shut loudly immediately after.
Too late, because she's already snorting a laugh out from where she's stood on the other side of the shared cauldron. A quiet thing covered by the palm of her hand that she'd been prior leaning her chin on, not that he'd been watching her...
"Don't let Professor Sharp catch you mocking his decisions. He'd start your year out with another detention." As if Sebastian isn't utterly familiar with the notion of detention here at Hogwarts.
One leaping toadstool cap plops softly into the bubbling cauldron just as Sebastian is about to drop one in himself, glancing up to see the currently pink-haired metamorphmagus that had been speaking as he was preparing ingredients actually was paying attention to the potion.
Her green eyes focused on a piece of parchment on the table, de-stemming the cherries that are needed for the potion.
He couldn't help but feel a twinge of envy at how effortless she made it seem. It was true, she wasn't terrible at potions, but she was too focused on socializing and having a good time rather than taking the potion seriously.
Why did Sharp pair him with her in the first place?
Sebastian plopped a knotgrass sprig into the brew only to realize that they were missing the spiders for the brew. "Did you miss an ingredient?"
"No?"
"Spiders."
She looks up from the parchment just as she was at last done de-stemming cherries, confusion now coloring her green eyes. "I thought you were getting the spiders, Sallow."
Sebastian bit his tongue to contain his frustration and stepped away from the desk to retrieve the missing ingredient, which she knew was her responsibility.
She manages to squash the envy he felt underneath the frustration at remembering her laissez faire attitude is unbefitting their environment of learning.
When he comes back with the needed spiders, he doesn't spare a glance at her as he drops them right into the cauldron. "All we need now is a troll bogey."
"I know that." Sebastian's frustration slips free with the sass on his tongue.
This time, he does spare the metamorphmagus across the cauldron a glance. He's met with the sight of her usual cheery smile and eyes finally done away with a glare and lips pressed into a thin line. "I don't know why you're venting your anger at me. I'm not the one who suggested we attend Hogsmeade together."
"Were you not?" Sebastian certainly remembers her calling his name across the great hall a multitude of times this morning at breakfast that would speak against her claim.
"I only wished to continue our tradition of a duel at the end of the day." It's not a tradition! Twice does not make a tradition! "I cannot pretend to understand why you hate your sister's best friend so much, but I wouldn't dream to subject you to the torment of being my escort with that in mind." Sebastian listens and watches as she drops the troll bogey into the cauldron without a glance at him.
The metamorphmagus' words leave an itch under his skin, and it seems his own attitude has done the same as her prior pink hair is now red as flame, even moving as if it were truly aflame.
"I'll be asking Garreth to escort me anyhow, so you needn't worry about Anne setting us up." Weasley?
"You are asking Weasley?" Sebastian questions it before realizing he's giving her what she wants. He's talking, albeit incredulously at the notion of a girl asking a boy instead of the other way around.
"Is there a problem?" She asks as he stirs the cauldron, waits for it to be just right as it should be.
"A girl shouldn't ask the boy. The boy–the man should ask the girl."
No decent man would ever want a girl to initiate anything first with him. Even something as simple as an escort to town.
"You're over stirring it."
"You'll make a fool of yourself and him."
Garreth Weasley may deserve the embarrassment, however, with how bloody annoying he can be...
"Sallow–"
Bubbling reaches his ears too late, looking down at the now frothing liquid in the cauldron just as it begins to spill over the top and out onto the table underneath it.
Dammit...
"I would have hoped two of my best Gryffindor and Slytherin students would have fared better at their first task of the new year." Professor Sharp is on them in a heartbeat, staring down the failed potion with disappointment writ clear on his face. "Five points from both of your houses."
"But–"
"I'm sorry, sir. It was my fault." Sebastian's argument dies on his tongue. "I should have been monitoring the proper heating and stirring of the potion more closely, I take full responsibility for our failure."
What is she doing? It was in no way her fault! His hand is still on the ladle as proof of who's truly at fault!
Professor Sharp glances down at his hand, obviously aware of the very fact that he over stirred the brew as well. "If this is indeed true, then you will spend the end of day today cleaning every single cauldron in the classroom as your punishment for lacking focus."
No! No, if she–
"The two of you will also be assigned partners for all partner work for the foreseeable future, until it can be ascertained that you can keep your focus on the cauldron and not one another."
"I understand, sir."
Sebastian would rather take detention and lose house points than either of those options! One assignment together was already one too many!
"Very well. Five points returned to Slytherin, and I will see you at the end of day, Miss Elsie."
Professor Sharp walks away with a flourish of his cloak before Sebastian can even have a chance to open his mouth and stop him. Instead, his eyes snap to the metamorphmagus girl opposite him as she turns her back to him and goes to sit back down at her desk.
Suddenly, the Gryffindor girl's actions connect the dots in his mind, and Sebastian sighs through his nose. He'd be a right git if he didn't respond properly and probably hear of it until his last day of Hogwarts.
Anne caught his eye from her cauldron nearby with the new girl as he rounded his own cauldron towards her infuriating best friend. This was probably Anne's idea all along, wicked, scheming sister that she can be...
