The Sallow Twins
Sebastian
Feldcroft, Late August, 1893.
Curls of steams slink over the bathtub's lid. The heady aroma of wisterias reels Sebastian Sallow out of his daze.
He blinks once, twice, and his mother's warmth winnows away.
The washroom's air is thick with moisture. The wooden floorboards drink the flood water avidly.
With an irritated sigh, Sebastian dispels the Everstream Chalice and catches it before it falls to the floor.
Beneath a blanket of mist, his twin sister, Anne, sleeps soundly. She must've dozed off as he hummed the lullaby their mother used to sing:
Under the willow, where thrushes peep;
I will lay your heart to sleep.
Under the elm, where dreams take flight;
I will guard you through the night.
In this enchanted, moonlit glen;
Rest, my loves, till morn again.
Has he been gone for long?
His mouth is pasty with thirst, his mind, cottony with confusion.
Again, Malisect warped his sense of time despite Garreth Weasley's promises. The red-head's words swim up Sebastian's mind.
Some memories are more worthwhile than others, wouldn't you agree? What's sacrificing the gestation period of the Thestrals for another taste of your first kiss?
It isn't his first kiss, Sebastian revisits over and over again. It's the feeling of his mother's arms around his shoulders as they rode the carriage back from Hogsmeade.
Under the grip of Malisect, he can smell the dust sidling through the heap of books his mother hoarded in the compartment, he can sense the calidity of the summer dusk tease a lash of sweat on his nape, he can breathe the Plumeria and orange blossom fragrance of the oil his mother rubs into her hair, he can feel her heart pulse steadily against the boning of her corset.
She is alive.
Her scent grows, her warmth eddies, her research rattles in the compartment with each tremor of the wheel.
In this version of reality, she still has a future, no matter how immediate and limited it is.
It is so easy to sacrifice your own to give the dead a moment of respite from the permanent stillness.
Maybe his mother, too, can revisit these moments when he does.
The swirls of mist clear little by little, and Sebastian looks at his sister.
Anne's hair tendrils around her face; strands of golden brown locks that make her look every bit like an angel. Beneath the water, her lithe frame is immobile, frozen in time.
Sebastian hikes on his knees without a care for the damp circles the water-logged planks leave on his trousers.
She is beautiful in the clutch of slumber.
She is free.
No blustering pain, no spiny curse gnawing its way into her navel or noosing around her neck.
She is like a princess of yore, locked in her glass coffin, and perhaps Sebastian should award her this small mercy.
He palms his wand; the tip stopping inches away from the steaming surface.
"Ava—"
The incantation calcifies in his throat.
He has to mean it; he knows.
How many vials of Malisect would he need to swallow to relive moments with her if she was gone?
Weasley would have to slave in the potion's class for the brunt of his life if he hoped to satiate Sebastian's cravings.
No.
Anne needs to live.
And full of life she is, despite her peaceful inertia.
From where he stands, Sebastian can make the soft veer of her chest, the tiny ripples it sends along the surface, the whorls of steam she pushes away with her breath.
He lets his eyes wander to the slants and valleys of her body, to the pit of her sharp collarbone, constellated with freckles, the outline of her small, flecked breasts, the pinkish blooms of her nipples, and he stops his course there, wondering if any boy has rolled them between his fingers or sucked them between his lips.
Heart caroming against his ribs, Sebastian ventures a look across the white, silky expanse of her abdomen. His gaze beaches, for a while, on the reef of her hip. It catches in the nest of curls between her thighs, and his mind teems with images that aren't his to conjure.
He imagines a faceless boy dragging his thumb against her navel, then drawing circles in the crux of her hip, bound ever lower until he lands where the heat simmers. A finger slips inside, and the boy feeds her knuckles until her breath hitches. Then he pushes some more, wearing her tattered while her nails dig away into his back.
A loud thud resounds outside, and ripples churn the vision away. Sebastian gasps out of his trance as Anne startles awake.
"The towel," she says, panic bleeding through her eyes. She stands and Sebastian wraps it around her, rubbing her shoulders with his hands. "Sebastian…"
"What?"
Her eyes ream with white. "Leave. Now. Before uncle Solomon sees you."
Sighing, he grabs his wand and scrambles for his empty vials of Malisect before stuffing them into his pockets, then throws the door open. The mildewed air of the cottage claws its way into his throat.
Solomon is in the garden, wrestling with the water pump, and judging by the ruckus, he is in a despicable mood.
A single apple rests on the chopping block, its skin flecked with bruises. Sebastian cuts it in quarters, then sets it on a plate. In a cupboard, amidst a colony of breadcrumbs, he finds a dusty preserves jar of beets; wrapped in a linen rag, spoils a wedge of hard cheese. All of it, Sebastian arranges in a miserly pantomime of a dinner.
