Chapter Text
Chapter Ten: The Lloyds
Sebastian found himself awkwardly by the entrance of the estate once again, hands shoved deep in his trenchcoat’s pockets, lapels pulled up, and cap pulled down to stay ambiguous without looking too out of place. It was in vain. The faded brickwork, the graffiti-scrawled walls, the distant blare of a radio through some open window, the bustle of the smog-choked city… it was a world away from Diagon Alley, from Feldcroft, from anywhere he'd ever called home.
He shouldn’t have come. Rhys would have contacted him if he wanted to. He knew perfectly well where Sebastian stayed. He already got rejected once, he wasn’t sure why he was so insistent on reliving it.
He was still trying to decide whether to ring or simply turn on his heel when a voice crackled from above.
"Wotcher, guv?"
He looked up. A girl– Gwen, he recognised her from the other day, was leaning out of a second-floor window, elbows propped on the sill like she'd been watching him for some time now.
"'E's at work," she called down.
"I see. Thank you." Sebastian cleared his throat. "When does his shift end?"
"Not for another hour or so." She jerked her head towards the building. "If ya don' have nothing better to do than stand around all useless like, come up an' lend me a hand."
He hesitated. "I hardly think that's appropriate."
"But snoopin' round the home of a bloke you ain't seen in six years is, is it?" She grinned, that same infuriatingly familiar, smug grin, then vanished from the window. A few seconds later, the door buzzed him in.
Sebastian sighed and made his way up the stairwell, his unease growing with each step. He shouldn’t have come. What would Rhys think, coming home to find Sebastian bantering away with his sister? The very woman he hadn't wanted Sebastian to even gaze at only a few weeks back?
The door was already open, Gwen leaning against the frame, arms crossed, waiting for him. She stepped back to let him through.
He'd scarcely had time to toe off his boots before she'd steered him to the counter. "Wash up an' get choppin'! Relax, guv. I know 'bout yer hocus pocus." Her grin widened. "An' I know you're shaggin' Riri. Actually, don' rightly know who's doin' the shaggin'—"
"Thank fuck for that," Sebastian muttered under his breath.
"Whoa, yer snoggin' me bruva with tha' mouth?" She laughed, "Gotta hand it to you, takes bottle to show up at the doorstep of a bloke you're messin' around with."
He stared at her a moment too long, trying very hard not to think about how he had, in fact, been snogging her brother in this exact spot nine days ago.
"It's not as big an issue where I'm from…" he began.
"Yea? An' where's that?"
"The other side."
"Well, this ain't that." She slid a bowl of boiled potatoes across the counter towards him. "East of Aldgate Pump, we keep our affairs on the down-low. Not unless it's for trade, you get me?"
"I understand." Sebastian took up the knife, and absently began peeling. "No need to worry. I don't intend to put him at risk."
Before Gwen could respond, a younger boy appeared from the hallway, sixteen or so, by Sebastian’s estimation, with the same copper hair and sharp eyes that marked him as a Lloyd. He took one look at Sebastian and snorted.
"Riri's gon’ be right pissed when he sees you've been bringin' one of yours round here."
Gwen rolled her eyes. "He ain't one of mine. He's Riri's."
The boy's eyebrows shot up. "No shit… You the bloke from last week?"
Sebastian nodded. "Yes."
"Fuck me." The boy shook his head, half-laughing. "What do we call you, then?"
"Sebastian. Sallow."
"Afon." He jabbed a thumb at Gwen. "An' that's Gwen. Bet she didn’t waste no time on introductions b’fore puttin’ you to work."
Gwen ignored the jab. "Emyr's coming?"
"He better. I ain't doin' no dishes."
5th Year - 2nd Semester
"No, bruv– it ain't that–" the redhead argued through a mouthful of éclair. "Just don't get the appeal, is all."
"The appeal," Sebastian smirked, snatching the last piece off Rhys's plate before he could stop him, "is that you get to put your feet up and enjoy a nice cup of whatever while the chores do themselves."
"'S just scrubbing dishes, Seb. Ain't that hard. Bit of graft might even do you magic folk some good."
"Oh? Narrowly escaping a troll's club isn't keeping me sufficiently in shape?"
