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kaidynsarell · 4 months ago

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Sebastian Sallow and the Day his Daughter Abused her Library Privleges.

🍁🌼🍁🌼🍁🌼🍁🌼🍁🌼🍁🌼🍁🌼🍁🌼🍁

Pairings: Sebastian Sallow x Female OC, Female OC x Male OC.

Rating: Sexual content is referenced/implied

Tags: Seb is smart but also kind of dumb, cannot compute his child growing up, dating and *gasp* Book Violence (Seb insisted on that last one)

The full fic can be found below(5k words)

One shot (unless the gremlins force me to add more. I am at their mercy😅)

The “rug” had been yanked out from under Sebastian approximately three times in a matter of a few minutes. Each displacement worse than the last, and only compounded by the growing smirks plastered across both his wife’s and sister's faces. They'd not even done him the decency of trying to hide their satisfaction. Even Ominis had failed to stifle his mirth and now sat attempting to suppress waves of silent giggles Sebastian knew only too well came at his own expense.

The whole terrible ordeal had started only fifteen minutes prior when he’d Floo’d back home from his office at Hogwarts.

The position of Defense Against the Dark Arts Professor had come as a surprising offer nearly eight years prior.

Dinah had been stepping down from the post and had, to Sebastian’s surprise, felt he would be the most suited for the position. He'd almost wanted to decline it, given his own dalliances with the Dark Arts.

Really, he'd thought, he was the furthest thing from appropriate for that job.

If only they'd truly known the history he'd left behind in that catacomb. He couldn’t imagine any of them would be singing his praises if they caught a glimpse of the marks he’d raked through his soul. But his wife had always had this uncanny way of reminding him, convincing him really, that he was a better person than he gave himself credit for.

That, and she’d never been terribly infatuated with the secrecy required by his work with the Department of Mysteries. The “Unspeakable” job title came with about as much useful information outside of the department as the title offered, which is to say, nothing.

So, with his wife's less than secretive encouragement, he’d left his work with the Ministry and set foot in Hogwarts to assist his former DADA Professor for the remainder of that school year.

He’d have been lying if he'd said he’d never thought of teaching before. That he'd not nearly written that as one of his interests on his Career Advice form in his Fifth year and imagined the slight possibility of following in his parent’s footsteps.

Though, that particular thought had twisted in a far more vulnerable place than he ever cared to admit to.

Months later, the 1st of September had seen his official first day as the Defense Against the Dark Arts Professor and his eleven-year-old daughter's first day as a student.

He'd watched her small frame perch on that stool at the center of the stage that day, her legs still too short to reach the ground as the sorting hat slid over her eyes and called out the name of his old house.

He'd known his Love would call him too sentimental when he blinked away tears as he'd watched his little girl with the wavy brown hair and the freckles that so matched his own hop down from the stool and scamper away to the Slytherin table without so much as a backward glance at him.

Professor Weasley had looked at him from down the staff table a little too long then, and he'd quickly swallowed several gulps of pumpkin juice in what he'd hoped was a convincing enough display to not let anyone think he'd just been crying over what was still his baby girl being sorted.

He'd deny it in any case.

Had it not been just yesterday, she'd been two years old and babbling incoherently while he balanced her on his shoulders?

Surely, she'd not actually been eleven yet.

Then, she'd joined the Slytherin Quidditch team as a Chaser in her third year, and his apprehension had tangled so closely with his pride it had been impossible to separate them. Each match had been met with both white-knuckled fear she'd be hurt and joy in seeing how she lit up with each goal she maneuvered past the Keeper.

Until the last game of that season had Slytherin facing Ravenclaw for the house cup.

He'd only just seen the Bludger before it hit her.

She'd not seen it at all, and there'd only been the collective gasp of the crowd as she'd crumpled the last twenty feet to the pitch below.

He would have bet galleons apparition couldn’t have moved him faster that day as he'd scooped her limp, unmoving form into his arms and carried her back to the Hospital Wing, ignoring the shouts of his wife and Nurse Blainey alike.

