~~~Sebastian
Fuck.
Ominis was going to kill me.
Once again my fat mouth worked faster than my brain and I said something stupid.
Aria hadn't deserved that, and now I couldn't find her.
Fuck.
I thought maybe she'd have run off to find him, but I spotted Nat speaking to him quietly, off to the side of the grand staircase and knew that hadn't happened. She saw me and her face contorted a little into...anger? Confusion?
It was going to be bad enough that as far as I was concerned, she was missing, whether or not that was actually true.
But...What had I done? And in fifth year? That year was a terrible blur, and honestly, after everything involving my uncle, and Anne, everything that had transpired between the three of us, what hadn't already been said? What hadn't already been fought over?
I shook my head, trying to clear out the cobwebs, then tried to think harder about where she might be.
I saw her face start to twitch. I saw her wipe her eyes...which were becoming the incorrect color.
She was incredibly stressed out about something.
She was about to have a breakdown.
A bad one.
Alone.
~~~
I continued my search for a little while longer, but it was already dark as the void outside and no one had seen her.
"Michael, have you seen Aria?"
"Ominis's odd little girlfriend? No, I haven't."
"Emma, is Aria in your dorm room?"
"I haven't seen Birdy since Herbology this morning."
Every single time I asked, I got a similar answer.
I didn't dare ask Natty or Poppy.
But I was going to have to swallow my pride and say something to Ominis. Whatever he was pissed at me for, It would be even worse if something happened to her and I stayed silent.
"Ominis."
"I don't want to speak to you right now, Sebastian."
"Well, you have to. I...might have lost Aria."
"What on earth are you talking about? What do you mean you lost Aria?"
"We...had a bit of an argument after potions class and I might have said something that hurt her feelings and she ran away from me and now I can't find her and no one else has seen her either and I think she's about to have an episode and I'm sorry."
I rambled like it was me who was the mad one, though truly I was just bracing myself for the inevitable.
Ominis was out of his seat like a shot, racing out of the Great Hall. I followed on his heels.
FUCK.
~~~Ominis
Come on, little songbird...where are you?
The undercroft was the first place I checked, but it was empty. I ran upstairs, all the way to the seventh floor and paced in front of the wall until the door appeared.
"How do you know it's going to be the right one?"
"I don't. But for as much as I'm in here with her I can hope."
I opened the door and was both relieved and disappointed at the same time. It was in fact the right room, the scent of her perfume heavy in the air, the sound of a potion station still bubbling away.
"Aria?"
Nothing.
I left the room and just stood there, trying to think. Where would she have run to?
"How do you know she's even still in the school?"
"Why are you still here, Sebastian!? Piss off."
I snapped at him while leaving the hallway, going back down to my common room to grab my coat before heading to the courtyard exit.
He still hadn't left me and I was trying to hardest to ignore him.
As I, well...we, headed for the road away from the castle, a couple of other students were rather hurriedly hightailing back toward it, from the sounds of their footfalls. I heard them talking as they raced past.
"Do you think we should get Professor Hecat? What if it's a Banshee?"
"I mean, probably? But then we'd have to tell her we were trying to sneak into the Forbidden Forest and I do NOT want to hear that lecture."
Damnit.
I started heading that way, partially leaving Sebastian in my wake.
"Ominis! Hold on a damn minute, I'm trying to find my wand. I can't see well enough with just the moon!"
"Then fucking leave!"
His footsteps stopped. I'd probably shocked him. But then I heard him light up his wand and run to catch up.
"I'm not leaving, this is my fault, and if she's in there you have no idea what else is right now, either."
I could tell we were coming upon the entrance to the forest since it was mostly silent, and smelled of rotting wood and foliage.
The part that scared me, wasn't that I was going to go into the Forbidden Forest. It was the silent part.
But it didn't stay silent for very long.
That same heart shattering scream from last year came from a ways inside, followed by the sounds of wings and avian screeching as birds scattered from treetops. I didn't think twice, hurrying in and trying my best not to trip over branches, roots, rocks.
The scream came again, and I veered into underbrush, nearly falling into a rut, and twisting my ankle a bit. I ignored the pain and kept going.
"Ominis, stop."
Against my better judgement, I did. I heard the sound of the biting wind whistling through the trees, the occasional hoot of an owl, and crying.
Sebastian's voice was quiet as he moved to get in front of me. "She's right there, in a mooncalf den. But...I don't think you should touch her, she doesn't...look right."
"Well that's just like you, isn't it, Sebastian? Not thinking."
"What the fuck is wrong with you?"
"Forget it."
I shoved past Sebastian and went closer to Aria, my wand guiding me to her. She was slumped on her knees in freezing mud and snow. I joined her.
Reaching out, I pulled her into me. She stopped crying, but I could tell she was still far from okay. She was trembling. "Aria...Please come back. I'm here. I'm right here, sweetheart."
Nothing. I tried calling to her again, but she stayed silent.
"Ominis, some of her fingers look frostbitten, we have to get her back to the castle."
Knowing he was right, I stood her up and kept her upright against me. She moved as I moved her but was listless otherwise.
