Recollection

Two

Sebastian's POV

"She did what?!" Sebastian sat with his elbows resting on his knees and hands pressed on each side of his face. Following his return to Hogwarts, Ominis had dragged him to a corner in the Slytherin common room, away from other students as they trickled in from dinner.

"I am sorry Sebastian. I had to tell you before you messed anything up. Eliza is finally doing better and I do not want to risk you unraveling her." Ominis was pacing nervously.

"What do you mean she's doing better? She doesn't fucking remember me!" He sat up as he yelled, attracting the attention of others in the common room.

Ominis cleared his throat and loosened the knot of the green and silver stripes tied around his neck, waiting for the feeling of curious eyes to return to their previous activities. He kept his voice low, "You did not see what she was like after the last time we visited you at St. Mungos. She was in a very dark place, Sebastian. I have had my share of hearing many people in pain at the hands of my family but I have never heard someone as broken as she was from losing you. I thought I was going to lose her too and I did in a way... but she is alive and happy and that is all I care about. Please promise me Sebastian that you'll steer clear of her. She's suffered enough already, she doesn't deserve anymore of it."

"Whose idea was this?" Sebastian was seething and had no intention of keeping his distance. He was furious with himself for not being there to protect her from whoever did this to her.

"Hers." Ominis sat down in the chair next to him as he dropped this bombshell on him. "I tried to talk her out of it but the guilt was eating her alive. She blamed herself for your involvement with the dark arts. I did everything I could to help her through it but after the last conversation she had with you, she did not want to remember."

"I didn't mean any of it. I saw how much pain I was causing her each time you both came to see me. I thought it would be easier for her to forget about me and move on if she hated me. I didn't think she'd do it literally!" Sebastian tried hard to push away the memory of the last time he and Eliza had spoken. He had hurt her and he meant to. He could see it in her eyes that in that moment she hated him. At the time it seemed like the best decision to push her away. She was to pure to be with someone like him, a murderer. Let alone wait for him, wasting precious years of her life for him while he was locked away. In a way he got what he wanted. She did move on, only not in the way he had hoped. He was certain now that he made the wrong choice.

At most Sebastian planned for her to be angry with him. He was prepared to spend the rest of his life groveling at her feet for forgiveness. Forgiveness he knew he didn't deserve. He had braced himself with the fact that she might never forgive him either. Only instead she'd forgotten him completely. They were strangers which to him was worse than having her hate him.

"I hate to feed into your ego but after everything you went through together did you really expect her to move on that easily? She was so in love with you she would have done anything for you. She would have waited the rest of her life for you."

Sebastian stared blankly at the black marble floor. He wished he could go back in time and take everything he said back. "What did you mean by you lost her too in a way?"

Ominis sighed, twisting his wand in his hands. "The majority of our friendship revolved around you, so in order to scrub you from her mind I had to go too."

"I'm sorry."

"I have made my peace with it." Ominis sighed. "It is good to at least have my best friend back, Sebastian. I was surprised when I got your owl. I never expected you would be back here."