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slytherizz · 10 months ago

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In The Shadow of Us - Sebastian Sallow x Female!MC/Reader

a/n Scene from Chapter 11 of 'ItSoU' commissioned from the incredibly talented @diligentcranberry as a Christmas present to myself - It's so pretty I still cannot stop staring at my traumatised darlings. I never really shared much of my long fics on Tumblr besides the first chapters so here's some smut.

You can read the complete fic on Ao3.

Chapter 11 under the cut...

The streets of Hogsmeade were deserted besides a small grey cat that scurried along the chimney stacks. Perhaps the return of Ashwinders to the area had scared most reasonable people to their beds. But neither she nor Sebastian had ever been reasonable people and they stood oddly calm in the night air outside the familiar tavern she'd apparated them to.

“I don’t want to go back to Poppy’s - too dangerous. Harlow may be bold but even he’d think twice before darkening Sirona’s door,” she said with a tight smile. Sebastian recalled that first trip to Hogsmead and was pleased to know some things hadn't changed.

She pushed through the heavy doors of the ancient pub. It was quiet. Where one would usually find patrons huddled in corners, playing cards over stiff drinks there were empty chairs. Where you'd see student that had sneaked out of the castle to drink and sing crude songs of their rival Quidditch teams until Sirona would shoo them out in the wee hours of the morning, there was silence. There would be no stumbling drunken feet of friends and young lovers up the long path to the castle castle tonight.

“Sirona?” she called and her voice echoed through the emptiness. The older witch appeared from behind the bar, her wand in hand as if she expected trouble to come knocking more than revelers these days.

“Oh, there’s a face I haven’t seen in a while. Hello, love-” her eyes landed on Sebastian with a look of surprise, but her eyes softened as she took him in.

“Hello son, you look like you could use a drink,” she smiled. Sirona looked older, her hair peppered with grey around her temples the creases around her eyes more defined but her manner was familiar and Sebastian felt the tension leave his shoulders.

Sirona like any good innkeeper, had that innate ability to sense your needs before you had a chance to voice them. With a flick of her wand two glasses of firewhiskey settled on the bar in front of her. Sebastian took a seat on the high stool and took a deep gulp from the glass relishing the burn as the amber liquid slipped down his throat.

The witch slid into the space seat beside him and took a tentative sip from her own glass with a wince. She never had been able to handle her drink and he laughed slightly at her sour expression.

"It's good to see you, Sirona," Sebastian said honestly. Sirona had always been kind to him. An aunt like figure to Sebastian and a shoulder to lean on more times than he’d care to remember. She'd seen him grow from a mischievous boy into a troubled young man, but unlike other she had never drawn back from Sebastian. Much like the pub itself Sirona was a constant pillar of support, always open when someone needed it most.

Sirona poured herself her own glass, and topped up Sebastian's. She leaned back on against the counter on the opposite side of the bar her eye flicked between the two of them.

"I won't ask exactly what event have led to you both being here tonight," she gestured between them amused "I know you can't tell me about your work dear, as much as I'd love to know the details - my guess it has something to do with Harlow."

"You're too perceptive for your own good, Sirona," the auror chuckled. "I promise, you'll be the first to know when this is all over."

"I hope so. Business has been dreadful, the inn is doing well but my bar sales..." she grimaced "Hogwarts is practically under lock down and even I'm beginning to miss the Gryffindor Quidditch team's terrible singing."

"No one wants to be on the streets these days so most of my rooms are full. Unfortunatly, you'll have to share." The witch sucked her bottom lip between her teeth and looked at Sebastian nervously through her lashes. It wasn't like they had never slept together before. They had infact done a lot more together than sleep, it was almost amusing how this woman who had fought fully grown trolls at the tender age of fifteen, who had spent the last five years fighting dark wizards; yet Sebastian made her nervous and he luxuriated in the knowlege. He shrugged at her, as he schooled his features into an unreadable mask. Sirona's eyes flicked between them.

The witch beside him stretched her arms as she yawned and wrinkled her nose at the dirt crusted under her fingernails.

