"Shit! Penny, it's just not working." My annoyance reaches a peak and I can't stop myself from shouting in frustration. "FUCK!'
"Language dear," Ominis coos, nonchalantly.
"No, no, Miss April! We will figure this out. Penny is sure of it!"
My shit hair.
No matter how much magic we use it's just not right. The curls were too neat, and then it was too straight and then it's too up, and then it's too fussy and suddenly I feel like fuck this dress, fuck this ball, fuck these Durmstrang asshats, fuck Ancient magic and the repository and what I have to do to protect everyone, but most of all fuuuuuck getting gussied up at all.
"I belong in the forest, not a ballroom."
"You need to do Sebastian's technique..." Ominis suggests. "The breathing?"
"I need a fucking donut is what I need."
"Language, dear."
"OMI–"
Before I can spiral into more fury, Penny's tiny hands press against the muscles of my chest just beneath my collarbones. Her knack for invading personal space is something I've gotten used to and find pretty endearing. And this afternoon, she's not fooling around. Her multi-colored, huge eyes bore into me with seriousness.
"NO! Deep breaths, Miss April. Remember what Mister Sebastian has taught you."
Good gravy, what hasn't he taught me, lately? He's my fucking rock! Peacefulness. Wholeheartedness. Honesty. If only I could embody it all tonight.
No, focus April.
"You're right..." I acquiesce and close my eyes so we can inhale together. Ominis joins in, too. Sebastian's practices have really permeated our little family and I would wager our collective blood pressure is a lot lower because of it.
After a moment I slump against the edge of the clawfoot tub in a nearly suffocating amalgam of stockings, garters, chemise, corset, slips and petticoats. To say nothing of the heavy, satin monstrosity of a dress I've got on.
Okay, okay, the dress is amazing — the sheen of the champagne color, the structure of the bodice, the layer of sweeping pleated fabric and feathers beneath the rouched over-skirt. But it's hard to feel fantastic when the face I see in the mirror is some dolled-up nonsense I don't recognize.
"Penny..." I plead in defeat. The doe-eyed house elf looks up at me, concerned but still visibly delighted to be in her gorgeous bluebell-shaped dress. "I don't look like me," I tell her. "I don't feel like me."
How can I pull this off if I don't even feel like myself? FUCK!
She bites at her lips and takes off her bluebell cap, twisting it nervously in her hands.
"You sound like you, if that's any consolation," Ominis smirks from his stool where he sits casually with one leg crossed over the other, folded forward, leaning oh-so-elegantly with an elbow on his knee. He's wearing the most beautiful suit. And between the two of them, I'm not sure if it's his doing or Thiago's.
His high-waisted pants are a soot-like charcoal with the faintest pinstripe, drawing the eye up to his similarly colored double-breasted vest, intricately embroidered with a charcoal-colored silk, geometric pattern that mimics the texture of his animagus bat wings which is also repeated in the Centaurian markings he and Thiago share across their backs. His cutaway coat is an elegant, fine wool, nearly black but not quite. It has a mystical sheen to it. And his high, stiff collar stands along his neck, above it all, where a silver tie is knotted around and tucked beneath the vest – so shiny it looks like liquid mercury suspended in tie form.
YOU ARE READING
Return of Sebastian Sallow | 10 Yr After Hogwarts
FanfictionTen years after I began at Hogwarts, Sebastian Sallow is back. And he's Professor Sallow now. He disappeared after the fall of Ranrok and Rookwood, after I lost Professor Fig, and after Ominis and I couldn't keep him from losing himself. But I never...
