Chapter Text
The birch grove was empty when Evan showed up after class. Sitting in a shady patch with his back against one of the larger trees, he carefully measured out his breaths.
His N.E.W.T. level Herbology class was one of Evan’s favorite this year, but the two hour period had been grueling enough that his shoulders ached. There was no relief like that of coming to the grove, and just being able to exist there.
Evan spent a bit picking dirt from under his nails, before he closed his eyes, leaning back sleepily.
He seemed to be the only one of his friends who adored the herbology classes. They all preferred the complex charm work, or potions, or dueling, and while Evan loved spellwork, Herbology was special.
All you had to do was learn the rules. Memorize the plants, do the research, and in an instant you could have endless cures at your disposal, tricks up your sleeve, and, well, it was beautiful.
And Evan, well, he was exceptional at it all.
Barty was next to useless at Herbology, which Dorcas thought was entertaining given his propensity for potions, but Evan was just the opposite. Potion relied on so much, required so much from a person, but Herbology, that was all about knowledge, and Evan could handle that.
When he was young he used to want to be a mediwizard. That wasn’t exactly a possibility anymore. Evan was to work in the ministry. He’d likely be put up for an entrance ministry position this summer, and would be a full fledged member as soon as he graduated.
Politics. Exactly the opposite of everything Evan wanted. Dishonesty. No control over his life or routine. People constantly observing him when he wants to just curl into a shell and hide. He might as well get used to it, but even the thought makes his head twinge.
His father had always had everything planned out for Evan. Evan couldn’t really complain. He was well off. He never had to worry about food or money. He went to one of the best wizarding schools in the world. But something about his future felt so constricting. It was one of the reasons the birch grove was his favorite place at Hogwarts. He could breathe.
Sometimes it felt like the grove was the only place there were no voices in his head telling him to stand straight or cut his hair or eat more or get up. Even his own thoughts were obsessive, constantly berating him, slowly pressing into his head, getting in the cracks of his mind until everything he did was necessary to second guess.
It was nice that there was even a moment he could feel like it was quiet.
“Oi, Evan!” A loud voice cut through his reverie. “Get up will you?”
So much for not being told what to do. Evan opened his eyes to find Barty standing over his face with a wide grin, and he wasn’t bothered at all because it was him .
He had a piece of parchment and a quill in his long, slender hands, and his eyes were the picture of excitement, brown and gold and green and red like some sort of autumn evening bonfire. It warmed Evan up just to look at him.
“What, Barty?” Evan asked, voice tired and just a bit hoarse.
“Good morning to you too, dearest.” Barty frowned a little, eyes not dimming by any measure. “I need your freakish little brain. I’m stumped.”
Evan hummed and sat up. He expected Barty to sit across from him, but instead, he plopped down, back to the same tree, which meant he had to press up tight to Evan to have any kind of support. Evan’s entire right side felt hot. His head desperately wanted to lean in towards Barty’s shoulder. He stiffened his upper body, careful not to touch too much. Careful not to be too much.
Barty winced, seeing the bruise that had begun to form on the right side of his jaw from that morning.
“Sorry about your face, mate.”
Evan tucked his chin, trying, with little to no success, to hide the blue green shadow on his jaw. It really wasn’t too bad. He bruised easily. For some reason this embarrassed him. With Barty’s eyes fixed on the lower half of his face, the world felt too defined, too focused.
“Don’t worry about it.” Evan said. “What is it you’re too thick to figure out on your own, Crouch.”
“No need to be a prat, Rosy boy.”
“Just show me the damn parchment.”
Barty, impossibly, leaned in closer, forcing Evan to catch his breath before he craned his neck to look.
“Ah, the list.” Evan muttered.
“The list.” Barty echoed, far too smug for a boy gossiping about his friend's love life. “Now go on, what do you think?”
“I think…” Evan paused, and he looked up into Barty’s devastating eyes. “That your list is shit.”
Barty’s jaw dropped, and it gave Evan an insane amount of satisfaction, and a twinge of regret. He continued speaking, trying to explain his reasoning. “Well, you put half the quidditch roster at the school on here, and plenty of these are automatic no’s.”
“What do you mean?”
“They can’t be a Slytherin, because he never actually goes back to the common room to meet with whoever they are, and I think we would know if he liked someone in our own house.”
“Alright.” Barty furrowed his eyebrows and looked up at Evan thoughtfully. “There’s a lot more names on here than just Slytherins.”
“Ok, well I think the quidditch players under fifth year are out.”
Barty crossed off some more names.
“There’s a possibility they might not be a quidditch player.” Evan said.
“When would he meet anyone else? He’s not exactly a social little butterfly” Barty seemed convinced he was right about this at least.