“It’s the usual place in the attic, dear. The bathrooms just down the hall,” Sirona smiled warmly at her. The witch finished the last dregs from the bottom of her glass, stifled a cough on her sleeve from the burn and slid off the stool to make her way upstairs.

Sebastian tracked her movements across the bar before she slipped up the stairs. A knowing smiled tugged at the corner of Sirona’s mouth, her eyebrows quirked and he drowned the lump that formed in his throat with a deep swig from his glass.

“I must admit despite the circumstances - it's nice to see you both together again. You two were inseparable as teenagers and both so serious too. I guess with hindsight, I know why…" a sad smile deepened the creases around her eyes.

"We bring out the worst in each other," he sighed with a shake of his head.

"I'm not so sure. Unfortunately, I think you both would be who you are no matter what. You both had to grow up far too fast, but I think you understand each other in a way others can't."

“Maybe we didn’t understand each other as well as you thought,” he grumbled. If she truly understood Sebastian wouldn't she have stood by his side after everything that happened but her words still rung in his mind -

I would care.

Sirona fixed him with an assessing eye, as if she was peeling him back. As if she could sense every hateful, lusty and confusing thought he’d had of the witch upstairs. Sebastian shifted uncomfortably under her gaze and she softened.

"Not everyone gets a second chance at happiness, Sebastian. Don't waste yours."

Sirona said it like it was so simple. Like he could erase the last five years if he let himself. Coming from anyone else he would have hexed them. Sirona she met the world through the doors of this old pub, listened to everything from the lamenting of love sick teenager and world weary travelers who'd seen the darkest crevices of this world. He didn't know where his own problems fit in to that scale but he rolled it over in his mind.

A second chance. The words soothed his soul.

***

The summer at Poppy’s had done him good. Sebastian stared at his face no longer gaunt and hollow through the steamed up mirror of the small bathroom in the Three Broomsticks. If it wasn’t for the tattoos that covered his torso and crept up his neck he would barely think he’d been in Azkaban at all.

His clothes no longer hung off of him as he’d regained the strength and despite the nightmares that still haunted him nightly his eyes were no longer framed by dark bruises. The constellations of freckles that peppered his face and shoulder had returned in earnest, dark across his nose and cheeks. He adjusted his towel around his neck to cover the tattoo on his chest and placed his hand over the one on his neck.

This is who he would have been, if he’d never been to Azkaban.

He muttered a scourgify on his trousers before he pulled them on. Spells never made his clothes fully clean and not wanting to dirty himself further he left his dusty shirt in a the wicker laundry basket. Sebastian padded across the hall and hesitated in front of the door. He couldn't hear anything from beyond the door.

With a long exhale he stilled his breath and rapped once on the door to announce his entrance.

She leaned against the windowsill her arms crossed over her thin nightdress. Her hair was loose from its braids and it fluttered in the warm summer breeze from the window. She watched the streets with a feline stillness, like an assassin on the roof alert and vigilant. Her eyes flicked up to meet his own as the door creaked, announcing his arrival.

He clicked the door behind him but he could feel her eyes on him. Sebastian raised his eyebrows at her a small smile tugged at his lips at the way her eyes roamed over the bare expanse of his chest. The room seemed stiflingly small, the low vaulted ceiling left little space for more than the bed and a small nightstand. She was propped up on the windowsill, Sebastian leaned beside her and felt the warm air lick over his skin.

She swallowed audibly and pulled her lower lip between her teeth. He see her from the corner of his eyes scan the bare expanse of his skin.

"What do they mean?"

"You're an auror, I thought they would teach you this kind of thing?" Sebastian frowned.

"No."

Sebastian moved in front of her her and caught her hand in his, admiring the way her chest swelled as she held in a tight breath. He brought her fingers to press into neck, his skin tingled under the featherlight touch.

“This is me. Prisoner identification number,” he supplied, as he turned so her fingers could glide down his spine "These mark each unforgivable curse, they found when the Wizengamot surveyed my wand."

Her nimble fingers traced each ugly black stain on his skin in turn.

Crucio. Imperio. Avada Kadavra.

She lingered over each one, as if they were familiar like she knew they should decorate her own skin.

