It's not like any other love | Sebastian Sallow x Reader

Chapter 5

Winter settled all around them. The warm autumn afternoons were long gone and the days grew shorter, the nights longer, and throughout it, Sebastian was as troubled as ever — about his sister, about Ominis, about their friend...

He couldn't forget the look Ominis gave him as they got out of their beds that morning after his heated dream. When the Gaunt boy realised Sebastian was awake and had gotten up from his bed, Ominis blushed to the tips of his ears, threw a scathing narrowing of the eyes in his direction, and promptly turned away. He avoided him at breakfast too, and it wasn't until the next afternoon that he spoke to Sebastian again. Feeling guilty, Sebastian didn't speak to him either, nor to anyone else that day. He felt as if his embarrassing lusts from the night before were dragged behind him like a shadow, however irrational this may have been. And while everyone else might not have known in truth, he was certain Ominis did, somehow. Perhaps he had just been pretending to sleep, or perhaps heard something... His hearing was especially sharp, and the more Sebastian thought about it, the more likely it seemed.

But there was nothing to do about it anymore. If Ominis knew, he knew. And if the girl knew... Well, how could she? Unless she remembered what he made her do while under Imperio.

In between working on homework for Defence Against the Dark Arts, Sebastian leafed through books on Unforgivable Curses and tried to find out how likely it was for Imperio victims to remember what they did. There seemed to be no definitive answer, and it rather varied from person to person. It was an issue which was bound to be confounded — or so said the consensus from magical researchers — by victims who were so ashamed of what they had done that they merely pretended not to remember.

Was that what happened with her? Was she so ashamed? She never sat next to him during classes anymore, and avoided his eyes on most days — although when Sebastian managed to catch her gaze, she always smiled sweetly, bashfully at him. He gave her some time, gave himself some time, and ceased all contact for a while. It gave him the chance to focus on his research into the relic.

To his surprise, it was Ominis who brought her up again.

"Have you two had a fight?" he asked one evening while they were reading by the fireplace.

"Who?"

"You know who."

Sebastian kept quiet and turned back to his book, already feeling blood blooming in his cheeks and his throat constricting.

"Well?" asked Ominis again. Clearly, he was in one of his more relentless moods that night.

"No, we haven't," Sebastian snapped. "Everything's fine. Why?"

"Just asking," hummed Ominis, sounding not very convinced. "She's not upset with you, is she?"

Sebastian gave a trembling sigh that tried to hide his fear but managed only to reveal it. "Why would she be upset with me?"

"I can think of a number of reasons," Ominis smirked. "I'm sure you can, too."

"Leave it be, Ominis," he grumbled. "I'm not in the mood."

His friend looked like he was about to say something, but took pity on him at the last moment.

Sebastian saw them again throughout the following days: Ominis and her, talking in the corridors, spending time by the windows of the great lake, leaving breakfast together... What they talked about in their little whispers, he could not grasp, and he wasn't sure he wanted to.

The only thing that could distract him from his misery was research into the relic, and he was rewarded with a breakthrough in November. His first thought was to reach out to his friend again. She did like her adventures outside of the castle, and this was an excuse to steal some of her time for himself.