Work Text:
YEAR FIVE
Not even four hours into Autumn Term and Basil was already bored of Fifth Year.
Given they were learning about creatures that could burn you alive or swallow your soul, you’d think that Magical Creatures class would be much more entertaining.
And yet.
Mrs Kreecher was droning on around the model she had spelled into the air—a three-headed beast he recognised from the books he’d helped his stepmother read to Mordelia, teaching children about animals. A is for Aspssasins, B is for Basilisk, C is for Chimera.
Surely this was basic knowledge for anyone over the age of two.
And so, instead, Basil found himself staring out the window, or staring at Snow, in turn.
The latter was hard not to do, when Snow was fidgeting and leaking magic in turns.
He had actually spoken to Basil this morning—or tried to. They’d locked eyes in the mirror and he’d stuttered out a good morning, all freckled face and earnest golden grin.
Good-bloody-morning. As if Basil hadn’t had to listen to Snow’s mentor drag the Pitch family name through the mud all summer.
He’d seemed on the verge of asking Basil how his holidays had been—a pile of tripe no thanks to you, Snow—until Basil had reached over and succinctly spelled Snow’s shoelaces together. (An oldie, but a goodie.)
Welcome back, Snow.
Basil had packed his school bag smirking as Snow tried to unspell them with his wand and instead glued them to the floor.
Yes. It certainly had been a good morning after that.
It wasn’t quite fighting for his family’s cause, but Basil was just getting warmed up.
Basil watched now as Snow shivered and flinched, and… was that fear in Simon Snow’s eyes?
What could be getting the Chosen One in such a tizzy?
The model of the chimera was still spinning on its axis at the front of the class—a roaring lion"s head with a backdrop of flame pouring from a goat’s mouth, while a snake’s head tail snapped at those on the front row.
Basil watched with intrigue as Snow looked on in obvious dread.
Basil had been practicing tuning out the roaring bodily sounds of those around him, but he focused in now on Snow’s heart, heard the racing of it as Mrs Kreecher began walking the rows of students, bringing the model overhead with her. Faster and faster and faster Snow’s heart beat as the chimera swayed closer and closer to him.
He leant across the aisle into Snow’s space and whispered, “I hear their favourite food is orphans.”
“You"d know all about feeding on humans, Baz,” Snow snapped back. Loudly. (He never had developed an indoor voice.)
Basil rolled his eyes at Snow’s predictability. Mrs Kreecher shot them a pointed look. “Was there something you wanted to ask, Mr Snow?”
Basil sat back and took great delight in watching Snow stumble and stutter and fumble for something to say.
“Erm. Do they. Uh. Humans. Do they eat humans?”
“Of course!” Mrs Kreecher looked surprised at the question. “Don’t let the goat’s head fool you—it is mostly carnivorous. Deadly. Its molten throat stokes a fiery disposition.”
Basil watched Snow gulp showily—his chin jutting out, Adam’s apple bobbing with nerves.
Wide blue eyes, blush highlighting the freckles on his cheeks.
Snow was terrified, and Basil started to plot.
Snow had been gone seventeen days and Basil’s skin had started itching after the first four. Usually, Basil never went more than five days without his Chosen Pain in the Arse Roommate leaving his dirty socks along the sink’s ledge.
Basil hadn’t been worried, of course—it was just impatience, excitement that he had finally found something that would have the mighty Simon Snow shaking in his boots, and agitation that Snow wasn’t even around to bloody witness it.
But Snow had finally come back from wherever he and Bunce had been gallivanting off to with the Mage—whatever was apparently more important than getting a stable education—and Basil had to strike while the iron was still hot. While Snow was still here.
It was a difficult spell. Not only did it require a complex understanding of Homeric Greek and a deep seated joy for poetry, it also had to be cast in very specific circumstances—including, but not limited to, an empty stomach and standing on one leg.
