Chapter Text
The door shut behind me and the corridor felt too narrow. Like the walls were listening.
I kept walking because standing still made the words echo louder. Boots on stone. Left, then right, then another right I didn't think about. I don't even know where I was heading—just away. Away from the Undercroft. Away from her eyes when she said Solomon. Away from the way my own name looked, carved into that pendant, like a future I didn't remember choosing.
The necklace sat heavy in my palm inside my cloak pocket. I didn't put it on. I couldn't. Every few steps, my thumb found the edges of the pendant and traced the engraving like it might change if I kept checking.
The past beats inside me like a second heart. Love, Sebastian Sallow.
My own handwriting. My own stupid sentiment. I felt sick.
I cut through two empty classrooms and a flight of stairs just to get air that hadn't heard any of that conversation. When I hit the long windows near the viaduct the cold finally found me. I let it. The lake was flat and grey, the sort of colour that pretends it isn't hiding anything. Fine. Hide. Join the club.
I leaned on the stone and tried to sort the pieces.
Fifth year. She said she already knew about her magic when she got here. That I met her in the common room—me by the fire, pacing with a book I shouldn't have had; Ominis listening to everything while pretending not to. It sounded true. It felt true in the way a room can feel familiar even if you can't name the furniture.
Ranrok. Rookwood. Goblins. Ashwinders. The triptych in the Undercroft. My stomach turned over when she said "triptych," like I'd swallowed the word once and it never quite digested. I could see—almost see—me handing her something across that bench. Maps? Pages? I don't know. The feeling was there. The picture wasn't.
Then the worst part. Solomon.
She didn't dress it up. You used Avada Kedavra. Just that. No apology tucked in to make it easier. I respect that part of her and hate it too. The honesty of it. The way the torches seemed to go quiet when she said it. The way my body reacted before my brain did—like a bruise you don't remember getting that flares when someone brushes it.
If it isn't true, why does it fit so perfectly into the shape of me?
I shut my eyes and pressed two fingers to them until sparks danced. It didn't give me anything back. No memories. No sudden clarity. Just the ache behind my lids and the old knowledge that I'm tired.
Ominis's father. Gaunt Manor. Obliviation. I stood there, staring at nothing, and tried to imagine agreeing to that. Letting someone into my head and telling them to take a piece of it. I couldn't picture saying yes... but I also couldn't picture saying no if I thought I was a danger to the people I loved.
Did I love her then? The way she talked—we were inseparable—it sounds like me. The me I've been this year when I let myself. The me who can't settle in a room if she isn't in it.
I pulled the letter out of my pocket. The new one—angry, messy, the one I dashed off so I wouldn't go looking for a fight. I skimmed my own words and felt a sting of shame. Furious. Hurt. Still care. I meant all of it. I still do. But next to everything she told me, it reads small. Like shouting into the wind.
Under that, tucked flat against the paper, was the other letter. The one in my old handwriting that felt both like mine and not. If you're reading this, then I've forgotten you. I didn't open it again. I didn't need to. The sentences have been living in my head since she put it in my hand. I can hear my own voice there—different, younger, frayed at the edges. Scared. Not of punishment. Of himself.
Of me.
The thought made my throat go tight. I looked at the lake because it was easier than looking at anything else. A pair of first-years ran across the lower bridge, scarves trailing, laughing like the world had never ended under their feet. Good. Someone should get to live like that.
I tried to be angry at her. It's easier. Anger is clean. You lied. You decided for me. You kept the truth because it made you happy. Those are all true things. I can stack them like stones and build a little wall to lean on. But every time I get it high enough to hide behind, something knocks a piece out: she was brave enough to tell me anyway; she didn't push the ritual on me; she put the choice back in my hands. I wanted the truth. She bled to give it to me.
Fine. Be mad at Ominis, then. He knew. He kept it. He put himself between me and the world again without asking. Except—he also dragged me out of more disasters than I can count. He's always been there when the bottom drops out. And I told him I didn't want to lose her. He didn't make that up.
So who does that leave? Me. It always circles back to me.
I checked the pendant again without meaning to. The green in it was faint in the daylight, almost asleep, but I swear it pulsed once when my thumb crossed the engraving. It could be my pulse in my fingers. That would be the sane answer. I didn't feel particularly sane.
She said it was dark magic—not ancient—and that I bound it myself. Sentimental value. Merlin. That sounds exactly like the sort of thing I'd say, half-joking because I actually meant it. A little dramatic, a little sweet, a little stupid. Make a necklace remember for us so we can look back one day and laugh at how young we were. I didn't mean for it to become... this. A vault. A lifeline. A weapon, even, if used wrong.
Everything I touch turns into something else.
