Chapter 1: Rose Bush
Chapter Text
Rosier, a French word meaning roses or rose bush
Roses, known as the queen of the flower, are a delicate flower with spiky thorns. Roses themselves represent love, beauty, royalty, and perfection with each individual colour of rose having different meanings.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
The summer between 4th and 5th year
Tuesday 20th July 1976
A Tree
Rosier Manor. Devon, England.
“Evan Charles and Pandora Grace, your mother has requested you downstairs, dressed, 30 minutes ago!” The maid screamed into the garden.
Pandora’s eyes glanced up at Evan. “She doesn’t think we’re that stupid, does she?”
“I hope not, it would be rude if she did.” Evan replied, “We do need to find somewhere else to hide though, this tree branch is sticking into my arse.”
He glanced around him. From where they were, the only viable option when they were 30 ft off the ground, in the larger branches of the oak tree, was coming back down to the ground first. Not an option with a maid on a wild goose chase underneath them.
“Not my fault that you have a big arse” Pandora stated in that matter-of-fact voice that made Evan’s skin itch, it was the exact same tone of voice as when his mother scolded them for running muddy footprints through the entrance way.
“I don’t! Take that back!” He said, leaning forward to swat her on the top of the head with the book he was holding. Evan had to grab onto the branches around him to stop him from plummeting to his death, dropping his cigarette in the process, at least it was almost burnt out anyway.
“Shut up before she hears you, bȇte.”
“I don’t understand why Maman wants us to sit in a fucking parlour listening to old ladies gossip, it’s not as if we actually add anything to the conversation.”
“You forget Charlie, we’re not there to add to the conversation anyway, we’re there to sit pretty.” She said, rolling her eyes. He could see the tightness in the corner of her eyes at being used as a doll. “I don’t understand how Felix gets away with not having to sit there for hours.”
“He’s 10?”
“He’s 11 and starting school in September, we sat in those stupid parlours earlier than 11.” Pandora said, “Do you think she’s gone?”
“He’s just Maman’s favourite” He was leaning forward again to try and see where the maid had got to.
“I thought I was Maman’s favourite” Pandora was climbing higher now to get a better advantage point. She was pulling her skirts up to sit around her hips, she had already been in trouble twice that week for getting them muddy or ripped, apparently being 15 meant that she needed to ‘act more ladylike’ and ‘stop going to dinner in an unbecoming manner’. Realistically did it matter much? Probably not when it was just the five of them but their mother had a lot of opinions on it, including about how Pandora wouldn’t find a good husband if she was dirty.
Pulling himself to standing on a branch that wobbled under his weight. He wondered if he had enough time to light a new cigarette. “She likes you because you can do all the girly things with her but Felix is her little baby”
“She’s going to be insufferable when Fe’ starts school in September.” Pandora was now perched on a branch about 6 ft above his head. “She’s cried to me twice about it already since the summer started.”
“Fuck! The maid is coming out of the kitchen garden, we might have to admit defeat here Dora.” He said, sitting back down. They were sure to get a dressing down about being late for an afternoon tea but he really didn’t care about impressing the society ladies.
“I am not sitting in that parlour for hours. We could swing to the next tree and jump onto the quidditch storage roof.”
“And break our ankles? I would rather not.” Evan was picking up his book and shoving it into his trouser pocket, he needed to finish it soon or Regulus would spoil it on purpose to him for being a slow reader. “Who’s even going to the tea? If it’s Walburga she might have brought Reg.”
“Walburga goes to Maman’s tea once in a blue moon and only when Aunt Druella drags her. If Reg was going he would have told us, they’re going to the Greengrass ball at the end of the week though.”
“I hope Sirius is there, he does know how to liven it up,” Evan said. Pandora had tied her skirt into a knot at the front of her hips and was starting to shuffle her way along one of the biggest branches.
“I guess, but pouring the soap on the floor last summer did make dancing difficult and that’s the best bit of the whole stupid evening.” She said still attempting to shuffle along the branch without tipping one way or the other. They had gotten quite good over the years at climbing the various trees around the estate. They knew the trees at the manor in the south of France better having grown up there but they wouldn’t be heading there until early August.
“Alcohol Dora.” Evan muttered.
“What?” She shouted, a little too loudly for Evan’s taste considering there was still a maid on the prowl underneath them.
“The best bit of the whole evening is the alcohol.”
“You and Junior are going to have alcohol poisoning by the time you’re 20 at this rate.” She had reached the end of the branch she was shuffling along and was attempting to swing onto her feet to do Merlin knows what.
“Live fast, die young Dora.” He said and started his dismount down the tree, the only option was sitting in that tree for 4 hours or accepting his mother’s disapproving stare and angry French.
As he reached the lower branches he heard the unmistakable sound of the glass doors of the conservatory opening from where tea was set up. “Evan Charles Florian Rosier! Où es-tu?”
“Where are you?”
“Did you just get full-named?” Pandora yelled as quietly as she could to not alert their mother but from around 25 ft above him.
“Ici, Maman.” He said, dropping out of the lower branches.
“Here Mum”
“Tu étais censé être prêt maintenant!” His mother said, lightly swiping him around the ears. “Où est ta sœur”
“You were supposed to be ready by now!” “Where is your sister?”
“Je ne sais pas.” He replied, trying to sound as nonchalant as possible. Clearly, not well enough for his mother who rolls her eyes and starts scouring the branches for a sign of her.
“I don’t know”
His mother was a short woman (although he’d had a growth spurt recently so everyone was short to him now), with long blonde nearly white hair, sharp blue eyes and a set jaw. Her beauty and elegance largely came from her grandmother, who was rumoured to be a veela, some of which was passed to Evan and Pandora including her sharper features, paler skin, and darker eyes.
She had many lovely dresses that she wore all year round, usually complaining about the coldness of England even in July, but the one she had on that day was a light blue colour with lace detailing down the sleeves and matching white heels.
Evan knew in his future he was expected to marry a woman of a similar class to his mother (a French witch from Paris), she needed the elegance to host balls and many afternoon teas, to be able to hold interesting conversations, and dance perfectly. It was a tall order that even he or Pandora struggled to uphold. It seemed cruel to subject someone else to the impossible standards of being the Lady of the Rosier household.
“Pandora, Je peux tu voir.” His mother called.
“Pandora, I can see you”
“Non, tu ne peux pas” Pandora had fallen right into her trap. Until that moment his mother had been searching the branches from a variety of trees around her, not just the one Evan had landed out of. “Ahh Fuck!” she exclaimed, realising her mistake.
“No, You can’t”
“Language!” Maman scolded. “Une dame ne jure pas.”
“A lady doesn’t swear.”
As Pandora picked her way down the branches he could see her muttering and rolling her eyes to herself. She landed next to him and untied her skirt leaving massive creases down the middle which he could see his mother already eyeing. He subtly tried to pick the leaves out of her hair.
“À l’intérieur maintenant. Vous êtes déjà en retard et pas prêt.” With a sharp point towards the glass doors she had entered the gardens from. “Ne sois plus en retard. Ce n'est pas dans la nature des Rosier d'être en retard”
“Inside now. You’re already late and not even ready” “Don’t be late again. It’s not in the nature of Rosier’s to be late.”
“As if we’re not going to be fashionable late to the Greengrass ball anyway,” Pandora said as she stomped towards the manor.
—-------
Friday 23rd July 1976.
A carriage.
The Greengrass estate. Wiltshire, England.
“Je ne peux pas qu'ils n'aient pas de floo connectée pour un gala. Monter des calèches comme au 15ème siècle.”
“I can't believe they don't have a floo connected for a gala. Riding a carriage like in the 15th century”
“English when in England Grace.” Their father corrected.
He was a stickler about things like that, he accepted that with a French wife and technically French children (being born and raised in France until aged 11) they spoke a high amount of French but he was always worrying that they would magically lose the ability to speak English if they didn’t speak it enough. It didn’t matter that they had learnt English as children to a high level and went to an English-speaking school, any hint that any of them couldn’t speak perfect English would send him into a long rant about their reliance on their first language.
The compromise with their mother was that they would speak English in England and French in France, which would have worked if their parents and Felix didn’t spend 9 months of the year on their estate in France. When their father wasn’t around, their mother would speak exclusively French to Evan, Pandora, and Felix, stating that English ‘just didn’t have the same elegance to it’. Evan frankly couldn’t care less and thought it was a pointless compromise so that his parents would stop their petty squabbling.
“Fe’ stop wiggling, Maman will tell you off.” He hissed under his breath.
The fact that Felix aged 11 was being forced to go to a ball was stupid to him, but it apparently would be a poor showing if not all of them showed up to one of the only Greengrass balls of the year. Unlike his parents who loved hosting (if you asked his father he would deny it and say it was all their mother but he thrived on the social events as much as she did) and would regularly host multiple afternoon teas, hunting lunches, and sport evenings a week with a ball every other week. Many other sacred 28 families were less inclined, including his father’s sister Druella, now a Black, who hosted barely one event a month.
He was frankly uncomfortable. High fashion wizarding robes were as comfortable as they could be he guessed but they weren’t his jeans or hoodies that he was only able to wear around Hogwarts, his mother couldn’t tell him that they were unbecoming there. It was only going to get worse as the summer progressed, they were experiencing an unusually hot summer so far with temperatures expected to stay high and tight collars were not ideal.
His mother was still ranting about how it was unacceptable that the Greengrass' hadn’t opened a floo in their house and that they had had to floo into a pub nearby and catch a carriage which had been waiting for them. She was in full gossip mode now, suggesting that maybe they were too poor for it or that they were unable to clean a room for people to arrive.
He made accidental eye contact with Pandora and had to quickly avert his eyes before he truly lost control and started laughing. Their mother truly would gossip about anything, to anyone.
They finally stopped and were let out of the torture of their mother’s incessant prattling. Pandora dived out of the carriage onto the gravel of the front of the Manor. They were a fashionable 45 minutes late, as late as his father could bear to be.
“Mon Papillon,” His mother said turning to Pandora, “I want you to dance with a minimum of 5 gentlemen. Your betrothal is fast approaching and you have no current suitors.”
“She’s 15?” Felix whispered in his ear. “Maman’s not going to make me dance right?” He looked horrified at the thought.
“Probably not, you have only just finished your lessons.”
“Mon Ange,” His turn for her designated amount of dances, “4 ladies for you.”
“Why does he only have to dance with 4 ladies?” Pandora exclaimed a furious red blush ran down her neck, staring down their mother.
“Pandora, rain it in! You are a Rosier and you don’t complain like that.” His father’s sharp words cut through any argument that she could make.
“He is the heir to the house of Rosier, it will be easy to find him a suitable wife.” Apparently, this was all he was good for in the eyes of his mother and he was quickly starting to suspect that this was going to consume his life for the next year or so.
“Can we go?” Felix exclaimed, breaking the staring contest that Pandora and their mother were having. Evan made quick eye contact with Pandora, shrugged his shoulders and started to follow his father and Felix into the entry hall.
The Greengrass house was very, well, green. It had high vaulted ceilings and dark wood panelling that ran halfway up the wall. The rug under their feet was a deep green colour matching the lamps dotted around on tables. It gave the whole entrance hall a dark tone. There was music floating from the closed doors in front of them and an elf popped into existence slightly in front of them with a platter of champagne glasses.
“What’s the likelihood that that’s not real champagne?” His father said, turning back to share a conspiratorial smile with his mother, he had been listening in the carriage.
“Can’t afford it probably.” His mother replied before catching two glasses, holding one to their father and tapping them together in a cheer, holding eye contact the whole time.
“It’s really uncomfortable when they do that.” He whispered to Pandora who had silently stepped to his side. His mother waved them up to stand behind them when the doors opened.
“Lord Charles Rosier and Lady Grace Rosier.” There was a lull in conversation as the elf announced their arrival, they sure liked to make an entrance. Diana Greengrass came bustling over to air kiss both of his mother’s cheeks and thank them both for making it.
“Lord Evan Rosier, Lady Pandora Rosier, and Lord Felix Rosier.” The elf announced just as the conversation had resumed, he wondered if it would be impolite to kick the host’s elf.
“I don’t know why they still announce us at balls like it’s the 1880s.” Pandora hissed under her breath. He would need a fucking cigarette before the end of the first dances at this rate.
“Tradition.” He replied with a derisive snort.
“If you two can’t behave I will separate you.” His Mother had turned around so quickly that Evan hadn’t even noticed her move. “Now go and greet the host.”
“Oui, Maman.” They all replied, sucking the fun out of everything.
He stepped up to Diana Greengrass and lifted her hand to kiss her knuckles, just like he had been taught to. He decided to make his mother happy and looked up at her through his eyelashes, giving her the Rosier smile that usually got him whatever he wanted. The blush slowly rose up her cheeks.
“Oh, you are a charmer.” She laughed, swatting him on the top of his arm. Sometimes it truly was too easy. Out of the corner of his eye, he spotted Sirius and Regulus in the corner of the ballroom laughing together, probably at him for making a show with Diana but if it gave him points in his mother’s books then he was happy.
“Show off,” Pandora said as she walked past him to give Diana the same air kisses that his mother had exchanged. “Reg, 10 o’clock”
He turned to look and caught the unfortunate sight of Walburga Black walking towards them, she was hissing something at them under her breath that made both boys stand up straight from where they had been leaning against the wall, all traces of smiles wiped off their faces.
“They look like they need saving,” he whispered back to Pandora after she had stepped back to allow Felix to do the weirdest imitation of a greeting considering he hadn’t reached 5 ft yet. They met each other’s eyes and no words were needed, weird twin telepathy it had been dubbed by Dorcas.
Plan decided, he confidently stepped towards his mother “Maman, would you do me the honours of dancing with me?”
“You’re meant to be finding eligible young ladies, mon ange”
“But I can dance with Ma Mere first, no?” She rolled her eyes but stepped forward to take his hand as he walked towards the dance floor in the middle of the ball.
He enjoyed dancing in all honesty. He enjoyed feeling the music and letting his mind go as he waltzed across the floor. His mother was an excellent dancer, better than him, which was handy for trying to keep Regulus and Pandora in the corner of his eyes. Some of the women he had danced with over the years had been dreadful, too old, too short, too young, two left feet, he’d had it all. If he needed to find potential wife candidates tonight, one definite checkbox for him would be the ability to dance well.
And not yell at him for sneaking out to the balcony for a smoke, which he could see Sirius attempting to do now. Sirius, potentially, did things like that to purposely annoy his mother. Regulus claimed he couldn’t help it and it was in his nature to piss her off, but in all honesty, he probably did it on purpose. Regulus wouldn’t hear a bad word said against his brother, Evan could relate to the feeling. But Sirius could rein it in a bit and he wouldn’t get screamed at in public so much, or whatever happened at the Black household. Regulus refused to say much and Evan wasn’t about to press on that subject.
Dora and Reg had stepped onto the dance floor behind them and were now perfectly happily waltzing around. “They would make a nice pairing, wouldn’t they?”
He had to blink the surprise out of his face, “Reg and Dora?”
“Yes, I mean he isn’t the heir so it’s not a perfect match but they get along well enough. They’re close at school, no?”
“Sure I guess.” He couldn’t tell if his mother was serious about this or not. “Aren’t we cousins though?”
“Not really and it’s through marriage so it doesn’t count.” He wasn’t sure that his aunt marrying Reg’s uncle meant that they weren’t related but he wasn’t about to ask for another family history lecture in the middle of a dance. “Druella has done very well for herself, one daughter married to a Lestrange and another engaged to a Malfoy. That’s the standard we’re aiming for, mon ange, and you can’t go higher than a Black.”
They pretended that there were only two Black daughters.
“I mean surely if the downside of Dora marrying Reg is that he isn’t the heir, why not marry her to Sirius? He is.” He queried.
She threw her head back in a laugh, “Walburga needs to get him to stop smoking on balconies before I consider him for my Pandora.” The music came to a graceful finish, “Go find some eligible people to dance with.” He stepped back, gave her the standard two air kisses and turned to find Pandora and Regulus.
They weren’t too far away, Regulus seemed to be downing glasses of champagne as fast as he could drink them, “That bad?”
“Don’t ask.” He said with a roll of his eyes. Evan shared a worried look with Pandora, Reg would tell Dora anything if she asked in the right way.
“Come on, it can’t all be that bad.” Pandora tried.
“They had an argument.” Reg said face turned away from them.
“What? Your mother and Sirius? Is that surprising?” Pandora said.
“No,” Reg turned back, his brows furrowed in a worrying look, “Sirius and his band of idiots.”
“The Marauders?” Pandora gasped.
“Don’t lean into their stupid nicknames.” Reg huffed.
Evan rolled his eyes, Regulus could get in such a huff about Sirius’ friends. Sure they were annoying and specifically targeted their house for pranks which could get frustrating, they were loud, rude, and hexed people in the corridor for the fun of it. But they were harmless and as long as you kept out of their way they mostly kept out of yours. Barty liked to antagonise them but Barty liked annoying people if he could.
He missed Barty. Technically the Crouch’s were sacred 28 too and were invited to events like this but he couldn’t see Crouch Snr waltzing with Evan’s mother or even his own wife for that matter. They mostly kept away from the rest of pureblood society which meant 8 long weeks without Barty for entertainment.
“What did they fall out over? Can’t have been much.” Pandora was trying to ease Reg’s worried look.
“I don’t know Pan, it’s really bad. Potter hasn’t written to Sirius at all in the last 3 weeks.”
“How’s Sirius taking it?” Evan liked Sirius, they understood each other, the pressure of being heir to an ancient family, and the need to always be perfect. However, where Evan withstood the pressure, Sirius buckled and lashed out, playing stupid pranks, getting into trouble, and talking back.
It was clearly the wrong question to ask Reg, he turned around and downed two more glasses of champagne before answering. “It’s the worst it’s ever been.” With that, he strode off to the other end of the hall to where Sirius had returned and was again leaning against a wall.
Chapter 2
Summary:
A couple of letters arrive for Evan from some familiar faces, Pandora has an unexplainable vision, and Sirius Black threatens to ruin another pureblood society evening.
Notes:
We're back :) I had fun with this one, a little more insight into the world of the Rosiers. Don't worry about the lack of Barty so far, he will make an appearance soon we just need to get to Hogwarts first. Also a big thank you to the_sad_poet for correcting my interesting French in the last chapter, I'm sure you're going to have fun with the French in this one.
TW for this chapter:
Discussions of arranged marriages
Smoking
Drinking/mentions of alcohol
medical stuff (Pandora faints in this one/discussions of past fainting, mentioned heart conditions as well) If you'd like to skip it stop reading at "Reg, Barty and Dorcas knew..." and start reading again at "Pandora had described what happened..."
mentioned childbirth - to skip, stop reading at "When her nightmares got too bad." and start reading at "Although it had taken..."
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Monday 26th July 1976
Main staircase
Rosier Townhouse. London, England
Mornings were the worst to Evan, making his brain like it was wading through tar just to produce a single semi-intelligent thought. His parents expected insightful conversation first thing in the morning over the daily prophet and eggs. He craved coffee and a cigarette. But his mother insisted he had food before smoking.
If she was feeling in a good mood, she would hold her hand out for one from his pack sharing a conspiratorial wink with him before his father said they were awful muggle inventions and lighting his pipe. They were muggle inventions, one of the only muggle things that were allowed in the house and only because his mother insisted that everyone in Paris smoked cigarettes regardless of blood status and she wouldn’t be denied her morning smoke.
“Mon Tresor, into my study.” His father didn’t say please. Another thing Rosier’s don’t do.
“Oui, Papa.”
“Have a seat,” He indicated to the other side of a set of chairs in the corner of his office. “I need to ask you a question and I want you to be completely honest with me, Evan.”
His father was a tall man, easily over 6 ft and carried the same broad set of shoulders that Evan was starting to grow into. His dark hair was swept back which did not help his receding hairline. His strong jaw was clenched like he was trying to slow his own words and not spook him by saying too much.
“Do you remember my aunt?” His tone suggested that this question was of the most importance.
“Great Aunt Vinda” They hadn’t seen her in a couple of years, she was forbidden from leaving France and preferred to stay close to Paris rather than travel down to see them.
“Yes, her. Do you remember what she used to do?” Honestly, he couldn’t remember her ever working, Rosier’s didn’t work unless you counted lobbying the Wizengamot. She was only in her late 60s but she was incredibly serious about everything, you couldn’t joke with her at all.
“No Papa.” There was a farrowing of his brows at that answer. She did something in politics he was sure but they all did so it was hard to differentiate.
“There was a wizard she used to follow,” as far as Evan knew she never married.
“He was trying to preserve the old ways of society, the pureblood ways. The right way. He didn’t achieve very much, concentrated too much in America and Europe. But there is a wizard, someone I went to school with. We shared a doom room like Master Black and yourself. He wants to keep our way of doing things as well. Have you heard of his name?”
“Lord Voldemort.” He had heard whispers of his name through Hogwarts, usually by the older boys. The other houses were starting to try and work out which of them followed this new Lord.
“Yes, although his close friends call him ‘The Dark Lord’. He wants people surrounding him that he can trust. People who share the same values as him. Who will move the Wizengamot in the way of our interests. You agree, don’t you Mon Tresor? You want to keep our balls with our dancing, our jewellery, our houses, our celebrations.”
“Yes, Papa.” If his father and great aunt thought that they would be taken away soon they were probably right.
“Good,” he released the tension in his jaw at that. “You can go down to breakfast now, that’s all I needed to know.” Evan looked at his father one more time as he stood, before turning and leaving.
At least he felt more awake now, he felt that was a test of some kind. He had heard the ramblings during society events, about how Dumbledore had stopped having feasts for holidays like Imbolc and Beltane, how he wanted to outlaw arranged marriages (that one Evan could get behind), and how they had stopped having dances at Hogwarts. He wasn’t entirely sure that it mattered what Dumbledore was doing at Hogwarts but apparently, it was an erasure of their culture. And that did matter.
“Why are you just standing outside Papa’s study?” He jumped suddenly, Dora could sneak up on anyone.
“Merlin’s beard Dora, warn a guy next time.” She just shrugged and continued down the hallway towards the dining room. He went to follow her, but as she turned into the dining room, he suddenly took a left and carried on down the hallway to the garden. Lighting a cigarette, he stood with his back to the brick, feeling the morning sun on his face. The smoke worked its way into his lungs, he felt he could breathe again.
The townhouse wasn’t much different to the manor in Devon. The same white marble flooring, bouquets of flowers, and lots of windows for natural light. But outside it was wrong, he could hear the sounds of bustling London, he could actually see the boundary of their property, and they only had 2 decently climbable trees.
They didn’t spend a huge amount of time there, it was mostly a go-between when they wanted to get to France or Hogwarts, his father occasionally came here alone when it was an important wizengamot vote that he couldn’t vote from abroad. It felt tighter here like they were all staying a bit too close to one another.
Inhaling his last drag, he stubbed out his cigarette on the bricks and headed back inside. His mother would be able to tell what he had snuck outside for. He turned towards the dining room where a small elf was polishing a mirror on the wall. She let out a small squeak and fled in the opposite direction when she heard him approach.
He pushed open the light wood doors to reveal his mother, Felix, and Pandora sat having a breakfast of eggs, bacon, and toast. With, thank Merlin, 2 steaming pots of coffee.
“Où êtes-vous allé?” His mother asked, looking up from her letters.
“Where were you?”
“Papa me voulait” He slid into a seat next to Pandora.
“Dad wanted me.”
She pushed the coffee pot and 2 letters at him, one with Barty’s unmistakable scratch and another with Dorcas’ tight handwriting. He slid Barty’s open first.
Hey Evs,
I am so fucking bored. Dad has me basically locked in the house as much as he can get away with. Mum isn’t much help, she just says to let him get on with whatever he wants to ‘not rock the boat’. IT’S LIKE SHE DOESN’T FUCKING KNOW ME! Not rock the boat? Ha ha very funny.
I haven’t even done anything I swear. I mean unless stealing his favourite pen and a galleon count then sure I did something. But who fucking cares?!
How’s your summer been? I know I asked last week but there is nothing else going on. Pandora said she found a cool new species of beetle, can you confirm or deny the coolness of the beetle? I don’t trust her judgement. Is your mum still on at you about getting married? You’re 15 for fuck sake like what does she want? A baby by NEWTs?
Haven’t heard from Reg much, he did say that he saw you but I think it isn’t going well at home. He was more cryptic than usual. Dorcas said she was going to write as well. At least she’s doing something interesting being in Spain and all that. I am going to come back to Hogwarts paler than I fucking left.
Save me from this torture,
Junior
“Is Barty well?” Pandora whispered. She had that look in her eye like she could already tell what he had said.
“He asked about the coolness of the beetle that you found.” Her eyes lit up.
“Oh, my beetle! Yes. Okay. So it had these cool blue spines down the back which made it look like it could glow in the dark, and then you know how I have this looking glass so I can see things up close, well I saw its eyes and they were the exact same shade as ....” He slid the coffee pot closer to him to pour a generous cup, nodding at the necessary parts when Pandora stopped to draw breath.
He opened Dorcas’ letter when Felix had asked a good question about the beetle and its ability to hear.
Hey Pretty Boy,
How are you? Long time not to hear from you. Pan said you’ve been busy this year in the society season. I can’t believe they’re still a thing that you’re expected to be a part of. I guess your mother does love to host. How is your mother? And your father? And little Felix! How old is he now? Must be nearly Hogwarts time.
Spain is great so far, we’re just outside Valencia at the moment but we’ll be travelling to Barcelona in a week. Is that near your house in France for a little meet-up? Would be lovely to see you and Pan, you know I can’t resist your pretty face for too long. Don’t let the ego boost go to your head.
Have you heard from Reg? I swear he’s taken longer to write back this year than you have. Barty hasn’t said anything but I’m a little worried if I’m honest.
Exciting gossip for you though (I know how much you pretend to hate gossip), apparently Edith Nott, the younger sister of Alexandra Nott in your year, was seen kissing Robin Lee in Diagon Alley. I think it was a stunt to get back at Nigel Prince. You know her ex-boyfriend who got that summer job in the second-hand broom shop opposite Florean’s Ice cream. My guess is that they’ll be back together before your birthday.
I hope when we’re both in Europe the post will be quicker. It does mean no excuses for not writing me back, Evan Rosier! I know where you live!
All my love,
Cassie xx
He folded the letter carefully to only show Pandora the last paragraph about the Nott, Lee, Prince drama and placed it next to her. He could see her eyes scanning the note quickly before she looked back up at him.
“Alexandra said at the Patel afternoon tea two weeks ago that Nigel broke up with Edith about half an hour before the train got into London.”
“Bloody hell that’s brutal.”
“Exactly, they had to sit in the same carriage for the last 20 minutes in silence.” Pandora raised her eyebrows at that.
“Toi aussi.” Their mother called from the head of the table. She had lit a cigarette that was burning in front of her in an ashtray. “de quoi tu murmures?”
“You two.” “What are you whispering about?”
“Drame de Hogwarts, Maman” His sister looked their mother straight in the eye, she was braver than Evan was. “Personne que tu connais.” If they said anything to their mother then Edith’s mother would know by lunchtime.
“Hogwarts Drama” “No one you know”
“Bien. Nous partons pour la France vendredi. Il y a un match de polo auquel je veux assister jeudi” His mother declared and stood, sweeping out of the room and calling for her personal maid. She stopped just before she rounded the corner out of the dining room, “Le tailleur vient cet après-midi pour terminer les retouches sur vos lughnasadh tenues avant le festin.”
“Fine. We are leaving for France on Friday. There is a polo match I want to attend on Thursday” “The tailor is coming this afternoon to finish the alterations on your lughnasadh outfits before the feast.”
“See if you can get Reg to attend the match, maybe we can ask what’s going on then.” Dora waved two letters in her hand near him, “They’re worried about him too.”
—-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Wednesday 28th July 1976.
Pandora’s Bedroom.
The Rosier Townhouse. London, England.
“Felix, Arrête de bouger” Their mother called. She was sitting at a table that was holding a small tea set, laden with tiny sandwiches and cakes. Felix was standing in front of her in his new set of wizarding robes, whilst a seamstress crawled around on the floor to pin new hems into his trousers.
“Felix, stop fidgeting.”
They had decided that Felix should go first so he could run off with his governess to look at the ducks in the pond. Leaving Pandora and himself to get thoroughly bored sat on the sofa. Pandora was embroidering something that had a strange resemblance to a radish.
“Mon Papillon, qu'est ce que tu penses d' Oliver Parkinson.” Evan had to stifle a bubble of laughter from exploding at his mother’s question.
“What do you think of Oliver Parkinson?”
Pandora blinked rapidly, eyes darting from Evan’s face to their mother’s “Pourquoi?”
“Why?”
“Sa mère s'intéresse à toi.” Their mother had not glanced up from the pile of letters in her hand with her answer.
“His mother is interested in you”
“He’s a year younger, Maman.” She replied, hesitation lacing her voice.
“Yes, I suppose.” Their mother just turned back to her quill to finish scratching out a reply, presumably to Mrs Parkinson.
“Maman is younger than Papa.” He whispered to Dora after she finally settled back to her embroidery.
“Exactly, she is younger than him. Not the other way around.”
Just as he looked up from where he was scuffing his feet on the ground to make a comment about Parkinson liking older women, he saw Pandora’s eyes had taken over a glassy quality to them and her limbs were stiffening up.
He leaned over to take the sharp needle out of her hand. “Maman.” He called, gesturing to Pandora when she looked up from her letters. They knew the drill by now, Pandora had had many visions over the years, she was having more and more as she got older. Some with perfect clarity in a single moment, others a haze of ambiguity.
Their mother began to shuffle the seamstress out of the room saying that she needed her urgent opinion on a rip in one of her dresses. It was a clear lie but who would dare to call out Lady Rosier for not telling the whole truth? They were under strict instructions to never tell anyone about her visions. Barty, Reg, and Dorcas knew mostly because it was hard to hide at Hogwarts without some help, but they explained it by stating that Dora had a heart condition that caused her to faint often.
“Felix, get Papa.” Evan started to direct Pandora so she was lying more on the sofa than sat. Her eyes had taken on a slightly sharper blue colour, almost unnoticeable unless you knew her well enough, and was slightly mumbling under her breath. She didn’t stay in her visions long, only a few seconds, unlike a full prophecy, she was only seeing short snapshots of moments. Sometimes only one, other times several.
Just as he could hear his father’s heavy footsteps up the stairs, Pandora blinked rapidly, all the colour draining out of her face as she collapsed. She passed out after every vision, it was like her body was tense with the power of showing her something, overcome by a spirit and then when it left her it took all of her energy with it. He wasn’t particularly worried, she would come around fairly quickly and be right as rain.
The first time she had a vision they were 4 years old. He hadn’t understood what was happening to her, one second she was chatting to him about fish and the next she wasn’t replying. Their governess had freaked out, screaming for help. He just couldn’t stop crying, begging for his sister to be fine. Just as their mother had run out of the house, Pandora had fainted. They were naturally quite pale anyway, but Pandora’s skin had taken on a grey tinge that didn’t look healthy. It made her blonde hair and blue eyes look unnatural. She had only passed out for what was probably 5 seconds but to him had felt like a lifetime. When she came to, their mother had clung to her like she would never let Pandora go, sobbing that everything would be okay.
Pandora had described what had happened, how she had seen their mother lying in a bed screaming in pain. She had had nightmares for weeks after, rarely leaving their mother’s side. Of course, all the best healers had been called to their house to look at Pandora, stating that she had just got an overexcited imagination and a heart condition. Finally, it was their Grandmother, Ella Rosier, who had worked out what had happened and explained that Pandora was a seer and what she had seen would come true in some way. That obviously prompted Pandora to have even more nightmares about their mother being sick or dying, she had regularly climbed into bed with Evan when her nightmares got too bad.
It wasn’t until almost 6 months later, when Felix had been born, that they realised that Pandora’s vision hadn’t been of their mother dying but instead had been of Felix's birth at their French Manor. Although it had taken another 4 months for Pandora to have another vision, none of them had truly gotten over the fear of her first vision.
Felix was getting water for Pandora now, as she was starting to come back around. He hated the moment when their father would ask Pandora what she had seen. Sometimes he wished he didn’t know, always panicking that every second would be something she had seen before. He couldn’t forget anything she had said, some had obviously already come true but others she had given years before, yet to be seen in her life.
She weakly held up her hand as if to stop their father from asking any questions, “I don’t understand this one. I just saw a field of Lilies, all of them slowly turning red.”
“Very well.” He turned and went to step away before turning back, “Recover quickly, mon coeur.” Pandora just laid back against the cushions and closed her eyes.
—-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sunday 1st August 1976. (Lughnasadh)
The Ballroom.
The Rosier Manor, just north of Avignon, Provence, France.
There were an eye-watering amount of people in the manor. The manor itself was decorated beautifully with garlands and wreaths of wheat and dried grass in every corner, large bunches of sunflowers and poppies decorated every table around the outskirts of the room. Bottles of champagne and cider were scattered around, with guests filling their own glasses. House elves with trays of canapes weaved between groups of conversation. The middle of the ballroom was filled with couples dancing led by a small orchestra in one of the corners of the room.
How their mother had managed to organise a soiree when they had only arrived in France less than 48 hours prior was something Evan would never understand. The first thing their mother had ordered when she had arrived at the manor was for the marble floor to be polished and the ornamental ceiling to be dusted. Now every window that lined the left-hand side of the ballroom had been thrown open to allow the warm August breeze to cool the room.
His mother was currently circulating the room, acting as the perfect host. Welcoming people and giving orders to house elves where necessary. Her long emerald green dress robes were complemented by a large diamond necklace. She had whisked Pandora away on Friday afternoon to spend hours going through jewellery in the vault underneath the manor.
Pandora had recently left his side after being asked to dance by Lucas Goyle. He was a couple of years older than them, having graduated from Hogwarts in June and his mother was apparently not pleased that he had turned 18 without any marriage options already secured.
Just as he was scanning his options for who to talk to or dance with, he spotted an older gentleman across the room, staring at him. Crouch Snr. Barty’s horrendous father.
Barty mostly refused to talk about his father except to complain that he was being awful without any specific details. He probably confessed more to Regulus or Pandora than Evan. Barty would return to Hogwarts after a long break even more wound up than usual, itching with an energy that he needed to displace. That resulted in fights, drinking, and random shags in broom cupboards. After a couple of weeks back at Hogwarts he would usually calm down, lose the incessant need to be doing something every second of the day.
Although it was unusual for the Crouch’s to attend a sacred 28 event, nobody turned down a Rosier invitation. The sway that his father held over the ministry of magic was not something that could be missed for someone hoping for a promotion like Crouch Snr. It was necessary for him to appear here at the manor, to be seen around so many influential people in the British and international government. The British Minister for Magic, Harold Minchum was getting increasingly drunk near one table with Lucius Malfoy and Atticus Greengrass. The French ‘Ministre de la Magie’ was waltzing with Druella Black and seemed to be going slightly faster than the music.
Just as he was about to turn around and attempt to find Regulus a loud screech went up in one corner of the room, “SIRIUS ORION BLACK, DO NOT DISOBEY ME!” Walburga Black’s voice carried like no one else. The pitch was just high enough to grate on your ears if you had to listen to it for too long.
He could see his mother bustling her way through the crowds, who had all stopped to witness another screaming match between Sirius and Walbuga. “Walburga, would you like to step outside for a moment? There is a free drawing room through there.” His mother would not let one of her events go to waste because Walburga and Sirius couldn’t keep it together for one evening.
Pandora appeared in front of him, jolting him out of where he had been staring at the scene in front of him. “Where is Reg?” She whispered. Although Pandora was tall, it was difficult to see through the throngs of people who refused to move.
“Thank you Lady Rosier for your hospitality but we shall be going now. Regulus come along.” Walburga grabbed the top of Sirius' arm with a forcefulness that promised to show off her exact feelings on his behaviour. Regulus, who had been trying to blend into the shadows behind his mother, stepped forward now as Walburga frog marched Sirius out of the ballroom and into the entrance hall to floo back to London.
All that was left was Orion who looked incredibly confused at where his evening had gone. He shook Evan’s father’s hand, kissed the top of his mother’s and followed his wife and children out of the room.
Notes:
Yay! I hope you enjoyed it, I always love a good chat in the comments if you fancied. If I have enough time, I will grace you with another chapter on Sunday but I am not promising. Ailbhe X
Chapter 3
Summary:
Evan and Pandora are left with the aftermath of Sirius' disappearance.
Notes:
Somehow I have managed to get the flu which is always fun :) This is probably my favourite chapter so far and one that was written very early in the writing process so I hope you enjoy.
TW
This chapter does deal with some darker themes as Sirius has run away.
discussions of manipulation and political bribery
Implied child abuse
strong language
Violence (Evan punches a mirror)
Physical harm (Evan breaks his hand)
Chapter Text
2nd August 1976.
Dining room.
Rosier Manor. Provence, France.
“Grace, what did you find out about Rowle?” Their parents were sat comparing notes over the breakfast table about all the gossip and minor details that they had found out the night before. Who was friends with who, who was voting for who on which bills, who was being invited to whose house. Although it all seemed to be useless information, they managed to work out the web of pureblood society into who was allying with who and therefore who needed a nudge on certain bills and movements in the wizengamot to get what they wanted.
“Spending more time at the Lestrange house, Rodolphus has invited Sebastian Rowle on a tour of some of their properties around Northern Ireland.” Apparently this meant that the Rowle seat would now be backing more Lestrange movements in the wizengamot, all from a tour of old houses in Derry.
Felix was fiddling with the strings on the bottom of his chair, he had finished his breakfast 10 minutes ago. But the rules on breakfast after a big function was so they could learn what was useful information to get out of people at Hogwarts.
They were encouraged to make friends across Hogwarts houses, unlike many other sacred 28 families, and across blood purity. If they were seen as welcoming to everyone, then they could slip into more sections of wizarding society. Other pureblood houses who were more outspoken on being pro-muggle were less likely to immediately dismiss their movement just because it came from a Rosier seat. It was a problem the Blacks and Lestranges were running into more and more. As they became more outspoken against Muggles and Muggleborns, they were losing other votes like the Macmillions and the Fawleys. They hadn’t yet announced their support for Lord Voldemort publicly, but it was seen as only a matter of time especially with the Lestranges, including their cousin Bellatrix.
“Who didn’t attend?” Their Father had many sheets of parchment in front of him which he was writing copious notes to himself on. Copies of the British ‘Daily Prophet’, the French ‘Le Cri de la Gargouille’ and the German ‘Die Silberne Fledermaus’ newspapers were piled next to his plate. The Rosier’ Lughnasadh Festival ball last night would undoubtedly be featured in all three.
“Mrs Selwyn and Lord Nott, both were unable to attend due to sickness. The Potters, the Shacklebolts, and the Weasleys declined our invitation.” A flicker of anger passed across her face at the idea that someone would turn down a Rosier invitation.
“Fleamont Potter is becoming more outspoken against The Dark Lord at wizengamot sittings. I believe he’s pulling away from voting in our favour.” He scratched several more notes down, leaving only the sound of his quill, “Evan, what is his son like?”
None of them had actually been addressed so far that morning, just sat silently observing their parents work. “James?” His father nodded, his eyes not leaving his papers. How was he meant to describe the fact that James spent his time pulling pranks and hexing people. “He mostly spends time with Sirius and 2 others I don’t know well. They aren’t quiet in school. Very passionate about quidditch.” Pandora just gave him a sympathetic look.
“Can you find out which team he supports?” His father said absentmindedly.
“Quidditch team?”
“Yes, Mon ange. If we give a donation to James’ favourite quidditch team, explain that we are big fans, then that endears us to Fleamont Potter.” His Mother explained slowly, like she was talking to a 5 year old.
“Right.” He’ll write to Dorcas later. She’s more likely to know. Failing that, he talks to James Potter about quidditch in September?