Basil laid the required entrapment stones in a wide circle on the ground, spanning almost the whole of the clearing he’d selected in the Wavering Wood. He assumed that Snow would take him up on his ruse given Basil had leaned into Snow’s biggest weakness—his ancestry.
He’d told Snow he had precious information about his parents. A very big deal. Much too dangerous to share on school property, you understand. Incredibly enticing. (And one hundred percent an obvious lie.) (To anyone who wasn’t as gullible or idiotic as Simon bloody Snow.)
As if Basil would spend his time learning anything about Normals. Chosen Parents or not.
Still, he had laid his trap well, if he did say so himself. He was eager to see Snow wet his pants and cry.
His nose alerted him to Snow’s impending presence mere seconds before his troll-like gait did—twigs snapping, grunts echoing, bushes and brambles rustling loudly as he shoved his way through gracelessly.
Crowley, if they really had been hoping for secrecy, Snow would have blown their cover a mile wide—Basil didn’t pretend to understand how Simon Snow’s brain worked; he wasn"t even sure it did work half the time.
He hid behind a band of trees to near-whisper the incantations, watched eagerly as leaves rustled and lifted on a magical breeze, shifting and coalescing in the wide circle of stones.
He held his breath.
One head. Two. A tail… no, a third head, long and slithering and hissing in the twilight. The creature reared on its hind legs and— wait, something wasn’t right…
Basil had summoned a chimera, to be sure, but this one was nothing more than mist and gossamer.
Was it meant to be incorporeal? Maybe Basil hadn’t done the spell right? Maybe he’d skipped an incantation and somehow managed to only pull its soul here instead.
Snow stepped out into the clearing as the lion head uprooted a tree, flipping it backwards to the goat, who proceeded to send it skyward in a might of blazing fire.
Apparently corporeality did not matter.
The roar that followed was deafening and Basil and Snow both jumped back in shock, Basil gasping, the sword"s incantation immediately following on Snow’s lips.
It didn’t matter, though—the monster turned to look directly at Basil. It snorted out a breath of terrible flame.
Great Snakes. This was not good.
This roar was ground-shaking. Basil watched as his entrapment stones shifted and split, rolled away from each other, taking safety with them.
The creature roared again. The trees and sky seemed to shiver with it—Basil too, suddenly unsure over whether he was going to wet his pants instead.
Think, Basil, think.
He lifted his wand as the monster bounded towards him, bracing for impact…
But it never came.
The creature turned and instead began a menacing stalk back towards Snow.
Then Basil understood. He saw Snow hurl a rock at its flank, watched him gathering more and more, hurling them one two three, quick like snowballs in a fight.
It didn’t take long for Basil to get himself back together, to cast spell after spell at the creature whilst he edged his way around to where Snow was standing.
He shouted to catch Snow’s eye, gesturing to the boulder a few feet behind them.
Snow nodded and they both turned and made a run for it—Basil had never been more thankful for his vampiric speed as a blaze of light swept past him to his left, almost whipping him to ash.
“Fire!” he heard Snow shout, as if Basil wasn’t already bloody aware.
He thought maybe one of them should cover the other one’s back, like they do in action movies, but as Basil turned his head, he saw Snow had already stepped into formation behind him, running backwards, sword lifted and ready to strike.
Basil didn’t know what to think. He just kept running.
By the time he made it to the boulder, the ground where he had once stood had shrivelled to ash and multiple trees were aflame.
Everything was so out of control.
Illustration by erzbethluna
Snow knelt down next to him, sword held to his chest, rising and falling rapidly as he caught his breath.
“Fat lot of good that will do,” Basil sneered, “given it"s mist and gossamer.”
Snow rolled his eyes. “You’re bloody welcome,” he snapped back, followed by a muttered, “next time I’ll just let you die, shall I.”
Basil wasn’t sure why Snow hadn’t let him die this time.
He threw a spell at the creature to ward it off from advancing. It didn’t seem to be working.
Another. Spell after spell after spell; louder and bolder and sterner and pleading. Come on think, Basil, think!
