Run Away ✧ Hogwarts Legacy

chapter nineteen

Thanks fr th Mmrs (Cover) by The Maine

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Trigger Warning: This chapter includes sensitive content - please see the comment for a full description of the content.

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It stormed all morning.

If love can outshine the rainiest of days, then it will be strong enough to last many lifetimes. That was something that Antheia's mother had told her once. Or maybe she read it in a book long ago. It didn't matter. She heard it and liked it, so she decided it must have been true, and that her mother must have been the one to tell her something so poetic. She'd always been the true romantic. But that morning, for the first time, she prayed that saying was wrong.

She mumbled a little prayer that the sun would shine by the end of the day. Not that she had been religious, but it felt like an appropriate action while being in a church.

Neither the bride nor the groom took the storm as a good omen for their future together on the day of the wedding. They entered the church early that morning with the thunder crashing behind their backs, and unprepared. Antheia stood in the bridal suite as a troop of women worked on making Lyra Black as beautiful as the tales told of her, although it hadn't required much work. The bride looked like a porcelain doll. Her face was flawless, like she had been carved of stone. But her stoic beauty was soured by her eyes.

The fog of the curse covered her eyes in place of a veil.

Antheia eyed the quartz stone, heavily weighing down the bride's hand from across the room. None of the women spoke to her all morning. Most decided to pretend that she had not been there. She didn't blame them; she was an outsider to everyone in that room and, in her own opinion, did not make the preferred bridesmaid. She was a lazy helping hand among the others. Poor at doing others' makeup. And the only one that clearly did not support the marriage.

But Lyra Black's foggy eyes looked past everyone else that morning and back at her through the mirror, which sent a shiver down her spine.

The ticking of the clock made her feel ill. The guests should be arriving, and she should be leaving. Every second counted more than the one before.

Antheia quietly slipped out into the hallway as the women worked. She needed fresh air, but found company. "How's our groom?"

There was a roofed space just outside the wedding suites. The rain pounded hard against the bricks as she joined Sebastian Sallow on the only dry bench, careful not to stain the red silk dress provided to her by the Black Family, then she lazily tossed her head against his shoulder. His head tucked her into place against his ear.

"Ominis is dwelling as expected," Sebastian sighed. "Marvolo and the rest of the family arrived a few minutes ago. He locked himself into the suite since."

"They're all here now? The Blacks, too?"

Sebastian nodded his head against hers.

She should have gotten up and left then, but her body wanted to stay just a bit longer. A second to savor the moment before she'd leave for the manor.

Antheia wasn't sure what Sebastian had been doing outside in the rain until she sat down, then she noticed them. The little blue flowers with petals like moose ears were pushing through the cracks in the bricks. "Forget-me-nots?"