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By the last week of the prank, Evan had run out of patience and somehow lost all his ink supplies.
The patience was Gryffindor’s fault. Lost ink… arguably also Gryffindor’s fault, if he traced the logic far enough back to the hexed doors, the re-labelled plaques, and the four loudly snickering lions who had allegedly charmed the Slytherin dorms into a rotational system.
Every week for a month, older Slytherin students in sixth and seventh year had their roommates shuffled. On Mondays, a new list appears on the noticeboard in the Slytherin common room, and Professor Slughorn, who unfortunately can’t do anything until the spell wears off with time, would give a sympathetic smile, and read out the new room assignments to a chorus of groans.
The charm was subtle but annoyingly thorough: the moment your name was called, every trunk, book, and quill you owned simply slid away of its own accord and vanished to the room you’d been assigned for the week. If you tried to walk into a room that wasn’t yours, the handle went ice-cold and refused to turn. No sneaking back to your old bed, no “I’ll just sleep on the floor in my friend’s room.” The castle itself said no.
Officially, no one had been punished. The culprits had not been “conclusively identified,” according to McGonagall. Unofficially, it was undoubtedly the Marauders, judging by the way they watched the Slytherin table at breakfast, with barely concealed glee and absolutely no fear of consequences, safe in the technicality that nobody had caught them red-handed.
On the first week, Evan got paired with Mulciber, who snored so loudly the stones rattled.
Week two, he was assigned a seventh-year creep who collected cursed artefacts “for fun.”
Week three, Evan suffered through a boy who talked nonstop about Gobstones strategies, narrated his every move, and cried three separate times about his exam schedule before dinner.
By the start of week four, he even found himself missing Wilkes. Having him as his constant roommate had been a quiet comfort he hadn’t appreciated until now.
If things kept going like this, Evan was more than ready to request Ministry intervention.
Instead, Slughorn planted himself in the middle of the Slytherin common room, parchment in hand. The crowd of tired, traumatised students stood around him. He tapped the scroll, cleared his throat, and began calling out names as students shuffled off like mildly offended, sleep-deprived ducks.
“Rosier, Evan,” Slughorn announced. “Crouch, Barty. Room seven.”
Evan blinked.
He’d known this was a possibility, in the abstract way one knows they could be struck by lightning or eaten by a Ukrainian Ironbelly. But hearing it declared that plainly made his stomach do something strange.
Beside him, Barty let out a delighted, “Ha!” and clapped a hand on Evan’s shoulder. “Knew I’d get you eventually.”
Evan gave him a flat look. “This isn’t a prize, Barty.”
“It is for me,” Barty said, practically skipping toward the corridor. “Come on, do you really want me to take the better bed?”
Evan rolled his eyes and followed. They spent so much time together anyway. Walking to meals, lingering after lessons, talking over the same corner table in the library until Madam Pince glared at them. Sharing a room didn’t feel like a dramatic shift so much as an extension of what they already did.
Evan doubted anything would change just because they’d be sleeping in the same room. It would be fine.
***
Their assigned room was small and square, two beds with green hangings pushed against opposite walls, two wardrobes, one narrow window where faint lake-light shimmered across the glass. A grindylow drifted past lazily, casting a shadow over the floor. The whole place looked exactly like every room they’d both cycled through over the last month.
“Look at that,” Barty said cheerfully as they stepped inside. “Another identical room.” He gave it a sweeping look, then glanced back at Evan with a grin. “But hey, at least the company is much better. No complaints from me.”
Evan only hummed in response, choosing not to dignify that with an answer.
He lifted his trunk from where it had materialized beside the right-hand bed and opened it neatly. “Try not to explode anything while we’re here.”
“‘While we’re here,’” Barty echoed in a terrible imitation of a posh accent. “‘Oh no, Barty, I’m trapped in a room with you, what a tragedy.’”
“You’re doing the voice wrong,” Evan said, folding a shirt and placing it into the wardrobe.
Barty blinked innocently. “What voice?”
“The one where I’m devastated by your presence,” Evan didn’t look up, but his lips twitched. “Sounds more like this.” He gave an overly dramatic sigh, just barely exaggerated. “Oh no, it’s Barty. How will I survive living with his mess?”
Barty laughed, bright and delighted, and Evan pretended he didn’t secretly like the sound.