Hours later, she'd still not opened her eyes, and even the Hogwarts Matron’s reassurances that it was most likely due to the myriad of healing and calming spells placed over her had done nothing to stop the path he'd worn into the stone with the ferocity of his pacing.

She'd looked far too small and pale lying there.

Too much like...

But he'd shoved that particular thought away.

It had taken Anne, Ominis, and the witch he'd fallen for at sixteen to calm him enough to be convinced not to send his daughter to Saint Mungo's for further treatment.

"You need rest, Sebastian," his wife had said when she'd glanced up for what must have been the umpteenth time from her place in the squashy armchair she’d conjured beside their daughter’s bed to find him pacing again, book in hand. "You heard Nurse Blainey. It's a common Quidditch injury. She'll be good as new by morning."

Sebastian had only muttered a halfhearted acknowledgment before her fingers pulled through his, and she’d tugged him over to where their thirteen-year-old slept.

“This isn't like Anne, Seb.” She’d whispered so low he could just feel her breath along his cheek. “Little One is going to be okay. Her body just needs to rest.”

“I know that.” He had; it had done nothing to stop the icy lump forming in the pit of his stomach.

Somehow, he'd let her convince him to return to the large armchair. He’d pulled the woman down on top of him and buried his face into her neck.

Still, sleep never truly found him that night, and if his wife’s much too quiet breaths had been any indication, she'd slept about as well as he had.

Hadn't it only been a few days ago their daughter had turned seven and opened her first real broom--not one of those that skimmed a foot or so off the ground—but one slightly smaller than regulation that soared high into the tree tops? They’d spent hours above the back garden that day tossing an old Quaffle back and forth until the sun saw its last gold fade to ruby along the distant peaks and vanished below the skyline.

When she’d woken in the Hospital Wing the following day, the freckled girl had barely opened her eyes before asking about the match’s results. When Sebastian had gently suggested she might drop Quidditch to prevent further head injuries or, Merlin forbid, save her father a few sleepless nights, she'd looked so affronted one might have thought he'd asked her to kick a niffler.

Only two years ago had seen her sit her O.W.L.S and her career advice meeting.

With Aesop having retired at the end of the previous year, Sebastian had taken over as Head of Slytherin and sat with his little girl, for she would always be his little girl, while she'd prattled on about a list of careers she’d taken an interest in.

An Auror

A Curse Breaker

(And he’d made a mental note to have words with Poppy Sweeting, for this was clearly his daughter’s top choice for a career, and only the former ferocious little Magizoologist could have been behind this particular suggestion) A Magizoologist specializing in Dragons.

When Sebastian had dared offer the suggestion she might work for the Wizengamot or as an Archivist or study something as benign as Kneazles rather than Dragons or aim for a career with even a modicum of safety involved, the then fifteen-year-old had wrinkled her nose at him in that same way her mother always did.

"Ugh! Those are all boooorrring, Dad. I want to work with dragons."

"Absolutely not."

"But Mum and Aunt Poppy helped release a dragon from a poacher camp and returned its egg, and they were the same age as me.”

Sebastian had run a hand over face. "That was different."

That was when she'd settled back into her chair, folded her arms across her chest, and scowled at him in that way that reminded him too much of Anne, of himself if he were very honest about it. "I don't really see how."

She was more stubborn than both he and her mother combined, and Merlin help him; he'd be entirely grey before he was forty.

Hadn't she just been nine years old and still small enough to demand bedtime stories? Where had the time gone when she'd been satiated by the retelling of his and her mother’s adventures? Now, she craved adventure of her own, and he'd known he'd be a hypocrite if he stood too much in her way.

Still, the past fifteen minutes spent in the comfort of his own sitting room might have thrown him more than anything else he'd faced in the past seventeen years.

His first clue something was amiss had come only minutes before he'd taken the Floo home.

