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libellule-ao3 · 4 months

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The Snake's Duality

🔞 | One-Shot | 2 049 words

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Summary: Sebastian has just been released from Azkaban after more than three years in prison. 1 223 days to be exact.

His first instinct is to find Ominis, whose weekly letters rekinkled in extremis his desire to live, drained by the dementors, and he realise that a shadow reeking of malevolence is following him like a shadow.

Relationships: Ominis Gaunt/Sebastian Sallow => Friendship/love

⚠️ This story is rated 🔞. It contains graphic descriptions of violence & torture (Cruciatus curse, torture method inspired by lingchi, also known as "death by a thousand cuts", etc.), dark themes that may be disturbing to some readers.

Dark!Sebastian deserves his own warning: ⚠️

tags: ambiguous relationships, dark drama, sebinis, gauntlow, Sebastian is so protective he's dark, if that makes sense, POV Sebastian, Ominis Gaunt's father mentioned

Masterlist

Sebastian's wand whips through the air and an orange flash of magic strikes this bastard full force, his legs collapsing as if made of jelly. Then ropes spring from the end of his wand and bind him tightly. Sebastian glances furtively towards the entrance to this dark cul-de-sac that leads into Knockturn Alley, barely lit by the yellowish streetlamps that turn onlookers into shadowy silhouettes. None of them notice them. Proof of the effectiveness of his magical protection. Then, with unhealthy glee, the wizard watches the agony and contained rage wring his prisoner's bruised face.

This guy should have known better than to bother Ominis Gaunt.

An unbearable image of his oldest friend being followed down Diagon Alley by that dark wizard flashes through his agitated mind. He saw Ominis' haunted eyes again, tense with the anguish of feeling spied on, stalked like a beast. Unable to bear the situation any longer, the blind wizard probed his immediate surroundings with his echolocation magic and flushed out this invisible predator. For a moment, hope lit up his face as he muttered the name "Sebastian", before fading away as he realized that the man following him was not the one he had hoped for. The stunning spell he cast missed its target but offered him the opportunity to flee into a dark vortex of transport magic without being followed.

Sebastian clenches his fist around his aspen wand as it whips through the air again, letting the anger of this image perforate every nerve ending nestled in his target's tender flesh, like a thousand incandescent needles. Screams more excruciating than those of a prisoner tasting a dementor's kiss tear through the night and pierce the hermetic bubble of magic surrounding them.

"What did you intend to do? Why were you following him?" growls Sebastian for the third time.

Part of him doesn't give a damn about his motives, which he guesses effortlessly, but another, far more fearsome part yearns for them. Sebastian needs to hear the aims of this nuisance, so that they fuel his hatred even more. So that they give this destructive feeling a solid reason to exist!

"I don't know what you're talking about," replies his prisoner, denying any involvement in malicious schemes.

Sebastian's freckled face cracks into that boyish grin that makes some people want to kiss him, and others want to uppercut him. The anticipated pleasure of breaking through that resistance spreads like an oil slick through every cell of his being.

"Don't take me for a moron. Did you think you were being discreet? You've been following him around for at least a week. At work, on walks, at the opera... everywhere!"

Sebastian knows all about it. On his release from Azkaban, his first instinct was to find Ominis, whose weekly letters rekindled, in extremis, his desire to live, dried up by the dementors, and he realised that a shadow reeking of malevolence was following him like a shadow.

First flaw. The man turns deathly pale as he realizes the implications of his words..

“What do you want with him? Who sent you?" insists Sebastian.

The prisoner's stubborn silence is broken by a succession of cracking bones, then by the inhuman-sounding howls that emerge from his throat. This guy doesn't know that the sharp pain of fractures is nothing compared to the pain of their healing - the paradox of a pain as sharp as it is stabbing brought to a climax. That's why the bone-healing potion is always accompanied by powerful analgesics, of which this bastard will of course be deprived.

