Venomous

Ominis

He swore he was about five minutes away from jinxing Sebastian if he asked him about his ancestor’s scriptorium one more time. He was tired of the other boy hounding him about anything regarding Salazar Slytherin, and dragging Laurel into this had been the final straw. Brother or not, she didn't need to be involved in his scheming. Not that she was ever particularly interested, but he knew Sebastian had a way of worming himself into people's hearts and convincing them to do things for him.

This was no exception. He had convinced her that it was for Anne, knowing that Laurel had an issue resisting helping someone in need. The three of them began descending the stairs that had opened up upon Laurel's confringo blast to a number of braziers lining the stone hallway. Ominis had never detected the stairway before with his wand, but he had known about exactly what was hidden behind that wall and how to access it. Laurel stayed close by him, her hand looped through his arm as they followed the spiral staircase downward, as she had since that day in the Undercroft.

"Dark, ominous corridors." He could practically hear the smirk in Sebastian's voice. "My favorite."

He rolled his eyes at the other boy, suppressing a scoff. "No comment."

“Come on, that was a good one.” His friend spoke from in front of them, a chuckle slipping out between his words as they rounded the corner at the bottom of the stairs. “There’s stone all over the floor up here. And a locked door. We may want to look around, find another way around.”

He felt Laurel release his arm as he made his way further into the room that they had found themselves in, stopping near the only other door in the area. He had busied himself with running his fingers over the strange edge of the frame, furrowing his brow at the scales that followed the length of the serpentine stone. The minute he heard her mutter the reparo spell, he stepped back from the door as quickly as possible, the hissing voice reverberating in his ears as it filled the space.

“The rubble formed a relief of a person facing a snake.” Sebastian’s voice was just barely louder than the voice coming from the door.

“That must be the voice I hear.” He heard the familiar padding of Laurel’s boots as she crossed the space, turning to face the direction she was approaching him from. “The voice is ancient. Sinister.”

“You hear a voice, Ominis?” The concern laced in her tone had him almost reaching out for her.

“It started when you repaired that relief. I hear a whisper, saying ‘speak to me.’ Laurel, I… I don’t think it’s a wise idea to be down here. We should turn back.” Ominis shook his head, stepping closer to her and further from the door.

“Oh come on, Ominis. What’s the worst that can happen?” Sebastian clapped a hand down on his shoulder.

“Sebastian, I think Ominis is right. Perhaps-” Laurel was shushed when Sebastian’s hand left his shoulder, and he heard her squeak at the crushing weight of the other boy’s arms around her.

“Come now, Laurel. Aren’t you at least a little bit curious?” He wanted to hit his friend for the flirtatious tone he took with her, knowing how uncomfortable she got.

Ominis tilted his head toward the ceiling, closing his eyes and sighing. “When I left home, I vowed to leave the Dark Arts behind. And yet… here I am. Just… stand back.” He pushed Sebastian back a ways, hoping that it would prompt him to release the small girl trapped in his embrace. “I can’t believe I’m doing this.”

His eyes snapped open as he began speaking the ancient, evil language passed down by his bloodline. He felt his body tense when he heard Laurel gasp, and he could only imagine the discomfort she was feeling. The stone serpents that laid over the door slithered upward and through the frame, the sound of their bodies moving over the door grating on his nerves.

“Oh! It worked! Ominis,” Laurel’s hand was back against his arm, but it did little to soothe the dread that had settled in his stomach. “You possess a rare ability indeed.”

“Between the two of you,” Sebastian spoke as he pushed the doors open, passing by them. “I’m starting to feel left out.”

“Between the two of us?” He furrowed his brow again, moving with her as they entered the area.

“I-... has she not told you yet?” Sebastian almost sounded mocking.

“Told me what? Laurel?” He tilted his head slightly towards her, feeling her lean in and up towards his ear.

“I have the ability to see and wield traces of ancient magic. Something no witch or wizard has been able to do in close to four-hundred years.” Her voice was low as she spoke, and he felt a ripple of shock pass through him before Sebastian spoke again from ahead of them.