It wasn't often his daughter accompanied him back to their house in the evenings, but perks of having a parent as a professor, would occasionally return home with him once a month or so for ‘family weekends’. Sebastian would deny it if anyone suggested having his little girl home for the weekend was more for his own sanity than any amount of homesickness his daughter might have had.

Though, rather than finding her waiting for him in his office that day as he so often did, he'd found the room empty, and even a few minutes of waiting had not procured her.

It wasn’t terribly alarming. It wouldn’t even have been the first time she'd snuck home before him, ready to pounce out when he arrived home with some prank or another.

But when he’d stepped through the fireplace, she'd not been there either.

Anne, Ominis, and his wife had all been there, sitting in the living room. But there'd been no sign of his daughter.

He'd waited, still dusty from the fireplace, ready for whatever prank he was certain Anne was already in on, given the barely contained smirk tugging at the corner of her mouth.

He must have stood there a beat too long because his wife had tilted her head at him. "She's not coming home this weekend, Seb. Matilda’s just written. She's gotten detention for sneaking into the restricted section and for being out of bed after curfew last night."

Sebastian blinked but made no move to sit. It might have been a point of pride for him—the idea of his child sneaking off to obtain restricted knowledge— had he not already permitted her what amounted to nearly unlimited access to the Library anyway.

To any Library, really.

"But she doesn’t need to sneak into the restricted section." Judging by the looks on everyone’s faces, there was something he was missing, but whatever was had been proving frustratingly elusive. "She knows I'll write notes for whatever book she wants out of there."

That had been the deal they'd agreed to from the very first day their daughter had stepped foot into that school. Sebastian would sign for whatever book she wanted from the Restricted Section, so long as she kept him updated on what she was reading and, depending on the text, read the book at home or in his office where either he or her mother could keep supervision.

He’d never been one to limit his child’s knowledge.

Perhaps he'd taken that from his parents as well.

If his daughter had wanted to sneak anywhere, there were a plethora of other off-limits areas she could find. But the Library? That didn’t make sense.

Anne had giggled behind her hand. “She wasn't alone. She got caught there with a boy."

"What does she need a boy in the Restricted Section for?"

If his twin had meant to offer an explanation, she'd done nothing more than confuse him further.

His wife sighed. "I don't imagine they were there to study, Dear. Not books, in any case."

That had earned another round of barely contained giggles, and still, they'd all sat there looking at him like he was the butt of some great cosmic joke. Waiting for him to get it, but none of the information formed a logical conclusion. Even glancing at his twin had offered little in the way of answers, and he’d generally have been able to read her better than anyone.

"And here I thought you were supposed to be intelligent, Sallow." Ominis quipped from the place he'd perched next to Anne. “They let you teach? Merlin help the children."

That was when the pieces had snapped together.

"What?! No?!" He’d hated how high his voice had climbed and how much further it climbed as he’d held his hand out at his daughter's height, just about the height of his waist. “But…but she's only—"

Anne snorted. "Sebastian, she hasn't been that tall since she was about ten."

That was when he'd made his most devastating mistake. "Who?"

"I'm not certain it matters right now," His wife had started.

Sebastian whirled around. “It does if he's snogging our daughter."

"I think you mispronounced shagging" Anne chirped.

Sebastian had made an embarrassing, strangled, screeching sort of noise then.

Images had flooded behind his eyes of his little girl crowded against a bookshelf by some faceless man pressing lips against her neck in the throes of passion. Precious tomes toppled from their shelves; spines splayed unnaturally, pages creased. The faceless man's hands maneuvering into places Sebastian had never intended to let anyone near. Ever.

He’d be having nightmares for months.

"Who?" This had now become vitally important information. He needed to know whose fingers he would be breaking.

"Oh, he's sweet.” His wife had chirped. "He's one of your favorite students, you told me so just the other week—"

Sebastian had quickly run through a list of his students and immediately decided not one of them was worthy of his little girl. Not that anyone ever would be.

Really, now that he thought of it, touching his daughter should be tantamount to a life sentence in Azkaban. Did Onai still sit on the Wizengamot? Perhaps he could get it written into law.