Soon, his last school year at Hogwarts will begin.
Soon, he'll be able to treat his sister to a proper meal, but for now, it'll have to do.
When Anne joins him in the kitchen, he is sitting at the table, before the silverware his parents used to dust for the Yule feast, the one his uncle Solomon still hasn't sold for a handful of Galleons.
He will soon enough, Sebastian knows it. His uncle has appraised most of his parents' heirlooms.
Anne gives a surprised smile. "What's all this for?"
Sebastian shrugs. "Can't say I never did anything nice for you."
A brow hikes up her forehead. "Practicing your good deeds for the House cup, brother?"
"The House cup is for star-eyed first years. I've long outgrown this childish competition."
Anne sits at the table, a smirk etched on her chin. "Have you outgrown Quidditch, too? I sure would enjoy to be spared from your whining every time Slytherin takes a bashing."
"Don't you get it, Anne?" He asks with a feigned offense. "I have to pretend like I care about Quidditch. Finding common interests is how you make friends, and having friends is like… Well… I guess it means you're a likeable person."
"Sure, Sebastian."
He says nothing else, careful not to err too close to all the things she misses so painfully.
She eats in silence, her gaze set on an invisible point in front of her. Through the fabric of her slip, Sebastian spies the shape of her breasts.
Will she ever know the youthful thrills he has?
Staying out past curfew, the lick of rebellion curling up your spine? Drinking until the walls shiver and the stars dip and the ground soars to meet you? Sliding your tongue past someone's lips to taste the sweetness of young love and feel like the world has stopped to take a breath?
The door swings open and Solomon drops a bundle of firewood next to the entryway with a groan.
His coal-black eyes hook on Sebastian, basting through each of his sutures in search of malice.
Sebastian raises a brow. "Need a hand?"
"Shouldn't you be on your way to Hogwarts?" Solomon asks curtly. "It's a long way on foot. You'll miss your ceremony."
"I've attended seven already. They're always the same."
"I heard there's a new student," Anne says. "An eighth year."
And a transfer from Kyiv's Winter College at that, but Sebastian has kept it under wraps, to avoid flaunting it in his sister's face.
He knows she has long resigned herself to her fate, but as his last year looms upon him, he knows it casts a taller shadow on his sister.
She will never attend graduation now. Next year, she will be far too old for it.
Knife in hand, Solomon endeavors to cut the branches from the logs and Sebastian rises to help him.
The vials clink in his pocket.
Enough to arouse his uncle's suspicions who unspools his spine slowly.
"Sebastian, is it what I think it is?"
Sebastian's palm closes around his pocket. "Galleons, that's all. I saved up for a new alembic after Ominis broke mine."
Color leaches from Anne's cheeks. She knows it's a lie, of course, but she says nothing.
"Don't lie to me," Solomon says, inching closer. "Turn out your pockets. Show me what's in them."
Sebastian angles out of his uncle's grasp, nearing the door.
Solomon's eyes are two pits of ire. "You've been using Malisect again?"
"You forgot to feed us most nights," Sebastian rasps. "I don't know why you care what I ingest."
Solomon presses forward, his knuckles blanching around the hilt of his knife. "Don't speak to me like this!"
"And don't pretend like you have a say in what I do," Sebastian hisses. "You kicked me out, remember? I was only here to look after Anne while you were gone. You shouldn't leave her alone for so long."
His cheeks burn. He wants to feel his wand between his fingers. He itches to speak the words, to see his uncle hit the ground, his lips noiseless forever.
But he thinks of Anne, who stares at them, utterly terrorized.
Solomon creeps closer. "I warned you not to use while you were under my roof."
In response, Sebastian rears until he stands under the watery sunlight. "Well, I'm no longer under your roof. Happy?"
"If I see a vial near my house, I'll report you to the headmaster. Am I clear?"
Sebastian doesn't even return the compliment of acknowledging his uncle's threat. Instead he whirls away, jaw clenched, and begins to walk toward the center of Feldcroft until he hears the door slam.
Feldcroft is silent, the villagers slowly retiring to their houses. Streamlets of smoke purl from chimneys and the scent of meat braids through the air. A shy August wind needles through the shrubbery. The stench of stale waters wings up from the well.
Sebastian hates this place.
After this year, he will become someone. An Auror, perhaps. Or a researcher, like his parents. He will spirit Anne away from this miserly village and live with her where nothing can touch her.
Something squeezes inside his chest.
He has a year to find what he seeks in Hogwarts. Nine months, and not one more, to find the Promissum Mortis—Death's Promise—and whisk Anne away from Solomon.
As the wind picks up, it carries the smells of September along with it.
Sebastian sets to walking.
The vials of Malisect chink softly in his pockets.
His mother will have to wait.
Anne, too.
Time is a merciless master and Sebastian, its most piteous slave.