Run Away ✧ Hogwarts Legacy

*chapter ten

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Mature Content Warning

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Everything seemed to change overnight and yet nothing meaningful changed at all. The nights grew long and dark into the winter months when the first hints of snow kissed the ground, the days were bitterly cold. Everyone had accepted the new truth of the situation, and while there was comfort in understanding what happened on that dread day, no one had a solution on how to set things straight to how they should have been. Or where to go next.

Everyone was quietly waiting on their own signs of what to do. Each day going through their same routines waiting for something unknown to come.

The only concern that evening had been Sebastian Sallow's horrible awful bad ideas.

"This is your worst idea yet," Antheia groaned from her desk. It was an hour past the time that they should have headed home by then, yet Sebastian had an idea that kept him working long after everyone had cleared the office.

This was the couple's latest routine. Long hours at work discussing the topic. Hoping one or the other would change their mind.

Antheia sat scribbling away mindlessly at a piece of paper and alternating between that and chewing at the cap of the fountain pen as she waited.

"It isn't ideal, even I can admit to that," Sebastian rebutted, his voice remaining low on the topic for lurking ears. "Although it might be able to tell us more if we had a working amplifier in our possession." He explained as he poked endlessly at the broken remains of the relic at his desk.

She glanced over at the dead, shattered relic as she considered the suggestion. Any traces of Ancient Magic had been long gone.

"If you want my honest opinion," She sighed, "I think we should go home to talk about the risk of creating another amplifier, so the sole purpose of being able to destroy said amplifier. There are too many people at the Ministry that might hear us." The words came out as a bite, mostly because each night was becoming longer at work since he had the foolish idea.

Sebastian glanced up at her before continuing to work regardless.

"It's been nearly two hours, let's go home already."

"You won't talk about it once we get home," Sebastian correctly pointed out, "That's what you've done for the past two weeks since I brought it up."

Antheia chewed aggressively on the cap of the pen because she had nothing to say back. He was right. That had been her plan to lure him out of the office and home.

All she wanted was for both of them to go home to their home. To their bed.

Amplifiers were the last thing that she had wanted to think about. The cruel memories of how painful they blistered her skin, the surge of power that made her feel close to death's door, and mostly, she didn't want to think about the missing one that she may be bonded to. She wasn't sure how to undo the connection between her and Desmond Esper, but creating another amplifier to figure out how was not her first choice to approach the solution.

It had been a while since his reappearance, although none had heard from him since. The evening discussion with Ominis had managed to go unnoticed by the Ministry and there were no credible reports since.

None of them reported any new details on the files. Especially not the information regarding his crow form as they unanimously decided that it mostly benefited them.

"Making more amplifiers seems like a counter-productive method for destroying them," Antheia argued, "Besides, even if I wanted to, I'm not even sure how to create one. There are just a lot of issues that go into this. It would be more beneficial to find the living one that we already know about."