"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...
I had anvils for feet as I trudged step by step up the spiral staircase to the Headmistress's office. The bloody thing was making me even more dizzy than I already was, but my body was rejecting the trip for a variety of reasons.
I had not been up here since Rosalie's second trial... with Juliette...
I couldn't believe she was gone, or rather that is what I kept telling myself. If I were being honest, it was quite believable.
I could feel her pulling away the entire week after Christmas. She became so fixated on her nightmares that she barely looked at me, let alone touched me. All week she rejected my attempts to calm her, shrugged off every kiss to her neck, peeled my wandering hands from her perfect body. I was only trying to give her a break from her pursuit of answers, but she was having none of it. Each time, she cited her need to find more answers before she left on New Years,
Now I knew the real reason why.
She was always planning to leave me. I couldn't blame her. A woman like her obviously could not be free to spend a lifetime with me. She never even told me she loved me. Yet, I carried that stupid ring in my pocket all week, like a bloody fool, waiting for the perfect, romantic moment to ask her to marry me. She would be mine. After which, we would move into the Sallow Estate together. She would bear my children, and they would grow up to be students of mine, in time.
It was too good to be true, a fantasy.
My hand hovered over the doorknob, stretching out the moment for as long as I could before I opened the door.
On this side, I was still a professor. I was still her professor.
Once the door opened, I would be forced acknowledge that I was not hers anymore, that I had fallen off the wagon. Everything I built here would be stripped away from me.
I turned the knob and pushed the door open, expecting to find a very disappointed Matilda Weasley on the other side.
Well, I did, but I also found someone I never thought I would see again.
He was facing away from me, hands in his pockets and his face obscured by the high collar of his trench coat.
But I would recognize that mop of blonde hair anywhere.
He turned at my approach, and I was met with his gentle, pale eyes. Something familiar flickered in them: recognition and relief, with a hint of pity. It was the same look Juliette had when we sat on a bench together and I poured out my heart to her as the sun crested over the horizon and Rose completed her first trial. It was the day I kissed her for the first time.
"Officer Sallow, or rather, Professor Sallow." he corrected himself as he extended his hand to me.
I stood in the doorway, frozen and confused, my mind still half in the past. At least I mustered enough sense to raise my hand to meet his.
"Director McClaggan," I muttered and nodded in reverence as I shook his hand. Like Juliette before him, he used his grip on my hand to pull me into an embrace.
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