Sebastian turned slowly back to face her and took her hand in his once again. Finally, he pressed her palm flat over the one on his chest. Directly over his heart. He knew she could feel how hard it pounded in his chest. Sebastian's face so close to hers, he could feel her stuttered breaths against his freckled cheeks.

"This is my sentence. Life In Azkaban." She sucked in a breath through her teeth.

Sebastian didn’t want to explain the one on his wrist. The one he scratched at more fervently than the others. A particularly cruel form of punishment designed especially for him. When they peered into my mind, saw what tortured him most; It was always her. They’d inked her name in their ancient texts.

They stared into each other for what felt like an eternity. He waited for her to pull back, to recoil from him. Waited for his own body to do the same; to remember every aching moment of the past five years. But with her hand still pressed against his skin, her eyes boring into his own every rational thought burned away.

Sebastian wanted to be the version of him that stared back at him from the mirror. The one that did not bear the weight of the last five years.

He let his lips ghost across hers.

Sebastian wondered if this was some new form of torture and this was some feverish fantasy of a man slowly dying in Azkaban. Or if they'd chained him to her on purpose, the only one who made him feel blood boiling hatred and blinding desire. A kaleidoscope of feelings, brutal, dirty and wonderful. To make him lose every rational thought in his body as her mere existence overwhelmed him before they ripped it away.

She whimpered into the hairbreadth distance between his lips and hers. A pleasureful little sound that made some primal part of Sebastian practically purr with need. With one hand still pressed to his chest her other to wrapped around his neck to roughly pull his lips to hers in a feverish kiss.

Sebastian’s hands fisted into her hair, drawing her into him. The taste of her, the feel of her pressed against him made him feel like the world tipped on its axis. He nipped needily at her bottom lip and she gasped, granting him access to flick his tongue between her now parted lips.

She kissed him back feverishly, her own tongue collided with his own. He knew no one had touched her like this and it was like they’d both been starving. Her lips hungry against his own.

But he needed more.

In his desperation to feel as much of her as he could, hold her to him so she couldn't be stolen from his grasp Sebastian maneuverer her back until she collided with the wall. He pressed the entirety of himself against her, shamelessly dragging his hands along her curves.

He knew he was being rougher than he’d ever been as his hands groped every inch of her. But he was a man starved of touch for so long and he clung to her as if his very life depended on it. She seemed to crave that hardness as much as he did, as she ground her core against him where his leg had nestled between her thighs. Her fingers clung to his shoulders; her nails decorated half-moons amongst the splattered freckles. He hissed with delight at the pleasureful pain, as it broke through the numbness he’d felt for so long.

He grasped her chin to access her neck, to trail fire down her skin as he nipped at her thundering pulse. His teeth grazing every inch of her throat.

Sebastian snaked down the dips of her curves, to pinch and knead at her sides through the fabric as he worked his way to the hem of her nightdress. He slipped under her skirt to squeeze her backside and he savoured the vibrations in her throat against his lips from the groan that escaped her lips.

With how soft her skin was against his calloused hands he wanted – no needed to feel more of it.

She groaned in protest at the loss of his lips as he pulled the offending garment over her head. As if to stop their passions for even for a second would stifle the flames.

Sebastian stopped his assault on her skin to drink her in. His hands swept over the curves, fuller than he remembered, over the puckered skin of faded battle scars. In the soft lamp light, her hair unbound and wild, her lips swollen and her chest heaving she looked fucking exquisite.

She pulled him back into her roughly, her teeth knocked against his as her tongue delved into his mouth once more. Her fingers entwined in his chestnut hair, he shuddered as her nails scratched against his scalp. Sebastian hands resumed their assault, exploring ever dip and curve of her exposed flesh he’d devoured with his eyes. Intoxicated by the way her nipples pebbled as he grasped her breasts in his calloused hands. He captured the needy mewls that escaped her as he rolled them between his fingertips.

