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crushribbons · 3 months ago

Text

𝔟𝔩𝔲𝔰𝔥

summary: It's hard for Don Hume to talk about awkward subjects.

cw: 5k words, established relationship fluffiness, SMUT (18+ ONLY), protected penetrative sex, fingering, light choking (monkey covering eyes emoji), barely edited, definitely not researched, fem reader/OC, this is a work of fiction about the character from tbitb and not the actual historical figure (like duh). based off an anon request.

a/n: but daddy i love him!!!! xx laney

Don handed the vendor a few coins and accepted the rose the man passed him. He turned and handed it to her, and she blushed.

“Stop spending all your money on me,” she scolded gently, running her fingertips over the delicate scarlett petals.

Don simply said, “No,” and offered her his elbow, which she took with a shake of her head and a laugh. Don Hume must have been born under the sign of the bull, warm and stubborn as he was.

“You’re going to have to sell that gold medal soon enough,” she teased. Don shrugged and the two continued walking down the street. It was twilight, and fireflies were blinking lazily around their heads as street lights turned on and the city lane bustled with nightlife. Dim green flickers illuminated his hazel eyes, usually downcast but twinkling tonight. She nestled herself against the strong arm holding hers and enjoyed the scent of rain that seemed to waft off him permanently.

When she’d first told him, in their biology lecture, how lovely he smelled, the pure bemusement on his face had been more than enough to send her flying head over heels for the presumed-mute rower.

“I don’t…own any cologne,” he’d replied after several minutes, choking out the words under his breath with great difficulty while the lecturer droned on, heedless to the many slumbering students that were snoring along to his lesson.

“Well, I guess you just smell good, then,” she’d said. They had turned back to their notebooks and pens. It took Don three and a half more months and qualifying for the Olympics to ask her to dinner, but she patiently sat through every “Would you…um…ah, never mind…” until the blessed day when he finally got all the words out in the correct order.

He’d been a combination of too embarrassed and too violently anxious to let her kiss him goodbye when he boarded the train for the team’s trip to Berlin. They had stood on the platform in front of the passenger car, a miserable Don muttering under his breath. She was fussing with his tie and blazer, struggling not to be battered around by the throng of well-wishers seeing the boys off, when his eyes suddenly widened and he said, “I’m not going.”

“Yes, you are. Stop moving, the knot still looks wrong.”

“No,” He shook his head, his gaze fixed on a point in the distance where his inevitable demise awaited him. “No, what if I screw this up for everyone?”

She finished wrestling his tie into a passable windsor knot and stepped back from him, smoothing off his blazer. “And what if you win?”

“I–”

“Donald, do not pick now to be the first time you argue with me.” She smiled and his knees, already jelly from nerves and anticipation, seemed just about ready to give way. “But, you should know: I don’t much care for silver jewelry,” she whispered, standing on tiptoe to kiss his cheek. His face burned a bashful red where she’d touched it that spread down over his neck.

One thing she could never accuse Don of was not listening to her. He made note of her distaste for silver and brought her gold, instead.

As they walked down the street arm in arm, her chatting about everything he’d missed in his time away and him listening placidly, she couldn’t stop herself from just staring at him. Spending time with Don made her feel like she was getting a glimpse into a private world that no one else was privy to, and she felt privileged by it. He kept everything about himself, including his countless victories, so wrapped up and tucked away that sometimes, it was hard for her to remember that he wasn’t just your average undergraduate. No one they passed by on the street would have been able to guess that the man next to her was a world-renowned athlete. No one, absolutely no–

“Hey, look who it is!” Joe Rantz and Joyce Simdars were strolling towards them, a mirror image of the puppy love their friends were wrapped up in. Joyce squealed and ran to her sorority sister, who threw her arms around Joyce’s neck and told her how pretty she looked. The two boyfriends exchanged knowing looks and shook hands with each other, immediately falling into a discussion of the crew practice they’d had that afternoon.

Joyce stopped complimenting her friend’s dress to scowl at Joe and scold, “No strategizing on our date night, dear.”

“Yes, dearest,” Joe responded with understated exaggeration and the utmost devotion. The two ladies turned back to each other and began chattering about school and social events, but when she caught a snatch of the conversation the boys were having, she strained to tune into it.

