"The professor and I froze, unable to move or speak yet sharing a solemn understanding. We discovered something we did not even realize we were searching for: An Ancient Magic wielder."
Eight years after the events of the repository, Sebastian Sallo...
"Here goes nothing," I mumbled to myself as I dipped my quill into the inkwell.
I had just bid my parents 'adieu' after hosting them for Christmas Eve dinner. I sat at my desk in my London apartment, writing my annual Christmas letter to Sebastian. I wanted to send his letter and gift off to the Auror Office as soon as possible.
Merry Christmas Seb,
I used his old nickname, hoping perhaps it would strike the mood for him to return my damned letters. It had been three years, and each year that passed without a letter from him was like a knife to the heart.
Perhaps he was just really busy. Or, perhaps, the Auror Office was not forwarding his mail. Perhaps he got married and started a family of his own, leaving little time to write to old classmates.
It was strangely unsettling, the thought of Sebastian with a wife and children. There was a time I had my own little schoolgirl crush on him, and I had dreamed that it would be me who took the last name 'Sallow' and bore his children. My cheeks flushed with heat at the thought.
A silly little infatuation, really.
If he did meet someone and settle down, I would be happy for him. It meant he would at least have someone to spend the holidays with.
Ominis rarely heard from him, and even then, it was only ever in sporadic letters. The comfort I felt knowing he kept in touch with Ominis was always overshadowed by a tincture of bitterness. Why did he have the time to write to Ominis and not to me?
I had barely started to write the first line when I heard the familiar CRACK of a late-night visitor apparating into my residence.
I stiffened in my seat, worried a single move would rouse the intruder. My right hand made for my wand, which I always kept within arm's reach.
Before I could grasp it, a pair of soft hands covered my eyes from behind. I was immediately overwhelmed by his scent of pepper and bourbon.
"Guess who, mon amour."
If his hands and scent did not give him away, his thick French accent certainly did.
"Hmm," I hummed playfully while not feeling particularly playful. All I could think about was finishing my letter to Sebastian. When he removed his hands from my eyes, I looked down to find that he had caused me to scrawl ink across the parchment.
Brilliant.
"You're home a day early," I noted. "Was your trip cut short?"
When I turned to face him, I was puzzled to find that my lover was dressed more for a dinner party than a mission for the French Auror Office.
Ren wore a black three-piece suit, complete with a silver rendering of his family sigil pinned to his green puff tie. His long black hair was slicked back under a bowler cap. His green eyes were glossy and bloodshot, as they always were when he had been drinking.
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