Sebastian trailed his hand between the peaks and down her stomach. His fingers grazed the sensitive spot between her thighs through the lace of her knickers. He chuckled against her lips as he slid his hand beneath the already damp material. Her folds were already slick and needy. Her lips didn’t say it, but her wetness told him she craved him as much as he did her. He stroked tantalising circles the small bundle of nerves, savouring every moan and whimper against his lips. He could feel her heart hammer in her chest. She ground her hips against his fingers as her eyes fluttered closed as a waves of pleasure crashed over her.

“Look at me,” he commanded. Her eyes snapped open to meet his own, she looked at him through hooded eyes “I want you to know it’s me - Who does this to you. Makes you feel like this.”

Her lips were parted as if she was going to respond but any words died on her lips as he slid a finger inside of her. Sebastian crooked his finger to find that spot inside of her that made her knees buckle. Her head lolled back against the wall with a throaty cry, barely held up by her weaked legs but her eyes never left his. He nipped at her throat approvingly.

Sebastian was achingly hard and strained against his trousers. He relished the friction of where his cock was rutted against her thigh. The scent of her own arousal coupled with the feel of his own was a heady concoction. He wanted to feel her climax under the entirety of him not just his fingers.

He withdrew sharply from her; a groan escaped her at the loss but Sebastian was quick. He unbuckled his belt and tore the leather from around his hips. His hands groped her perfect backside, as he lifted her up. She yelped in surprise, but her thighs instinctively squeezed round his middle. She kissed across his freckled face, and nipped at his earlobe as he carried her.

Sebastian flung her onto the mattress and it creaked under her weight. He shoved off his trousers and underwear in one swift motion. His hard cock arching proudly, relieved to finally be released from the confines of his trousers. He prowled up the bed towards her and she lifted her hips so he could peel her knickers down her legs.

He ran his hands along her shapely calves and trailed his mouth along her stomach. He took her nipple in his mouth; he flicked his tongue over the bud whilst his hand re-found the bundle of nerves at her core. He circled it twice before teased two fingers into her entrance, she groaned and rutted her hips shamelessly against his fingers. She wanted him, her kiss swollen lips wouldn’t say it, but her body couldn’t lie.

She clasped at his freckled cheeks and pulled his lips to hers again. He growled with satisfaction as moved her legs apart expectantly. Caged under the full weight of him she wanted to feel all of him, between her legs.

Sebastian aligned himself with her entrance and paused to savour the lusty look in her eyes. Sprawled out below him, bare and wild like a nymph from some Greek tragedy that would surely be his undoing. They would be each others undoing.

She wouldn’t say it, but he knew he needed to hear it from her swollen lips.

“Beg me for it,” he growled low in her ear, his nose burrowed into her tangled hair.

“W-What?” she stammered. Her pupils were blown wide, and he savoured the mix of confusion and lust that swam in her eyes. He knew she wanted him. He could feel it between her thighs. But he wanted her to proclaim it, to know he wasn’t mad to think this was something she didn't just want but needed; just desperately as he did.

“I said - Beg. Me.”

“Please-” she murmured as her hips inched towards him.

“You can do better than that,” he purred, as he teased his hardened length across her folds once more making her groan.

They both knew this was insane. But if he was going to succumb to complete blinding madness, throw all rationale away; then she was coming down with him.

“I want you- I need you inside me. Sebastian, please,” her fingers scratched across his freckled shoulders in a desperate attempt to pull him inside of her.

Sebastian practically purred with delight to hear her beg for the man she’d condemned. Satisfied he sheathed the entirety of himself inside of her with one strong thrust. Her eyes rolled back and her eyelashes fluttered as she arched her back as he filled her. The feel of her pulsing heat around him almost sent him immediately over the edge. He released a groan of his own, low, and deep.

This was not the tender explorative touches of teenagers it had once been.

With every deliberate thrust into her, he drew incomprehensible moans and pleas to deities from her lips. Her hips bucked to meet each stroke as she writhed under him. Her calloused fingers mapped his skin, over each tattoo along his spine. Each one a mark of the sordid past they shared. She traced every freckle in every impossible spot no one had seen but her. The sensation of each featherlight touch and rough scratch sent shivers cascading through him.