“There’s no clear way forward. Just halls and rooms that branch off from them.”

“Like a maze. Salazar Slytherin most likely wanted this to be difficult to solve.” Ominis had to resist the urge to roll his eyes again. The sound of metal grinding against stone before it hit the ground caused them all to jump, and he felt Laurel turn around toward the way they came.

“The door we came from. It closed. And there’s more than one gate ahead.” Sebastian’s voice got closer to them again, and he heard the pat of a hand against the metal.

“Then look closely at each gate for clues. There must be a way out of here.” He pulled the girl closer to him, allowing her to lead him around as they inspected each of the possible exits.

He couldn’t help but ponder her reasons for sticking so close to him. She wasn’t one to need protection, or even to fear circumstances like this. Laurel was far braver than he was, but after her last outing with Natty, she’d been clinging to him a bit more. Not that he was complaining, better him than Sebastian, and better to cling to him than go off and get herself killed. He was taking quite a liking to having her in such close proximity all the time.

“Ominis,” He felt her lean slightly forward as they approached a wall. “There’s some dials here. It seems…” She trailed off for a second, and he heard the hissing of a snake and the cranking of cogs. “These dials require focus.”

“Aunt Noctua said the same. It may take some-” He heard the tell-tale click of a lock unlatching, and the gate nearest to them began to raise. “Practice. Did you just-”

“Solve it? I suppose I did.” She laughed lightly, the vibrations of her voice reverberating against him. “Matching the symbols to the marks on the gate seemed to be the correct solution.”

“I was about to do that myself. But you got to it first.” Sebastian cleared his throat as he approached them, his footfalls heavy with each step he took. “Nice work, Blake.”

“Hm. This one doesn’t appear to be the right path. It leads to an empty room.” He felt himself being pulled off in another direction, her hand tightening on his arm as they came to a stop near another wall. “Oh. Another gate.”

“Seems Slytherin liked to play games.” He couldn’t contain the eye-roll this time, releasing her to solve this puzzle as well.

“Must run in the family.” His friend jabbed an elbow into his side.

“Look in a mirror, Sebastian.” Ominis glowered to the area next to him, hoping his gaze landed on the other boy. The gate to their side clicked open just as the first had, and he felt Laurel return to his side. “Well that sounded promising.”

She sighed, latching on to his arm once again. “Another dial solved. Let’s hope this one leads somewhere.”

“Impressive. Nice work, Laurel.” He allowed himself to be led up an apparent set of stairs, only for her to yank back on him abruptly. “Is everything alright?”

“We almost walked right off the edge of a platform. Give me a second, I’m going to hop down there and check it out.” It was almost as if her presence had disappeared altogether, only to reappear a good ways below him.

“So. Laurel sure seems to have you wrapped around her little finger, doesn’t she, mate?” Sebastian’s voice was filled with some form of jealousy, one he’d never quite heard in his friend before.

“I have no idea what you’re on about, Sebastian. Laurel and I-”

“Don’t think you can fool me with that ‘just friends’ spiel you give to everyone else, Ominis.” Another elbow to the side. “I see the way you give in to her. She could ask you to give up your right arm and you’d do it no questions asked. But,” He could sense the way Sebastian leaned closer to him. “Don’t think this changes anything. If she gives me a chance, I’m going for it.”

The click of yet another lock and the grating of a gate opening sounded alongside her grunts as she pulled herself out of the pit in front of them. “If we’re lucky, that was the last one.”

“Excellent work, Blake. We’re another step closer to the scriptorium.” Sebastian let out a grunt as well, presumably from helping haul the small girl up the ledge.

His hand was quickly clasped in hers, his body being dragged forward as they followed closely on Sebastian’s heels. He could feel every turn she pulled him around, his stomach turning with the rapid movement. He was beyond glad when they finally skidded to a stop, her hand firm on his shoulder. Despite his lack of sight, the world felt like it was spinning on its axis.

“Sebastian?” Laurel sounded unsure, her boots padding slowly and softly forward.

“I spotted something ahead.” There was a pause before his friend spoke again. “Looks troubling.”