The chimera let out an ear-splitting roaaar! before it lashed out another shot of fire—too close, too close, too close. It caught on a branch above Snow’s head and took hold, the blaze thick and hot and too close, too close, too close.
Basil aimed his wand, “Make a wish!”
He was screaming, hurling everything he had at the beast, practically singing in seven different languages. French, Latin, Greek—none of it mattered. It wasn’t enough.
Basil knew there was only one way out of this…
“Time for your H-Bomb, Snow.” Basil shouted, in a way he never usually let anyone see, loud and frantic and desperate. “Do it! Bloody unleash! Now!”
“I can’t!”
Another roaaar! Another already ash ridden sapling toppling to the forest floor.
Crowley, Basil had always known it would end in flames.
“I can’t just…” Snow waved his sword in the chimera’s direction, as if that would magic it away (and if he would just go off, it bloody well would!) “…turn it on.”
Another spell. Another. Another. Another. Basil was at his wits’ end.
“Try.”
Snow was fifteen. How hadn’t the Mage taught him this by now?
Basil gritted his teeth.
“Load up your gun and pull the trigger!”
“How?”
“Close your eyes and light a match.”
Two, three, four more spells over the boulder. Draining draining draining.
“What?”
Five, six, seven, dodge, eight.
Basil was too flustered not to say what he said next.
“That’s what my mother used to say.” He was so exhausted, the mention barely stung. “Light a match inside your heart, then blow on the tinder.”
Snow was staring at Basil, mouth agape and wide-eyed.
Morgana, there was no time!
Basil went back to shouting. This was something he was skilled at—poking and poking until boom.
“Now Snow!”
Spell after spell.
“You’re the worst Chosen One to ever be—“Lift. Spell. Duck. Shout—“bloody chosen!”
Lift, spell, duck, shout.
“Can’t you even do this one thing right?”
“Go back to Hell, Baz!”
“We’re already there, Snow!”
Lift, spell, dodge, spell, duck, shout.
“Poxy little Chosen One can’t even save himself!”
Basil was exhausted—lighting match after match, pulling trigger after trigger.
He flopped down onto the ground, tried to catch his breath. Snow was pulling at his hair, literally fuming. He was starting to blur and shimmer right before Basil’s eyes.
“Not that it matters.” Come on, Snow. Come on. “The Mage isn’t going to want you after this, is he? What a waste you are.”
It started the way it always did. Light bending and reflecting in tawny curls, sparks popping and flaring against golden skin. Basil shuffled away just in time to watch ice-hot flame whip around Snow’s hands and wrists, licking up along his blade—visibly every inch the saviour the World of Mages hoped he was.
He raised the flaming sword above his head and Basil had two seconds to wonder if this was how Simon Snow finally killed him, before he turned and swung sharply in the chimera’s direction.
Nothing could withstand a force as mighty as that. It didn’t matter that there was at least twenty feet and a honking great boulder between them. Basil watched the blackening waves of Snow’s power ripple through the air, disintegrating the boulder and hurtling straight for the chimera’s roaring form, flattening everything in an unbiased radius of destruction.
Everything, except for Basil.
It was still too much, though. He’d built up a tolerance to Snow’s magic, could handle its intensity, the push and pull of it, but he could feel it pulling him under under under. He was drowsy with it, slumping, breathing laborious and heavy.
Basil watched twinklings of gossamer quiver in the air through blurry eyes, wisps of silk and soul dissipating in the distance.
He rolled back over to tell Snow it was enough, that they were safe, but he couldn’t get his lips to open. His muscles felt heavy, his tongue thick in his mouth.
Basil could only watch as Snow glowed in the flame from his sword, eyes a thick pupiless blue and still fixed to the spot where the chimera had once stood. His curls and clothes floated from the force of the power still pouring out of him, a cup overflowing under a waterfall.
He was… beautiful.
Crowley, Basil thought, as it inevitably pulled him under, was Snow’s magic finally sending him mental?
