Sins of the Father | Sebastian x OFC (Caroline Rookwood) | Ominis x Garreth

Chapter 1: No Love Lost

Edit: 7.1.24 to clean up the sentence structures. No changes to plot.

Caroline

~~~***~~~

Ugh...

Crass was the only way Caroline could describe the audible moan across the room.

Despite the additional privacy and room Slytherin students acquired upon entering their seventh and final year of Hogwarts, there was no amount of pillows or curtains that would shield her from the indecency belonging not just to Hogwarts' Heroine but to the bane of her current existence itself.

Sebastian Sallow.

Reward and motivation?

More like crime and punishment.

Her hopes that Anne Sallow would return cured, happy, and bestowing chaos upon Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry were already shattered at the start of fifth year when Little Ms. Troll Slayer had taken the spot that once belonged to her old friend.

Old friend...

She supposed that the title of 'old friend' was rather broad when it came to her friendships with Anne, Ominis, and Sebastian.

They had been friends once, all four of them...

Baskets of tea, meals, and the latest letter of gossip only strengthened her friendship with Anne.

But the months following Anne's tentative cycle of illness and recovery had only served to cut her ties with Sebastian and Ominis. Love, fear, jealousy, and bitterness had torn their once close friendship... and heart if Caroline were to admit.

Sympathetic as she was to Anne's situation, she could not bear Sebastian's growing lack of empathy.

Forgiveness she could give in many strides, but not when it was so ungraciously earned and taken for granted.

Sighing, Caroline watched the dim moonlight peek through the waters of the Black Lake just outside their window wondering what manner of luck and offense she committed against fate to deserve this.

~~~***~~~

"Have you got it?"

The full moon streamed through the tall windows of the Slytherin Common Room while the sound of the waves hit gently against the pane. Caroline barely reached the bottom of the stairs when she heard him shuffling down the stairs after her— likely with Ominis close behind.

Turning to meet his anxious face and stepping aside for the Prefects and first years, Caroline sighed, tempering her glare at his impatience.

He was still the same with his freckled face and wind swept brown hair, but she could hardly call him the same now. Not when he looked like he hadn't slept in days—dark bags prominent around the freckles of his face, his normally warm and mirthful filled brown eyes dulled, and his normally supple cheeks appeared sunken as though he hadn't eaten for some time.

"Well?!" He asked, pestering and persistent as he normally was when he wanted something.

"Hello, Sebastian... I'm quite well, Sebastian! Thank you for asking," she glared, gnawing on her cheek.

"You'll have to forgive his impertinence, Caroline... you know how he is," Ominis said— a placating smile plastered on his face. Accommodating as usual. For Sebastian at least.

Because that was what one did for someone as charming as the Sallow twins. Especially Sebastian Sallow— forgive and forget.

"I..." she sighed, wincing— she had dreaded this conversation since they parted ways at the end of term. Though her family provided their patronage to various arts and projects, Victor Rookwood was not a sharing kind of man, particular when it concerned items he considered invaluable and among his numerous possessions.