“Right Grace, we need to pull in the centre, maybe some of the unassigned seats, the ones with no familial right then we will -”
There was suddenly a lot of commotion outside the door. The maids were clearly arguing about something. “What is the bloody matter with them?” His father stood, angrily striding to the door and throwing it open.
In the doorway was Felix’ governess, standing with 2 maids just behind her, several house elves hovered in the background but quickly fled when their father appeared. “I apologise My Lord. it’s just that Lady Druella Black has arrived, stating that it’s very important.” It was as if all the courage she had used to convey her message had left her in a second and she quickly hurried away from him.
“Show her into the dining room.” He called.
Druella Black was an objectively beautiful woman. She was wearing a long dark robe that didn’t quite compliment the warm french weather but probably suited the english weather well. Her blonde hair, a couple of shades darker than his or Pandora’s, was left to cascade around her shoulders. Her usual posture was tense, shoulders sharp, with an incredibly tight look on her face.
Their mother just pursed her lips at the intrusion to her breakfast. Although Druella was a few years younger than their father, and they were quite close, their mother and Druella never really got on well. Druella had successfully married into the Black’s, elevating her social standing but ultimately had married the ‘wrong’ brother and had left herself with no title to inherit and no title via marriage. Whereas their mother had been untitled and married a Marquess to become Lady Rosier. Pandora believed that Druella had never gotten over being upstaged in her own family.
“I am just going to be very frank with you.” He could see his mother roll her eyes. “Sirius Black has been disowned from the family. We are never to speak to him or of him again. Regulus Black is the heir.”
Deafening silence.
No one dared move.
Evan wasn’t breathing.
Sirius.
Regulus.
Reg.
“I must not be understanding you. My English is not always perfect. What has happened?” His mother asked.
Did that really matter? Sirius was gone. He clearly wasn’t dead. Just gone. Evan’s ally in boring pureblood meetings, someone who understood the pressure of being heir, even just having his familiar face was a comfort. He couldn’t take a breath in.
“Sirius did not want to conform to family ideals. We showed him the consequences of his little rebellion.” She practically spits, clearly the consequences had not gone well. “He has abandoned his family, his house, and his duties.”
He’d abandoned Reg.
Fucking hell. Regulus.
He’d be all alone. Facing the consequences alone.
He couldn’t tear his eyes away from Druella’s face. Her cold, harsh eyes. Always willing to offer criticism. Her boney hands, always clutching too tight.
“Do we know where he’s gone?” His father finally spoke, too long after Druella’s pronouncement.
“It is unconfirmed but we believe to Euphemia and Fleamont Potter’s” His parents just shared a look, they were talking not 5 minutes previously about how they needed his vote. Now he had taken in someone they had cast out.
“Druella, can I offer you tea? Felix off with your governess. Evan, Pandora upstairs.” Their mother announced, standing from the table.
They didn’t waste a minute, rushing out of the stifling room. They had made it halfway up the stairs when Pandora’s shoulders began to shake with silent tears. “Regulus” she sobbed out. All he could force himself to do was wrap his arms around her as they sank to the floor. “Sirius, what did they do to you?”
Sirius was the strongest person they knew. Was he right in his rebellion? Absolutely not and he would have done better had he shut up sometimes, but the resilience to keep facing Walburga Black day in and day out was admirable. Although he was only a year older, he had always felt larger than life, larger than any problem. But every person had a breaking point and Sirius had clearly found his.
He couldn’t let himself cry, he hadn’t in years. But Pandora cried freely into his shoulder, almost in mourning for Sirius.
He still couldn’t take a proper breath in.
“Dora, we have to move.” She hadn’t lifted her head from his shoulder in what felt like minutes, silently crying into him. They couldn’t be found crying in the stairwell.
“Il faut bouger.” Something about the French seemed to break through her sobs.
“We have to move.”
It wasn’t until she lifted her head and made direct eye contact with him that he could feel the pain reflected back from his own eyes and also the devastating worry, “Regulus.” Is all she could choke out before she was sprinting down the corridor to her room.
It was useless to contact Regulus, it likely wasn’t common knowledge yet. Walburga and Orion would have their claws deep into Regulus currently, not willing to lose another son.
The next port of call was Dorcas and Barty. Every letter sent to both of them had been full to the brim with worry for Regulus, why he was being elusive with his comments about the summer, why he hadn’t been replying much, why he was cryptic with how he talked to them. It made obvious sense to Evan now, Walburga and Orion had been policing him much more than ever before.
He couldn’t explain why their first reaction had been to tell Dorcas and Barty, it wasn’t like they could do anything but to have other people in the loop. To be worried for Regulus together was a necessity.
Pandora was already on her knees in front of the fire, calling out for the Meadowes residence. International floo conversations were spotty but they would be able to convey necessary information.
“Pan?! Are you alright?” Cas’ sharp tone cut through their otherwise silent room.
“Something awful has happened.” She took in a deep rattling breath as she prepared herself to convey what had happened. “Sirius has been disowned, Regulus is the new heir. He’s alone in that house.”
“Fuck! Shit! Bugger! Those cunts!” Cas’ use of language could always be described as colourful but she was really going for it now. A continuous stream of consciousness with every swear word under the sun was coming out of their fireplace. “What’s happened? Where is he? Regulus? Have you seen him? Fuck!”
“Cas, we know nothing.” He knelt next to Pandora. “They had a big fight last night at our ball, next we know Druella visited saying Sirius has abandoned his family. He’s been disowned and he’s run to the Potter’s.” small tears were running down Pandora’s face again.
“I’ll check how he’s doing at the Potter’s then.” Cas wasn’t that close to Sirius and his band of idiots, but they shared enough classes for them to talk. “Have you talked to Barty yet? He’s going to go ape shit, you know he didn’t want Regulus going home this summer.”
Regulus had apparently shared considerably with Barty about his home life and situation, something about ‘understanding each other and their circumstances’. It had brought them together in a new way last year and, starting in June, Barty had begged Regulus not to go back to his house for the summer. Of course Regulus had refused saying he couldn’t leave Sirius there alone.
Dorcas had started swearing again, between her and Pandora they were probably putting a very colourful curse on the house of Black.
“Shit I have to go, Mum is wondering what is happening. See if you can get through to Barty, his father will be at the ministry by now.” Cas quickly threw herself out of the fireplace, ending their brief call.
“I can’t believe he just left Regulus there, like what the actual fuck?” Pandora had clearly quickly moved from sadness at Sirius to anger at the whole situation. Dorcas’ curses had only gotten more vile as their call had progressed, persuading Pandora to do the same.
Evan couldn’t bring himself to be angry yet, he would at some point probably not too far in the future. But in that second, the crushing weight of worry for Regulus and Sirius would not leave him no matter how much he tried to breathe through the pressure in his chest. He just wanted a hug from his mother, her assurance that it wasn’t real, that Sirius would come back and announce it was all a funny joke. A prank, something him and his stupid friends had concocted.
Mrs Crouch was answering Pandora’s firecall, saying she would find Barty. It all felt a little far away to him. Like he was the otherside of the room not centimetres away.
“My Father might kill me for your floo call. What’s up?” Barty’s voice brought him back to his surroundings a little, he still couldn’t shift the weight. He wanted to pace the room, light a cigarette, anything to move it. But he wouldn’t be able to talk to Barty and he was right, Barty was taking a big risk talking to them.
Pandora explained the situation as quickly as she could summarise and predictably Barty lost his shit. He was swearing as much as Dorcas, saying that he was going to murder Reg’s parents. His eyes were furious, it looked just like the second before Barty hit someone.
“I fucking told him not to go home, I told him something bad would happen like this. Sirius was fucking volatile at the end of last year.” Barty had started to pull at the roots of his hair. Suddenly any sense of calm Evan had managed to contain in himself snapped. He felt like crying or punching someone, probably both. He wanted to smash the clock that was hanging above the fireplace. Even Pandora shifting beside him was infuriating him more than it should.
“I need air. I am going for a smoke.” Pandora was starting to chastise him for smoking, saying it wasn’t healthy but he was already out of the room before she could finish her argument.
Their bedrooms on the second floor of the manor were in a long corridor. The walls were a pale cream colour with accents of navy blue. Directly in front of Pandora’s bedroom door was a mirror.
He hit it.
The surface shattered into a million fragments, still all staying in their frame.
That was what made him take a sharp breath. Feeling the air rush into his lungs. His face now reflected back at him several times.
They had been taught how to punch at a young age, his father said purebloods relied on their wands too heavily and you could win most duels with a good, well timed punch. And no matter the method used to get there, it was important that Rosiers always won.
Despite his teachings, Evan’s fist now throbbed badly. He had cuts along his knuckles where the mirror surface had smashed and the outside edge of his palm just down from his pinky finger was excruciating. But he could breathe, his chest heaved with it’s new found ability and the weight on his chest had gone. Replaced by the pain in his hand.
He had left his wand on the sofa in Pandora’s bedroom and it was a bad idea to attempt to heal his own right hand. Cradling his arm to his chest he turned, not wanting to return to the firecall too soon. Afraid of weight returning.
The wall opposite the mirror was covered in paintings, they spanned the entire length of the corridor that led to his parents bedroom at the end. All regal looking oil paintings, none of them were enchanted, that was not the point of them. They were to capture time, not a person.
A larger plaque of wood was hung above all of the portraits, its deep brown offset by the midnight blue family crest. The official family motto was engraved next to it ‘Familia sanguine et honore adstricta’ - A family bound by blood and honour.
There was a gap for several more paintings between Pandora’s bedroom door and the latest painting right in front of him. It was a family portrait, painted in August of 1972 just before they had left for Hogwarts for the first time.
He sat in the middle, in a high backed chair made of brown leather, his mother had wrestled them all into incredibly stuffy but high fashion wizarding robes. His own were a deep navy colour, the colour of the family crest which was embossed into the bottom of the gold frame. Pandora sat on his right, on the arm of the chair, her long blonde hair falling around her shoulders. Narcissa stood behind her, the same blonde hair was long but curled in an elegant updo. Bellatrix stood directly behind him, her hands rested posessively on the top of the chair. Felix was perched on a small stool around his left foot, he had only been 7 when they had sat for the portrait but he sat with the same Rosier grace that had been installed in all of them. Andromeda stood behind Felix, with her hands lovingly resting on his shoulders.
They had sat for it only a month before her marriage to the mudblood man that they all despised. Every other portrait of her had been taken or burnt, only this one had remained. Probably due to his father’s refusal to let it be destroyed. It was hung in the french manor, away from potential guest eyes, so they could pretend she no longer existed.
He supposed that all the evidence of Sirius would now be destroyed. Bellatrix would probably have a field day burning all of the portraits. The Black’s would have to sit for new family ones, to pretend they only had one son and heir. Sirius would be wiped out like Andromeda had been, one toe out of line and they burn your likeness out of their family forever.
To the right of the portrait of all of them was a portrait of his father, sitting on the same high backed brown leather chair but alone this time. The small plaque at the bottom read ‘Charles Louis Aster Rosier, heir to the house of Rosier, November 1943’. It was to commemorate his father’s 17th birthday, when he had become of age. To the right was another generational picture with his father, his aunt Druella, and their cousins Amias and Isaiah.
Above this portrait of his father was a portrait of his parents on their wedding day, his mother in a long white gown covered in white lace and a deep red veil. His father stood proudly by her side in dark red almost maroon coloured robes. Their hands were clasped together with several ribbons tied in tight knots around their wrists. The plaque underneath read ‘The marriage between Charles Rosier and Grace Beaufont, April 1950’.
He could see the likeness between himself and his father. The same strong clenched jaw, the same determined look in their eyes, the same furrowed eyebrows. He was brought up to be identical to his father in every way he could be, to think the same, to act the same. He cared what his parents, what his father, thought of him in a way Sirius never had. Evan sought their approval, he craved it. If he had done something his father could be proud of then he had done something worthwhile.
He didn’t remember his father that young, he had been 34 when his mother had given birth to him and Pandora. But he used to read them bedtime stories, chased them around the gardens, taught them how to read himself (much to the disagreement of some other members of his family). One day Evan would sit for his own 17th birthday portraits, Pandora would sit for hers too but they would go in another room. He just wanted to be half the man his father was at 17, half of the wise political power, half of the husband and father. Half someone his father may be proud of.
He slowly sunk to the floor in the middle of the corridor, eyes never leaving his 17 year old father. He could hear Druella downstairs ranting a storm about her ungrateful nephew, Pandora raving to Barty through the fire. A vow never left his lips but he could feel it sink inside, he would never abandon his family, whatever it took, whatever he had to do, for his family he would do it.
Chapter 4
Summary:
The end of Evan's blissful summer is France and a return to England.
Notes:
I apologise for being a day late, I picked up an extra shift for my co-worker which pushed me over the max amount of hours for the week and then get the same flu thingy that she had so all in all it's going well. This chapter is also slightly shorter than the rest but I will make up for both counts by posting two chapters :)
TW for the chapter;
Child abuse/emotional abuse (Evan reflects on his relationship with his parents heavily)
Chapter Text
Thursday 12th August 1976.
The Dining room.
The Rosier Manor. Provence, France.
After the news of Sirius’ departure, his father had immediately left with Druella to ‘smooth things out’ back in England. What that actually entailed no one truly knew, their mother was under the impression that he would have been back the next day or one after. Over a week later his father had informed them that he would be returning to France.
They had spent the week without their father breathing down their necks, out on the grounds soaking up the warm French sun. They had swam in the lake at the boundary of their land, climbed almost every tree, and played an ungodly amount of quidditch between the three of them.
They had also spent a huge amount of time making fire calls to Dorcas or Barty, writing letters between them, and trying desperately to contact Regulus. They had even enlisted their mother who had reluctantly added a footnote about Regulus in her letter to Walburga that week.
All of their letters had returned, opened, with a note from Orion not to contact them until September.
The main benefit of being in France was that society and all that entails was back in England. Some families like the Malfoy’s or the Black’s did travel over to France but were many miles away and were less likely to pop over anytime they felt like it. With the shock of Sirius leaving, the Black’s had opted not to make the trip to the continent for the year.
With their father’s return to France a huge meal had been organised, weirdly however, they hadn’t invited anyone over to share it. Best dress was required by their mother and they had been found early that day by the house elf to wash and dress. The dress rules hadn’t been relaxed even in stiflingly hot weather and Evan’s back was uncomfortably warm.
Him and Felix were hovering outside Pandora's door so they could go down to the dining room together, all of them refusing to be alone with their parents in case they started nit-picking about something.
“Dora come on, we’re going to be late.” Evan called through the closed door.
“Yes yes I am coming, fucking hell stop nagging.” She called as she swung open her door. She was dressed beautifully in a sage green silk dress which seemed to flow around her like water. Pandora and Evan were around the same height but the tall pair of heels that Pandora had on pushed her just over Evan’s height. Another beautiful diamond necklace hung around her neck complimented by diamond drop earrings. “You look warm.” She stated matter of factly.
“I am, lets fucking go.” He said, turning and marching his way down the stairs.
Their parents were sitting talking in low tones, both clutching glasses of dark liquid. His mother’s brows were pulled tight, and she was whispering furiously at their father in what Evan assumed would be rapid French. The second that they spotted their children, the conversation was immediately dropped and they rose. “Ahh you all look lovely, Pandora stand straighter.” Their mother called before floating into the dining room.
The dining room was covered in a thick blanket of silence as they ate, neither of their parents had made a move to start a conversation, both seething from whatever they were discussing previously.
As the house elves came to collect the dishes from their first course, their father sat back picking up his glass again. “The situation is far from ideal.” He started.
Evan knew what this meant, his father would go on rant about something, likely something that didn’t matter or that nobody cared about. His mother would nitpick a small part of the rant and they would argue. Someone would get annoyed and storm out, leaving the remaining parent to direct that anger at either himself or Pandora by picking apart every single thing that they do wrong or more realistically what they don’t do perfectly.
“There are more eyes on us than ever before, we need to maintain our level of perfection. They are looking for someone to slip up, they are looking for the gap in our defences. Do not let them.” His mother’s eyes were tightening with every word spoken by their father. “They are trying to draw people to their side, they will try to get to you. We have chosen our side and we are to stick to it. The Dark Lord wants us to maintain our neutrality, wants us to maintain our ability to pull support from everyone. That does not mean we support them. Am I clear?”
“Yes Father.” They replied.
Evan didn’t care about joining the death eaters or not, it was not something he gave a huge amount of thought to because he didn’t have a choice. In the end it didn’t matter if Evan didn't support ‘the cause’, he would be there anyway, no matter his moral standpoint. He knew that growing up as a pureblood heir to a sacred 28 house meant that he was sheltered, the current political climate ensured that even further. Meaning that he hadn’t actually met that many muggleborn wizards, but the ones he did know were very competent. You would have to be as part of Slytherin as a muggleborn.
Evan could feel Pandora nudge his foot under the table, flicking his eyes up to meet hers. He could see the fear there, the panic about what was being suggested. It had never been discussed this openly before, their father had never openly said that they were supporting the Dark Lord.
“Breathe” He mouthed whilst his parents were distracted with each other again. He flashed a small smile at her. Pandora breaking at the table with his parents in this kind of mood was dangerous. They never hurt their children, their wand had never been turned on their own blood but that did not mean that their parents couldn’t hurt them. Their words repeated in his head over and over every second that he panicked that he had stepped out of line.
The thing was, the line wasn’t real. It wasn’t something they could see or touch. Or something they could actually reach. Perfection wasn’t real to their parents, every time they got close the definition would change again. It was like shooting for a moveable quaffle hoop. They were always just short of the line.
He sometimes wondered what it would have been like if he had grown up like Felix did, the youngest. With an older brother to take on the burden of being heir and an older sister to take on the brunt of the marriage burden. To be allowed to live with less rules, with less restrictions.
The house elves returned with the next course and the silence descended again. His parents had managed to annoy each other into a tense, silent battle of wills over something. His Mother defiantly staring their Father down. It was easier and less stupid, just to keep his head down and silent when faced with his parents having a fight. He would be forced to pick sides eventually, but delaying the inevitable was quite nice.
The meal continued very much in the same manner. Occasionally someone would attempt a stilted conversation about something easy and trivial with their parents, they would receive terrible, one word answers in return and give up. Only for the cycle to begin again every couple of minutes.
Eventually, his mother and Pandora retired to another room to drink more wine and do whatever Ladies did after dinner. Felix was allowed to escape upstairs. Leaving Evan and his father to smoke alone in the dining room.
The dining room itself was rather grand, fit to serve 12 to 15 not 5. The walls were a soft off white colour, complimenting the ornate chandelier hanging above the table. 2 sides of the room were covered in large floor to almost ceiling windows, light blue curtains draped artfully around them. The large grounds around the manor could be seen out of the windows, inviting a sense of nature inside.
When Grace Rosier redid the dining room at the manor the previous summer, she had spent many hours quizzing her children on different architectural and interior design features. Where they were from, why they were being included, and their intended purpose had all been discussed at length until all three of them could rattle off an entire catalogue of dining room features. It had been an intensely boring summer and Evan had gotten into a lot of trouble with Barty when he had returned to Hogwarts to make up for how dull it had been.
“I really wish you would stop smoking those awful muggle inventions, Mon Tresor.” His father said with a dismissive wave of his hand at the cigarette held in Evan’s. “A pipe is far more becoming of a gentleman.”
He used the end of his father’s sentence to take a long drag. “I like them, Papa.” He replied, smoke curling around him. “Did you see Puddlemore’s game results when you were in England? They were playing the Falcons. I had money on Puddlemore.”
“Well I hope it wasn’t a lot.” His father replied, giving Evan a wide grin.
Sometimes with his father it would be harsh and cold, the conversations entirely surrounding heir duties and family responsibilities. But sometimes, his father would let his exterior crack a little, exposing the father than Evan remembered from his childhood. Before he grew up and the world encroached on his relationship with his Dad.
—------------------
Saturday 28th August 1976.
The Blue Drawing room.
The Rosier manor. Provence, France.
They were hosting again. His mother hadn’t even tried to come up with a bullshit excuse this time other than that she wanted to.
The real answer was that she was bored.
At the end of the day, their father spent his entire time with his head down in his study, writing notes, adding addendums to wizengamot bills, and moving about money for their estates. Evan, Pandora, and Felix spent their time outside, enjoying the weather, getting a good tan, and generally being twats. Their mother was left all alone. Which is enough to drive anyone a little crazy and into throwing a party for no reason.
So Evan was yet again getting pleasantly tipsy around a bunch of old rich snobs who, until he grew up, they didn’t give a toss about. Usually Regulus would be at this sort of event, him and Evan could sneak away to avoid making shit conversation but Reg was being held hostage in England for the time being by the she-devil herself. Actually it was probably Orion’s decision but when in doubt blame Walburga.
The blue drawing room (aptly named as it was incredibly blue) was home to around 40 witches and wizards, milling about. Evan and Felix were sitting on a small sofa right underneath a window overlooking the grounds. He could see the tree that had spent all day trying to find a good way to attach the bird feeder to the top without it being seen by the maids or not being seen by the birds.
“Cousins, it’s lovely to see you both looking so well.” Narcissa Black spoke as she appeared over Evan’s shoulder. He had learnt a long time ago, partly from Pandora and partly from the Black family, how to hear someone approaching him but unfortunately it was clear Felix had not mastered the art quite yet. He jumped so hard when Narcissa spoke that he poured half of his champagne down the front of his shirt.
“Oh dear, we’ll clean that up.” Narcissa waved her wand and the champagne seemed to vanish from the front of Felix. “How are you both?”
“We are well, enjoying the warmth of France.” He replied. He liked Narcissa, she always treated them as actual people rather than annoying little children that got in her way like Bellatrix did. She had a grace and elegance that Evan could admire.
“I can imagine it is much nicer here than back in rainy England.” She gave a small laugh, standing on her toes to return the two air kisses that Evan had stood to give her in greeting. “I do have a small favour to ask though.” She waved her hand as if it was going to be the most trivial thing ever but knowing Narcissa she may ask for the moon. “You are aware that I am getting married in January, I would like to include some Narcissus flowers in my arrangement, do you think some could be arranged to be brought to England?”
“Of course, I will make it happen.” He replied with a nod. Without offering any further reply, Narcissa bowed her head and made her way, silently, over to where Mrs Bulstrode was waving at her.
Just as he downed the last of his champagne and stood to get another, he noticed his mother desperately attempting to catch his eye. “Mon ange, come with me.” She beckoned him forwarded with the same hand gestures that he was pretty sure she used on the dogs the previous day. “This is Eleanor Yaxley and her mother Ethel Yaxley, we saw them at the boating lunch just before we left England in July.” He didn’t dare remind his mother that he was in the same year as Eleanor at school and therefore knew her outside of ‘the boating lunch in July’.
“It’s lovely to see you again.” He said, bending down to kiss the top of her hand.
Mrs Yaxley seemed to forcefully push Eleanor at him when she did not reply instantaneously. “I noticed your glass is empty of champagne, I could get you a glass or you could accompany me on the walk over?” He said, making both his mother and Mrs Yaxley beam in happiness. Eleanor grabbed his offered arm with a speed he had never seen her move at.
Once he had determined they were sufficiently far out of their overbearing mother’s hearing he turned, “How are you?”
“Sweating like a fucking pig.” She announced making him snort out a laugh in such a way that his mother would have an entire day's worth of lecturing material. Him and Eleanor had actually far more history than ‘a boating lunch’, they had had an on again off again relationship from September to Easter of his previous year until Evan had gotten bored and Eleanor had found Phillip Warrington was more keen on the on bit of the relationship than Evan had been. She had been a laugh at parties and they had had fun together but Evan had never really wanted to be tied to Eleanor’s side as much as Eleanor had wanted Evan to be. It had been an amicable continuation of the off bit of their relationship.
“I don’t want to marry you Evan, you’re lovely and fun but not really husband material.” She said once they had refilled with champagne and caught up about their summers.
“I’m not really trying to be husband material whilst at Hogwarts if I’m honest.” He replied with a laugh. He was pretty sure he was making quite the reputation as not someone you wanted to marry.
It wasn’t that he didn’t want to get married, he did. He just didn’t think he needed to find them right now and certainly not in Potions class but unfortunately the wizarding population was a little too small for it not to be someone he went to school with.
She seemed to release a large sigh at his words. “I want you to be safe Evan.”
“I am being safe.”
“I know that you and Crouch think everything is one big joke but the world out there is getting a lot scarier than either of you are accepting. Corban comes home telling the wildest stories and then I wake up two days later and exactly what he’s said he’s done is in the papers.” She drew in a deep breath.
“Eleanor, I am fine. I know what is happening and I am doing what I need to do, do not worry for me.” He offered her his arm once more. “Come on, Cate’s over there and she’ll cheer you right up.”
Chapter 5
Summary:
A very long train ride to Scotland.
Notes:
Barty! Cas! Reg! The group is back together again.
As promised the second chapter of today. Enjoy, this is one of my favourites.
TW
Discussions of loosing weight due to not eating
Implications of child abuse
Discussions of violence
Discussions of Prostitution
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Wednesday 1st September 1976.
10.40am.
Platform 9 ¾. King’s cross station. London, England.
“Oh! The loves of my life! The apples of my eyes!” Barty scrambled up from where he was sitting on his trunk at the end of the platform. “I’ve missed you!”
“Dramatique comme toujours” Pandora said, rolling her eyes. As Barty neared them still waving like a maniac, Evan had a sudden realisation.
“Dramatic as ever”
“A-t-il grandi!” How could this happen to him? He swore he had grown over the summer? “Est-il aussi grand que moi? Sommes-nous de la même taille!” He asked incredulously.
“Has he grown?” “Is he as tall as me? Are we the same height!”
A very unladylike snort sounded behind him, “English Pretty boy.” She smacked him lightly on the back of the head. “What are you shouting about?”
“Cassie!” Pandora screamed and practically launched herself at Dorcas.
“Can we go back to my predicament! Am I the same height as Barty?”
“Mum did say I grew over the summer, I am assuming that’s what all the shouting about being ‘grande’ was.” Barty threw his arm over Evan’s shoulder as he neared them. They really were the same head height.
“No no no. I won’t take that.”
“I do see it, Charlie” Pandora decided to chime in with her very helpful opinion.
“Pandora! You’re not meant to agree!”
“Evan Rosier, dis-moi que tu ne cries pas en public” He had slightly forgotten that his mother was in his vicinity.
“Evan Rosier, tell me you are not shouting in public.”
He stepped sideways, Barty’s warm arm slipping off the top of his shoulders. “Non, maman.”
“Je devrais espérer que non”
“I should hope not.”
“Oui Maman.”
“Aide Félix à monter sa malle dans le train”
“Help Felix get his trunk on the train.”
He turned towards Felix, who despite his head being held high, his bottom lip wobbled like it was going to give way any moment. “It’s gonna be fine, Me and Dora will be there the whole time.” He clapped Felix on the shoulder and turned towards the trunk at his feet.
“Pandora, lâche-la, tu n'es pas un koala”
“Pandora, get off her, you are not a koala.”
“Maman is going to cry, isn’t she?” Felix whispered once they were halfway towards the train.
“Probably.”
Just before they stepped onto the train, Felix’s voice stopped him from moving. “Ev’, I don’t want to go.” He whipped his head to catch Felix’s bright blue eyes filling with tears.
“Hey! Don’t say that. You’ve been so excited all summer for this.” He dropped the end of the trunk to pull Felix into a tight hug. Maybe one day Felix would be taller than him, but for now he tucked Felix’s head under his chin. “What’s scared you now?”
“What if I have no friends? What if people don’t like me? I mess up my words in English and I don’t know cool facts like you and Dora and I don’t have any sweets to share.” He could feel the middle of his shirt start to stick to him with tears.
“Dora messes her words up all the time and I didn’t have any sweets to share and we still made friends. You’ll find people. And you always have us no matter what.” He wasn’t quite sure that sweets and cool facts bonded him, Reg, Cas, Barty, and Dora together.
“You promise that right? You won’t leave?”
“Felix, look at me.” He pulled his face from the front of Evan’s jumper. “I am not Sirius, I am not going anywhere. Now come on, before Maman gets annoyed at us for not coming back.” He felt Felix nod and squeeze him tight once more before stepping back and wiping his cheeks. Evan bent down to grab the end of the trunk once more and pushed through the train doorway.
—--------
Wednesday 1st September 1976.
11.10am.
Hogwarts Express. Roughly, Stevenage, England.
They had shaved Reg. There were a great many things different about Reg since they had seen him at the Lughnasadh ball back in August. But his curly black hair had been cut, admittedly quite nicely highlighting his high cheekbones, but it was just gone. No waves at all. Not even a hint of a curl.
His clothes now seemed to swamp him, as if he hadn’t eaten since 1st August either. His pale complexion now looked grey. Evan made eye contact with Pandora across the carriage. No one dared to say anything as Reg hovered in the doorway, eyes firmly fixed on the floor.
“Fucking hell mate. You look awful.”
“Bartemius!” Dorcas cried as Pandora leaned over to swat him on the shoulder.
“What did I do?” He asked incredulously.
“No it’s fine Cas. He’s right.” Back to stunned silence after Reg’s assessment. 10 minutes in, 9 hours and 20 to go. Reg was still hovering by the door.
“Why don’t you sit Reg?” Pandora asked quietly. He did with his back ramrod straight, right on the edge of the seat.
Barty leaned forward from where he sprawled, legs in Pandora’s lap. “Look, we’re all thinking it but I am the only one with enough balls to say it.”
“Attitude problem more like.” Evan shot Cas a smirk when he caught it being muttered under her breath.
Barty shot them both a dark look, “Fuck Sirius Black.” His name still sparked a wave of white hot anger through Evan, he took several deep breaths staring through the window at the green hills whilst Barty continued. “You don’t need him causing you problems anyway. You have us, I can cause enough trouble you won’t even notice he’s gone.” The corner of Reg’s lips quirked up.
“But you can’t let him see you like this. This is what he wants, he wants to see you as his weak little brother who needs saving. You are Regulus motherfucking Black and you stand on your own feet.” Barty delivered it with such earnest Evan wondered if he had a job in motivational speaking or being a politician, he couldn’t suggest either one to him though, not unless he wanted to get punched. “Now, fuck being depressed, we’re back, back at Hogwarts, back together and nothing can stop us this year!”
Regulus did seem to relax at Barty’s speech. It wasn’t exactly the thoughts going through Evan’s head, his were more on the line of finding where Sirius was and smashing his head through one of the windows, then chucking him off the train. Sirius may have abandoned Reg but Reg would likely still yell at Evan for breaking Sirius’ bones.
“Now, Cas, Ev’, I need your opinions on an economic and political issue I have been pondering.” Evan quirked his eyebrows up at Pandora. Barty? Political issue? She shot a look back and stood, swapping places with him to talk in hushed tones to Reg.
“Go on Junior, any political issue you have been pondering is bound to be interesting.” Barty’s smile only grew at Evan’s words.
“Could I claim that I wasn’t doing anything illegal, if I didn’t actually sleep with a prostitute but paid her to support the local economy. Because the illegal bit is paying for sex. But gifting someone money, not in exchange for services, to support working women isn’t illegal.”
“What the actual fuck, Barty?” Where did he even begin with that?
“Are you asking whether not sleeping with prostitutes after paying them makes it not illegal or whether paying prostitutes supports the local economy?” Reg had stopped in the middle of telling Pandora the intense story of his summer.
“Exactly Reg, what are you actually asking Barty?” Cas was looking at Barty like he needed to be put in a hospital.
“Well first, how illegal is -”
“No!”
“But Reg!”
“No Barty!”
Just as Barty was about to produce an award winning argument about why he should test the legality of prostitution usage, there was a loud rap on the door. Cate Selwyn poked her head round the door of the carriage.
“I’m really sorry to interrupt -”
“Please don’t be, Barty was being an idiot.” Cas piped up from the corner.
“Oi shut the fuck up!”
“Sorry Cate, continue.” Pandora smiled, reminding Evan how much she looked like their mother.
“Umm yeah, sorry. Regulus, I’ve been asked to tell you that the prefect meeting has been moved to 11.30 not 12 and you’re needed.”
“Thank you Cate, I’ll be there.” He stood, smoothing his wrinkle free clothing, tipping his head back. It wasn’t easy to forget how aristocratic Regulus was, but watching him put himself back together, he really was the new heir to the House of Black.
—-----
Wednesday 1st September 1976.
1.54pm.
Hogwarts Express. Somewhere in the Yorkshire Dales, England.
They had all just brought out all their lunch supplies, plus many additions from the lunch trolley. The train from Kings cross to Hogwarts was a long one and if you accidentally ate all your lunch a little too early, you ended up starving by the time the feast was served, which was later than usual due to the sorting. Not that he was speaking from experience.
“So what did you actually do all summer Junior?” Pandora asked between bites of cauldron cake. They had all heard about Dorcas’ adventures around Spain, photos had even been brought out of Cas’ bag.
“Got bored mostly.” Barty was fiddling with a lighter. They had a strict no smoking on the Hogwarts express policy which was dumb seen as it was fine on every other train. Barty had started pinching fags off of Evan at the end of last year when his Dad started writing to Barty more about his amount of detentions and letters from McGonagall. He couldn’t wait for their first smoke back in the dorm room.
“No that’s not true, I burnt many cakes that my mum tried to teach me how to bake, I learnt how to skateboard pretty well, and I worked out a lot. So not a huge amount really.” Evan had absolutely no idea what a skateboard was but he could see the evidence of Barty’s new workout regime. He had put on a noticeable amount of muscle, it suited him though, in Evan’s opinion. Barty had never been as broad as Evan (or as tall until about three hours ago), but the muscle filled him out in a good way.
He lifted his arms and flexed a little for Cas and Dora who couldn’t stop laughing at his antics but Evan couldn’t pull his eyes away from Barty’s arms. They moved in a new way now, or at least in a way Evan had never noticed on Barty before. His T-shirt cupped his arms nicely and Evan was abusing his poor lower lip.
“Liking the show, Rosie?” Barty only called him that occasionally, mostly when he was trying to convince him to do something, usually illegal things.
Evan shook his head trying to clear the variety of thoughts he’d just had about Barty’s arms, “looks good Junior.”
“Wait till you see what it did to my ass.”
Barty lifted himself halfway out of his seat before Cas grabbed him with her hand that was not holding a fizzing sweet of some kind. “I do not need a demonstration on the improvements to your ass Crouch.”
“It’s not for you Meadowes, I was going to show Rosie.”
“I’m good, don’t worry.” He said, throwing his hands in the air. Evan couldn’t explain to anyone why the thought of assessing the workout regime results on Barty’s ass made his stomach do a weird flop thing.
“It’s all for this year though, I’m gonna try out for the quidditch team again now that Greengrass is gone and the beater spot is open again.”
“If you get in Barty, we’d have you, Cassie, and Reg on the team!” Pandora said with a squeal. Evan liked flying and he enjoyed playing quidditch with Pandora and Felix back home, his father had even encouraged him to try for the house team. He was very quickly put off the idea when he found out that one of the training slots was at 6.30 in the morning.
“Talking of Reg, I can’t believe the bloody swot became a prefect.” Barty said, rolling his eyes.
“Well it wasn’t going to be me or you.”
“What do you mean Ev’ I am a model student.” The carriage exploded into laughter.
“The day that is true is the day I eat a piece of meat.” Cas said in between wheezes. Every house had a male and a female prefect from 5th, 6th and 7th year. Reg was the obvious choice. The Black’s had all been head boy or girl and Reg was on track to do the exact same.
“I did find out from some friends, they’ve changed the 6th year boy’s prefect to Potter from Lupin.” Pandora piped up when the giggles subsided.
“Why the fuck did they do that?” Barty said. “If Potter can be a prefect then I definitely should have been in the running.”
“No one in their right mind would make you a prefect Crouch,” Drocas said, flipping her hair over her shoulder. “You’d use it to have your secret rendezvous in broom cupboards.”
Barty frowned at that notion, “I’m not gonna have time this year, fucking one million OWLs.”
“It’s your own fault.” He replied, it truly was.
McGonagal and Slughorn had put together a plan at the end of second year to curb Barty’s more dangerous boredom busting activities, by keeping him as busy as possible with classes. No one expected him to still be doing all 12 by the end of October 3rd year, least of all his father who had written to say his son wasn’t focused enough to sit that many classes. Here they were 2 years later, he was still top of his class in many of his subjects. Still sitting 12 OWLs.
“Merlin, don’t mention classes, I still haven’t got over the trauma of OWLs.” Cas was pulling out a luminous pink nail varnish that was sure to get her a uniform detention the minute it was spotted at school.
“Ahh Meadowes, you know you’re my favourite right?” Barty leaned forward to bat his eyelashes at her.
“Hey! What are me and Charlie?” Pandora cried, throwing her hands up.
“You’ll always be a favourite of mine, Pan.” He pressed a kiss to her cheek. “But Cas is up there.”
“Give me your hand.” Cas had pulled a pot of black nail varnish from somewhere and was filling the carriage with its strong smell.
Pandora threw her legs up to be across Barty’s now that Cas was painting his nails on the small pull out tray underneath the window. Evan just found his book from his trunk, it was one he had taken from the french manor’s library, it was mostly in french but there were a few characters who spoke Italian. His mother had pulled him aside yesterday to say that one thing he needed to choose was what other languages he was going to pick up.
Rosiers all spoke English and French as standard, but with their trade of gold and jewellery expanding with every generation, they had started to learn more and more languages. It was expected of him that by the time he was 18 he would be able to converse confidently in 4 languages. He just needed to pick which ones.
Pandora had expressed an interest in Italian and German, which their mother liked as she also spoke Italian. His father had been pushing him to learn Dutch with its use in international trade and also with its familiarity to Afrikaan spoken in South Africa. Regulus had suggested Russian, again for its use internationally.
He had spent a while pondering the necessity of speaking other languages, French and English were the most widely spoken ones but apparently it was good manners to be able to conduct business in the client’s native language. Maybe he would learn Dutch.
—-----
Wednesday 1st September 1976.
8.15pm.
Hogwarts Express. Just north of Inverness, Scotland.
“Charlie, Où est Felix?” Pandora shouted suddenly standing.
"Where is Felix?"
“Je ne sais pas?” What was the sudden rush for? Cas had stepped briefly out of the carriage to change into her uniform. Barty and Reg were in the corner, discussing some new herbology discovery. “Pourquoi?”
“J'ai promis à maman que je le préparerais pour la cérémonie” she was frantically tugging her bag from the luggage rack.
“I promised mom I would prepare him for the ceremony”
“D’accord, Il est probablement quelque part près du devant” Barty was attempting to help Dora pull her bag off the hook it had got stuck on. “Calme-toi, tout ira bien.”
“Okay, he is probably somewhere near the front.” “Calm down, he is fine.”
She whirled around with her bag, swinging it into his shoulder. “He will not be fine! Don’t tell me to calm down!”
“Felix is fine. He would have found us if he had a problem.” She was still desperately rummaging through her bag, finally pulling out a knot of lavender and sage. He stood, grabbing her hands in his, “Felix is a good kid, he’s probably already found friends. But if you go to him all stressed out like this, it will freak him out.”
She let out a sigh, their mother had probably drilled it into Pandora’s head that she needed to be with Felix every second of the day once they got to Hogwarts. But he wasn’t going to be able to find friends and spread his own wings if Pandora was smothering Felix as much as their mother had drilled it into her that she needed to.
“Hey Pan, I’ll give you a galleon if Felix is sorted into Ravenclaw.” Barty called just as Pandora was stepping out of the carriage.
“No way, he’s going to end up a Slytherin.” A smile finally gracing her lips. “You’re on.”
“Are you saying that because you’ve seen a vision about it?” Suddenly jumping up to stand next to her. “That’s definitely cheating if you have, Pan.” She just tapped her nose and slipped out.
“I don’t know why you try every time” Evan had finally gotten comfortable on the seats again. 9 hours on a train was wearing thin on him now.