Sebastian’s mouth fixed on her neck, leaving red welts where he sucked at the skin like he could replicate the branding of her that marked his own skin. To claim what had always been his.

As he ground his hips against her and she arched her back in approval, Sebastian wrapped his arm through the vacant space below her. He hauled her up to leave more bites along her chest. His other hand fisted possessively into her hair as if he despite the impossibility he could be closer to her. Each frantic thrust brought incoherent curses and praise from her lips. He felt dizzy with how her hips jerked demanding as much of him as she could, with how perfectly he fit inside her even after all this time.

Her nimble fingers pushed his still wet hair from where it had dropped into his eyes. She pressed her lips to his to absorb the curses and moans he hadn’t even realised were spilling out of his own mouth.

Sebastian caught her trembling leg behind her knee in a bruising grip to hitch it up. To roughly plunge himself deeper inside of her, she released a strangled cry of approval. Her legs were strong from years of fighting, but he admired the valleys and dips he created in the soft skin of her thighs with his fingers. Her breathing hitched becoming more frantic as the angle pushed her to new heights of bliss. Every rasped moan spurred the motion of his hips as he eagerly chased the sounds only he could draw from her.

He could feel her body begin to tighten and pulse around him in a way that was maddening. Sebastian was desperate to feel her peak, but his body had a mind of its own as he thrust into her desperately, he knew his own release build deep in his gut. The last coherent part of his brain not overtaken by an animalistic need guided his hand down her stomach to stroke her clit. The overwhelming sensation of his cock and his fingers had her keening and stuttering as she began to crest her peak.

“Say my name,” his voice no more than growl, as he struggled to hold back his own release.

Amongst the other senseless words that escaped her she cried his name. Loud and desperate from her swollen lips; an intoxicating sirens call, he would follow willingly to a watery grave. She hauled him down to bring his full weight on top of her as she climaxed. The way she said his name, even when she was near delirious, practically vibrating as she rode her orgasm.

To know he was the one who made he feel like this. The only one who could make her skin feel like it was on fire. The only mans name she’d ever cried when her earth shattered.

He slammed into her hard and fast prolonging that feeling of ecstasy for as long as long as his own frenzy would allow. But the feeling of her trembling release, and the continued raspy gasps of his name made his hips faulter. His teeth bit into her shoulder to muffle her own name that slipped from his lips in a guttural moan as he released inside her.

Sebastian’s chest heaved as his heart rattled against his ribcage, as he came down from his own earth-shattering bliss. They stayed like that for a while, his head pressed into the crook of her neck, still inside her to the hilt. Every inch of his skin where they were connected felt like it was on fire.

He didn’t kiss her again.

Sebastian rolled off of her, and she whimpered slightly at the loss of him inside her. They lay there together, sheets tangled around their limbs their minds fogged from their shared ecstasy.

Her mallowsweet scent was on the sheets, on his skin; it soaked into Sebastian’s mind. It silenced intrusive questions that simmered in his mind about what they’d just done. He knew they would come; he’d have to face them eventually but for now he wanted to pretend things were different.

So, for the first time in years - Sebastian slept and didn’t dream.

***

Sebastian woke as the dawn light streamed through the curtains. Golden hues illuminated the witch still curled beside him. The sheets tangled around her doing little to hide the curve of her hips, her hair fanned out around her like a halo.

He groaned and rubbed his eyes. His brain felt loud as too many questions bubbled to the surface and made his head spin.

She stirred slightly when the mattress dipped as he climbed out of bed, but she buried her head back into the pillow. Sebastian released a relieved breath he didn’t realise he was holding. He needed to clear his head before he was ready to face her. He pulled on spare clothes from the nightstand Sirona had left out for him and slipped out the door.

It was the crack of dawn and Hogsmead was still very much asleep. He walked the empty cobble streets and tried to make sense of the complicated cocktail of emotions that bubbled in his chest. Sebastian seemed to be existing in a plane somewhere between self-loathing and infuriating yearning.

Sebastian didn’t know what this meant for him, let alone for her. For them.

Could a version of them even exist anymore? Sebastian wondered if he even wanted it to. As much as he wanted to pretend the past five years hadn't happened they had and like a self fulfilling prophecy she had gotten under his skin, clouded all rational thoughts and distracted him from his mission once more.