When they woke, Basil wasn’t sure what time or day or season it was. He could feel the ground beneath him, but it gave him no clues. It was ashy, a blackened pit of dust still slightly smoking. Debris floated down around them, chalky snowflakes.
Snow groaned as he rolled over next to him—soot in his hair and dusting his face in a mimicry of his usual freckles.
Basil had to push down on the urge to wipe it off Snow’s cheeks. Crowley, he was a mess.
“You’ve singed my bloody eyebrows off you cretin.”
“Wha’?” Snow glanced around him, clear eyed but clearly confused. He looked boyish, innocent. He had a deep gouge across his jawbone. Basil was suddenly aware of just how young they both were. It clawed at his chest, scratched at his conscience.
“You. Bloody going off and singeing off my bloody eyebrows!”
“Shut up, Baz.” Ah, stable ground. “Your pompous eyebrows’ll live to fight another day.”
“Can’t say the same for the fauna. You were meant to kill the chimera, you fool, not the whole Wavering Wood!”
They bickered back and forth as they dusted themselves off, stumbled and unspokenly kept each other upright on their way back to school.
As soon as they rounded the Weeping Tower, they were immediately met with a line of teachers—each one of their faces clearly read: yes, you’re in trouble.
They were finally silent as they climbed the stairs to the Mage’s office, but Basil had barely taken his seat before Snow had dobbed him in.
“Baz tried to murder me. He’s unsafe to be around people!”
Crowley. And Basil thought he was the dramatic one.
The Mage, to his credit, didn’t even blink.
It didn’t dissuade Snow. Maybe he was used to the Mage’s apathy for these things.
“He tried to kill me, sir!”
“Did you, Mr Pitch?”
Basil hadn’t even opened his mouth before Snow interrupted him.
“He wanted that thing to eat me. He deserves to be expelled!”
Basil thought that to be highly unfair!
Sure, he had summoned the thing—a feat worthy of a top grade if he’d ever seen one—and sure he had intended for Snow to soil himself, or at the very least cry a little… but that hadn’t even happened. After he had worked so hard! He’d failed at his intention. Surely that was punishment enough.
The Mage seemed to think so. For all his apathy, he had nodded at Basil’s well delivered speech on how Basil had been the one wronged by the situation, actually, and had held up a hand to stop Snow interrupting, and had let Basil walk away Scot-free.
Snow had been shaking from anger as Basil was dismissed to the infirmary for a perfunctory check over—so maybe he could actually count the whole saga as a win?
He strode off down the corridor, feeling fairly pleased with himself. But, alone with his thoughts in the infirmary waiting room, Basil’s mind couldn’t stop running over and over the events of the evening.
Basil was certain Snow’s brain had blinked out; his eyes unseeing, his humanness gone.
But, somehow, Snow had kept his wits enough to leave Basil unharmed—to actively shield him from ruination.
Why had he done that? Why hadn’t he taken the chance?
It could have been easy. Collateral damage. No harm, no foul, Basil summoned it anyway. A villain succumbing to his own vicious scheme. What a pretty narrative. Storybook, really.
And he had been quick to throw Basil under the Mage’s bus.
It didn’t make any sense.
It made Basil feel… he didn’t know. He didn’t think he had enough information right now to know.
After Basil had talked Miss Christy out of a full checkup (just like usual), he exited her office to see Snow sitting in the waiting room.
The glare he sent Basil’s way would have sawn a weaker man in half.
Snow saved those up especially for him, and usually Basil knew exactly how to handle them, but Snow hadn’t yet cleaned the ash from his clothes and his tawny hair was burned at the edges and Basil’s skin itched with something he didn’t understand.
Snow raised his jaw in some unnecessary show of defiance.
It drew Basil’s attention to a large smear of blood across his neck, where it must have dripped from the gouge on his jaw. A line of it crusted up towards his lips.
Basil suddenly felt too big for his own body.
