Know When To Stop

Chapter 6 Sebastian's POV

I share with Anne all of the photographs and trinkets from my travels. She loved listening to my stories of Malfoy Manor and all of the adventures our parents experienced at our age. I brought her back a rare set of gobstones I acquired in Paris along with a small hand bound notebook with a butterfly etched into the leather cover.

Anne looks much healthier than I expected her to. I'd built up all my worst nightmares in my head so much I feared returning to her being sicker than she was before I left. She explained to me that her bouts of pain are less frequent and when she does experience them, they aren't as excruciating. Healers at St. Mungo's told her since Rookwood is gone the spell might eventually dissipate on its own. Without knowing exactly what curse he used on Anne, we'll never be able to understand how to help her or what will happen.

"I still hear what he said the night he cursed me. 'Children should be seen and not heard'. Perhaps the curse isn't weaker because he's gone but because we aren't such children anymore. It's almost as if the older I get, the weaker the curse becomes." Anne sounds just like our parents used to when they found themselves stumped on something they'd read in an old book.

"Whatever the case is, I'm glad you're starting to seem yourself again. The fear of losing the only family I've got left drove me to very dark places. Just like our parents I always believed that there's no magic too dangerous to learn about. I still believe that very much only now I've come to understand, there is some magic too dark to touch without suffering. Suppose I always knew that as well, it was just so hard to see it clearly when I felt like everyone else had given up on you. I am sorry for the mistakes I've made, I know I won't ever get to fix a lot of them. Never take them back. I'm not sorry for caring for my twin so much, I'd go to the darkest places imaginable to find a way to save her."  There's something different now that I'm back. A kind of calmness I feel within me. Certainty and confidence in myself that I haven't experienced since my crossed wands dueling days.

"My darling brother when will you finally learn that I can never stay mad at you? Since you have been away your letters have painted the picture of what you were going through. I see clearly now, Sebastian. Solomon wasn't anything but cruel to you and when I got sick he only seemed to grow colder towards you. Forcing you to sleep in that shack outside and always speaking down on you and Father. We had already lost our parents and you were only a boy after all. Ominis began to distance himself from you and the only one who seemed to be bothered with your feelings was Charlotte." I feel myself wince at the sound of her name. I don't let myself think about what she would possibly say to me if she saw me again. My thoughts have already been too consumed by daydreams of every way I want to show her much I've missed her. I'd written her letter every day and never sent a single one of them. Whatever she is doing in my absence is better for her than who I was. Maybe I'm remembering it all wrong and the pull I feel is only one sided now. She could've moved on by now.

"I only wish that I could go back and tell you how good of a little brother you have always been to stop you from feeling so inadequate. I should've protected you as fiercely as you did me. And I wish now that Mom and Dad could be here today to see the man you've become. They'd be so proud of you, Sebastian." Anne pauses and gives me a reassuring smile then places her hand on my wrist and goes on, "Now judging on the pained look in your eyes when I mentioned her name you haven't written to Charlotte. Or Ominis I'm assuming?" She sighs and rolls her eyes at me dramatically. Her hands reach for her cup of tea and she looks up at me from behind the cup giving me a sort of go on then look.

"What could I possibly say? I left and haven't spoken to either of them in months. For all I know they both despise me and never want to hear from me again. I dragged both of them down so far with me. Put them in danger and then when it was all over with forced them to bare witness to my spiral. I'm not sure I could handle it if I had to walk away from them again. I've written letters everyday.. I just couldn't find the courage to send them." My sweaty palm rubs the back of my neck and I feel ashamed until I notice my sister trying not to laugh at me. "Very nice here I am opening up to my dear sister and even you cannot help but laugh in my face. Brilliant."