#unnamed MC but coded as Evelyne🪴

[libellule-ao3]

Blood will out 🐍

Rating : T | Ominis Gaunt x Unnamed MC (or F!reader) | angst | Established relationship | DAD!Ominis

Summary: Ominis Gaunt wrestles with the growing fear that his son might succumb to the family legacy he has spent his life trying to escape.

A/N: I believe that, as a father, one of Ominis’s greatest fears would be his child following a dark path, tied to the toxic legacy of the Gaunts. This idea led me to imagine his stress and doubts as he begins to notice possible signs in his son.

When I wrote this, I had in mind the French saying "Bon sang ne saurait mentir," which means that everyone is the product of their heritage, their lineage. Instinctively, I wanted to translate the expression as "Blood tells no lies," but I later discovered that "Blood will out" could convey a similar meaning.

I hope you will like it🤞

The silence of the night, heavy as a lead blanket, seemed to want to crush him. Ominis Gaunt sat in the darkness of his study, his fingers nervously stroking the ebony wand in front of him. In that touch, a man whose inner struggles kept him awake long after his son had fallen asleep sought comfort in vain.  

His eyes were open to the darkness he could not see, but his mind was haunted by a ghost of memory: his child.

Twelve years old.

Too young to understand everything.

Too young, and yet…

Through the familiar pulsations of his wand, he could perceive the delicate hands of his son, fragile yet disturbingly assured, caressing the yellowed pages of a grimoire on the dark arts. It was no ordinary book. The child had stolen it from Sebastian’s dusty library, a deliberate choice, too precise to be dismissed as mere happenstance. Each turn of the pages felt like a whisper of their family’s cursed legacy — a legacy Ominis had fought so hard to bury.

A cold blade twisted in his chest as the question, implacable and cruel, formed in his mind: was this simply curiosity? The fruit of a keen and insatiable intelligence, too mature for its age?

Or… Was it the first venomous stirrings of an inheritance that refused to die, seeping into his son’s veins like an ancestral and irreversible poison? 

He swallowed hard, his thoughts veering towards darker corners. There had been other fleeting moments, unsettling in their familiarity, where his son’s voice carried an authority that chilled him to the core. Too similar to the sharp commands of his father or the merciless judgements of Marvolo to ignore. In those moments, Ominis did not hear the innocence of a child. He heard the distorted echoes of spectres he had thought long buried. Even the most banal words seemed to bear the weight of a lineage clawing to reclaim its place.

Damn, Ominis was no longer certain of anything. Each moment spent near his son felt like a cruel wager, a precarious balance between the boy he knew and the shadow he dreaded. Ominis gritted his teeth.

Was it still possible to resist this fatal legacy? Or had he already lost the battle, despite all his struggles, prayers, and sacrifices? 

A hoarse sigh escaped his lips. He closed his eyes, but this only amplified the chaos in his head. The cruel laughter of the spectres of his past flayed his thoughts behind his closed eyelids.

Manigoldo Gaunt, or the brutal authority of a father who crushed his childhood.

Atropa Gaunt, embodying the poisonous charm of the deadly flower that gave her her name.

His brothers and sisters, led by Marvolo, cold and implacable, perfect instruments for perpetuating the abominations of their lineage.

Ominis had thought he was different. For years, he had clung to the fragile hope that his wife’s love and blood would be enough to shape a different future for their son. But now... now that hope seemed distant, as fragile as the lingering scent of a wilted flower. 

His breathing became jerky. The spiral of his thoughts accelerated, tearing him apart. His grip on the wand tightened, as if the polished ebony could anchor him against the storm within.

A creak.

The door.

The sound, discreet as it was, was enough to break the oppressive cycle of his mind. His muscles tensed instinctively —a reflex honed by years of fear— but the faint scent of wildflowers and freshly cut grass reached him first.

She was there.

Silent as ever, she slipped into the room, rounded his desk and settled astride his lap. Her arms went round him, a gesture without expectations or demands, betraying an affection that no words could express.

No promises.

No useless words.

Ominis lifted a trembling hand, his fingertips tracing the curve of her shoulder and down to her elbow, grounding himself in her presence. His head rested against her chest, and in the silence broken only by his breath, he could hear her heart beating.

Slow.

Regular.

A rhythm that whispered a truth he too often forgot: he was not alone.

His arms closed around her like a castaway clinging to a piece of wood. Her smell calmed his anxiety, but didn’t make it go away.

She couldn’t do it.

And she knew it.

They shared the same brutal lucidity: certain burdens cannot be lightened. They could only be carried together.

A furtive, gentle kiss touched his hair. The warmth that enveloped him contrasted with the coldness of his thoughts. But even in that fragile moment, the acidic threat of his father crept into his mind, shattering the precarious balance. His arms tightened around her, a dull fear gripping his throat.

“Blood will out.”

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