Sins of the Father | Sebastian x OFC (Caroline Rookwood) | Ominis x Garreth

Chapter 65: Who I Can Be

CW:

N/A

Notes:

Last time, we left Caroline finding a balance on how to fight for her wants and coming to an understanding of who her brother and father are (and what they have done to protect what they love). We followed Sebastian as he dueled Anne and remembered Solomon's final moments again. And we saw how he's begun to accept what's happened and face himself again.

And now, without further ado:

"High on a hill..."

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Ominis

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Ominis had never failed to feel the burden of being attached to the House of Gaunt, especially when he sat surrounded by its walls and grounds in the dead of night. Silence, however abundant it was, had no place in the House of Gaunt. Though the walls bore no portraits, and their family were few, the walls and shadows held rustles of tales passed from generation to generation.

It was almost Lammas — a celebrated day to break bread with family and tell tales of the bounty and blessings passed down to them. While it was some comfort that Merope Carrow had not been given the privilege to dine with them that weekend, Ominis could not dwell on such a small consolation.

Because while there were few spaces he could find reprieve from her in the musty and gloomy manor, her presence had seeped through the walls and crevices. The scent of roses among the stale pots and vases of gardenias followed everywhere Ominis went, and the titter of her laugh could be heard echoing through the walls— joined mostly by his brother's.

It was on one such night after dinner that Ominis found a moment of respite from her looming presence sequestered away in the Gaunt family library. If there was one place Ominis hated more in his family's home, it was the library, with its family tree carved along the walls that stretched far beyond the shelves of leather-bound books and crept past the window frames. It was, however, the one place Merope Carrow had not been allowed to enter. For the Gaunt secrets locked away behind the large yew doors were for those considered family after all.

Despite feeling so small, he sat, beneath the wood carved with Aunt Noctua's name, his brows furrowing as he flipped through the pages of an old book. Lies— he thought, the blip and thrum of his wand running across the passage he read that muggles were riddled with disease and a blight on wizardkind. They were true once— when he had been but a small child, ignorant and afraid of the world— before his aunt had come to read him her stories.

"A library, how original," came the grating voice and sickly sweet smell of roses from beyond the door.

His fingers paused along the edge of his book as disdain and incredulity began to crawl up his spine. She had, on more than one occasion, stopped before the doors night after night he was here. But upon a few seconds of quiet, she would shift and scoff away back down the corridor at the call of Marvolo's voice.

He should not worry, not bother with the thought that she might come to cross the threshold of his current sanctuary (however dreadful it was to be surrounded by the Gaunt family values).

But his fingers nearly tore and crumpled the page in his hand when Merope did not move away, and Marvolo's voice spoke beside her— smooth as silk and dark as sin.

"I thought you wanted to be family."

The creak of the doors opened, and the scent of roses and amber began to waft through the high shelves. Ominis stiffened and held his breath at the sound of footsteps.