Once they’d finished unpacking, the initial stiffness in Evan’s chest settled into something more manageable. The familiarity helped: Barty’s lopsided grin as he shoved his books into a crooked stack, the way he kicked his shoes off in the middle of the floor, his tie already hanging from the bedpost like a flag of surrender.
“This is going to be great,” Barty murmured, flopping backwards onto his mattress. “Midnight gossip. Deep philosophical debates. Watching you pretend you sleep a normal amount of hours.”
“I do sleep a normal amount of hours,” Evan said.
“You absolutely don’t.”
Evan didn’t argue. He was too busy trying not to think about the fact that this was their room now. His and Barty’s. For a whole week.
And he supposed it was okay if it felt a little unusual, and oddly… nice.
***
The first night, Evan was almost asleep when it started.
His mind had drifted into that soft blur between thoughts and dreams, half-listening to the muted swish of the lake against the window and to Barty’s breathing across the room. Barty always breathed like he did everything else — without restraint and a little louder than strictly necessary.
Evan found it oddly comforting. Not that he’d ever say that out loud.
He shifted, face burrowed into the pillow, muscles finally relaxing, when a low mumble slipped through the quiet.
“Evan…”
Evan’s eyes snapped open.
The room was dark, but not completely; the faint greenish glow from the lake cast shifting shadows along the walls. In the dimness, Evan could make out the silhouette of the other bed with its curtains left open, and the slow rise and fall of Barty’s blanket. Then Barty’s voice came again, slurred with sleep.
“Don’t look at me like that, I’m gonna forget how to talk…”
Evan held himself absolutely still.
He must have misheard. He had to have misheard.
People talked in their sleep all the time. Gobstones boy had done a whole monologue about Divination for two hours straight. This was nothing new. Sleep-talking didn’t mean anything.
“You’re messing with my head, Ev,” Barty murmured.
There was a pause.
“…so pretty.”
Heat shot straight up Evan’s neck into his face. He was suddenly, acutely aware of everything. His breathing, his pulse, the way the blanket felt against his skin.
Pretty.
Barty had just called him pretty.
No one called him that. Pandora said “ethereal” sometimes, but she was his sister and permanently lost in the stars.
A sleepy little laugh puffed out of Barty, and he rolled onto his back.
“I’m not flirting,” he whispered, absolutely, unquestionably not awake. “I’m just… in love with your stupid face, that’s different…”
Evan groaned and buried his face in the pillow.
The rational part of his brain scrambled desperately for explanations.
Maybe Barty was dreaming about someone else named Evan. Unlikely. Maybe he was reliving conversations out of order. Maybe his subconscious threw random words together, and Evan was being arrogant by assuming it was about him. Maybe…
Then Barty let out a quiet, entirely contented snore.
Evan took a long, slow breath and exhaled through his nose.
This was nothing. It didn’t meant anything. He would forget about it by morning.
(He absolutely did not forget about it by morning.)
***
The next day, Evan found it remarkably difficult to look directly at Barty’s face. Which was inconvenient, because that face kept showing up everywhere he looked.
At breakfast, Barty chose the seat directly across from him, not the empty space beside him. He stole Evan’s pumpkin juice without hesitation and nudged his ankle under the table.
“Morning,” he said. “Sleep well?”
Evan’s spoon clinked against his bowl. “Fine.”
“You sound very convincing. Ten out of ten.” He shifted, settling comfortably on the bench, eyes on Evan. “And before you ask. Yes, I’m sitting here on purpose. I like the view.”
A faint warmth crept up Evan’s neck, entirely uninvited. He risked one quick glance at Barty. The defined lines of his cheekbones. That messy dark hair with the one stubborn curl falling onto his forehead. Those bright eyes that looked like they’d seen far too much and still found reasons to laugh. And his mouth. A mouth Evan absolutely had not spent any time thinking about last night. Definitely not.
He snapped his gaze back to his porridge.
Barty launched into a story about something that had happened in Care of Magical Creatures yesterday. Apparently the same lad in their year who’d turned a batch of Felix Felicis into strawberry pudding last month had now unleashed a Niffler that immediately stole half the class’s watches. Evan nodded in all the right places, but his mind was elsewhere. It kept replaying the way Barty’s voice had sounded in the dark. Unmasked. Tender. Fond in a way he never let himself be when awake.
Evan kept stirring his porridge in small circles.
It was sleep talk. Loads of students said all sorts of nonsense when asleep. Arguments with imaginary professors. Dramatic reenactments of Quidditch plays. You weren’t meant to take it seriously.
