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Sebastian had thought detentions with Professor Sharp were uncomfortable. He’d thought awkward encounters with Headmaster Black, or the occasional pointed glare from Professor Weasley, were bad. But sitting at the long, gleaming table of Gaunt Manor, trying to swallow food that tasted like ash in his mouth, he realized he’d been a fool.
This was true discomfort.
The manor was cold in every sense; air chilled to the bone despite the fire that crackled faintly at the far end of the hall, walls so silent he could hear every scrape of cutlery against porcelain. The Gaunt dining hall was less a room and more a prison: cavernous, echoing, the kind of place where sound went to die.
And then there were the Gaunts themselves.
Lord and Lady Gaunt sat at the head of the table, unmoving. They hadn’t so much as blinked since Sebastian had walked in. Their eyes had been fixed on him all evening, heavy as iron shackles.
Marvolo, meanwhile, lounged opposite him, his chair creaking as he leaned back. The elder brother’s presence was nothing short of oppressive. Sebastian couldn’t tell if the way Marvolo stared at him was predatory in hunger or predatory in menace, but either way, it made the hairs rise on the back of his neck.
Ominis sat stiffly beside him, posture perfect, hands folded in his lap when he wasn’t carefully slicing his food. His face gave away nothing, but Sebastian could feel the tension radiating off him, coiled and tight as a sprung trap.
Sebastian had tried. Merlin help him, he had tried.
“So,” he had said earlier, with what he hoped was a disarming grin, “quite an impressive dining hall. I’ll bet it echoes terribly when someone sneezes, eh?”
Nothing.
No twitch of a lip, no polite chuckle. Not even the faintest acknowledgement. The silence had swallowed his words whole.
He had tried again when Marvolo leaned closer across the table. “Lovely cutlery you’ve got here. Puts the Hogwarts forks to shame, don’t they, Ominis?”
Ominis had given the barest nod, but the rest of the table stayed as still as statues.
Now Sebastian sat sweating despite the ice that clung to the stone walls. He stabbed at the roasted pheasant on his plate, wishing desperately for Garreth’s laugh or Imelda’s barbed wit, anything to break the suffocating weight of the room. His collar felt too tight, his palms damp.
He could usually talk his way out of anything. He could charm professors, joke with classmates, sweet-talk his way through trouble. But here, with Ominis’ parents and brother, every cheeky quip he summoned fell flat and shattered on the stone like dropped glass.
He had no idea what they thought of him. Well, he was fairly certain they weren't fond of him; it didn’t take a genius to figure that out. But still … Were they disappointed Ominis had chosen not only a half-blood, but also a male? It meant he wouldn’t be able to produce children. Not that Sebastian was sure they even wanted Ominis to reproduce if he could: they were most likely too ashamed of his condition to deem the risk of producing more beings like Ominis worth it.
Marvolo kept staring.
Sebastian tried not to glance at him, but it was impossible to ignore. That gaze crawled over him, assessing, dissecting, consuming. The way a wolf looked at a lamb. Or worse, the way a wolf looked at another wolf, deciding whether to fight or to mate.
Sebastian swallowed hard and reached for his goblet. The water was cold, metallic, like it had been poured straight from the dungeon’s cistern. He drank anyway, if only to give his hands something to do.
Merlin, this was unbearable. And they’d only made it through the first course.
The silence had stretched so long Sebastian could feel his own pulse in his ears. Fork, knife, swallow. Ominis’ mother hadn’t moved except to lift her goblet. Lord Gaunt cut his meat with the slow, precise motions of a man sharpening a blade. Marvolo still lounged like a vulture across from them, a predator waiting for the right twitch.
Sebastian wanted to scream. Or run. Or at least crack a joke that didn’t fall to the floor like a stunned Puffskein.
Ominis daintily took a bite of something that could resemble a potato. He chewed, frowned, and then said:
“Daddy, can you pass the salt?”
Sebastian and Lord Gaunt immediately reached out.
They both froze mid-motion.
For a split moment, their gazes met properly for the first time: Lord Gaunt's raven-like, black eyes seemed to pierce through Sebastian's soul.
Sebastian’s blood ran cold. His fingers hovered over the little silver pot like it was a cursed object about to explode. He didn’t dare breathe.