“Try what?” Barty slumped down next to him, throwing his head on Evan’s lap.
“Making bets with her, she always wins.” His fingers itched to stroke Barty’s hair, he had literally never had that urge in his life. What the fuck was wrong with him?
“One day Rosie, I’ll get her.”
“Sure Barty.”
—-----
Wednesday 1st September 1976.
9.04pm.
Hogwarts. The Great Hall. About halfway down the Slytherin benches.
“If she wins a galleon, I am going to be so pissed.”
Evan was tapping his fingers on the table, a habit his mother had tried to force him out of. He could do with a cigarette, not being allowed to smoke all day was getting to him now.
“Carol Roberts”
“I swear ours didn’t take this long.” Barty complained again.
“All the years are the same amount, idiot.”
“Wow, someone's twitchy.”
“Barty I am begging you to shut the fuck up.”
“I had hoped you would beg better than that”
Evan whipped his head around to see Barty smirking back at him. “Why would you say that?”
“It’s just a joke, chill out.” He couldn’t get the sudden panic out of his head. Why had Barty said that?
“Felix Rosier”
He couldn’t see Fe’s head over the top of the gaggle of 1st years still left at the front of the hall.
“Shit I can’t see him” He was halfway out of his seat now. Out of the corner of his eye he could see Pandora practically about to stand on her seat for a better view.
Finally Felix seemed to be rising up the small stairs in front of the stool. Evan’s hands were starting to sweat. His family didn’t care which house they were in, maybe except Gryffindor. His father and aunts were all Slytherins but his grandfather and great uncle were ravenclaw. They were equally proud of Pandora for being a Ravenclaw as they had been for Evan being a Slytherin. It would just be easier if it was a house that he or Pandora were in. They could keep a better eye on him.
The lack of dinner was starting to become less of a problem for him now, he swore he was about to throw up on the table in front of him.
Was it taking a long time? When he was under the hat he had had a small conversation which didn’t make his sorting feel all that long but the hat had deliberated for a long time with Pandora.
Felix’s hands were clenched tight together on his lap, his head still held high despite being under a hat.
“SLYTHERIN!”
“Yes!” he knew he shouted that a bit loud, he was getting some funny looks. But Pandora looked equally happy, bouncing on the balls of her feet.
His hands were starting to ache from clapping so hard when Felix finally descended from the steps and onto the end of the Slytherin table. Making quick eye contact, Felix shot him the biggest smile he had worn all week.
“Pandora owes you.” Evan whispered in Barty’s ear. He could feel the smile tugging at his lips.
Notes:
Again, I am not a french speaker, please tell me if there is any corrections necessary. Ailbhe :)
Chapter 6
Summary:
Back-to-school shenanigans.
Notes:
Hogwarts is Hogwarting! I know technically I wrote Barty's lines but he does make me laugh sometimes. Also little reference to Eden's TikToks in there because I absolutely love them. I hope you all enjoy :)
TW
Implied sexual content (They leave before anything happens but it is implied what happened)
Referenced murder/blood supremacy
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Monday 6th September 1976.
8.37 am.
Slytherin Benches. The Great Hall.
“I can’t believe they ‘couldn’t host the back-to-school party so close to the start of term’. That’s literally the fucking point of it.” Barty had performed the most elaborate air quotes imaginable. Frankly, Evan didn’t give a shit, certainly not this early. If it was legal to vanish Barty’s mouth he would have done.
The usual back-to-school party where everyone let their hair down for the first time after a long break had been postponed. The 7th years in charge of alcohol gathering had claimed that there wasn’t enough time to adequately organise it a day after they had arrived at school. It apparently was a big deal that it had got delayed to the Friday after the first week of school.
They had spent the first four days back at Hogwarts messing about mostly. Regulus and Pandora had slunk off the library more than once, Reg to do extra homework and Dora to research some weird new spell she had found. Which left Barty and Evan plenty of time to smoke their way through the first pack that Evan had brought with him. If they kept smoking at this rate, he was going to have to write to his mother or try and bargain with one of the 7th-year Ravenclaw’s that he knew sold. He hadn’t actually brought that many with him. He needed to convince Barty to start buying his own.
“Head’s up. Old Sluggy’s got timetables.” Cas said, pushing the coffee pot further towards Evan. He would need two cups to get through the morning.
Barty flopped his head down onto the table, “I can’t even look, mine is going to be awful.”
“Mr Black,” Slughorn said, handing him a paper timetable.
“Mr Rosier, can we look alive?” Evan just stared back at him. He wasn’t going to be his normal semi-polite self before 9 am and Slughorn knew this. Evan was just being a dick because he could be. Slughorn huffed a sigh when he realised he wasn’t going to respond and held out a piece of paper.
“Miss Meadowes, congratulations on great OWL results. Am I correct in thinking we still want to do four NEWTs?” He did look incredibly pleased at Dorcas, Evan wanted to punch him in the face.
“Yes Sir, Care of magical creatures, Herbology, Potions, and Defence against dark arts please,” Dorcas replied, launching Slughorn into a full conversation about the benefits of each of those classes and what she could do with them.
Evan took a cursory glance down at his timetable and nearly choked on his coffee. He knew this year would be worse than previous years but they had seemed to double his class number. It didn’t look like he would have a second to breathe. Barty was fucked.
“Mr Crouch, I know you have coped well in the last 2 years but I still want to know if this amount of classes gets too much. There is always time to drop some.” Barty would rather die than admit failure on something that wasn’t even his choice to begin with. Slughorn handed Barty a piece of paper and Evan could see the moment that he saw the same thing Evan had. His eyes were as big as saucers, eyebrows to his hairline. He had a small red mark on his forehead where he had been leaning on the table.
“No Sir, this is fine.” He replied in a tight voice. Silently handing the paper to Evan, he nearly died on his coffee again.
Fucking Hell.
Barty would have exactly 3 free lessons out of 36. Suddenly, Evan didn’t feel he had a leg to stand on to complain about course load.
“How bad is it?” Dora said, appearing behind them, making Regulus nearly throw his tea in his lap. Barty again silently held his timetable up from where he had shown Reg and Cas. “It was nice knowing you.” Barty huffed half a laugh at that. The most any of them had gotten out of him since Slughorn had moved further down the table.
People were slowly starting to get up and move about to the first classes of the day, some first-years in Gryffindor were shouting at the absolute top of their lungs. “Alright, it’s 8.45. Does anyone want to start moving at all?” Cas asked, throwing her bag onto the top of her shoulder. Food would disappear in about 10 minutes anyway.
“We all have frees to start with,” Reg replied, shoving his book in his bag and downing the last of his tea. Evan would pour another cup of coffee and take it with him. He’d return the cup at some point today. Maybe. The only teacher who had a real problem with him doing that was Slughorn during practical lessons, claiming he would ruin the potion by being in the vicinity of a cauldron with a mug.
“All of you?!” Barty said at yet another volume that Evan was not pleased with.
“We’re not all idiots who need to take every single course.” Reg countered. It was a constant state of contention between the two of them. Barty claimed he was smarter than Reg because he was doing so many classes and Reg claimed that he was smarter because he hadn’t been such a pyromaniac in 2nd year to get stuck with having to take every single class.
They were shuffling along, quite slowly now due to the large number of students attempting to all leave the great hall and make it to classes at the same time. Cas and Dora seemed to be discussing charging their crystals under some special type of moonlight on Wednesday night and Reg and Barty were still bickering like 5-year-olds when Dora came to a sudden stop right in front of him.
“Putain! Dora! J'ai failli jeter mon café sur toi!” She didn’t seem to have heard him at all. Still staring at something right in front of her.
“Fuck! Dora! I almost threw my coffee on you”
“That’s the most words he’s said all morning and they’re not even in English.” He heard Barty mutter behind him.
Throwing a middle finger over his shoulder, he leaned around to see what had caught Pandora’s attention so thoroughly. For a second, the fleeting thought that she was having a vision in the middle of a busy corridor flashed through his mind. But Dora didn’t seem to be fainting at all. No in front of her were Lily Evans, Mary McDonald, James Potter, and Peter Pettigrew. He snapped his fingers in front of her face.
Blinking widely, “Sorry. I just. Yeah. Didn’t mean to stop. I. Yeah.” She mumbled out. A blush rose up her cheeks.
“Ooh, what’s caught your attention so well Pan?” Barty said in a teasing tone. “A Gryffindor?”
“No!” She practically shouted in his face. Dora shot one more look back at the Gryffindors, where Evans was loudly laughing at something Pettigrew had said, before turning on her heel and dashing down the corridor. “Just remembered something, don’t wait for me!”
“What the fuck was that?” Sometimes his sister did the most bizarre things.
“Who are we to question the minds of crazy women?” Barty was clearly still trying to tease someone for the weird incident. He had stepped up to be shoulder to shoulder with Evan now and he could feel the laughter running through Barty’s body.
“Don’t call women crazy Crouch!” Cas said, pulling Barty by the arm down the corridor, leaving him and Reg to awkwardly follow behind.
“We need new friends,” Reg said, rolling his eyes.
—--------------------------
Friday 10th September 1976.
8.24 pm.
5th-year boys dormitory, Slytherin dungeons.
“I GOT IN! EVERYONE CAN SUCK MY DICK!” Barty threw open the door to the dormitory with a loud bang. He was still in his quidditch kit, covered head to toe in mud, dripping in sweat and rain from where it hadn’t stopped all week.
“Congrats Crouch!” Cas shouted from inside the bathroom. She and Dora had set up camp inside their bathroom to get ready for the party.
“You stink.” Barty had thrown himself at Reg, practically launching him into the ceiling.
“What did you get?” Evan said. Barty was practically vibrating with energy, leaving anything he touched covered in mud and sweat.
“You are looking at the new Slytherin Beater!” He held up his new beater bat above his head, swinging it wildly. Reg shot him a look across the dormitory, both of them taking a step back from Barty and his new weapon.
Suddenly, the bathroom door swung open to reveal Pandora in a lovely long white skirt and green wrap-around top. She was covered in jewellery, rings on every finger, 3 necklaces, and a million ear piercings. Most of the jewellery came from the Rosier vault, with almost all of the pieces holding diamonds.
“I’m proud of you, Junior.” The energy seemed to melt out of him at Pandora’s words. “But please have a shower, you’re going to mess the whole dorm up.”
As Dorcas exited the bathroom, Barty bounced in. He was whistling a song and Evan could hear his clothes hitting the floor as the shower began to run. Due to sharing a dorm, Barty being naked in the bathroom whilst Evan was sitting on his bed wasn’t an unusual situation. In fact, it happened every day in some form. But the idea of Barty being sweaty and muddy from quidditch trials and also naked sent heat rising up Evan.
He had begun to notice Barty’s arms more since the train. Where they leaned on desks in class. How he waved his wand, shirt pulling over his shoulders. And apparently in a quidditch jersey.
He wasn’t the only one to have noticed. Barty had always got appreciative glances, he had a unique look that made people pay attention. His sharp jaw that could practically cut you, an intense but slightly wild look in his eyes, his high cheekbones that gave him an angular look. Barty had always been hot. But now it seemed it was worse, his working out over the summer had increased his ability to pull people towards him. The allure of one Barty Crouch Jr.
Regulus was currently pulling every single item of clothing out of his trunk and drawers, potentially looking for a specific item, potentially having a mental crisis. Evan had dived through the shower first and was sitting fully ready on his bed. Regulus had had to watch the quidditch trials (but had left before the team was announced, knowing his spot of seeker was safe) and therefore had returned later by which point the girls had already stolen their bathroom.
“What are you looking for?” Dorcas was finishing her eyeliner in the mirror that sat on top of Barty’s chest of drawers.
“My fucking green top, the shirt that Barty grew out of. It was in here I swear.”
It wasn’t surprising none of them could find anything in their dorm, between party preparations, Regulus’ hunt for a top, and just general boys' dorm chaos, there wasn’t a single inch of the room that didn’t look like a complete disaster. Barty would freak out, Regulus and Evan were used to house elves that cleaned everything up after them and therefore didn’t pick up anything after themselves. But Barty was a little freakish about things being tidy and neat. He would probably stress clean their room tomorrow.
Suddenly, the bathroom door opened with a billow of steam, Regulus dived through the door with a towel saying he was next. Barty however had clearly brought jeans with him into the bathroom but not a shirt. His dark hair was dripping small beads of water down his chest. His shoulders were broader now and he had actual abs that definitely had not been there in June. Evan had to pull his eyes away from his chest before Barty noticed him staring.
It wasn’t right for him to be this entranced with Barty. Whatever had happened over the summer Evan wished it would go away. He shook his head subtly to try and rid himself of the sight of Barty’s chest.
“Anyone else ready? I want to start drinking,” he announced, he couldn’t keep his eyes away from Barty for some reason and a shot and a cigarette would help his problem greatly.
As soon as he ascended the stairs into the common room, he immediately lost Pandora and Dorcas to the crowd. Although Pandora was a Ravenclaw, she knew almost everyone in the common room due to pureblood society parties or around Hogwarts so she was considered an honorary member for the night.
He bee-lined immediately for the drinks table, grabbing some firewhiskey. From there on the party passed in a blur of colour and drinks. He definitely did several shots with Pandora across the night. Danced with Dorcas and Regulus. But had completely lost sight of Barty.
What had started as a conversation with some of his classmates from his divination class, quickly turned into dancing in the middle of the common room. He wasn’t sure that his mother would approve of the way that he was using his expensive and difficult dance classes of his childhood to grind against some of the girls in his class but he loved it. Although he loved to spin and whirl his way around a ballroom, in perfect hold to ¾ waltz timing. Letting loose with people his own age had a different appeal, where he could lose himself to the music and the feel of their bodies around him. Where he didn’t have to be heir of the house of Rosier for 5 fucking minutes.
He was pretty sure that the girl currently grinding her ass into him was Florence Thurlow, a pureblood in his ancient runes class. He reached up to move the curly black hair off her shoulders and slowly dropped his head to her neck, making sure she knew he was there before starting to leave light kisses. From this angle he could see her chest heaving from dancing and, he hoped, the effect he was having on her. It was starting to get obvious the effect she was having on him as he started to roll his hips into hers more obviously.
She snaked her hand up to grab at the back of his neck, winding her hands into his hair. The heat from the bodies around them was prettily displayed as the blush was starting to work down the front of her chest. She was starting to pull at his hair now, causing him to groan into her neck, dancing his hands along her waist to pull her closer to him.
“Evan, please.” she gasped out, they had stopped the pretence that they were dancing now and were moving in a rhythm of their own creation.
“Please what?” He was weighing up his options, her dorm room would be off limits to him, his dorm room was a complete tip from getting ready, and they couldn’t stay here before someone started to complain. “We can’t go back to my dorm.” He panted.
“Why not?” She pulled away from him to look him in the eyes. Her chest was heaving and her eyes were blown with desire. He couldn’t control himself not to lean in and kiss her, heat flared within him as she threw her hands around his neck to pull herself closer to him.
He pulled away just far enough to whisper into her lips, “Fine, my dorm is a tip but my bed is tidy enough.”
“Don’t care.” She laced her hand through his and pulled him off the dance floor and down the spiral staircases towards his room.
—--------------------------------
Monday 13th September 1976.
2.55 pm.
A Table. Hogwarts Library.
“Hey Pretty Boy, So sorry I am running late.” Dorcas was hurrying between the tables of the library, clearly trying to call to him without alerting Madam Prince. “I have to ask a favour though.”
“What’s up?” He had learnt from owing favours to Reg that you had to learn the terms first, he’d had his hair dyed pink for 3 days the last time he didn’t check.
“Well, obviously we planned to have our usual study meetup.” They both hated working with anyone else in their friendship group, Barty refused to sit still and only half completed any of his assignments, Regulus muttered badly when he was studying and it drove him and Dorcas up the wall, and Pandora claimed that the library had bad energy and refused to study anywhere but the Ravenclaw common room or the kitchens. “But I also kind of- accidentally- slightly- saidiwouldstudywiththegyrffindors.”
“What? I didn’t understand you.”
Dorcas huffed out a breath, “I said I would study with the Gryffindor 6th-year girls, you know Lily Evans and stuff. I hope you don’t mind, we could maybe join together?” She had this really hopeful look in her eye.
“And this has nothing to do with a certain Gryffindor beater?” He teased. Dorcas had been in this weird sexually charged rivalry with Marlene McKinnon since 4th year when they both made the house teams in quidditch. Cas finally admitted that she liked her at the end of last year and they had all vowed to get them together this year.
“Shhhhhhhhh! I don’t want her to hear that.”
“Hear what Meadowes?” Marlene slung an arm over the top of Cas’ shoulders as they rounded the corner of the bookshelf.
“Oh nothing,” she giggled nervously, shooting Evan a look of clear ‘Don’t fuck this up for me’.
On one hand, him being seen sitting with 2 muggleborn Gryffindors and a ‘blood traitor’ would absolutely get back to his parents who would send him a letter of warning about who he kept as company. On the other hand, being seen with 2 muggleborn Gryffindors would help his family not look like ranging blood supremacists, even if they actually were. He had also chosen a table near the back, tucked behind one of the bookshelves so it was a little less obvious he was sitting there.
He gestured to the seats in front of him, Evans looked mildly panicked that he had addressed them but McDonald clearly took it in her stride and sat next to him. He just turned back to his herbology essay that he was trying to finish about class F, reactive plants.
What he had not expected for the first 30 minutes of studying was for them not to shut up for a single moment.
Only Evans seemed to be trying to get any work done, in between shooting him suspicious glances like he was going to suddenly start trying to murder them. Even Cas had a textbook in front of her that she hadn’t even opened.
He had finally finished the mind-numbingly boring essay on the classification of dangerous plants and brought out a new piece of parchment to start an essay on the different types of clairvoyance for divination.
“Well that’s not what I heard, apparently Edmund Avery was caught making out with Amy James.”
“No, that’s not right.” He realised his mistake a little too late, the entire table had gone silent. He hadn’t even looked up from his essay before inserting himself into the conversation he was trying to ignore.
“No? How would you know?” McDonald fired back. They had spent the entire time gossiping about who was sleeping with who. He had only been half listening.
He finally tore his eyes from his essay, “because it was Cate Selwyn who found them and she told me yesterday it was Flora Davies.” He could see McKinnon and Evans whispering something to each other.
“Ahh Evan, our gossip queen.” Dorcas teased.
“I am not a gossip.” He rolled his eyes, “Or a queen?”
“Oh no forgive me, you just know everything that goes on in this school but don’t tell anyone.”
“I tell Pandora.”
“You tell Pandora everything.”
“I wonder why.” He said in the most sarcastic tone of voice he could find. She just flipped him off.
“Can I ask you something Rosier?” McDonald had leaned forward on the desk to prop her elbows as close to him as she could reach, “There are a lot of rumours about a Slytherin party, you, and a certain Miss Thurlow.”
“What do you want to know?”
She looked at him like he was stupid, it made him want to sneer at her. “Is it true?”
He shrugged, “She gave good head.” He turned to Cassie, whispering “That is what the English call it right?” She nodded.
“It is true!” McDonald threw her hands in the air. “You slept with her!”
“Shhhh!” Madam Prince hissed from around the corner. McDonald just gave an apologetic look.
“I didn’t sleep with her.” He corrected.
“Sleep with means to have sex,” Cassie whispered again. Fucking English and their slang for everything.
“I know. I still didn’t sleep with her.” Barty had taught him that particular slang in about 2nd year.
“Why not?” If anyone else asked he would have told them to mind their own business but Cassie always got a free pass.
“Well, Regulus kind of ruined the mood by violently being sick in the bathroom.” She just huffed a laugh.
“So you would have slept with her if Black hadn’t interrupted.” McKinnon pried.
“Sure. Not like I would be losing my virginity to her.”
“You’re not a virgin?” Evans suddenly injected herself into the conversation.
“Do I look like a major virgin?” He countered, raising an eyebrow. She just turned as red as her hair.
“No, I just.” She looked wildly uncomfortable.
“I was just surprised.'' She wasn’t making it any better.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to offend you.” She rushed out.
He kept her waiting just a second longer before letting out a half laugh. “I’m not offended. But trust me, I know what I’m doing.” Cas released a snort. Was it cocky of him? Sure. But he couldn’t have the rumour going around that he was a painful virgin, he truly wasn’t.
“So who did you lose it to?” Always prying for new gossip was McDonald.
He could see Cassie subtly shake her head out of the corner of his eye, “Maybe another time.” He started to pack his stuff back into his bag. “I’m off to History of Magic, are you going a similar way?” He asked Dorcas.
“Care of magical creatures.” She replied as she slipped her unopened book back into her bag. He took her bag out of her hand and shouldered both his and hers before Cas gave a wave goodbye to the three confused-looking Gryffindor girls.
Notes:
Please feel free to leave kudos/comments, I love reading them. Ailbhe :)
Chapter 7
Summary:
Late-night chats and bloody fights.
Notes:
Wow, they promised a posting schedule and then immediately ignored it for a week. I can only apologise for dipping for a week, I do have 2 finished chapters for you guys to enjoy to make up for it.
TW for the chapter
Discussions of expectations and pureblood heirs
Smoking
Implications of black household parenting
Violence (and Evan finds it hot)
Small discussions of blood
Chapter Text
Thursday 16th September 1976.
11.24 pm.
5th year boys dormitory. Slytherin Dungeons.
“Evan.”
Barty was snoring horrifically loudly, he had finished his first training session that evening and had basically collapsed from exhaustion afterwards.
“Evan.”
He was half tempted to ignore Regulus’ whispers across the dorm room. He was warm in his bed and Regulus would inevitably want him to get up for something.
“Ca va?” Regulus’ French wasn’t as good as his or Pandora’s, despite Walburga and Orion’s boasting about their children being native in both languages.
“I can’t sleep.”
“Okay?” He knew the longer he stayed up the worse he would feel in the morning, they had herbology first thing in the morning so he needed his brain to at least be semi working. He didn’t need a huge amount of sleep like everyone believed, he just hated waking up. Hated the groggy feeling when your brain and your body wouldn’t connect with each other. He just needed time in the morning to feel like a human being again.
“I wanted to know if you wanted to sit and chat with me by the window.” He and Regulus were close, they had met at 4 years old at some society function that had been unbelievably boring. They didn’t share a huge amount between the two of them, neither had been raised like that, taught to always bottle it up and never suggest to anyone that you weren’t 100% perfect at all times. But Regulus had been there when Evan lost his first tooth, Evan had taught Regulus how to shave his face the first time, and they had shared the terrifying feeling of arriving at Hogwarts together. Regulus was the closest thing to family that someone could be to Evan, outside of his actual blood siblings and parents.
“Sure.” Regulus would only have asked if he was desperate, the bags underneath his eyes had not gotten any better since returning to Hogwarts like they had all hoped.
He groped around next to his bed for a jumper, the slytherin dorms were usually quite warm but the mix of the rain and a lack of warm French sun left him feeling rather cold at times. He slipped out of bed to see Regulus in a jumper and a blanket (knitted by Pandora) around his shoulders sat on the windowsill, knees pulled up to be under his chin. It would be just wide enough for the two of them to comfortably sit next to each other.
“The room is a mess again,” Regulus whispered. Barty probably would sleep through a hurricane but it was less about waking him and more about disturbing the peace of the room.
The room hadn’t really improved since the party, of course Barty insisted that they tidied the day after which had led to a tidy room for about a day before chaos again. The house elves came round on Thursday morning so it would be at least semi tidy for the weekend.
Evan leaned forward to reach for his pack of cigarettes and lighter from his bedside table. Somehow the founders of the school had worked out the ability to have the windows open and let in cool fresh air whilst the dorms were underwater. Barty and Pandora had spent three weeks last year trying to work out what kind of magic it was. He was glad of it though, three teenage boys in a room and no ability to open the windows would have been a disaster. It also meant he and Barty could smoke freely in the dorm room.
He could feel Regulus’ eyes on him as he pulled a cigarette out of the carton and went to lit it. “What do they taste like?”
“Would you like me to teach you how to smoke?” Regulus blushed lightly at his question.
“Please.”
He held the pack towards Reg as his slim fingers picked one at random. “Brown end goes in your mouth.” Reg just rolled his eyes. “When I light it you have to slowly inhale or it won’t light. Don’t suck on it, it’s not a sweet. It’s more of a deep inhale.”
He leant forward and held out the lit end of his lighter to Reg’s cigarette. Surprisingly it lit the first time, better than Barty had done. But Regulus immediately ripped it out of his mouth and started coughing. Lighting his own around the chuckles working their way out of his chest, “It gets better I promise.”
“It better.”
They smoked in silence for a while. Regulus was partly letting the cigarette burn out, partly taking light inhales. Evan rested his head back on the cold window. He would have liked to have turned around and watched the fish go by but that would mean kicking Regulus off the windowsill.
He wasn’t particularly thinking of anything, more just letting thoughts float into his head and out again. He considered how Felix was getting on in his dorm; their parents had bought him a rare book on dragons as a congratulatory present for getting into Slytherin.
He wondered about Barty and his new awareness of him. It mostly made him self-conscious of how he looked which confused him a little. He was used to being the tallest in their friendship group, the biggest and strongest. His voice had dropped first, not massively though but the smoking was helping with that.
But now Barty looked like that. He and Barty had always been pretty evenly matched in getting people’s attention. But Barty was now reaping the rewards of his summer of hard work. Girls and a few guys were approaching them asking if Barty was seeing anyone, whether he would be free for Hogmead dates, even asking if he would shag them in a broom cupboard.
It was pissing him off to no end. Obviously, Barty was enjoying it, always loved a bit of attention, and Cas and Dora were finding it quite funny.
It was just that Barty was starting to blow off spending time with them to spend time with random people. All for a quick shag. And he wasn’t shy on the details, he and Regulus could probably rate every girl in their year before long, solely on Barty’s descriptions.
“I wanted to apologise.” Regulus broke through his endless spiral about Barty.
“What for?” He couldn’t actually think of anything Regulus had done to annoy him recently, of course, he was a bit more agitated than usual, a bit sharper with them but they had all agreed to just let it slide for now.
“I thought I understood what you and Sirius put up with being the oldest.” Regulus was practically breathing these words into existence, if Evan hadn’t seen his mouth move he wouldn’t have believed it was Reg saying it. “I thought I understood the expectations. People watch you all the time to see how you act or what you say. But I didn’t and I’m sorry that I didn’t understand.”
“Oh.” He hadn’t expected Regulus to get emotional, but his jaw was clenched tight, blinking to rid himself of the tears that threatened to fall. He knew most people didn’t understand, Pandora was the closest to getting it but even she wasn’t allowed in the room a lot of the time. “I appreciate it, Reg. I just wish you didn’t know.”
“Why do you say that?” Reg’s cigarette was burnt out now, hanging limply from his fingers. “Do you mind if I have another,” gesturing to the pack that was back on his nightstand, “it surprisingly helped.”
“Yeah, of course, they do help a lot.” He lent over to light it again. Evan considered Regulus for a moment, why he had apologised for not understanding something he was never meant to. Maybe that’s why he and Sirius, Regulus and Pandora got on so well. The heirs and the spares. He didn’t like that idea, that Pandora was somehow a back up to him. Maybe if they weren’t twins it would be different but she was half of his soul, half of his heart, half of him. Where he was, she followed. Where she went, he proceeded.
But for Sirius and Regulus, it was different, there was a disconnect between them, between their experiences. By the difference in age, a lot happens in 19 months. They didn’t experience life together, they experienced it one after another. Regulus did follow Sirius but not in the same way as Pandora followed him. She followed because she trusted Evan to know where they were heading, the same way he trusted her. Regulus followed because he was expected to walk the same path.
He released a breath of smoke he had been holding, “I mean you weren’t meant to be the heir, not because I don’t believe you are capable, quite the opposite. But it was a position you were never born to fill. He and I were raised since birth to do this. You have been thrust into it a decade too late. What is shocking to you, is commonplace to us. What you are apologising for not understanding, is normal life to us. I appreciate your apology, no matter how unnecessary. I just wouldn’t wish this life upon anybody. And I am sorry this is your life to lead now.”
He couldn’t exactly pinpoint what moment had snapped something in Regulus but tears were falling freely from his eyes. His shoulders shook in muffled sobs as he wrapped his arms around his knees. He wouldn’t let Evan hug him, flinching away from a touch on the shoulder. So he sat there, watching someone he cared about violently release his emotions with no ability to comfort him.
He wished he was Pandora, who Regulus would let hug him. Or Barty, who was great at pulling people together and snapping them out of their sadness. Even Dorcas would know comforting words to say. But Evan wasn’t them. So whilst Regulus released all the pent-up sadness inside of him, Evan sat with his shoulder pressed against Regulus’, silent smoking.
Eventually, Reg’s sobs subsided, his breathing returning to a more normal rate. “I am so sorry about that.” Reg released a weak laugh. “It’s just that everyone has spent all this time telling me how grateful I should be about being the heir. How lucky I am that Sirius left so I could have the benefits of being heir. I didn’t want it. You’re the first person to agree that it fucking sucks.”
“Oh, it sucks really bad.” Regulus laughed again. Maybe this was what he could do when his friends were sad, make them laugh. None of his friends had really come to him for comfort before, except Pandora and that was a special case.
“I’m here okay?” Evan whispered, the spell of silence returning to the room. “When you want to rant and rave about how much it sucks.”
“The same goes for you Ev’,” the nickname Regulus rarely used slipping from his lips, “I get it now. You’ve been alone in this for a long time but I can help.” Reg just let a sad smile cross his face. He actually considered for one second sharing his newfound problem with Barty but decided that maybe it wasn’t the time.
“I’m going to go to bed, thank you for this,” Reg said shyly. Like the sobbing earlier wasn’t embarrassing but saying thank you was. Evan just watched him slowly stretch from where he had curled in on himself on the windowsill, padding across the room to his bed and shutting the curtains with a small smile.
—------------------------
Monday 20th September 1976.
8.39 am.
First-floor corridor.
“You didn’t have to walk me up here,” Barty said. He was using Pandora’s shoulder to scribble some hastily written notes out of a muggle studies textbook onto a piece of parchment he had found at the bottom of his bag. Truthfully they were on strict orders from Regulus to not let Barty walk alone in the castle, he was still in a jittery mood after spending all summer in the Crouch household.
“It’s no bother,” Pandora said calmly, “I’m on my way back to my tower anyway.” They couldn’t let Barty know he was being watched by them. They had suggested to him once in third year that he needed ‘support’ (Dorcas’ words) when he first arrived back from a holiday and he had refused to speak to any of them for 2 weeks, getting twice as many detentions as usual during that time.
As they rounded the corner they could see several students huddled in small groups at the end of the corridor. Barty had complained endlessly that he had no friends in his muggle studies class and that he sat at the back and everyone refused to talk to him. In fairness he was the only Slytherin taking the class, all the others had point-blank refused or defaced their option paper when it was offered at the end of second year.
“OI! Watch it Crouch.” Mason fucking Trembley. A right wanker.
Evan could see Edmund Avery and Wilhelm Wilkes hovering behind, a little unsure of what to do. Trembley was a tall guy, heavy set as well, and would have made a good beater if he was inclined to do sport.
Evan nodded his head in acknowledgement of Avery and Wilkies. They weren’t friends but they moved in similar social circles outside of Hogwarts, their fathers were close. It was Avery’s father along with a couple of others that Evan had seen speaking in low tones with his father more than once over the summer, when he was there of course.
“Oh yeah? What are you going to do about it?” Barty fired back, he had dropped his muggle studies homework and bag onto the floor near his feet.
Evan could see Trembley pulling himself up to his full height, not that much more than Barty or Evan but enough. He knew what was going to happen, Barty would bait them into a fight and being the loyal friend he was, Evan would be obligated to ‘help’.
“You had a fucking mouth on you Crouch and one day it’s going to get you into some serious trouble.” Trembley spat.
“Is that meant to scare me?” Barty replied with a cackle. “Big Bad Trembley is gonna scare me?”
That was clearly the line that pushed Trembley over the edge, they had been slowly stepping closer and closer together through their little verbal spat. So much so that when Trembley shot a hex at Barty, he barely had time to lift his wand to deflect it.
From there chaos exploded. He could see out of his periphery, Pandora arguing with Wilkies. But Evan had already trained his focus on Trembley. Any minute Avery was going to join the fight and he was a brutal opponent.
Barty was throwing hexes left, right, and centre, it was his main form of fighting. His magic was so quick that it was almost impossible to do anything but block and hope.
Evan could see the moment Barty had his back slightly turned from Avery that Avery would take advantage. Casting a quick stinging hex to defer Avery’s attention from Barty and onto himself.
Avery and him shot hexes at each other like their life depended on it. They wouldn’t hurt each other, not really. But when Avery sent a painful boils hex into Evan’s side it still burned. He could hear Barty and Trembley still viciously throwing hexes into each other.
Avery turned to look when Trembley made a particularly painful groan and Evan knew he had won. Another stinging hex to the side of Avery’s thigh and a cutting hex that graced the top of his shoulder pushed him that little bit further away from Evan.
He glanced up at the fight still happening between Barty and Trembley. Trembley was on one knee, still trying to fight. One side of his face had swelled and one arm was seeming to hang limply at his side.
Barty on the other hand was standing tall over him, shoulders thrown back. He looked graceful and elegant. In control. Evan was already panting from the fight but he swore it became a little harder to breathe.
“BARTY CROUCH JR AND MASON TREMBLEY! What the hell do you think you are doing!?” Professor Hughes was marching out of his classroom with his dark blue robes billowing behind him.
The fighting stopped, Avery had been trying to inch closer to Evan in the 2 seconds he had stopped to look at Barty. They had stopped throwing hexes at each other and instead, Barty took the opportunity to step back towards Evan.
“2 weeks detention for both of you. You too, Mr Avery and Mr Rosier. I saw you as well. Now Mr Crouch get cleaned up and inside, Mr Avery take Mr Trembley to the hospital wing. The rest of you. Walk. Away.”
He made swift eye contact with Pandora. They had been on strict instructions from Regulus to not let Barty get into any fights and instead, Evan had joined the fight. They hadn’t even tried, not really. It was what he needed, a little stress release, it wasn’t healthy but none of them were.
He could see the tension had eased out of Barty’s shoulders a little when he bent to pick up his bag and homework which had clearly gotten stood on at some point in the fight. Regulus was going to kill him. But when Barty turned around, with that mad grin on his face, blood running from a busted nose and split lip, Evan understood, just a little, what the fuss had been about with Barty this year.
Chapter 8: The Replacer
Summary:
Cas and Evan have a heart-to-heart and Reg and Sirius meet again for the first time.
Notes:
The second chapter of the night! I love how annoyed I get at Evan being so dumb when I was the one who wrote him being that dumb, it is at the end of the day my own fault.
TW
Internalised homophobia (Evan "can't be gay" as the heir)
Homophobia (Barty's father calls him a poof)
Minor mention of fatphobia (Evan doesn't want a second helping of dinner because that would make him look fat)
Implied references to the Black household and parenting (child abuse)
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
James, a Hebrew name meaning Supplanter or Replacer.
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Thursday 30th September 1976.
4.01 pm.
A doorway. 1B classroom. 1st floor. Hogwarts.
“Pretty Boy!” Cassie was waving frantically from the other side of the corridor. She had clearly gone back to her dorm room between her last class and meeting him now. She had low-rise bell-bottom jeans paired with a tour shirt of WAND’s 1972 UK tour, tied just underneath her bra.
“You didn’t have to wait for me.” They started weaving their way down the busy corridor, between groups of 4th years waiting for McGonagall to open her classroom to them and students trying to leave the castle for various lessons.
As they were winding their way up the staircases and corridors to get to the library, Dorcas was filling Evan in on all the gossip she had managed to find out from a sleepover in Pandora’s dorm room last night. Including what Jen O’Donnell thought of her date with Barty last weekend at Hogsmeade.
“So apparently he was very handsy through their date which it’s Barty so I can well imagine, then he managed to convince her to get off with him in the toilets of the three broomsticks which is honestly disgusting.” Evan knew this information already, Barty had come back and given them a far too in detail description of O'Donnell's tits. He had gone into a bit of a strop when Barty wouldn’t shut up about his bathroom escapades, going to bed early and refusing to answer Barty’s probing questions.
“Then when they were walking back to the castle, Jen’s sister saw him, you know the one 2 years above in our house, Helen or Hilary or something.”
“Heather” Evan corrected.
“Yeah exactly,” He had to step to the side when Cas threw her hand out so wide she nearly smacked him in the face. “Oops sorry. Yeah, so she saw her sister holding hands with Barty and got properly angry because they kissed at the party at the start of the year. So she threw an auguamenti at his face.”
“Serves him right.” He said bitterly. He was being childish; he knew that. Barty had always slept around. Hell he was no better himself, he’d managed to shag 3 girls this month already. But he didn’t share in the same way Barty did, almost like he was rubbing it in their faces. Parading around how many people he pulled, how he was the castle’s heartthrob right now (words Barty had actually used to describe himself 5 times this year).
“Are you alright?” They had made it to the library and were making their way to their favourite table near the back. It had a huge window overlooking the forbidden forest behind it for natural light, 5 seats so in earlier years they had all sat at it comfortably, and it was in the ancient studies section so hardly anyone had to come to the section. It was quiet when they needed to concentrate and private when they wanted to gossip.
“Fine.” He said, dumping his bag next to one of the chairs.
“You don’t sound fine, what’s wrong?” Dorcas sat opposite him, the Gryffindor girls were meeting them here again. It had become a bi-weekly thing, every Monday and Thursday afternoon they would meet and ‘study’ for an hour in Evan’s frees. He was fine with them now, not friends but Evans had stopped jumping every time he reached across the table for a book which was at least progress. He got good gossip out of it too, some of which he sent back to his mother which did at least help warm his parents up to him being seen sat with them.
They hadn’t been angry as everyone had expected, just worried for him and his social status within the Slytherin pureblood lot. Of course, comments had been made, all of which he had shut down very quickly. People were starting to get used to it and would stop writing to his father as often.
“Nothing is wrong, Cas just drop it.” He snapped. She just threw her hands up in defeat as he pulled out his astronomy essay about magical flora and which moon to collect it under.
They worked in tense silence for a couple of minutes. Cas kept stealing glances at him and he was keeping his eyes forced on his parchment.
“I just.” He let out a sigh. Cas had pushed her essay away from her and rested her elbows on the table the second he had inhaled to speak. “I know I’m being dumb about this okay.”
“At least you know it.”
“You don’t even know what I’m going to say yet.”
“No, but I know you’re going to be dumb about it.”
“Fuck you.”
“You love me really.”
“Anyways!” he said pointedly. “It’s just that Barty has come back from the holidays and sure he looks great and everything. Like it’s not his fault he looks that fucking good.” Cas was giving him a bit of a weird look now. “But it’s a lot right?”
“I don’t get what the problem is?”
“He is sleeping with all these people which is fine and it’s his free time to do what he wants but it’s all the damn time. Like I am constantly being told about his latest conquests and how good they are.” Cassie was definitely giving him a look now, he just couldn’t work out what it meant.
“Also! He’s totally blowing us off to go hang out with all these hookups. We’re meant to be his best friends. We share a dorm room for fuck sake and I don’t feel like I ever see him because he is always with those fucking girls. They don’t know him. They don’t care about him or his problems or what he likes. They just care if he shags them well. Which I am sure he does because that’s all I ever fucking hear about is Barty and his fucking dick!”
His chest is heaving now, worked up about something he didn’t know he cared that much about. Like sure he thought of it often, like when he woke up and before bed and when he saw Barty or any of the girls he knew he shagged, there was even a rumour that he shagged Adam Moore 2 weeks ago. But he didn’t know that he was so angry about it.
“Do you want me to be honest Evan?”
“Always.”
She took in a deep breath and almost seemed to steel herself for what she was going to say, “You’re jealous.”