Except… it hadn’t sounded like nonsense. It had sounded like truth that had slipped past whatever filters Barty kept up during the day.
As they packed up to leave the table, Barty nudged his shoulder.
“You’re being weird.”
“I’m always weird,” Evan replied, automatically.
“Yeah, but this is a new flavour of weird.”
Evan shrugged, shouldering his bag. “Maybe I’m expanding my range.”
Barty grinned at him. “As your best friend, I fully support this brand evolution.”
He said best friend without hesitation, like it was the simplest fact in the world.
Evan should have felt relieved by that. He’d always liked the simplicity of what they were. The stability of it.
Instead, his heartbeat did something uncomfortable, a traitorous twist that he didn’t know how to name.
***
Days rolled past, smooth and ordinary on the surface.
They went to classes. Evan took meticulous notes, Barty doodled in the margins of his parchment (tiny dragons, questionable jokes, an impressively accurate sketch of Professor Binns), and occasionally offered very insightful answers that made half the class turn around to stare. Evan didn’t stare. He already knew Barty was brilliant; Barty simply had no real interest in proving it to anyone else.
In Potions, they partnered as usual and didn’t blow anything up, which Slughorn declared “promising,” with a suspiciously hopeful look on his face. They studied in the common room with their legs stretched out under the table, ankles brushing now and then, neither of them bothering to move away.
Life, from the outside, looked unchanged.
Inside Evan’s head, everything had shifted half a degree.
He caught himself watching Barty more than he meant to. Not just the usual sideways observations he’d always let himself have. How Barty flipped his quill between his fingers when he was thinking, or how his laugh lit up his entire face, or the effortless kindness he offered first-years who ran into him in the corridors.
No, this was different.
His gaze lingered on Barty’s hands, ink-smeared and strong. On his lips, curved into a grin, or pulled between his teeth when he was concentrating. On the line of his throat when he tilted his head back to stretch after writing for too long.
Evan would realize he was staring and snap his eyes back to his own work, annoyed with himself.
They were friends after all. Barty was… Barty. Larger than life, so charming, reckless in all the ways Evan could never be. The kind of person who filled a room without even trying.
None of this was new.
What was new was the way his stomach twisted when Barty leaned in close to point at something on his parchment, their shoulders pressed together. Or the way his skin buzzed for a few seconds after Barty’s casual touch on his arm, his knee, his back.
And now that he’d noticed, he couldn’t un-feel any of it. As if his own nerves had decided to turn against him.
***
The next time Barty talked in his sleep, Evan was ready for it. Or he told himself he was.
He’d stayed up later than usual, studying, the room quiet except for the scratch of his quill and Barty’s gentle snuffling breaths. When he finally closed his book and blew out the candle, the darkness felt oddly thick.
He lay on his side, facing the wall, eyes open.
Behind him, in his own bed, Barty shifted, mumbling something incoherent.
“Don’t,” Evan whispered to himself. “Just go to sleep.”
Barty, predictably, did not listen. Of course he didn’t.
“…Rosie…” The nickname drifted across the room, stretched out on a sigh.
Evan shut his eyes for a moment, as if that would help.
“You can’t just… smile like that,” Barty mumbled.
A shiver ran down Evan’s spine instantly. He pressed his face into the pillow, hoping the darkness would hide the flush he could feel rising.
“Come on, it’s cheating,” Barty complained softly. “You show up looking like that… with your hair all perfect, and your eyes so blue, and expect me to stay calm?”
Evan’s throat felt tight.
“Not fair,” Barty whispered. “You’re never fair.”
Evan swallowed, the sound loud to his own ears.
It was just the echo of the day, his brain insisted. People dreamt about things they saw before bed. Evan had been right there, probably, smiling at something stupid Barty said. This was simply Barty’s mind replaying it.
Well, that did not explain why Barty sounded so… affected.
Adoring, even.
“Wish I could tell you,” Barty breathed.
“Tell me what?” Evan whispered back before he could stop himself.
Barty didn’t answer. His breathing deepened, slipping back into the rhythm of proper sleep.
Evan lay awake for a long time, staring at the dark, his heart beating far too loudly, trying very hard not to think about the words still pooling somewhere behind his ribs.
***
By midweek, Evan was beginning to feel frayed around the edges.
He dropped his quill twice in Charms, lost his place three times while reading in the library, and almost walked into a suit of armor because he was too busy remembering the exact way Barty had said pretty.