They had these little debates often enough that they'd worn a groove into the conversation, comfortable as an old shoe. It was only after meeting Rhys that Sebastian had realised how much Muggles had to compensate for the conveniences magical folk took for granted. Small wonder, then, that labour-heavy tasks came easier to Rhys than to most of his housemates; he'd said as much himself, more than once, with no small amount of scorn for how soft his fellow wizards had turned out to be.
Rhys scoffed at the jab, though the warm smile stayed on his lips a moment too long. Long enough for it to carve its way into Sebastian's memory.
"Never said nothin’ 'bout yer shape, mate."
Sebastian had only ever crushed on one girl before, back in third year. Straight-laced as they come–nary a mischievous bone in her body. Looking back on it now, he doubted it would ever have worked between them; she'd have bored him into an early grave within a fortnight.
This, though. He thought he’d like a girl with banter like this.
He couldn't say why she'd surfaced in his thoughts just then, of all the useless moments, given she was about as relevant to the conversation at hand as a teapot to a Quidditch match. And yet there she was, plain as anything, gone again just as fast.
He found himself wondering, not for the first time, whether Rhys had anyone he fancied.
He was attractive enough, if the attention he drew from half the girls in the castle was anything to go by. Well-built too, courtesy of all that Muggle dish-scrubbing no doubt, though the Quidditch practices were clearly earning their keep as well. Sebastian had never had much patience for sport unless it involved hurling a curse or two, and he certainly lacked whatever careless charm Rhys carried round like a second skin. If he was honest with himself, his appearance veered closer to Scrope than Professor Sharp.
He watched, almost lazily, as the grin slowly slid clean off Rhys's face when the chatter from a table over made its way to their end.
He couldn't say for certain whether Rhys caught the exact meaning behind the words being thrown his way, but the connotations weren't lost on him, that was for sure. A slur was a slur no matter which part of the world they were in. And it seemed Rhys had heard his fair share, on either side of Diagon Alley.
Sebastian was on his feet before he'd known what he was doing.
He crossed the distance to the other table in a handful of long strides, jaw set, ears roaring with something that could only loosely be called anger, the same way a hippogriff could loosely be called a bird.
He didn't choose a target. His fist simply found one, the boy nearest the end of the bench, the one still smirking like he’d said something clever, and it connected somewhere around the jaw with a crack that hurt Sebastian's knuckles rather more than it seemed to hurt anyone else.
That had been the first time he'd ever thrown a punch. An actual, physical, punch.
He could still remember Rhys's cheers.
"None of these half-wit cunts got the bottle to eat a real punch, have they." He'd made a crude gesture with his hands.
To be fair, Sebastian had only managed to land one– one and a half hits. Rhys had done most of the heavy lifting, as always, when it came to a hands-on approach. He couldn't deny he'd acquired a new-found appreciation for rather more primitive forms of combat that day.
Afon flopped onto the sofa and looked Sebastian up and down. "You one of Riri's mates, then?"
Sebastian hesitated. "I was…"
Afon sat up straighter. "Wait, Sallow? Ya know Annie?"
"Anne?" Sebastian felt his chest tighten. "Yeah… She's my twin sister."
"Knew ya looked familiar." Afon frowned. "She ain't never said nothing about a twin."
He knew Anne kept in touch with Rhys. Ominous told him as much. Of the birthdays and the Easters that Sebastian was not invited to. It still twisted his insides to know that Anne had been regularly enough that she’d be known to the family. That Rhys had shared this with her, when Sebastian got a wand on his throat. Not that he held that against Rhys, or Anne. He understood. If only understanding it made it any more bearable.
"We're not on speaking terms…"
Gwen cut in, "Keep yer nose outta other people's biz, will ya? Go get Cerys, dinner's near ready." She waited until Afon had shuffled out before turning back to Sebastian, her voice as flat as ever. "Twat. Yeah, sorry. Rhys said yer estranged, but he don't really talk much about his magic mates. I know better than to ask too many questions."
Sebastian exhaled. "I must admit, I'm surprised he told you. He was adamant on keeping his family out of it."