Across the table, Marvolo made a choking sound that could only be suppressed laughter. The elder brother half-covered his mouth, shoulders shaking as though someone had just whispered a brilliant joke in his ear.
Ominis tilted his head, brows furrowing. “What?”
Sebastian gulped. He could already see it: prison cells in the manor’s sublevels, damp and iron-barred, the kind of place they probably kept Muggle-borns for fun. His life was over. He’d never see the sun again.
Lady Gaunt, for the first time that evening, actually raised a hand to her mouth. Sebastian couldn’t tell if it was shock or horror or a smile. Either way, it was the most emotion he’d seen from her all day.
Lord Gaunt’s eyes narrowed, very slightly, as he turned his head toward Sebastian. It wasn’t fury, not exactly. More like reassessment. Calculation. Like a chess player realizing a pawn had just moved in an unexpected way.
Ominis, still blind to the tableau, let his hand drift lazily across the table until it found the salt for himself.
“Oh,” he said after a beat, realization dawning in his voice even though no one had explained. “…Ah.”
Sebastian wanted to die.
He forced a thin, strangled laugh. “Er. Sorry. Force of habit. At home we, ah…”
Ominis stomped him on the foot. Hard. His words faded into the suffocating silence.
Marvolo’s snicker finally broke into a low chuckle, shoulders shaking, eyes gleaming. Lady Gaunt lowered her hand, her face expressionless again. Lord Gaunt just kept staring at Sebastian like he’d discovered a rare, troubling new species.
Sebastian wished he could vanish into the thick, waxed tablecloth.
Finally, Lord Gaunt’s voice cut through the silence, sharp and curt. “So,” he said, not even looking at Sebastian, but at Ominis, “this is your choice of… suitor?”
Sebastian felt his stomach lurch. The word “suitor” landed like a slap, formal and cold and somehow obscene at the same time. He wiped his sweaty palms on his trousers, darting a glance at Ominis, who only tilted his head slightly, face unreadable.
“Yes, it is,” Ominis said calmly.
Lord Gaunt made a low sound, neither approval nor disapproval. “Hm.”
And that was it. The rest of the meal passed in a silence so thick Sebastian could hear every scrape of his own knife against the plate, every swallow, every shallow breath he took to keep from choking on the tension.
If it had been awkward before, it was downright excruciating now.
He had never been so aware of his own body: the way his hand trembled slightly when he lifted his goblet, the faint rasp of his sleeve against the tablecloth. Even a polite cough felt like a gunshot in the oppressive hush.
Marvolo, meanwhile, looked like Christmas and his birthday had arrived together. Sebastian could practically hear the smirk in Ominis’ brother’s voice when he offered to pass the bread. Lady Gaunt had returned to her masklike stillness, though Sebastian swore her lips twitched once, as though she were suppressing some private amusement.
But Lord Gaunt kept staring, scrutinizing, the way a Healer might study a creature on the dissection table: curious, pensive, detached. Sebastian squirmed under it, certain he was being weighed and measured and found wanting.
By the time the last plate was cleared, Sebastian was dizzy with relief. When Ominis set down his napkin and said, “Thank you for the meal. Sebastian and I should be going,” Sebastian nearly sagged with gratitude.
He stood a little too fast, his chair scraping loudly against the polished floor. “Er — yes — thank you very much,” he blurted. “The meal was… delightful. Very generous of you both. Lovely … lovely house you have. Manor. Manouse. Hanor.” He rambled on, words tumbling over each other in his haste. Anything to get out. Anything to leave.
Lord and Lady Gaunt remained seated, motionless, watching Sebastian with a detached interest. Like they were merely interested in seeing how much Sebastian could trip over his own words. Marvolo looked almost disappointed that his playtime was over.
Ominis took his arm and led him toward the door. Sebastian could taste freedom.
“I’ll send you an owl when I get back to school, Father,” Ominis called out calmly, pushing the heavy set of doors open.
Sebastian had one foot across the threshold when Lord Gaunt’s voice floated after them.
“I see that I’m not ‘daddy’ anymore,” he said dryly, more as an afterthought.
Sebastian froze for half a heartbeat, cheeks burning, before bolting after Ominis down the hall, nearly tripping on the rug in his desperation to escape. He didn’t breathe again until they were out of earshot.