What?
“Of Barty?”
“Ummm. Sure.” She didn’t sound sure.
“Not of Barty?”
She leaned forward to put her hand over his, “Partly of Barty yes, but more of the girls Barty shags.”
He wasn’t. Was he? Like he had compared himself to Adam Moore when they were sat in Charms last week. They had a similar build, and similar hair colour, but Moore was definitely shorter than Evan. Definitely.
“Why would I be jealous of them?” He did catalogue every girl that Barty slept with in his mind and kept an eye on them, noticing when they got close in class or at meals knowing they had touched Barty but that was normal, right? Regulus watched his brother with a similar level of attention, but they were brothers. He had a brother obviously, but Barty was kind of like his brother.
Right?
“Do I have to spell it out for you?” He wanted to snap that actually yes she did have to spell it out because it wasn’t making any fucking sense in his brain right now.
“But it’s Barty?”
It’s Barty.
Fuck it’s Barty.
“I don’t like Barty!” He suddenly announced, catching on to what Cas was implying. “I don’t like guys.”
He thinks.
Maybe.
None of them had really ever come out to each other, not in the traditional sitting someone down and announcing that they had something important to say and then declaring they’re into the same gender. They kind of just implied that their crushes weren’t all the opposite gender.
Barty had been first, naturally. They had been playing a game of truth or dare in their 3rd year and Pandora had asked Barty who the hottest person he had ever seen in real life was. Barty had easily stated Sirius Black, no one had really been shocked apart from Regulus who had freaked out that it was his brother.
Pandora had always just stated that love was love when asked about any of her crushes, she prattled incessantly about her crush on Aoife Miller in her 4th year and then after Christmas switched to Ben Brown. Truly who were they to question the heart of Pandora?
Regulus was more difficult, always playing his cards close to his chest but one day when Barty had broken down in their dorm about a letter from his father. Crouch Snr had waffled absolute nonsense about not wanting a ‘poof for a son’. They had tried to be comforting but in the end, the only thing that had gotten Barty to stop crying was Regulus stating that they weren’t so different and then how Barty had been Regulus gay awakening. Barty’s ego had inflated twice as big for a whole month after that.
Dorcas had needed some time, she wanted to be absolutely sure before saying anything. Only truly admitting what they all kind of knew at the end of last year when she admitted that maybe her rivalry and hatred for McKinnon was not entirely true.
But Evan was straight. He was. He shagged girls and enjoyed it. A lot. He fantasised about girls, he dreamed about girls, and his future contained a wife and children. He had never stopped to consider another option.
“You’ve never caught yourself staring at Barty by accident, never thought about what it would be like to kiss him, never thought of anything remotely sexual about Barty.” Cas was either explaining this slowly to him like he was a toddler because she thought he needed the explanation at 0.5x speed or because she thought he would run if he heard it any quicker.
“I don’t like Barty okay. I don’t like guys.” He turned back to the essay in front of him. Cas just kind of left him in silence after that. The rhythmic scratching of her quill was calming to his mind.
“I’m not allowed to like guys.” He whispered.
That was the truth. It didn’t matter if he liked them or not.
He wasn’t allowed.
His parents had never been homophobic and never said anything bad about gay people. Had never even suggested that it was a bad thing for any of their children to be into the same gender. He supposed it was their more paganistic beliefs. How they believed that when people fell in love, true love, then their souls were actually connected. Soul mates.
But that only extended so far. And in the end, Evan was the heir and that meant children. More heirs.
Which meant that no matter what, he was to get married to a respectable woman probably of his parents' choice or at least with their involvement. Produce 2 children ideally. Always have a spare. More if they could manage. And live a life of high society, managing estates, and heterosexuality.
No matter what.
So really did it matter if he had watched James Potter on a quidditch broom a little too closely? Or Sirius Black throw his head back in laughter flashing his long pale neck? Or how Regulus undid his tie at the end of the day with long pale fingers?
It didn’t change anything.
The heir to the house of Rosier could not be gay.
Not even for Barty.
—------------------------
Monday 4th October 1976.
6.18 pm.
Slytherin Benches. The Great Hall.
“Mais vous seriez si mignons ensemble” Pandora complained. They sat halfway down the Slytherin benches. Some people had complained in their first year about Pandora sitting with them because she was ‘from the wrong house’ but they quickly learnt that anyone who did that would wake up the next morning to spiders in their bed, Evan and Regulus had managed to charm them to bite when people made rude comments about Pandora. It had been Barty and Dorcas’ job to smuggle them into the dorm rooms.
“You’d be so cute together though.”
Evan had made the mistake of telling her about his conversation with Dorcas the previous week. She had immediately jumped on the idea of them becoming a couple. Obviously, she had listened to his concerns about their parents and their expectations on him. But she hadn’t truly got it.
“Je ne l'aime pas.” He felt like he had been repeating himself for 4 days now.
“I don’t like him.”
They sat with their friends, hence the slightly secret French. Regulus, the only person who may have vaguely been able to understand him, was staring off into the distance across the hall. “Ce n'est pas grave parce que je ne peux pas de toute façon”
“It doesn’t matter because I can’t anyway.”
Barty was sitting with Dorcas on the opposite side of the table to him, chatting animatedly about the upcoming quidditch match against Ravenclaw in 3 weeks. He just looked so alive. The way he would fling his hands up to gesticulate anything and everything. There was never a dull moment around Barty. He just made you want to do something reckless, something insane.
“Parce que nos parents.” Pandora stated bitterly, catching him watching Barty. She clearly just wanted his happiness and this weird jealousy over Barty and his ability to pull people was not helping.
“Because of our parents.”
A movement out of the corner of his eye warned him that Barty and Dorcas had suddenly leant towards them at the mention of their parents. They all had it a bit crap at home so they tried to protect each other where they could.
“En parlant de nos parents, as-tu répondu Papa?”
“Speaking of our parents, have you answered Dad?”
Ahh. That.
The answer was no. He was avoiding it. Avoiding dealing with it.
His father had written to him over the weekend asking that he start taking more of his Rosier heir duties more seriously. He wanted to start sending over things for Evan to read and learn about. The wizengamot, managing estates, and that other thing.
The death eater thing.
The thing was that he didn’t care. Not really. Not like his father thought he should.
So he was just simply not answering. If his parents ask he’ll claim he was busy with school work and his new Dutch language learning.
And the Barty problem.
He wasn’t going to tell them that though. It was bad enough that Dorcas and Pandora knew how childish he was being about Barty.
“Charlie?” Pandora waved a hand in front of his face. He had been pulling a Regulus and staring wildly into space.
“Hmm?”
“We’re done, you coming?”
“Sure.” He wasn’t done. He wanted a second helping of dinner but that would; one make him look fat and two, mean he’d have to sit there alone. Code for someone coming to talk to him. So yes he was done.
They were slowly making their way out of the hall with about 200 other people. He was chatting to Barty about charms homework that neither of them had done for the next day.
Regulus was on his right silently brooding about something or other when he felt Reg being shoved into him.
“Watch where you’re going.” Sirius snarled out. Fuck.
The brothers had mostly stayed away from each other at school. Different houses, different years, and different friend groups helped them not have to interact. Until moments like these when they were volatile.
They still didn’t know exactly what had gone down over the summer. His father had managed to find out that Sirius’ ‘lack of family discipline’ actually meant he had refused to join the dark lord. But what had actually happened between the brothers exactly no one knew. But it boiled down very simply for them now, they were either on Regulus’ side or Sirius’. No questions.
“Or what?” Regulus fired back. “Going to hex me? Do it, prove you’ve not changed at all”
The anger that overcame Sirius’ face was immense. He immediately lunged for Regulus, only Lupin managed to get there before Sirius could reach them. People had moved out of their way, creating a vacuum where the brothers stared each other down.
Barty and Evan were on strict instructions.
Do. Not. Engage.
Before the summer, Reg would have happily let them wind Sirius and his band of idiots up until they shot the first hex, firing back as a team in ‘self-defence’. Now it was a different story. It was Regulus’ fight, Reg’s decision, 4 months ago he would have walked away from Sirius’ teasing. Now his wand was gripped loosely by his side, ready.
If it got ugly or anyone else (Potter or Lupin namely) got involved then obviously they backed Regulus all the way, coming up to stand shoulder to shoulder with the Black heir.
“It’s not worth it, Pads.” Potter was explaining calmly. “It’s only your brother.”
Sirius ripped himself out of Lupin’s grip at Potter’s words. “No Prongs. I have no brother. If anything I consider you my brother.”
What.
The.
Fuck.
It was delivered with the most amount of venom that he had ever heard. Sirius truly believed that Reg was dead to him. What the fuck had happened in that house.
The band of Gryffindors had marched off to the other end of the corridor led by Black at a punishing pace. Leaving the Slytherins to stand dumb-founded in the middle of the main corridor of Hogwarts.
“Let’s go,” Pandora said in a quiet voice, pulling Reg’s arm towards the staircases down to the dungeons. Regulus hadn’t torn his eyes away from the spot where Black’s head had been but allowed himself to be pulled along.
They didn’t hurry back to the dungeons, Regulus wasn’t moving quickly enough for that. But they maintained a tense silence the whole way back, even Barty had shut up for once.
To purebloods, especially sacred 28, family was everything. Your house was your livelihood, it defined who you were, how people saw you, and who you associated with. Your family came first in everything, blood was everything.
What Sirius had done was shocking enough, to turn your back on your parents and brother was the highest crime that he could have committed. But to openly and publicly state he had no brother, no family, there was nothing worse. If Regulus needed an excuse to hate him then what Sirius had said would be it. It would have been better to spit in Reg’s face.
They had made it back to the dungeons, through the common room and into their dorm where Reg sat perched at the end of his bed, back ramrod straight, silently staring at the floor like he was about to regurgitate his dinner onto it.
None of them really knew what to do, no one had done this before. Even Andromeda admitted she had sisters. They all just stood in a semi-circle staring back at Reg.
“Mate?” Barty started. Reg just held his hand up in his face.
“Okay.”
Back to the weird silence.
Barty slunk away to his bed to start the charms essay he hated, clearly he had tried and was not going to try again. They didn’t have long before they were meant to be at quidditch training. Hufflepuff had cancelled their Monday evening slot at the last minute due to a confusing case of sickness that the entire team had gone down with, Talkalot had grabbed at the chance for 3 training sessions that week before their first match.
“I’m going to go to my dorm and change for training, I'll be back,” Dorcas whispered into the silent dorm after a while. Regulus still hadn’t moved, and Evan wasn’t sure he was breathing.
“Chess?” Dora indicated her head to him and the set that was on Evan’s drawers. They settled in the middle of the room on the floor, pulling the pillows off of his bed to sit on. Regulus still hadn’t moved, now at least it looked like he was staring at their match instead of the floor.
They stayed like that for a while, quietly playing their game and shooting Reg worried looks every couple of minutes. Dorcas had returned and stayed for a bit whilst Barty changed into his training kit, Evan pointedly didn’t look. Reg still hadn’t moved. Eventually, Dorcas said she would make excuses to Lucinda Talkalot for his absence.
It would take another 45 minutes for Evan to finally beat Dora at their game of chess. She offered to proofread his divination essay on retrocognition and its use for seers, it had been interesting to write but having a seer for a sister did make divination easier.
“Astronomy tower.” Reg hadn’t spoken for 2 and a half hours, hadn’t looked up from the floor, hadn’t moved an inch except to shut Barty up. But now he threw his cloak over his shoulders, stepped over Dora and him in the middle of the room and swept out, not even offering a half glance in their direction.
Barty and Dorcas had returned 20 minutes later, Barty swinging his beater bat and Dorcas stretching her shoulders. They had frozen in the doorway when they saw no sight of Reg, sharing worried glances at each other.
“Astronomy Tower,” Dora explained in a quiet voice, despite Reg not being there anymore, the quiet sombre mood in the dorm hadn’t really evaporated.
“Ahh stars,” Barty stated with a knowing nod and went to the bathroom to shower. Evan just replied to Cas with a shrug when she turned to him.
Notes:
My poor children are having a rough time. Again I apologise for my terrible French, do let me know if anything needs adjusting. Ailbhe :)
Chapter 9
Notes:
It counts as a Sunday/Monday upload if I upload it on Tuesday right?! Anyway, I know I say I love all my chapters but this one is fun, Evan is once again being an idiot by my own hand and once again they're dumb together.
TW for the chapter
Implied child abuse
Implied assault (a passing comment is made about what happened to Mary McDonald)
Chapter Text
Friday 8th October 1976.
11.35 am.
Arithmancy Classroom (7A). Seventh Floor.
Evan wasn’t listening. Professor Vector was pacing the front of the room delivering a mind-numbing lecture on the magical properties of prime numbers. He was, of course, meant to be listening and taking notes, this was a core focus of the subject and would undoubtedly be on his O.W.Ls. He was instead staring at Barty, who was sat next to Regulus, on the table diagonally in front of him.
Although they all took the subject, Dora being in a different house had her lesson with the Gryffindors, leaving Evan to sit with someone random. Truly he didn’t really mind Edward Abbott, he nudged Evan when he wasn’t paying attention and Professor Vector was looking for someone to ask a question to. But he would much rather have sat with his friends.
Although he now had a perfect eyesight of Barty. He sat with his back a little rounded, not drilled perfect posture like Evan and Regulus had been when they were children. His brown, slightly wavy hair was starting to fall into his eyes so he had to push it back with his hands every couple of seconds. He really should get it cut but he hated going to the barbers in Hogsmeade and wouldn’t trust Dora with a pair of scissors. He was tapping his foot restlessly on the ground in a way that drove Reg crazy but Evan didn’t mind. His long fingers were loose around his quill as he listened and refused to take notes, his dark brows pulled together in a look of concentration that made more than just Evan stare at him. He got it. He understood why people were enamoured with Barty, you’d have to be blind not to be.
He just wasn’t one of them.
He felt a nudge at his arm, prompting him to look away from where he was staring at Barty and back to Professor Vector who was attempting to catch someone out for not listening.
“Uses of prime numbers,” Abbott whispered to him just as Professor Vector caught his eye.
“Destruction spells, Concealment spells, and spells that restrain an opponent,” Evan answered smoothly, Regulus had insisted that they actually do the pre-reading for the lesson yesterday evening before letting him or Barty sleep. Professor Vector was incredibly strict and very prone to shouting if she thought someone wasn’t taking her subject 100% seriously.
“5 points to Slytherin.” She replied with a sour look.
Just as she turned to start writing something about square numbers, he felt a ball of paper hit the side of his head.
Whip that answer out of your arse? Jr x
Barty was bored.
He could feel Abbott attempting to read the note over his shoulder, Evan was sure he was trying to be subtle. He turned around to hunch over a little, obscuring his reply from nosey Hufflepuffs.
I did the pre-reading.
Balling it back up he silently waved his wand, flicked the note back onto Barty’s desk and turned back to the chalkboard. He had just started concentrating on the lesson again when he felt the paper being tossed back to him.
Please Rosie, I know you skimmed it the same as I did.
Barty had accompanied this message with a stick drawing of Regulus with what was probably a stick but looked more like a broom up his arse. Unable to hide his snort of laughter at Barty’s drawing (he was actually talented at drawing, he just never used it for anything) Evan quickly hid his mouth with his hand.
Making sure that no one was paying attention to him, he set to work on his reply, a very detailed picture of Professor Vector on fire. Was it the nicest thing to do? Probably not but he never claimed he was nice.
He got to watch as Barty looked at his drawing and his shoulder shook with silent laughter. That was where it all started to go wrong, Barty clearly had gotten too excited with the idea of whatever he had drawn and didn’t check to see if Professor Vector was watching.
“Evan Rosier and Bartemius Crouch!” was screamed from the front of the room just as the piece of paper hit the side of his head. Fuck.
“10 points from Slytherin for not paying attention.” She waved her wand and the piece of paper started flying towards the front of the room. Double fuck. She was not going to enjoy the drawings on the paper as much as he or Barty did.
Evan started to sink into his chair as people turned to look at the two idiots who had managed to piss their professor off. “Skimmed the pre-reading, did we, Mr Crouch? And Mr Rosier, this is a lovely drawing of me on fire. But can you explain this one?” The room was deadly silent, she was pointing to the picture Evan hadn’t managed to see that Barty had drawn of Professor Vector.
“Well you see Professor,” Barty started. “That’s you being eaten by a dragon, the head is a little wonky but I think I captured your likeness very well.”
Professor Vector’s eyes were slowly narrowing as Barty dug them deeper and deeper into the hole they had created. “Both of you out.” She said in a deadly voice. He hadn’t been actually kicked out of a class since 2nd year when they vanished Reg’s earphones and he fainted. Again doing stupid shit with Barty.
Their chairs made an awful scratching noise on the floor as they both pushed to stand up, gathering their parchment and books in their hands. “I’ll be glad to see you both for detention tomorrow morning.” Evan felt his eyes roll before he could even stop them, “Make that two detentions for you both, Mr Rosier, for your attitude.” Barty just huffed a laugh in front of him as they both dragged their asses out of her classroom.
Stopping outside the door, they turned to look at each other, eyes meeting in the middle of the silent corridor. All at once a hysterical laughter overcame them both, Evan had to bend in half and Barty managed to drop all of the books he had just picked up. They just couldn’t stop, it wasn’t even that funny of a situation, in fact, it was quite bad as they were both sure to get a bollocking from their respective fathers for getting detentions.
Eventually, they calmed down, Barty had sunk down one of the walls to be leaned against it on the floor and Evan was wiping his tears from his eyes against the other wall.
“Wanna go smoke in the dorm before lunch?” Barty suggested when they had both managed to catch their breath. “I thought she was going to start killing us with her eyes when I was talking about the dragon.”
“Oh she definitely wanted to kill us for that one, maybe tomorrow's detention will just be our execution.” It felt weird to be wandering down nearly empty corridors, obviously as they made their way down from the 7th floor and closer to the main corridors and stairs they had to weave past more and more people. But there was barely anyone about.
The other houses, Gryffindors especially, had become more weary of walking alone around the castle. There were more and more reports of people going missing or being found dead in the papers every day and plenty of rumours about what was happening in the castle. There was even a rumour that one of the Slytherins in the year above had assaulted someone with the imperious curse but no one knew who it was. Barty had tried to find out for weeks, with a weird intensity, who it was but everyone was suspiciously tight-lipped about it.
“Barty, aren’t you meant to be in muggle studies in 15 minutes?” he asked once they had made it down to their dorm. Evan wandered over to the windowsill, lighting the cigarette in his mouth.
“Nah, Professor Hughes has already given me a detention this week so won’t give me another for missing his class.”
“I don’t know how you keep up, always missing class and all that.” Barty had finally made it over to where Evan was leaning against the stone and was trying to subtly steal a cigarette out of his carton on his nightstand.
“Genius mind, Rosie.” He replied, lighting his cigarette with the tip of his wand.
“How did you do that?” He turned to Barty suddenly, not realising how close they had actually sat to each other. He could smell the pine notes of Barty's cologne and the slightly smokey smell that always hung around Barty like he had just let off fireworks.
“Just a controlled Incendio, nothing fancy.” He replied, turning to face Evan. He could see the slight freckles over Barty’s nose that were quickly fading in the Scottish rain.
He felt his eyes flick down to where Barty’s cigarette was held loosely in his lips, long fingers came up to pull it out of his mouth and white smoke curled out. He had paid slight attention to Barty’s lips previously, they were certainly nice to look at, but not as he was now. “Are you going to give me another lecture about buying my own cigarettes?” Barty’s lips curled in a slight smile at his words.
He pulled his eyes quickly from Barty’s mouth, feeling more caught than with Professor Vector. “You do need to buy your own, or at least start supplying. My Mother is getting suspicious.”
“I’ll get you some for your birthday?” Barty teased.
“Sure, then you can stop stealing mine, I’m nearly out.”
They lapsed quickly back to silence. It was nice like this with Barty, he didn’t need to fill the silence, didn’t need to make sure he was being who he was meant to be, no expectations. Just two teenage boys smoking to pass the time.
“What do you want for your birthday?” Barty asked after a while. He had been staring at the end of Evan’s bed for a couple of minutes.
“I don’t know, Junior. Whatever you want.”
He could feel Barty’s eyes move to scan his face, checking to see if his words matched what he was thinking. He knew Barty did this, made sure people weren’t lying to him, trying to placate him with empty niceties by watching them intently. He knew how to read anyone, every twitch in his eyebrows or muscle moved around his mouth meant something to Barty. To be friends with Barty was to be watched.
He didn’t mind it actually. He would never actually lie to Barty, partly because it was useless and partly because he didn’t want to. Unlike other people, he wasn’t scared of Barty’s bad moods, his intense temper, his impulsiveness, and his need to defend himself when he felt wronged. Other people shied away from Barty in these moments, scared of what the wild look in his eye would lead him to do.
But not Evan. He thrived on it, whether that look was directed at him or at someone else, it made Evan feel alive, invincible. It was like staring the devil in the face with not a single fear of death.
“You sure? What if I get you something terrible? It’s your 16th.” Barty’s eyebrows were pulled together in a look of worry that Evan rarely saw on Barty. He was always so sure, so confident.
He took a drag of his cigarette, “I will like it because it came from you, not because of what it is.”
“Good because you are impossible to buy for,” Barty said, eyes crinkling with mirth.
“Me? Why am I impossible?”
“You literally have everything you could ever want, anything you look at so much as twice is delivered to your door by your parents the next day.” He’d looked away from Evan now, staring at the floor next to his feet. None of them particularly liked their parents, their parents probably didn’t like them either but at least Evan and Regulus’ parents tried to buy their way into their children's love.
Barty’s mother sent him letters regularly, usually with packages filled with sweets, but nothing ever worth anything. The Crouchs were not poor, far from it, but Barty’s father would never let Edith Crouch send her son anything other than sweets bought from Diagon Alley. Maybe Crouch Snr didn’t even know about those either, he once had sent a very long angry letter because Barty had asked for new quills 3 weeks back from a Christmas break.
“So you’re calling me spoiled?” He said, knocking his shoulder into Barty’s to distract him from the spiral he could see his friend starting on.
“Only a little Rosie, it’s not your fault.” That nickname again. It made Evan’s cheeks want to heat and his stomach to explode in butterflies.
“Oh fuck off.” He was actively avoiding looking anywhere near Barty now for fear he would see everything Evan was trying to hide from him and himself.
They lapsed into a small silence, Barty was clearly deep in thought about something and Evan was trying desperately not to think of anything in case his brain decided to start decoding what Barty calling him Rosie did to him.
“So really, anything I get you, you will like,” Barty said eventually, in a small voice.
He would love anything Barty got him. Barty was his best friend, all of them were, obviously, but they all had a different part of Evan’s heart but Barty was special. With everyone else, there were small reminders of who he was, who he was born to be, and what the expectations of him were. But Barty was a break from his life, a breath of fresh air.
He wasn’t going to tell Barty that, a bit too intense for lunchtime but he attempted to explain, “You know I love my lighter, right?”
“Yeah, never let anyone touch it.”
“Exactly, all it is technically is a standard enchanted lighter from a cauldron shop in Place Cachée, the French version of Diagon Alley.” Barty nodded in understanding. “But my Mum chose it for me because she thought I would like it, not because I needed it or wanted it.”
He slipped it out of his pocket and handed it to Barty, nodding when he looked for permission to hold it. The silver of the casing shone under the pale green lighting from the lake, Barty’s fingers slid over the engraving at the bottom. “What does it say?”
“Pour Mon Ange. For My Angel. My Mum calls me her angel, the lighter is special to me because my Mum put thought and effort into it, it’s a piece of her.”
“I think I get it.” Barty replied, handing the lighter back slowly, “It’s the thought not the money spent.”
“Exactly.”
Barty looked up suddenly, gazing deep into Evan’s eyes where he had been watching the other boy. “I love hearing you speak French.”
“Really?” He heard other people say that French was the sexiest language, some of his hookups loved that he had his accent, asking to call them things in French. But he didn’t get it really, it’s the language he spoke with his mother, the language of his home.
“Yeah,” Barty breathed out. “It feels like you. It just makes sense, you know.” Frankly, he didn’t know but he was enjoying Barty attempting to explain the inside of his brain too much to stop him.
“Ugh, I’m screwing this up. I mean that obviously, you don’t speak English as your first language and I always got the sense that speaking English works your brain twice as hard. You just sound so natural speaking French. Like your thoughts come to you easier.”
Ahh that. He thought in French and translated to English, which if you speak to anyone trying to learn a second language that is very much not how you’re meant to do it. You’re meant to learn how to think in English so that you don’t have to translate in your head but he never learnt how to do that properly.
“Yeah I get you, I do think in French. It’s easier, sometimes I think about writing my essays in French and using a translation spell but they’re not that reliable.” He had 2 copies of almost all of his textbooks, one in English and one in French.
“Speak to me in French. I won’t understand it but please?” Barty asked, leaning towards Evan so they were sharing the same air. Both of their cigarettes had long burnt out, leaving them both slightly smelling of smoke. He could see Barty’s eyes, so dark they almost looked black in most lighting but this close he could see the rich brown of his iris’. That feeling of impulsivity that Barty could alight in Evan was strong now, he wanted to reach forward and pull Barty to him.
He thought for a second, “Vous me confondez. Je ne comprends plus mes sentiments à ton égard. Tu es mon meilleur ami et tu me donnes envie de faire quelque chose de stupide.” Barty’s eyes lit up at Evan, a small smile on his lips that Evan wanted to taste.
“You confuse me. I don't understand my feelings towards you anymore. You're my best friend and you make me want to do something stupid.”
“What does it mean?” He breathed. Evan wasn’t about to tell him what the confusing thoughts in his head had released themselves as.
“Not yet.” He was definitely going to do something stupid. “Maybe one day.”
“Are you two decent in there!” Dorcas' voice sounded through the door, causing Evan and Barty to jump away from each other.
Evan could feel his cheeks heating with embarrassment at what he had almost done. “Yeah, we’re fine.” He called, standing to put some distance between him and Barty.
Dorcas strode into the room, she had Friday afternoons off so had changed into another pair of jeans and an orange flowery top with bell sleeves that he definitely had seen Pandora wear over the summer. “Barty, you promised you would lend me your care of magical creatures notes.”
“I’m going to go find Pandora.” He said, desperately trying to leave the room. Barty was just there and it was annoying him. “Is that her top?”
“Ohh. Umm. Yes.” He recognised it as one that his mother had bought her last year when they had gone to Paris during the summer.
“Don’t break it, it costs 10 galleons.”
“10 galleons?” She squeaked out. “That’s more than my wand!”
He was just about to slip out of the room, “So don’t break it.”
He could hear a muttered ‘fucking hell’ from Cas as he made his way back to the Slytherin common room. He needed to find Pandora to talk some sense into him about the whole Barty situation before he did something he regretted.
Eventually, after traipsing around the entire castle he found Pandora lying in the rare Scottish sun on the grounds outside the greenhouses. Throwing himself down next to her, narrowly missing her feet, “Dora.”
She sat up, taking his face in her hands. “Charlie”
“I’m freaking out.” He can tell Pandora anything, including this, but is he ready to verbalise what is happening in his head? Not really.
Dora spends what feels like minutes staring into his eyes. People didn’t like making eye contact with them. Evan had been told by multiple people at Hogwarts that his stare was like being looked through, it is probably something to do with their bright blue eyes, they unnerved people.
“Pretending it’s not happening?” She decides to ask in the end, finding whatever answer she was looking for in his eyes.
“Exactly.”
“Okay.” She flops back down onto the grass, “Regulus is meeting me here by the way.”
“Great.” Just who he didn’t need to see right now, someone who not only reminds him of the responsibilities he holds like creating children, but also someone who Pandora tells everything to so probably already knows about Evan being stupid.
“Want me to read your tarot about your situation?” She’s trying to make cloud shapes in the sky with her hands like their nanny taught them to when they were 4.
He shuffles so he’s lying next to her on the grass, content to just lie with her. There are no problems in his head when he’s with his sister. Twin magic.
“Maybe later, I don’t want the universe right now.”
Chapter 10
Notes:
Hi Guys! Guess who's crawled out of the pit of worsening symptoms and work to post! I have decided to change my posting schedule rather than on specific days I'm now just going to aim for 2 uploads a week as much as possible.
TW for the chapter
reference to bad parenting ( by both the Rosier's and the Black's)
Mentions of Anal sex
Mentions of internalised homophobia
Chapter Text
Monday 11th October 1976.
12.18 am.
5th year boys dorm. Slytherin Dorms.
Evan had chosen to spend his entire Sunday evening sitting on the windowsill. It was cold, hard, and he was pretty sure his lower body had entirely gone numb. But he had enjoyed watching the fish float past, he had even swore he had seen some of the giant squid. His history of magic homework had been done and the revision he needed to do for his charm test the following morning had been completed. He had even found time to write his mother and father back.
He had also managed to chain smoke his way through a pack of cigarettes in about 4 hours. It didn’t make his lungs feel amazing nor did it make him smell very nice but it quieted his mind a little.
Barty, Reg, and Cas had come and gone through the room about 4 times each since he had been there. Pandora was off at some divination thing that had just started under the new professor. Evan had, admittedly, refused to speak to them all. Not out of any kind of annoyance or anger, more that he couldn’t be bothered to spend time in his brain trying to form words and sentences. The longer he got through 5th year the more the workload and stress were getting to him and sometimes he needed an evening of peace and quiet.
Obviously, when you’re friends with Barty Crouch you don’t really get any quiet. He had come into the dorm room to complain he was bored and annoy Evan twice as many times as anyone else. Eventually, he sulked off when Evan refused to engage once again. He wasn’t trying to push Barty away intentionally, it was just that when you went to a boarding school with about 499 other students, you didn’t get much time to yourself.
“Hey Evan,” Reg said, swinging the dorm room door open. He had been more subdued in the last few days since his run-in with Sirius. Not exactly shut away but he spent more time out of the dorm room than in it and definitely spent more time staring into space than he did before. None of them really minded it, it didn’t mean that Regulus didn’t care about them, he just needed time to process everything that had happened both during the holidays and once he had returned to school without Walburga breathing down his neck.
“Hi,” he said, throwing his hand up in greeting. “Where did you end up going after dinner?”
Regulus had chucked his bag at the end of his bed and started pulling off his shoes, “did some work in the library and then took a walk around the grounds. Trying to enjoy the weather before it starts snowing. Finished some work in the common room after.”
Evan just turned back to the book he was reading and taking notes out of, it was something his father had sent for him to read about managing estates and finances. It was mind-numbingly boring but it made his father stop sending increasingly angry letters at him about him not doing his duty.
“Ev’, how many of these have you had?” Regulus had somehow gotten changed into some comfier-looking clothes since Evan had last looked up and was now dangling his cigarette carton in his face.
“What does it matter?” He said, reaching up to snatch the box out of Reg’s hands.
Regulus just scrunched his nose up at him. Evan would never tell him but he looked just like his brother when he pulled that face. “You stink of them.”
He just turned back to the book in his lap, he was currently halfway through a chapter about strategic management of commercial properties when he felt Regulus snatch the quill from his hand. “What the fuck?” Regulus didn’t reply and instead calmly closed the book, replaced the lid of the pot of ink, and carefully placed all of them back on his bed in a neat pile along with the diligent notes he had been taking.
“Okay, talk. What’s wrong?” Regulus had slipped onto the windowsill next to him and swiped a cigarette from the carton he had just been scolding Evan with.
“Nothing is wrong?” He had been calmly minding his business before Regulus decided to interrupt.
Regulus just huffed a sigh, lighting his cigarette with a lighter he fished out of his pocket. “Evan, I have Cassie coming to me for advice on how to apologise to you. Barty has been moping to me all evening about how you won’t talk to him. Pan even said she was worried that something had happened. All the while, you’re sat up here chain smoking like your life depends on it and reading a book on managing fucking estates which I know you hate so don’t make me repeat myself, what is wrong?”
He couldn’t look Regulus in the eye any longer, instead deciding that the view out of the window was far more interesting. If Barty watched people to make sure you weren’t lying then Regulus stared into your soul to read your thoughts before you had them. His eyes were a piercing grey colour that was shared by all the Black cousins, but Reg’s had a particular quality that made you feel like Regulus already knew the answers to his questions before he asked them.
“I think the pressure of everything is just getting to me a little right now.” He said in a small voice after a while. “And my father is being a bit of a dick.”
Regulus shuffled a little closer now that there weren't Evan’s books in the way, pulling his knees up to be under his chin again. “I thought me and you were going to talk about these kinds of things. I mean I cried to you Ev’ that’s not something I do to literally anyone.”
He felt a flush of anger work through him, “oh yeah? You’re a hypocrite of the highest degree.” he spat, standing with his back to Reg. “You’re not exactly sharing your inner problems, you’re refusing to even mention Sirius’ name.”
The silence that overpowered the dorm settled like a thick blanket, he knew he had crossed a line. None of them shared about their families and so none of them pushed, but something about the way Regulus had insinuated that he was the problem had rubbed him the wrong way.
“Well then.” Reg stood from the windowsill and slowly climbed into bed, sliding the curtains shut around him.
Sirius had always been a sore subject for Regulus, at first when they were children it was because someone only mentioned Sirius to Regulus because he was off hiding doing something he shouldn’t. During the year Sirius had been at Hogwarts without Regulus, Reg had refused to even say his name in case he started crying about how much he missed his brother. Then they arrived at Hogwarts and the deterioration of their relationship truly began.
Reg had believed that when he had arrived at Hogwarts, his brother would have saved a space for him, a space in his friendship group, in his quidditch team, in his life. And Sirius hadn’t, he had created an entirely new life for himself, one that definitely didn’t include his younger brother. It had been brutal to watch how hopeful Regulus had been on the platform waiting for the Hogwarts Express and then how far his face had fallen when Sirius emerged from the train with his arm around a different boy.
“Reg. I’m sorry.” He started, staring at the still-closed set of curtains. “I didn’t mean to push you about Sirius like that.” He knew it wouldn’t be enough, Reg could hold a grudge like no one else he knew, the anger festered away inside of him.
He saw the curtains twitch momentarily, “It’s okay Ev’.” He just silently turned back to the windowsill, he should be getting ready for bed but the idea of lying in the dark with his thoughts was not a fun proposition.
He felt Regulus sit beside him a little while later, he hadn’t actually seen him move, he had been staring silently at the floor trying to decide if he could get away with smoking another cigarette. He knew he needed to start talking, and needed to make amends with Reg by sharing first.
“Father’s being a dick right now.” throwing his head back against the cold glass of the window. “He’s more paranoid than he has been before, he wants to know what I’m doing every second of the day, and wants to vet everyone I spend my time with.”
Regulus released a deep sigh, “I bet hanging out with the Gryffindor girls is not helping.”
He knew Regulus had doubts about them, but Cas really liked McKinnon and Evans had actually helped him with his potions homework the previous week. He enjoyed their company no matter how much people worried about it.
“Yes and no. He doesn’t mind McKinnon, what with her father sitting on the Wizengamot with him and everything and the gossip that McDonald gave me has helped Maman manoeuvre to have Araminta Shafiq over which apparently got them the votes they needed on a bill they wanted.”
Regulus was silent for a long while, mulling over everything. He did that a lot, let you spill something and then digested the information for a long time before responding, making sure what he said was exactly what he meant.
“Is he more worried about something? More concerned with a specific problem?” He asked in a quiet voice, almost not daring to suggest what he was.
He knew what Regulus was implying, what he was asking about. It was just whether Evan could tell him what he already knew without upsetting him. “He wants to make sure he’s keeping his heir.”
Regulus almost seemed to curl in on himself further with the confirmation. “So it’s about him.” As if Reg couldn’t even bear to say the name of his brother, the one he used to cry to Evan and Dora about missing so much whilst he was away at Hogwarts.
“Yeah, it is.”
Evan hated breaking Reg’s heart like that, he knew that Reg felt responsible in part for Sirius’ running away, as if he could have stopped him at the door or something. Or changed his parents’ actions. As if he could have been the reason Sirius stayed.
There were no more words that needed to be said on the matter, they knew where they stood in society now. Evan could no longer sidestep his responsibilities as he had been so successful at doing up till then. And Regulus would take the place his brother had left, accepting the weight with open arms, to atone for not being enough for Sirius.
“I don’t have a brother anymore,” Regulus said quietly after a while, he wasn’t crying but Evan could hear the choked quality of his words.
He couldn’t feel the pain that Regulus was in, Pandora would never leave him as he would never leave her. And Felix would always be his little brother no matter what, family above everything.
“You’ll always have me and Barty, Dora and Cas too. But Barty and I will never leave.” He said quietly, injecting as much confidence into his voice as he could. “Family doesn’t have to mean blood.”
Regulus slowly turned in the windowsill to face Evan face to face. It was a tight fit, not really wide enough for their legs like it used to be when they were 11. He looked up to make direct eye contact with Regulus’ intense grey eyes, watching as he flicked between Evan’s eyes and face, analysing him. Without dropping his eyes, Reg inches his hand up to hang in the air, “Brothers?”
“Brothers.” He replied, grasped Regulus’ hand in a firm handshake.
Their bond was strong between the 5 of them, but he knew that he and Regulus would be connected forever. They were including each other in the family that they would burn the world for. They both lived in a society where family truly was everything to you, your first priority, your first thought, where there would be no limit to what you would do for them. And they just expanded their family.
—--------------------------------
Wednesday 13th October 1976.
11.05 am.
A Bench. The North Courtyard.
“What if we just didn’t go?” Barty had been trying to convince them all for the last 20 minutes to skip herbology. Apparently they ‘basically already knew the stuff’ and ‘it was common sense anyway’.
He had tried to explain to Barty that unlike him the rest of them actually did need to pay attention in class and actually do their homework in order not to fail their OWLs at the end of the year. The pressure that the teachers were starting to mount on them was becoming unbearable.
“Come on Junior, you know we have to go,” Pandora explained calmly, she and Reg had been judging everyone’s hairstyles the entire break.
Barty looked at Pandora like she had committed the ultimate betrayal. “Ugh. Why? It’s boring as hell and Sprout hates us.”
“Speak for yourself, Sprout loves me,” Dorcas piped up.
“Sprout just hates Evan and Barty for all the stupid things they do in her lessons,” Reg said, trying to warm up his hands against the cold wind. “Is that Sarah Anderson? Wow, she has backcombed her hair way too strongly.”
“Come on, you guys are gonna be late if you don’t get a move on.” Dorcas had conjured a mirror from somewhere and was checking out her makeup in the reflection.
“Easy for you to say, you’ve got the rest of the day off,” Barty said over his shoulder after he had hauled himself up from the floor. “Are you trying to look nice for someone?”
Cas shut the mirror with a snap, “No Crouch! Not everything is about other people. Maybe I just wanted to make sure I looked okay.” She swung her bag onto her shoulder with such violence it managed to smack Evan on the shoulder quite hard.
“Don’t hit Ev’ with your bag! He was an innocent bystander in this whole thing.” Barty had spun around to square up to Dorcas easier.
Barty and Cas loved each other dearly but they also managed to wind each other up and bicker like siblings every minute of every day. How they were going to play on the same Quidditch team in a match without insulting each other was going to be a challenge.
“Whatever, he’s your problem now,” Cas said, turning on her heel and heading back into the castle.
There was silence for approximately 5 seconds before Barty yet again ruined the tranquillity. “Yeah she’s definitely got a date or something, she braided her hair and everything.”
“Leave Cassie alone.” He said, swinging his own bag onto his shoulder and picking up Pandora’s in the process, walking off in the direction of the greenhouses.
Barty had sped up his steps to end up walking alongside him, “Ev’ do you ever think about -”
“I’m gonna stop you there,” He said holding a hand up to stop Barty’s reply “I am literally never thinking about what you’re thinking about.”
“Wow Rosie, a bit mean,” Barty said, clutching at his heart.
“I’m just warning you.”
