Sebastian Sallow Fucking Sucks

Chapter Six

[Author's Note:]

Let's talk about how I went completely off the rails and wrote a crazy subplot (can you tell I don't outline lol). Then realized hey wait that is a massive hole I'm writing myself into and maybe I shouldn't do that. But I loved what I wrote so I am saving it for later. So THEN I had to write a whole new second half of this chapter. Still left hints of this subplot in here to doom myself with later because why not?

Hope you enjoy!!

***

He didn't immediately ask for his reward. We kept our distance from each other in class, in the halls, like we had been. He didn't show up in the Ravenclaw common room, and I didn't hover in a darkened corner of the Undercroft to murder him.

"The champion returned," they were describing our duel. Like he was some Muggle god.

I could only hex so many people calling after me with leering comments before a professor noticed. I couldn't even seek solace in a semi-decent meal in the Great Hall. Every time I sat at the Ravenclaw table, I'd find students of all years calculating how I gripped my utensils. I resorted to stacking my books around me like a fort.

My grades were slipping. I was distracted, stressed, fighting goblins nightly to balance my unchecked rage, but it wasn't helping. It was battering me down, solidifying my fears that I was nowhere near a strong enough witch to accomplish what was expected of me.

Natty had attempted to console me. That being a sore loser was acceptable as long as it was a healthy amount. The problem was I only knew absolutes. All or nothing. And I'd been consumed.

I fucking hated Sebastian Sallow.

I imagined hundreds of ways to feed him to spiders, toss him off cliffs, gift him to the giant squid in the Black Lake. But none of it was good enough. He needed to see how much I despised him. He needed to despise me equally so. More so. I wanted to see pure fire burning in his gaze when he met my eyes. Then maybe I'd feel better. Maybe.

It was when I received an owl at nearly one in the morning, that familiar messy penmanship making the hairs on my arms raise, that I knew he was coming to collect. He requested I meet him at the staircase overlooking the library entrance, the same place he'd taught me the disillusionment charm what felt like years ago.

I almost didn't go, but I'd be avoiding the inevitable. So with as much dignity as I could manage, I made my way through the castle. Prefects drifted in and out of the halls, but they were easy to dodge.

Sebastian leaned back against the railing, his legs crossed. Only two sconces flickered in the stairwell, and shadows cloaked him reminiscent of the Scriptorium.

My palms dampened instantly.

Please don't fall down the stairs in front of him...

"I'm here." I held up my arms.

"Yes, you are." He grinned, slow and sharp, showing all his teeth.

"What do you want?"

"I wanted to see if you'd show up if I asked."

"Are you serious?"

He pushed off the railing, standing tall and cocky. "I'm always serious."

"Did you really owl me in the middle of the night to gloat?" I turned to leave when he whirled me back around.

"I wanted to show you something."

"Is it my fist hitting your face?"

He chuckled. "If I had known what a sore loser you were, I would have challenged you to a rematch sooner. Bloody Ravenclaws."