Aftermath | Sebastian Sallow

2: Chapter 10

The three of us walk outside of the castle, our thicker robes help shield from the Winter air. Yesterday's snow crunches underneath our feet. Felix walks along beside me to my left, Sebastian close to my body on my right.

"I suppose we shouldn't stay out here for too long." Felix's steps slow down as he speaks to us. "Why exactly did you want to come out here, anyway?" We walk past the Hufflepuff rooftop to where there are benches overlooking the Black Lake.

I near one of the cemented benches and sit down, followed by Sebastian. Felix opts for standing to gaze at the moonlit water. "I love this time of year, it's my favorite. Although I didn't get to enjoy much of it last year. The air in Winter is cold, but calm. These nights are quieter than what they usually are. Being out here, enveloped in them, gives me a sense of peace and clarity." Sebastian snakes his arm behind me, pulling me close.

"Well if we're going to stay out here we might as well not freeze to death." Sebastian says grumpily, pulling out his wand. He conjures a pile of wooden logs onto the pathway before us. "Incendio." A small ball of flame throws itself from Sebastian's wand onto the wood logs and engulfs them, melting the snow beneath it.

In any other circumstance this fire would not have survived, but with the help of magic it will remain lit and keep the three of us warm.

Felix turns and walks towards the bench we're sitting on. "Nice parlor trick." Sebastian smirks at him in response. Not sure when these two became so chummy with each other, but at least Sebastian's not trying to Crucio him at any given moment..

"Sebastian shared with me that you have some questions about the necklace." Felix says, sitting down on the other side of me. "You can't just take a gift for what it is." I glare at him and he folds his arms across his chest, staring out at the lake.

"How did you end up with something, anything, that belonged to our mother? How do you even know that it was hers?" I ask him the questions that have been gnawing at my brain all day.

Felix sighs. "I cannot say that I'm absolutely certain of it. I mean all I have to go off of is what I'm told. However, when I held it in my hands I just felt.. something."

"I felt it too. When I held it." Felix turns to look at me, and I feel Sebastian also doing the same, on the other side of me. "When I'm near clusters of ancient magic I can feel it, or it calls to me in whispers. I felt it when I first caught sight of you, and when I was around you in the Great Hall that first day."

"Yeah you made her absolutely sick to her stomach." Sebastian huffs out a laugh and mumbles behind me.

"Shut it." I whip my head back at him, then I reach into my robe and pull out the small box, opening it to reveal the necklace Sebastian gifted to me. Dangling it from my fingers, all three of us watch it quietly.

"Wait- you said that the only thing you had to go off of was what you were told? Who told you this?" I turn, asking Felix.

"Well.. It was Xaiden. We both know how little we can actually rely on that." Felix reaches up to lightly hold the pendant on the necklace over his finger tips. "I would whole heartedly doubt it, if not for the very same feeling you are experiencing."

"How do you think he would know this information, if what he says is true?" I ask him while retracting the necklace from off of his hand. I place it gently inside of the box but remain holding it in my hands.

"I don't quite remember how it happened. The way Xaiden tells it, is that he found me after our parents died, on the outskirts of their land. I was alone and had no recollection of who I was or where I had come from. So he took me in, and the rest is history. I have other possessions that had apparently belonged to them. Some are at the Manor, some are at Gringotts in a vault along with countless other treasures of ours from traveling over the past several years."