He’d began his slow plod back to the Three Broomsticks, resigned to the fact that he must face her eventually. He hadn't quite decided whether he wanted to pretend it had never happened or make her scream his name a hundred more times when a figure stepped into his path.

Sebastian froze, his hand instinctively reached for his wand. He cursed himself for being so wrapped up in thoughts of her that he’d left it in his old clothes. He squared his shoulders and met the amused stare of the stocky man in front of him.

“No need for dramatics, Sallow. I’m not here to hurt you,” chuckled Harlow. Sebastian should be shocked a wanted man like Harlow would appear so brazenly in the streets of Hogsmead. Maybe his own actions had last night had tapped him out and nothing could suprise him more than himself.

Much like Sebastian, months on the outside had brought a fullness back to Harlow’s face. Although no longer hollow cheeked his fine clothes did little to hide the ancient letters branded across his neck. But perhaps Harlow wasn’t trying to hide them, didn’t feel them burn into his skin as Sebastian did.

“Some how I find that hard to believe,” Sebastian ground out through clenched teeth. If it wasn’t for the knowledge that the auror would probably have to scrape what was left of Sebastian off the cobbled streets he would have launched himself at Harlow and tried to rip him apart with his bare hands.

“Come on now mate, we’re friends, aren’t we? Besides - I owe you, Sallow. With all our little chats, you’re the one who gave me my grand idea,” Harlow said with palms to the sky. His open face and arms mimicked the posture of a pious man of the cloth so at odds with the man Sebastian knew him to be.

Sebastian’s felt the bile rise in his throat. What idea had he given him?

“I was thinking too small. Blackmail, bribery - why do all of that when I could be Minister of Magic? Wielder of dark ancient powers. Get revenge on the girl who locked us both away. Who could stand in my way? You understand don’t you, what it’s like to have that kind of power at your fingertips. What it would feel like to make them pay. Clever I admit, earning her trust before stabbing her in the back,” Harlow cast a wry eye over the collection of bruises that had formed below Sebastian’s jaw, and he chuckled. “She is a pretty little thing I admit. Don’t blame you for wanting to fuck her first.”

“You can’t get to the repositories. The goblins tried, it’s pointless-” Sebastian began.

“I don’t need those repositories; I already have enough from what the goblins took to fix this,” his yellowed teeth broke into a wide smile, as he presented the pieces of the broken relic from the catacomb. That’s what Bettie had been desperately clutching to her chest “Then I can take her power for myself.”

The relic.

The one that could control the dead, dark magic and grant you any impossible desire if you paid it in blood. A man like Harlow would not be far pressed to provide it with a dark sacrifice it demanded.

Sebastian felt a blood grow cold in his veins. Sebastian had spilled his secrets to the man beyond the wall and now they were all going to pay for it.

“I’ll see you round mate. Give her one for me will you,” Harlow winked. He whistled as he strode off through the vacant streets leaving Sebastian alone.

***

Sebastian stumbled back to the pub in a daze. His mind raced so fast he felt like it couldn’t remember how to breath and choked the air out of his lungs. Sebastian pushed into the attic room, desperate to feel his wand between his fingers, find the safety in his own magic.

The witch lifted her head woken from her slumber by his heavy footsteps. She greeted him with a sleepy smile.

No soft smiles could shake the panic from Sebastian’s bones. His jaw was clenched, shoulders stiff and his knuckles white where the ligaments in his hand strained against the door handle.

How can he tell her he’s the reason Harlow was after her ancient power. That he, however unwillingly, had given the man who’d designed his sisters pain all the tools he needed to spread it like a unstoppable poison.

This was his fault. He wondered if the world had always been right and Sebastian Sallow truly was cursed.

She looked wounded at the frown that twisted his face and she drew the sheets tighter around herself protectively. Sebastian knows what this must look like. Like he must regret their night together. That last night was just one moment of madness.

She’ll think last night was a mistake eventually so why not cut to the chase. Save himself the pain of thinking he could be anything but cursed.