“Hey, no, come on,” Don was mumbling and he looked down at the ground and kicked at some invisible nuisance.

Joe was clearly ribbing him. He poked at his solemn teammate’s shoulder and said something that she couldn’t make out over Joyce’s explanation of the party she was planning for the team now that they were stateside once more. Don shook his head adamantly in response, and Joe chuckled.

She craned her neck as subtly as she could while still appearing engaged with Joyce, a vapid smile in place as she tried in desperation to catch what the two men were talking about that was making Don more uncomfortable than he’d been that night Bobby forced him to play piano for half their class. Only bits and pieces from Joe reached her ears: “Well, maybe…why not?...Sure, she would…” Her espionage was abruptly shut down as Joe reached over to pinch Joyce’s cheek. “Hate to break this up, but the film starts at 8:00, honey.”

Joyce gasped and looked down at her watch. “We’ve got to go! I’ll see you,” she promised, and the two girls exchanged hugs and kisses. The couple wiggled their fingers as they passed them and bid them goodnight.

Don was staring at Joe’s back when his girl tucked her hand back in the crook of his arm and asked, “What all were you two talking about?” He squirmed and didn’t answer. They resumed walking, so she allowed a few more paces before she asked again.

“Nothin’, nothin’,” he said, shaking his head again to indicate the finality of his refusal to answer. She bopped him gently on his nose with the rose.

“Tell me!” “It wasn’t proper, you know,” Don coughed and cleared his throat. “For a lady to hear.” He glanced at her nervously, like perhaps he shouldn’t have mentioned that she was a lady.

She sighed. “And what about for me to hear?” Her boyfriend’s mouth moved like a fish’s, opening and closing without sound, searching for any word at all that would end this line of questioning. “Tell meee!”

He threw his hands up, a tiny movement but so unbearably dramatic for him. “No! Ask him yourself if you wanna know!” “Fine!” She turned around and inhaled as if she was fixing to scream down the block, knowing it would scare the living daylights out of him. “Hey, J–!”

Don gave a small cry of despair and wrenched her along by her shoulders so she would continue walking with him. “Okay, okay! I’ll tell you.” She didn’t hide her giggle of triumph from him, and he looked like he wanted to remain frustrated, but just couldn’t. He looked around to make sure they couldn’t be overheard, then took a deep breath and spat out in one mortified mumble, “He just asked if we h-had, if we were going to, if we’d slept together, alright?” It seemed he was one more embarrassment away from being sick all over the sidewalk.

Her eyebrows were raised when he finally worked up the nerve to look at her. “Oh, is that all?”

Don was horrified. “All?” he repeated in an incredulous whisper. She had to smile.

“Come now, everyone does it, Donny!” She paused a beat while considering her next words. Her deliberation led her to the conclusion that they would make her boyfriend blush oh-so-prettily. “Joyce tells me about her and Joe all the ti–” The closest thing to a whimper she’d ever heard come out of Don Hume’s mouth came out of his mouth. “It’s nothing bad!” she reassured him quickly. “All nice things and nothing too intimate! Girlfriends just share with each other. Don’t you and the boys ever chat about things like that?” She remembered who she was talking to and sighed. “Never mind.”

His face was contorting painfully, like it couldn’t decide what emotion to land on. He shoved both his hand into his pockets, inadvertently pinning her arm to his side, and mumbled, “Well, anyway. I didn’t share anything.”

There’s not much to share yet, she thought, but to Don she said, “Such a gentleman,” and laid her head on his shoulder. It had been one month since he’d asked her to dinner and five days since he’d been back from Berlin, and she thought she very well might die if they didn’t, well, give Joe something to tease Don about further.

Their first piece of affection that wasn’t a timid peck on the cheek had come as Don had pushed his way wordlessly through the gargantuan crowd at Washington State welcoming the team home from their gold medal win, locked in on the tiny sliver of forehead he could make out bouncing up and down slightly in excitement. When he had finally reached her, he stooped to cradle the back of her neck and pulled her into a kiss that almost knocked her unconscious. As he’d pulled away, he’d whispered bluntly, “I missed you.”

Since then, she’d been able to do little else than think about the way he’d held her, the way his mouth felt on hers. But the aggressively respectful stroke had hardly touched her since. He walked her to her doorstep after every date, spent whatever sparse pocket change he had on her without thought, and carried a tiny picture of her face (that he had cut out of the school newspaper article on her sorority’s spring benefit) in his wallet.

