Passion | | Sebastian Sallow *under slight editing*

Chapter Eight

A loud "THUD" woke Astoria up. She jolted upward and rubbed her eyes groggily. When she opened her eyes, she could see that Sebastian and Ominis had heard it too. "What was that?" Ominis asked, his brows furrowed in confusion.

"I have no idea," Astoria said, looking around. "It sounded like it-"

"Came from the Roof." She said in sync with Sebastian, who now had a serious look on his face. He pulled his wand out from his pocket and stood up, walking toward the booth door.

"W-Where are you going?" Ominis asked, hearing his friend get up. Sebastian glanced back at the two before opening the door to the booth. "To see what's going on, both of you stay here and don't come out until I say it's safe to do so," Sebastian replied in a stern tone.

Astoria was confused, about to say something but then Sebastian left, shutting the booth door behind him, leaving her and Ominis alone to be worried. What on earth was that thump? Why was it so loud? And why did it sound like there were more of these thuds coming from lower down in the train? Astoria gulped a bit, hoping it was nothing serious.

Sebastian made his way up towards the front of the train, his wand was gripped tightly in his hand. Three more thuds in a succession of each other caught his attention; it was coming from the roof. He looked up, eyes following the ceiling of the train before he found a hatch that would lead to the top of the train. He walked over to it and popped the hatch, the sound of the train and the air whooshing past filled his ears.

He climbed up, shoving the hatch completely up, and poked his head out. He pulled himself up to a sitting position on the top of the train. "Sallow, whatever you do, do not lose your grip." He thought to himself. The drop was long and he definitely wouldn't survive it since there was no water below or anything to catch him. As he turned, his expression dropped as he saw something that startled him. He quickly found out what had made the thumping noise.

Rookwood's Poachers were on the top of the train, wands drawn and ready for a scuffle.

"Oh, Merlin." The words just slipped out of Sebastian's mouth. One of the Poachers used Accio to slam the hatch door shut. It could only be popped open from the inside, the only way he was to get back in was to either blast it open or to grip onto the side of the train and swing down until he shattered one of the glass windows– neither of which he had time to do since there were at least eight Poachers about to kill him.

Sebastian stood up the best he could, trying not to fall off the train. He immediately raised his wand to one of the Poachers as fast as he could. "Confringo!" He shouted, blasting the Poacher straight in the chest, causing him to be blasted back and smack the hard metal of the train, he gripped onto one of the bars to make sure he didn't fall off the train.

Spells started to fly back and forth on the top of the train, starting a scuffle. Which, Astoria and Ominis heard said scuffle and started to panic. "Shoot, Sebastian's up there isn't he?" Ominis exclaimed nervously.

"Who else would it be?" Astoria asked him, half serious, half sarcastically. She grabbed her wand and flung the door to the booth open, walking out. "I'm going to go find him, you stay here and make sure everyone on the train is safe."

Ominis quickly nodded and got up, making his way down to the bottom half of the train while Astoria went until she found the hatch. She did the same thing that Sebastian did, popping it and climbing up, except for this time, when she climbed up, she immediately had to duck to not get hit with a certain blasting curse.

She turned frantically to see Rookwoods Poachers– and Sebastian.

"Sebastian!" She called out, immediately standing up and drawing her wand, ready to fight off these Poachers. How did they find them? How on earth did they know they were on the train?