“You have a point.” Evan took a moment to look at the list. There were six names remaining.
Dahlia Edwards.
Ramona Blake.
Helen Fletcher.
Charlotte Jonston.
Jacqueline Figg.
Mary MacDonald.
He smiled to himself. “We’ve got two Gryffindors, three Hufflepuffs, and one Ravenclaw, and I’d be willing to bet at least one of them will be showing at Reggie’s study group tomorrow. And to my point of a possible non-quidditch player, the study group is something that he regularly attends, so he could’ve met somebody there. I say we keep our eyes out.”
Barty nodded. “You’re right, there’s probably plenty of girls there.”
Rolling his eyes, Evan looked away and muttered under his breath. “Yeah, plenty of girls .”
“Huh?”
“Just agreeing with you, is all.”
Barty hummed, satisfied, and closed his eyes. He leaned his head back against the tree slightly, extending his neck and pressing just a little farther into Evan’s side. He smelled like parchment and ink and salt air, and Evan couldn’t help the stupid grin on his face at the thought of Barty relaxing into his shoulder.
Evan looked at him thoughtfully. “You know…” He said the words with a bit more caution than he would normally use to talk to Barty, “Maybe there’s a reason he’s keeping it a secret.”
Barty scrunched his nose, eyes still shut tight. “Reg is secretive about everything, and for no good reason most of the time. And we’re mates! We practically deserve to know after putting up with the little shit for so long.”
Evan chuckled quietly. “Not wrong about that. And yeah, I want to know too, but I- well I don’t want to- to mess anything up.”
“We tell each other everything right?” Barty asked
Evan froze, hardly daring to breathe.
“Well, I mean we’ve all kept secrets, but him being in love or having a fling or whatever…” Barty continued, “I just don’t see the point in hiding it. Sure we’ll make fun of him, but honestly, we all want that monster to be happy.”
“Yeah, I guess you’re right.”
Barty tilted his head, face down into Evan’s shoulder. His words came out muffled, “I always am, Rosy.”
Evan shoved him lightly and scoffed, making sure not to shove him so hard he would move, but Barty just shoved right back into him.
“I always am.”
~~~~~
Regulus actually joined them for dinner that night, walking in a little late next to James Potter, probably chatting about quidditch, as both their teams had an upcoming match against Hufflepuff. The two split ways, and Regulus casually strolled to the Slytherin table.
Evan used to think that Reg walked like royalty, but it wasn’t really his walk per se, rather the way he held his spine straight, and stared down anyone who watched him for too long with a haughty look. He actually walked more like a dancer. His steps even and measured, quick but not rushed, and endlessly graceful.
It was funny to compare to Barty, who was walking up behind Reg, even later than usual.
Barty Crouch Jr. was not graceful. He was kind of awkward, honestly, yet he was downright charming with his little uneven strides. He always had so much energy, and Evan could practically see it shooting out of his feet, bouncing slightly as he traipsed through the door. Barty had always been able to make people like him. He was friendly and loud and staring at him now, Evan could see that he was just so full of life that it made his chest pound to watch him.
Before he could catch up with Regulus, Barty was interrupted by one, Emmeline Vance, who said something quietly to him. The two of them stood there for a minute, talking at the front of the hall, and Evan had to wrench away his eyes, acknowledging Regulus, now at the table.
“Wow, actually here to talk with us, are you?” Dorcas asked, smiling not unlike a shark.
Regulus rolled his eyes and sat next to Evan, grabbing some roast from the table.
Pandora, who was playing with Dorcas’ braids, smiled at him brightly. “Have a nice evening, Reggie?” She sounded the personification of innocence.
Regulus narrowed his eyes at her and said, “Yes. It was fine .”
With anyone else, Regulus’ tone would have ended the conversation, but Pandora was probably the bravest soul Evan knew because she barreled right on.
“Really?” She cocked her head a bit, hands still busy. “Because it looks like you might’ve gotten hurt a bit, and I’m only worried after your health.”
Regulus’ gaze was even darker, but he raised his eyebrows in a silent question.
With a smile, she nodded her chin towards his collarbone, slightly exposed, as he had abandoned his tie after class, and the top button of his shirt was undone.
Evan looked closer, noticing the red and purple splotch near his shoulder, and dropped his fork. “Oh Reg.” He chuckled.
Regulus’ blush was slight, but there nonetheless, and Pandora looked a little too satisfied with herself. Dorcas grinned brightly and stared at him, clearly expecting an answer, but he did nothing. Regulus simply let the mark show, and ate a bite of roast, and refused to acknowledge anything.
Oh, Barty would love this.