“This whole place is troubling, Sebastian. But,” Ominis steeled himself, grabbing hold of Laurel and pushing one hand against the other boy’s back as he trudged forward. “For my aunt’s sake, we cannot stop now.”

The whirring of the gate’s mechanisms behind them had all three of them turning on their heels, and he heard the heavy footsteps of Sebastian as he rushed toward the exit, pounding one fist against the stone. “The gate… I think we’re locked in. Again.”

He sighed heavily, dread and guilt flooding his system. “Then Salazar Slytherin is not yet finished with us.”

The warmth of Laurel by his side dissipated as she walked to the other side of the room, and he heard her fingers close around the familiar crunching of parchment. “Omi? There’s a skeleton… and… Noctua’s last journal entry.” He felt his gut wrench painfully, allowing his wand to lead him to where she stood, taking the parchment from her as carefully as he could. “She mentioned being trapped here. Blocked. By an unforgivable curse…”

“No. No it can’t be.” He felt dizzy, and the urge to purge his stomach became far too strong. He leaned himself against the nearest wall, his hand splaying out over the cold stone in an attempt to ground himself.

“Ominis, I’m truly sorry about your aunt, mate.” Sebastian clapped a hand down on his shoulder once more, but it did little to ease the feeling in his gut. “But I know what to do. It’s going to be difficult but… we can do this.”

“What do you mean you know what to do, Sebastian?” Laurel sounded skeptical as she gently placed her hand upon his arm, and his stomach dropped even further with the implications of what Sebastian was suggesting.

“Well, given that tortured faces are on the door and Crucio is etched into the stone,” The other boy’s voice floated away from him, presumably off to inspect the only exit to the wretched tomb they’d found themselves in. “My guess is if we cast the Cruciatus Curse, the door will open.”

“No. Absolutely not.” He shook his head vigorously, pressing his back to the stone wall.

“Ominis-”

“All of this could have been avoided.” He cut Sebastian off before an argument could be made. “That spell’s the reason I have no family left. You know this better than anyone.” He shouted the words across the space, his hands coming up to cradle his head as the dread began to overwhelm him.

“You’re the only one who can properly cast it, mate.”

“I can’t, Sebastian.” His body began to tremble.

“She can’t cast it, Ominis.” Sebastian shouted back at him, his voice echoing around the space.

“Omi, please. I know it’s the last thing you wish to do but-”

“Laurel, you don’t understand. You have to mean it. It’s all about intention. I don’t have it in me to do that to him or you.” He lowered his voice the closer she got. “Especially not you.” Sebastian scoffed a bit, and he shot a glare in his direction. “If you cast Crucio, you will regret it. Forever.”

“Then what do we do, Omi?” She sounded terrified, and it hurt him deeply to hear it.

“It’s up to us, Blake. I can either teach you the curse,” He heard Sebastian move over to them, pulling Laurel away from him as he headed back to the door. “Or I can cast it on you. Your choice, doll.”

“I won’t learn that, Sebastian. I could never have the intention to hurt someone like that.” She paused, her feet shuffling a bit. “How badly will this hurt?”

“Excruciatingly so. And given that Sebastian isn’t very experienced in the spell and its casting,” He leaned his head back against the wall, closing his eyes. “It could either be a minimal amount of pain, or it could be ten times worse.”

“Right.” Laurel took in a shuddering breath. “Well. Then I suppose let’s get this over with.”

“I shan’t forget this, Blake.” The heavy steps of Sebastian stepping back combined with Laurel’s shuffling sent a fresh wave of anxiety through his stomach. “Ready?”

She sucked in yet another shuddering breath, and he steeled himself against the wall, squeezing his eyes shut as tightly as he could. “As ready as I can be, I suppose.”

It was silent for a moment, and he almost thought that Sebastian had decided against casting the unforgivable on her. He should have known better, his entire body flinching and going rigid as he heard his best friend shout the curse.

“CRUCIO!”