He didn’t understand anything, but if this was a game of getting under each other’s skin, then he was not going to lose.
He smirked at Snow as he sauntered past to open the door, intending to let it swing shut loudly behind him, but the clash! never came.
He turned to see Snow standing in the doorway.
“I know why you did it.”
Crowley, how many screws had he shaken loose? Basil had just told them both exactly why he’d done it. He didn’t have the energy to argue in circles about it now. He just turned away and kept on walking.
Finally the door slam came, but Snow seemed to be on the wrong side of it.
Basil could hear him panting with rage.
“Don’t walk away from me! You’re going to see her aren’t you!?”
Basil had no clue what the halfwit was talking about. And he was tired. And unusually agitated. And thirsty. He needed to hunt—a fact that made him feel even angrier.
He sped up.
He could still hear Snow shouting, following him down the corridor to the stairwell. Why wouldn’t he just leave him alone?
“I was meant to take her to the cinema!” Stomp stomp. “You planned this, didn’t you!” Stomp stomp stomp. “You wanted that thing to eat me so you could have her all to yourself!”
Crowley, was this about Wellbelove? Snow was a broken record.
Basil tuned him out. Focused his senses instead.
He could hear Snow’s heart beating frantically as he chased him down the hall, and he let himself get swept away in the rush and roar of his blood.
It screamed alive alive alive.
They had almost died today, didn’t Snow get that? Basil thought he might have been immortal, but he would have shrivelled up like flashpaper at one lick from the chimera’s flaming tongue.
Snow might have had power for the ages, but he was still human, after all. Fragile.
And here he was, shouting and bawling and caring more about his precious Agatha than his own life.
Basil wanted to… he wanted to… bloody kick him in the knees. Get his hands around him and squeeze.
Snow seemed to be of the same opinion. He grabbed Basil by the sleeve of his blazer, yanked him backwards, away from the staircase. Basil spun and shoved Snow off him, outrage building in his stomach over being grabbed at all.
Snow’s face was contorted into unadulterated fury. He actually growled as he squared up to Basil—forehead almost touching forehead. Basil simmered; fiery and raw after the events of the day. It was reflected in Snow’s eyes—everything pent up and looking for a way out out out.
Close like this, Basil could see Snow’s power rippling under his skin.
This would not end well.
Basil chose nonchalance, even though it was not at all how he felt. “Whatever mess you and Agatha have gotten into is certainly due to your own idiocy.”
At that, Snow lost it. He launched himself at Basil, fist connecting with stomach, hands and feet trying to wrestle him to the ground.
Basil could easily finish this with his unnatural strength, but he wouldn’t know how to explain that away to the school board—how to keep up his fictions with Snow after giving him such concrete proof.
Still, he was human (ish) after all, and after one punch too many he was bound to start punching back.
Snow was ferocious as they twisted and turned and grappled, shouting and growling and cursing in a way that made Basil thankful Snow wasn’t a better magician.
Then Snow tried to get in a cheeky knee shot to parts of Basil that another boy should know better than to target, and Basil had had enough, swinging his fist directly at Snow’s face.
It was a lucky shot, Basil told himself, afterwards once Snow had stopped tumbling down the stair treads. Had hit the landing with an unnnnmpf! and an undoubtedly winded chest.
Illustration by erzbethluna
Basil felt winded too, in those seconds where Snow didn’t breathe. Once his brain had caught up with what had happened, his feet had tumbled him down after Snow, pulling up short at a gasping breath and a narrowed nuclear glare.
Snow was crying. Basil had the strangest urge to hold his hand.
Instead he sneered and turned back in the other direction. Back up the stairs. Back down the corridor.
And if he happened to stop by Miss Christy’s office to alert her that a student had fallen down the stairs, no one else had to know.
Or at least, so Basil had thought.
His Aunt Fiona had apparently known.