And she was sleeping with a photograph of him in his first Olympic race, face a knot of concentration and exertion, sweat-slicked hair hanging in his eyes, lean muscle evident in every line of his body. And it wasn’t so she had sweet dreams about him.

She was mortified by her actions, that she couldn’t control herself the way Don could. Every time he dropped her off, she imagined him saying, “Actually, I don’t give a damn about your reputation or protecting your heart. I’d so much rather just see you without clothes on,” but, unsurprisingly, he never did. It was part of the reason she’d fallen for him, and part of the reason she now wanted to throttle a little passion into him.

She closed her eyes and hummed a silent meditation on patience while Don stopped to look in the window of a hardware store. He was peering into the closed shop, scanning their aisles with an interest that only the son of a hardware store owner could exhibit, when they both spoke at the same time.

“We are going to sleep together, though, aren’t we?”

“This place never keeps enough varnish in stock.”

They both blinked at each other, then spoke in unison once more.

“What?”

She colored, but held her resolve. “I mean, you do want to, right? With me?” Don’s shoulders were creeping up towards his ears, a defense mechanism learned from years of trying to remain as invisible as possible. He glanced wildly around the street, which was steadily emptying as the evening sky darkened further, as if enemy spies were going to leap out from behind a corner and arrest them for leaking government secrets. Cornered.

He stammered for a few, solid minutes. Patience, you are falling in love with this man and you will afford him the patience he deserves, she breathed in through her nose and out through her mouth. “You are not taking advantage of me by wanting to, darling,” she assured him, and reached up to smooth down Don’s jacket like she always did. The contact eased his breathing back to a healthy pace. “You know that, right?”

“Alright,” he said. But he still looked miserable while he searched for his next words. Her heart broke a little bit for her sweet and anxious lover.

“Do you want to just put this off ‘til later?”

The answer came back with more urgency than she’d ever seen Don use before. “No! No, I mean, no. We can…we should…” He trailed off and met her eyes for the first time since this awkwardness had begun, and decided that was enough. “Yeah, we should.” His shoulders dropped back down to their normal position.

She couldn’t fight the smile that pulled at her lips. “Oh, should we?” she asked through the grin. Don shot her a look that said please do not make me regret leaving the house today, an expression that was omni-present whenever Bobby Moch was around. God, he was adorable like this.

“So…” She swung her handbag back and forth and spoke as if they were discussing the weather. “Should we…tonight?” His eyes widened, betraying the fact that he clearly hadn’t even considered that as a possibility.

Don Hume, forever true to form, nodded.

They had to be careful. There were strict rules about boys in the girls’ student housing, but there were also generations’ worth of knowledge, passed down from resourceful and clever women, on how to evade those rules. Sneak in before the final lights out call, always use the front door instead of the side one where a disgruntled matron often sat up keeping watch, never let a guy accidentally leave his jacket behind. The network of girls that worked like a perfect underground railroad of boy smuggling came out in full force for the couple as they padded, silently and with shoes in hand, up the stairs to her dormitory bedroom. Sorority sister Betty was distracting the matron posted near the side door, bemoaning her period cramps and bursting into over-exaggerated meltdowns about how she’d never pass her history seminar or be asked out by Clark Gable. Don actually had to stifle a laugh as they both slipped into her empty bedroom and she shut the door behind them with the utmost care.

“She’s good.”

“She owes me.” Don’s eyebrows rose, but he asked no further questions. He was standing across from her as she turned to him and pressed her back against the door, his hands once again in his pockets. The two stared at each other for a good long while.

Finally, she figured it would be safe to remove her coat and hang it on the coat rack beside the door. The movement did not spook Don into running, so she threw her shoes to the ground, too.

He was surveying the four beds in the room. “Which one’s yours?” he finally asked, breaking the tension that only she seemed to be feeling. She pointed towards the far bed on the left side of the room, the one made neatly with rose-printed sheets. “It’s nice.”