"For good reason." Gwen's gaze drifted to the window. "But he didn't have to tell me, not after setting a bloody settee on fire at Dad's birthday with his mind. ‘Course, they told me I was imagining things– me being five or six at that time and all…" She paused, jaw tightening. "B’sides, I was there, ya know, when Mum and Dad— when Rhys..."
Sebastian swallowed. "He told me what happened. I'm sorry you had to see that. Or live that, for that matter."
"We's a strong breed, us Lloyds." Gwen's voice was smug, the distinct tone Sebastian knew intimately, but her eyes betrayed her. "They're lucky we wasn't magic; we'd've sorted 'em out proper. Always been a softy, that one."
"The Cru–” Sebastian stopped himself, suddenly unsure of how much he should be divulging. This was quite possibly the longest conversation he’d ever had with a Muggle. “The spell he cast is believed to be quite powerful. Death may have been preferable."
Gwen was quiet for a long moment. "…Good." She shook herself. "Word to the wise: don't breach this topic when Emyr arrives, yea? We don’t got no curses but we can still set a thing or two alight."
Sebastian nodded. "Do they know about Rhys's abilities?"
"Emyr and Afon worked it out a while back. Cerys is too young to keep her gob shut. Thinks its a trick."
"He's not using it often, is he?"
"Nope." Gwen turned to face him fully. "He says he ain't allowed to use it to get one up on the Muggle world… Ministry gave ‘im a right dressing down a few years back." Her gaze sharpened. "You pity him."
"I don't." Sebastian met her eyes. "He was the strongest spellcaster I've ever known. He could have…"
Gwen tilted her head, that same sinister Lloyd mockery glinting in her eyes. "So, yer here to whisk him away on some big adventure, then? Wine an' dine him like a true gent~"
"That's not what I meant." Sebastian ran a hand through his hair. "This was his choice… Regardless, I'm not exactly living a life of luxury myself."
"Probably why he tolerated you."
Sebastian almost smiled. "He had quite the following… Few of our mutual friends are old money, actually."
"Huh." Gwen raised an eyebrow. "And they broke bread with a, wha's the word?" She snapped her fingers. "Cadblood?"
"Muggleborn."
"No, not that one… whatever, a Muggleborn street trash?"
"He was– is, bloody hard to hate."
"He gotta be, don't he?"
Sebastian shook his head slowly. "He could take on a fully grown troll with only a couple of months of experience under his belt… Believe me, he didn't need any goodwill."
Gwen snorted. "Funny that. Reckon you're not half bad with a wand either." She swept the peelings off the counter into her palm and tossed them somewhere behind her as she spoke. "Pressed Rhys for some dirt after you showed up and he disappeared for a day. You say he's the strongest magician? Turns out there's one particular wiz out there strong enough to give 'im the willies."
"Really—"
"Sebastian?!"
Sebastian spun round, knife still awkwardly in hand. Rhys stood in the doorway, in his work clothes, face a mixture of shock and something close to terror.
Gwen smirked. "Case on point. Right on time."
Rhys's gaze darted between them. "What—"
"Calm yer tits." Gwen waved a dismissive hand. "I called him up. Found him sulking by the courtyard, needed some help with dinner, didn't I?" She was already moving towards the hall. "Gotta visit the loo. Set the table, yea?"
She disappeared, leaving them alone.
Sebastian felt the horror creeping in. Suddenly aware of why he was idling by the courtyard instead of coming straight up. "Sorry. I shouldn't have come…"
"Glad you did." Rhys stepped closer, then seemed to catch himself. "Sorry for disappearin’ on you. Work’s been…" He exhaled. "Taxing. Can barely keep me eyes open through the dinner most nights."
"It's alright." Sebastian forced himself to meet his eyes. "I don't mind, so long as I can drop by every once in a while."
Rhys nodded slowly. "Course… long as it ain't the middle of the night with nobody about. That tends to draw the wrong sort of attention." He paused, reaching for a stack of plates from the cupboard. His voice was casual, but the tension on his shoulders were clearly visible by how jittery his movements were. "I wasn't sure if it was a one-off thing." His voice dropped. "Sex."
