Always || Sebastian Sallow x Reader

Chapter 7

Darkness engulfs your surroundings, the crunch of gravel beneath your dress shoes echoing throughout the Viaduct Courtyard. For a moment, you needed fresh air. It feels as though the world is crashing down on you at a million kilometers per hour.

Your ears are ringing and your vision is entering and escaping in splotches. You sink onto your knees in the center of the courtyard.

This is all too much, you think to yourself, feeling your throat close. You grasp at your neck, feeling suffocated, and start yanking your tie off in a panic.

Get it off, get it off, get it off.

A small cry escapes your lips as tears begin to pool at the brim of your eyes— anxiety begins to eat you from the inside out.

After Sebastian had left you to fight off Peeves, you explored further through the labyrinth below the library in search of whatever the map had led you to. You push the door in front of you open and walk into a pitch-black room. Cobwebs lace the ceiling, and frosted candles scatter the floors. A cool gush of air speeds past your face.

"Well, this isn't creepy in the slightest," you proclaim to yourself as you step down onto a landing connected to two stairways that spiral downward in opposite directions.

"Lumos"

The tip of your wand flickers into a small crystal flame, illuminating the area around you. You start walking down the stairs to your right, the air gradually feeling thicker as you descend.

Once you reach the end of the staircase, you turn to your left and see a large chest with a lock on it. You had heard of an unlocking charm, but every attempt you made at using it had failed.

"Let's see if I can do it now," you whisper as you prepare yourself.

"Alohomora"

The lock unlatches with a soft click.

"Merlin's beard, that actually worked," you say as you pop open the chest. The inside is lined in ruby velvet, and at the bottom lay 6 Wiggenweld potions. You recalled Amit's description of them in Potion Making the other day.

"The Wiggenweld potion can be used to sterilize and even heal a variety of injuries."

You had quickly begun to admire your classmate's intelligence. Amit would always be the first to volunteer to answer questions, and he would always get them correct. He was a high scorer for our house points.

You grasp the potions and inspect them all equally. Why would there be so many here, you question. You tuck them into your large robe pocket and turn around to the archway behind you. You walk forward, and suddenly, blue traces of ancient magic begin to spark out of the floor and fall to your right. As you follow the path they make, a swirl begins to form on the floor. You take a deep breath and brace yourself.

You stand on top of the swirl and bring your wand up with your right hand, drawing power from the vacuum that appeared through the ground. The tension builds between your wand and the floor, and once you feel that it isn't getting any tighter, you release the energy back into the swirl. A thin cast of blue shoots across the room, revealing a blue portal in the archway.

"I'm beginning to believe that I have to trust the color blue now," you sigh as you walk into the walkway.

The atmosphere shifted immediately. Everything was slightly... warmer? It's a peculiar feeling, one you can't quite place as you begin journeying further.

At the end of yet another treacherous staircase in Hogwarts lies yet another door. This one however has the same symbol as the case of the portkey you used to get to Gringotts. As you step forward, a small engraving appears beneath the symbol.