dark, ominous corridors & more

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“I’m surprised you wanted to see me.”

Sebastian’s uncharacteristically quiet voice disappeared in the gloom of the Undercroft, swallowed by detritus and sundries that used to be something else, forced into a form more useful.

“Are you?” Ominis said. He approached Sebastian from the shadows on his left side, and Sebastian subconsciously slid several steps backward, as if Ominis were the one who was untrustworthy. Then again, Ominis reflected, he was. Once, he’d hurled the epithet liar at Sebastian like the foulest slur. But the sin was not the lie; it was the utter lack of conviction. Along with other useful lessons learned at his father’s knee, Ominis had one tenet above all instilled in him: lie convincingly, or not at all.

“I just—I haven’t seen you since the catacombs.” Sebastian’s faltering tone was almost charming.

“No,” Ominis smiled humorlessly. “That was part of the deal; don’t you remember?”

Ominis didn’t need sight to know the moment that Sebastian’s own eyes went wide in realization.

“What—”

Did Sebastian notice that he had backed himself against a pillar?

“Incarcerous,” Ominis flicked his wand lazily. Sebastian’s outraged gasp answered for him: no, he remained as blissfully unaware as usual. “‘Will you stay out of sight?’” Ominis quoted mockingly.

“Ominis—”

“‘Will you remember this?’”

“Ominis, I never would’ve if I’d—”

Ominis snorted and held up a hand. “That’s the point, Sebastian. You don’t even know the basics of the Dark Arts. Why in Merlin’s name would it affect someone’s memory?” He adopted a faux-professorial voice, as if Sebastian were his willing pupil. “Tell me, how would it be the slightest bit useful to someone whom one wishes to enthrall if the victim doesn’t remember anything?”

“Ominis, please, I never meant—”

To the untrained ear, Sebastian would sound sincere. Ominis may have called Sebastian a liar, but he never was one to be taken for a fool. He twitched his wand, and a well-aimed silken rope muffled Sebastian’s voice. “I apologize,” he said, and unlike Sebastian, he meant it. “I didn’t wish to mislead you into thinking that your fumbling exclamations would change the outcome.” Stubborn to the last, Sebastian let out muffled shouts of raw panic behind the bond. Ominis rolled his eyes. “I’m not going to hurt you,” he explained with exaggerated patience, though Sebastian’s fear wounded him. Hadn’t he proven that he would put Sebastian’s happiness before his own, even past the point of reason? That was what motivated him now: not vengeance for the wrongs done to him, but the desperate desire to save Sebastian from himself.

He had paid careful attention to the necessary details. Cressida, Amit, Garreth, and even sweet, unassuming Poppy had unwittingly provided themselves as test subjects—not that they recalled it. He wished he’d been able to practice on someone as strong-willed as Sebastian, but he could no longer afford to delay. He raised his arm, let his wand guide him, and drew in a grounding breath. “Obliviate.”

Ominis concentrated, not wanting to prune more than was necessary. He envisioned memories in Sebastian’s mind as clearly as if they were his own. In the blink of an eye, the crypt vanished. On an inhale, the scriptorium dissolved. Exhale, untold hours in the Restricted Section became comfortably mundane afternoons studying in the library or reading in the common room together. A little more, now. Ominis grit his teeth with concentration. Solomon, with a hand unused to comfort grasping Sebastian’s shoulder. Under the table, Ominis’ hand clenching Sebastian’s, tethering him. This was the tricky part. An insinuation, a whisper in the ear, nurtured into conviction in the span of half a heart’s contraction. Enough, now. Ominis broke the connection, vanished the silken bonds, and eased Sebastian to the floor with brutal efficiency.

Barely a minute later, Sebastian blinked awake to find Ominis on a chair off to the side, reading languidly. Sebastian yawned hugely, jaw cracking. “I’m sorry,” he said, sincere at last. “I promised to help go over your History of Magic essay, didn’t I? Merlin, I’m no better than you, falling asleep over it!”

Ominis carefully schooled his expression into inscrutability, though his heart thrummed in his ears. “I’m awake this time,” he drawled.

“Not when it counts,” Sebastian said fondly. He sounded lighter than he had in months.

