Aftermath ✧ Sebastian Sallow

chapter fifty-four

She Wants Me (To Be Loved) by The Happy Fits

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Ominis' Perceptive

"For Merlin's sake, he finally did it!" Anne cheered.

"But where did he go?" I laughed.

"Probably to somewhere he'll find Amelia," Anne laughed. 

She was right. If she was the distraction that kept him from learning to apparate, then she was also the goal for him to finally do it. She had been so busy helping him study all day with what amounted to barely any progress that it was a miracle that he finally learned apparating.

It was nice to finally be away from his complaining. And even nicer to finally be alone with Anne after such a long day.

Anne skipped over from the other side of the room and quickly cuddled up against me as we leaned against the basin. I leaned over to kiss the top of her head just to make her giggle. Her laughter was like music. 

Every day felt like it was on borrowed time still. It was a blessing to have her.

"I can't believe I'm going to be all alone next year," Anne sighed playfully.

"I'll visit every chance that I get," I promised, "Besides you already know that Sebastian and Amelia are going to be writing to you nonstop."

"I'm worried about him trying to be an Auror still," She huffed. 

In truth, I was too.

"I know. But you know him, once he has the idea in his head then he's going to do it," I reminded her, "Besides he just wants to be an Auror so that he can spend time with Amelia still. Neither wants to do it, but if they are partnered together then at least they will both be happy."

"I still think that you two should just go through with the marriage so she doesn't have to work for the Ministry," Anne brought up once again, "It would solve both your problems. Besides you could do it then just get an annulment. Then neither of them will need to be Aurors!"

It was an argument that seemed to circle back too often. The Ministry's goal to control Amelia and how her ancient magic would be passed down was their primary focus. 

Marvolo managed to appoint Black as her guardian and sign a marriage contract with our family. Amelia would have been quick to fight back against it if I hadn't talked her out of it. If Black withdrew from the contract, then he would just sign with someone worse. Someone who might actually enforce it.

Our plan was to let it linger until graduation. All the other pureblood families would have arranged their own marriages by that point. If we fought back against it too much then they would have caught on. 

The only downside was that if we called off the marriage at the last minute, the Ministry would still need a way to feel like they were controlling Amelia's magic. Hecat was the one to point that fact out to us. 

Most of the professors didn't agree with how the Ministry was attempting to control Amelia's magic or Black's appointment as her guardian. All of them had been helpful in assisting our plans.

If the marriage was called off and the Ministry felt like they were losing control, then they might act rashly to find other ways of controlling her. Hecat and Sharp were the ones to propose that Amelia became an Auror for the Ministry, and then we called off the contract.