Ominis Gaunt Loves a Pureblood

13. Rosier Late Summer Ball

Hey everyone, it's Pepper here. I feel like this one's going to be controversial, but it's all part of the plan, I promise! This story came to my head just like this, and I feel it's important to keep the story beats originally planned. Hope you stick with me! 

Ominis Gaunt POV

   Two months had passed since graduation. Two whole months since I last held Sorsa in my arms. I can still feel the shape of her waist in my mind. Hear her sweet voice. Smell her favorite soap. I clung to the memories, afraid they might fade over time. As far as I knew, she was at our castle. I didn't know if she'd be safe from her family's eventual plans. They would likely want to marry her to a great pureblood house. I prayed I might take that role, but more so, I prayed she might escape them altogether.

   "Ominis, what has your mind so occupied this morning?" My mother asks. I stand at the window in the east drawing room at Gaunt Manor. I can't see, but the morning sunshine is warm on my face. My hands are clasped behind my back as I contemplate Sorsa's situation.

   "Nothing to concern yourself with, Mother," I mutter, my voice bored.

   "Are you going to come willingly to the Rosier End of Summer Ball? I need you fitted by tomorrow. You've put it off too long." I hear her approach me and turn to face her.

   "I suppose so. I'll meet with them this evening." I step around her, my wand guiding me, and make to quit the room.

   "Marvolo told me something interesting today." She says, trying to sound casual and knowing damn well I'll be forced to stop and listen. I pause, not turning around but placing my hand on the doorframe. She continues, "He said he forgot to mention before and claims he witnessed, on several occasions, the particular affinity between yourself and the young Sorsa Rosier. Sorsa Fossey, as was." I close my unseeing eyes and make a face, glad I'm turned away from her. I compose myself and turn around to face my mother again.

   "Is that so? I suppose I knew her at school and studied with her a few times. She means little to me, though, so I can't say I noticed an affinity between us before." I shrug and turn to leave again.

   "Marvolo says you were protecting her when you attacked him." Mother says she sounds pleased with herself, like she caught me. I face her again, and an evil grin crosses my features.

   "Do you think I need a reason to make my horrid brother suffer? I just need an excuse. This Sorsa Rosier wasn't the pretty little slut I fucked that night. Perhaps Marvolo can't remember the girl's appearance after losing so much blood." I sneer at her, letting a hate-filled chuckle out. She scoffs at my vulgarity.

   "You're disgusting, Ominis. You used to act more gentlemanly." She says as I start to walk again.

   "I've never met a Gaunt that wasn't disgusting, and certainly, I've never met a Gaunt I would call a gentleman," I say loud enough for her to hear while I pass through the east hall.

   The day of the ball was three days after my mother brought up Sorsa. My Father tortured me that night, so I know I truly made my mother angry. Usually, I could be an ass to everyone, and rarely had they actually punished me for it. I was dressed in a fine suit, my puff tie held in place by a snake pin. The servant dressing me helped me into a long wizard's robe. I was nervous, although, in the last months, I had gotten very good at concealing my genuine emotions. Part of me hoped Sorsa would be there for my selfish desire to hear her, smell her, perhaps even steal a dance with her, but another part hoped I wouldn't. If she isn't at the ball, maybe she's been freed from their plans.

   No one speaks to me as I head for the carriage, pulled by our family thestrals, of course. I dismiss a servant as he attempts to straighten my robe, waving my hand at him, pulling it off in irritation, and draping it over my arm. I climb in the carriage and cross my legs, resting one hand on my knees and one on my staff. My wand is fitted into the top. It was the common dress for men in prominent wizarding families to carry a staff, the top of which has a carved hole which our wands fit into. I like mine because I can still navigate with it, yet I can seem like everyone else carrying one. My family enters the carriage with me, and I sense my Father's presence at my side. It makes my skin crawl. Marvolo lets out a little laugh from the seat across mine, and I know he's trying to make me uncertain of my appearance. I act like I don't notice it. As a child, I used to panic worriedly that something was amiss with my outfit or looks, begging my parents to confirm or deny, which they wouldn't. They would just laugh at me as well, and when I cried, my Father would scold me for acting weak.