“I was gonna say,” He said pointedly as if it was vastly rude that Evan had dared to interrupt him. “If a couple does anal on their wedding night, does that count as consummating the marriage?”
He just shook his head in response as they walked around the corner of the courtyard and next to the rows of greenhouses. “Yeah I was right, I was not thinking about that.”
Barty was quiet for a few seconds, seemingly pondering something in his head. “But does it?”
“I don’t know? Probably not I guess.” He wasn’t sure where Barty had got this idea in his head about anal sex. It was also not the sort of thing that he really wanted to discuss with Barty of all people.
It suddenly occurred to him that Barty had probably had that kind of sex before, with another man. Probably Adam Moore. Thankfully he wouldn’t be in the class they were heading to, he wasn’t really sure he could handle sitting in a class with a guy that Barty had probably shagged.
“That is a bit homophobic,” Barty replied, unaware of the sudden inner turmoil in Evan’s head.
“Well pureblood marriages are known for being a bit homophobic” He said a little sharper than he intended to, drawing Reg and Dora’s attention.
“What the fuck are you two on about?” Reg had scrunched up his nose, raising one of his eyebrows.
“Anal.” “Nothing.” They both replied at the same time.
“Barty was being weird again,” Evan said directly at Reg, not meeting Barty’s eyes.
“I was not!” Barty exclaimed. “I was asking a legitimate question.”
Reg looked at them strangely again. “About anal? Do you need tips?” They had managed to almost reach the front of the classroom now and Evan did not need the entire class whispering about how they were talking about anal sex.
“From Evan? The straightest guy we know? Surprisingly no.” Barty said almost bitterly.
He whipped his head around to meet Barty’s eyes again. “I’m the straightest guy you know?” There was an almost pain in Barty’s eyes, one that he couldn’t dream of working out the source.
He could see the exact moment his words had been misconstrued to Barty, shocked and almost excited look on his face. “You’re not straight?” He couldn’t have that kind of rumour or idea going around the school in any capacity, not with his father breathing down his neck as he was.
“That’s not what I implied.” He quickly shut down.
Barty’s face almost seemed to crumble in on itself, losing all of the spark it had. “Oh, right yeah of course.”
He knew that Barty struggled with the fact that he liked men and women and how that made him a slight outsider. But within the friendship group, Evan being straight was far more of an unusual trait than Barty being bi. He probably just hoped that someone related to him.
“Are you okay?” Evan whispered as they filed into the classroom behind Sprout, it was loud enough that no one was going to overhead them.
“Yeah! Absolutely fine.” Barty replied in a rush seeming to run away from Evan and towards Reg where they started immediately, furiously whispering between them.
Pandora just patted his shoulder in solidarity as Sprout called their attention to the front.
Chapter 11
Summary:
Pandora invites the Gryffindor girls to a birthday party and Evan makes fun of her crush.
Notes:
The beginning of my PandaLily agenda is beginning! I really like this chapter, I liked delving a little deeper into Evan's relationships with people outside of his friendship group.
TWs for the chapter.
minor mention of drugs
minor mention of alcohol
minor mention of arranged marriage
Chapter Text
Thursday 14th October 1976.
4.18 pm.
A Table. Ancient Studies section. The Hogwarts Library.
Evan was actually managing to get something done amongst the 6th year girls that still gossiped all the time like their life depended on it. Despite them meeting many times since that first meeting, they still could find 2 hours each week worth of interesting stuff to gossip about.
He had been attempting to finish his herbology essay for the next morning when McDonald leaned over and whispered “Rosier.”
She was leaning on the table with both her elbows, the end of her quill tip in her mouth. Her black curly hair was pulled out of her face by a maroon silk scarf.
He made a ‘get-on-with-it’ gesture at him when she just stared not saying a word. “Oh right yeah. Dorcas said you were good at Defence against Dark Arts, I know it’s a year above you but is there any chance you could look at my essay?”
He didn’t know why she was asking him, surely one of the Gryffindors could have looked at her essay or even one of the other girls at the table. Maybe it was a peace making gesture, trying to break the ice from where he sat and silently worked and they chatted around him.
“Hand it over, McDonald.”
“Oh, call me Mary. McDonald is far too formal.” She flashed a brilliant smile at him.
He just gave a small smile in return and turned to start reading through her essay. He could see Evans watching him out of the corner of her eye, trying to determine what his ulterior motives were.
The essay was good, clearly Mary had more of a brain than people gave her credit for. She always came across as boy obsessed and a vapid gossip, usually seen fixing her hair more than fixing her essays but it was clear that she had a talent for magic.
He was about a quarter of the way through when he spotted his sister’s long blonde hair out of the corner of his eye, “Ca va?”
“Ca va.” McKinnon seemed to jump halfway out of her chair at Pandora appearing over her shoulder.
He pulled his eyes away from Mary’s essay in front of him to look his sister in the eye. There was something different about her, a tightening of her shoulders, she was spinning the rings on her left hand around. “Tu es sûr que tu vas bien?”
“Are you sure that you’re okay?”
“Absolument.” She said with an air of finality.
“Pan!” Cas had finally turned from where she had been far too engrossed in a conversation with McKinnon to notice Pandora. “What are you doing here?” She waved her wand and conjured another chair, dragging it closer to her for Pandora.
“I umm. I need to ask something.” She seemed to steel herself for what she was about to ask. She was wringing her hands more violently now like she was going to rip her fingers off.
“Charlie, allez-vous regarder l'entraînement ce soir?” She said after a pause, slightly deflating.
“Charlie, are you going to watch training tonight?”
He looked back at her confusedly. His eyes had drifted back to Mary's essay about the theory of non-verbal spellcasting, assuming the question that was prompting so much anxiety in her was not directed at him. “Umm. Non?”
“J'ai besoin d'une soirée pyjama avec des jumeaux.” Pandora could have waited till dinner to try and find him to ask that, or just turned up at his dorm which is what she usually did when she needed him. There was no reason to drag herself all the way to the library to ask.
“I need a twin sleepover.”
“D'accord?” She had stopped tugging at the end of her hair and spinning her rings but there was still a tightness around her eyes that wasn’t leaving even as he agreed. “Bon ou mauvais?”
“Okay?” “Good or bad?”
"Je ne sais pas." Pandora not knowing was never a good sign, if she thought that Evan might have the answer then it was bound to be serious.
“D’accord?”
She took a deep breath, looking at the other girls who were all staring at her in slight confusion "Filles." She whispered.
“Girls.”
“Ahh, d’accord.” He said with a slight laugh. That was the one area that Pandora never seemed to have a good grip on things, her love life. She said it was because it was the only thing she never got visions about in any way so it was the only thing that the universe didn’t give her any guidance in.
“Are you okay Pandora?” Cas said, clearly not picking up the context of the small French conversation they were having.
“Yes!” she gave a small smile to Cassie, before whispering to herself. “D'accord, je peux le faire.”
“Yes!” “Okay, I can do this.”
She swivelled in her seat to face Evans who was nose-deep in a transfiguration book. “We’re having a party for mine and Evan’s birthday on Saturday. Would you guys like to come?”
“Oh! Umm, sure. We can do that right guys?” Evans was clearly caught out being asked a question, a light blush was dancing across her cheeks.
Ah, the party that Dorcas and Barty had insisted that they had for their 16th. Evan had refused at first, a party was what his parents wanted to throw for their birthday, it would be full of political and social allies and none of Evan or Pandora’s friends. It would be for finding a wife or making sure he was viewed in the proper way as the upcoming Rosier heir.
They had doubled down and maintained that it would be nothing like what his parents would organise for them. Instead, it would be full of drinks, drugs, and women which he and Pandora had considered for 2 seconds before agreeing to. Now apparently it was going to include Gryffindors.
“Absolutely! Just give us the details.” McKinnon replied. “Are you going, Dorcas?”
“Oh I’ll be there McKinnon don’t you worry.” Cas sat back on her seat, a small smile playing over her lips at the eagerness in McKinnon’s tone.
“Look pretty for me then.”
Cas raised one of her perfectly done eyebrows. “Are you saying I don’t look pretty for you now?”
“Oh no! Not at all! You look beautiful!” A dark blush had worked its way up McKinnon’s neck and onto her face as she scrabbled to correct the implication.
“Thank you, McKinnon,” Cas said slowly.
“Smooth Marls, well done,” Mary whispered under her breath. She and Evan shared a small smile when they caught each other’s eye.
“Okay, I’ll see you then I guess.” Pandora threw a small wave over her shoulder at them as she stood and left the library.
Evan had turned back to Mary’s essay, almost finished going through it. There was an unusual silence that descended over their table. Evans still looked like she was processing Pandora asking them to their birthday party. McKinnon looked like she wanted the ground to swallow her up. Mary was working on another essay and Cassie was biting her lip to try and hide the smile that was threatening to leave her mouth, no doubt replaying McKinnon calling her beautiful in her head 1 million times.
“Rosier, can I ask you a question?” Mary broke the silence, she was tapping the feather end of her quill against the table.
“You can call me Evan, you know?” He pushed Mary’s essay back towards her across the table. “It’s really good, I think the paragraph about concentration doesn’t flow very well but the information is all correct.”
“Oh thank you, Evan.” She seemed surprised that he would complement her academic abilities. “You’re like really French, right? You and Pandora.”
“Err. Yes? We’re just French.” He wasn’t sure where she was going with this.
“But you actually speak French and stuff?” She waved her hand as if that explained everything.
“I live in France?”
“You live in France?” Evans lifted her head.
He wasn’t about to explain the intricacies of them owning multiple houses and the agreement his parents had made over which house they spent more time in. “Yeah. When we’re not at Hogwarts, we’re in France. I spend like 3 weeks out of the year in England.”
“Right, so really French, like with your accent and stuff. Why don’t you go to Beauxbatons?”
“That.” He let out a sigh. He was gripping his quill so tightly it was giving off slight snapping noises.
“You don’t have to explain if it’s a sore subject or anything.” She rushed to correct, laying a hand on his forearm where it rested on the table. It wasn’t a sore subject, per se, it just made Evan boil with anger. It was just going to be difficult to explain to 3 Gryffindors, who all probably adored Dumbledore.
“My family did some things in the 1920s that made Dumbledore petition the Wizengamot to not allow Rosiers to be educated outside of Great Britain. Outside of his … control.” He explained slowly. He could see Cas lean forward to make eye contact with him, searching his face for whatever answer she was looking for.
“That doesn’t sound like a bad thing if it’s for your protection?” McKinnon queried. Evans and McDonald had gone surprisingly quiet.
“It’s a punishment, not a protection.” His quill finally gave up its stance against Evan’s fist and fell into multiple pieces across his parchment. “I’m sorry I need some air.” He rose suddenly, his chair making a horrible noise against the stone in the quiet of their silence at his biting words.
He had intended to not allow them to see how much it pissed him off that Dumbledore had felt the need to step in and make his opinions so public, how one afternoon in the ministry of magic had ruined 600 years of Rosier tradition.
He had managed to make his way out of the castle, leaning against the brick with a sigh. He was under strict instructions not to talk too much about things like that. Not to reveal how much they hated Dumbledore. His father would have drinking nights with Aunt Druella and they would complain endlessly about him, how he’s ruining everything.
His family were still siding with the Dark Lord. He knew this. Nobody else really knew except for those in the inner circle, they were convinced it was something to do with hating muggleborns, how they thought they were better than everyone because they were pureblood. No, it was a venomous and intense hatred of Dumbledore and what he had done to their family. Personally.
He lit a cigarette, feeling the smoke work its way into his lungs and dulling the throbbing anger in his veins. Every time he thought he had calmed down enough, McKinnon’s question or McDonald and Evans’ silence would remind him how much he hated Dumbledore. In a sudden spike of anger, he whirled around and kicked the stone, hard.
“Mary doesn’t mean to piss you off.” Evans. He wasn’t sure how long she had been standing there, watching him have a slight meltdown at a simple question.
“It’s not her I’m angry at.” He liked their company and Pandora seemed to have a crush on one of them so it was in his interest to make them think that he wasn’t annoyed with them.
“Do you want to talk about it?” With Evans? Absolutely not. He didn’t know her well enough to know if what was swirling in his head would frighten her or not. They worked hard for their image of not being Voldemort supporters, not blood supremacists, he couldn’t have it all crashing down because he couldn’t control his anger. He didn’t want to incur the wrath of his parents for messing up their carefully laid plans.
“Not really.” He turned to face her, she was still standing in the archway to the castle. It was surprisingly not raining, just another day of endless grey clouds. “Why did you follow me?”
“I wanted to check if you were okay. Mary can pry sometimes.” Great. Evans was worried about him. He turned back to gaze over the hills surrounding Hogwarts.
“I’m fine Evans. I’ll be back in a minute.” He was sure it came out much sharper than he intended.
He was left in blissful silence for a few minutes, sure that Evans had taken his words and gone back inside. He was just about to stub out his cigarette when he heard a faint “My friends call me Lily.” He turned to the archway, sure he had misheard Evans call him a friend when he found the archway already empty.
The corridors were getting busier as it neared time for dinner, but he could clearly see Evans' red head of hair walking at quite a pace in front of him. He hurried to catch up, pushing past overly excitable first years to finally catch her at the entrance to the library.
“We’re friends?” he asked, slightly out of breath from the speed Evans was walking.
She bit her lip slightly, eyes darting everywhere without making eye contact with him. “I-.” She took a breath, meeting his eyes head-on. “Yes Rosier, I think we could be good friends. You’re Pandora’s brother as well which helps but I enjoy our study sessions and I would like for you to call me Lily.”
He allowed his lips to curl into a small smile, “Well then you’ll have to call me Evan.” Allowing her time to relax at his words before adding “If you’re going to be celebrating my 16th with me.”
She groaned, dropping her head into her hands. An unexpected chuckle worked its way out of his chest at her obvious embarrassment about how the conversation with his sister had gone. She just turned on her heels and marched back into the library.
At their table, Evan could see Dorcas with her arm wrapped around Mary’s shoulder, Marlene on her other side whispering soothing words into her ear. The second that Mary heard their footsteps and saw it was Evan, she leapt up.
“Evan, I am so sorry. I didn’t mean to offend you. Oh god, I can go back to calling you Rosier if that makes you feel better. I am so sorry. I thought it was a simple question. I really didn’t mean for it to get deep. I can go if you need.”
“Hey.” He reached up to catch her shoulders, stopping the endless rambling and apologising. “You didn’t offend me, just needed to breathe, that's all.”
“Have a cigarette more like,” Lily muttered walking around him and Mary to sit at the table.
“Okay good. I thought we were making progress.” Mary turned, sliding back into her seat.
He walked his way around the table back to his broken quill and half-finished herbology work, nodding when Dorcas shot a look at him, asking him silently if he was okay. “If I was that easily offended I wouldn’t still be friends with Barty.” He watched the three Gryffindor girls attempt to school their faces to a somewhat neutral look at the mention of Barty.
“Is he going to be at the party?” Marlene asked, attempting to sound casual and failing.
“Of course.” He said reaching into his bag for a new quill. “It was his idea.”
They descended into silence once more, everyone actually working on their essays, enough drama caused by Evan for one day.
—-------------
Thursday 14th October 1976.
7.58 pm.
Evan’s bed. 5th year boys dorm. The Slytherin Dungeons.
“I hate how much warmer it is down here compared to Ravenclaw Tower.” Pandora stood in the middle of his dorm, brushing her hair. She was wearing dark blue jogging bottoms that their mother despised and a ‘Dragon!’ band T-shirt that Evan was 90% sure was Barty’s.
They used to have sleepovers a lot when they were younger, they refused to be separated at all for the first 6 years of their lives and the household staff got bored of trying to change their mind. As they got older they decreased in frequency, it was usually when Pandora had a bad dream she would wander down to Evan’s dorm, climbing into his bed at 3 am. But sometimes one of them would request a sleepover, partly to recharge their twin connection now they stayed so far from each other and partly to confess something that they refused to share with anyone else. Evan had a feeling it was going to be about the second one that night.
“It’s nicer in the winter than your draughty tower.” He said with a shrug. It was common that every house thought they had the best end of the stick when it came to common room placements.
“I raided the kitchens for us on my way down.” Pandora reached into her bag and produced several bags of sugary sweets, throwing them down on Evan’s covers.
He was standing having a final cigarette before he got into bed, it was a bit early to be turning in but Regulus and Barty would be back soon from quidditch practice and they would distract Pandora. It was better that they were tucked behind his curtains before they returned or Dora struggled to not chat to them as well.
He was glad that he and his sister shared a friendship group, it made spending time with her a lot easier and where Pandora went Evan went also. But occasionally he just wanted to spend time with his sister, just the two of them, and their friends would steal her attention away.
Evan wouldn’t consider himself an overly jealous person, but his sister was a different story. He overheard Pandora call Dorcas her sister once in 2nd year and Evan hadn’t spoken to the two of them for a week. He didn’t even particularly care that Pandora suggested that Dorcas was like a sister, Pandora didn’t have any of those so it made sense but it filled Evan with an anger he hadn’t felt very often. He was Pandora’s sibling, he and Felix were the only two who got to claim that and no one else.
“Are you coming?” he hadn’t even realised that he was staring into space, grinding his jaw so hard it ached and letting his cigarette burn out in his fingers.
“Oh shit, yeah coming.” He climbed in next to her and shut the curtains, casting a silencing spell so that they could chat in peace. Pandora lit her wand and chucked it into the pile of food at the end of their bed.
They were a bit too big to be doing this in the Hogwarts beds. At home, they both had double beds so it was easier to share but at school, they were just larger than singles. He and Barty had tried extending them once for post-party fun but the beds had stayed the same size, they had joked about castle contraception for weeks.
“Go on then. Who is it? McDonald? If you say McKinnon I think Cas will kill you.” Pandora let out a weak laugh at that.
“No, Lily Evans.” She replied almost shyly.
Evan knocked his shoulder into hers, “Ah, the beautiful red-haired Gryffindor has caught your eye.”
“Don’t make fun of me.” Dora pushed back, reaching forward to open a pot of Bertie botts every flavour beans. Evan couldn’t stand them, much preferring the chocolate frog he pulled from the pile.
“I’m not trying to.”
“I can tell that you are.”
He threw his hands up in defeat, “I’m not, I promise.” Pandora had gone silent again, he could see the signs of her losing herself in her own head. “What’s bothering you about it though, you’re never usually this nervous.”
“She makes me feel like no one else does,” Dora whispered like she was afraid of speaking those words into existence. He and Lily may have only just reached their new friendship arrangement but if Lily made his sister happy then that was all that mattered to Evan.
“I didn’t know you guys talked that much.” He replied after a while, too busy attempting to catch a second chocolate frog that had gotten on the curtains.
“Oh yes. We talk in the library sometimes, not often.”
He loved a good gossip with his sister but she seemed so stressed earlier, there was clearly something bothering her. “So what? You’re all in a twist because you like her so much?”
Dora drew in on herself at that, bringing her knees up and making herself look 12 years old again. “Kind of but there’s something else.”
“You don’t have to tell me.” She was hesitating about something. There wasn’t a single thing he wouldn’t share with his sister, apart from probably details of his sex life, but maybe Dora wasn’t the same, maybe she was debating telling him something.
She flung her head back, harshly banging on the headboard. “The cards are telling me that it’ll end in heartbreak.”
“Oh?” That made him pause. Pandora gave everything to the universe, it was probably something to do with her being a seer, she said she felt a deeper connection to the universe than other people. But the downside was if the universe gave her even a single hint in one direction, Dora would take it as an intense sign.
“I know tarot is ambiguous and it’s not always a clear answer, but I did a five-card love cross two days ago and the ‘likely outcome’ card I pulled was an upright three of swords.” At this, Evan pulled his arm up and around Dora. Tears that were welling in her eyes were now falling freely down her cheeks.
He let her cry into his chest for a couple of minutes, she had clearly been holding this in for a few days and it had reached a breaking point. Seeing Dora cry or in any pain at all broke his heart in a way that he couldn’t explain to anyone. He would take 100 torture curses if it meant that Dora never had a reason to cry again.
“Are you scared of being hurt?” He whispered once he felt that Dora had better control over her breathing. She didn’t give a clear answer, but he took it as a yes. “So you don’t want to crush on her or get to know her because it’s doomed from the start?”
“It’s not just that I pulled the heartbreak card, the three of swords mean grief as well. We’re going into a war Ev’, that terrifies me.” Neither of them spoke for a minute, the threat of war loomed over everyone, and people just liked to ignore that it was happening whilst inside Hogwarts.
“It scares me too.” He whispered. He knew what his future looked like, he knew what his father was pushing for Evan to do. He just wanted to be young and make fun of silly crushes with his sister for just a little longer.
“This is getting too sad,” Dora announced, suddenly finished with crying. “I like a pretty girl for fuck sake, I wanna spend my time fantasising about making out with her.”
“Gross!”
“Shhhhh! I’m having a moment.” Dora stood on his bed, head ducked under the ceiling of his canopy. “I am Pandora Grace Iris Rosier and I like Lily Evans!” She screamed at the top of her voice. He couldn’t help but laugh, he likely didn’t have any ear drums left.
She dropped down at the other end of his bed, sitting cross-legged against one of his bed posts, “So you still denying that you like Barty?”
“Oh shut up!” He said, throwing a pillow at her. “I don’t like Barty.” He could feel heat in his cheeks and he was abusing his poor lower lip.
“Mhm, totally. And I’m half hippogriff.”
“I don’t!” He was resolutely not thinking about what almost happened in the dorm a week ago. He’s thought about it a lot since last Friday, at the time he was convinced he was going to kiss Barty but now that he thinks back on it he wasn’t sure that was what he was going to do. He remembers wanting to do something reckless but even holding Barty’s hand would have been a stupid move.
“Fine. I’ll leave it till you’re ready to admit that Barty gets you all hot and bothered.” Pandora was grinning wildly at him, enjoying winding him up.
“Oh fuck off.”
“Guess what I heard! Laura Jackson and Brenda Taylor had a massive spat at the Hufflepuff party last week.” Dora said excitedly, almost bouncing in her seat.
“Why? A boy?”
“Elliot Smith!” She was clapping her hands now, back to her normal bouncy Dora self.
Chapter 12
Summary:
Evan and Pandora's birthday and some revelations.
Notes:
First of all, posting schedules? what are they? I'm gonna entirely give up on trying to stick to some sort of schedule. Also, my writer's block has been whipping my arse right now. Also also, I forgot to mention a previous chapter, I am going with the conversion rate between galleons and pounds being 1 galleon = £20 so when Evan said something was 10 galleons that's £200 (I'm using the maths from this Reddit post https://www.reddit.com/r/harrypotter/comments/43qv9c/lets_talk_wizard_money_a_look_through_everything/).
TW for the chapter
Drinking (Underage)
implications of sex/making out
hangovers/implied feeling sick
mentions of severed hand
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Saturday 16th October 1976.
11.29 pm.
A Window Ledge. The Slytherin Common Room.
Evan was having fun.
After Cas and Barty had successfully convinced Evan and Pandora that they needed to have a party, the second step had been convincing Regulus, who hated social interaction outside of their friendship group. They had cornered him together after a quidditch practice, berating him the entire walk back to the dungeons about it. Eventually, it had been Pandora, very calmly and quietly saying “please” for Reg to instantly crumble.
And thirdly, they had to get the permission of the 7th-year Slytherin prefects and head boy, Evan had approached Corban Yaxley, Benedict Travers, and Harriet Ogden all of whom had been at the Rosier Lughnasadh ball in August and were close friends of the family. It had been pretty easy to convince them to let them throw a party in the common room, they had even offered to procure the alcohol for them, all that they had wanted in return was assurances that they were on the guest list. He had heard Yaxley bragging the next day about how Evan had ‘personally invited’ him to his 16th birthday party. Harriet had other ideas later and had slipped Evan a marriage proposal under the dorm room door, which he had ignored.
So around 30 minutes before his birthday actually began, Evan was surrounded on all sides by people he loved, drunk off his ass.
He hadn’t actually intended to get that drunk that quickly. It had started when Cas and Dora had again barricaded themselves in the boys' bathroom to get ready and Barty had brought out a bottle of red currant rum from under his bed. They had cracked it and shared it between the three of them whilst waiting for the girls, and had been properly admonished for starting without them. Cassie had then dragged Evan and Pandora into the middle of the common room to start the festivities with a shot of goblin vodka. It had gone downhill from there with more and more people wanting to celebrate with the birthday twins with shots or glasses of unknown alcohol.
He was trying to sober up slightly by smoking next to a window with Barty but people would not leave him alone. Dora, Cas, and Felix (who had gotten special permission to attend as a first year) stood slightly to his left chatting about something to do with magical creatures.
“As promised.” Barty held 2 maroon-coloured cartons of Dunhill cigarettes in his hand. “I didn’t know you had such an expensive taste, Ev’.” Barty had a black pair of jeans hung low on his hips and a black shirt which if he squinted he could see was done up with one flimsy button right at the bottom, displaying an impressive amount of pale, well-defined chest and abs. 2 gleaming gold chains were dangling temptingly around his neck.
“They’re a galleon each, I didn’t know you were that cheap, Junior.” He didn’t let Barty take them back though, quickly slipping them into his pockets.
He was about to offer his half-empty packet to Barty when he pulled a fresh pack out of his own pockets, “These are only 10 sickles.”
“You bought your own.” Shock laced his tone.
“Yep, so you can get off my ass about stealing yours, do still need to borrow your lighter, I don’t trust myself with magic right now.” He thought about leaning over to light the end of Barty’s cigarette with his own but that would put them far too close together, instead choosing to hand his lighter to Barty.
“Evan, my boy! Happy birthday!” Christoph Max was winding his way through the crowds towards him. The common room was far more packed than usual due to Pandora bringing many of her Ravenclaw friends down for the evening.
“Do you know who he is?” Barty whispered as Christoph continued to try and fight to get near them.
“Not really,” He said, straightening his posture from where he had slightly slumped next to Barty, “7th year, sits on the wizengamot with my father, pureblood, his father died young at the hands of The Dark Lord so he doesn’t really like us.”
Christoph had finally made it close enough that Barty and Evan could be overheard if they continued. “Evan, how are you? I brought you a present to celebrate the big day.” He handed over a rather nice bottle of house-elf wine.
“And Felix, so nice of you to be able to join us in celebrating your brother’s birthday.” Felix had been mid-sentence with Pandora when Christoph had pulled his attention. “Could you pass on a message to your father from me, I am yet to receive his opinion on a manticore hunting bill I am trying to pass through the Wizengamot and I would very much appreciate his support.”
“I’ll pass it along.” He replied in a bored tone. With Evan’s clear dismissal, Christoph turned on his heel and strode into the middle of the party. “Oh, and he’s massively sexist.” turning back to see Barty brimming with anger.
“I can see that, don’t worry Pan. I’ll sort it.” Barty put his half-smoked cigarette out on the bricks behind him and marched into the centre of the crowd where Christoph had disappeared with Dora hot on his tail.
“For fuck sake. I need a drink.” He muttered to Felix before making a beeline for the drinks table in one of the alcoves of the common room.
He had just procured his own drink for the first time of the night and struck up a very interesting conversation with Lisa Johnson about finding a broom closet when Regulus appeared at his right shoulder. “Sorry to interrupt the flirting but Cas needs you.”
“Why?” He was already following Reg, throwing an apologetic glance over at Johnson and her very short skirt that he was looking forward to getting his hands under.
“I don’t know, I can’t read her mind.” Reg snapped back. He was wearing a black pair of suit trousers and a dark blue shirt that looked suspiciously like Evan’s, silver rings adorned almost every finger.
The common room was more packed than Evan had ever seen it, almost every 5th year and above Slytherin was there with almost the same number of Ravenclaws. There were a couple of Hufflepuffs and Gryffindors scattered around but he hadn’t seen the 6th-year Gryffindor girls yet. They were weaving their way through the main section of the common room, being stopped every two seconds for someone to tell him a happy birthday.
As he neared the main section of the common room, he could see Dorcas stood on top of one of the tables, shouting at people to create a gap in the middle. Pandora was being dragged along by a - thank merlin - uninjured Barty.
“Ahh, our birthday girl and boy,” Dorcas shouted, signalling for Reg to turn off the record player.
Suddenly, Barty was at his back pushing him into the middle of the circle of people. “This your idea?” He asked, turning to see the glint in Barty’s eye.
“Why ever do you say that Rosie?” He was still being pushed forward until he stood right underneath Dorcas who stopped her yelling to wave at them both.
“Turn to face your admires,” Cas said, twirling her finger around when Evan glared at her. “We are here to celebrate two of the loveliest people I have had the fortune of meeting, Ev’ and Pan’. It would be my greatest honour to lead you all in a great round of ‘Happy Birthday’ for them.”
Just as the common room began to sing a very off-key version of Happy Birthday, Barty and Felix appeared from the side with two massive cakes, both bursting with candles.
This was what Evan would consider his worst nightmare. He hated being the centre of attention, people’s singing was doing his head in, and blowing on candles was unhygienic. But he could also see the massive smiles on Barty and Cas’ faces, even Reg was sporting a small one. Marlene, Mary, and Lily had managed to make it and were off to the side singing very loudly which was making his sister beam. Felix was practically bouncing with the force of his singing, sending the cake he was holding in front of Pandora careening sideways till Cas stepped in.
Barty was standing right in front of him, holding a cake covered in 16 candles, ‘Bon Anniversaire, Evan’ written on the top in swirly chocolate writing. His dark eyes never left Evan’s the entire time he was singing, piercing into him with the force of his gaze, making everyone else in the room disappear. It was as if Barty was the only one singing, it was pulling Evan’s mind off how much he hated every other part of it.
“Blow the candles out!” Dorcas yelled, making Evan jump and break eye contact with Barty.
After they had managed to get the cakes safely onto a table, Reg produced a rather large knife to start cutting them to hand them out to people. He could feel Barty hovering on his left side, waiting for something. “What’s up?”
“What kind of cake is it?” Barty stepped forward, throwing his arm over the top of Evan’s shoulder.
“Umm. A Baba au Rhum cake. Basically, a cake infused with rum.” He was too aware of Barty’s arm, too aware of the entirety of Barty’s right side pressed against his. His breathing. His movements. “How did you know it was my favourite? I didn’t think you could get it in Scotland?”
“Oh, I wrote to your mother a week ago and then bribed the house elves into making it.” That made Evan stare at Barty in open-mouthed shock.
“You wrote to my mother?” He couldn’t process Barty sitting down to write a letter to his mother about anything let alone his favourite birthday cake.
“Yes? Was that totally wrong? I’ve just always heard you talk about your birthdays when you were a kid in France and how much you miss France and the food. I thought you might like a piece of it here -” Barty was stopped from finishing the end of his sentence by Evan turning around under the arm that was still over his shoulder and crushing him in a fierce hug.
“Yes, it was the right thing to do, you idiot.” Voice muffled by Barty’s shoulder.
He extracted himself from Barty’s arms earlier than he would have liked but they couldn’t stand embracing in the middle of the common room for minutes at a time. “Cake time!” He shouted as Reg handed him a piece on a conjured plate.
The record player had been turned back on now that the awful singing had finished. People were either back to dancing or grabbing a piece of cake from Cas and Felix who were handing them out.
“Happy birthday, Rosier!” McKinnon shouted, making her way over through the crowds. Evan had only seen her in either a quidditch kit or school uniform, but now she was in a short a-line dress in a dark red colour, heavy boots on her feet. “Crouch.”
“Enchantée, Madame.” Barty said, nodding his head.
“Never attempt to speak French again.” He said, shaking his head at Barty. “Looking good, McKinnon, dressed up for anyone?”
“It's funny when you tease other people for their crushes but not me Rosier.” She came to stand toe to toe with him, threateningly pushing her finger into the middle of his chest.
“We’re late because she insisted on changing her outfit six times.” Mary piped up from behind where McKinnon was still attempting to threaten him. Barty was chuckling behind him.
“Mary! You traitor!” She whipped around to stare at Mary.
Evan decided that McKinnon was clearly wound up at being at a party with Cas, who deserved to find happiness. “Cas is through there, handing out cake.” He said tapping her shoulder and pointing towards where the line for cake was. She threw a half-hearted wave over her shoulder and dived into the crowd.
He hadn’t noticed Lily in the chaos that was McKinnon but he could see her attempting to look over the top of people’s heads for someone. Lily wasn’t tall, if he had to guess she was about 5 ft 3, definitely not tall enough to see over people. “Pandora is through there talking to our brother.”
“Oh. I wasn’t. I came to say happy birthday to you. I didn’t mean to -”
He waved his hand to stop her rambling. “It’s her birthday too, it's cool. Go say hello, she’s been waiting for you guys.”
It wasn’t until Lily stepped away that he realised Barty had gone too, slipped into the crowd silently and was nowhere to be seen. Mary was looking incredible and was getting more than just a few appreciative glances her way.
“Evan, happy birthday.” She said enthusiastically, although she seemed to be continuously throwing cautious looks out towards the crowd as if trying to avoid someone.
“I’m glad you could make it, Mary. The table of alcohol is that way, would you like company on your way?” He said holding his elbow out for her.
“Always the gentleman.” She replied with a laugh, slipping her arm into his. “You look good, I don’t think I’ve ever seen you in anything other than a school uniform.” He wasn’t wearing anything particularly special even if it was his birthday, just a pair of black jeans sat low on his hips and a black t-shirt that finished at his mid torso.
“You want to know a secret?” He said leaning down a bit so no one else could hear him.
“Obviously!”
“This is actually one of Regulus’ T-shirts that I stole a year ago and then cropped, he didn’t talk to me for 3 days.” Mary let out a chuckle.
“Such a criminal!” She said, rolling her eyes.
The party progressed from there in a bit of a blur, he definitely did a shot with Mary when they made it to the table with all the alcohol on it, danced with various different people, and made out with Susan Hunt in one of the alcoves.
He had just procured another drink when the music suddenly changed; they had had an eclectic mix on all night to appease everyone but now Phil Lynott’s voice from Thin Lizzy reverberated around the common room. Barty had been obsessed with the song when it had come out at the end of 4th year, asking to play it at any chance he could. He wouldn’t have been surprised if it was Barty who had put it on this time.
Barty had dragged them all down to the trophy room on the second floor when he had discovered that Lynott had been at Hogwarts in the '60s, apparently, he was very talented at charms.
He made his way back into the main area to see Barty on a table on his knees with a very realistic-looking guitar. His only button from earlier had clearly given up and his shirt now practically hung off his shoulders, a few hickeys were visible along the bottom of his neck and across his collarbones. He was covered in a light sheen of sweat as he writhed and swung his hips to ‘the boys are back in town’. His jeans were pulled tight over his thighs, thighs that Evan would like to sit on given half the chance.
Evan felt like he was having a stroke.
Every moment of Barty’s hips made his mouth go drier and drier. He couldn’t pull his eyes away particularly when Barty decided to throw his head back in what was sure to fill all of Evan’s erotic dreams from then on. There was heat working its way down Evan’s spine and his dick was definitely taking interest in what was happening.
“He looks good up there,” Pandora said somewhere to his right which made him almost spill his drink down the front of his top. He still couldn’t look away from Barty though.
“Pandora, you were right.” He could see her light up out of the corner of his eye at him admitting that. “I want him so bad. I think I would do criminal things to him.”
“Eww gross.”
The song had made it to the bridge where Lynott whispered ‘The boys are back’ over and over. Barty pulled himself forward till he was resting on his hands and knees, he could almost imagine himself kneeling behind Barty just with far less clothing and Evan being allowed to touch anything he wanted.
Because that was the thing, he liked Barty Crouch Jr. But he couldn’t have him, he was completely off limits still. But fucking hell he wanted him.
—-----------------
Sunday 17th October 1976.
9.28 am.
Evan’s bed. 5th year boys dorm. The Slytherin Dungeons.
They were trying to be quiet for his benefit. But frankly, they weren’t. Barty didn’t possess a quiet bone in his body, Cassie was clearly excited about something, and even Reg was telling them to be quiet at too loud of a volume.
“Shhhh. He’ll kill us for waking him this early.” Cas was trying to explain to someone in the room. He didn’t know how they were all functioning after last night. After Barty’s mouthwatering performance, the party had started to slow down and they had all retreated back to their dorm with various bottles. Several drinking games later even Reg had been on the opposite side of sober and Dora had a chronic case of the hiccups.
“I can hear you fuckers.” He groaned out, his head was killing him and his stomach felt like it was about to show him all the drinking mistakes he had made last night. At least he was semi-dressed in a pair of jogging bottoms and not waking up with a random girl in his bed.
“Shit.” He heard Barty exclaim from somewhere before his curtains were rudely ripped open to display Barty with an excited look on his face and a coffee.
“Mhmm coffee.” He assumed that he was expected to be up and alive so he sat up, swinging his legs over the side of the bed and immediately regretting it. He reached for the cup in Barty’s hand, bringing it to his mouth before hastily retracting it. “Not ready for coffee yet.”
As he prepared to stand he felt someone tap him on the shoulder and hand him a hangover potion, thank the universe for Reg and his potion-brewing skills. Once his stomach felt a little less like he was going to need the bathroom, he stood surveying the room.
Reg was up and dressed, looking like he was ready for a day of study in the library. Cas was in one of Evan’s t-shirts sitting cross-legged on the end of Barty’s bed, cup of tea in hand. Barty was thankfully fully dressed, he didn’t think he could handle a shirtless Barty after the revelation he had had the night before. Dora looked half asleep on her side on Reg’s bed, hair everywhere.
“You woke me before you woke Pandora?” He croaked out, voice still thick with sleep.
“Technically no, she’s just gone back to sleep,” Barty explained, still hovering in front of Evan. “Happy birthday.”
“Thank you.” He offered Barty a smile, getting a mad grin in return.
He didn’t mind his friends seeing him look a little dishevelled but having just woken up was a bit too much. Offering a small smile to Regulus as he slipped past him and into the bathroom to comb his hair, brush his teeth, and wash his face. It was a habit that his parents had instilled in him a little too early in life. Barty had once joked that he had never seen Evan with even a speck of dirt on him. Another reason he would never play quidditch, too much mud and grass stains. It was improper.
“Right. I’m done waiting, we can rewake Pandora but I wanna see these two fuckers open presents.” Dorcas exclaimed, getting up to nudge Pandora awake as Evan exited the bathroom. She pulled a load of cushions and blankets off of beds, batting away Regulus’ complaints of his bedding being on the floor, creating a semi-circle that they all collapsed onto.
Evan had brought his coffee with him, slowly sipping as Cas and Barty brought out the presents from under Barty’s bed. He was a bit worried if he was honest, Barty kept a lot of weird things under his bed and the fact that his presents were also under there was a little scary.
Evan had managed to place himself next to Pandora, who now flopped her head down on his shoulder. “Happy birthday Dora.” He whispered, half expecting not to get a reply back.
“Happy birthday, Charlie.” She whispered.
Two large parcels were shoved in front of his face the second he looked up from Dora, both with his mother’s handwriting on the front, one addressed to him and the other to Dora. In the middle of the circle were several other presents that had come over the last few days, mostly addressed to Regulus so he could hide them before either of the twins got a hold of them.
It took a while to go through them all. His parents had bought him several new clothes, a bottle of Ogden’s firewhiskey which he joked would have been useful the previous night, several of his favourite sweets, some new cigarettes with a note from his mother to enjoy them, a new gold chain that he immediately put on, a few books, and a set of silver and gold chess pieces.
Narcissa and Druella had both sent nice bottles of wine and warm cards. His maternal Grandparents had sent some charcoal drawing pencils (he hadn’t touched his drawings in over 3 years) and his Aunt Vinda had sent an ancient book on dark curses which Dorcas had furiously glared at. Bellatrix had sent something in a box that nobody had the guts to open, probably a severed hand.