The nobility of his cause legitimizes all the dark, unhealthy tendencies of a sorcerer overtaxed by years of imprisonment in Azkaban and who has only managed to preserve a few remnants of benevolence from the dementors.

Sebastian grabs hold of his captive's hair, pulls his head back and shoves the vile contents of a vial of Skel-gro into his mouth. He then rubs his throat to force the swallowing reflex, keeping his mouth closed as he would with a small, recalcitrant animal.

Then he waits patiently for the potion to work on his broken skeleton. Beneath the skin, the bones realign, then re-solder. Inconvenienced by the unpleasant noise, Sebastian winces, without looking away.

The man is tough. Despite the excruciating pain, he still finds the courage to spit in his face.

"How could you know I was spying on him if you weren't spying on me? Me, I'm acting on the orders of a powerful person, but you... Look at yourself, boy! You're just another maniac on the streets of London..."

A punch shatters the man's jaw.

"It was Charon* Gaunt who commissioned you, wasn't it? Why? What does he want with Ominis?"

The man spews unintelligible insults and spits out a molar amid bloody mucus. Right on Sebastian's shoes!

The Gaunt name sends shivers down everyone's spine. It's a name synonymous with mysterious disappearances, Dark Arts and atrocities beyond imagination. The head of this family, Charon Gaunt, is a cold, ruthless man. The king of pure-blooded wizards and the dark arts. The one no one dares defy. Except his own son, Ominis, whom Charon wants at his command... And by extension, Sebastian Sallow.

"What did the dead man on probation say?" asks Sebastian, lifting his prisoner's chin with the luminescent end of his wand.

If Sebastian wasn't there, this guy would have hurt Ominis. Too bad for this guy, now that the gates of Azkaban have opened on his freedom, the wizard will always be there. And like all those who tried to hinder the well-being of his loved ones, this man will die under his wand.

But this one is a privileged one who will receive special treatment.

An invisible fire devours the prisoner's clothes with a crackle of sparks, then a severing charm sharper than a scalpel incises his naked body. Then another... The cuts are clean, precise. Superficial. His hand doesn't tremble, the fruit of inflexible determination. The blood beads, then trickles, creating a crimson lace against the pale skin.

At first, the man threatens, curses, promises a thousand abuses in retaliation for standing in the Gaunts' glorious way. But nothing works. As the incisions follow one another, relentless, his pride disintegrates and fear seeps through his bloody wounds.

The wizard doesn't stop as this henchman pisses piteously on himself, mingling the acrid smell of his urine with that of hemoglobin. His bloody agony feeds the relentless monster that consumes every cell of Sebastian Sallow.

Impotence now overwhelms the bastard, smothering his last glimmer of hope. He begins to beg for mercy through his tears, his nose full of snot. This predictable change of attitude stretches Sebastian's lips into a sinister smile. Let him take it out on himself and face the consequences of his actions with dignity, as Sebastian has done by facing each day for three long years. It was his punishment for killing Uncle Salomon, driven by rage against an intransigent authority figure who had dashed all his hopes of curing his sick sister. A man devoid of any understanding when it came to his rebellious nephew.

When he's finished, the guy is unrecognizable, bloodless, lying on the cobblestones draped in his own blood. Inert. Death has reaped him. Or rather, it has ripped his life from him, shred by shred, without anesthetic.

Sebastian turns away from his abominable creation, cleans his soiled shoes with a spell and brings the tip of his wand up to his own temple. Then he gently pulls it apart to extract a luminescent trickle of the last few hours' memories, which the sorcerer deposits in a vial destined for the Gaunt household. A warning that Charon Gaunt could fully appreciate in the Hogwarts pensine, providing him with a pretext to invite himself between the asses of the Headmaster, Phineas Black, unbeknownst to their respective wives.

Most people would probably feel guilt or disgust after torturing this man the way he just did, but Sebastian feels nothing. Or rather, he simplifies things by choosing to feel nothing.