Evan shot his gaze back towards the front of the room, looking for the telltale light brown mess of hair, but Barty wasn’t there anymore. Evan craned his neck, aiming for a better view, briefly checking the Ravenclaw table, but there was no sign of him.
With a soft sigh, he eased himself back into casual conversation with the others for the duration of the meal.
When Evan had finished, he mumbled out a weak excuse to Pandora, Dorcas, and Regulus, who were deeply engrossed with their gossip, and walked back to the dorm.
Evan knew Hogwarts relatively well, and he knew all the little halls and detours to get back to the Slytherin dorm without running into very many people. It was quieter, and the longer walk just gave him more time to cool down after a long day of close proximity with everyone else. His little moment of quiet.
The downside was the same as the upside, almost no one would just stumble along him when he was here.
It was dark out, cold with the evening air of the fall. Something about the poorly lit hallway made Evan feel icy and unresponsive.
Maybe it was the walls. The stone could feel unforgiving at night. Each brick like the ones on the exterior of the Rosier Manor.
Hogwarts was always some sort of beautiful, but on nights like these, too familiar to the cold winters he spent in his family’s home, it was hauntingly so. The walls were less welcoming and more inhibiting, more confining.
Evan shuddered, pulling his arms close in towards his chest and trying to breath in slowly. It was as if his throat had taken on the unforgiving stance of the walls around him, refusing to swallow. Raising his eyes to the ceiling in a pathetic attempt at control over himself, Evan choked out a laugh.
He stumbled to the wall by his side, sliding down until he was sitting on the cold floor, head in his knees.
He did this sometimes. There wasn’t anything in particular that could have set him off. There was nothing that came to mind that should cause him to be like this. To be so…
Evan dug his head farther into his knees. So what? So out of control. So scared of everything? Was it the stupid stone walls that set him off? The cold? Was he just fucked up inside from N.E.W.T.S. or Barty or his father or the way that his hair had been too in his face today. One thing gone wrong and he’s incapable of walking back to his dorm.
Barty used to make fun of him when they were in their first year at Hogwarts. The dungeons were colder than the rest of the castle, darker. Everything about the upcoming holiday made him upset to go home, nervous for the break. The first few months at Hogwarts had been so good for Evan, and then the cold set it. His dreams got bad, his headaches came, and he would get freaked out for no reason, inconsolable at the thought of a fucking holiday.
It was silly, so Evan laughed, a deadened sort of snicker. He laughed at himself, and the situation and how cold he was, because he was shaking, knees banging into his head in a way that was unpleasant, but comforting nonetheless.
His skin felt raw, as he tried to rub some warmth back into his legs.
Evan probably wasn’t there for long, but it felt like hours before the sharp frost leached out of his muscles, before he was able to take a shaky breath and stand again.
Making his way back to the dorm was less of a chore than he imagined, as he was in a daze for most of the walk.
The Slytherin common room was pretty full at this point, most of the occupants having made their way back after dinner in the Great Hall. The noise bit at the edges of Evan’s consciousness, as he was already edgy and irritable.
The plan was to simply walk back to his room. He could talk with Regulus and Barty or work on some homework or even just go to sleep. The plan didn't exactly work out, because there, in the middle of the common room, was Barty Crouch Jr, who he could never ignore.
The problem was that it wasn’t just Barty. Evan scanned his eyes from the floor up, noting the legs intertwined with Barty’s own, the blue skirt perched on the arm of his chair, the light brown hands twining through his mussed hair, and the lips of Emmeline Vance moving their way down Barty’s neck like they were on a mission.
Barty’s eyes were closed. He looked comfortable, blissful even, and Evan hated himself for the instant jealousy, the instant pain in his side.What right did he have to be unhappy that Barty being…well, preoccupied.
Evan could’ve sworn that he didn’t make a sound, at least not a voluntary one. And the common room was loud enough with the chatter of students, that it shouldn’t have mattered if he did. But, Barty’s eyes snapped open, making their way to him instantly. Was it nervousness he saw? Pity? Irritation? Evan couldn’t be sure, but he couldn’t stay and find out.
Clearing his throat, Evan left the room as fast as possible, practically running out of the room, shaking his head as he went. He nearly laughed at the absurdity of it all. Of course Barty was with her. Evan had prepared himself for this eventuality as soon as the two had started spending time with each other, but god it hurt.
Why did it have to hurt?
Fucking hell , he just couldn’t catch a break.
This time, when he made it to the dorm, crashing against the door in a mirrored position of just a few minutes ago in the hall, he didn’t shed a single tear.
He would not cry over Barty Crouch Jr.
And he could never cry over Barty being happy, Barty being doted on, Barty being something that Evan would never get to be.