Chapter Text
“Your access to this vault has been… restricted, Mr. Gaunt. As has the access of all the other heirs to the Gaunt bloodline. The only ones who still have banking ingress with us would be the primary owners of the account itself… your parents, sir.”
---
So, it has come to this, has it?
Gringotts, one of the largest wizarding institutions in the world, had given him hint of the first toppling domino upon his monthly visit yesterday.
Danger and daring, he can face. The combined horrors of the lives his friends lead, he can handle. The unknown plots of his family…?
Ominis could not be more terrified if he tried. So he attempts rationality instead.
Thankfully, he need not spiral into debt insecurity yet, as in the bottom corner of his trunk there lies a decent sum of savings for this very case—for this very just in case, mind, because a supposedly wealthy family cutting off its heirs is nearly unheard of.
Heirs. Multiple. That little tidbit had not escaped him, and it does strike him as truly odd that he was not the only one of his siblings to get the death knell on their access to funds.
Percius, the golden child—his parents wouldn’t dare cut him off, lest they find themselves caught in the destructive crossfire of one of his crusades of malice. Marvolo’s no golden child, but that just makes him all the more threatening, having to fight tooth and nail for the pride of his parents, warping like tempered steel to be their most lethal weapon.
And then her.
Alongside Percius, and alongside Marvolo, there lies the unsuspecting neurotoxin herself. Stellaris. Seventh year. Jewel of the family. Shiny and precious, but just as cold and just as cruel. Cunning, quiet, and sharp as a needle, of which she carries many.
Ominis shudders.
Yet if even they precious three were cut off? There’s… there’s some sort of hope to be had in that, isn't there? He’s not being singled out.
But still, something about all of it rubs him the wrong way, coarse salt in an unseasoned pestle - grating, loud, pushing chalk into all the wrong places. For the very same reason he is overcautious of any unknown. This is new. Different.
This event hadn’t occurred last time.
The wrongness of it all follows him throughout his day.
Potions, as usual, is a nightmare. His lingering dispute over Amit and Lethe’s little study session makes him clumsy, causing him to snippily brush away the well-meaning boy’s help. Astronomy is worse. A rare daytime class going over theory and Lethe can’t sit still, can’t seem to think straight either. Their words come out jumbled and confused, dotted with various “um”s and “er”s, all culminating in a near catastrophe as they trip right into the astrolabe, just about sending it tumbling off the tower to its inevitable doom.
Only Professor Shah’s sharp thinking saves it from its fate, and Lethe is left in a state of humiliation so potent that it rubs off. Shamefaced and jumpy, Ominis corners them at the chime of the bells.
“What in Merlin's name was that about? What’s wrong?”
They gather their books and papers, stuffing everything haphazardly into their bag.
“Nothing’s wrong. Whatever makes you think that? I’m perfectly fine.” they mumble, sounding anything but.
“Convincing.”
“It’s fine. Nothing to worry about, just some lingering sickness - the plant dust always gets to me this time of year. Now come along, Beasts awaits us. Or, um, was it… Flying? Or Advanced Runes…?” they trail off trying to tug him along.
For someone who he used to believe was larger than life, they do have such small hands. Sturdy and capable, sure, but still not big enough to wrap around his wrist.
It’s ridiculous! Someone of their power should simply have… bigger hands! They’re a ridiculously strange human being. Funny enough, he is nearly tempted to let this paragon of contradiction drag him off, but a sudden chill overtakes him from the spine up.
Stellaris could be watching.
Almost of its own volition, his hand is yanked away, and he draws himself up to stand tall. Regal.
Cold.
“What is with you today? I have Divination, you have Beasts,” he sneers, “Honestly, you should know this by now.”
They freeze in their tracks, footsteps, snaps, all manner of their usual movements ceasing. It annoys him, unnerves him - things really should stick to the damned timeline and stay the bloody same.
“...Yeah I dunno. Something in the water, maybe?” they falter, shuffling sideways, adjusting the straps of their bag. “You know how simpleminded I can be sometimes. Verrry forgetful with the written language, and-and other things too. Lots of not thinking in the old noggin.”
They try a laugh, taking a further step back to rap their knuckles against their head as if to prove it’s emptiness.
