Under Your Scars || Sebastian Sallow x MC

Flashback - Five Years Earlier

Carry me under, leave me abandoned

Show me what's left, show me what's left

Never Again

-Breaking Benjamin

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Juliette POV

December 1894

Dearest Sebastian,

I hope this letter finds you well, and that you are learning something out in Kerry. I also hope it is not too overwhelming, getting back into the Programme so soon after coming back from leave. It has been a rough week since you left, which I suppose brings me to the point of this letter.

I am writing because I wanted you to hear it from me first that I am leaving the Auror Programme. As I've mentioned before, the men here really get to me sometimes (besides you, of course) and I have been feeling like this may not be the right fit for me. I finally made up my mind.

We were only 16 when we decided we wanted to spend the rest of our lives catching Dark Wizards. I think I still was too close to it all, so fired up and ready for revenge against the Dark Wizards that hurt you, me, Anne, Fig. The list was so long, and I was just so... angry. Since that fire has died down, it just has not felt like a path I would want to stay on long-term.

Don't you worry too much, though. I have taken an offer from the Ministry to do curse-breaking work for Gringotts. Mr. McClaggan recommended me highly for the position, and I think it will be a good change of pace for me. Curse-breakers get to see the world. Perhaps I will also get to use my gifts for something other than destruction.

Now is also as good a time as any to tell you I will not be home for Christmas this year. I will be on my first assignment for Gringotts, in BRAZIL! Can you believe it?! I am thrilled, but also quite nervous. It will be my first Christmas without my family, you, Ominis... It will be a lot. Ominis and Poppy are still out of the country doing Merlin-knows-what, so it seems that it will be up to you and my darling parents to keep Christmas this year.

Something else...  Losing Anne has been hard on all of us, and I have seen the extraordinary toll it has taken on you, mon cœur. I do hope you do not make a habit of distancing yourself from us (Before you try and deny it, do know that I refuse to believe your leaving the country so soon after the funeral is pure coincidence). I do not want you to spend Christmas alone, rattling around the Sallow estate, so I hope you do try to make your way back to London. My mother will need someone to eat all that cassoulet, after all!

I will miss you dearly, Sebastian. I will write to you when I arrive in South America, so you know where to write to me. I will be back in the country just after the New Year. If I do not see you then, I will move mountains to ensure I can see you for your birthday.

Yours truly,

Jules

I stowed my quill in the nearly-empty inkwell, as satisfied as I could be with my letter to Sebastian. The fire beneath the mantle had faded to embers - my rejected, crumpled balls of parchment no longer keeping it fed.

Dread loomed above me like a cloud, unsure if this was the proper way to tell him, but he left me no choice. Sebastian had been a shell of his former self since the funeral. He stayed to his room at his family home, most days, only emerging to eat and attend whatever Auror training had been assigned to him. I could not blame him. 

Losing Anne broke him. It broke us both.

It was for that reason that abandoning him felt like twisting that imaginary knife he was always stabbing himself with.

Still, I needed to leave.

For me. For my own sanity.

I had been honest with Sebastian about the hostile environment of the Auror Programme, being one of the only women around, and the youngest woman, at that. It did not seem like a place a witch could survive long-term, or at least a witch like me.

Sebastian had defended me valiantly, but I still could not escape the stigma of being a young, muggle-born witch. It had also reached most of my colleagues that I had only just begun my magical education a handful of years ago, and it did not sit right with them. 

It was so fucking unfair. Every day I endured their taunts and lewd comments, knowing that I could flatten every last one of them if I wanted to. I restrained myself, dressed in loose clothing and tended to every menial task requested of me. I told myself it was for the better, as I could never reveal my ability within the Ministry. It would spell horror for me. 

A solitary lifestyle as a curse-breaker sounded like it would suit me better. I would be free to use my Ancient Magic, and everyone around me would be safer. I could not save everyone, and I needed to learn that before I died trying.

Never again will I put myself in a position to lose anyone. I vow to myself here and now, that Anne will be the last person I lose.

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The first of many unanswered letters sent to Sebastian by Juliette at the start of the 5-year rift. We are slowly but surely making our way back to the present. 

Also a little Brazil easter egg, dedicated to Ms Costa (the bloody brilliant author of Timeless) whose support keeps me inspired and motivated to continue this story <3