Sebastian stepped closer. "Rhys, I didn't come here to get laid. I was telling the truth–I wanted to see you. That hasn't changed.” He hadn’t asked him to stay for an hour of cuddles either, “Whether you want more or not is up to you."
Rhys held his gaze. "Do ya?"
Sebastian tried to smile. "You're doing that thing where you go along with whatever you think I want. Take your time. Think about it. I'll wait for your answer." He nodded towards the door. "Give Gwen my thanks for her hospitality."
"Ah, you're not staying for dinner?" Rhys's voice caught. "I mean, not like you ain't met 'em already, and I'd wager Gwen knows you had your cock up me arse. She's been giving me funny looks all week."
"If it's any consolation," Sebastian said, with a sly smirk he didn’t bother hiding, "she claimed that she doesn't rightly know who's doing the shagging."
Rhys's ears went red. "Had a nice talk, did you?"
"Not by choice."
Before Rhys could dig himself a deeper hole, Afon burst through the door with another boy close behind him, this one around his age, shorter hair and stockier frame. In Afon's arms, held more like a bundle of dirty laundry than a child, a little girl was wailing, tears streaming down her face as she clutched her knee.
"Riri, thank fuck yer here!"
Rhys was on his knees in an instant, gently prying the toddler's hands away from the wound. "Hey, luv. Looks pretty bad, don't it?" His voice softened, warm and patient. "Does it hurt?"
The girl sobbed. "Yes—"
"But we know how to fix it, yeah?" Rhys caught her chin gently, tilting her face towards his. "You remember the magic words? One, two, three… Episkey!"
A soft glow, and the scrape vanished. Girl, Cerys—Sebastian’ memory supplied, sniffled, looking down at her unblemished knee with watery wonder.
6th Year - 2nd Semester
"What in bloody hell is that?" Sebastian gasped, trying to make sense of the shape they'd just let loose.
The gliding cloak drifted towards one of the poachers, and… she was gone.
"Poppy!?" He heard Rhys scream. "That's an odd looking Dementor–"
"I don't, I–" She froze. The flying cloth was making its way towards her now, consuming everything in its path and growing thicker as it fed.
"Living Shroud…" Ominis whispered beside Sebastian, who was already sprinting towards the girl.
"It's a Lethifold– Sebastian, Patronus, now!" Ominis yelled from behind him, and two things happened in quick succession: Sebastian raised his wand for a cast at the very second the creature expanded itself for another kill, and Poppy, unable to see him, summoned fire to defend herself.
Sebastian went down. A phantom pain shot through his limbs, masked at first by adrenaline, then not masked at all. He commanded his body to move, his arms to cast, but found that each small motion only bought him more agony. The creature's attention turned towards him, perhaps drawn by the scent of easier prey.
The edges of his vision began to blur, whether from the cursed cloak slowly wrapping around him or from the pain itself, he couldn't say. The screams of his friends sounded so far away now, muffled, as though a veil pulled over between him and the rest of the world. He closed his eyes. He wondered, absurdly, whether this strange serenity at the brink of death was the Lethifold's own doing. He should have paid more attention in class.
A bright, white-hot light seared through his eyelids, and the panic flooded straight back. He caught a split second's glimpse of his Patronus before it evaporated along with the creature, in a deafening wail that seemed to shake the ground under their feet.
"Fuck!" he cried, holding out his hands in panic. It hurt like nothing he'd ever felt before, and somehow, at the same time, he couldn't feel them at all.
"Whoa, whoa–" The other boy was on him in an instant, hauling him aside towards the shelter of the ruins.
Ominis rushed to join them. "What happened?"
"Incendio gone wrong–"
"Gone wrong?! My—" Sebastian's voice cracked. "Burned my hands to a crisp!"
Poppy kept a safe distance, arms wrapped tight around herself. "I'm so sorry, Sebastian, I'm–"
"Hey!" Rhys gave him a weak smack on the cheek, just enough to pull his focus. "It's alright. We'll get you fixed up, yeah?"
"We should go back…" Ominis said quietly.
Sebastian barked out a laugh that may as well have been a sob. "Brilliant plan. Suppose you're going to play the family card to keep us off the noose?!"