Ominis is not amused in the slightest. There’s an itching sensation across his torso that he can’t get rid of. He crosses his arms, clutching his wand tight enough to feel every groove bearing into his palms to ground himself.
Lethe breathes in sharply. “Ah. Anyway, I’ll see you later. Lunch or-or something, yeah? Have fun divining the future. ”
They wiggle their fingers at him, he knows it purely based on the way they say it. As they start shambling away muttering about Care of Magical Creatures he shakes his head, breathing out harshly through his nose. It is only when he sits at his station in front of his rather pointless crystal ball that he realizes that it is nearing evening and lunch has long since passed.
Ominis taps his fingers restlessly against the desk, the usually booming and austere voice of Professor Onai only serving to grate on his nerves.
There’s only one thing he really can focus on right now. Or multiple somethings. Problems have a way of slinking backwards into shadow, away from the spotlight, lying in wait.
“Something in the water ” - A pen of piglets all docile and naive. Noctua’s warning - a death knell, a hint of something lurking.
Somewhere out there lies a large hungry beast, just waiting for the last bit of prey to drift off to bed, milk weaned bellies all full and eyes so achingly heavy. Ominis feels that ache of sleep, but no, he cannot give in just yet, not when there is so much work to be done.
He had forgotten, too full, too happy, too…
Too distracted.
But his complacency does not mean he hasn’t been listening closely.
When he hears of spooky noises that go bump in the night - or when he happens upon a sequestered piece of information about shadows roaming the halls, intimidating portraits, and hiding away in the dark corners of the dungeons, for instance… Ominis knows he’s found his rusty hinge. One that squeaks - one that Noctua had said to have been whispering his name, Lethe’s name, in the depths of the night.
“Mr. Gaunt, a word?”
He blinks out of his reverie. Class is letting out. He shoos Anne away, telling her to please wait outside, as he’ll only be a moment.
As he hastily gathers his things, he asks, “Professor Onai, how may I help you?”
And why does it feel like your eyes are boring holes into my head?
Leander is dithering about still, bumping into tables and cursing under his breath when he has to pick up knocked over crystal, so it’s only when his footsteps grow quieter that she addresses him.
“Mister Gaunt,” she starts, “do you know why Dark Magic was banned for everyday use?”
Bewildered, Ominis can only go a little slack jawed. “Pardon?”
She gestures for him to… something, and when it becomes apparent that he has no idea what she wants from him, too flustered by her question, she commands, “Come. Sit, please.”
He approaches her desk warily. Before the back of his slacks can even hit the chair, she marches to a spot a few feet behind him with the precision of a military commander. Now that he’s listening for it, sensing it, he can feel her fetid emotions - for lack of a better word - permeating the air.
As she is wont to do, she inserts an herbal pastille into her hanging censer, tapping the metal twice for good measure.
“For generations, wizards have experimented with magic, with the laws of nature itself. That is how we came to be in the here and now in such an advanced society far beyond the spectrum of muggle invention.”
She says the word muggle the same way a beast tamer would say the word treat - a master tempting its erstwhile companion. Or in this case, he rather thinks she might be testing him.
The insinuation smarts.
When he purposefully doesn’t react, Professor Onai’s tone gets harder. “We have made leaps and bounds in the name of magick, in the name of science, and in the name of the natural order of the universe—but, we do not know everything. We understand much, and yet we know so very little, even still.”
The fumes of the incense reach his nose right about now. He does try not to make a face, but it’s hard not to when the pad seems to have been coated in the noxious ingredients of pure vervain and mugwort.
Besides that, Ominis.. is confused. Had he missed something in the previous lecture? Skipped over a chapter by accident? He’d only been a little lost in thought, surely. He doesn’t recall pissing off Natty recently either, except for maybe stealing off her plate at last night’s dinner, but this seems a touch harsh for a sliver of nabbed roast.
As if reading the inconclusives from his mind, Professor Onai jumps straight to the point.
