Shelter of Our Night || Sebastian Sallow

Knowledge is Power

He watches the life appear in her eyes.

Anne dipped her foot into the wheat field like a nervous child over a cold pool. It wasn't far from Feldcroft, a mere fifteen minutes' walk if the weather was pleasant, Rookwood Castle looming grandly in the distance, but the place was secluded, surrounded on one edge by a sharp dip of rock and a sodden beach on the other. When Sebastian found it last week, having stumbled by pure accident on a wrong turn, he'd almost ran home in his eagerness to share the discovery with his sister. She loved this sort of thing.

Anne stepped back from the wheat, giddy. "It's perfect."

With Solomon measuring each minute they were away from the house, Sebastian made sure to appreciate the time they had. He'd never been able to call Feldcroft home, but moments like these – it was close, in the way a waning crescent was close to a new moon.

Something made his nose wrinkle. He jerked back, swatting away a stalk.

"Oi! Get off!"

"Stop daydreaming, you're killing the mood," she scolded. "Now hold my hat – I'm going to frolic."

"What?"

She shoved the crumpled fabric in his hand, then ran full-pelt into the wheat, screeching, "The hills are alive!" at the top of her lungs. Sebastian burst into laughter. The curse stole her away most days, but he was thankful for the days it didn't. He ran after her, ripping up the stalks, flinging them at her, shoving them down the back of her dress, laughing when she jammed them in his hair. But she tired quickly, and soon they found themselves on the rock cropping, surveying the field and the river beyond.

"Strange, isn't it?" she said, twiddling a shoot between her fingers. "That it's been five years."

Sebastian kept finding the stringy fibres in his clothes, tugging them out and relinquishing them to the wind. They were light enough to twirl once about before disappearing from view. The truth was, it wasn't strange to him – he'd been thinking about this anniversary every day for the last two weeks.

Still, he said "Strange," like it was.

"Mama and Papa gone," Anne said. "And Solomon—"

"Let's not talk about that bag of steaming cowpats."

"He's not a cowpat," she said exasperatedly. "He's just... nothing. Like he doesn't exist."

"He's there for you."

"Barely."

And that was what made him most furious of all. The man could ignore Sebastian forever if that was what he wanted. But Anne? Who was the politer of the pair, the calmer, the more open-minded, the one with the most potential? Sebastian wouldn't stand for it. She took care of herself most days, but when she couldn't, he was relying on his uncle to support her, and if he couldn't trust him to do that while he was at school what the hell else could he be trusted with?

"You're making that face."

"What face?"

"The I'll kill him face."

He grinned. "Wouldn't that be easier though?"

She shoved him; he laughed. "Don't joke about that."

"The moment we graduate Hogwarts, Anne," he said, "we're getting the hell out of here. We'll leave and get our own place. I'll work a Muggle job if I have to, but let's be real, I'll become an Auror, and that pays loads."

Her face crumpled slightly. "Assuming this curse doesn't off me first."

"I thought we weren't joking about death?"