"--Oliver Weasley."

"WEASLEY!?!?" His voice had climbed octaves into a territory that could only be described as screeching, but Sebastian had long since stopped caring.

His fingers had clutched around his wand so tightly it might have snapped had his wife not leaned forward and pulled it from his grip. Years since he'd used dark magic against another person, and fifteen minutes had him itching for unforgivables.

"Oh, aren't they adorable?" Anne, this time, and Sebastian had snapped his gaze to his twin. "You know, Poppy says they've been spending quite a lot of time together since she partnered them on that assignment with the Dirwicals a few months ago. That must have been when they started courting."

"Months!" It came out as a squeak. “This has been going on for months?!"

Make that the fourth rug.

He may as well stay on his ass while he was down here.

><><><><

The night was for stillness. Those quiet moments whispered between shooting stars or, in Sebastian's case, breathed against his wife’s hair as she sprawled across him. Her skin bare and tacky in the early summer heat against his own, her fingers tracing constellations between the freckles on his chest.

He tipped his head down to her again and brushed his nose against those soft strands still clinging to the scents of citrus and wildflowers. "Why didn't she tell me?"

"mmm?" The witch tipped her nose up to him.

"Why didn't she tell me she was seeing Weasley? I thought she told me everything." He'd whispered that last bit so quietly a part of him hoped she hadn't heard.

But the woman in his arms just slid her hand up his neck and into the short beard he'd kept for the past seven years. "Because she knows how much you worry, Seb.”

"I don't worry that much."

It was the second time she'd laughed at him that day.

"You stayed home from work for a week and threatened to send her to St. Mungo's when she had the flu last year."

"It was a bad case,” he muttered. Cool fingers stayed against his cheek. He closed his eyes and pushed his face against them. "What if Weasley’s pressuring her into things?"

"I really don't think he is.”

Sebastian scrunched his face at that. “How can you be sure?"

Another hand in his hair, and he thought he might melt into the mattress. "Because you've shown her how she deserves to be treated, Sebastian."

He wasn't prepared for his wife to be hovering over him when he blinked his eyes open again. Nor was he ready for her lips against his jaw

"Besides," she continued, “she's as brilliant and quick with a wand as you are, and I’ve already talked to her about it.” He was already brimming with a retort when his Love placed a single delicate finger over his half-parted lips. “Trust her.”

"She's still not old enough." It seemed the only thing he could manage.

"Sebastian," another trill of laughter, "She'll be eighteen next month, and she and Oliver will both have left school. We weren't so much older than them when we got engaged."

And that sent images of white dresses and vows and his little girl’s fingers on his arm as he walked her toward a tall redhead at the other end of a long aisle racing behind his eyelids.

And that

that.

He was not prepared for.

He wasn't sure he ever would be.

It was enough to pull his Love back against him and bury his face against her hair again. "She wasn't ever supposed to grow up."

He'd deny it if anyone said his voice broke.

><><><><

Now that he was aware of his daughter's relationship, he saw evidence of it in too many places. He'd curse himself for not noticing before, or maybe they'd just stopped being as secretive about it.

His daughter and Weasley holding hands in the corridors. His daughter and Weasley sitting together at meals. The two of them leaning over the same book in the library, Weasley attending all of her Quidditch practices. The both of them in the Astronomy tower, wrapped in blankets and sipping hot chocolate after curfew.

That last encounter had earned him such a ferocious glare from his daughter Sebastian was convinced she’d been trying to shoot fire from her eyes. His wife had floo'd into his office an hour later to drag him back home and demand that he ‘stop following them around.’ Whatever arguments he’d prepared about Weasely’s egregious crime of keeping their daughter out after hours had been brushed aside as she’d informed him the aforementioned would be joining them for dinner that coming Saturday.

Weasley.

His wife had been right. Oliver was ,surprisingly, one of Sebastian’s most gifted students. Where his father may have shone as a potions prodigy in their youth, Garreth's son had a remarkable talent and understanding of defensive magic. There was a natural cadence to his dueling Sebastian had seldom seen, and the creativity of his spell combinations had been nearly unmatched that year.