Finally, they had made it to the gifts from their friends, Reg had produced season tickets to Puddlemere United's games and Dorcas had bought him a very cool new pair of jeans. Barty claimed that cigarettes and birthday cakes were his birthday presents.
After putting away his presents and taking a very well-needed shower, Evan dressed in a pair of jeans and a warm forest green jumper even throwing a jacket on before winding his way up the stairs to the great hall to meet Pandora who had gone back to her own dorm for a shower.
“Which tree are we going for?” She queried, swinging a basket between them that she had managed to acquire from somewhere.
“There is a good one near the forest, just up from Hagrid’s hut.” He replied, steering them away from running into other students.
That was their tradition for their birthday that neither of them would allow to be broken. They would pack a breakfast of some kind, dress warm, and climb a massive tree, spending several hours 20ft off the ground; eating, chatting, reading or smoking in silence. It didn’t really matter what they did, all that mattered was that they spent the day together doing something they loved.
They would see Felix later, they had made plans for him to come to Evan’s dorm. The three of them would stay up, probably with Reg and Barty, and eat sweets and joke about nothing. Just enjoying each other's presence.
—-------------
Monday 18th October 1976.
1.07 am.
Evan’s bed. 5th year boys dorm. The Slytherin Dungeons.
There was a very quiet rustling of his curtains. “Ev’ are you still awake?” Barty whispered.
“Yeah, what's up?” He sat up, he could see the light from Barty’s wand just outside of the curtains, hovering. “Do you want to come in?”
Rather than answering Barty very carefully pulled apart the curtains and slipped inside. He was wearing one of his raggedy t-shirts from 2nd year that definitely didn’t fit now and a pair of jogging bottoms which also looked about 3 inches too short. He had a brown parcel clutched in his hand and his eyebrows were pulled together in a look of concern.
“I lied earlier, I did get you something else for your birthday, I just wanted to give it to you separately. It’s not much, in fact it’s really small. But I thought about what you were saying the other day about the thought counting more than anything, I shook my head for days thinking about what was important to you and I realised that it was this. I’m sorry if I’ve disappointed you.” He said in a rush, seeming to curl in on himself as he talked.
He shoved the brown parcel at Evan before he could even process his words and then dived out of the bed. “B-.” He called. The other boy turned before he could even finish his name. “Do you not want to see me open it?”
“No.” He turned back without any further explanation, diving into his own bed before Evan could say anything else.
He climbed back into bed from where he had half dragged himself out of it to call after Barty. The parcel wasn’t big, it was square and quite flat. He considered it for a moment, clearly, it was something that Barty was nervous to give him but it was also something he thought he would enjoy.
Eventually, his impatience won out, tearing open the paper to find a picture frame. Inside was a moving picture taken around the end of 4th year, Slytherin had just won the semi-final game against Hufflepuff. Evan had Reg on his shoulder proudly beaming up at him. Reg looked flushed with the attention and after playing a hard game, snitch still held in his hand. Dorcas stood on Evan’s left with Reg in between them, arms thrown up as she yelled loudly. Although the picture had no sound, Evan could still vividly remember nearly losing his hearing after how loud she had been shouting. Barty had Pandora on his shoulders, who had covered herself in Slytherin green and even had painted Dorcas and Reg’s numbers on her face, which had lasted for days. Barty looked so happy in the picture, he regularly had some sort of smile or smirk on his face, usually a slightly mad grin that made others terrified of him. But this was a look of pure happiness.
Barty was right, this was what Evan treasured more than anything, his friends. The people who he would consider family. He pulled his wand out from where it had been resting on his bedside table and cast a sticking charm on the back of the frame, planting it on the ceiling of his canopy bed. He drifted off, staring at the picture of happiness in all of them.
Notes:
43,000 words and he finally admits he may like Barty. serious progress is being made here. I did warn you guys that it would be a slow-burn. I hope you guys enjoyed it! If I can get the next chapter finished before Christmas, I'll post it on Christmas eve, if not definitely before new Year. Ailbhe :)
Chapter 13
Summary:
The first quidditch match of the year.
Notes:
I return! I'll post this chapter before the new year, they said. Did I? No but I think the 2nd is doing pretty well. I love Evan in this one because I too complain about having to watch sports outside.
TW for the chapter
Mentions of injuries from sports (light bruising)
Mentions of Unsupportive parents/negative self-talk because of said parents (we hate Crouch Snr in this house)
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Saturday 23rd October 1976.
9.49 am.
A wooden seat. Quidditch Stands. Quidditch pitch.
“I can’t believe Junior has abandoned us as well so we have to watch the matches alone,” Pandora grumbled. She was huddled with Evan under a huge quidditch umbrella that she had managed to steal from their father at some point last year. The front half was entirely see-through to allow them to see the players zipping through the air and the amount of enchantments to keep them warm and dry under it was astonishing.
Evan could see people eyeing them enviously. Being the first Slytherin match of the season, people were eager to come and see their house team for the first time in action, despite the terrible Scottish weather. The team had undergone many changes since last year, a new captain and over half the team were fresh, people were anxious to see if they had any luck.
Many people had money on Gryffindor for the house cup, it was a team that had been playing together for years with very few changes meaning they worked like a well-oiled machine. Their only new player was a new beater after Black had been unceremoniously dumped off the team at the end of last year. However, they hadn’t yet seen Barty with a beater’s bat.
Evan was yet to actually see Barty play, Dora had made it down to a couple of the training sessions to cheer them on but Evan had always found a reason not to sit in the cold and damp. He would suck it up for an actual match but training was pushing it and certainly not at 6.30 am.
“I just don’t want this match to go on for too long, Reg better be quick today,” Evan grumbled, shoving his hands deeper into his pockets.
Pandora just rolled her eyes, “You like quidditch, why are you complaining?” She returned a wave that some of the Ravenclaw 6th years were sending their way.
He did like quidditch, he just didn’t like quidditch at Hogwarts. The inter-team rivalry was way overblown and if any of them did manage to make it outside of Hogwarts then they ended up playing on the same team anyway. Plus the stadium at Hogwarts had not been made with spectator comfort in mind. “I like quidditch when we sit in the top box at Exmoor stadium. This is cold and damp.”
“Oh quit your moaning.” She pulled a bottle of some goblin wine from the inside of her jacket, waving it at him in question. “You’ll like it when you see Barty in his quidditch kit on a broom.”
He whipped his head around to stare at her, “I thought we weren’t mentioning that?” He knew that there was a slight blush on his cheeks, downside of being so pale.
“The fact that you like Barty or that you stare every time he comes back from training?” She said with a laugh. She hadn’t let his confession at their birthday go, seeing it almost as a sign of their destiny to be together. So half of their conversations went like that, Dora pointing out how obvious Evan was being and himself trying to either deny it or point to reasons why he couldn’t make a move. It was a tiring, endless cycle that wasn’t helping Evan’s rising stress levels.
“Either!” He practically shouted in an unsuccessful attempt at proving to Dora that he doesn’t have an obsession with Barty in his quidditch gear.
The topic of Barty had rarely left his mind since his birthday party a week previously. He foolishly believed that maybe admitting to himself what had been bubbling under the surface of his mind since September (and maybe slightly before if he was being honest with himself) would diminish his damning thoughts.
If anything they were getting worse.
He woke in the morning and was thinking of Barty in the shower, hand wrapped around himself like he had admitted to Evan and Regulus last year that he liked to do. He was sitting at Breakfast thinking of all the places around the castle that he would like to push Barty and furiously kiss him, marking up his long pale neck like he’d seen so many girls do before. He was in lessons and thinking of all the dirty things Barty might whisper to him in the midst of everything. He sat in the evenings in the common room and thought of all the tables he would like to bend Barty over and fuck him till he could only think of Evan.
That one was actually less of a fantasy and more of a general shape of an idea. Evan had never thought about how gay sex worked in that much detail before. He knew the vague idea of where certain things were meant to go but it wasn’t as if the older boys were whispering excitedly about gay sex like they had been about blow jobs in 3rd year. All of his knowledge was gleaned from Barty himself and if the time ever did arise that they actually managed to do anything, Evan did not want to seem like a painfully inexperienced confused guy who was ‘experimenting’.
There was a cough into a very loud microphone, pulling Evan once again from his tiresome thoughts. That was happening more and more to him as his thoughts would wander continuously to Barty. Teachers, friends, and even his sister were noticing that they were having to consciously pull his attention back to whatever room he was actually sitting in.
“PUT YOUR HANDS TOGETHER LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, FOR THE RAVENCLAW TEAM!” The commentator practically screamed into his microphone. It was some overzealous 7th-year Hufflepuff who spent more time rating the players on ‘hotness’ than actually talking about the game. “They are led by Kieran Murphy as Keeper and Captain for the team, rumour has it that there is bad blood in the team over captain choice.”
The Ravenclaw team was trudging through what looked like ankle-deep mud to get to the middle of the pitch, they had barely been out 30 seconds and they looked soaked through. The commentator droned on about players whilst the Ravenclaw stands attempted to give a full welcome to their team.
“AND THE OTHER TEAM FOR THIS MORNING…” The Slytherin stands started stamping their feet as hard as they could, rising to a fever pitch “THE SLYTHERIN TEAM! Led by the experienced Lucinda Talkalot also as Keeper and Captain. They are joined by four new players Evelyn Greengrass and Douglas Flint as the new chasers, replacing the very successful Lucas Goyle and Stephen Flint. And two new beaters for this match, Dylan Morgan and Barty Crouch Jr, doesn’t he look positively dashing in his new kit.”
Unfortunately, Evan would have to agree with the commentator on that one. He had seen Barty in his training kit plenty of times and had foolishly forgotten that they wouldn’t actually play in that kit come game days. The Green game top hugged his arms in all the right way, highlighting the extra muscle that he had continued to put on through rigorous beater training. The plain white trousers, which hugged Barty’s thighs and ass as he marched through the mud, gave Evan a whole new appreciation for Quidditch kits.
All around Evan, he could hear girls giving their equal appreciation to Barty and his decision to join the quidditch team. Various ‘oohs’ and wolf whistles were being thrown his way, with a variety of comments ranging from simple admiration for him to downright sexual harassment.
He should have seen Barty and Reg in their game kit this morning but he had point-blank refused to get up a minute before he actually had to, forgoing breakfast all-together. Thankfully all of his friends believed he just wanted to lie in bed for longer. The actual reason had been that if Evan was in a tight space with Barty in any state of undress or quidditch kit after the treacherous thoughts that had plagued him, he might have jumped him there and then. Did that make him any better than the girls around him? Probably not.
“I told you he looked good,” Pandora whispered, in her all too knowing voice.
“Oh shut up.” He replied, refusing to make eye contact with her, lest she see the blush warming his cheeks.
Luckily Madam Hooch chose that exact moment to explain the kind of behaviour she wanted from her players and ask them all to assume starting positions. All the players did a small loop around the pitch before arriving at their positions, including Barty who seemed to throw a wink in their direction as he passed. Regulus just pulled higher and higher until he seemed to melt into the clouds above.
There was a moment of silence from around the grounds, the only thing showing life was the creaking of the stands in the wind and the pealting of the rain. The entire stadium seemed to be taking a breath in all at the same time.
“AND WE ARE A GO!” The commentator screamed as Hooch blew her shrill whistle. “And that’s Bell with the quaffle for Ravenclaw, he passes to Campbell, who is looking ravishing on a broom this year. She swerves past Meadowes, ducks under Greengrass. Lines up her shot at Talkalot. But OOH that is a big hit from Crouch. Wow, he looks in incredible form.”
“Merlin’s balls.” Was the only thing that Evan’s brain could produce at the sight of Barty swinging his bat so ferociously that the well-seasoned Campbell dropped the fucking ball.
“I know, right!” Pandora exclaimed, bouncing in her seat in excitement.
“You do remember that Barty plays for the other team than the one you support, right?” They were starting to get weird looks from the Ravenclaw supporters around them at Dora’s increasingly jubilant shouts.
Pandora just swatted at his arm, “Yes I know which team he plays for but it's Junior, he doesn’t count.”
“Don’t let Barty hear you say that.”
“AND THAT IS A POINT ON THE BOARD FOR RAVENCLAW! 10 - 0 to the Eagles.” All around them, the stands erupted with cheers and weird animal screeches at the goal.
The game continued much in the same fashion, Barty continued to swing bludgers at players with an accuracy and strength that was both impressive and widely terrifying. Dorcas did manage to put a couple of goals behind the Ravenclaw keeper but it was clear that the two new chasers she was working with had either got stage fright or needed another month of training. Regulus continued to circle the pitch, never dropping below about 30ft. He was not one to try and fake out his opponent, in fact, he flew like he had no game below him. Just him and the snitch in the sky, a manhunt of tiny proportions.
“ANOTHER SCORE FOR RAVENCLAW! This is going abysmally for the new Slytherin team, may this be a lesson to all new captains, do not change half of your roster in the same season. That is 180 - 30 for the eagles.”
The game had been going on for the best part of 2 hours, every single part of Evan had gone numb. They had drunk through the wine quite quickly and had cast a small fire in the bottle to attempt to keep warm despite the umbrella.
“Reg has seen the snitch” Dora suddenly whispered in his ear. No one around them had noticed anything yet but it was clear if you had been paying attention to the seekers (Not a lot of people had at this point) then it was easy to see that Reg had dropped about 20ft. Gone from lazily circling the pitch to straight dive at the Slytherin hoops.
“Johnson has the quaffle, wrestled off of Flint. She passes to Bell, who dodged another fantastic bludger from Crouch. He passes back to Johnson. HAS BLACK SEEN THE SNITCH?!”
The other seeker had clearly caught Reg’s actions, flying across the pitch at an incredible speed. Reg was still streaking down towards the right-hand hoop.
“Johnson passes over the Slytherin beater of Morgan to Campbell’s hands once again. They’re all heading for the same place! Blishwich isn’t far off Black’s tail now. It’s going to be a race to the hoops. Campbell dodges Meadowes. Talkalot is distracted by her own seeker seeming to hurtle towards her.”
Dora suddenly pulled him to stand, the umbrella forgotten by her shoes. “They’re going to crash!”
“Campbell makes a late pass at Johnson. She aims for the left hoop. Black is 3 meters away now. Blishwick only 4.”
“Fucking hell they are!” He grabbed Dora’s arm so tight he was sure there would be bruises in the morning. All around him, people were straining to get a better look at who was going to win the race, all he could care about was not seeing Reg’s face with the imprint of a quidditch hoop for a week.
“GOAL FOR RAVENCLAW! AND REGULUS BLACK HAS THE SNITCH!”
“Did he catch it before or after?!” Dora screams in his ear.
Evan just slumped back in his seat, “After.”
“So….. So Ravenclaw won?” She asked tentatively.
“Yeah, they did.” All enthusiasm leaked out of his voice the more words he spoke.
Pandora just bounced on her feet, clapping her hands together. “Seriously?! This is awesome! I knew they would do it!” She turned to hug some random Ravenclaw supporters behind her.
He waited until she had pulled herself free of the curly bright red hair of the Ravenclaw. He knew he should be happy for her, happy that her team won and she got what she wanted. But there was the niggling feeling in the back of his head, about how Barty was going to react to all of it. “Yeah, and Barty just lost his first match.”
“Oh! I forgot about that part!” Her eyes were comically wide, it was clearly an accident not an intentional slip of the mind. She truly did care about her best friends and would have been equally happy with a Slytherin win.
It was just that Barty needed to win things; tests, fights, quidditch matches. If he did something without the guarantee of a win then he wouldn’t do it. He had gone into the match with the absolute determination that they were going to win no matter what.
Except that they hadn’t.
And now he would be utterly crushed, it was enough to send him into one of his spirals. Where he wouldn’t get out of bed for a week. Where he will pick fights for the next 2. Where he will drink and smoke and not feel anything for a month. They will have to spend a while convincing him not to quit the quidditch team altogether. Winning was not something Barty wanted, it was something he thrived on. Required it to survive. The praise, the admiration, the internal reminder that he was good at something. And that something was everything.
A mind healer would probably say it was because he never heard that his dad was proud of him. It didn’t matter what the cause was, it would be Evan who would be required to pick him up and put him back together. The only person not too scared to stand in the eye of the hurricane.
“It’s okay, I’ll deal with him. You go celebrate with your house.” He said, waving her away. Already weary of the atmosphere of the dorm room for the next week.
“Are you sure, Charlie?” She plopped back down on the bench next to him, pulling the umbrella back upright. “I can stay and - “
“Please just go, I’ll sort it.” He said, snatching the umbrella out of her hands.
She just raised her hands in mock surrender, long blonde hair slowly getting plastered to her face. “Wow okay, you don’t have to be a dick about it.”
“Look, I’ve just wasted 2 hours of my life, feeling my ass slowly go numb. Only for me to then watch one of my best friends nearly get their face smashed in. and now I have to deal with our other best mate who is going to be so crushed over this he’ll probably be depressed for a week. So just go, Dora.” He could feel the heavy drops of rain on his shoulders, soaking through his Slytherin jumper. It wasn’t a particularly thick jumper, just the generic school one they gave for supporting the extra-curriculars.
She just huffed and stood. “You don’t have to be a sore loser.” Pulling the curly-haired girl (who had been hovering nearby watching the siblings fight with an anxious, pinched look on her face) Dora started her march down the rickety old quidditch staircase.
“It’s not me who needed to win this.” He called after her, desperate for it not to seem like he was a jealous prick.
—-----------------------------------
As predicted, the atmosphere in the dorm room was nearly suffocating. Regulus had immediately flopped backwards on his bed when he entered, declaring that he was never playing in the rain ever again. Cassie had elected not to go back to her room but instead shower in their dorm, claiming that she could make an outfit from stealing the boys' clothes.
Barty, on the other hand, had walked into the dorm with a face of thunder, sweeping past everything in the dorm to lock himself in the shower. It had been running continuously for the previous 28 minutes, either Barty was trying to scrub his skin clean so badly that he could peel it off or he hadn’t actually got into the shower when he had turned it on. Both were a likely possibility.
No one dared try to knock on the door and incur the wrath of a seething Barty Crouch jr.
“One of us needs to go in there,” Cas said after a while, slowly pulling off her soaking kit.
Unsurprisingly, no one volunteered. What they did, however, was both turn to stare at Evan. A silent unanimous decision of who was going to be walking into the Lion’s den.
He just heaved a sigh and pulled himself off of his bed. “Junior?” The door was locked from the inside, Evan just rapped his knuckles very lightly against it. Barty would be able to hear it, he could hear a pin drop in a party. “Barty?” He tried again, the door was holding firm. The shower still hadn’t been turned off.
“B-” The sound of the lock undoing startled Evan, he expected it to take much much longer. He slipped inside, making sure to pull the door shut tight behind him.
The inside of the bathroom looked like someone had taken a sledgehammer to it. Both mirrors above the sinks had been smashed into tiny pieces, one of the sinks had a massive chunk blown out of it and porcelain covered the floor. Every one of the towel hooks had been ripped out of the walls and thrown around the room. One of the walls had the perfect shape of a fist right in the middle. Barty was actually in the shower, the frosted glass door pulled shut so he was obscured from Evan’s view.
“Reparo.” He whispered, not wanting to disturb Barty too much. The chunks of sink flew back together, hooks back onto the walls, cracks in the mirror seeling together like watching a spider web being unmade.
When the bathroom looked back to the semi-good state that it had been when they left for the game (it was still terribly messy) Evan just perched himself on the closed toilet. Barty would speak when he wanted to.
“Imperturbabilis” Evan heard Barty whisper a little while later, magically sealing the door meaning Cassie and Reg could no longer hear what was happening inside the bathroom. The water had been turned off as well, only the heavy sounds of Barty’s breathing could be heard as it echoed on the tiles.
A long pale hand was thrust out of the shower and flung itself around, trying to find the towel after Evan had rehung the hooks. He just stood on silent feet, passing the towel to Barty’s outstretched hand. There was a second where Barty was clearly drying himself before he slid the doors open, towel now sat around his waist.
Barty’s skin was pink. Either from the scalding hot water or the amount of time he had been cleaning himself, it was a bit unclear. A couple of bruises were forming on his skin, one around his left hip bone where he had clipped a bludger, another over his right shoulder where he hadn’t ducked under the Ravenclaw chaser quickly enough. But what pulled Evan’s eyes was how red Barty’s were. Heavy tears continued to fall freely down Barty’s face, adding to the droplets rolling down his chest. Deep shaking sobs tore their way out of Barty’s chest like he couldn’t contain them.
Evan’s heart broke.
It didn’t matter what he felt for the boy at any other time. His wants and desires always came second to the pain of his friends. If his friend was hurting then Evan would be the friend he needed to put him back together not the stupid lust-filled monster he felt like he had been for the past week.
He reached his hands out slowly, to not surprise the boy, and placed them delicately on Barty’s chest. Any other time he was sure he would be feeling elated at getting to touch Barty’s hard chest, still wet from the shower. His mind fought to conjure up images of what else he could touch but Evan quickly squashed them. What he did instead was take deep slow breaths, letting the sound of them fill the air, competing with the sudden sharp breaths of Barty.
It was a debate of whether it was working. Barty’s breaths were slowing, he wasn’t sucking in air to sob out like his soul was breaking but the thick tears hadn’t stopped. Evan’s hands seemed to be getting wetter despite Barty’s drying skin under his palms. What settled Barty, however, was when he reached his own palm up, the lightest touch on Evan’s shoulder, grounding him to the floor.
When Barty finally pulled his eyes up from where he had been deeply staring at Evan’s chest, the hurt contained in his iris was unlike anything Evan had seen from Barty in a while. It was the look of failure, of quitting, of inadequacy. It made him weak in the knees, the intense need to protect him from the voice inside Barty’s own head, the one that he was sure sounded exactly like Crouch Snr.
He slowly lowered them to the floor, letting Barty’s back rest against the cool marble tiles, knowing it would continue to calm his breathing. “I’m going to get you some clothes.” He whispered. He knew the others couldn’t hear him anyway, Barty’s spell making sure of that. The quiet that had overcome the room in the absence of Barty’s sobs had permeated so badly it felt like it was inside Evan’s pores, coating the room in a heavy blanket.
“Come back please,” Barty whispered, voice horse, breaking on the end like the idea of Barty being separated from him for a second was too much.
“I’ll be only a second.” He stood slowly, still not wanting to make Barty jump in a way that would take back all the progress Evan had made and silently slipped from the room.
Dorcas opened her mouth the second that she saw Evan, he could see the multitude of questions on the tip of her tongue. He just shook his head in response, “Is there anywhere else you guys could shower?” He asked tentatively, he was basically kicking Reg from his own dorm but the moment he locked eyes with him he knew that Regulus understood what Evan was asking. It was for Barty, a bit of space and peace for him to break down without an audience.
As he saw Regulus pull himself up from his bed and start to gather his things, Evan turned to his own chest of drawers. He could have pulled clothes from Barty’s own chest of drawers but he had a small feeling that Barty potentially might like Evan offering his clothes. At this point, in their friendship group, there wasn’t really an offering of clothing but more like you would look for a jumper and find someone else wearing it sitting in the common room.
Just as he turned to open the bathroom door once again, he felt Reg lightly touch his wrist. “Look after him.” He whispered. It wasn’t an instruction as it sounded, it was more of Reg asking for a promise from Evan. A promise of protection, of help. He just nodded in reply.
After he had brought the clothes to Barty (and had insisted on turning around whilst he changed, despite the questioning look Barty sent his way), he slowly pulled Barty back into the dorm room. Touching his hand lightly, he brought Barty over to his bed, lying back on it and indicating for Barty to lie on him as Pandora did so many times when she had bad dreams.
But this was not Pandora, he could see the hesitation in Barty’s eyes. They hugged pretty regularly, neither minded physical touch as much as Regulus did, and had spent many times with legs thrown over the other on sofas. But cuddling in bed was different. He knew it would comfort Barty in the way he needed so he just offered a small smile in reassurance.
It soon worked and Barty slowly lowered himself down until he was lying full weight on Evan, head on his chest just above his heart, arms thrown out, one hand tracing patterns on Evan’s upper arm. It was comfortable, there was a sense of right about the whole thing.
“I’m going to quit,” Barty said after a while, barely more than a whisper.
“No, you’re not.” He replied, injecting as much confidence into his voice as he could, placing his free hand in Barty’s damp hair and threading his fingers through it. “You’re good, this is just one setback and you’ll bounce right back.”
Barty just let out a yawn, “okay, Rosie.”
Notes:
I hope you enjoyed it, for some reason, editing and posting this chapter nearly caused my laptop to crash. Ailbhe :)
Chapter 14
Summary:
Post-Halloween party hangovers are rough.
Notes:
TWs for the chapter
mentions of parties (drugs and alcohol mentioned briefly in passing)
mentions of hangovers
implied sexual encounter happened off-screen (No details but it is implied throughout that chapter)
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Monday 1st November 1976.
8.14 am.
The Slytherin Benches. The Great Hall.
Halloween had come at the most inconvenient time. The 7th-years who had organised the party had insisted that it had happened exactly on Halloween, not the night before like all the 5th-years had begged for. Well apart from Barty, apparently he was absolutely fine nursing a hangover on a Monday morning.
Hangover potions worked to take away the actual sharp kick of the hangover, the nauseous feeling, the pounding headache, and the achy joints. But it didn’t reduce the horrible taste in your mouth, the exhaustion from staying up too late, the anxiety from what might have happened the previous night. They also did barely anything to help a drug hangover. Barty and Evan had smoked through one too many joints over the course of the night, leaving Evan’s brain feeling like it was swimming in the black lake and not inside of his head.
The 5th years were especially grumpy that morning, their mock exams were only a week away and the party had wiped out an entire night of studying. Their professors were bound to be extra difficult on them because they knew they all had partied the night before. Hard.
Evan was sitting at the Slytherin benches with Pandora and Dorcas, attempting to wake up to be semi-conscious for a morning spent in the library and lessons. Cassie was deep into a Herbology textbook, to try to finish the pre-reading before her first lesson. And Dora was frantically scribbling down the conclusion of her transfiguration essay she had forgotten about. Evan probably had an essay he had forgotten or revision he could be doing but all he wanted was coffee and to try and sneak a cig before his first lesson at 10.
There was a sudden thump on the table as Reg unceremoniously dumped his rather large History of Magic textbook in front of Evan. “Feeling awake, Evan?” He teased, a small smile curled into his lips.
“Never better.” He said, rolling his eyes and pulling the teapot closer as it was slightly out of Reg’s reach.
Reg started piling toast and bacon onto his plate, lulling Evan into a false sense of security. “Can I ask you something? Maybe before Barty gets here.” He asked with a quirk of his brow.
“Uhh, sure?” Evan couldn’t even begin to rack his brains for what he potentially would need to answer for when it came to Reg. It could be anything from ‘Can I borrow your socks?’ to ‘Can you help me murder my father?’
Just as Regulus opened his mouth to enlighten Evan into what favour he may need, Barty stalked his way up the aisle between the Slytherin table and the Hufflepuff one. Coming to stand behind Reg and Pandora with a face of absolute thunder. “Did you have a girl in our dorm, Rosier?!” He practically spat out.
Regulus just huffed a sigh as if Barty’s handling of it was not exactly what he was going for. “What Barty is eloquently saying is, our dorm smells strongly of perfume.”
“Yeah exactly, did you have a girl in there?” he said, gesturing to Regulus as if it made perfect sense.
He could lie and say that he hadn’t had anyone over, he wasn’t sure how he would explain away their dorm room smell but it would probably save his arse. Or he could just tell the truth and deal with whatever shitty mood Barty was clearly in. “Err yeah I did.”
Cassie’s ears nearly visibly perked up with the prospect of gossip. “Ohh which one?” she said, turning away from her textbook.
“A 6th year.” He was purposely avoiding eye contact with Barty, it was as if he was trying to burn his brain out via telepathy.
“Oh is that why -”
“Ask later Meadowes.” Barty ground out. Pandora was somehow ignoring this entire conversation and had not lifted her eyes from her essay. She was potentially avoiding having to help Evan out of whatever hole he’s apparently dug for himself.
“I’ll ask when I damn well want to Crouch.”
“How does our dorm smell of perfume though?” Reg interrupted before Cas and Barty could continue whatever bickering they had started.
He brought his coffee cup up to his face, “Probably when she got ready this morning.”
“She stayed the night?!” Several first-years jumped out of their skin at the sudden volume of Barty’s question.
“Yeah?”
“That’s against the rules!” Barty exploded. Regulus just rolled his eyes and started heaving open his textbook, leaning over to steal from Dora’s ink well.
“You and Reg were out, if you’d have come back I would have asked her to leave but we were comfortable and you guys never came back,” he explained as calmly as he could manage.
Barty was full of shit and everyone knew it, that’s why no one apart from Evan was getting involved. When it was rules Barty had created or backed then they were never to even be questioned, let alone broken and yet he would push everyone else’s rules and boundaries at any given opportunity.
“Oh yeah, I bet you were getting real comfortable.”
There was a certain anger in Barty’s tone that rubbed Evan the wrong way. Never before had Barty suggested that Evan’s promiscuity was a bad thing, it would be hypocrisy to the highest level. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
Regulus had clearly decided that they couldn’t or wouldn’t solve this “Ignore Barty, she just left some beauty products in our bathroom.” Barty looked as if Reg had just personally insulted everything he believed in, mouth gaping like a fish.
“Oh okay, I’ll give it back to her.” Apparently, they were both going to ignore Barty's continuing internal breakdown.
“You’re fine with this?” Regulus just shrugged, not even dignifying Barty with a response. Dorcas had clearly decided that the potential gossip was more important than whatever Sprout might have wanted her to read, watching the conversation between the three of them like a weird ping-pong game.
Barty’s eyes had taken on a slightly deranged quality, “I just have to deal with our room smelling weird, knowing Rosier shagged someone in there.” He said, flinging his hand out and sending a goblet flying across the table with a startling crash.
“You’ve shagged loads of people in our dorm, why does it matter?” It might have been slightly amusing at the start, watching Barty get more irate with the situation but it was starting to properly bug Evan now.
It was almost making him feel how his parents did. How he knew in theory he had done nothing wrong but that still wasn’t good enough not to anger someone he cared about. The fact that Barty was getting so annoyed about something he personally did all the time was aggravating, the hypocrisy, the irony, Evan’s total failure at not being perfect.
“Because she stayed the night, you guys got all cosy.” Barty continued.
“I don’t see what the fucking big deal is, it was like 3 am and I didn’t wanna make her walk back to her own dorm.” Pandora still was keeping her head down and inevitably out of the line of Barty’s fire. But she raised her hand to lay it gently on Evan’s thigh diagonally under the table, a small reminder of where he was and who he was. Someone who could understand why Evan was getting so annoyed over a little bit of perfume in the dorm room.
“Don’t act all hero now. The rule of the dorm room is that we don’t have people stay over.” Barty was starting to lose all civility of being in public. His voice rising higher, his gestures more exaggerated, people were starting to watch.
“That rule is in place because we don’t wanna hear each other shagging or deal with awkward hookups in the morning. I repeat neither of you were there last night.” He hissed back, he absolutely could not have his parents hearing about his extracurricular activities and then doubling down on their marriage efforts.
Pandora had clearly decided that her curiosity over the situation had outwon her self-preservation. “Hold up, where were you guys if Charlie had the dorm to himself?”
There was a moment of silence where everyone reconsidered the massive oversight they hadn’t considered in Barty’s slightly manic anger.
“Some Ravenclaw guy invited me back to his dorm,” Barty replied quietly.
The fucking duplicity of Barty sometimes.
“Oh so you spent the night in someone else’s dorm, it’s just not okay when it’s me?”
“Precisely, I don’t want your hookups infecting our space, I don’t wanna have to think about them.” He said returning to his earlier anger. One rule for him, one for everyone else.
Barty had decided that he had no more to say on the matter, turning around and stomping back down the great hall to wherever he was required to be at 9 am. There was a moment of unpunctured tranquillity in the exit of the hurricane that was Barty.
“I’m not crazy right?” He said, feeling the need for some sort of backup that Barty was being hypocritical. That he wasn’t losing the plot and what he had done was actually fine.
“No he’s just butt hurt about it, he’ll move on,” Regulus said calmly, still scribbling away at some history of magic revision.
Cas was starting to pack her herbology stuff away in her bag, “You have to agree that he did have a weird reaction to finding out that Ev’ had someone over.” She drained the last of the cup of tea she had been sipping and stood.
“Junior is a little odd sometimes,” Pandora replied, in her calm reassuring tone that was exactly like their mothers when she was trying to placate their father. She stood too, she and Cas disappearing out of the great hall, whispering about something frantically.
“You never answered where you spent the night, you left at like half eleven” Evan said slowly, just remembering that Reg had disappeared early into the party (much to the disappointment of Dorcas and Pandora) and also had not returned.
“Just wanted to go stargazing,” Reg replied, keeping his eyes on his notes.
“You do that a lot, like multiple nights a week.”
“You know why Evan,” Reg replied sharply. Sometimes he could get Reg to talk at great lengths about his family and other times he would be short and tight-lipped.
They sat in silence for a while. The continuing sound of people finishing their breakfasts, having hearty conversations, and leaving for morning lessons was a nice background white noise that helped Evan think. The manor at home was always so quiet, the five of them not really enough to fill a 12-bedroom home. Both he and Reg preferred the hustle and bustle of Hogwarts, a less intense time with your own thoughts.
“I need to apologise, don’t I?” He said, making Regulus jump with the sudden question.
Reg lifted his head and seemed to realise that they were almost the last people left at the Slytherin table. He turned back to Evan and stopped to consider him, practically leafing through Evan’s thoughts. “Probably. But knowing you two, your attachment issues will raise their head by lunchtime and you’ll both forget about it.”
He just shrugged and indicated his head to the door, waiting for Reg to pack his things before they headed to the library. “I just don’t understand what his problem was with it this time, it was almost like he was angry at me for something else.”
“Did you do anything else?” Reg asked, cutting a path through the throngs to get to the library. There were benefits to them both being heirs to old, ancient families; people got the hell out of the way when they walked through the corridors.
He stopped to consider that in front of the doors to the library, slightly out of breath from the intense pace that Reg had made them walk up the two flights of stairs. “Not that I can think of, we were absolutely fine before the party, he let me borrow his clothes like usual and said I looked ‘well fit’ when I asked his opinion on my outfit.”
Regulus just threw his head into his hands, “He said that?”
“Yeah? He says I look fit almost every day though, he even said I looked pretty last week.” he could feel a slight blush on his cheeks as he admitted the last bit, forcefully willing it to go away before Reg could notice.
“You are a very oblivious man Ev’,” he slowly placed his hand on Evan’s shoulder, the most pity he had ever seen in Regulus’ eyes.
“What does that mean?” He was practically having to chase Reg through the stacks of books and tables and students.
“Oblivious to what?” He almost sent a 2nd year flat to the floor.
“What have I missed?” Regulus just slowly lowered himself to the chair at their favourite table, not at all looking like he had sped walked through the long library. Evan on the other hand could feel his heart hammering in his chest, definitely from the march up the stairs and then a chase through the library. His breath was all out of sorts and his palms felt clammy.
“You’ll work it out eventually.” Reg considered him for a moment. “Your cardio level is terrible, you should consider smoking less.”
“Oh fuck off Reg.”
—----------------------------------------
Monday 1st November 1976.
3.48 pm.
1st floor corridor.
They hadn’t worked it out by lunchtime. In fact, Barty had insisted that they sat with Regulus in between them in History of Magic and Transfiguration. He’d even requested to switch partners away from Evan in potions, something that Slughorn had refused stating that they could get over their ‘petty squabble’.
Regulus had tried intervening. Cas had tried yelling at them both. Pandora had preached about forgiveness and peace. Evan had even apologised no less than six times.
Barty was not having it.
He just point-blank ignored Evan when he tried to speak to him and lit the notes he tried to send him on fire. The only time he got even a slight reaction out of him was when he had made a joke about Professor Alderton and Barty’s long-standing crush on him in defence against dark arts. Aside from that it had been like trying to talk to a brick wall.
Evan was getting sick of it. The lack of Barty was making Evan uncomfortable. It wasn’t like they had never fought before, they lived together for five years. It had been a problem occasionally, but Barty never shut him out like this. He always just yelled at Evan and then twenty minutes later went straight back like nothing happened. Evan had seen Barty hold these types of grudges against other people, but he always thought he was special, that Barty never shutting him out was because he was just that little bit closer to him. Maybe Barty couldn’t stand their separation just like Evan couldn’t.
And then this. And the grim reality of the fact that Barty could live without him was starting to set in. It had been only 8 hours but Evan was losing it and being dramatic about it.
Which is why he had cancelled Cas and their normal Monday study session. He had blown off Pandora’s offer for her to skip study hall and go to the kitchens together. And was currently lurking outside the corridor that Barty would be walking down to get from Care of Magical Creatures to History of Magic, their last class of the day.
He wanted to ignore all of his problems and get a cigarette but he couldn’t waste the potential opportunity of sorting things with Barty. So when he saw the dark-haired boy strut his way down the corridor, in the arrogant fashion that Cassie made fun of him for. Evan grabbed the back of his robes and threw him into the boys' bathroom, scaring out the first years in there and locking the door behind them.
“Hey, what the actual fuck was that for?!” Barty immediately whirled around to try and shove Evan backwards.
“Oh, so he does talk back to me.” He said, planting his feet on the floor to not let himself be shoved.
Barty just snarled in his face as he tried to push past, “Go fuck yourself, Rosier.”
“Would be more fun if you did it.” he couldn’t help from muttering under his breath. He didn’t know where it had come from, Barty was usually the one making the dirty jokes but there was something about having the other boy so close to him that made him lose all his rational thoughts.
“What did you just say?” Barty’s eyebrows had scrunched in confusion in a way that made Evan want to run the pad of his finger just over them.
“Oh, nothing.” He said, waving his hand to dispel his own crazy thoughts.
“Sure. Just let me out of the fucking bathroom.”
Panic seized his throat, “No! We’re talking this out, or you’re punching me in the face, or whatever catharsis you need to get over this because …” He trailed off. He couldn’t let Barty leave without sorting it, dumb thoughts or not, he didn’t really have an explanation as to why the lack of Barty was making him lose the plot.
“Because what?” That angry defiant tone he’d had from that morning creeping back into his voice.
Evan took a deep breath, meeting Barty’s eyes head-on for the first time since they’d entered the bathroom. “Because … I hate it when you’re angry at me. I can’t stand it. So just do whatever you need to do, just do it.”
Barty scoffed, “You’re so full of yourself sometimes.” He turned on his heel and dumped his bags next to the sink, pulling at his tie.
“I don’t care what you call me Barty. Just please stop being angry at me.” Evan pleaded. He felt the pinpricks of his parent’s shame on the back of his neck at the clear weakness in his voice. It was everything Rosiers were not supposed to be. They didn’t plead for people’s attention, they commanded it. They didn’t apologise, they let people be annoyed at them if that’s what they chose. And they certainly didn’t display any sense of fragility.
There was a thick blanket of silence covering the bathroom, neither boy moved. Evan wanted to run to Barty, to shake his shoulders and shout that he didn’t mean it.
“I’m not angry at you,” Barty said eventually, a heavy weight of exhaustion covered his tone. He finally turned back to Evan, eyes meeting again.
“Sure seems like that when you ignore -” Barty plastered his palm to Evan’s mouth. His scent was filling his nose once more, pine and cigarette smoke and something uniquely Barty under it all.
“Just shut the hell up for two seconds,” Barty growled in his face. The moment of weakness was gone and the frustration laced his tone once more. He should have kept his mouth shut when he had the chance.
“It just hurt me okay. You brought that girl back to our dorms, it just was a rule of mine and you didn’t care how I felt about it.” Barty was inches from his face, eyes glistening with shame and exhaustion. His warm hand was still covering Evan’s mouth.