“Thank you,” she squeaked. They lapsed into silence again, and she wondered if Don was waiting until he was caught by a matron and cast out, avoiding this whole uncomfortable situation. Perhaps they shouldn’t have decided this so flippantly, maybe Don was the kind of man who needed–In two strides, he crossed the room to her and grabbed her neck the same way he had upon his return from the Olympics. She could only mumble “Oh,” before Don had his mouth pressed against hers. His kiss was hungry, hands suddenly eager to explore everywhere they’d never been. Her back was still pressed against the door when she pushed him away and ordered breathlessly, “Bed, go, now.”

Don hadn’t become the most famous stroke in the world by not taking orders well. He scooped her up in the bridal style, scaring a little yelp out of her that he quickly smothered by kissing her again. Her back hit the bed and she felt him awkwardly hover over her, their lips still locked together. She reached up for the length of his tie and pulled him down on top of her by it.

He let out a short “Oof!” as he stumbled on top of her, but corrected himself in no time, swinging his legs on either side of hers. If I let Don be in charge here, she thought, while their tongues tangled together, we would be here all night. Actually, I could make peace with that.

But she would have to make her peace another time, because they did not have all night tonight. They had maybe a comfortable twenty-minute cushion between Betty’s diversionary theatrics and the remaining time before the lights out rounds were made. And the way Don was making her feel, the inadvertent and desperate grinding against her…they certainly did not have all night.

She pushed him up again, and this time, he actually made a noise of protest that some may have classified as a whine. His eyes searched her face frantically as she pulled herself out from under him, yanked his suit jacket off and tossed it to the ground, and told him to lay down on his back. His unquestioning obedience and the look he gave her as he settled on his back, ankles crossed, and began undoing his tie and shirt buttons made her core flood. She clutched a throw pillow for support as she watched him.

Trying not to notice the way his cock was straining against his pants, she climbed her way up his frame, settling around his waist the way he had just done. Don’s freckles stood out on his rapidly pinking skin. She was leaning down to kiss him again when he blurted, “I love you!”

She snapped her neck back up like she’d been electrocuted and cried, “What?!”

Don flattened himself against the bed, like maybe she wouldn’t be able to see him if he was absorbed by the mattress. His chest and stomach were bare, and he looked mortified. The contrast of his sweet, abashed expression while he chewed the inside of his mouth and tried to babble an apology for declaring his love against his sinfully hot body beneath her made her head spin, and it was with no further hesitation that she blurted back, “I love you, too!”

He grinned in his own way, and his eyes pooled with affection. Of course she loved him; she was surprised it hadn’t occurred to her sooner. The second he’d stuttered his first failed attempt at flirting with her, she’d been a goner. Don sat up, gently shifting her so she was straddling him, and ran his hand through her hair. She waited for him to say something else, then remembered whose lap she was sitting in.

“Weren’t we just in the middle of something?” she whispered into his lips, their noses now pressed together, and she felt his quirky, down-turned smile against hers.

“Were we?”

“Donald Hume, you can be a tease sometimes.” She kissed him and he responded by snapping into action like the athlete he was, kissing her back and wrapping his arms around her. He pulled away to gaze up at her as she rose to her knees and began undoing the line of buttons that ran down the entire front of her dress.

“Just tell me what to do, baby,” he said. A moan leaked out of her at the pure devotion and awe in his eyes. She let her dress fall down to the floor and stepped out of it, then indicated that he should sit back against the headboard. Don obliged, his breathing shallow and eyes huge as he took in the sight of her crawling back onto his lap. His rough fingers ghosted up her thighs when she sat down.

I’ve been an idiot, she mused, as she slowly worked the zipper on his pants down and pulled his already-dripping cock free. I should have pulled this mug into bed months ago. When she pulled her own undergarments off and Don’s eyes, on respectful instinct, flew shut, she laughed.

“You can look at me, Don,” she giggled. Her permission given, his eyes snapped back open and he drank in the sight of her, his hand skating up from her thighs to grasp every inch of skin that he could. Her cunt pressing against him was already dangerously wet, and she ground down hard, coaxing a strangled little “ah!” from him.

Then reality bit into her ankle, and she groaned. “Do you have a rubber?” she asked through her hands after they had covered her face. If it was awkward for her to ask it, she couldn’t imagine what Don’s face must look like hearing it. He stammered for long enough for her to suss out the fact that he did not have one, and she was about to give up and fuck him anyway when she remembered that she lived with three other red-blooded women. “Oh!” she cried. “Wait, I know Betty has some.”