Even Ominis, in his no doubt frustration at being matched with Garreth who is absolutely barmy at potions as Professor Sharp would say, is glancing in his direction as if he too understands that he's been had by the insufferable metamorphmagus.
She's writing on a piece of parchment at her desk as he walks up behind her. Gets close enough to see her writing notes on the potion as if she didn't know exactly how to make it, based on how she knew he was over stirring as well as the flame was too hot.
Two things he would have noticed, if she hadn't distracted him...
Perhaps that was her plan all along. Her and Anne's plan. To distract him during class, so he'd make a mistake that the bloody metamorphmagus can take advantage of.
Sebastian's knuckles dig painfully into her desk as he leans down against it, waits for her to stop staring at that bloody parchment that all but rubs in his face how he was outmatched not just by his sister, but his sister's Gryffindor best friend.
"Can I help you any further, Sallow?"
The itch she left on his skin earlier with her attitude returns with a vengeance.
"Would you grace me the honor of escorting you to Hogsmeade this Saturday." Sebastian's words felt like fire leaving his mouth. He despised the formality, hates that his sister was getting her way against him.
But above all, he hates that this Gryffindor girl has the gaul to snort a laugh behind her palm that she'd been leaning her cheek in while she wrote. Effectively answering how his intuition about that whole debacle was true, and that he indeed was just manipulated into doing as the girls wanted.
"So formal for just a Hogsmeade date."
"It's not a date." Sebastian doesn't hesitate to correct her about the truth behind his offer, because he'd never ask the Gryffindor out for any other reason than to make sure he doesn't suffer the social consequence of her falling on a sword for him.
When she just snickers at his words again, and does not answer his original question, Sebastian considers taking that as a rejection and running with it, so he doesn't have to tarnish his Saturday playing escort.
But Sebastian sadly doesn't get the chance to escape his sister and her Gryffindor best friend's torment.
"I was going to ask Garreth."
"Well, I'm asking you, instead of you throwing propriety to the wind."
"I didn't know you cared so much for my...propriety, Sallow."
"I don't care about your propriety, Elsie." Sebastian answers with a roll of his eyes, uncertain what Anne sees in the vexing Gryffindor.
"Oh, my, don't let the teachers here you say that, Sallow. They might assume things, and then Professor Weasley may try to arrange our nuptials." Isn't that just the most dreadful notion to ever grace Sebastian's ears...It rakes a dreadful shiver down his spine...
"If you'd rather go with Weasley–"
"Now I didn't say that."
Of course, she didn't...
"Shall we meet out on the bridge then? Say, ten o'clock with the others?"
"Fine." Sebastian agrees while glancing towards his sister, just in time to see the smug smile she was casting his way. Damn her manipulations...
At least he knows that by asking the Gryffindor, now his sister will be going with Ominis Saturday. Someone he trusts to not dishonor his sister. At least that's a positive to this situation...
"Then I look forward to Hogsmeade, Sallow." Sebastian rolls his eyes at her smug, honeyed words before turning away to go back to his own desk. At least he can take some pleasure in knowing she'll be spending the end of the day cleaning cauldrons with Professor Sharp.
When Anne instead takes his place at that smug Metamorphamus' desk not a minute later, his pleasure from her detention wanes in reminder that he's lost this battle.
"I did not realize propriety was of such importance to you, Sebastian." Sebastian wishes his best friend wasn't blind, so he could see the glare he holds towards him.
"Tell me, Ominis. Am I crazy to think they planned that whole debacle?" Sebastian asked instead of acknowledging the Gaunt's teasing of his unfortunate situation.
"No." Well, confirmation helps ease the frustration in his chest, just the slightest bit.
"Do you think I could feign sickness and reschedule with Brattleby to discuss my invitation?"
"No." Sebastian sighs before laying his head down against his desk in defeat. "It's one Hogsmeade visit, it's not as though they bent your arm to court her."
"Please, you sound like her now. What did I do to deserve such torment?" Sebastian laments, only to be met by Ominis's soft laughter as he finally sits down beside him.
"Perhaps it is a combination of the past two summers in Feldcroft." Oh, but that lifts his mood at the memory. "It will be worth it if you can join the dueling club, won't it?"
"I suppose..."
"Shall we adjourn to the Undercroft this evening? I would certainly enjoy a chance to retry my potion of today, without Weasley's pesky intervention..."
Sebastian snorts back a laugh, catching the smallest smile Ominis is capable of giving despite his frustration at working with Weasley. Despite his incompetence in potions, Sebastian would still rather partner with the Gryffindor boy than the Gryffindor girl.
"I have some new spells I found in our new books I'd enjoy testing out, so we shall." Sebastian will just wait until they're in the Undercroft to reveal that the charm he wants to test is actually a curse...
Who knows, perhaps it will ensure his placement as the best duelist of their year.
"Very well. Perhaps we can use the evening to practice both your new spell, and perfect our potions without the outside interference."
Sebastian is sure that without the metamorphmagus girl, he will perfect the invisibility potion on his next attempt.
Perhaps he'll find some luck in using his new spell on her in this dueling club...
"So, what is the name of this new spell you wish to learn?"
"Confringo." Sebastian answers with a wicked smile at just the thought of using such a curse on the vexing Gryffindor girl.