Return of Sebastian Sallow | 10 Yr After Hogwarts

Chapter 134: Promised Dances

As it turns out, taking in the majority of Isadora's magic into my body for an indeterminate amount of time is not my favorite way to spend an evening. Noted. Not to mention the fact that I don't think anyone from Durmstrang was fooled — not even the freaky-eyed goblins, according to Garreth, who told me they kept mumbling in garbledygook about how they'd have thought a repository so large would have held much more magic than was actually visible to them in our repository just now.

Shit. The level of power surging through me is nearly painful. I didn't anticipate holding it together for this long.

In spite of the fact the tour of the cavern beneath Hogwarts has long since ended, and the warm, harvest glow of the Great Hall should be overwhelming and delighting my senses, I can't shake the sickening feeling of Helvig's scrutiny. His assumptive hands that occasionally slid too comfortably around my forearms, wrists, hands, or waist to guide me around the cavern while whispering his invasive questions. (Unfortunately, the thickly structured layer of my fine, corseted gown's bodice did not provide nearly enough protection from his skin.) His proper, saccharine tone of voice, dripping around my ears like viscous taffy, so much so that its intention was rendered entirely devoid, further cementing my perception of his true, malicious nature. The way his disappointment-turned-rage boiled just beneath the surface of his disingenuous smile and shark eyes when he allowed his underwhelm and confusion to actually settle into his bones upon realizing how little magic the repository actually held. The resulting scheming behind his glazed and predatory gaze.

Maybe Headmistress Weasley and I overdid it. Maybe I shouldn't have absorbed so much of the repository's magic.

Well fuck.

Nearly as unsettling as Helvig's behavior in the repository was Sebastian's. Distant. Quiet. Strange. Avoidant. Such an impossible one-eighty from how he had acted with me this afternoon that I might suspect someone slipped him a potion or charmed him, except that I can't seem to find myself close enough to him to confirm my suspicions. Hell, I can't even seem to get him to look me in the eye. Even here in the Great Hall, he ate hastily and stepped away from the faculty tables as soon as he could. It makes me suspicious. Why wouldn't he stay sitting next to me until the dance begins? And the way he's pacing nervously, avoidantly hugging the walls, dodging speaking with anyone, and awkwardly fiddling with his hair – maybe it's because of the shorter length?

Ugh. It all makes me nervous. Something is not right.

But it's hard to focus on anything except for the fact that my head is throbbing, painful with the consequences of taking on Isadora's disembodied pain. My fingers are tingling and irritated as if I'd just been handling a hot pepper for too long, swollen with too much power. My eyes feel raw, watery and dry at the same time. My stomach is rumbling, but with something much more sinister than hunger. Yet, I smile as if nothing were the matter. I have to.

To the right of me at the end of the faculty tables, Garreth Weasley's latest rousing story ends with a punchline, causing Anne to chuckle through her exasperated weakness and Thiago to burst into a jovial laugh. It gives me a brief respite too, though the magic in my gut twists with a cramp as if to say 'how dare you attempt to forget me, you child.'

I'm relieved my old friend Garreth is here, given Sebastian's avoidance, Sharpie's and Headmistress Weasley's preoccupation with our Durmstrang guests, and the fact that Ominis seems to have mysteriously disappeared somewhere. The way Gare and Thiago have gone back and forth since leaving the repository – two absolute peas in a pod – has provided a necessary distraction to the thrumming of excess magic in my blood, but the magic is not happy to be ignored. It feels so heavy.