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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Sharp sighs a deep, rattling sigh and presses into his eyes with his finger and thumb as he says, "oh, Snidge. I wish I could have been there. I'm sorry it happened like it did." It's sweet when he shows the soft, white underbelly of his heart to me through his eyes that go all puppy-dog when he lets his tenderness show.
I hold back the chuckle, however, about the fact that I'm absolutely one-hundred-percent no-dicking-around positive he would not have wanted to be in the repository with Sebastian and I when I had a pogrebin-induced depression spiral that caused me to absorb all of Isadora's magic. But what he doesn't know won't kill him. Quite the opposite, I'd imagine.
He reaches out for my hand across the little table that has come to symbolize the balm of so many of our precious moments together, just as the table's inlay of the Rod of Asclepius is a symbol of healing. I take his rough, large hand in mine. I've never quite been sure if my father's hands were like this, too, or if his only felt large to me because I was so young when he was alive.
"Do you still struggle with it all?" He asks with a voice steeped in authority and tenderness. "I thought..." his eyes search mine before he finishes. "I thought we'd worked to overcome so many of those demons. Years ago." He squints a little in anticipation of my response.
"We did. We have." I assure him, lovingly squeezing his hand. "I don't think about it like I used to. I've made peace with what happened as a student – as much peace as I'm able, I think. It's just been a lot with Sebastian being back, and what happened with the poachers recently. That was wild...unexpected. It brought a lot back to the surface, that's all. And the mental space I was in from the pogrebin compounded it."
"Do you think if you absorbed Isadora's magic without the pogrebin's influence, it would affect you differently?" he asks, ever the researcher.
"I can't be sure. I would imagine so." After a pause of consideration, I add, "I think it has a numbing impact. I recall forgetting a lot after the first time I absorbed it back when it was just me and Ominis. It's almost like the presence of so many other people's emotions erases mine."
"Curious..." Sharp's eyes search the air in front of him as he thinks. He scratches at the stubble on his chin and releases his stress on the air that exhales through his nose as he looks back to me and says. "We can't rule out the possibility you may have to absorb it again – or some of it – if we need to conceal it during Helvig's visit. I don't like that reality, I assure you. But we cannot rule it out."
I nod, reluctantly admitting, "it's something I've already considered, myself."
A slow and easy conversation between us (that is long overdue) ensues, wherein we update one another about our classes, compare notes about favorite and troublesome students (he also dislikes Roka, thank god), and I have to proverbially twist his arm about a dozen times before he acquiesces to granting me a dance at the upcoming All Hallows Eve ball. It is a lovely visit, and I revel in the comfort of Sharpie's office. The warm glow of the candlelight sits at varying heights all around the room, the scent of parchment, earthen herbs, and stinging chemicals fill the air, and the inviting but slightly-worn furniture and rugs that remind me of Sharp, himself as the sun sets completely out of the stained glass windows that line the back of the room.