We made it part of the way there before her whole body went limp and Sebastian and I were near deafened by another scream.
And this one drew...some unwanted attention.
"Fuck."
"Fuck."
I heard the skittering of spiders to my left and my right and held out my wand while at the same time, trying to get Aria back up. She'd started sniffling again, completely out of it.
"Aria, I know you're in there somewhere, you need to get up darling. Please."
"Ominis! To your right!"
I could make out Sebastian firing off spells and aimed where he'd shouted, casting a blasting shot and listening to a spider screech before going silent.
There were a few more spells cast, then the forest went quiet again for the moment. However, far off, I could hear what indeed sounded like more spiders hurrying over to catch up to their now fallen brethren.
Sebastian's footsteps got closer and closer as he raced up to us and then...I heard him smack Aria's face, and fairly hard, at that.
I suddenly forgot about the spiders, launching myself at him, enraged.
~~~Aria
It was....dark. And cold. And I couldn't feel my fingers and everything hurt. My vision was blurry for a moment and I could hear, and then finally see...
Sebastian and Ominis fighting.
And not, yelling fighting. Noses and lips were bloody and I watched Ominis land a punch to Sebastian's face, both of them hurling insults at the other.
"Stop it! Both of you STOP IT!"
They did, immediately, faces turning in my direction. Sebastian had Ominis by the collar and dropped him. Ominis hurried over to me and took my face in his hands. "Sweetheart, we have to go...."
I stammered, unable to get any words out through now chattering teeth. In just those few moments I realized we were in the forest, and that the area was littered with dead thornbacks.
Sebastian started backing up, his wand focused on something behind me. "Go! Now!"
All three of us took off as a small clutter of living ones burst through the trees, though I was admittedly having trouble running. Ominis was trying to keep me up but we were going to fall behind, even though Sebastian was doing his damndest to kill what he could.
I reached for my wand, but my fingers weren't cooperating, and I couldn't get a grip on it. I let go of Ominis's arm and stumbled, falling onto the path.
"Aria!"
"Get out!"
"I'm not leaving you!"
"Sebastian get him out!"
They started arguing again, Ominis screaming for me as Sebastian started to haul him back. The spiders were nearly on me at this point and I just...
I threw my hands out in front of me, a swirling, crackling wall of red and black passing through them, shrieking, and leaving every single one it touched dead in my wake.
"ARIA! DON'T USE IT!"
"...Holy shit."
Panting like a dog, I felt something drip onto my chest, seeing dark spots on my skin. Reaching up, I found my nose was bleeding, and I was...very dizzy.
...So dizzy.
~~~
I woke up...at some point, in the hospital wing. It was still dark outside. I heard snoring and shifted a bit in my bed, seeing both Ominis and Sebastian sitting upright in chairs, their heads tilted back, arms crossed in front of them.
Always a little too much alike in some aspects, I mused to myself.
Their faces were bruised, and Ominis was still covered in mud.
I wondered how much of a fuss they put up for Madam Blainey to allow them to stay in such states. I wondered what they even concocted up as an explanation for everything.
I sat up and looked down, seeing some of my fingers bandaged up. They had been soaked in something.
I tried to peel some of them back, to see what they looked like, but jumped, startled a little by Madam Blainey's voice as she came around the partition. "I wouldn't do that if I were you, Miss Aves. That tincture needs to get into your skin to repair it. You're lucky these two found you, you were pretty close to being in real trouble. I'd suggest the next time you take a trip into Hogsmeade, you stick to the road, hm?"
She handed me a warm cup of tea, which I was grateful for, then she thumped both boys awake. Ominis seemed awake in a second, Sebastian, not so much. He yawned and stretched before coming around fully.
"Alright you two, I said you could stay until she was awake. She's awake, so it's back to your common room."
She left the area, and Ominis came up to me, leaning down and kissing my forehead, my nose, then my lips.
His face was bruised in spots, but his lip had been fixed.
"...Please don't scare me like that again."
"I didn't mean to. What happened?"
"You don't remember?"
"No...I remember talking to Sebastian, then...the next thing I remember you two were beating each other up and I was outside."
"Uh, yeah. I...might have smacked you in the face to get you to snap out of it. Ominis obviously didn't appreciate it. Also Aria, I'm so sorry. I didn't mean what I said I just-"
"It's okay."
"...You really need to stop being so forgiving sometimes."
"What did you say to her? You said you hurt her feelings, but you didn't tell me what you said."
I held up a hand. "Nothing. Don't worry about it. I thank you both for coming to find me. I'm the one that needs to be sorry for this mess."
"No, you don't. Not if it was his fault. What did you say to her, Sebastian?"
"I...I-"
"Sebastian stop."
"Aria, let him tell me what he said!
"NO! STOP FIGHTING!"
I screamed, and within a second, Madam Blainey came back, madder than a rampaging troll and dragging both of them out of the wing by their ears, threatening them with detention if they didn't shape up that second and get to bed.
Sighing, I pulled the blanket over my head and tried desperately to sleep. As I did, a singular word formed in my head. A word I'd only used probably twice, ever.
Fuck.