When they stared at each other for about 20 seconds, Barty seemed to remember that he was preventing Evan from responding, he stepped back dropping his arm. “I always care about your feelings,” he said, silently mourning the loss of Barty in his space.
Barty huffed a sigh, bringing his long fingers up to rub harshly at his eyes. “I feel I can totally be myself in that dorm. That nothing I do or say is gonna be judged, I can just be me and when there is someone else in there, it reminds me that it’s not entirely a safe space and I could wake up in the morning to someone else listening to everything.”
“Why didn’t you say that in the first place you idiot, I wouldn’t have done it if I had known.” Barty’s feelings about anything and everything came before Evan’s every time, no matter what.
Evan absolutely loved omelettes, either cooked by the house elves in Hogwarts or by the amazing chef elf in France, they were an absolute staple of his diet where possible. Until second year, when Barty had admitted that the reason why he refused to sit with Evan at breakfast for the entirety of the previous year was due to Evan’s habit of eating them. He absolutely could not stand the smell, apparently, he had tried and had lasted a whole 10 seconds before he had had to run away and do a deep breathing exercise in the bathroom. Evan had never eaten omelette at Hogwarts since the day Barty had told him that, just instantly cut them out. Pandora had made fun of him for months about that but Barty sitting with him at breakfast was more important than any omelette.
Barty’s eyes dropped, almost seeming to not be able to look Evan in the eye. “But I asked you not to anyway, no matter the reason.” He said quietly.
“I’m sorry. I really won’t do it again. I promise.” He said slowly, dipping his head to force Barty to look at him again.
“I know Rosie.” A small smile crept onto his face.
Evan couldn’t hold back his grin in return even if he had tried. “Back to Rosie?” He teased.
“Yeah well,” Barty bent to pick up his bag and sling an arm over Evan’s shoulder. “It makes you blush all prettily.” He said with a laugh.
The blush Evan had to hide after that was criminal but it was worth it if Barty kept calling him pretty.
Notes:
The girls are fighting :) I really enjoyed writing this chapter, took me ages as my writer's block was whipping my arse but then I managed to write 2000 words yesterday. Throughout all of this was Evan being slightly pathetic for Barty but we don't blame him, he's just a man. This was also brought to you by my intense hatred for eggs and omelettes, I feel Barty on this one.
Also, I made a Tumblr! In which I spend all my time reblogging Rosekiller posts but if you'd like to join me then do so here
Have a lovely evening/day, Ailbhe :)
Chapter 15
Summary:
The terror of mock exams, who likes and who, and how confident you can be shirtless around your crush.
Notes:
Ha late again!
TW for the chapter
Exams and the stress (including family pressure to be perfect)
mention of cutting people's tongue
mention of arranged marriages
discussions of weight and weighing more than others, being insecure about body types and how you look
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Thursday 11th November 1976.
12.20 pm.
A corridor. The Dungeons.
“These fucking OWLs are actually going to fucking kill me off,” Barty complained, kicking his feet against the stone floor.
They were most of the way through their mock exams, Evan had sat fifteen out of the nineteen he was required to. Barty still had six to go. They had been unbelievably hard, making almost every single one of the fifth years panic about how far behind they were and how unprepared they had been. Well everyone except Barty, who was still swanning through his exams and classes and homework like none of it mattered.
It was frustrating Evan and Regulus greatly. Regulus couldn’t believe that Barty still wasn’t taking any of it seriously, despite what he described as ‘the late hour’ and Evan was just pissed that he was having to put in an unreasonable amount of effort to not even reach Barty’s untouchable level.
Pandora mostly seemed to be taking it in her stride. She wasn’t exactly putting in a huge amount of work and it was likely that their parents would have a lot to say to her over the holidays about work ethic. But she seemed to be enjoying the challenge of exams, continuously reminding the very stressed Evan and Reg that the exams were ‘just a chance to prove themselves’. Regulus had even snapped one evening, saying that proving himself was exactly what he was stressed about.
Evan was just in a cycle of smoke, study, drink coffee, study, sleep, repeat. He couldn’t remember the last time he had stopped to do something social or relaxing. Parties had been put on an indefinite pause whilst the fifth and seventh years (whose NEWT mocks were in just over a week's time) studied till their eyes bled. Corban Yaxley had threatened to cut someone’s tongue out when they had suggested that they hold a party like the one on Halloween.
Overall, none of them had been remotely fun to hang out with, hence why Dorcas had mostly avoided them like the plague. She claimed that their stress was impacting her crystals’ energies and that Reg’s constant snapping was doing her head in. So instead she had said that she would spend her time with McKinnon and Co. until their exams were done and they ‘stopped acting like possessed demons’. No one had the guts to remind her how tense she had been in their place the previous year.
“Oh come on Junior, exams are nearly over and then we get a lovely Hogsmead visit and next weekend is the next Slytherin game,” Pandora said, slipping her arm through Barty’s. Evan could see Barty tense briefly at Dora’s mention of the next quidditch game. Contrary to what everyone had suggested, Evan had managed to keep Barty in the team but it didn’t mean that Barty showed any signs of looking forward to playing again.
Barty just rolled his eyes but tightened his grip on Pandora’s arm. “Yeah, your exams are nearly over, I’ve still got a fucking million of them.”
“What have we got this afternoon?” Pandora called over her shoulder to where Evan and Regulus were silently watching the two ahead.
“Transfiguration and Junior also has Magical Creatures,” Evan replied promptly, ignoring the weird look Reg sent his way.
“Ugh! It’s the fucking practical today.” Barty threw his head back, not at all looking where he was going. “And it's bloody freezing outside.” A thick fog had rolled in overnight, completely obscuring the ability to see the top of the towers of Hogwarts. The below-freezing temperatures had caused the entire castle to be covered in a light covering of twinkling ice.
Evan didn’t blame Barty for not wanting to go out in that kind of weather, even with warming charms on his clothes, he had still made a point to complain about the cold in his letter to his mother that morning. His parents had sent very long letters over the weekend detailing their recent trip to the lovely warmth of Egypt to close a business deal of some kind. He wasn’t bitter about it at all.
Slowly Barty and Pandora’s prattling about care of magical creatures faded into the background of Evan’s mind. Regulus enjoyed the quiet in the same way Evan sometimes did and was content to walk back to their dorms in silence. So as Evan’s mind had done for every single second he was awake for the last week, it drifted back to his exams.
The Transfiguration exam they would have later would be the written section of the test, the practical being earlier in the week. It hadn’t been too difficult, Evan was surprised that McGonagall hadn’t intentionally scared them into doing some revision. But it was still an exam Evan needed to do well on, transfiguration wasn’t one of Evan’s specialties meaning that the amount of time he had dedicated to it was astronomical.
Dorcas had found him in between two of his exams the previous day (all non-exam lessons had been cancelled, something that sounded a lot better in theory than practice) and explained that the sixth-year girls had complained about him missing their study sessions. He hadn’t realised that he had made that much of an impression on the girls, mostly sitting back and working whilst they talked around him. But apparently, they had missed him and his (in Mary’s words) “overly dry sense of humour”. Lily had even offered to help him with his potions study for the next day if he agreed to go to their usual afternoon study.
Barty had not been happy about it at all, he had complained that Evan was ditching him for the girls at ‘all opportunities’ and had made many crass comments about why Evan was spending his time with them. It didn’t matter at all that they met up whilst Barty was in a lesson most of the time and he would be in an exam that afternoon, the jealousy was still there. Obviously, Barty would never admit it was jealousy but Evan could see right through the supposed anger on his face.
—----------------------------------------
Thursday 11th November 1976.
3.58 pm.
The library. 3rd floor.
“Lily’s got a crush. Lily’s got a crush.” Marlene sang as the four girls weaved their way through the tables and stacks of books.
“Shut up please Marls,” Lily said, pushing at Marlene, a furious blush on her cheeks.
Mary and Dorcas were walking slowly behind the two bickering girls, animatedly discussing something or other. Mary had wrapped another colourful scarf around her head, pulling her dark hair out of her eyes. All of them had changed out of their uniforms and into something more comfy in the free period they had just had, Evan hadn’t since he’d just come from an exam.
“Oh God, please don’t tell me you heard that Evan?” Lily asked as they all approached the table, Dorcas had passed around the back of the table to give Evan a hug before plopping down in a seat next to him.
He pulled his eyes from the revision that was spread around him, “hear what?” He let Lily let out a breath of relief before continuing. “That you have a crush on someone or that you don’t want me to know who it is?”
Lily just let out a defeated groan, dropping her head to the table. Marlene’s cackling laugh cut through the library, prompting Madam Prince to shush them all very harshly.
“Tell him who it is!” Marlene begged, “Come on Lils, he’s the perfect person to tell.”
“He is exactly the wrong person to tell, he’ll tell her immediately,” Lily argued, bringing her long red hair up into a ponytail at the top of her head.
As much fun as it was watching Lily and Marlene go back and forth on whether they should tell him, he did have a huge amount of work to do. Also, the want to know exactly who had got Lily Evans to blush that hard was overwhelming. Lily was usually so in control, from her magic to the way she talked to teachers, her entire mannerisms made her look like nothing could slip through the cracks. Apart from this mysterious girl.
He did hope briefly that it would be Pandora. She had spent so long rambling about Lily and how pretty she was and apparently how much she wanted to brush her hair and kiss her. Evan was honestly a little tired of hearing about it. Obviously, he would never tell Dora that after she trusted him with the information but still, it was getting to be a lot.
“So I know who they are?” Evan pressed.
“Very much so,” Dorcas replied with a conspiratorial wink. Lily just leaned over to swat at Cassie’s shoulder.
“Just tell him who it is, Lils or I will.” Mary threatened. Evan had never exactly found her intimidating or scary but the death glare she sent Lily had even Evan recoiling back slightly.
There was a brief lull of silence as Lily turned over the offer in her head. Cas had slid her Herbology notes from the previous year over to him. Just as he had turned his head back to his revision, thinking he was never going to get an answer out of Lily, there was a small whisper of “Pandora.”
Evan dropped his quill in shock, ink splattering over his notes, he didn’t even care if they were ruined. “Pandora? You like Pandora?! My Pandora?”
“Well, there aren't any other Pandora’s in the school.” Marlene snapped.
At the same time, Lily said in an unusually timid voice. “Please don’t be angry.”
“Angry? Why the hell would I be angry?” The celebration bells were ringing in Evan’s head, drowning out almost everything else.
“Because it’s your sister and it's a bit gay, I mean I’m bi actually and she’s a Rosier and your sister and I’m just me and it’s a shock and I don’t think she likes me and -” Lily rambled, her hands waving frantically with every point she brought up.
“You don’t think she likes you?” He asked incredulously, cutting off the end of Lily’s insane rant. “She’s basically dropped a marriage proposal in your lap? Also for the record, not angry at all, very happy in fact, you’re lovely.”
Lily’s mouth had swung open in shock but it was Mary who replied, “She what? When?”
“She hosted a party for her birthday and invited you personally to said party.” He explained overly slowly. “She spent the entire time dancing only with you, drinking with you and ignored all the other potential suitors. She wore her best jewellery for you. If Maman saw that, she’d be drawing up a marriage contract.”
“That’s exactly what I said!” Marlene said, throwing her hands in the air. Evan didn’t miss how Cas reached up and dragged Marlene’s hands down, keeping a relaxed grip on them even when they were down by her side again.
“I cannot understand purebloods sometimes, that's a marriage proposal?!” Lily asked incredulously.
“What do muggles do?” Evan asked, Lily sat straighter in her chair clearly about to start either another rant or a long lecture. “It doesn’t matter, just ask her out, please? For my sanity, I can’t deal with another 45-minute rant about your smile.”
“She did that?” Cassie perked up, a smile breaking out over her face.
Evan released a deep sigh, “It was so bad, I honestly cannot handle it anymore.”
Lily started twirling the end of her ponytail in her hand, “I'm just really nervous though. What if she doesn’t like me like that?”
Evan sat up straighter in his chair, laying his forearms on the table. “Lily, I'm going to make this abundantly clear for you. One, do not tell her I told you this but I know for a fact that she will not say no if you ask her out. And two, Pandora is the only female heir to the house of Rosier on this side of the English channel. She is also the only unmarried or non-engaged female heir to the four main houses of sacred 28, she has marriage proposals coming out of her ears. Ask her out before someone else does.”
Lily just stared back at Evan in dumbfounded shock for almost an entire minute. He’d probably massively crossed a line interfering with his sister’s life like that. But also his tolerance for hearing her rant about Lily was almost at the limit and knowing that Lily liked her also, he had to do something.
Lily pushed back her chair with an awful screech on the stone flooring, “Umm. So yes. If I was to umm -”
“She’s studying in the kitchens.” He said calmly with a slight raise of his eyebrow. “Alone.”
“Perfect! Okay. Yes. Umm. I’m going to.” She said, gesturing with her thumb to the door.
Marlene rolled her eyes, “GO!” She said with a frantic wave of her hand, Dorcas’ hand still clutched in hers.
—------------------------------------
Thursday 11th November 1976.
8.52 pm.
5th year boys dormitory. Slytherin house.
Barty was waffling about something inside the dorm. Evan could hear the timber of his voice even with the bathroom door shut, he couldn’t hear exactly what he was saying but could hear enough to tell it was him and not Regulus.
Evan and Regulus had finally decided to put down their revision for the night a little while ago. The energy and adrenaline that Evan had been running on for the previous 3 weeks had very much run out by this stage so close to the end of his exams. He only had three exams to go the next day and then they would all be over until their next round of mocks in March.
After Lily had run away from the library in search of Pandora, the girls and Evan had settled into the comfortable silence of revision. He had finished up with Cassie’s notes, revised his final spells for the practical Defence exam, and had briefly gone over his Potions notes.
Barty had then come clattering in to drag him for some food as he had taken to doing for the previous two weeks claiming that he would wither away without it. Evan had pointed out more than once that out of the three boys, he weighed the most and therefore would not be the one at risk of ‘withering away’. Barty had been undeterred and had eventually compromised by getting Potions' notes from Regulus in exchange if Evan left the silence of the library. They had gone back to the library for some more studying before Reg and Barty had gone for Quidditch practice with Cassie and Evan had been left in silence once more.
Finally, the library had been closed, they had returned from practice and had been chilling in the dorm ever since. Evan had actually taken the time to have a very long, very luxurious shower, melting off all the stress of the last week.
What he had done, however, was leave his shirt on his bed in the dorm room. Bugger.
His options were to walk out there with just a pair of trousers (his nice light-wash jeans) or awkwardly put his school shirt back on and change in the dorm room. It wasn’t that he was insecure about his body but Barty was sitting out there and he wasn’t looking forward to walking around in front of him shirtless. It did happen occasionally but Evan preferred to keep a little more covered up than Barty or even sometimes Regulus did.
Evan was just aware that although he did work out occasionally and was blessed with incredibly good genes, he was just a little softer than the other two boys in the dorm. Regulus was very thin, often complaining that he looked like a twig. It didn’t help the almost starvation that he seemed to endure every time he went home. He also wasn’t as tall as Barty or Evan and had confessed to Evan once that he was actually slightly insecure about being short. Barty used to have a similar build to Regulus, tall and lean, but since the summer and his exercise regime, Barty had put on an impressive amount of muscle. The beater training had continued to help with that and Barty now looked frankly amazing.
Evan just needed to suck it up, he needed the top that was in the dorm room and what was he even insecure about anyway?
Just as he opened the doorway, towel thrown over one arm, he could hear Barty retelling something about his day. “Yeah so Professor what’s-her-face goes on and on about how hard the exam is and how people may struggle and then brings out fucking Puffskeins and tells us to -”
Evan was only half listening to whatever Barty was ranting about, attempting to look for his white Puddlemore United top that his Dad had brought back from his last trip to England over the summer.
“And she asked you to do what, Barty?” Regulus continued with a clear chuckle in his voice.
“Uhh. She umm. Asked us to.” Barty was stumbling badly over his words.
Evan was sure that he had left his top on his bed just before he had gone into the shower. “Have either of you seen my Puddlemore top?” He said, still ruffling through his drawers of clothes.
Regulus let out an undignified snort, “I think I have.”
Evan swivelled around to look at Reg, raising his eyebrows. Regulus didn’t respond, just pointed over to Barty’s bed. Where Barty was laying back on his elbows, dark joggers on and Evan’s fucking Puddlemore top on. That bastard. The whole top was a little big on Barty, it was a little big on Evan too so it slightly drowned Barty. The neckline was a tad loose, displaying Barty’s collarbones beautifully. It had also bunched up a bit around the waist where Barty had sat up so it showed a sinful strip of Barty’s bare waist.
“That’s the top I was gonna wear,” Evan said slowly, eyes roaming up and down Barty’s body in his top.
“I can take it off,” Barty replied, sitting up to start drawing it off, revealing more and more of Barty’s slightly tanned skin.
“It’s okay,” He said in a rush, he wasn’t sure he would be able to handle a shirtless Barty whilst he was also shirtless. “You can borrow it, I’ll find something else to wear.”
“I would prefer you stayed shirtless,” Barty confessed, tone low and as if he didn’t mean to say it.
Evan looked at Barty properly then, he had been watching the other boy as he lay there in his top but now he concentrated on his face. He couldn’t actually meet Barty’s eyes, mostly because they were concentrating on roaming over Evan’s top half over and over again. Across his shoulders, down his chest, and over the waistband of his jeans.
“Yeah?” Evan finally croaked out, feeling unbelievably hot all of a sudden. Barty didn’t reply; just slowly dragged his eyes back up Evan’s chest and nodded once.
If it wasn’t for Regulus in the room, Evan very well may have done something stupid at that moment. Would have taken the opportunity to climb into Barty’s lap, to offer to take Evan’s top off of Barty himself and kiss the path his hands had taken.
But Regulus was in the room, watching the entire interaction with an amused half-smile and a raised eyebrow. Which was enough to slightly snap Evan out of whatever siren song Barty had created around him. He just turned back to his bed slowly and threw himself backwards on it.
Barty cleared his throat tensely and dived forward to grab one of his textbooks off the pile on the floor by the end of his bed. He opened it halfway and began furiously reading, not sparing Regulus or Evan a single glance. Evan didn’t think it was a good time to mention that the textbook was for Astronomy and they had finished their exam for that subject yesterday.
“Est-ce qu'il va bien?” Evan whispered quietly to Reg after a short while.
“Is he okay?”
“Oh, beaucoup,” Reg replied with that annoying half-smirk that made him look like Sirius’ doppelganger.
“Oh very much.”
“I know you two are talking about me.” Barty huffed out. Evan would have been apologetic if he couldn’t see Barty sneaking looks at him every two seconds.
Notes:
Hey! How was everyone's Jan? Mine was cold and wet :)
A couple of little things I wanted to mention;
-They have mock exams in this version of Hogwarts, I tried to keep them as close to British school Mock exams as I could and therefore there are some in Nov and some more in March before their exams in June. In the same way you have mocks before GCSEs and A-Levels in Britain
-The weather that Barty describes as terrible is something called Freezing Fog (I had to google it) and it's where there is Fog that descends on an area and then due to the below-0 temperatures it freezes and leaves everything covered in ice, google it if you're interested very cool
-Evan mentions the '4 main houses in the sacred 28' these are obviously the Black family, the Malfoy family, the Lestrange family, and the Rosier family. These are just the ones I think would be the most powerful in 1970s wizarding Britain, I know other people have other headcannons but this is just the one that works for me. I mention it because it is brought up again throughout the rest of the fic
-Lastly, Evan describes himself as being 'soft' looking body-wise, if people want a description of sort of what I mean Van der Flier or Dan Sheehan who are both Irish rugby players are sort of what I mean. Another good example is Kit Conor, particularly in his most recent Romeo and Juliet production.
as always, any French updates are always appreciated and I will always love to read comments. My Tumblr is also here if you'd prefer a chat over there, I reblog entirely Rosekiller stuff at this point.
Chapter 16
Summary:
Pandora finds love and Regulus finds out a secret
Notes:
TW for the chapter
Internal Homophobia (Evan talks about how it's not 'right' or 'okay' for him to be gay/bi)
Mentioned death of a cat
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Saturday 13th November 1976.
11.09 am.
The Three Broomsticks. Hogsmeade Village.
Evan and Regulus were spying. Plain and simple.
They had arrived at the village early, made sure they had gotten a good vantage point of the entire pub but also somewhere they couldn’t be seen easily, ordering their pints and settling in.
And now they were waiting.
Barty had gotten up surprisingly early and made his own way to Hogsmeade saying he had previous plans and not to wait for them. Dorcas had been dragged away by Pandora the second that they had finished breakfast claiming that she needed her ‘womanly opinions’. Leaving Evan and Regulus on this most important mission.
They were there partly because they needed to make sure it was going to go well, partly wanted to make sure Pandora was okay, and partly because Evan had promised Felix all the juicy details.
Unfortunately, Evan and Regulus had gotten a little bored. They had apparently been too eager. Pandora had said that they were meeting at 10.30 at the foyer, walking to the village together, going to the three broomsticks for a light lunch and a drink before a little shopping in the village. Evan had even made sure that Pandora had plenty of cash on her so she could properly spend it when she was out.
In theory, it would be perfect. The only thing they hadn’t accounted for was the heavy snow that had fallen over the previous couple of days meaning the 10-minute walk into town turned into more like 20.
It wasn’t for another 23 minutes until they finally spotted what they had camped out for. Pandora and Lily, on their date, giggling together as they piled into the pub.
“Okay Pan, just like I reminded you, offer to buy her a drink, good. Make sure you’re sitting next to her. Perfect.” Regulus mumbled under his breath. Despite never going on any dates himself, Reg had many many opinions on different things. Outfits, Makeup, how to act, when to buy things, how much leg was tasteful.
Pandora had properly freaked out the previous day, going so far as to threaten to cancel the whole thing. Mostly due to her own nerves. For her entire life Pandora had only been asked out by men who mostly didn’t see her as a real person, they either entirely saw her for her money and last name or as a good notch onto their bedpost. This was the first time she was trying to impress someone she actually liked and that apparently had been too much for Dora’s nerves. Since the moment Lily had asked her to Hogsmeade, she had been obsessively pulling tarot cards, attempting to see anything about their date. It was becoming a little bit of a problem.
Also, their friends had not, according to Pandora, been helpful at all. Barty mostly tried to give her sex tips which she didn’t want. Reg had every opinion under the sun about what she should and shouldn’t do, how she should act or dress. And Dorcas had mostly attempted to calm Pandora down.
Evan on the other hand, although he had been the one to push Lily into asking Dora out, it wasn’t until Pandora started freaking out about it that he realised how much she liked Lily. That this was someone she wanted to spend time with outside of their friends. Evan had grown accustomed to Pandora wanting to spend time without him, it was okay when it was with their friends. But someone else? Someone who may hurt Dora and she still wanted to try? Evan didn’t like it at all. And so when Pandora did freak out, Evan had mostly stayed silent, offering hugs when necessary but not trying to offer advice like the others.
It was why he was there, sitting in a cold and damp booth, drinking slightly terrible English beer, in the freezing cold. All to make sure his sister’s date wasn’t a complete disaster. The things he did for his family. He would have preferred to stay in bed.
Since their mock exams were finally over, they had all made a pact of no studying that weekend. They could return to their regular exam stress on Monday, they just wanted one weekend to completely relax.
“Did we miss anything?” Cas said, bustling between the tables to get to them. Dorcas had explained that she would be joining them for at least a bit to also scope out their date. What she had failed to mention was that she would be bringing McKinnon and McDonald with her. It did make sense, they were Lily’s friends too and they also probably wanted to know how their date was going. They also liked Evan enough to offer a party invite for that evening in their common room (Something he had politely declined).
What Cas had not accounted for was Regulus.
Regulus' back was ramrod straight when he noticed the other two behind Dorcas, he looked slightly like a cat who had been startled. His eyes were wide and a slight pailing of his face.
“Not yet, they’ve only just arrived. 3 pints of butterbeer?” He gestured to the empty seats around the table they had chosen. He caught Rosemerta’s eye, gesturing for 3 more pints to be brought over.
“Did you just basically get table service?” McDonald asked, eyebrows rising to her hairline. “I can barely get her to respond at the bar sometimes.”
“It’s what happens when your last name is Rosier,” Dorcas replied with a laugh and a wink thrown at Evan.
“You make me sound like a dickhead.” He joked, leaning over to return the hug Cas gave him.
“You are a dickhead.” Regulus replied with a derisive snort.
Just as a harsh line was about to exit his mouth, his attention was suddenly returned to Lily and Pandora’s date as Lily let out the loudest laugh he had ever heard from her.
Mary and Marlene just shared a conspiratorial glance, “Well that’s going well then I guess.” Marlene joked. “I don’t think anyone can make Lily laugh that loudly, not even her ex-boyfriend Patil.”
Ruhan Patil had been Lily’s boyfriend since Easter of their previous year; they had broken up not long into the new year at school. Pandora had absolutely hated his guts for ‘no apparent reason’. It had gone as far as recruiting Barty to adapt a potion with her to make him temporarily bald for a week. It thankfully hadn’t been traced back to Pandora and Barty (the marauders had taken the detentions). But it had gotten quite a laugh out of most of the student body.
“What are you guys gonna be doing in Hogsmeade after they leave?” Mcdonald asked politely when the laughter about Patil had died down. “Christmas present shopping?”
Regulus slightly tensed next to Evan at McDonald’s question, Evan just turned to offer her a warm smile. “We don’t celebrate Christmas but we do give gifts at Yule, mostly books and stuff so I need to go to ‘Tomes’ but apart from that not much, probably head back to the castle early.”
“Don’t do well in the cold?” McKinnon teased.
Cas just laughed a little, throwing her arm over the back of McKinnon’s chair. “Nah, our pretty boy here is definitely cold-blooded.”
It was at that exact moment that the happy little bubble that they had created popped, at least for Evan it did. He had been having fun hanging out with the girls, even if Regulus had gone entirely silent, watching Pandora and Lily’s date. But the door blew open, which it had done every couple of minutes they had been there, bringing in a horribly cold draft every time. But that time it let in something even worse. Barty. On a date.
Barty was on a fucking date.
Evan could tell. He was wearing his nice jeans, the ones that didn’t have a hole in them or any suspicious potion stains. His hair had been styled nicely with a bit of Potter’s potions, his shirt had actually been ironed. And the worst bit out of the whole thing. He was wearing Evan’s fucking jumper.
He looked fucking edible. Evan was fuming, the glass in his hand couldn’t withstand him tightening his grip any further and the girl Barty was with probably had scorch marks on her back with how hard he had been glaring.
He barely recognised the girl that Barty was with, some Ravenclaw in one of the years above. She had long dark hair that fell like a sheet of water and a beautifully pale complexion. She had done her makeup in a subtle way that you could tell she was wearing it but not overpowering her, Evan’s mother would have approved.
“What’s wrong?” Reg had leaned closer to Evan to try and see what he had been staring at so intensely.
“Nothing.” He replied, he could tell that he wouldn’t be fooling anyone, especially Reg but Evan wasn’t really in the mood to try that hard.
Reg leaned forward until he was back in Evan’s line of sight, slightly cutting off his view of whatever girl Barty was with. He furrowed his brow, assessing whatever thoughts he could pull from Evan’s mind. “Okay.” He whispered after a while, sitting back. Evan was a little surprised that Reg was letting it go so easily but he must have found whatever he was looking for in Evan’s eyes.
They sat for a little longer in silence. The girls chatted around them but Evan and Regulus had both lost any intention of adding to the conversation.
He couldn’t stop staring at Barty on his date, how close he was sitting to the girl with his hand splayed across the top of her shoulders. They were chatting warmly and sharing laughs, it made Evan want to punch her in the face no matter what his upbringing said about hitting women. He didn’t have any right to feel like this about Barty, he may have admitted to himself (and maybe Pandora if he was being honest) about his little crush on Barty but that didn’t mean he had any claim over the man. He was well within his right to date whoever he wanted. And he did, a lot. Right in Evan’s face, pushing him closer and closer to actual murder.
“Shopping?” Regulus said, standing and chucking some money on the table. They had successfully scoped out Dora’s date for long enough and Dorcas would give them any details that they had missed. Evan just nodded, not sparing the girls a glance as he walked away.
Stepping out of the pub felt like ice water being thrown over the back of his neck, the cold was horribly biting and hurt his skin. But it did manage to cool the burning anger that was welling up within him. Outside of the vicinity of Barty’s date was like a breath of fresh air.
Regulus didn’t say anything as he strode away towards Tomes and Scrolls, only his curls visible from how tightly he had wrapped himself against the cold. Evan had no choice but to follow, the quicker he got his shopping done the quicker he could go back to the warmth of the dormitories.
They moseyed about Hogsmeade for a lot longer than Evan realised they were going to. Regulus had wanted to look at almost every single book in Tomes and had selected far too many for himself to carry back on his own. Evan did his necessary shopping for Yule and even selected a nice dragon pendant necklace to potentially give to Felix. Then Regulus had insisted on going to the potion supply shop for some ‘very necessary ingredients’ for a secret project he refused to tell Evan about. And finally had dragged Evan into the overcrowded sweet shop at the far end of town. Reg even brought fizzing Whizbees which Evan knew he absolutely despised. They could have potentially been for Pandora or Dorcas who both loved the sweet but Regulus refused to elaborate on who he was buying for.
After what felt like hours of trudging around in the heavy damp snow, they finally started their ascent back to the castle. The anger and jealousy inside of Evan had only lessened slightly in their march around the village. He would be distracted by something and not think about it and then the second something even vaguely reminded him of Barty, or their friends, or dating, or girls, or shiny hair, or the pub it all would come rushing back causing him to slam a couple of shop doors and glare at more than a few 3rd years who had gotten in his way.
Regulus was ignoring it, Evan could tell. He was conspicuously refusing to mention a single bit of Evan’s behaviour or what might have caused it. Until they got back to their dorms.
All Evan wanted to do was take off his horribly sodden clothes, change into some fresh comfy ones, and maybe read a book by the fire. He may even be able to convince Regulus to play chess with him. But fate was not in his favour because the second they entered the dorm and Regulus realised that no one else was there, he spun around so fast to face Evan that he nearly tripped over him.
“What’s wrong?” Reg asked in a careful tone like Evan was some animal he was afraid would bolt at any moment.
Evan turned his back to him, ripping off his drenched coat and jumper. “Nothing.”
There was a moment pause where Evan wondered blissfully if Reg would drop it. “You like him, don’t you? Barty?” Fuck.
He could take the easy way out and lie or he could be a man, own his feelings, and tell Reg straight. “No, of course not.” Evan is a coward.
He was still wrestling his clothes off himself, having dressed in a million layers to keep warm. Reg stepped around Evan to be back face-to-face, holding his hands out to steady where Evan’s had started shaking. He was shirtless now, standing only in a pair of smart black trousers with the bottom 5 inches caked in melted snow and mud. His father knew a spell to stop that from happening.
“It’s okay if you do Ev’ I’m the last person to judge,” Reg said in such a gentle tone, he wasn’t used to Reg being careful or gentle, only harsh and blunt.
He finally met Reg’s eyes and the care in them made Evan weak at the knees. Embarrassingly he felt his own eyes water slightly, “I am so confused Reg.”
Evan had known Reg since they were four years old, they have grown up together and yet he can count on one hand the number of times they’ve hugged. It’s a grand total of once when Reg’s beloved cat got killed when he was twelve. And now it was twice because Reg was tentatively wrapping his arms around Evan’s middle and squeezing.
He wasn’t going to say that he hates it, actually, he’s quite enjoying being close to Reg. It feels like something so precious that if he didn’t enjoy it to its fullest extent then he wouldn’t get another chance. So he wrapped his arms around the top of Reg’s shoulders and leaned his head into Reg’s neck (they are only 3 inches apart in height, Barty made them measure almost every week). If a tear or two dropped onto Reg’s jumper then neither of them mentioned it.
After what felt like hours, Reg finally pulled back enough to look into Evan’s eyes properly. He guided them to the windowsill, pausing to let Evan pull on the jumper that he left on his bed that morning. “Tell me what’s going on.” He said in a soft voice, sounding more like Sirius when they were younger than ever before.
When Reg first asked him about Barty he had fully intended to tell him to fuck off and never speak about it again. But he strangely found himself wanting to tell someone about it. Someone who isn’t Pandora and won’t just try to push him towards something because ‘love is the most powerful kind of magic’.
So the words kind of just flew out of him. “It’s not that I’ve never looked at guys like that before. I mean some guys are really pretty and hot. And I do like girls, that wasn’t a lie. It’s just that seeing guys as hot was not something I was ever allowed to do, no matter what I felt. So I just kind of ignored it because what use is it in exploring if I know I’m not allowed? But with Barty, it's becoming something I can’t control anymore. I want him so badly Reg, more than I have ever wanted anyone in my entire life.”
He thumped his head back onto the cool glass, kind of wishing he hadn’t left his cigs in his coat pocket hanging on the door. “And it’s not just that I find him hot because Merlin’s beard I do, I want to climb him like a tree -”
“I did not need that visual,” Reg said with a disgusted look on his face, prompting a huffed laugh out of Evan before he could even stop it.
“Shut up, I’m having a moment here. I want to take him on dates and I want to hold his hand and do corny shit for Valentine’s Day. It’s me Reg, when have I ever done anything for Valentine’s Day? It’s stupid as hell and yet it’s birthday in January and I’m freaking out over what to get him and it’s fucking November.”
He feels pathetic. Horribly and utterly pathetic. If his father could see him now he would be so entirely embarrassed, he’d probably disown him on the spot. The shame burns deep within his stomach, swirling painfully with the jealousy that was lingering from the morning.
And then Reg delivered what felt like a sucker punch right to the ribs, “It’s okay to be bisexual Evan.”
“This doesn’t feel okay Reg! This feels terrible, I want to peel my own skin off. I want to drown myself in the lake. None of this is okay.” He knew deep down that it was slightly insensitive to have this much of a reaction to Reg suggesting he is bisexual when he knows Reg is gay and has to stay in the closet. But he was having a moment.
“It's what having a crush feels like,” Reg replied wisely.
“Well, then I want it to go away.”
“Or you want to date Barty.” Reg joked, ducking from the smack Evan attempted to land on the back of his head.
“Oh just fuck off.” He knew Reg was just trying to lighten the mood.
Just then the door swung open and Dora, Cas, and Barty all piled into the dorm room, immediately stripping off their wet clothes. “I am officially in love!” Dora announced loudly to the room.
He just mirrors the sad smile Reg sends his way. The moment is gone, and the mood is ruined but he knew that this won’t be the last time he has to talk about his feelings like that. If it gets much worse, he may have to tell Barty.
Notes:
Honestly, this chapter feels like one long 'Evan needs a hug' tag. He's going through it and he's not having fun. I absolutely love the idea that he hates having crushes or liking people, it makes him feel icky on the inside. I am interested to see if anyone can guess who Barty was on a date with from the very brief description (it will be mentioned later on anyway). Also PANDALILY DATE! I love them so much.
I hope you guys are having a good week and not freezing to death like I am right now, England is cold :(
Ailbhe x
Chapter 17
Summary:
Newspaper clippings and exploding potions
Notes:
I return, ladies and gents! I travelled for 6 weeks and managed to write so many chapters whilst I was away but I didn't want to try and do any of the editing on my phone. I hope you enjoy this chapter, I was kinda nervous to post this one but its been in the works for a while.
No specific TWs for this chapter; however, there is some strong language throughout this. :)
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Friday 19th November 1976.
8.04 am.
Evan’s Bed. 5th Year Boys Dormitory.
Evan had a bad feeling about the day. He wasn’t like Pandora, who would ‘feel’ things about a day and then randomly shout about visions she had had the previous week or month or year. It was just a low level of anxiety that wormed its way through him as he awoke for the day.
‘Awoke’ was a very loose term for Regulus pulling back his curtains and sharply hitting him with a pillow till Evan told him to fuck off. It was their usual routine, Regulus was the sort to have been up since 5 am, sometimes he and Barty had morning training. Evan would stay in bed until the last possible minute, whenever Reg decided that was. Then monopolised the bathroom till they all trapesed down for breakfast.
They maintained the same routine that morning as they always did. Just as they were ascending the stairs to head towards the great hall, Cassie came bounding up to them, reaching up to swing an arm around Barty’s shoulder.
As they were slowly meanadering their way through the common room, the deep anxiety feeling worked its way deeper into Evan’s stomach. Something was wrong. Very wrong.
“Okay, what did we do?” Cas hissed, picking up on the same tension that Evan had. The entire common room had stopped to stare at them.
As far as Evan knew they hadn’t fucked up anything, there had been no recent parties for them to make a fool out of themselves. Evan and Barty hadn’t stuck their dicks anywhere that would get them in trouble, no double dipping into sets of sisters or cousins. Reg hadn’t started an argument with the wrong person, and Cas hadn’t started a nasty rumour.
“What the fuck are you lot staring at?” Barty snarled, teeth bared like a dog. Evan could see his shackles rising, a fight imminent.
They didn’t make any more progress through the common room until Evan dragged Barty back by the shirt collar telling him to “Just fucking leave it.”
It didn’t get any better as they left the common room and headed into the corridors, weaving through the dungeons. There were whispers of ‘traitor’ and ‘fucking mistake’ and ‘government bastard’. The younger years refused to make eye contact with them, and the older years whispered insults.
“Just keep your head down, we’ll find Pan and sort this out,” Reg whispered, shoving Barty’s head down from where he had turned around to square up to one of the 7th years.
By the time they had reached the great hall, it was clear that the other houses had also found out what was apparently so ‘wrong’. The Slytherin house sat in unusual and uncomfortable silence, all casting furtive glances at them as they sat down. The two second-year students who were sitting next to where Barty dropped down instantly stood up and left the hall entirely, toast abandoned.
Initially, the sight of Pandora approaching the table was an almost ray of sunshine in their otherwise dreary morning, daily profit clutched tightly in her fist. However, the look on Dora’s face was one of absolute fury. Pandora rarely reminded him of his father, mostly inheriting their mother’s mannerisms and quirks. But in that moment, the Rosier wrath was clear on her face. It was described to him once by a Lestrange as a silent killer, the Rosier rage. It was in the tightness of her eyes, the visible grinding of her jaw, the tautness of her shoulders. A small kid seemed to bump into her as she weaved her way over to where they were sitting. Pandora turned, sending the kid such a death glare that he burst into tears.
As she finally approached where they were sitting, the horrendous weight of anxiety Evan had been carrying turned into bone-deep dread. She had the answer in her hand; whatever was on the front of that newspaper was exactly what Evan was feeling such trepidation about. She passed it silently to Reg, bypassing Barty entirely.
“That fucking cunt.” Reg whispered before the newspaper was ripped out of his hand aggressively by Cas.
Evan wasn’t sure what exactly he was going to be faced with, had his father been caught doing something with the dark lord? Reg’s family? The Meadowes weren’t crazy blood supremacists like the Blacks or the Rosiers, but they weren’t saints, had they been caught doing something? Cas had told them about her father and uncle skimming off the top of some Ministry accounts. Bribing a couple of wizengamot officials, but with everything else going on in the country, was that really worth the treatment they were getting?
But it was none of that, clear on the front page was a picture of Bartemius Crouch Snr and his smiling wife Edith. The photo looped, showing Edith turning to smile at a reporter off the side of the frame. Crouch Snr's eyes never moved, barely blinked, lips just turned up in a smile like it was massively interrupting his day. The headline above read ‘Minister Minchum makes quick promotion; Crouch to lead DMLE’.
“That fucking cunt.” Cas said, mirroring Reg’s sentiment.
Barty is practically vibrating in his need to know what’s going on. Evan thought maybe that his anxiety would dissipate when he knew what the problem was, he was wrong. It just changed, conformed itself into another beast. Worry for Barty, for how he’e going to react to it, clearly neither of his parents thought to warn him at all. They hadn’t even bothered to tell him anything. Not even his mother.