Nothing except relief.

The wizard sighs, his chest lighter with the disappearance of this threat. Ominis is much safer now that Sebastian has annihilated him. And that's all that matters.

Although a reunion is impossible due to a soul too dark, intoxicated by the blackness of Azkaban, the wizard makes sure no one harms the only lingering light in his dull, dreary world. Not even him!

This scum deserves no burial, so Sebastian makes the body disappear into nothingness and leaves the scene.

He reappears on the outskirts of a modest residence, in the heart of a large clearing, surrounded by tall trees. Powerful protective spells surround the building, but they have never hindered Sebastian's incursions as he wraps this cocoon in his own magical shields. From the edge of the adjoining wood, he watches the room glow with a warm light and Ominis' silhouette, against the light, stops in front of the window, his face pressed against the glass and his blind gaze fixed on him.

It's as if he knows...

The thought fills him with emotion and his throat knots.

How long can Sebastian watch him live before desire consumes him? Every day, the wizard must fight against the intense need to find him again, which eats away at his every rational thought.

Forcing these impulses to recede before they take root, he looks up at the stars hanging from the velvet of the night, lingering on the gibbous moon slowly gliding across the sky. Then he turns his attention back to the house, where all the lights are now out.

Taking a few steps towards the building, he almost gives in to the urge to sneak inside, but as always, he clenches his fists to prevent himself from joining in and contaminating him with this gnawing darkness. It takes a Herculean effort!

Ominis is pure and vibrant, even though his family has long since stripped him of his innocence. Sebastian's darkness could dull his light, suffocate him... and that reminder alone keeps him away, but never too far. He remains in the shadow of Ominis Gaunt.

It's the only place where the sorcerer can be himself without harming him.

With a flick of his wand, he wraps himself in a veil of magic to conceal his presence and approaches his bedroom window, plunged in half-light. Moonlight caresses his sleeping figure. His gaze wanders over his pale face, where long black eyelashes spread like crescent moons over his prominent cheekbones. His lips, pink and dry from nervous nibbling, are parted in sleep. Looking at him like that, you'd think he was an angel. Sebastian doesn't know how much longer he stays watching Ominis Gaunt, looking at his forehead wrinkle in thought. He turns onto his other side, his back to Sebastian. The position reminds him of the time long ago when they slept together, curled up in the same bed at Uncle Solomon's, nestled innocently together like two spoons.

Every cell, every atom, in Sebastian is drawn towards his latest friend, and when he can't bear the tension any longer, when the pain in his chest becomes too overwhelming, he gently places his hand on the cold glass and steps aside. Even when everything inside him is screaming to satisfy his instincts.

It's a torture he submits himself to almost every night.

Ever since his dear sister died without having forgiven him for killing their uncle, his affection for Ominis Gaunt is the last good thing left in his life. So Sebastian will never again cause him the slightest grief by involving him in his criminal sins. Because if he ever did, he would lose Ominis forever - in the same way as if he let his sinister family target him. Then there would be no light left in Sebastian and darkness would engulf his whole soul.

Without a sound, the wizard leaves. Each step heavier than the last.

His best friend deserves a peaceful life, the carefree existence he's always been deprived of.

For that, someone has to protect him from the malevolent family he can't see. Wizards who won't bow to reason, let alone morality. Only to an implacable power that outclasses them.

And who better than Sebastian to fight evil with evil?

A/N: Charon was the ferryman of the Underworld in Greek mythology, so he's linked to the passage from one state to another. Considering that in my HC, the birth of Ominis' father marks the decline of the Gaunt family, this name is almost metaphorical, hence my choice of naming him so.

Thank you for reading!

#hogwarts legacy #sebastian sallow #ominis gaunt #sebinis #gauntlow #sebastian x ominis #hogwarts legacy fanfiction #🔞#dark sebastian sallow #Dark drama #Pov sebastian

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