"Sebastian, this is no–"
"Shut it, all of you!" Rhys said, and something in his tone compelled.
He knelt before Sebastian to inspect the damage properly. "Ominis, give us some light, would ya?"
Ominis nodded and cast Lumos in their general direction. Now illuminated, Sebastian sucked in a sharp breath to curb his rising panic. The skin all the way up to his wrists was peeling away in ribbons, blisters marring what remained of his scorched flesh.
"Calm down." Rhys sighed, gently pulling Sebastian's ruined hands -or whatever’s left of them- towards himself with a light tug on his elbows. "Not as bad as it looks. Promise."
No amount of Episkey or Wiggenweld could fix this, surely. The pain alone was maddening, but without proper care, and quickly, there was no telling what might–
"Oi." Rhys snapped his fingers in front of Sebastian's face. "You with me?"
"Y– yeah."
"Good. I know it hurts like hell. Deep breaths, focus on me, alright? We'll patch you up nice and quick, no trouble at all. That do you?"
All Sebastian could manage was a nod.
Why was he so calm? How could anyone be calm while holding a lump of ruined flesh that looked no different from the bacon they'd had for breakfast? How was Rhys supposed to heal this?
For once in his life, Sebastian did as he was told and fixed his focus on the other boy. He took in the sunken eyes, the faint sunspots and blemishes, the old scar splitting one eyebrow… and let his gaze drift down to the soft peach fuzz above lips slightly parted in concentration.
He distracted himself with superfluous details: the way the light caught his eyelashes and turned them the colour of burnished copper, the stripes of shadow it cast along his cheekbones. Everything about Rhys was sharp edges, nothing at all like Sebastian's own round face. It gave him a more mature look, despite his juvenile demeanour.
Not in moments like these, though, Sebastian realised. Not when he was crouched beside the fountain helping some second-year gather their books, nor when he was gently steering an overwhelmed first-year Muggleborn through the castle grounds. There was something undeniably maternal in the way Rhys cared for people. Genuinely nurturing, attentive and kind, in a manner that Sebastian could only imitate behind a mask.
Anne had clocked it long before Sebastian had. "He's an oldest child, I'd bet my wand on it," she'd said once, very smugly.
Sebastian didn't have an older brother of his own. His only real point of comparison was Ominis's sibling, hardly the brightest example to draw from. Still, he remembered his parents, in fragments if nothing else. Nothing too clear; memory was a fickle thing. More than the act itself, he remembered the vague, warm feeling of ease that used to settle over him as his mother whispered something soft and soothing. Whatever those words had actually meant, his uncle always swore nothing else had ever worked on him quite like her voice did.
He supposed, uncomfortably, that he felt a bit like that frightened child again now. Scared, and in a great deal of pain.
Rhys was calm. Rhys had been tortured, by Sebastian's own hand no less, beaten half to a pulp by Ashwinders, fallen clean out of the sky, and had shrugged all off as though they were nothing. He wouldn't be carrying on like this over a few burns. He wouldn't have succumbed.
Then again, Sebastian doubted he'd be carrying on at all if it were anyone else beside him. Which was a thought frightening enough on its own, had he not already been in an enormous amount of pain to distract him from it. It was so easy to lean on Rhys, so easy not to worry about being judged for it. Just as easy to trust that he'd meant it when he'd promised to fix him up.
Rhys glanced up and briefly met Sebastian's eyes, looking at him through his lashes. Sebastian might have felt embarrassed at being caught staring so openly, and in fairness he'd been miles away, but just as he opened his mouth to say something, his words dissolved into a scream instead.
It was over so quick that afterwards he wasn't entirely sure he hadn't imagined the whole thing. One brutal, blinding second of pain, as though he'd plunged both hands straight into molten metal, and then… nothing.
He opened his eyes slowly to find that same grin looking back at him, a grin he'd come to realise he associated more and more, by the day, with this tightness in his chest.
"See? Good as new." Rhys kept his voice soft, as if he were coaxing along some wounded animal. His eyes dropped to where their hands were still joined, Sebastian's very much not burnt, smooth and almost completely healed hands. Sebastian tried to will one to move, only to feel the warmth of the other boy's palm still cupped beneath it.