“Maybe it’s not history that puts me out, just Binns,” Ominis replied. He stood, stretched, and tucked his book into his satchel. The portcullis creaked open to let them out.

“You’re lucky he’s too blissfully unaware to notice you sleep all the time,” Sebastian said with mock severity. “Anyone else and you’d get a detention on our last free weekend. Are we…” Hesitancy crept into Sebastian’s voice. “Are we still on for the weekend? To visit Anne, I mean?” Ominis’ heart stuttered. “I just…she won’t say, she’s being brave, but I can tell. It’s…she’s…well, I don’t know how many more times we’ll be able to visit. Solomon warned me what to look for.” No anger. No righteous indignation or incipient madness. Just resignation with an undercurrent of grief.

Ominis’ chest expanded. “There’s nowhere else I’d rather be,” he said gently.

Even Solomon figured out something was wrong then, stood in the doorway with the usual exasperated look that always made Sebastian want to claw the old man’s eyes out. At least all of the shouting that followed kept Anne away.

Sebastian spent the rest of the night hunched over at the kitchen table, trying to force down a cup of overly strong black coffee, so he wouldn’t fall asleep again. His hands still wouldn’t stop shaking.

He wondered if Ominis felt the same.

It’s been two days since they went into the woods.

When Sebastian saw Ominis at school, it was obvious that he wasn’t in any better shape. He hadn’t answered his phone last night when Sebastian tried to call, even though the dark circles under his eyes told him that he must have been awake as well. There was nothing to talk about. They both knew what was on the other’s mind. 

Ominis had an even harder time concentrating on lessons. Sebastian was taking notes for the both of them as usual, while Ominis sat next to him, nervously tapping the pages of his braille textbook. Sometimes it was hard to tell, since his eyes were never focused on anything anyways, but today it was obvious that he wasn’t really in the classroom with the rest of them.

In his mind, he was still out there.

When lunchtime came, Ominis looked so pale and sickly that Sebastian finally suggested he take the day off. 

“Do you know how suspicious that would look?” Ominis snapped back.

He was sent home anyway half an hour later, when he suddenly threw up in math.

On his way home, Sebastian stopped at the end of the street that led past the supermarket where he and Ominis had met Garreth and Duncan two days ago. 

He couldn’t bring himself to keep walking. An overwhelming feeling of fear and dread washed over him. The logical part of him knew it was nonsense. 

Every other part of him screamed that if he went back to the place where it started, someone would know. Somehow. 

Sebastian turned around and took the long way home. 

Later that evening, Ominis finally called him back. 

For a few minutes, Sebastian heard nothing but his quiet breathing. When he finally spoke, Ominis said only one thing.

“Sometimes it feels like he’s in the room with me.”

It’s been seven days since they went into the woods.

Sebastian could sleep again, sometimes, with the help of some pills he stole from Solomon’s nightstand. 

Ominis sat next to him on the couch, in the Sallow’s living room, biting the skin at the edge of his fingernails. It wasn’t a habit he had before and Sebastian found it irritating, but he supposed they all had to find a way to cope. 

The tv was on, but neither of them bothered pretending to pay attention. There was no need, when it was just the two of them. 

Ominis said he tried to call Duncan, but he’d been pretty agitated, told Ominis to lose his number and hung up.

If he were honest, Sebastian would have told Ominis that he was stupid to expect anything else. Garreth had been more Duncan’s friend than theirs, and they’d all agreed not to talk about what happened that day.

Not that that made it easier to forget Garreth’s face. 

His stupid grin when he tried and failed to chug an entire carton of milk in the supermarket parking lot. 

The surprise and disbelief when he fell on the forest floor, that would never leave his face again.

All his life, books and movies had told Sebastian about the light leaving the eyes, but it didn’t. His eyes looked just the same.

Maybe that’s why he…

“Sebastian?” 

He lost his train of thought. 

Ominis had stopped chewing on his fingers, there were narrow streaks of blood at the hem of his shirt, where he’d wiped his hands. Now he was awkwardly clutching his knees.

It wasn’t fair, Sebastian suddenly thought. That Ominis’ eyes looked so haunted by horrors they didn’t have to see.

Ominis struggled to get out the words. He opened his mouth, then closed it again and swallowed. 

“...did you ever go back there?”

Now what.