star-crossed | s. sallow & o. gaunt x reader

chapter 4 | joining the ashwinder's hate club

8:30pm - hogsmeade

your throat tightened as these ashwinders, as sebastian had called them, stalked towards you with their wands drawn. their robes were dull shades of browns, blacks, and purples, each wearing a hat and a mask to obscure the majority of their face. you counted five of them in total, each more intimidating than the last. sebastian looked at them as if they were made of pure evil, his eyebrows firmly pressed together above his eyes.

when they finally closed the distance between themselves and you, one of them pointed his wand directly at you and spoke up, "we're going to need you to come with us — mr. rookwood would like a word".

"mr. rookwood?" you gave them a confused look, "i'm not sure i even know who that -,"

"absolutely not," sebastian cut you off without hesitation — a fire lit in his eyes so bright that you could imagine him burning holes through their robes.

"i'm afraid this isn't much of a choice," another one of the ashwinder's spoke up, "we will use force if we must".

"well then you must," sebastian spat at them before turning to you, "let's hope that new wand of yours makes you even more formidable than you were without it".

you gave him a firm nod, your spiraled wand gripped tight in the palm of your hand. you weren't sure who these men were, or who mr. rookwood was either, but it seemed as if this wasn't sebastian's first encounter with either of them. and while it may have been foolish to put your blind trust in a boy you only met a few days ago, you certainly trusted him more than the shady characters standing in front of you. whoever rookwood and the ashwinders were, you could tell that sebastian's hatred for them was strong.

"so be it," one of them shook their head, "we'll do this the hard way".

the five of them spread out, no remorse in their eyes as they started concocting how to take down the three of you. you had no doubt that they would do whatever it took, so despite your limited experience, you would need to be at your best. this was sure to be much different than the friendly duel between you and sebastian a couple days ago.

their initial method of attack was to cast an expelliarmus spell at each of you, attempting to strip you of your only defenses. while you and sebastian were able to deflect the assailants with a quick protego, ominis was not as fortunate.

the blonde boy froze for an instant, and then his wand flew from his hand and scattered across the stone pathway. his face contorted horror — not only was he defenseless, but now he had lost his only sense of direction as well.

on the other side of you, three of the ashwinders began to corner sebastian up against a wall. they tirelessly fired spell after spell at him, sebastian doing his best to dodge and deflect each one. he was better at masking the way he felt than ominis was, but you could see the stress in his tight jaw and furrowed brows.

unable to help both boys at once, your forced yourself to trust that sebastian would be able to protect himself a little bit longer. then you dove towards ominis and enveloped the two of you in protective sphere with protego. you did it just in time too, a burst of flames fanning out around the bubble but unable to touch either of you.

"sebastian?" ominis spoke his friend's name like a question.

"no, it's me," you corrected him, wrapping your fingers around his wrist to steady him, "i'll help you retrieve your wand, but i'm going to need you to listen to me".

despite the short amount of time you knew him, ominis was notoriously difficult to work with and hated to rely on other people. he attempted to pull his arm from you grasp, a look of fear and mistrust across his face. you could see the mental war he was waging behind his eyes, his hesitancy to fully put his trust in you becoming clearly evident.