Don, once more, asked no questions about what Betty got up to in her free time. He just looked terribly grateful for her as his lover emerged, victorious, from rummaging around the co-ed’s top dresser drawer with a box of Sheiks pinched in her fingers and a breathless glee on her face. She let him tug it on then decided they’d spent enough time dancing around their discomfort.

“Come on,” she ordered, and climbed on top of him one last time. “I want you, Donny. Bad.”

“Oh, but aren’t you–” He held her in place while she tried desperately to line his cock up with her entrance. When his fingers pushed against her instead, swirling them inside her with his tongue trapped between his lips in concentration, she wondered if someone had broken in and switched places with her meek boyfriend. His doe eyes staring up at her, he begged in hardly above a whisper, “Please let me get you good and ready, please. I’m…” He trailed off and turned the brightest shade of red that she’d seen yet, and his gaze traveled down to the impressively large member between his legs.

“You are big,” she agreed, and Don groaned and buried his face in her shoulder. “Baby, that’s not something to be embarrassed about,” she cried as she tried to yank him up by his hair and make him look her in the face. His fingers were still buried inside her, and even through his extreme shame at having a cock so big that it would hurt, he never stopped pumping them and drawing gasps and moans that she tried to stifle against his neck. He ground the heel of his calloused palm gently against her clit and caused her legs to tremble until she could no longer support herself on them and fell flush against his lap.

She was a panting, crumpled mess folded up against his strong body, and she almost didn’t have it in her to roll her eyes when Don asked, “Was that alright?”

When she finally sank down onto him, he moaned, every inch of composure flying out of him. His posture, perfected from the long hours in the shell, sagged. “Oh, G–fuck,” he mumbled. It was the first time she’d ever heard him swear, and despite the pleasure that was making her eyes water, she almost laughed. Then his hands wrapped around her hips and lifted her up slightly and she felt the heavy drag of his cock inside her and a string of nonsense fell from her instead. She didn’t have to contribute in the slightest, in spite of her position straddling him. Don just bounced her up and down like she was nothing more than a vision he was having, and from the way his eyes were drifting heavenward, maybe she was.

But he was still too much of a gentleman. “Faster,” she gasped, the fingers of her right hand wrapping unconsciously around the front of his neck to steady herself.

“Are you coxxing me?” he huffed with a grin. The grin vanished when she squeezed a little and he felt the choke build up in his throat, his eyes rolling back for a second. The sight floored her.

“Oh, d-d’ya like…?” She tried to tease him but Don had started thrusting harder, grinding them both together like they’d never get the chance to do this again, and the words died on her tongue. Graciously, he tried to revive them by kissing her. He had to push hard against the hand on his throat, but he did it, never one to give up on anything. Pleasure was gagging the both of them, her as unable to form words as Don usually was. He pressed his forehead against hers and their breath mingled into one.

“I l-love you, baby,” he said. She could tell his shyness and stoic composure were very nearly worn off now. She could tell it especially was when he started rambling, his nose bumping against her shoulder as he kept fucking her with relentless speed: “M’beautiful girl, beautiful, sweet girl. Ever since–first talked t’you, won every race for you, every stroke for you…wanted to make you proud…” He pulled his neck up with great effort and looked deep in her eyes. “Did I make you proud, baby?”

A cry tore its way out of her as his cock shredded against her just perfectly. She pushed Don back down on the bed and started riding him in earnest, wanting him to know exactly how he made her feel. Proud of him? It didn’t begin to cover how she’d felt when she’d heard the giddy announcer scream over the radio waves, “And it’s just come through, folks: AMERICA has taken the gold medal for rowing crew! What a spectacular display from our boys!” Don’s lips were pressed tightly together as he watched her chase down the knot of desire and pleasure that was building inside her.

“Don, I’ve never been more proud of anyone in my life, and I never will be,” she panted, scraping her nails down his defined pectorals and ignoring the cry of indignation he gave. A deep red blush blossomed under her fingers, dragging down to his stomach. She hadn’t broken skin, but the light pain had still made Don’s back arch in a very telling way. He looked a complete mess, quite unlike the man who had picked her up in front of her building four hours previously with hair neatly gelled and shabby suit jacket pressed. Now, thick strands of black hair fell all over his face as he sucked air into his deprived lungs. Her poor little bed frame creaked and groaned, protesting the activities taking place on top of it. Rusted springs provided an unwelcome soundtrack to their lovemaking, but she found that she didn’t even notice it.