“What’s this I hear then about you pushing the Chosen One down a flight of stairs, boyo?” She’d asked over her fourth sip of secret-flask-Christmas-Eve-whiskey, perched on the sofa in the library, heckling Basil while he tried to practice violin.
Basil had seen it—how amused Fiona had looked, how proud. So he’d lied. It was a small lie, really. What was one yes instead of no? Especially when it made Aunt Fiona laugh like that.
She’d ruffled his hair and told him he was doing the Pitch name proud—good Pitches, that’s what they were; doing their part to fight for their world.
Basil had gone to bed that evening wondering, if this was how proud Fiona was, just how proud of him might his mother have been?
Two days, that’s all they’d had of Christmas holidays before the Mage’s Men had turned up to pillage their grounds.
Basil was so, so angry.
The Mage wanted to drive Basil’s whole family out of magic—Fiona had told him so, more than a tad tipsy, many many times. Basil had to do his part to stop that from happening. Even if it meant getting caught up in the flames.
Fiona had arrived back at Pitch Manor with a gift for Basil. A pocket recorder. With an actual tape. It looked vintage. British racing car green. Like Father’s Porsche.
A way to take the Mage’s Heir out of our way once and for all she’d said. To save the Pitch family name.
Good Pitches. That’s what they were. (The only ones left.) And, like a good Pitch, Basil had taken the recorder offered to him—had big plans to use it the second he got back to Watford. Even though he wasn’t really sure what it did.
But, as he climbed into his lumpy school bed across from his softly snoring enemy, turning the recorder over and over in his hands, he found himself hesitating. He stared at Snow—tangled up in a knot, hair a crush of curls on his pillowcase, skin lit by moonlight because of course the idiot hadn’t closed the curtains—and thought… maybe he should wait a while.
Besides, wasn’t that what soldiers did? Planned to strike when their enemy least expected it?
Snow had returned from Christmas with a vengeance.
Basil couldn’t get rid of him. Everywhere he turned, Snow was there!
The library, the football stands, on the great lawn: Snow, Snow, Snow.
Yelling about his vampirism to anyone who would listen. Staring at him in class as if Basil would somehow out himself by taking notes in Magical Words.
He could constantly feel Snow’s magic—lapping at his heels, tickling at the collar of his shirt. He was always so close, too close. Like a dog, tied to his bloody ankle.
And, even during those moments where he wasn"t there physically (only the toilet stall, lately) he was… well, still present in Basil’s mind.
He couldn’t deny that he’d enjoyed it, at first. Any excuse to push and shove and tease Snow was a welcome break from the frequent monotony of his days. It had always been Basil’s favourite pastime.
But the more time they spent together, the more it dawned on Basil that maybe the jittering in his chest and the burning in the pit of his stomach and his constant urge to grab and poke and touch Snow wasn’t just a healthy amount of disdain for his cheery-faced enemy.
Imagine how pathetic Basil felt when he realised that all those years he’d been tormenting Snow, it was his attention Basil had wanted, not his suffering.
And now he had it. So much of it. All of Snow’s attention seemed to be focused on him, all of the time. Morgana. He felt seconds away from shoving Snow against the closest wall and sinking his teeth into him.
There’s your proof, Snow! And now you’re a vampire too!
No. Absolutely not. Basil would be stuck with his pious face forever. He’d rather torch himself alive.
Basil kept waiting for these… these… feelings (urgh) to pass, but Snow wouldn’t give him one bloody second to reason them away, to justify to himself that there was no way on this cruel earth that he could ever fancy Simon Snow.
By five weeks in, he was really close to losing it.
He attempted to satisfy himself with tried and tested ways of getting Snow to back off:
Spelling his laptop closed, ants in his pants, his boater to float away whenever he said the word Mage.
None of it was working.
Snow remained a constant.
Illustration by erzbethluna
By the end of Spring term, Basil had had enough. They had been playing cat and mouse in the Catacombs night after night after night and Basil had been trying incredibly hard not to blow a figurative fuse, but there was only so much cursing one could do to take the edge off.