“That is to say, when it comes to Dark Magic, one must not… dabble, experiment. It was banned because many saw the boon it brought, but not the stain is left behind—”
“—on a wizard's Soul.” Ominis intercedes, repeating the words from page one of the History of Magic textbook. His brows scrunch as he speaks, feeling very rude indeed, yet his rising indignation wins over his innate sense of sensibility. “I am quite aware of this, Professor. Far too aware. Is this-? Are you speaking on what happened this past winter? Because I have narrated that story time and time again, it was really a rather unfortunate accident.”
“Yes Mr. Gaunt,” she says agreeingly but not agreeing. “I know of the words you relayed to my colleagues… the story you and young Lethe spun. But I know my daughter. Something about it has shaken her, deeply. And more than that - though I do not know the contents of your soul - I can see it. I alone can see that you bear a stain.”
A stain. The insinuation--no, the accusation echoes in his haunted head.
Rooted in the very walls of Gaunt Manor there lies a rot, something seeking to infect all those who enter—he knows it well. Can feel it, the blight upon himself, inflicted at such a young age that perhaps he had simply been born with it. Being a Gaunt, living in that house, is akin to a life sentence of eternal darkness.
But Professor Onai had thrown Lethe’s lot in with his, stained with clean, and that just won't do.
“I can assure you, whatever conclusions you’ve drawn, I- It’s not at all what you think. I would never dabble with Dark Magic—”
“And yet… here we are.” she declares, putting a firm stopper in his rebuttal. “Mysticism does not often lie. Obscure, yes, lure away from the truth, perhaps, but it does not outright expose false truths.”
His brow ticks upward. “You and I both know that a majority of your vocation is based in obscurity. All due respect-”
“Respect?” she counters, “You are aware that I am a muggleborn, yes? As much as I would prefer to remain neutral, according to public knowledge on your family and their ideals, I am afforded none.”
“My family-” He has to bite his tongue, holding back the venom. She could be watching. “I… cannot say what I would like about them. But trust me, I am not my family. I am not-”
He clears his throat as his voice cracks, but then finds he has nothing more to say, leaving him to open and close his mouth like a dry fish.
There’s a light clink of brass and metal as the lid is placed back on the burner, effectively putting it out. The professor sits again, leaning over the desk seemingly deep in thought. What can I say to make this right, to untie my crimes from theirs? If she doesn’t believe me, if I cannot right this, then they may involve the Ministry, which would be disastrous at this juncture, if not a death sentence!
It does wonders for Ominis’s nerves when she slowly begins anew.
“The future has always been unclear, Mr. Gaunt. Every seer in every magical practice will tell you this, but we always try our best to muddle through.” She waves her wand, a slight whoosh through the air, and he stops feeling so cold. He hadn’t even realized that he’d been shivering, but Professor Onai makes a satisfied sound before she continues. “However, as of late, the future has been nigh incomprehensible. I have spent my entire life divining prophecies and interpreting omens all across the world, but this is the first time I have been well and truly stuck here in the present. I tell you all of this now, because the only thing that I have been able to make clear sense of is that, somehow, in some way, you remain at the very center of this. So rather than badgering you, let me instead ask - what have you done? ”
The heady aroma of the classroom must be getting to him, his lungs constrict and suddenly he is quite unable to breathe properly. Though he is no longer freezing, there is still a cold pit deep in his gut, gnawing at his composure. Fragments of his plan flash through his mind, words and dots and dashes—failures that keep him up at night.
Potions he had needed to stop the pain of it all.
The horrors of a death he could not bear.
Of a madness—of a friend also lost to it.
…
How strange it is to feel so anxious yet so… relieved.
The good professor’s confrontation isn't about what happened in the catacombs, or even about his own dark sins. This is about a tragedy, ironclad will, and a journal old enough to have died thrice over.
What is it Anne always likes to say…? No time like the present.
“Professor, I have done something either very good or very bad. Will you hear me out?”
Professor Mudiwa Onai, esteemed scholar, world renown diviner, and mother to his good friend, sits back in her chair and gives him an affirmative to continue.
These past few months he’s acted as a leaky faucet; drips of information being held back only by his good sense to keep quiet - but now? The truth positively floods. Ominis tells her everything . The terrors of the past, the muddled memories of the runic circle, the changes, the constants, even his Aunt Noctua - and especially even about Lethe and their plights. It spills out of him, a deluge of stream of conscious thought.
