What if you decided not to turn him in? What if he has to stand trial anyway? And what if you get asked to be a witness?
Would you save him? Or wouldn't you?
For Sebastian Sallow, Eleanor - Ellie - has been through hell and back. She did it all for...
The song choice for this chapter is "The Smallest Man Who Ever Lived" by Taylor Swift.
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Summer After Fifth Year (August, 1891)
'If not for me – then for Anne.'
The sentence has been echoing in my brain over and repeatedly. I remember standing before Isidora's empty canvas, Sebastian behind me, trying to convince me to ask the Keepers for help. The irony is that I would've been even more convinced if he had said, 'If not for Anne – then for me.'
I have the vivid image in front of my eyes when he called me ignorant for believing not all Goblins are evil and dared him to reconsider his blind hate and rage. How could he be so naive? How could he be so convinced to think dark magic was the answer?
When Ominis asked me, at the end of our fifth year, if I'd consider turning Sebastian in, a part of me wanted it. A part of me was convinced that he deserved nothing less for using me, using Ominis, and betraying our trust by diving deeper and deeper into a hole he'd dug for himself.
But in the end, I couldn't. I couldn't get the words out and send him to Azkaban, awaiting trial. I know what the dementors would do to him. And that, should he ever leave the prison again, he'd be an even worse version of himself than he was when he took his uncle's life.
I believed, or at least convinced myself, that losing Anne was enough. It should be enough to set his head straight, to stop with the dark path he was on, and take a different direction.
So, I told Ominis no. I said I wouldn't turn him in. I wouldn't do it. Part of it was because of Sebastian because I genuinely thought this might be better for him. After all, I don't believe in Azkaban as anything but torture; inhuman treatment of people who'd need to get better, not even worse. There might be people who deserved it, sure. But I wanted to believe Sebastian wasn't one of them. I tried to think he'd learnt his lesson. I wanted to believe he'd regret what he did.
Horcruxes are not something we learn about at school. It's a dark magic so twisted and evil that books barely mention it, but I've read about it in the restriction section of the library. Since Sebastian, I know how to get in there, using the spell he taught me and stealing Madame Scribner's key. I stumbled upon it one night at the end of my fifth year when I was too tormented by the memories to sleep. When the caster of a spell intends to kill, using the killing curse, his soul gets torn in two. The only way to ever mend it is regret. Painful regret. I sat there, reading those lines, and wondered: Could Sebastian's soul be repaired? Was he feeling regret enough for his soul to regain the strength it had before he killed someone?
I don't know. But I know I hoped it would.
The difference between Ominis and I is that one of us fell in love, and the other did not. For Ominis, Sebastian is like family, but he is not blind to his faults. I was, in many ways. I obliged every time he needed my help despite my better judgment. Eventually, I even got on Ominis' wrong side. And I don't even want to know what Anne thinks of me. I don't know where she is, and Ominis won't tell me, but that's okay. I barely know Anne. I asked Ominis once and never did so again.
In the end, it was Ominis who turned Sebastian in. I cried and screamed when he told me, knowing that now, the Sebastian I once knew was likely forever gone.