He hated Snow. He hated having to look at him. He hated— well. He hated what having to look at Snow did to him.
He wanted to take him down—get rid of his terrible waking nightmare for good.
Basil hoped that whatever was on that recorder would cause Simon Snow to literally blow.
And of course Snow had followed him. So predictable. So easily manipulated.
And Basil could hardly be blamed; standing there, on the bridge, with the cinematic backdrop of the Watford gates. He felt... important. Like the brave little soldier—or spy—Aunt Fiona always told him he was. Finally doing what he had to do to keep his family’s place in the World of Mages.
“What are you plotting now?”
Basil remained silent, just like he promised Fiona he would.
Snow’s pouchy blue eyes were narrowed at him. His jaw set. Chin lifted.
It was a Snow Basil had been fighting with for five years. It was a Snow Basil dreamt of almost every night.
He’d intended to press play the second Snow opened his mouth, but faced with the sudden possibility this was the last time he might see Snow, Basil couldn’t help but take the opportunity for one last argument. Even if it was only one sided (for once).
Basil was ashamed.
“Answer me, Baz!” Snow was blustering. The easiest way to make Snow lose his temper had always been to act like he was invisible. “Who are you meeting here? Is it the High Blade?”
How had Snow not moved past that by now? What time did Basil have spare to be a—or even report to—some supreme leader of vampirism? When would Basil even find the opportunity given Snow was following him every damn second of the day?
He was an idiot. A constant thorn in Basil’s side.
Basil watched the blood rise in Snow’s cheeks. Listened to the quickening of his heart. Sure signs Snow was losing his temper. His fangs twitched in his gums.
The next time Snow began to speak, Basil had no doubts. He pressed play.
But it wasn’t Snow’s voice.
“Hiya, Simooooooo—!”
Basil tried to press quickly again at the button under his fingertips, but he wasn’t quick enough.
He felt the recorder vibrate in his pocket, listened in horror as words tumbled through the air in a single drawn out, monstrous squeeeeeeeak!
Philippa bloody Stainton. Embarrassing herself once again. Barely two feet away from them. Time felt suspended as Basil and Snow watched Philippa open and close her mouth. Swallow. Try again.
Nothing.
Snow and Basil locked eyes—both wide with the gravity of the situation. Basil knew his face betrayed guilt with every furrow and pinch.
What had he just done?
Safe to say none of the teachers believed he had done anything—no matter how much Snow insisted that he had. He hadn’t spoken, afterall, and neither Snow nor Philippa could attest otherwise.
Basil kept mostly quiet throughout the—surprisingly very brief—investigation. (Which should have struck the teachers as unusual, given how Basil usually responded to Snow’s outlandish claims with vigour. But it didn’t.)
He was feeling… he didn’t know.
Philippa was mute. It was his fault. A magician, without their voice.
It was the worst thing Basil could think of someone ever doing to another Magician. It was a fate worse than death—his half-life or otherwise. He might be a dread creature of the night, but he could still command magic.
And he had almost—
Great snakes. He could barely even think it.
He rounded the corner into Le Tombeau des Enfants and settled himself into one of the nooks, away from the always-lit wall torches. He set his flask of whiskey down between his legs, swiped from Fiona after she’d fallen asleep in the library Christmas Eve.
He had called Fiona immediately after he’d gotten away from the Mage’s office and she hadn’t given a rat’s arse.
“She’s not one of ours, is she?” As if that mattered when Basil could have—
He wanted to scream.
He took a long swig. Tried to forget. The rich recall of Philippa’s high pitched squeak persisted. How she had looked sat in the Mage’s office, everything about her muted.
He took another long swig as he considered the alternative and was disgusted to find a part of him felt relieved.
That could have—should have—been Snow.
One sip. Two.
The Greatest Mage. The Power of Powers. The Chosen One without the ability to even command magic. And all Basil’s fault.