When she began rolling her hips in perfect rhythm with the thrusts he was giving from beneath her, his cock brushed against something inside of her that she’d never been acquainted with before, but the bliss that erupted from her toes to her fingertips made her throw her head back and cry his name hoarsely. The orgasm was unreal, blinding and satisfying and all due to the man between her legs who was currently trying very hard not to lose his mind at the sensation of her walls tightening around him.

He kept his lips pressed together and his thrusts small and even until she’d recovered. Her legs had turned to jelly. Something mischievous whispered in her ear as she looked down at Don’s desperate, adorable face, and she took a leaf out of his book and obeyed it.

She leaned forward, still sensitive as he thrust shallowly inside her, and wrapped both of her hands around his throat again. His eyes shut and his head lolled against the pillow, and within seconds he was giving a hoarse whimper and cumming. He sighed through the feeling, pumping his hips upward into her. “Fuck,” she whispered. All of him was hers, she realized with a jolt, as she looked down at Don’s sweat-slicked face and kiss-swollen lips. The realization was heavy and heady and made her want even more of him.

They laid next to each other for just a few seconds. She would have asked for hours more if she hadn’t known that they could be interrupted at any moment. Don’s chest rose and fell slowly now, his eyes unblinking.

As usual, she spoke first. “That was wonderful.” Don rolled to his side so he could look at her and nodded, a dreamy little smirk on his lips that she very much wanted to kiss. “I think I’ll write Joe a nice note thanking him.” He rolled back away from her and covered his face, groaning while she giggled.

“I’m still not telling him anything,” he muttered when she got out of bed and began re-dressing and tossing his clothes back at him. He sat up and pulled the condom off, and she was grateful to see he had the good sense to wrap it in a tissue from her desk before disposing of it in the communal waste basket.

“Baby, you won’t have to.” Don followed her finger with his eyes to where it was pointing: the vivid red scratch marks carved down his torso from collarbone to abdomen, and he lept up, cursing.

“We have to take photographs in our uniforms tomorrow! They’ll show over my kit!” he cried, the most frantic and upset she’d ever seen him. She covered her grin with her hand.

“Well, save a print for me, won’t you?”

masterlist

#i am sorry i have no defense for this one #TY SAL FOR PROOFING U A REAL ONE 🤍#tbitb fic #don hume x reader #don hume x oc #tbitb x reader #laneywrites

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moonstruckmoony · 2 months ago

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So a long while ago @lamieboo tagged me in this post (I'm not reblogging bcs it'll be way too long sorry 😢) I made some art and wrote a whole one shot for it because it was the perfect opportunity for a Winter lore I've always wanted to make. Please be kind lol 💀 I haven't written in ages and I'm such a noob when it comes to writing, also English isn't my native language. I had to run my draft through multiple writing tools back and forth to find better phrasings and dictions that better express what I want to convey. Roughly ~1,000 words.

Green and Gold

She stepped forward as the wardrobe creaked open, the boggart slipping through the narrow gap in the door. Long, flowing golden threads emerged first, and Winter drew in a sharp breath.

The rest of the boggart soon took form—a woman in a pale blue dress, slumped weakly on the floor, her calf bleeding from a deep slash. Golden locks framed her worried face, and her piercing blue eyes, so much like Winter’s own, locked onto hers. Winter’s hand instinctively went up to the scar across her left eye. The woman’s chest heaved with silent breaths. The faint murmur of the students lining up behind Winter faded until she could hear nothing. Then, the woman’s lips parted, as if to speak.

“Close your eyes, snowflake.”

Was that truly her mother’s voice? Winter couldn’t remember if boggarts could speak. Could they mimic human voices? Or was it only mouthing the words while the voice echoed from somewhere deep within her mind?

Her hands went clammy. A bead of sweat ran down the side of her face.

She knows what’s coming next. Behind her mother’s beautiful, tear-streaked face, a blinding green light appeared. Winter swiftly squeezed her eyes shut and raised her wand. “Riddikulus,” she whispered, her voice trembling as she kept her eyelids tightly closed.