Pandora noticed, of course. She always did.
They sat together on a stone bench between classes, students streaming past them in both directions. Pandora swung her legs and watched him from the corner of her eye.
“You’re thinking very loudly,” she said.
“I’m not.”
“You are,” she insisted. “It’s practically radiating off you. You’re being odd.”
“Thank you,” he said dryly.
“Is it about classes?”
“No.”
“About Dad?”
“No.”
“About Barty?”
He didn’t answer.
She nodded, satisfied. “Ah, I knew it.”
“You don’t know anything,” Evan said, a little too fast.
“Ohh, I know plenty,” she chirped. “I see the way you look at him lately. Or rather, the way you avoid looking at him. That’s how people look when they’re doomed.”
He gave her a flat stare. “That’s not a real category.”
“It absolutely is,” she said serenely. “You’re in it now. Congratulations.”
Evan groaned, burying his face briefly in his hands.
He contemplated telling her about the sleep-talking. About sweet compliments whispered into the dark, about the way his name sounded in Barty’s voice when there was no one else around to hear it.
But the words caught somewhere in his chest and refused to move.
Pandora patted his knee with the exaggerated patience of someone indulging a confused puppy. “You’ll sort it out,” she said lightly. “You always do. Usually accidentally, but still.”
He wished that he felt even half as confident as she did.
***
On Thursday night, it got worse.
Evan should have been asleep. Instead, he lay flat on his back, staring up at the ceiling where faint reflections from the dorm lamps pooled. His mind refused to shut up.
He thought about Barty’s laugh. About the way he leaned his head on Evan’s shoulder when he was tired. About the jokes that hid wry observations, and the way his expression softened when he looked at Evan, like he was seeing something no one else could.
It occurred to Evan, belatedly and inconveniently, that maybe he wasn’t just fond of Barty. Maybe he was… something else.
He didn’t know what to do with that.
He was still trying to untangle the thought when his name suddenly left Barty’s mouth again, quiet and sincere.
Evan exhaled slowly, eyes closing.
“Merlin, Evan…” Barty murmured. “If you knew how much I…”
Evan’s heart beat against his ribs like it wanted out.
“You’re the best part of every day I have,” Barty whispered. “And you don’t even realise it… How can someone so brilliant be so blind?”
Evan pressed a hand over his own mouth to keep in a sound he didn’t trust himself to hold.
This was not how people usually dreamt.
“I’m trying…” Barty breathed, voice almost pleading. “…I just never get the words right.”
Evan’s chest tightened painfully.
He lay there and listened until Barty’s words dissolved into small indistinct sounds.
By morning, he had made a decision without quite realizing it: he needed to know if any of it meant what he thought it might mean.
He just had absolutely no idea how to ask.
***
He lasted two more days.
Two days of watching Barty joke with classmates, charm his way out of trouble, prank a Ravenclaw in the corridor, steal Regulus’ quill and narrowly avoid being hexed for it. Two days of breakfasts and dinners, of Barty falling asleep in seconds while Evan lay awake wondering if tonight he’d hear his own name again.
He did.
Every night.
By Saturday, his nerves felt stretched to an uncomfortable edge.
The castle was quieter that evening, most students scattered across the school. Their room felt almost contained, like it existed slightly outside time. Barty lay sprawled on his bed, flicking through a deck of Exploding Snap cards without actually playing. Evan sat cross-legged on his own bed, a book open on his lap, his eyes fixed on the page, but his mind very far away.
“Hey,” Barty said suddenly.
Evan looked up. “Hmm?”
“You’re doing it again.”
“Doing what?”
“The face,” Barty said, pointing at him. “The one where your mind flies off on a broom without you.”
“I’m just thinking.”
“Don’t hurt yourself,” Barty said lightly, though a flicker of worry threading through his voice. “Everything alright?”
No, Evan thought.
“Sure,” he said, instead.
“Liar,” Barty replied easily, but he didn’t push. He flipped a card into the air, caught it deftly, and stared at it for a second. “You know you can talk to me, right?”
Evan hesitated.
This was stupid. This was nothing. He didn’t get to be this undone by someone else’s unconscious mumbling. It shouldn’t matter.
And yet it did.
“Actually,” Evan heard himself say, “I do want to talk to you about something.”
Barty immediately sat up, legs folding under him. “Okay, go on. Is this about how my side of the room is messier? Because that’s a personality trait, not a flaw.”