Sebastian, as much as it now pained him to admit to himself, had liked the boy.

Had being the operative word.

That was before Weasley had started running hands over his little girl.

><><><><

Saturday evening rolled around to slap him across the face before he’d managed to find a proper excuse to keep the young Weasley out of his house.

Sebastian had not missed how his wife had tugged his wand from his grip when he'd stepped out of the fireplace. Nor did he miss the conveniently rounded cutlery with their meal. A hearty beef stew with chunks of a thick golden bread she’d already sliced

No need for any sharp objects at the dinner table.

Pity.

Still, Sebastian prided himself on keeping his emotions level throughout the entire meal, even if it was partially owed to his wife digging her fingers into his knee with every twitch of his jaw.

Despite all of it, Weasley had been perfectly polite and respectful. Perhaps that irritated Sebastian more as it gave him less space to cling to his newfound dislike of the boy.

Weasley had held the door for his daughter and offered his arm over the doorstep. He'd dressed practically enough not to over-emphasize his pureblood origins–not that the Weasleys were known for holding quite the same ideologies–but intentionally enough to show he'd taken the dinner seriously. He'd brought flowers for Sebastian’s wife and complimented her cooking. He’d pulled out his little girl's chair but otherwise kept his hands a respectful distance from her. He'd kept engaging conversation throughout the entire ordeal.

And why couldn't the bloke mess up just once so Sebastian could have an excuse to scream at him?

And then,

and this might have been the worst of all.

When they’d all finished their meals and retired to the sitting room for a drink, Weasley made his daughter laugh.

Not the small polite flutter through her nose he would recognize had she been trying to be nice, but hysterics that had the both of them snorting and doubled over, clutching their bellies.

Laughter genuine enough, his daughter had forgotten all pretenses of decorum and dipped her head against the boy's shoulder.

Then Oliver had looked at her.

In that gentle way, Sebastian recognized all too well, like he might have found poetry written across his daughter's skin.

And Sebastian was not ready.

Not for anyone to look at his little girl like that.

He couldn't remember what excuse he muttered when he left the rest of them in the sitting room and climbed the stairs to the small balcony just off the Study.

><><><><

The summer night was calm. Long faded past the last remnants of sunset and jeweled with the wide expanse of starlight.

Sebastian had already downed the rest of whatever amber-colored liquid his wife had poured into his glass and leaned his arms against the wooden railing. Still, even the delightful tilting buzz did nothing to distract from the patter of footsteps behind him.

"Professor?...I mean..Sir?"

Could he not have a moment's peace?

"What do you want, Weasley?"

He'd be lying if he said he'd not taken some satisfaction in how the young Weasley had flinched at his brusque response. Maybe Sebastian was still at least a little intimidating.

Even if he had needed to curl his fingers around the railing, pressed them against the wood until they might have fractured purple across his fingertips to stop his hands from shaking.

"I...well, I'd just hoped to talk to you about your daughter and...um...my intentions with her and—"

"A bit late for that, don't you think." Sebastian snapped.

"I...erm...right–" He heard the boy shuffle his feet a bit, but Sebastian made no move to turn around. He couldn't have in any case with the way he was bracing himself against the railing and fighting the dark spots in his vision. “–We...I mean, I should have insisted we talk to you first and–"

Sebastian slammed his eyes shut and forced himself to breathe. He had to breathe.

“–I apologize for getting her into trouble," the boy continued. "I'd just like you to know that I care for her deeply. She...she's...well, she means quite a lot to me, and I promise I'll—”

Inhale.

Exhale.

Inhale.

Exhale.

“–and I wanted to formally ask your permission to–”

Fuck.

Not this.

He couldn't do this.

"Not...not right now, Oliver." He was certain he'd muttered something to that effect past the rush of blood in his ears, and still fighting his painfully blurred vision, he shouldered past the young man and back into his study.