A group of Ravenclaws drifted past behind me, talking about an essay, blue ties bright in the grey. One of them said my name and then shut up fast when they realised I could hear. I didn't turn around. I didn't have the energy to be Sebastian Sallow where people could see him.
I followed the balcony to the outer stairs and went down, down, until the cold actually helped. By the boathouse the wind comes off the water hard enough to make your teeth ache. I leaned on the rail and let that ache replace a different one.
Do I want to remember?
The honest answer is cruel: yes. Of course I do. I want to know the whole story, even if it burns. I want to know if I loved her then the way I feel myself loving her now. I want to know if the worst thing she said about me is true, because then at least I can stop waiting for it to jump out of a dark corner. If I did it, I did it. If I asked to forget, I asked. Let me look it in the eye and decide who I'm going to be after.
But there's another honest answer under that one: I'm terrified. Not of the pain. Of what I'll do with it. What if everything I've tried to build this year—whatever good I've managed to hold onto—just... collapses under the weight of the boy I used to be? What if I remember and hate her for letting me open that door? What if I remember and love her more and that hurts worse? What if the voice she mentioned isn't dead, only quiet?
I pressed the heel of my hand to my sternum. It felt like something heavy sat there. Maybe it's just the words. Maybe it's the second heart she keeps talking about.
I thought of the way she stood when she told me. Not defiant. Not begging. Braced. Like she expected a blow and was choosing not to flinch. I thought of her saying, If you never want to touch that magic again, I won't say the words I'm dying to say if that's what keeps you safe. I thought of her hands staying at her sides when every part of me wanted her to reach for me so I could have a reason to run.
I don't forgive her. Not yet. But I don't want to lose her, either. That's the mess of it. Love and anger stacked side by side like badly shelved books.
Footsteps behind me. I didn't turn. Whoever it was stopped a few paces back and didn't speak. Ominis, probably. He's good at standing near without pushing. After a minute he said, very soft,
"Do you need me to leave?"
"No," I said, because that was true, and the word surprised me with how steady it came out.
He didn't come closer. We stood there like that, facing the lake, saying nothing. The quiet didn't press this time. It held.
After a while I said,
"She told me everything."
"I thought she would," he answered. No judgement. Just... relief, maybe. Or worry. Hard to tell with him.
"It's worse when it's true," I said.
"I know," he said.
Silence again. Then, because I couldn't hold it any longer, I asked it like a man asking a Healer for the diagnosis he already suspects.
"Did I... did I really ask your father to do it?"
A beat. Then, honest as a knife:
"Yes."
I nodded. I'd known. My body had known before my mouth knew what to shape.
"And the necklace?" I asked.
"You made it for her," he said. "You were unspeakably proud of yourself. It glowed when you touched it and you pretended you hadn't noticed. You were terrible at pretending."
I swallowed. The pendant warmed under my fingers like a memory of a hand.
We didn't say anything else. We didn't need to. He was there. I was there. The lake kept its secrets.
I don't know how long we stood like that. Long enough for my thoughts to stop sprinting and start walking in a straight line. Long enough for my breath to stop catching on the sharp parts. When I finally shifted, the decision wasn't big and dramatic. It was small and practical.
"I need time," I said, mostly to myself. "But I'm not running."
"I'll be around," Ominis said.
"I know," I managed, and meant it.
I turned the pendant in my hand one more time and slipped the chain over my head before I could think better of it. The metal was cold against my chest. Heavy, yes. But not unbearable. It sat there like a promise I hadn't decided how to keep.
I tucked it under my shirt and straightened. The wind cut across the boathouse again and I let it clear the last of the fog.
I'm not ready for a ritual tonight. Maybe not tomorrow. But I'm not pretending nothing happened. I can't un-hear what she told me. I can't unknow that there's a door I can choose to open and that she'll stand with me if I do.
For now, that's enough. For now, I'll breathe. I'll sleep if I can. I'll go to class and not break anything. I'll keep the necklace where I can feel it, and when I'm ready—really ready—I'll find her.
And I'll say, "Let's do it." Or I'll say, "Not yet." Either way, it will be my voice this time.
I pushed off the rail and started back up the stairs. The castle felt the same and not. The corridors weren't any wider, but they didn't feel like they were closing in anymore.
When I reached the first landing, I looked down at the water once more and touched the pendant through my shirt.
"I hear you," I said under my breath, to the past or to myself—I'm not sure. "I'm thinking."
—————————————————
I hadn't slept since she told me.
The castle felt wrong tonight it was too quiet, too heavy, every breath of air thick with things I couldn't take back, though I didn't even remember doing them.
The letter lay on my bedside table, half in shadow. I didn't need to open it again. I'd read it three times already: once in the Undercroft, twice at the boathouse. The words hadn't changed, but they didn't stop moving inside me.