"What on earth is that?" Poppy asked, picking up an empty vial discarded near their feet and holding it up to her nose with a wrinkled expression.
"Haven't the foggiest." Rhys shrugged. "Had a butcher’s Sharp usin’ it on Weasley once– nicked it off the supply closet."
"It sounded bad…" Ominis trailed off, his brow creasing. "Are you alright?"
"Peachy." Sebastian said hoarsely, finding his mouth too dry to speak more than a single word. Clearly Rhys took notice, as he proceeded to wordlessly press his flask into Sebastian's newly restored hands. Sebastian mumbled a weak thanks between a couple of long, grateful gulps.
"Don't mention it. I got us into this mess, didn't I?"
Ominis scoffed. "Believe me, Sebastian had a particular knack for finding trouble long before you ever showed up."
The corners of Rhys's eyes creased with the effort of holding back a laugh. It was around then that Sebastian noticed he still had the backs of his hands resting quite snugly in the other boy's open palms.
He pulled back, reflexively, flexing his fingers to test the strength of his restored limbs. "How did I manage a Patronus, exactly?"
"You didn't." Poppy chewed her bottom lip, her gaze drifting to the ground. "It was Rhys."
"Bugger off– first you get my wand and now my Patronus?"
It was meant as a lighthearted jab, nothing more, but the air around them tightened all the same, and Rhys's restless eyes darted between Poppy and Ominis. Whatever Sebastian had said seemed to have touched a nerve.
"It wasn't fully corporeal…" Poppy spoke nervously. "It looked more like an Abraxan, didn't it?"
"Yah–," Rhys jumped in, a shade too quickly. "Like them winged horses. The non-skeletal kind, I mean."
"Oh, good." Sebastian huffed. "I don't think I could have survived the day if I'd had to hear you say the word 'patronsies'."
"Hilarious." Rhys said dryly, but Sebastian could see the corners of his mouth straining not to break a smile.
"I'm bloody glad that you managed to find your happy place."
"Well." Rhys tipped his head back against the stone. "Watching your mate get slurped up like a bottle of butterbeer does put things in perspective, don't it."
Sebastian was rather more confused as to why he was feeling a tinge of disappointment. He'd preferred not to get his arse rescued by Rhys on the daily, for sure. Though that would hardly explain why his face dropped at the word 'Abraxan'.
It's not like he wanted Rhys to share his Patronus as well. Although, Sebastian supposed, it would mean something.
What that something would be, however, he deliberately chose not to ponder.
"Up you get now, luv." Rhys helped her to her feet. "Get yourself cleaned up."
Afon's hands moved in quick, fluent gestures as he relayed to his brother. “That's Sebastian, Anne's twin bruva.” He glanced at Sebastian. “Apparently.”
Rhys straightened, signing as he spoke. “Emyr.” He pointed at the stockier boy. “Yeah, he's deaf as a doornail.”
Gwen appeared in the hallway, hands already moving before the words followed. “You're dragging mud all over the place.”
Emyr rolled his eyes, signing back.
“Go get changed.” Rhys pointed sharply.
As Emyr turned to leave, Rhys caught his arm. “Emyr.” He held out his hand, expression flat. “Give it back.”
Emyr hesitated, then reluctantly pulled a slim leather wallet from his sleeve and dropped it into Rhys's palm. “Apologise.”
Sebastian patted his coat pocket, only now registering it was empty. He hadn’t even been that close to the boy.
Rhys held the wallet out to him without a word, his expression somewhere between apologetic and unsurprised.
Emyr signed something Sebastian couldn't catch.
"I'm sorry," Sebastian said, feeling suddenly out of his depth, wallet back in hand. "I don't know sign language."
Rhys's mouth twitched. "That's okay, the less you understand, the better. Trust me."
Emyr grinned, signing one last thing before disappearing down the hall, a gesture that, even Sebastian could guess, was probably not polite.
Nimble fingers, he thought to himself.
After the kids had scattered, Sebastian allowed himself a small smile. "Riri, huh?"
Rhys sighed. "Don't start."
"No, no, it's cute."
"Cute."
Sebastian's grin widened. "Cute."