Serpent's Embrace | A Sebastian Sallow Story

Chapter Four: The Blight of Sebastian Sallow

     Solomon Sallow had always been a short tempered man.

     His father's older brother, Sebastian and Anne had been shunted off to Feldcroft when their parents had died. Sebastian had hated his uncle since boyhood, and had begged to have them sent to the Gaunt family instead. While it certainly wouldn't have been a warm nurturing environment, they'd at least have had Ominis.

     Instead, they were left to the poor ex-Auror, who's job had driven him half mad, who drowned his sorrows in drink, barely washed himself, rose quick to anger, and seemed content to live his life in the run down shack Sebastian's great grandfather has passed down. The homestead his father had abandoned.

    The place disgusted Sebastian. It wasn't as though he lived a lavish life, as Ominis did. Far from it. His parents home had been small, a room for himself, a room for Anne, and a room for his parents, the small kitchen and living room barely larger than any of their sleeping quarters, and the cellar library. Small, but so full of life and warmth that the single room shack he lived in now with its dirt floor and partitions separating the beds seemed hardly better than a cell in Azkaban to him. Solomon even played his role as Sebastian's personal Dementor a little too well. A far cry indeed from the warm home his family lived in prior to his parents deaths. A home that he would inherit on his eighteenth birthday in December. He'd whisk Anne away from Solomon, never to return to the shack again.

     That had been his plan since he was thirteen.

     Now, as he glared at his uncle, watching the vein in his temple throb, Sebastian wondered if he'd even have an Anne to whisk away.

     "Why in Merlin's name would any of you think it was your responsibility to run out there and fight?" He bellowed in Sebastian's face, spit splattering the freckled face boy who, despite his loathing, did not shrink away.

     "Uncle Solomon," Anne tried from her place on her musty bed. "Please, if Seb and Maddie hadn't-"

     "Madeline Nott is not welcome in this home! You hear me? Her family is bound to be twisted up in whatever Dark Magic is going on!"

     "She is not her family, Uncle Solomon," Anne hissed and then clutched her stomach in pain. Sebastian moved to her instantly, stroking her hair gently as the wave of pain passed. "She's not like the rest of them."

     "I know what's best for you. For both of you. You will keep away from that girl, Anne. I won't have her and her family or her... Magic near you. Not in this condition."

      "You've known Maddie for years! Just because she has magic now doesn't mean she's changed."

"You saw what she did! There is something not right about that girl, Anne. You'll stay away."

Sebastian scoffed at his Uncle. Madeline Nott been a thorn in his side for years, one he couldn't wait to whisk Anne away from, even if it was for his own sake rather than Anne's. But, much to his annoyance, not because it helped Anne but because it was her, she had performed some kind of strange magic after Anne was cursed and the Goblins left. A burst of light has erupted from her hands as she clung to Anne, both girls sobbing. Whatever it'd done, it was the only thing to ease Anne's pain. Briefly, but it did.

     Sebastian didn't know what he'd witnessed.

     Madeline didn't know what she'd done.

It had just... happened.

"Even I can admit there's no reason to keep her away," Sebastian supplied, glaring daggers at his uncle still as the latter stumbled to the kitchen and pulled out a bottle of gillywater. "She's the only reason I was able to get Anne back here."