If you're reading this, then I've forgotten you.
That line had been echoing since she gave it to me. My own handwriting. My own signature at the bottom. But the boy who'd written it might as well have been a stranger. I didn't know him. I didn't remember him. And yet every word felt true.
Alora had looked terrified when she gave it to me. I couldn't blame her.
She'd been carrying the truth for months, waiting for the right moment, and I'd forced it out of her the moment I saw my name carved into the back of her necklace.
My name.
The same necklace I'd enchanted for her years ago, though I hadn't known why until now.
Everything had unravelled from there with Solomon, the Obliviation, the letter. My whole life reframed in a handful of sentences written by a version of me who'd known exactly what he was about to lose.
And if I've forgotten you... then I've forgotten everything that made me, me.
I turned onto my side, pressing a fist against my mouth. That line had struck deeper than I wanted to admit. Because it was right. Whatever made me me had been carved away that night, and all I'd been left with was the hollow outline.
The others in the dorm were asleep. Noah's faint snores, Ellis muttering something about Quidditch under his breath, but it all sounded distant, like I was underwater. The letter rustled when I reached for it, my fingers tracing the edges.
Before the darkness swallowed me whole—I loved you. I chose you. And I never stopped choosing you, even when it hurt.
I could still see her face when she'd watched me read that. Her eyes glassy, hands twisting in her lap. She hadn't tried to stop me. She'd just waited, silent, braced for whatever would happen when I finished.
And I'd left her there. Because what else was I supposed to say?
How do you respond to a love letter written by a ghost of yourself you don't remember being?
I unfolded it again, though I could recite every word by now. The parchment smelled faintly of dust and something softer, like the old bookcases in a library. The ink was dark, but faded in spots, as though time itself had tried to forget too.
After I cast the curse on Solomon, something inside me fractured.
I shut my eyes. The words twisted in my chest like a knife, even without a memory to sharpen them. I couldn't see what happened. I couldn't hear it. But knowing it was real knowing I'd done it, was enough to make me sick.
The letter didn't try to justify it.
He hadn't begged forgiveness. He'd simply told the truth.
When I finally broke down, Ominis was the one who saw it. He brought me to Gaunt Manor. To him.
That line haunted me most. Because even without remembering, I could imagine it, the desperation it would've taken to let someone erase my mind just to make the noise stop. The cowardice. The relief.
And then, somehow, I'd made it back to Hogwarts.
Alive, intact, but incomplete.
She'd been there. Watching me. Loving me anyway.
The letter crackled as I folded it back along its old creases.
If I forget you completely... please don't let that be the end of our story.
I swallowed hard. She hadn't let it end. Even when I didn't know her, even when I'd been busy with other girls, she'd stayed. Waiting for the day I'd finally see what was right in front of me.
And now that I had, now that I knew everything there was no escaping it.
And if I remember you even a little—something flickers, even for a second—then I hope you're still there, somewhere in the dark, waiting to bring me back.
I ran a hand over my face, eyes burning. She was there. Still in the dark, waiting. Always had been.
And I'd been so blind I hadn't even known I was lost.
I pressed the letter flat against my chest, over the place where my heart beat slow and uneven. The dorm felt smaller now, the ceiling pressing closer. I could almost hear the faint echo of water against the walls, the same rhythm as the boathouse waves.
He'd written this letter for her but he'd left it for me.
A map back to the truth.
And I couldn't ignore it anymore.
I didn't know who that boy had been, the one who loved her so fiercely he'd begged her not to let him disappear. But I could feel the ghost of him, beating faintly somewhere beneath my ribs.
Maybe that was what remembering felt like. Not pictures or sounds, just ache.
I turned the letter over one last time, reading the closing line in the dim green light.
Always yours,
Sebastian.
The words felt foreign and familiar all at once.
A promise made by someone I used to be.
And a promise I wasn't sure I knew how to keep.
I slid the letter into my nightstand drawer. Tomorrow, I'd find her again.
Not to make a decision. Not yet.
To ask her to take me there, to Feldcroft.
To the truth.
To whatever was left of the boy who wrote those words.
Because I needed to see it for myself.
What he'd done.
What I'd lost.
And who, if anyone, I was supposed to be now.
—————————————————
The courtyard looked too bright for the way I felt.
Sunlight poured through the arches, sharp and unkind after a night without sleep. It scattered across the flagstones, catching on puddles from last night's rain and making the whole place shimmer as if it didn't know grief existed.
Students passed in groups — laughing, jostling, alive — and the sound of it scraped at me. I used to sound like that once. Before everything went wrong. Before I became someone who left letters behind like apologies he'd never deliver.
