How to Make a Villain - [Sebastian Sallow x F!OC]

[ten]

Drip. Drip. Drip.

Sebastian was pacing again, squelching through the mud as he marched back and forth across the narrow space. Admittedly, there wasn't much room to pace between the confines of their hiding place, wedged as they were between the crooked houses of Hogsmeade's back streets, yet somehow Sebastian managed it with ease. Aurélie watched his progress as he took three steps one way then three steps back, muttering furiously under his breath.

All the while, that incessant drip, drip, dripping of water from the broken pipe kept up its maddening rhythm, mimicking the pulsing thrum of her magic.

Drip, drip, drip.

Pulse, pulse, pulse.

Aurélie grit her teeth.

'What the hell are you doing all the way down here, anyway?' demanded Sebastian, running a hand through his hair. 'What were you thinking? The Hog's Head? Really?'

His incessant back and forth was starting to make Aurélie dizzy, but he never slowed his pace. Where stress evidently spurred Sebastian into action, it only made Aurélie freeze up, every muscle locked tight to keep both her magic and her panic contained.

'I - I didn't know!' she said, wringing her tingly hands. 'I got lost!'

'Bloody fucking hell, Aurélie! Only you could manage to get lost in a village the size of a postage stamp!'

'You said to meet you at the tavern and I -'

'Yes, at the Three Broomsticks!' he exclaimed, throwing his arms out to his sides. 'Not the fucking Hog's Head!'

'I don't know what the Three Broomsticks is!' she shot back. 'You didn't tell me there are two bloody taverns in Hogsmeade!'

'It was right in front of you!' Sebastian's voice reverberated so loudly between the stone walls that Aurélie wondered if the inhabitants inside could hear their heated argument - and if they could, whether they'd even care.

'All you had to do was walk out of Gladrags and cross the fucking village square, but instead, you went gallivanting off by yourself to - '

'I was not gallivanting!'

'Then what? What were you doing? Looking for trouble?'

Aurélie bristled with indignation. 'I told you!' she spat, pointing a finger at his chest, 'I was lost!'

Sebastian groaned, running both hands through his hair until it stuck up in wild disarray. 'You're lucky I found you! Before that scum - before he -' He cut himself off with another groan, but his unspoken words were as loud as if he'd shouted those at her, too.

Before he killed you.

Drip, pulse. Drip, pulse.

Aurélie rubbed frantically at her forehead but stopped when the tingling in her hands made her head feel buzzy.

'Who was that, anyway?' Sebastian demanded, standing still long enough to gesture emphatically at the street behind her. 'That - that man?'

'I don't know!'

'You don't know?' he repeated, incredulous. 'Well, he certainly knew you! Little Keeper? The brothers? What the fuck is going on, Aurélie?'

Drip, pulse. Drip, pulse. Drip, pulse.

She tried to steady the erratic rhythm of her breath, but the combination of barely contained magic and looming panic attack was beginning to make her feel ill. She wasn't sure which would be worse: accidentally blasting a hole through the stone wall she was leaning against, or crying.