“It’s not about your mess.” Evan closed his book with a thud and rolled his eyes.
“Tragic,” Barty muttered. “I had a whole speech prepared.”
Evan took a deep breath.
“Do you know that you talk in your sleep?” he asked.
Barty blinked once, then grimaced.
“Sometimes, yeah. I’ve been told.”
Then his posture shifted, shoulders tensing, fingers tapping once against his knee, like he suddenly wasn’t sure whether he wanted the answer or wanted to run.
“Why? Did I… say something?”
“You do,” Evan said. “Every night this week.”
Barty’s brows drew together.
“Alright, hit me. What was it?” He let out a small nervous laugh. “Is this going to ruin my reputation? Please don’t tell me I called McGonagall ‘mum’ again. That would be humiliating.”
Evan looked at him. And the way Barty was watching him didn’t help, if anything, it made it worse.
“No, it’s…” Evan searched for words that didn’t feel like stepping off a ledge. “It was mostly my name.”
Barty froze.
For a long moment, he didn’t move at all. Then, slowly, color bloomed across his cheeks, staining them pink.
“Oh,” he said.
Evan’s heartbeat skittered.
“And… compliments,” he continued, because it would be unbearable to stop now. “Sometimes. Or… commentary. About my face. And my eyes. And that my smile apparently ‘does things to you’. Your words, not mine.”
Barty groaned and dropped his head into his hands. “Oh, for Merlin’s sake!”
“And once,” Evan added quietly, because he had to be brave now, “you said you were ‘in love with my stupid face.’”
Barty made a sound that could only be described as pure despair.
“You weren’t supposed to hear that,” he mumbled into his palms.
“I was in the room, Barty,” Evan pointed out, a little helplessly. “Where else would I be?”
“You could’ve… I don’t know. Floo’d to France.” Barty moaned.
Evan just stared at him, trying to make sense of the absurdity of it all.
“So,” he said carefully, “you didn’t know you were saying it.”
Barty shook his head, hands still covering his face.
“And it’s… about me,” Evan continued, needing the confirmation out loud.
Slowly, Barty lifted his head.
His eyes were dark and open.
“Yes,” he said simply, no hesitation this time.
The room seemed to tighten around them. Or maybe it was something inside Evan; he couldn’t tell. His thoughts were strangely quiet, like his mind had been running at full speed for days and had finally hit a wall.
“Oh,” he said, almost to himself.
Barty let out a laugh, shaky and a little wrecked. “That’s my line.”
Evan’s fingers curled in the blanket, knuckles whitening. “You said… in your sleep… that you were trying to tell me something.”
Barty winced, shoulders hunching. “Did I?”
“You did.”
He closed his eyes briefly, then opened them again, meeting Evan’s gaze head-on. A short breath left him, like he was gathering himself before a plunge.
“I have liked you for a very long time,” Barty said, each word weighted with certainty. “And by ‘liked’ I mean the kind where my brain stops functioning properly when you walk into a room. The kind where I know your timetable better than mine. The kind where—” He broke off, exhaled sharply. “You get the idea.”
Evan’s heart stuttered.
“We’re friends,” he said, because that had always been his anchor.
“Yeah,” Barty muttered. “That’s the best part. And the worst.”
“And you…” Evan swallowed. “You never said anything…”
Barty gave him a look. “Evan. Have you met you?”
“That’s not an answer.”
“Of course it is,” Barty said weakly, then scrubbed his hands over his face. “Fine. No, I didn’t say anything. I tried, sometimes. It came out wrong. As jokes. Or not at all. You’re… you” He gestured vaguely, as if that explained everything. “And I didn’t want to ruin what we have.”
Evan sat very still. A strange warmth was spreading through him, slow and astonishing. Like sunlight in a room that hadn’t had any for a long time.
“You thought telling me would ruin everything?”
“Yeah, I was terrified it would,” Barty admitted. “You’re the only person who truly matters to me, Rosie. The only one I actually… feel calm around, even when I’m being loud. Everyone else feels like noise. You feel like…” He trailed off, searching. “Not-noise. Which is a terrible metaphor, but here we are.”
Evan’s lips twitched.
“That’s not a terrible metaphor,” he said quietly.
Barty watched him, eyes nervous in a way Evan had never seen before. Barty had faced down furious professors, arrogant classmates, and his own father’s wrath with a defiant chin and a sharp tongue. But right now, in this cramped little room, he looked… scared.
