Ten years after I began at Hogwarts, Sebastian Sallow is back. And he's Professor Sallow now. He disappeared after the fall of Ranrok and Rookwood, after I lost Professor Fig, and after Ominis and I couldn't keep him from losing himself. But I never...
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After the memory of Sebastian speaking directly to us on graduation day, there is a shift in the memories that follow. He addresses us directly far more often, as if he would seek out certain experiences for the sake of saving them for us. There's a sweetness about it as much as there is a somberness to it. It's like we became his invisible friends to enjoy things with, the dark truth being that we were very real, very far away, and very broken to be without him.
Sebastian's memories take us to Nepal. In the first memories there, he walks us around the impressive Swayambhunath complex, explaining what he hopes to do and learn – a mastery of the outer and inner self. At a certain point, he takes a long while to work with numbers of Tibetan singing bowls he comes across, leaning his ear into the reverberations of each of their crystalline ringing sounds and explaining to Ominis where he can feel the various pitches and vibrations in his body.
Ominis leans so close to the memory. "Gorgeous..." I hear him mutter under his breath as Sebastians works a number of bowls into a ringing harmony. I see him shake off a full-body shiver through his shoulders.
A small, curious monkey hops onto Sebastian's shoulder at a certain point and he describes the feeling of its fur for Ominis' sake and then wonders aloud to the creature, "I wonder what April would have called you, hmm? Probably something ridiculous," he cackles quietly to himself as he adopts a deep voice and proper, stuffy accent, "let him be called the great Lord Galleon of the vast Honeyduke Meadows!" The monkey bolts down and away from him in immediate protest and Sebastian calls, "I'm sorry!! I can just call you 'Jim' if you like?"
It makes me a little sick to my stomach to think how the sweet, naive Sebastian in these first memories is about to lose his will to the Imperius curse for over a year. Interestingly, he has included a couple memories from during that year he was unable to write me letters. I suppose it makes sense that losing one's will doesn't mean losing one's awareness or ability to recall it later.
In a shorter memory, Sebastian is sitting very still – clearly not under his own control. He is alone in the center of a room, barefoot and cross-legged in a simple yellow tunic that is slung over one shoulder, leaving the other bare. His hair is tied back out of his face, though some looser, shorter pieces insist on falling across his forehead. The man I believe he referred to as 'Lama-La' in our previous discussions is lecturing him on how to utilize the unforgivable curses for light work and transcendence instead of dark magic. I sense Ominis shifting uncomfortably with the realization of Sebastian's status in the memory, and I am surprised to witness the actual demeanor of the man I had assumed was a tyrant.
He is older but not elderly. Bald. Thin but not skeletal. He wears robes of red and amber, and he is so calm. It is almost as though he emits an aura of stillness that is many feet deep around him, in all directions, and he has a permanent, knowing smile in his lips and a wise sparkle in his eye.
The memory lurches oddly, in a way the memories haven't done thus far. But the setting is almost identical, except for the fact that Sebastian is thinner. Lama-La begins repeating to Sebastian the list of things he must abstain from in the form of directives, "you must...you will..." Eventually, Sebastian joins him, saying, "I will preserve sentient life, I will claim only what is given to me, my lips speak no falsehoods, I will refuse the intoxication of dark magic..." A high-pitched ringing frequency enters the memory. Lama-La's words become muffled as he says, "you will release the worldly desires of your heart," but Sebastian's voice strains as he says, instead, "I will release the unworthy desires of my heart." Every time the men repeat the mantras, the ringing noise flares in the exact same place during the mantra about his heart and Ominis tips his head to the side with curiosity.
