After All This Time// Sebastian Sallow x Reader Hogwarts Legacy Fanfiction

Chapter 87

Against my preference, time seemed to pass at light speed, and it was now the day of the ball. I'd sent word to Augustus Hill at Gladrags Wizardwear about needing a dress for today. I'd been getting clothing from him for a long time, so he knew how to contact me. I also sent a few recommendations and preferences in the letter, so hopefully, the gown will be to my taste. I trust his advice, though. I got the package this morning at breakfast in the Great Hall but had yet to open the box. It's currently sitting on my bed in my dorm room. 

I was sitting in the library with Natty. She was giving me a few book recommendations on wandless magic. Over the last few days, she'd been working with me on my wandless magic, and I can't say for sure that I was getting the hang of it, but I could do it more often and with more ease than before. 

Natty had asked me why I wanted to learn it, and I'd told her it was in my interest since she'd mentioned it to me in Charms class in our fifth year. She didn't question me much further. I felt terrible about lying to the rest of my friends, but I wasn't sure who I could trust not to tell Professor Weasley. 

Using wandless magic was different than I thought it'd be. It was similar to using nonverbal magic in the way you had to conjure it; people had always told me to trust my instincts regarding the magic I possessed. Half of using magic was training and studying all the spells; the other half was sheer willpower. Using wandless magic seemed to play into the willpower side of things. I can see why Natty mentioned that using a wand seemed flamboyant and exaggerated. It was weird, too; every time I practiced with her when we were practicing self-defense and offense, I always seemed to reach for my wand by reflex. Natty always scolded me for doing so. She seemed to have a lot of fun with our practice sessions and bragged about finally knowing something about combat that I didn't. 

Natty was piling books into my arms, listing off particular chapters I should read. I did my best to keep up as the pile of books grew. I suddenly lost balance, and the stack of books went toppling over. 

"Oh my!" said a voice in front of me. Someone levitated the books and stacked them in a neat pile beside me. It was Poppy. "Doing a bit of light reading, are we?" She chuckled. 

"Something like that," I said as I rebalanced myself and brushed off my clothes. 

Natty looked over at the stack of books and put her hands on her hips. "I guess I might be getting a bit ahead of myself, yeah?" she said. 

"We should be focusing on other things today!" Poppy said. "It's the day of the ball! We should focus on making ourselves look pretty instead of burying our faces in books."

Poppy then led us off to her dorm room, where she started to hold makeup pallets up to our faces, trying to decide what shades worked best on her. After a bit of a while, Imelda joined us. 

"That would look awful; what  are you thinking?" Imelda said as Poppy held a pallet of metallic eye makeup up to my face. 

"You're being too harsh," Poppy retorted, "as long as it's the right shade, metallics could work."

"Not on either of these two."

"Then maybe on you?" Poppy suggested, raising an eyebrow.

"You are not touching my face," Imelda scolded. 

"Come on; I know what I'm doing.

"Poppy, we all know you spend more time with beasts than humans. How does that equate with knowledge of makeup?"

"I trust you, Poppy," Natty pipes up. "You can do whatever you please with me."

Poppy gives Imelda a smug look as she begins to line Natty's eyes with a metallic silver eyeshadow. Imelda just rolls her eyes and flops down on the bed. "Alright, you guys can do whatever you want, but I'm doing my own." 

After what seemed like forever, we all had our makeup done. I headed back to my dorm to finally take a peek at my dress. There were still a couple of hours until the event, and I was starting to grow nervous. 

It was weird. I never would have been nervous with Sebastian before, but now, it was a different story. Even though I knew he was the same person in my heart, it was weird to think about our new relationship. It was the same, yet it was different. We still liked each other, but I was afraid to share things with him for fear of his reaction. 

I shoved all these feelings down and opened up the package containing my dress. 

I was floored by how gorgeous it was. Every curve and piece of fabric seemed to encase me perfectly. It accentuated every part of me that I loved and helped to hide the bits of me I didn't want to show. The neckline was precisely what I'd imagined, and the color complimented my skin perfectly. I literally couldn't have done a better job designing it. I made a mental note to ensure I sent Mr. Hill a thank you message. He had utterly outdone himself with this dress. 

As I stared back at myself in the mirror, I caught sight of something resting on my pillow that I hadn't noticed before. I'd been too preoccupied this evening to check if something had been sitting on my pillow, but there it was. An off-white colored envelope was resting on my pillow with my name written in familiar handwriting.