Green is the Color || Ominis x OC || Hogwarts Legacy

Of Breaking

TW: Abuse, violence, and torture. I marked these parts with "=" if you'd like to skip them.

Sirona Ryan's flat shook and reverberated with snaps of Apparition. The barmaid, who had been leaning back in a chair, jumped when the bedraggled forms of Allegra and Sebastian landed in her kitchen. Sirona gasped and leapt to her feet. Sparks of red lighting were trembling down Allegra's body. Sebastian, stumbling with every step, rushed for her kitchen sink and leaned over it, panting heavily.

"You coward!" Allegra sobbed, struggling to her feet. Sirona dashed forward and pulled the girl up, but she only shoved past her and dove for Sebastian. Allegra fisted her hands into the front of his shirt, smacking him with her palm. "You bloody coward! Why did you run? Why did you leave him there?" She shook him roughly. "Answer me, Sebastian!"

Sebastian grabbed her wrists. "You were getting cursed within an inch of your life!" he roared, making Allegra flinch. "Those wards were going to kill me! It wasn't the time for your stupid Gryffindor bravery!"

"You ran!"

"You wouldn't even fight back!"

For a moment, Sirona thought Allegra and Sebastian were about to get into a fight. A physical, close-fisted fight. But then Allegra started to sob, and Sebastian ran a tired hand down his face.

"We left him!" Allegra's scream brought tears into her eyes, spilling in wet drops down her face. Sebastian's enraged expression softened, twisting into heartbreak and concern. Allegra slapped at his chest. "We can't. We can't just leave him there." She started to sob. "They'll kill him. We've got to go back."

"We will," he breathed. Sebastian took her into an embrace, one that looked like he needed it just as badly as she did. "We will. I promise."

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His hands and feet were bound. His wand was gone. The room he was in was large and looming, stinking of dust and a hazy cloud of dark magic. They hadn't come to get him. They hadn't done anything yet.

But Ominis knew they would eventually.

He braced himself. He wanted to panic, to scream, to run. But it wasn't just the binding spell that was stopping him from leaving: it was the memory of Allegra's screams, playing in a gut-wrenching loop in his ears.

Under the Imperio, Ominis felt as if his soul had been pulled from his body. He could still feel everything. He could feel himself moving, feel Marvolo pulling his body like a puppeteer. Ominis witnessed it all. He felt himself attacking, heard Allegra's pleas for him to stop. He could even hear Sebastian's panicked, frustrated screaming.

And he felt it when dark magic—unfamiliar, but sickeningly natural—poured from his wand.

And he heard it when Allegra screamed.

Please, she'd been sobbing. It's me.

Ominis had never fought so hard in his life. He struggled to pull control of his own body back from his brother's cold, tight grip. Inch by inch, he would regain his senses. Inch by inch, Marvolo took it back.

Somewhere in the distance, a heavy door creaked open. Footsteps, heavy and slamming, boomed across the empty room. Ominis ignored them. He had to focus now. He had to think. He had to brace his mind and his psyche from the torment he knew was coming.

"When you were born," his father's voice began, "we had such high hopes. Our family was going to grow. The Gaunt name was only going to get stronger."

The scent of cigar smoke and his father's tall, icy presence stopped just a foot away from him. "But then you were born blind. That was the first time you disappointed your family, boy, but it was a forgivable disappointment." Fenton began to pace an idle circle around him. "It was forgivable because you were turning out intelligent. You were turning out resourceful. A little mild-mannered, we thought, but nonetheless full of potential. So where did it go wrong, Ominis?"