Her screams pierced the air around them, sending an entirely foreign bolt of fear through him. If he thought the Dark Arts had scared him, the sound of her pain was worse. His heart dropped into his stomach with the way it sounded like she was being ripped apart, the high-pitched cries causing his ears to ring. He wanted desperately to cover his ears, her screeching too reminiscent to the young muggle girl his family had forced him to curse as a child.

“Ominis.” Sebastian’s words cut through her screams, his voice trembling. “Ominis, it’s not stopping. I… I don’t know what to do. It’s not stopping.”

“Laurel?” Ominis found himself pushing off the wall and scrambling across the floor to her. “Laurel!”

Her screams continued to permeate the empty space around them, and he swore it sounded like she was on the verge of death. He’d give anything to ease her suffering, even if it cost him everything. His hands shook as he pulled her into his arms, practically deafening himself with the proximity to her cries of pain. He could feel the spell rippling through her, and her clothes began to slowly soak through, unquestionably with blood. Her fingers curled into his robes, forcing her already arching back closer to him, and he felt her tears soak through the fabric of the collar of his shirt.

Each new wave of pain caused her to spasm and gasp, her muscles twitching and flinching away from his touch. He buried one hand in her hair and clutched at her back desperately as he pressed her to his chest, trying to stem the flow of his own tears. The sound of the door disappearing in front of him was practically drowned out by her whimpers and cries, and he pushed himself against the nearest wall, rocking her small frame back and forth as her screams slowly died down into whimpers.

“Merlin’s beard, we made it.” A rage began to build in him when Sebastian seemed to marvel at the room before them, laughing with his next words. “We found Salazar Slytherin’s scriptorium.”

“Are you serious right now? You’re just going to wander in and explore while she’s lying here,” His fingers clutched harder into her shoulder and the base of her skull. “In pain and bleeding through her clothes? Have you lost your bloodymind, Sebastian?”

His embrace tightened again when Sebastian’s hand on his elbow forced him to stand, steering him into the room while he carried her. Her rapid breathing against his neck had him beyond worried, and he knew he had to get her to a professor as quickly as possible.

“Look. There’s a book on the bookstand there. Just give me a second to browse through here, and then we can get her out of here and to someone who can help.”

He was left there cradling her, adjusting his arms to hold her more securely. He’d never been more thankful that she was so small, and yet the amount of blood seeping through her clothes was becoming concerning. Sharp was definitely going to have their heads when they made it to him. What he knew to be just a handful of minutes felt like hours, her body occasionally shivering with the force of another tremor passing through her.

Each passing minute felt longer than the last until Sebastian finally grabbed ahold of him, pulling him toward the exit. He almost didn’t register the other boy’s hands forcing him to sit down until the cold of the stone floor seeped upward into him. The weight of her body in his arms was relieved as he was able to rest her against his lap, the hand he’d had buried in her hair coming to cup her cheek, swiping his thumb under her eye to wipe away the streak of tears.

“Stay here. I’m going to go get Madame Blainey.” Sebastian had just begun to step away when she spoke again.

“Not Blainey.” Her voice croaked out of her throat, her vocal chords likely strained from the immense screaming she’d done. “Sharp. Get. Sharp.”

“Why Sharp? Blainey would be-”

“Sebastian. Just go get the man.” Ominis gritted his teeth as he forced the words out, not liking how cold she was beginning to feel. “And make sure to stress blood replenishing potions and wiggenwelds. I’m not so sure time is on our side.”

Sebastian’s fading footsteps left the two of them in silence, and his clothes were beginning to stick to his body with the amount of blood that was drenching through several layers of cloth. Her shuddering breaths and intermittent whimpers were all he could hear with her proximity to his ear, her fingers clenching and unclenching around the fabric of his robes. He felt his own heart racing with worry for her, never having seen her in such a state in the few months he had known her. Laurel was strong, but perhaps her former malnourishment had taken a more significant toll on her body than anticipated.

The Cruciatus Curse seemed to be wreaking a significant amount of havoc through her body, and while he was well aware of the fact that the curse being cast by someone who had never been taught how to cast it properly and did not have the correct intention could hurt that much worse, but this was beyond anything he had ever even heard of. He’d heard of it breaking someone to the point of being absent behind their eyes, but never heard of it leaving physical wounds.