For all Snow can barely spit out a spell most days, without him… well. Who would stop the Humdrum? Without him—if the Humdrum was able to run about syphoning freely… there’d be no magic left to fight for. No magic left for the Old Families and the Mage to bloody fight over.
Their stupid bloody Great War.
The Mage at the helm and Snow as his nuclear option.
So what did that make Basil? Some kind of anti-ballistic missile. Oh yes, let’s throw Basil in the path of the oncoming threat and somehow Snow and the Mage’s band of Merry Men will be defeated.
Who cared about the casualties? Even if that included Basil himself.
It would include Basil. Eventually.
Eventually he and Snow were going to have to battle it out for real.
They expected Basil to kill him.
It hadn’t occurred to Basil before. No, it had he supposed, just not as solid. Not as real.
He actually laughed out loud at the thought. It was strained. It hurt.
He took another sip and let the whiskey burn it away. He wished the whiskey could burn away his brain, turn thoughts and memories and burdens to ashes.
Basil was willing to do his part. For his family. He had to do that.
But Basil couldn’t kill Snow.
No one could. No one should. He was… He was… something else.
He was Simon bloody Snow.
Basil couldn’t really wrap his head around the thought. And so he didn’t try. He just took another long, burning sip.
Some indeterminate time later, Basil played with a flame in his palm, made it dance between his fingertips, watched the shadows dance in turn across the skulls in the tomb through a warm whiskey haze.
Every person who had died at Watford was laid to rest here. His great-great-uncle. His mother. He would have been too, if his mother had had her way.
Fitting he was there then, suffering from his own special kind of plague and surrounded by these children who hadn’t survived theirs. Round and round the garden…
No, wait. That wasn’t right.
Basil was tired. He wondered if he knew any spells that could fix any of this. All of it. He didn’t. In any language. He caught eye contact with empty skull sockets and knew it to be fruitless. Magic hadn’t helped them. It couldn’t help him. It wasn’t even really helping Snow.
He wondered whether there would ever be enough words or power to scorch him clean—rid him of his vampirism. Crowley, any of his burdens. At this point he was not picky.
He thought he might have been drunk, though. He stared into the ringed neck of the flask, wondering if it had any answers. It had none.
Except…
“Ring around the rosie,” ah yes, that was it. “A pocket full of posies…”
It was no use to him though. It wouldn’t stop what was coming for him. What was likely to be his own ashy end.
His throat was scratchy as he sang. He was thirsty. For blood.
He couldn’t be bothered to move. He felt sluggish, exhausted right down to his bones. He’d barely slept in weeks, and this afternoon had drained whatever he had left.
He took another swig. Let the flame in his hand dance closer than usual. The whiskey made him brave. Or stupid. Or… something.
One misstep and he’d be ashes.
Basil had heard Snow’s footsteps echoing through the catacomb halls by now, but he was too silly with whiskey to stop Snow from finding him like usual.
Besides, Basil was so tired of fighting, of playing cat and mouse.
And he hadn’t been drinking. Well, not rats anyway. There was nothing for Snow to find. Not that that would matter if Snow was finally here to finish him off.
Snow always did the right thing. And what Basil almost did to him today was unforgivable.
And he was so, so tired.
And it wasn’t a game anymore. Had it ever been?
Basil put out his flame. Readied himself for a different kind of fire. Snow would arrive soon; sword raised and hero’s chin out for the world to see.
Snow rounded the corner into the tomb, his eyes blazing with rage. His sword reflected the wall torches in a way that made it seem flaming. It lit and shadowed the topography of Snow’s face; his brow and cheekbones, his firm jaw. He really was beautiful; golden and chiselled, as Chosen One’s should be.
Basil couldn’t stand it.
This was his world, the World of Mages, and he would do his part to fight for it. But on that day, when he and Snow would have to fight each other for real, Basil would lose.
He met Snow’s eyes. He burned.
“You found me,” he said.
Ashes, ashes—we all fall down.
Illustration by Lizard_fruit