A Ballad of Snakes and Shadows // A Dark Sebastian Sallow Romance

Chapter Four: Ain't No Crying

Ain't No Crying - Derivakat

I belonged to no one, I told the note that sat on my desk. It said nothing in return, of course, because it was just that. A bit of parchment.

Parchment that was somehow laughing and mocking me, as I paced back and forth in front of the desk it was perched on. It felt like it was smirking at me - because it fucking knew I was on the verge of losing the very last strand of sanity I'd desperately been clinging to.

Worst of all, it knew things that I didn't - like who had written the damn thing.

That knowledge alone gave it the most vicious smile I'd seen from anything - alive or not.

Whether it told me its secrets or not, I didn't need it. It was obvious that the sender was a delusional, sick and twisted fuck, who needed a lesson on boundaries, and how to properly court a woman.

This was simply now how it was done at all.

The note had one good last laugh at me before it went up in flames. I watched the final flickers of the fire die out, releasing a puff of black smoke. While that smoke rose, so did my paranoia - I still wanted to think Sebastian was behind this.

All of the logic in the world pointed to that being impossible. But all of my irrational instincts told me that he was the only answer.

Sebastian was in Azkaban, Weasley had confirmed it. Ominis said to let it go.

So why couldn't I?

The last corner of the note disintegrated into nothing and I decided to let the Sebastian thing go with it - even if it was only temporary.

So I crossed Sebastian off the suspect list, only because rationality demanded it. Then who did that leave?

Who had I slighted in recent years?

I sighed. That list would be long if I looked at the wrong doings of my first year. There were a lot of dark wizards who had run with Rookwood and Harlow that hated me. Perhaps a few students like the one with the gobstones I'd taken for myself. It could even be a left over Loyalist who still believed in Ranrok's dead cause.

I doubted that after three years any of them would come back to haunt me. I also didn't believe adults would be able to make their way into Hogwarts without sounding the alarm.

It had to be a student then, but in the past three years I had not really upset anyone. I might have been a little rude with a few during my first year, and might have carried that over into the next ones, given that I disliked their silly quests, but I never did anything that would warrant this type of retaliation.

The gobstone girl... she had been a menace.

There was also Samantha Dale, who I had yelled at and nearly laid a curse on for sending me to a tomb with a fucking troll inside. She hadn't given me a warning and I'd only had one wiggenweld in my bag that day.

I was lucky to be alive so I didn't think much of it when I returned to the castle to tell her off.

There was the bubotuber girl, the puffskein guy... there were just too many.

I had received a lot of complaints by the end of my first year.

So instead of stepping on anyone's toes, I had kept to myself since then. I put more stock into the small circle of friends that I had created instead. Imelda, Amit, Natty, Poppy, and Ominis were the people I could depend on. Especially the last three.