When he finally comes to the end he feels reborn and wrung out like a damp dishcloth all at the same time. With silence thick in the air, he doesn’t even care what her response is--but he does listen when she stands and approaches.
“I am holding out my hand for you, child. Take it.”
Hesitantly, he does.
Shock paints his features as she pulls him up out of his chair into a bone-crushing hug. His eyes widen, honestly a little afraid at first, but he feels so immensely overwhelmed that he collapses into her embrace with hardly a sound. Embarrassingly, tears begin to collect in his lashes, his eyes burning, his tongue sticking to the roof of his mouth.
Someone knows… someone knows and it's okay.
Professor Onai lets him collect himself in her arms, holding him with the tenderness that only a mother can have, he assumes. It's so unfamiliar and uncharted and new that he stays wrapped in that comfort for a moment longer, wishing he could stay or bottle the feeling to keep for himself. When he finally pulls away it is with the reticent knowledge that he’ll be chasing the feeling forever—without a wand, a boy again, lost and searching.
He has to clear his throat before speaking again.
“Professor?”
“Mr. Gaunt—” She starts, then changes her mind, leading him to sit back down. “Ominis. I had asked to speak with you under the pretenses of suspicion and distrust. For that, you have my deepest apologies. I see now that you are not who I thought, and that I had no need to worry.”
Her hands grasp his own, her weathered fingers bearing far more calluses than he’d imagine from a wandless diviner. Perhaps they’re from carrying around crystal balls, or from the pestle she uses to grind aromatic compounds. Maybe they’re like that for a reason he won’t ever know.
They’re the hands of someone who has seen thousands of futures and led others onto the path of understanding them. The hands of someone who can finally help him.
“That said, I must warn you. Though I am glad to see you have made it through relatively unharmed, such a spell is beyond dangerous.” She presses her thumbs into the meat of his palms, tracing the line with a practiced ease, yet the gesture still holds a trace of anxiousness. “You have eyes on you now. And If I was able to discern it, others may have been able to as well.”
His spine stiffens. “What do you mean?”
“I mean only what I say. You performed a powerful spell, one that left a mighty dent in the realm of Divination. Some might get it into their heads to… investigate.”
His eyes go wide.
For a second, he’s struck, weathered fingers putting a niggling idea into his head.
Throughout his journey, through the powerful time spell he’d performed… he’d remained the same. The lines on his palms never changed, his fate ineffable. This entire time, he’s been thinking in terms of going back to fix something that had not been fated to happen, because how could it have been? Lethe is as constant as a summer rainstorm: completely random but bound to happen eventually. Anne getting cursed, a mere unfortunate crossing of paths. Sebastian’s descent…
Well, that was born of love.
And he’d stopped those terrible things from becoming even a whisper on the surface of existence. The realization hits him like a thunderclap.
This isn’t just another timeline, nor annotated edits on a fresh page. This is an erasing of one history, and an interposing of an other completely separate entity.
With every change he makes, he runs the risk of scratching the ink straight off the page. An unplanned story. For magic is a long book of not just spells, but of history. A registry. A time stamped leger that Ominis has essentially dashed the entire bottle of ink over.
And someone has taken notice.
“Think of it like a beacon, or even, a loud squawking of birds in the trees.” Professor Onai, Mudiwa, explains, “Skilled hunters can spot even the smallest of creatures in the underbrush, so imagine how it must be to heed a large and extraordinarily loud beast. The largest ever seen in present history. It is an anomaly, and if it is discovered that time travel of all things was the root cause of such a disturbance? My boy, I fear the hunter’s sight would turn on you. Do you understand?”
He nods, expression solemn.
The shadow his aunt had warned him of hadn’t even been a glint in the eye of any tongue-wagger worth their yarn in the Before. With all the snooping he was doing into Sebastian’s business, he’s sure he would have heard something of it. So that means that this individual’s interest in him must be a brand-new occurrence, and not only that, but they’re after him specifically. After the knowledge they think he has about a magic long lost to him.
The thunderclap of clarity gives way to the clearest, purest droplets of rain. The pieces begin to fall into place.