><><><><

Sunday greeted late afternoon haze before Sebastian heard his daughter come up behind him.

He'd been given word that morning that she and Weasley would be spending several hours at the coast with his Wife and Anne. With that, Sebastian had suddenly felt the need to blister his hands over copious amounts of physical labor if only for the hope his aching muscles might be an adequate distraction from any thoughts of Weasley or his intentions.

She'd already settled herself on the grass beside him before Sebastian turned from the rose bush he'd been pruning. She hadn't even noticed he'd turned, engrossed as she was in plucking the wild daisies from the grass and stringing them together.

Less than five minutes and dirt had already smudged across her nose. She might have had his chestnut curls and sprinkling of freckles, but she looked so like her mother in every other way.

And that was his little girl

Except she wasn't really so little anymore, was she?

Not with her longer skirts and her hair artfully arranged on top of her head.

When had she started wearing her hair up?

As though he'd somehow given her permission to enter society and invite questions upon him about intentions, and courtings, and permissions. And hadn't she just been six years old and snarking at him because he’d plaited her hair the wrong way?

She twisted another daisy into place. "Oliver said he talked to you last night. Or tried to?"

"He did."

"He said you were angry–"

Sebastian tried not to look too pleased about it. So, the young Weasley had found him intimidating. The confirmation was good, given he'd only just managed to keep himself from collapsing on that balcony..

But Weasley didn't need to know that.

“–You shouldn't be mad at him," she added. "He wanted to talk to you a lot sooner but....but..I...."

Sebastian leaned over. "But what?"

Her fingers twisted against another white flower, but she didn't look at him. "I wanted to be sure he was worth telling you about."

"You know, you could have told me sooner."

A part of him wished she would have.

"Daaadd!" and that was when she looked up, her eyes alight with mirth. "I wasn't going to tell you about every single bloke I decided to–"

"There's been more than one?!" It was far too close to a squeak than anything else, and Sebastian decided his daughter was determined to send him to an early grave.

But when the laughter faded, her hands busied themselves against the little white flowers again. "It....it's different with Oliver, though."

Sebastian sighed. "You really like him, don't you?"

"Yeah, Dad. I really like him."

But her eyes spoke too clearly of another four-letter word, and Merlin help him; his daughter was in love with a fucking Weasley.

Another daisy twisted between her fingers. “He invited me to come with his family to the south of France this summer.”

“Oh?” It was the most noncommittal noise he could muster between clenching his fingers into the grass.

“Because of his dad. They…well, a lot of really good potioneers come out of Beauxbatons, so they travel there sometimes.” She paused a moment, and Sebastian could see the hesitation pinched in the corners of her face. “But I told Oliver I wouldn't go unless he got your permission first and—”

“Sweetheart, It’s not my permission he needs.”

It wasn’t, as much as he was loathed to admit it then.

It never had been.

“I know that it’s just—“

“Do you want to go to France with him?”

“I do!” Her fingers twisted the last white daisy of her crown into place. “But I won’t if you don't think I should.”

Was it that simple? Could he hold to the last of her kite strings? Keep her in this moment where the last of her childhood still clung to the daisies between her fingers and the smudges of dirt over her nose?

“The south of France is beautiful this time of year. You’re going to love it.”

She might have outshone the sun with how brightly she smiled at him.

“But,” Sebastian held up a finger, “ If I so much as think he’s hurt you–”

“Yeah, Dad, I know.” He wasn’t sure she could have rolled her eyes harder at him. “You’re well versed in magics that make the unforgivables look like something out of a children’s story, and there wouldn’t be enough left of the body to find.”

Sebastian couldn’t decide if he should be offended with how bored she sounded or proud she’d recited his threat so thoroughly.

He didn’t have much time to think about it before his daughter popped to her feet, dropped the crown of daisies onto his head, and bent to kiss his cheek.

There was only the softest. “Love you, Daddy”

breathed next to his ear before she was scampering off again.

And that was his little girl.

Always would be.

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