Assecula || Sebastian Sallow & Ominis Gaunt Polyam.

Chapter One ; Cowbird

"Up."

The chilled voice was a grating drawl across Rowan's mind. It was a simple word, yet born from that which was most insidious, and yet still a whisper in the early morning light.

A rather unwanted one at that as Rowan threw an arm across their face with a huff.

Piss off.

"You will be late, little bug."

Fuck.

Rowan bolted upright with a start, their cropped hair askew as they hastily threw both legs over a surprisingly plush mattress. Their eyes hadn't yet adjusted to the blurred outline of a watercolour lifestyle as the witch fumbled for the cracked glasses they often kept at their bedside.

They weren't there.

A downright distressed exhale left Rowan as they shakily scrubbed a hand across their eyes and let themselves adjust to their immediate surroundings. This was not Professor Fig's estate, right.

The Professor had been more than accommodating during the last year as he attempted to school a rugged orphan in all manner of things, although it took little more than a simple thought to deduce that the estate was just as much meant to spy upon Rowan than to aid them. They didn't care. It had a soft bed and warm pillows. Fig was kind, even if he hid things. He had been the first to explain to Rowan through his bloodied lips that the boy had something extraordinary, even if it was as untamed as a prowling beast roaming the dusted halls of Rowan's innermost insecurities.

Despite Fig's insistence that everything was just dandy, Rowan knew that they had not adjusted nearly as fast as they should have to the Wizarding World. It was an unspoken disappointment that clouded the air between them during dinner. Most children would be enthralled by the prospect of magic and mischief left to flourish in a world just beyond reality, but Rowan was few of these things on their worst day. Picture books of unicorns, dragons, and all manner of witchcraft were the devil's idle work according to their former Madame, and such vitriol had left lasting scars where others didn't dare tread.

It took a long while for Rowan to come around to the idea of magic.

Even longer to address the help they so desperately needed when it came to the festering parasite that'd taken up residence in the hollow valley between their scarred lungs.

"How long have you," Professor Fig had paused that evening, as though he wasn't certain he even wanted an answer, "how long have you had it?"

It.

The festering rot within them was a creature unlike any other, yet it was still only ever just 'it'.

"Awhile," Rowan answered noncommittally, for they had no genuine retort to give. In some ways, the cancerous rot had always been there just beneath the surface. So much so that Rowan could not have adequately pinpointed just when it manifested, only that it left a scorched earth ripe for reckoning in its wake.

"Out of your head, bug."

Rowan shook off such dreadful thoughts as they finally thumbed the locks of their remaining suitcase open and blessedly retrieved their glasses.

They were a pair of cracked, tinted lenses attached to an equally crooked frame that looked as though they were held together through a single prayer alone. In some cases, they were, as Rowan didn't know nearly enough magic to bond the damn thing on their own. A part of them didn't dare approach Fig about the repairs, for the cracks had been earned in the muggle world, and it was one of the last few attachments they had left to their forgotten life. The good professor had offered Rowan a new pair early on, but Rowan had been a creature of sentimental design as they refused the gesture.

The glasses were proof of progress, even if they did little to ease their ailing eyesight as they finally took in the area around them.

The Slytherin Common Room.

Hogwarts.

Fuck, they were in Hogwarts.

The whole of yesterday had been such a blur that Rowan couldn't remember even getting to the Common Room. They did however remember everything that came before as the boy slapped a hand across their mouth to ward off the acidic burn of bile that threatened to rear its ugly head. They remembered the carriage in such excruciating detail, though they suspected they'd been in a rather dazed state up until this point. They had seen death. Unavoidably so they'd watched a man die mere inches from them.

Now, there was a certain point in Rowan's early life - when they were still an unsightly creature of loveless design that they became plagued with day terrors. A woman who clutched a cross longer than she'd ever held a child deduced very quickly that Rowan's affliction was of the satanic variety as she burnt her iron ideologies into a sobbing child and demanded a repented sinner for crimes Rowan couldn't put a name to. Instead of outbursts and fits of downright hysteria as described by bold-faced men with heavy canes, Rowan learned just as fast in the orphanage to be quiet with such terrors.

So, when that sudden spike of fear overtook them as Rowan stubbornly sealed their eyes shut and fumbled for a corked vial that'd stave off whatever lasting terrors they'd been left with. Their breaths were a whistle between the gap-tooth of their sneer as they opened their mouth to down the bottle in one fell swoop.

It was a thick, viscous fluid that shone like liquid silver and bore a metallic aftertaste. Professor Fig had procured them when he discovered just how severe Rowan's terrors became when they got into a downright fit of fury. The potions eased their mind, though they noted rather grimly that their pilfered stock was running dangerously low. They'd stolen a batch or two from Fig over the months, and if the man had noticed he'd been hushed about it up until this point.

They lamented the time it took to calm themselves back down, but relished the solitude as their given room was a hollowed shell of activity. It seemed as though it was otherwise empty of belongings. Whether that meant its occupants were simply the tidiest of people or had absconded entirely, leaving this blessed room to be their sanctuary, Rowan couldn't say. They kind of hoped that they'd be alone. Professor Fig spoke so fondly of the dorm life and how he hoped that Rowan would blossom beside the other boys into a sociable butterfly and not a solitary moth, but the boy was hardly looking forward to the exchange.

They had shared a room with at least eight other occupants almost all of their life, until Fig, and weren't keen on returning to such dismal circumstances if they could help it. Still, they were given the space to calm back down. To ease themselves of the memories that plagued them.

The Goblin from Gringotts...was he?

"You have seen death."

"Ass," Rowan replied before they thought better of themselves. They were not in the mood for pleasantries and trickery.

"Death changes you, bug." the parasite cooed in a coy chirp.

"No," Rowan reaffirmed as they ran a hand through their tangled hair, "it won't."

With that, they tidied up the last of their mess and hovered before a mirror to ensure their sightly state.

They looked terrible, truth be told. Their hair was a straight edge that'd been shorn into a cropped undercut close to the nape of their neck. The rest of their unruly mop was left to be insistently pushed back out of their eyes as they mused over a distinctive cowlick. Deep bags dug arcing slopes beneath their eyes with the weight of mountains to steady themselves. The body had been a wiry thing from birth with a deceptively willowy frame despite their short stature. Their mother's hawkish hooked nose and drooping doe eyes gave them the ever-present illusion of melancholy. An encounter with a cat had left deep gouges dug into valleys across the expanse of one cheek. It was the looping evidence of a lost battle caught across the ridge of their nose - broken one too many times. The rest was a sparse mottling of dark moles and acne scars that coiled deeper beneath their robes into craterous mountain ranges.

Dreadful, they settled upon with a grimace.

Perhaps they looked dreadful.