Because who else would be able to wield such magic but the very singular person that essentially commands the ink and quill that composes the natural order? The one so entrenched in every plot and every scheme to the point that they are no longer hiding themself?
“Rowans can wield… Ominis…”
“ Beneficial .”
His first instinct had been to seek out Lethe. He’s heading to the library before the unhelpful notion takes.
The time for messing around has long since passed.
After a few hours holed up in the thick stacks of Horology books and various Arcanums, the final details to his plan slot into place. The unknown player in this game is already aware of his muddling with powerful magic; He just has to minimize the changes made for a time, slide under the radar until he knows more.
He’s feeling… honestly pretty good about it all now.
Which is of course when the dominoes begin tipping.
Ominis starts to get an odd taste in his mouth. Like how he felt after the first memory, like there’s a taste to what he’d experienced, or an idea just at the tip of his tongue.
This time it's hard to catch onto. The ding of a shop bell—flashes of wind across a plain—his hair whipping in wild directions: apparation—clutching something tightly in his hands. Danger. The almost instilled horror at being caught alone at night—A man, Rookwood, speaking of curses and aligned interests—smoke and fire and…
Poachers.
But that… makes sense, in a way, doesn’t it? Lethe fights poachers. It’s not uncommon to see the three of them clearing out a camp together, so maybe he was there with Lethe and Sebastian?
But no… this is different.
A memory, yes, but as if experienced in an adjacent room, the words muffled and unclear through the walls—the different scents with different memories attatched, of nights in the woods where it is so very cold, the crackling of a—
It hits him like a storm gale.
These memories aren’t his.
The hair ticking his chin is far too long, the robes he’s wearing made of a coarser poorer fabric - the feelings not of fear exactly but of…
Resignation.
“Children should be seen and not heard.”
Then a Voice, familiar yet different, heard without the border of distance.
Mother would laugh in my face now if she saw this. Always told me I’d be safe from nabbers for my lackings. Shows what she knows. (—looking at me like I’m meat on the spit. Like the wand isn’t the only thing he’d like to ta—) If he comes any closer I’ll kill him where he stan—wait what’s he doing, what is—!?
G-God in heaven, please, please make the pain stop, I can’t keep going like this, not so soon after the third—It hurts, it hurts, it hurts—need to get to Fig, Keepers have to know I’ve found it.
I want to go home.
Oh God forgive me, forgive me for sending another to hell. Forgive them for their crimes, their deaths are atonement enough when it is as cruel a force as I. Forgive them, forgive me.
I’m out of control. I can’t do this. Emmet should have been the one to get this power—so much smarter—
Forgive me, O God, I have not the strength for the Lord's prayer. Forgive me for forgetting and forgive me for straying so far that I no longer wish to remember.
—friends need—everyone relying on you—don’t wanna die—
(-yet, yet, yet-)
Fuck, just pull it together idiot!
The barrage of thoughts assaults his ears, his skull, in an overlapping echo. Every terror-stricken word screamed and thought and spoken in Lethe’s lilting country brogue.
A memory, a vision, a past or a present or a future—it doesn’t matter. Something is happening now.
Rookwood is a dead man.
Somehow, he’s outside. The courtyard is lifeless save for his hasty footsteps across the cobble, following a nameless formless trail he knows not the nature of. He strikes a blazing path towards the place where he knows, somehow, his friend is in danger.
And he’s not the only one.
“Ominis!” Sebastian calls racing up breathlessly to his side to fall in line with him. “There’s this trail,” hah, “ ancient magic, been following it, do you” huff, “sense it?”
“I do,” he confirms with a serious nod, not questioning the circumstances of their meeting, though he has a feeling he knows exactly what’s going—No. Time. “And I have reason to believe that our little friend has been keeping secrets again, dangerous ones.”
“Should I act surprised?” Sebastian retorts sardonically.
Ominis’s cloak billows behind him, the open wind buffeting and stinging at his face set in a grimace. “Whatever awaits at the end of this trail, be prepared for a fight.”
Sebastian curses, but never breaks his stride. “Where?”
Ominis grabs a fistful of floo powder from the basin. He’d heard it, in all of the noise. The jangling of a familiar wandmaker’s shop bell.
“Hogsmeade.”