“Omi.” Her voice was weak against him, and he released a bit of the tension from his grasp on her. “I’m sorry.”

“What could you possibly have to be sorry about, love?” He was barely aware of the shaking of his voice, much less the term of endearment. He was completely focused on keeping her conscious until help could arrive.

“I’m sorry that…” She shifted weakly, pressing herself closer to him as her body was wracked with a fresh round of sobs. “I didn’t try harder to stop him. I’m so sorry.”

“None of that, now. None of this is your fault, do you hear me?” He brushed her hair from her face. “I know you tried to talk him out of it. That’s just… Sebastian.”

The sound of pounding footsteps and the uneven gait of the professor they had sent for caused him to jerk his head up. He heard Sebastian drop to his knees at their sides, followed closely by the former auror. Ominis had a difficult time relinquishing his grip on the small girl, but Professor Sharp practically pried her loose just enough to get a good look at her.

“What exactly happened here?” The popping of corks out of bottles filled the space, and he could feel her sputtering and coughing as the potions were poured down her throat. Neither boy spoke, eliciting a grunt of frustration from the older man. “Well let’s not all answer at once. It’s not like Laurel’s life is on the line here.”

“She had a curse cast upon her. Her body doesn’t appear to be handling it well.” He spoke up in place of his friend, who shuffled uncomfortably at his side.

“I’m not going to question which one of you cast it, and I’m not going to ask why. But if I’m to deal with this damage properly and as efficiently as possible, I need to know which curse was cast.” Another coughing fit as more potions were administered, a groan of discomfort sounding from her place in his lap. “Mister Sallow, please take Laurel from Mister Gaunt and follow me to my office.”

“Professor, I-” Ominis tightened his grip on her once more.

“I do not believe you would be in the best position to carry her halfway across the dungeons, boy. However,” He heard Professor Sharp sigh as he stood, and the feeling of Sebastian’s hands between their bodies reminded him of the blood soaked into his uniform. “Given how tightly her hands are wound in your clothing, you may remain with her if you so wish.”

Everything seemed to move in slow motion from that point. Laurel being removed from his arms and transferred to his best friend’s, the presumably hastened walk to the potions classroom, every agonizingly slow turn of a corner. He barely remembered following the two men in front of him, suddenly sitting at her side at a cot in the potion master’s office. Why the older man had a cot in his office, Ominis could only speculate, though he suspected it had something to do with the condition of his leg. From the moment she was placed in the makeshift bed, she had repositioned her hands into his clothing.

He could feel the jealous stare Sebastian was giving him, and yet he could also feel the remorse the other boy felt for having put her in this position in the first place with each word he spoke. The jealousy was far too evident at him being the one she chose to stay by her side. And yet, Ominis couldn’t help feeling a bit smug that she had chosen him over Sebastian. The tension in the room was decreased significantly when Professor Sharp sent Sebastian on his way back to the dorms. His mind was pulled from his thoughts by the feeling of her hand against his chest.

“Omi?” She sounded so tired, almost like she wasn’t completely there. Professor Sharp had dosed her with plenty of wiggenwelds and blood replenishers, as well as a wild assortment of other potions, including a sleeping draught to help her body recover.

“What is it, Laurel? Are you in pain again? Do I need to fetch-” He started to stand, but her grip on his robes tightened, preventing him from rising from his seat.

“No, nothing like that.” She tugged a bit on the cloth fisted in her hand. “Will you lay with me? Please? Just until I fall asleep?”

“Laurel, I don’t think Professor Sharp would approve-”

“I don’t care what he thinks. I don’t want to sleep alone.” Her pull on his robes was more insistent this time. “Please.”

He could feel his own heart jump up into his throat, and the warmth that had started to build in his chest spread up to his neck and face. Surely Professor Sharp would understand that she had been insistent on his joining her, so he stood and climbed into the cot beside her, her arms wrapping around his torso as he buried her face in his chest. “As you wish.”