Hogwarts Legacies

Fireworks and Stars - Sebastian x Ominis

(Sebastian Sallow x Ominis Gaunt)

The stars tilted and twirled around spark wrapped flames that pitched across the sky in beautiful chaos. Charmed fireworks whistled and fizzed through the black before pounding and popping brilliantly into oblivion leaving the shimmering colors and sparks to gently whisper to the ground.

The quidditch pitch outside of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry had been littered with blankets and pillows of all shapes and shades, drug out by excited students and nestled within the grass for optimal viewing of such a show. The snow had been charmed to melt away and leave the brightest green blades fit for a summer's night, the dirt below a comfortable steady warmth as to fight away the nip of winter. A few of the kitchen elves had happily brought along steaming mugs of hot cocoa and baskets of sweets, tucking them under the arms of unsuspecting students who had all smiled widely and nodded their thanks.

Sebastian Sallow had chosen the farthest spot from all the others, nestled under one of the Gryffindor towers draped in brilliant red and gold banners. He'd lugged along his sizable pillow and propped it against the wall, reveling in the cool bite of the wood beneath that hadn't been charmed to heat as the ground had. His shivering body had longed to sink against the grass and roll among the warmth, but he'd refused the comfort as long as possible until his teeth had begun to chatter and the annoying sound had drowned out the booming fireworks. Peeved, he'd pulled the tattered green knit blanket from within his pillowcase and gently wrapped it around his shoulders.

The smell of her pulling tight over his chest.

It had been nearly a year since Anne had passed and time had done little to heal the open wound within his heart. His hands still shook during class, his wand never truly responding as it should. His eyes had been ceaselessly red and puffy for so long now that he was entirely impartial to the idea of them ever returning to 'normal'. His hair had grown far past the length she had liked but he hadn't the strength to let anyone near it with a good pair of sheers.

That had always been her self appointed job.

His confidence had seemed to whisper away too, replaced instead with gnawing, stabbing guilt and crushing fears. One of the most frequent had pressed itself between his ribs all those months ago, suffocating him from the inside.

He was terrified to forget her smell.

Though the idea of longing for the scent of someone sounded incredibly ridiculous out loud, he couldn't help but fear losing that simple part of her too. It was one of the last bits of proof he had left that she had truly existed at all. The world had seemed intent on forgetting her ever since the moment her last breath brushed her lips and that was something surely Sebastian would never allow to happen.

So he kept what little he could of hers tucked in small boxes or locked drawers as if to hold the scent hostage, to lock her existence within each thread for as long as possible.

Tonight, he'd made an exception.

Her blanket had draped over the foot of her bed every night since the pair of them were young and Sebastian had always been jealous of it. Anne had received the handmade gift from the Feldcroft shopkeep for Christmas one year, its thick wool yarn bold and green and beautiful. It was perhaps the first time he'd ever truly found a color to be 'beautiful' at all. This was possibly the reason for his obsession in the first place, though he couldn't be entirely sure. The shopkeep hadn't forgotten a gift for him, but instead of a lustrous throw, he'd received a wand polishing kit he was surely too young to put to use. Anne had treasured the blanket, having partly realized her brother's fascination and using it to her advantage as often as she could, trading Sebastian a night with the blanket for a weeks worth of chores. He would have done anything to own the blanket for himself.