They were going to have to show Barty, it was almost cruel not to. Like waving a bone in front of a dog. Barty wasn’t even aware that it was about him. “Evan. Rosie.” Barty whispered, Evan couldn’t take his eyes off the looping half smirk of Crouch Snr.
“Please, Rosie.” Barty didn’t beg ever. He never needed to; anything he wanted was available to him via either his own cunning or the manipulation of everyone around him. If Evan thought about it, then Barty was probably manipulating him at that moment too. But the desperation in Barty’s voice was enough for him to lift his eyes to check with Regulus. A little nod in his direction had him skirting his eyes over to Barty. The anguish was plainly written on his face.
He lifted the paper with slow, trembling hands. The others were silent as they watched him throw a dagger into Barty’s heart. He placed the paper on the table in front of Barty, watching his eyes skate over the words, the picture, his mother, his father, it seemed like he read half the adjoining article too.
Without Barty even lifting a finger, the entire newspaper erupted into flames. Half the table whipped their heads around to stare at the group around the lit newspaper like they were having some sort of ceremonial bonfire. The other tables had stopped to stare too, to witness Barty and his brand of chaos.
“I am not my fucking father.” He growled out, barely distinguishable over the crackles of the fire.
“Do you hear me?” He suddenly roared, making Cas clutch Evan’s arm in alarm. The look on Barty’s face was not one he’d ever seen before. Barty was usually so animated in his anger, so loud and brash and reckless. This looked like cold collected fury, something more reminiscent of Regulus when he needed to perform at the Black house.
“I am not my fucking father.” He continued, voice echoing over the silent great hall. Evan was never scared of Barty, not when he threw things around the dorm room or exploded into accident magic or cruel words. But the tone of Barty’s voice had Evan terrified. Both terrified of what Barty would do, but also terrified for what this was doing to him. What had constant pressure that Crouch Snr seemed to weigh onto his son at all opportunities, doing to Barty’s sometimes fragile mental health.
With his voice still echoing off the flagstones, Barty stood, scraping the bench against the floor and disappeared out the door.
It was several seconds before anyone dared to move, but it felt like minutes. Despite Barty’s departure, it was as if his anger had permeated the walls, the floor. Like his magic had sunk into the space. It was Pandora who eventually broke the proverbial bubble, flicking her eyes from the door to Evan’s, a silent question in her gaze. With one flick of his own eyes back to the door, she followed Barty out of the hall, steps echoing on the floor.
“Aguamenti," Slughorn muttered towards the newspaper from behind Evan’s shoulder, making him jump half a foot in the air. It was pretty useless as the paper was all but ash on the table, but he supposed the Professor couldn’t leave it burning, probably a hazard to the younger years.
Cas turned towards him, his arm still locked tight in her hands. There was fear there, written across her face. She was a slight outsider to the group, despite being a pureblood. She was the only non-sacred 28, she was a year above, less wealthy than the rest of them, and an out and proud lesbian; all made her an add-on to the group at times. Evan had never really stopped to consider it, frankly, never looking further than his own nose was something Pandora criticised him for regularly. But maybe Cas didn’t see them in the same way they saw each other. Him, Barty, Regulus, and Dora were bound in almost hopeless situations of pureblood knots; they understood wanting to do right by their family, but their life path was not what they dreamed of. But did Cas see them that way?
Was Cas scared of them sometimes?
Did he scare her?
“It’s just Barty.” He whispered towards her, reaching over to grab the coffee pot.
She flicked her gaze back to the ash of the once-damaging newspaper. “That’s what I’m worried about. It’s Barty.” She said, her hand tightening when she emphasised his name.
“What does that mean?” He hissed back. He knew deep down he should be more patient with her, but now was not the best time for her feelings.
“I don’t mean it like that.” She said back lowly, keeping her voice away from other students. “But we both know how …impulsive Barty can be. How careless and reckless he can be about himself and others. How long until this hurts someone? How long until he hurts himself?”
His thoughts were a jumbled mess if he was honest with himself. He knew that Barty had the capability of hurting people, and how his anger and magic would get away from him. They had all pulled Barty away from numerous fights, joined numerous battles, and stood between Barty and the damage he wanted to cause. But that didn’t mean that they needed to treat him like he was crazy or on the brink of a mental breakdown. That, if anything, would make it only worse, Cas knew that too.
He sighed, rubbing his free hand down his face. “You remember in second year, Barty got in that fight with those massive fifth years? Those Carrow twins?” She nodded in understanding. “You asked Barty why he did it, screamed it in his face actually. Thought you were going to pop a blood vessel. And he just mumbled back that he needed to let it out?” She was silent in the wake of his words.
“Barty can’t stop himself, can’t prevent himself when he gets into a certain headspace, not to do anything stupid. That’s what we’re here for, though. When Barty loses his temper, when my anxiety gets too bad, when Dora gets depressed over her visions, even Reg, when he comes back from home not like himself. We all have hang-ups; we shouldn’t blame Barty for his.” He pulled himself free of Cas’ still tight grip on his arm and stood, bringing his cup of coffee on his hunt for Barty through the castle.
It was sensible to send Pandora after Barty first. She was a calm, stable presence who would reassure him when he needed it. Dora saw inside Barty’s head more than almost anyone, he shared with her more than with anyone else. Barty would never cause harm to Pandora, intentional or otherwise. But Barty’s anger would still be pulsing under his skin, itching to be let out the second Dora turned her back. That’s when he came in. He was stronger than she was, potentially stronger than Barty, or he traditionally was. He was to stop Barty from letting that anger out in ways that would get him a detention or worse. He was the second line of defence.
The third being Cas, and last being Regulus. Regulus adored Barty, they were best of friends but that didn’t mean his patience for stupidity was any longer with Barty then it was with anyone else.
He finally found them curled in an alcove near the Divination tower. Barty leaned heavily against Dora as they slumped on the floor. Dora whispered soothing words over and over again in Barty’s ear.
They didn’t say anything for a while, all staring at each other with deep anxiety. “C'est vraiment mauvais,” Pandora finally whispered, breaking the fragile peace of silence.
“It’s really bad”
He didn’t need Pandora to specify, he knew what kind of thoughts would be drifting through Barty’s head. How alien he confessed he felt within the Slytherin house one time in 4th year, how he felt everyone hated him just a little for the last name he was carrying. But this went beyond that, they hadn’t bothered telling him at all. Crouch Snr hadn’t even written to gloat or to give Barty his usual spiel of instructions when something important happened to the family within the ministry. It was like they had forgotten he was there.
But the deep wound from the day wouldn’t be from his father at all, it wouldn’t be his slight indifferent look towards his son during one of the biggest promotions within his career, or the condescension that Evan knew he carried for everything his son did. It was from Barty’s mother. He had only received a letter from her 2 days previously, she could have told him. It probably would have resulted in the same reaction, but at least he wouldn’t have found out via the paper, with the entire rest of the world.
Evan wracked his head for a way to solve it, to take the pain Barty was undoubtedly feeling deep within himself and to take it for him for even a second. He crouched down slowly in front of Barty. Both of Barty’s hands were clutched tightly within Pandora’s robes as if she were the only one stopping him from floating away. “Do you want to miss herbology with me?”
Barty’s eyes flashed to his quickly, the question evident in his eyes before he even opened his mouth. “But you never miss lessons, you always complain that you can’t catch up.” Barty was right, he did always say that.
His brain knew it was a bad idea, he knew he would probably always feel a little behind in whatever the subject matter of the lesson was that day. He would read up on what he had missed, would even do extra readings, but it wouldn’t replace the description and teachings from a professor. He wasn’t particularly gifted in remembering information from books like Barty or Regulus were. He needed that in-person teaching, the ability to ask questions and puzzle things out for himself.
“I’m sure you can explain whatever it is that I’ve missed,” Evan said quietly, trying to inject confidence into his voice.
“Intro to small carnivorous plants,” Barty said without a hint of doubt in his voice. Of course, he would know whatever topic they were meant to have read up on for the lesson. Evan hadn’t even cracked the textbook section they were meant to have read for it.
Finally, Barty let out a small smile at Evan’s obvious lack of knowledge of the lesson topic. “If you’re sure, Rosie.”
And that was the problem, Evan was sure. If it was going to potentially cheer up a friend then yes of course he would do it. It was stupid and they would get a detention, he was being reckless with his education enough for Regulus to roll his eyes hard when he found out. But Barty was no longer looking like the world had just crushed him under the sole of its shoe and that was plenty enough for Evan to be sure.
“Can I come?” Dora whispered, startling Evan into realising that she was even there, his entire focus being on Barty. “We could mix random potion ingredients together to see what they make and if they blow up!” She announced with excitement.
“Ooh, yes! I’ve heard if you mix Erumpent horn with red spiders, you get an explosion and then bright green flames.” Barty babbled excitedly, pulling Pandora up and off the floor. As they started to wander back to the Slytherin dorms, Barty pulled Pandora there at a breakneck speed, talking at a mile a minute about the different explosions they could make. Pandora turned to give Evan a triumphant smile. They had successfully got Barty’s mind off of his father and were apparently heading back to their dorm to make explosions. If it made Barty happy, then Evan would be there the entire time.
Notes:
What did we think? Little outsider Barty. He needs a hug so bad, they all do tbh. I can confirm the next two chapters are fun and long-awaited.
Find me on Tumblr under the same name x
Ailbhe :)
Chapter 18
Summary:
Brushes of lips and juicy gossip
Notes:
Another week another chapter. I swear I could have smacked half the characters for the way they were in this chapter. At least Barty is having a minorly better time than last week. Enjoy :)
No specific TWs for the chapter beyond what is already in the story
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Wednesday 17th November 1976.
10.27 pm.
5th year boys' dormitory. Slytherin House. Dungeons.
“Has Reg told you anything?” Barty was pottering around their room, slowly putting away all the things he had dumped on his bed throughout the day. He looked incredible with a pair of light grey jogging bottoms sitting low on his hips, the top band of his boxers visible whenever he reached above his head, and a dark blue jumper that looked suspiciously like one of the ones that Evan’s mother had purchased when they were in France.
Evan was lying on his bed, doing the final checks on his charms essay for the next day. “Told me what?” He said, flicking his eyes over to where Barty had given up on cleaning his bed and was staring out the window.
“I know you guys talk at night.” Barty blew out a breath and leaned over to Evan’s bedside table to steal a cigarette. “After I’ve gone to bed.”
Evan needed to step carefully there, Barty was territorial over his people and although Evan and Reg were friends first, no one could deny the close friendship of Barty and Reg. “Does it bother you?”
The sight of Barty smoking was slightly mesmerising to Evan, the way his cheeks would slightly hollow as he inhaled, pronouncing his cheekbones even further. The way the smoke would curl out of his mouth in an addictive hase. Or when Barty would tip his head backwards to blow it towards the ceiling, giving Evan the perfect view to admire his jaw and pale neck. A place Evan wanted to bite so terribly.
Barty hadn’t replied to his question, just the soft sounds of his breathing filling the space. Evan wasn’t sure he was breathing at all, letting the sight of Barty be the air he needed for the minute. “I know you and Reg speak in the morning, before I wake up.” Evan continued, determined to hear Barty’s thoughts on the matter.
“Why does he go out at night?” Barty asked in a quiet voice after a while. “We’re both here pretty much all evening, why leave? Where does he go?”
Barty had actually turned back to look at Evan now, a questioning look deep in his eyes. Barty always had an insatiable need to know, to know where people were, what they were thinking, how they viewed him. It also extended to his wider world. Evan was pretty sure that’s why Barty tried so hard in school; he frequently ranted that it all came easily to him, that he was just trying to prove his father wrong. But deep down, Barty enjoyed it, he enjoyed learning and knowing things, he enjoyed teaching them to others and collected knowledge about people and things like trinkets he could hold on to.
“The astronomy tower,” Evan said eventually.
Barty let a wry grin spread across his face, “Ahh yes, the hookup spot of the school.”
“No idiot, you really think Regulus is going up there to what? Get his dick wet?” Barty just shrugged in response
“Also, no, it’s not the hookup spot, it’s actually terrible, it’s so cold up there my balls are basically back inside my body by the time I take my clothes off.” Barty let out a tremendous laugh at that. “Greenhouse is where it’s at.”
Barty considered him for a moment, still chuckling to himself. He leaned down and grabbed another cig from Evan’s pack as if he were going to chain smoke his way through Evan’s supply. “It’s muddy down there, though. I can’t imagine you, of all people, are that desperate.”
He leaned over to give Barty a shove in the shoulder, “I don’t fuck on the floor!”
“Oh no sorry, I forgot, Lord Rosier only fucks on a goose-down feather mattresses,” Barty exclaimed, giving Evan a retaliatory shove.
Evan’s charms essay was now crumpled at the bottom of his bed, but how could he complain when he and Barty had started a fake wrestling match? Shoving and pushing and pulling each other around through bouts of laughter. “Fuck off, I am not that bad. And it's Lord Evan, actually, Lord Rosier is my father.”
“You are the worst one I know,” Barty said, climbing onto Evan’s bed to give him a better angle against Evan’s strength. “There’s never a speck of dirt on you, Lord Rosier.”
“Fuck off with that nickname,” Evan exclaimed, using the upper hand of strength in his lower half to flip them over. Barty’s back landed heavily on Evan’s bed with a slight ‘oof’. “Tell me I am not the worst one you know.” He had Barty’s arms pinned to the pillow by his head, legs locked under his hips.
“Do you prefer I call you Rosie?” He wasn’t sure if it was the implication in Barty’s tone, the position they were in, or the general response Evan had to Barty’s chosen nickname. But Evan’s brain was fully short-circuited. He and Barty had fake wrestled a million times, yes, Evan had avoided it since the start of the year due to his own mental crisis he was having, but it was always fun to push Barty around like that. They never really played with Regulus; he was a little too weak, gave up a little too easily, and could never really challenge the two of them in the way they could to each other.
But it felt different that time, maybe it was Evan’s new feelings, maybe it was the conversation of how Evan likes to fuck, or maybe it was the heated glint in Barty’s eyes. Either way, it was making Evan incredibly hot under the collar.
He wanted to lean in and kiss Barty, he wanted to with every fibre of his being. He was convinced at the start of the year, just before his birthday, that his feelings for Barty were going to make him do something stupid and impulsive. He was convinced at the time that he was going to kiss Barty, now he knew he really was going to.
Barty’s face broke into a smirk at Evan’s lack of response, further convincing Evan of his plan of action. “B-” He started, not really sure where he was going with Barty’s name. “I-”
“Call me that again,” Barty whispered. The dorm that had been so filled with laughter only a second ago was now the quietest place Evan had ever been in, Barty’s voice splitting the air between them.
Evan felt his face fall into one of confusion, “Call you what?”
Barty blushed, the pink rising up his neck and across his cheekbones. “I like it when you call me Bee.” Barty’s eyes dropped from where they had been staring deeply into Evan’s, to his lips, Evan was sure of it. “I have a nickname for you, I like that you kind of have one for me. Just yours.”
There was a tiny voice in the back of his head questioning what the hell he was doing and what the fuck his parents would think of him but in the face of the beauty of Barty, how could he ever pull away. “Yeah?” He mumbled, voice deeper than it was 5 seconds previously. “Your Rosie, my Bee?”
He was only an inch or so from Barty’s lips now. Evan’s eyes periodically flicked from Barty’s deep brown eyes, so dark they were almost black, to his pink lips, bitten right in the middle. He could feel Barty’s harsh exhale when he finished his sentence.
“You liked that?” The blush on Barty’s cheeks got even darker, with a tiny nod of satisfaction. “My Bee?” He murmured, lips brushing against Barty’s with every syllable.
He had completely drowned out everything else that was not to do with Barty; his lips, his eyes, his wrists still clutched in Evan’s palms. But just as he could feel Barty’s eyes slipping close, he could also hear the turning of the lock on their dorm room door.
Regulus was back. Fuck.
Evan gathered all the internal mental strength he had ever had and pulled off from Barty. Swinging his leg off of Barty’s thighs and releasing his wrists. Barty gave out a slightly pathetic whimper at Evan climbing off of him, enough for Evan to seriously reconsider letting Regulus see them make out. His eyes were still closed, now scrunched tight as Evan moved away from his bed, bending to pick up his discarded charms homework and lay it on his desk.
The room had gone from a quiet expectancy, a thick blanket of tension ready to snap in the most glorious way, to the most awkward silence invented. Regulus had just come into the room and stared at them both. Barty still hadn’t opened his eyes, lying on Evan’s bed. Evan had at least stepped away from the scene of the crime, but couldn’t look Regulus in the eyes even if it had been demanded of him.
Regulus would know instantly. He could read Evan like a book at the best of times; he would know, he always did.
Regulus’ eyes flicked between the two of them like a Quidditch match without the quaffle. “What’s wrong with you two?”
Before Evan even had the chance to reply, Barty huffed out a sharp “Nothing.” Got up from Evan’s bed, swung his coat on from the back of the dorm room door, and left.
Leaving Evan with the full weight of Regulus’ curiosity. “Okay, what did you do?”
Evan just huffed a sigh, “Just leave it, Reg.”
He slumped back in his desk chair, muttering a spell to straighten out the parchment of his essay, and began to read from the start again.
Regulus left him in blissful silence for a moment, lulling Evan into the false sense that Regulus wasn’t going to push anymore. “You two both need to get better at hiding your boners,” Reg said, as if he were discussing the weather.
Evan threw his forehead onto the desk with a loud thwack noise. “Fuck off.”
—--------------------------------------
Thursday 18th November 1976.
3.58 pm.
Hogwarts Library.
“Stop, Charlie, just tell me what’s wrong.” Evan was admittedly dragging Dora by the hand through the library at the speed of light.
The moment they had got out of Transfiguration, he had dragged Pandora up and out of the classroom, not waiting for her to pack away all of her things in the precise way she liked. He had left Barty to go to his next lesson, and for Reg to do whatever he did during his Thursday afternoons. He had not stopped the absolute march that he had taken them on through the castle.
“No, I’ll explain in a minute.” He huffed, winding his way through the tables near the door.
He spotted the table that he and the girls used as their usual study table, allowing the tight wind of anxiety that had started the previous night to relax a little. He truly hadn’t slept the night before, tossing and turning the entire situation with Barty over his mind again and again. Barty hadn’t returned to the dorm until late that night, slipping into bed with a quiet mumble to Reg. They had both needed extra convincing by Regulus to get up that morning and extra coffee at breakfast.
Dorcas was already sitting at their table, dropping her quill in surprise when Pandora unceremoniously dumped herself down next to her. “Oh, Pan, are you joining us today?”
“Apparently by force.” She grumbled, shooting a glare at Evan.
“Laisse tomber. J'ai besoin de toi.” He hissed at her, dropping his bag down to pace next to their table.
“Leave it. I need you.”
The girls let him pace in silence for a minute. He wanted a cigarette, but that would mean leaving them in the library. He knew he needed to get on with it; if he didn’t, then the others would turn up, and then they would all want to be involved. That could not happen; he needed the advice of his sister and one of his best friends, but the fewer people who knew, the better. He was banking on the fact that they already knew about his little gay panic over Barty.
“Charlie?” Pandora said in the same way she would talk to Felix when he was having a panic attack about something.
He dropped himself down into a chair opposite them, casting a silencing spell around them, and leaning forward on his elbows. “I need to tell you something, but it cannot get out of this -” He said, drawing a little circle around their table, “little conversation, including Regulus.” He directed at Pandora.
Cassie just leaned forward as well, a clear worry on her face. “Who did you murder?”
“What? No!” He shook his head. “I nearly kissed Barty last night.”
There was a moment of stunned shock. Pandora looked like she had just been told the best news of her life, and Cas looked like Evan had just slapped her.
“WHAT?!” Cas shouted.
Just as Pandora shouted, “CONGRATS!”
Evan just blinked his eyes rapidly, “No, I didn’t actually kiss him. Just nearly. And now I’m massively freaking out.”
“What happened?” Cas asked slowly, as if trying to piece together a difficult concept.
So he told them what happened, only sparing the details of the original conversation; he didn’t think Barty or Regulus would want the girls to also be worried about Reg’s whereabouts. But he spared no other detail; he even told them about how Barty likes Evan to call him ‘Bee’, which got a little teasing chuckle out of Dorcas. Then, when he got to the part of nearly kissing him and explaining how Reg had walked in, Dora slapped her hand down on the table with a very aggressive “Enculé”
“Motherfucker”
“Wait, hang on, Pan. What is actually the problem, Ev’? You got interrupted? Did you want to kiss him?” Cass said slowly, trying to put the brakes on Dora.
Evan let out a humourless laugh, “Do I want to kiss him? Cas, I want to fuck him into a mattress.”
“Eww gross,” Dora complained quietly with a horrified and disgusted look on her face.
Evan just raised his eyebrows in disbelief, “Shut up, I had to hear all about you eating Lily out literally the other day, all I said was the I want to fuck him.”
“Oh, well done,” Cas said, sharing a high five with Dora. “Can I ask something, though? You’re a guy.”
Evan rolled his eyes. “Thanks for noticing.”
Cas just flipped him off, “And Barty is a guy.” She slightly trailed off. Evan knew where this was going. “I thought you were convinced you were straight?”
Evan huffed out a breath. Cas and Dora were now both staring at him with curiosity burning in their eyes. “Reg thinks I’m bi.” He mumbled out.
Cas softened her eyes and leaned across the table to hold his hand, “And you think?”
He looked at Pandora, she knew why it didn’t matter what he thought. The whole situation didn’t really matter in the long run because Evan would be getting married to a respectable woman and creating an heir, no matter what label he used for himself. He was the heir to the house of Rosier, and the number one rule was to make no mistakes. Barty would be a giant one.
“Probably bi.” He released a breath as Cas squeezed his hand. “Doesn’t really matter though.”
There was silence for a long minute, Evan’s head swirling with thoughts of what his parents would say, what Aunt Druella or Aunt Vinda or the 100 other members of the family would say if he announced he was bisexual.
Dora sat up straighter, throwing her long hair over one shoulder. “So was Barty like, really into it? Do you think if Reg hadn’t interrupted, you would have -?” She proceeded to make a very vulgar hand gesture, one that would get her more than a slap on the wrist from their parents. He could appreciate Pandora’s attempts to change the subject from the dark hole it was falling down. Cas may not fully understand the nuances, but she understood the base level of homophobia within the sacred 28.
Evan let his face split into a smile. He felt like a teenage girl at a sleepover. “Absolutely. He was so hot. And I could feel he was very into it, if you get what I mean. Reg made a lovely comment about that when he came in.” Evan said with a chuckle.
Cas let out a loud laugh. “What did Reg say?”
Evan felt the heat of a blush warm the top of his cheeks. “He said that we needed to learn how to hide our boners better.”
They all laughed at that. He may have felt unbelievably out of his depth with his crush on Barty, with how his family would react to all of it. But sitting there with Pandora and Dorcas laughing at how he got caught getting hot and bothered with a boy by Reg, it wasn’t all so scary then.
Just then, McKinnon, Evans, and McDonald walked over to the table, popping the silencing charm around them. “What are we gossiping about?” McKinnon asked, slipping into the seat next to Cas.
Dorcas arched an eyebrow. “What’s to say we were gossiping?”
The blush slowly warmed McKinnon’s cheeks, It was a miracle that they hadn’t gotten together at this point. How were they still dancing around each other?
Lily slipped into the seat next to Pandora and leaned over to kiss her cheek. Lily suddenly cut her eyes to Evan with a shine of slight fear in them. Evan just gave her a small smile of reassurance in return.
“If people are giggling like you three were, then you were gossiping,” Mary said with a matter-of-fact tone. She pulled out the chair next to Evan and started rummaging around in her bag, finally pulling out Evan’s defence against dark arts notes that he had lent her the previous week.
“I don’t giggle.” He said with faux annoyance.
“No, you manly laugh with masculinity,” Cas said with a teasing laugh. Evan just flipped her off.
Notes:
How much do we want to kill Reg for walking in? I do. I promise they will get there soon, only a little while longer now. Also Pandora and Dorcas' relationship is actually one of my favourites in this whole fic so I'm glad I could show a little more of my favourite platonic lesbians.
As always I am on Tumblr yapping nonsense and you are more than welcome to join me. Ailbhe :)
Chapter 19
Summary:
Lighters, kisses, and greenhouse shenanigans.
Notes:
Guess who was going to post this 2 days early as a birthday present to themselves and then got distracted in birthday things and ran out of time, then went on holiday and couldn't upload bc of shitty wifi, then got absolutely slammed by work schedule the moment they got home and the chapter went from early to almost 2 weeks late. Haha couldn't be me. Happy Father's Day to all who celebrate today! Also, guys, we're finally semi here at 65k words! I hope you love this as much as I did.
TWs for the chapter:
Alcohol and drunk behaviour
Mentions of drugs/weed
Explicit/mature content (Kind of, just them grinding on each other)
Mentions of homophobia and internalised homophobia
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Sunday 28th November 1976.
2.06 am.
Slytherin Common room. The Dungeons.
They were drinking again.
The seventh years had finished their NEWT mocks, and therefore, the official ‘no fun’ policy had been lifted in the common room. And obviously, a party had been thrown in celebration of the end of exams. For a house that threw some type of party pretty much every weekend, it had been a shock to the new first years for there to have been almost a month of no parties (not that first years were invited anyway).
Evan was not as drunk as he usually was at these kinds of events. Normally, it was him and Barty getting absolutely wasted on almost anything they could get their hands on, Regulus would stay vaguely sober, and Dorcas and Pandora would be somewhere in between. Pandora, the traitor, had actually abandoned them for the night, saying something about how she had wanted to go to the Ravenclaw party and that they were also invited. Which had apparently gotten immediately shut down by the Ravenclaw prefects, saying that Evan, Barty, and Regulus were specifically not invited.
So they were having fun without her. In fact, none of them had gotten as drunk as they usually had. Regulus had disappeared halfway through the night and had only reappeared about an hour previously, shockingly sober but with bright eyes and something that looked remarkably like a hickey on his neck. He would have to investigate in the morning.
Dorcas was chatting to a couple of girls in her dorm room, playing silly drinking games, but she had admitted she had swapped out her alcohol halfway through.
And Barty, he was a little high, a little tipsy, but surprisingly in control. The energy in the dorm room had been high for the past week, since their almost kiss. Even Regulus had commented on it. It was as if Barty had finally been given a green light on flirting with Evan as much as he usually did with the girls around Hogwarts. Evan had been told multiple times how hot he looked in something, invited to shower with Barty almost every morning, and the number of times Evan had caught him staring at him was off the charts.
It was not helping Evan’s concentration levels in anything. In fact, the thoughts that had plagued him so terribly since his birthday had not gotten any better, when he drifted off of concentration in history of magic and imagined pulling Barty into the nearest bathroom and getting on his knees for him. He now looked up to see Barty staring back with an almost equal level of heat and desire in his eyes. It was as if Barty could read his mind; he wouldn’t put the idea past him, if anyone had become a secret legilimens, it was Barty.
So Evan had started the party by watching Barty on the dance floor, swinging his hips in sinful circles, throwing his head back to shout the lyrics. It had taken all of his willpower not to join him, to grind up against Barty in the way he was dreaming of doing every night. So Evan had decided not to drink, or at least to limit the amount he was drinking.
But by this point in the night, Evan was done. He was done watching Barty dance with different people on the dance floor, do shots with different people, and even make out with different people. He didn’t know if it was a ploy to make Evan jealous or what, but it was working. Well.
However, the common room was starting to get quite stuffy and hot. Despite the number of people who had left and gone to bed, the temperature just kept rising. So he slowly backed out of the main portion of the common room.
Unlike other common rooms, the Slytherin one was made up of a lot of smaller alcoves and hidden rooms off the main one. A wind of tiny corridors and pop-up rooms made it easy to sneak out somewhere and not be found.
Evan’s favourite was one right at the end of a long twisting corridor full of rooms of books, sofas, tea sets, and fireplaces. Rising at the end of a small set of stairs was a wonderful dome port, allowing a full view of the depths of the great lake. It was mostly unused; other dome ports were easier to access and closer to the surface, allowing more to be seen. However, this one allowed Evan to stand up fully; he had grown more since the summer, now slightly taller than Barty, who hadn’t grown at the same rate.
Stepping into the dome, he spotted someone curled in on themselves, trying to light a cigarette. As he observed further, he recognised the long pale fingers, a few silver rings dotting them. The jet black, slight curl of the hair. The cheap lighter that was snapping out too quickly for the cig to light. Barty.
The one person he desperately wanted to be trapped in a tiny space with, and also wanted to run away from at all opportunities. The push and pull in his mind was becoming unbearable.
“Oh for fuck sake.” Barty huffed, throwing the old lighter on the floor and bringing another out of his pocket. Evan wasn’t actually sure that Barty knew he was there yet. Barty took an inhale of smoke, breathing it out into the top of the dome, and slamming his head back against the window. “Fuck.” He dragged his hand over his eyes in aspiration.
“You alright?” Evan whispered, trying not to look like a creep staring at Barty without him knowing he was there.
Barty still jumped slightly, throwing his eyes skyward. “Fuck Rosie, you scared me.”
“Sorry, I was trying not to.” He fumbled through his pockets for his pack of cigs, “Mind if I join you?”
Barty just gestured to the space next to him in assent. Evan placed the cig in his mouth. Sliding his hands into his pockets for a lighter, when an idea occurred to him. A slight bit of payback for the absolute agony that Barty had been putting him through for the past week, for the entire night.
He may have been brought up with certain expectations of his future, of the kind of person he would marry. But the first thing drilled into him as a child was that Rosiers always got what they wanted, and they always had the last word.
And currently, Evan was letting Barty win this metaphorical tug of war they were in. Barty was more confident in himself, more experienced, and more open. So he had made most of the moves, most of the comments. Plagued Evan’s mind most of the time. He didn’t know if it was serious for Barty, if Evan was just someone showing him a little attention, but he didn’t think he cared. Barty was his best mate, but he was also someone who was incredibly attractive, standing right in front of Evan.
So he let his hand curl around the cold metal of his lighter, release a fake breath of annoyance and turned to Barty. “Would you let me light off your cig? I left my lighter back in our room.”
Barty slightly choked on the smoke in his mouth, having to bend over slightly to cough. “Uhh yeah sure.”
Evan turned, pressing Barty against the cold glass behind him, not breaking eye contact for a second. He slowly leaned forward, catching the tip of his cigarette on Barty’s and inhaling deeply, letting it hover there to catch a reliable light. He flicked his eyes from Barty’s blown-out pupils to his lips delicately curled around his cigarette, back to his eyes, which had turned even darker.
He pulled away slightly, resting his free hand on the glass by Barty’s head, tilting his face to not blow smoke in Barty’s eyes. He didn’t dare take his eyes off Barty. It was as if all of the tension they had created in the last week, the last month, the entire school year, had collected between them in that minute. There was no force of nature that could push Evan into stepping away from Barty. Barty’s longing in his eyes was enough to keep him grounded exactly where he was.
Barty was forever trying to have the last word. In arguments with teachers or fellow pupils, he would spit fire just as they were turning their backs on him, just to have the satisfaction of saying the last jab, drawing the last blood. He was no different with Evan now, letting out a low whisper full of want, “Rosie.”
“Et puis merde.” He whispered, throwing his freshly lit cigarette on the floor before crashing his lips to Barty’s.
“Fuck it.”
Evan has kissed a lot of people, women; he’s kissed a lot of women. Both good and bad, but nothing was as mind-blowingly good as Barty. There was no softness between them; they were devouring each other. Bites and nips to each other's lips in between almost apologetic presses of lips and swipes of their tongues. Barty’s lips were hard and insistent, his grip on Evan’s hips was growing tighter by the minute, and he was rolling his hips against Evan in a way that was making him feel like his brain was coming out of his ears. And when Barty snaked a hand up the front of his chest and into his hair, pulling at the strands, Evan let out a groan like Barty had just grabbed his dick.
They, unfortunately, needed air, pulling back to gaze into Barty’s eyes, all blown-out pupils and no iris. His breath was heaving against Barty’s chest pushing against each other. Barty let his other hand run up the front of Evan’s chest and to the back of his neck. “Wanted to do that for a while.”
Evan just huffed a laugh and leaned down to start sucking hickies into Barty’s neck like he had dreamed about so many times. He was going to mark that fact that he had been there if it was the last thing he did. And every time he did, Barty let out a small moan like the pain was going straight to his dick, which considering how he had resumed his insistent grinding against Evan’s hips, he was pretty sure it was. Evan pulled his hand out from where it was resting on Barty’s back to pull his hips tighter against himself. He wanted to feel Barty, feel every single inch of the body he had craved for so many weeks.
Every time Evan bit down especially harshly against Barty’s neck, he would pull at Evan’s hair. They were a mess of spit, and groans, and hickies, and bit lips, and nearly coming in pants.
It was so good. It was ruining Evan's pretence of being straight, kind of good. Barty's hips were moving quicker, chasing his own pleasure. The moans he was letting out, only just loud enough for Evan to hear with his head buried in Barty's neck, were sending tiny electric shocks down Evan's spine. He was grinding his own dick against Barty's, it wasn't a conscious choice, his body responding to the greatness that was a horny Barty.
Evan dropped his hand further down, pulling on the side of Barty's thigh to throw it over Evan's hip. He slid the hand into the rip at the side of his jeans, feeling Barty's hard muscle against his hand. Every time Barty pulled himself forward and backwards against Evan, the muscle would contract and release. It reminded him, with a slight moan, that this was another man he was getting off with. Not just any man, but Barty, the guy he'd shamefully stared at his thighs during Quidditch matches.
“Rosie.” Barty panted, a slight whine on the end of his name making Evan groan into the curve between Barty's shoulder and his neck. “Don't stop. Merlin's balls don't stop.”
He was pretty sure this was enough for him, the feeling of Barty’s hips furiously grinding against his dick in sinful waves of pleasure, his periodic gripping of Evan’s hair, his whiny little moans, the feeling of Barty’s skin against his tongue slightly sweaty with the party and their current activities. He could cum from this. If he wasn't careful, he was going to any second. His stamina was usually a point of pride for him, but Barty was obliterating everything he knew.
“Rosie. I-” Barty grabbed his neck forcefully, dragging Evan’s face up to his, crashing his lips together once more. Just as Evan was going to drop his head back to Barty’s neck, he wasn't quite done having Barty’s skin under his mouth. Barty pulled his mouth just away from Evan's to let out the deepest groan he’d ever heard from the boy. Barty’s entire body stiffened, a slight shiver working down. Evan's mouth involuntarily dropped open in shock.
Barty dropped his head back from Evan’s, leaning it against the cool glass of the dome. Evan wasn't quite sure he had actually just witnessed what he thought he had. “Did you just -”
Barty’s entire chest was heaving, dark red blotches were spread all over his neck and shoulder where Evan had clearly pulled on one side of his shirt. “Cum in my pants like I am 13 again? Yes, I couldn't help it, you're too hot,” he panted out.
Evan had genuinely never heard such a hot sentence. He hadn't cum in his pants and was therefore harder than he had ever been in his entire life. He dropped his head back to stare out of the top of the dome, a lolabug floated past.
He was still flush with Barty, his painfully hard dick still twitching periodically against Barty’s right hip. He clocked the second Barty realised he still hadn't cum. His hands slid down the front of Evan’s chest, taking time to slide his finger tips against Evan’s niples, sending little twitches through his dick. Barty’s hands finally reached the slight sliver of uncovered skin between his trousers and the bottom of his shirt, a dior he had cut the bottom off of.
Barty leaned forward, brushing the side of his cheek against Evan’s. “I am reliably told that I give amazing blow jobs.” The thought alone made Evan rut his hips against Barty’s, letting out what he would never admit to but a whimper.
Just as Barty’s hands slid around the front of Evan’s hips, tiny flames dancing along Evan’s skin wherever his fingertips touched, to where his belt buckle rested, he heard the distant sounds of people chatting. Coming closer to where they stood. It was a spot not many people frequented, but it was still a good spot to smoke a joint or something similar.
It was like a bucket of ice had been dropped on him. He stiffened; he could tell Barty had felt the change in his demeanour. He pulled his thoughts away from his dick and back into his head. They were two dudes, clearly getting off with each other, in a public part of the common room. What had he been thinking?
He hadn't been thinking; that was the problem. Barty had the amazing ability to get Evan to switch his brain off, usually that was perfect, pulling Evan out of the spirals of anxiety and overthinking that he was prone to. But now, he had managed to get Evan to stop thinking about consequences, leading him to do something which was frankly downright dangerous.
“Barty.” He said, slightly harsher than he intended, pulling the hands still trying to undo his belt off of him. “We can’t. I'm sorry.”
And with that, he turned and fled. It was cruel and mean of him to leave Barty there alone. But he was protecting them both; they could not be caught doing anything.
He bypassed the group coming down the corridor, some 7th years, he didn't bother to make eye contact with. Barty was shouting his name behind him, trying to draw him back. He was still painfully hard in his own trousers. It was causing a slight lightheaded feeling, making his thoughts increasingly difficult to grasp.
He flew round the corner almost back into the main common room and flew straight into someone, nearly knocking them to the floor. He quickly grabbed his hands out to steady whoever he had hit, realising with a flush that it was Florence Thurlow. “Evan, are you alright?”
What did he tell her? How could he tell her? That the only thing in his head swirling around and around was the feeling of his best mate using him to get off. How Barty had groaned against him, how his skin had felt against his tongue, how he had made Evan harder than potentially he had ever been in his life.
“I'm fine, good even.” His breathing still hadn't returned entirely to normal.
He stopped to actually look at Florence then, how her bright eyes kept dipping to the opening of his shirt, how her hands had darted to his hips when he had nearly knocked her over, and she hadn't taken them back. In fact, she was running them over the top of his jeans and the strip of skin he had exposed. Her fingers didn't induce fire like Barty's had but they worked well enough to keep him in that pleasant state of incredibly horny.
“Well, I was actually looking for you.” She whispered, bringing one hand up to the back of his neck. “I had a lot of fun last time and was wondering if you fancied -”
“Yes,” he interrupted her. Anything to get rid of the way Barty had felt underneath him, how much he was dying to turn around and find him.
She let out a lazy grin, hands twisting in the fabric of his shirt. “I think I know the perfect place then.” And dragged him by the hand in the direction of the greenhouses.
Thirty minutes later, Evan was pleasantly stated. Lying back on one of the benches in the third greenhouse, he leaned over to grab his pack of cigs, which had fallen out of his pocket, lighting it with his lighter. Florence was getting dressed in front of him, pulling her short skirt back up her thighs. He had pulled back on his trousers, leaving his shirt somewhere to be found later.
He reached a hand out to smooth his thumb on the side of her thigh, the brown skin was so incredibly soft and feminine. She turned her eyes on him, flicking them across his still bare chest.
“Evan?” He hummed, dragging his eyes back up her frame to meet her face. She was avoiding his eyes, flicking them around the greenhouse. “I know this is a little unusual, but would you like to grab a drink in Hogsmeade with me sometime?”
Fuck. She was asking him on a date. A tiny crack of guilt worked through him; he was using her to forget the feeling of Barty, the person who had actually gotten him that hard and desperate. She deserved something, a little bit from him, even if she never found out why he had taken her here.
“Yeah, okay.” He said, meeting her hopeful gaze. She cracked a beautiful smile, and he didn't take his hand off her smooth, feminine thigh.
Notes:
Hehe, sorry! You didn't think it was going to be that easy, did you? No, Evan and Barty will continue to be stupid for the foreseeable future. Also, I have never actually tried to light a cig off of another, someone online said it was possible, as did my one friend who smokes, but they both said it was very hard. I hope you can push the boundaries of your imagination to include this little cigarette-related fantasy that I concocted. I hope you enjoyed however. I always love reading your guys' comments, and I'm always up for a chat over on Tumblr (same username). See you next week, Ailbhe :)