· · ─────── ·❄ ❅ ❆· ─────── · · Sebastian went pale, even as the swirling Mallowsweet leaves spun into a twister before him, which without question, the most mesmerising form of the Riddikulus charm he had ever seen. It wasn’t a form he would laugh at, unlike most transformations of the charm. It was breathtaking. But no, what had truly gripped him was the green light that followed her mother’s appearance. He had never seen Winter like this—paralysed by fear, gasping for breath, drenched in sweat. She was always so composed, so captivating. Full of life, curiosity, and wonder.

He hadn’t realised this was her deepest fear.

And it was the very same curse he had cast just last year. On his uncle. Right in front of her. What had she looked like back then? He couldn’t quite remember. The sound of her laboured breathing lingered faintly in his mind, and he recalled her standing frozen for a moment before following him as he fled the catacombs. But the look on her face—he had no memory of it. Was she shocked? Horrified? Traumatised? He had been too distraught, too consumed by his own turmoil, to notice. Merlin, how must she have felt? Watching her best friend cast the Killing Curse—the very same curse that had taken her mother’s life—right in front of her? His throat went dry. His insides twisted painfully. Clenching his hands into fists, he dug his nails into his palms.

Was this… was this the reason she had refused to learn the spell? Not that he had wanted her to; in fact, he had been relieved when she didn’t. But it left him with questions. She was his kindred spirit, after all, and he knew the Dark Arts intrigued her, even if it was purely out of curiosity and for the sake of knowing. She wanted to learn, and had learned the other two curses. He had thought, perhaps, she would eventually ask about the last one, even though he wasn’t sure if he could bear to teach her—not after what happened to Solomon, to himself.

To Anne. But she was adamant in her refusal to learn it. She had said so out of the blue, when they began speaking again after the catacombs—after weeks of silence between them. Now, he finally understood why. And his heart broke for her. “Sebastian? Sebastian, what just happened?” Ominis’ voice snapped him back to reality. His best friend’s face was filled with concern, surely anxious for not being able to see what’s happening. Just this time, Sebastian is glad he couldn’t. He wouldn’t want Ominis to witness her in such a state. He opened his mouth to respond, but nothing came out. He tried again, but his gaze drifted to Winter, who was slowly making her way towards them from the front of the line. Another student—Arthur Plummly, perhaps—stepped forward to face the boggart, but Sebastian hardly noticed. His focus was solely on Winter, her head bowed, arms wrapped tightly around herself, her body trembling slightly. “Winter…” She looked up at him, her eyes wide. They stood there for a moment, locked in each other's gaze. “I… I’m sorry.” He finally managed to speak. “What... what are you apologising for?” So much. Even though he’d already apologised to her and Ominis countless times, he hasn’t apologised for this one. “You—you know why.” He knew she understood. They’d always had a way of reading each other, and this was one of those moments. “That’s… It’s not—you shouldn’t…” She trailed off. And Sebastian was thankful she didn’t finish. Because he did feel like he should apologise. Even though hadn’t known about this, what he did that day might’ve stirred up memories she had buried deep down. Just like the cursed boggart had just now. Another silence passed before he slowly pulled her into an embrace. One hand rested on her back, the other gently cradling the back of her head. She froze at first, startled, but after a moment, her body softened into his arms as he tenderly stroked her hair. From his peripheral vision, Sebastian saw Ominis approached hesitantly. His alabaster hand tentatively found Winter’s smaller one, which still hung limply at her side, and she allowed their fingers to entwine. Sebastian could see the questions lingering in his best friend’s furrowed brows, but he’s certain that Winter would talk to him–she would explain everything to them when she’s ready.

He glanced forward, aware of the curious eyes from the students waiting in line—some watching with intrigue, others with quiet sympathy. It was a peculiar view, after all: Winter with her two best friends huddled together in such an unusual position. Up front, he caught sight of Amit ducking as his boggart morphed into harmless paper planes flying about after his successful Riddikulus. Sebastian hadn’t seen Amit’s boggart, but he imagined it was likely something ordinary, like a failing report card marked with a dreaded “T” in Astronomy or History of Magic.

None of that mattered now. The only person of importance was the girl in his arms, her trembling slowly subsiding, her once-laboured breathing easing into a soft, steady rhythm.

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