Return of Sebastian Sallow | 10 Yr After Hogwarts

Chapter 117: The Solution

[Hey all! I'm going to be posting shorter chapters for while so I can post more frequently. As always, thanks for reading! Enjoy!]

The tendrils of tension and pain shimmy throughout my limbs to my fingertips. I shake my hands as if casting off droplets of water while calling out, "again," to Thiago.

It's been my edict for the past thirty minutes or so since classes ended. After we exhausted the much-too-short lunch hour, we agreed to meet to continue testing different methods of restoring Ominis. Guppy was disappointed our meditation instruction was canceled, and pleaded to accompany me for the 'work' I told him I had to get to. But I couldn't expose him to the shock of witnessing this.

Sorry, lad. Not this time.

During lunch, Thiago and I ran out of the handful of cursed arrows that Kai gave us – the same arrows that locked Ominis in his current state – trying to test different ways of getting him out of his coma.

Thiago insisted he try first. I shouldn't have acquiesced. It sent me into a mild, temporary panic to see him in the same state as Ominis, but when I finally succeeded in breaking the curse the way the centaurs had advised – using my healing magic, or what they would call 'earth magic' to flood the body with restorative energy – a fleeting shock of the Cruciatus curse shimmied through Thiago's form in a way I cannot endure witnessing from Ominis.

When we dissolved the arrowhead of the second arrow against my skin, the sensation of its curse taking hold was instantaneous and startling. My body seized into oblivion before I could think. Thankfully, neither Thiago with the first arrow or I with the second arrow was at all aware in our conscious mind when we were under the influence of the strange magic, giving us confidence that Ominis will soon awake from what may feel to him like a superior night of rest. That is, if it's not a shock of torture that jolts him back to reality.

In that instance, Thiago administered a dose of Mandrake Restorative Draught that Sharp provided. It pulled me from unconsciousness but it did so rather violently and both Thiago and I considered that option null and void as a result.

We then attempted to utilize the insulario curse to the left side of my body in an attempt to give the curse a sizable portion of a living being in which to take hold but, perhaps, to limit its take on my mind to allow me more control over the experience I might have with the curse. Unfortunately, the bounds of insulario did not contain its effects. It was also with the third arrow that we eliminated the option of using wiggenweld potion which provided a rather violent and painful waking, like the previous potion had, only at a much, much slower and more gradual rate.

A solution? Abso-bloody-fucking-lutely not.

I took a moment with breathwork and meditation before we tried again and I was able to calm my soul into the same kind of stasis that allows me to manage the Cruciatus curse in the first place. When Thiago struck my shoulder with the arrow, we both watched it dissolve into my skin, but the curse had no effect, both confirming our theory about the nature of the magic contained therein, and defeating us upon realizing Ominis does not have any experience with such a method and acknowledging that it is much too late to enact preventative measures.

Thiago pleaded a convincing case for the fifth arrow, suggesting I 'put him under' again since my magic was most like the centaur magic which occasionally did heal one of the cursed centaurs with little-to-no pain. I had tried to remind him that even they didn't understand the reasons for the variables. But he suggested I maintain my inner state of stillness, and attempt to share the aura of it with him while he endured the effects of the cursed arrowhead once more. Given that it isn't magic, per se, that I use to achieve the calm mental space, and yet it does provide protection against the curse, I thought we might have a solution for Ominis.