She stood near the edge of the courtyard, half-shadowed beneath one of the old stone arches. Her hair was loose today, moving in the wind like it couldn't decide where to settle. She had that faraway look she got sometimes, as if she was watching a life that no longer belonged to her.
When she turned and saw me, she froze. Then straightened, slow and cautious, like she'd been expecting this.
I stopped a few paces away. For a moment, I didn't know what to say. Everything that mattered had already been written down by a version of me who was braver, or maybe just desperate.
"You were right," I said at last, my voice low, steady but hoarse from disuse.
Her brow furrowed slightly.
"You read it properly, then."
I nodded.
"Last night."
Her gaze flickered across my face, searching for something anger, maybe. Regret. I wasn't sure what she found, but her shoulders eased by a fraction.
"I should've read it sooner," I said. "When you first gave it to me. But I couldn't. I... skimmed it in the Undercroft, but I couldn't make myself really see it. Not then."
My throat felt tight, but I forced the words out.
"I read it properly yesterday. Every word."
Alora drew in a slow breath. Her voice came out quiet.
"And now?"
Now.
The word felt like a blade.
"Now," I said, "I know what I did." I hesitated. "At least, I know what it says I did. I can't remember it, but it doesn't matter. I don't think I need to."
Her lips parted like she wanted to protest, but I went on before she could.
"It's one thing to hear it all from someone else — to hear you say I killed him, or that I was Obliviated. That's just... information. But reading it in my own handwriting?"
I let out a breath that almost sounded like a laugh.
"That's different. That's a ghost staring back."
Her eyes softened.
"Sebastian..."
"I could feel him," I said quietly. "The boy who wrote that letter. Not in my head — not memories, exactly. Just... the weight of him. What he must've been feeling. Terrified. Angry. Alone."
I looked down at the stone between us.
"And in all of that, all he thought to do was write to you."
She said nothing. I didn't blame her. What was there to say to that?
"I can't stop thinking about the part where he said, 'If I've forgotten you, then I've forgotten everything that made me, me.'" My voice dropped. "He was right."
Her breath hitched, barely audible, but I caught it.
"I don't know who I am anymore," I said simply. "But I know where I have to go to find out."
She frowned.
"Sebastian—"
"To Feldcroft," I said.
She blinked, startled.
"Feldcroft?"
I nodded.
"Not home… the house, I mean the catacombs."
The word hung there like smoke.
"That's where everything started, isn't it? That's where I dragged you to find a cure for Anne. Where I thought I could fix everything and ruined it instead."
Alora's hands tightened around her gloves.
"That place isn't safe," she murmured. "It's cursed, Sebastian. There’s inferi in there, the air feels wrong. It's... heavy."
"I know."
I almost smiled it was a tired, humourless thing.
"But if I'm ever going to make sense of who I was — who I became — then I need to see it. With my own eyes. No stories, no whispers. Just the truth."
She shook her head, barely.
"You don't need to put yourself through that."
"I do," I said. "Because until I see it, I'll never believe it. I'll never feel it. And I can't keep living in this half-state — caught between who I was and who I'm pretending to be now."
She looked at me for a long time. The courtyard noise seemed to fade laughter, footsteps, the chatter of students all melting into a blur behind us.
"Please," I said, softer now. "Take me there."
Her eyes flicked down to my jacket pocket, where the letter rested beneath the fabric.
"You're serious."
"I am."
Her jaw tightened.
"If we go... it won't be easy for you."
"I don't expect it to be."
"And if you still feel nothing when we get there?" she asked, her voice almost a whisper.
"Then at least I'll know," I said. "One way or another."
For a long moment, neither of us moved. The breeze tugged at her hair again, lifting a few strands that caught the light. She looked at me like she was trying to memorise me maybe in case this version didn't make it back from Feldcroft.
Finally, she nodded.
"All right," she said, barely louder than the wind. "After classes. When it's quiet."
A strange relief bled through me.
"Thank you."
She hesitated, then added,
"We'll take the forest path. Fewer people. No one will notice us leave."
I nodded.
"Dusk, then."
She gave a small, careful smile that didn't quite reach her eyes.
"Dusk."
I turned to leave, but her voice stopped me halfway across the courtyard.
"Sebastian?"
I looked back.
"If you don't remember anything," she said, voice trembling just slightly, "that's all right. You don't have to. You've been through enough."
I wanted to tell her that it wasn't about remembering it was about knowing. About facing the shadow of the boy I used to be, even if it killed the illusion of who I was now. But the words didn't come.
Instead, I said,
"I'll meet you by the gate."
Her gaze lingered on me for a heartbeat before she looked away.
I walked off across the courtyard, the sun biting at the back of my neck, the letter a weight against my chest.
Feldcroft waited, the catacombs waited, the truth buried between them.
And for the first time in years, I wasn't running from it.