“So,” Barty said, voice light but thin, “now you know my subconscious is in love with you, and apparently the rest of me is too. If you want to pretend this conversation didn’t happen, I will help you gaslight yourself. We can blame it on the Gryffindors.”
Evan stared at him for a moment.
Then he laughed.
It started small, a huff of disbelief, then grew into something more uncontained. Barty’s expression flickered between hope and confusion.
“What?” he demanded. “What is funny about my emotional crisis?”
“You,” Evan breathed, still smiling. “You’re funny. Even now. Especially now.”
“That was not the goal,” Barty muttered, but his mouth was trying to curve.
Evan shifted, swinging his legs off the bed so his feet touched the floor. He stood slowly, and crossed the small distance between their beds.
Barty looked up at him, following every movement.
“I’ve been thinking about you all week,” Evan admitted, the words freeing in his mouth. “More than usual. I didn’t understand why at first. I thought it was just because of the sleep-talking thing. That it was strange, that you dream about me so much.”
Evan held his breath for a moment, but kept speaking anyway. “But I realized… this isn’t new for me either. Not really. I’ve always looked at you too long. I just didn’t let myself understand why.”
Barty swallowed. “And now?”
“Now… I can’t stop,” Evan confessed.
Barty pushed himself up from the bed as well, closing the height between them until they stood eye to eye. They were close enough that Evan could see every detail of Barty’s face, the tiny scar in his eyebrow, the way his pupils dilated, the barely-there tremble in his mouth.
“So,” Barty said carefully, “are you saying…?”
“I’m saying that I think I like you too,” Evan said, cheeks warming. “In the way where hearing you say nice things about me makes me feel like something inside my chest is going to explode.”
Barty stared at him like Evan had handed him the moon.
“Okay,” he said after a moment, voice faint. “Cool. That’s. Good. That’s good. Sorry, my brain actually has stopped working. I think we’ve proven the hypothesis.”
Evan’s smile widened, almost involuntarily.
“Can I…” Barty lifted a hand, but then paused, hesitating.
Evan caught his wrist gently and guided his hand up to his cheek.
Barty’s fingertips traced the soft skin, and a shaky breath slipped out of him.
“Can I kiss you?” He asked, voice barely above a whisper.
Evan’s heart did a full, delighted somersault.
“Yes,” he sighed.
Barty leaned in slowly, giving him a chance to pull away. Evan didn’t. Their foreheads bumped lightly, noses brushing, and then Barty’s lips were on his.
It was softer than Evan had expected. Barty usually did everything with a certain reckless energy, but this was gentle, careful, like he was afraid Evan might disappear if he pushed too hard. Evan’s hands found Barty’s shoulders, fingers curling in the fabric of his shirt. Barty made a tiny pleased sound, and relaxed into it.
For a moment, everything else vanished. The prank, the dorm assignments, the confusion of the last week. There was just this: the warmth of Barty’s mouth, the firm press of his hand at Evan’s jaw, the feeling of being seen and wanted at the same time.
When they finally parted, Barty rested his forehead against Evan’s, eyes closed.
“I am never going to hear the end of this from my subconscious,” he murmured.
Evan huffed out a laugh. “You’re assuming it’s a separate entity.”
“It must be,” Barty noted. “It’s much braver than me.”
Evan brushed his thumb over the line of Barty’s wrist, feeling his pulse thrum under the skin.
“I like when it talks.”
Barty opened his eyes, still leaning into the touch.
“You do?”
“Well,” Evan amended, “I don’t like the part where it kept me awake at night, but the content was… very flattering.”
Barty’s laugh was so bright it could’ve lit up the whole room on its own. He pulled back just enough to see Evan’s face properly.
“I’ll start saying that stuff when I’m awake from now on,” he said. “So you can get some sleep.”
Evan pretended to consider. “That would be helpful.”
Barty’s hand slid from his cheek to the back of his neck, fingers threading through the hair there.
“You’re really sure about this?” he asked tentatively. Underneath the question was another one: Are you sure about me?
Evan thought about the week. The months before that. The years, even. The way Barty was always orbiting him. The way everything felt slightly better when he was around. The way the idea of not having him felt… wrong.
“Yes,” Evan said simply. “I’m sure.”
Relief flickered across Barty’s features, followed by a grin so wide it made Evan’s chest ache in the best way.
“Well,” Barty stated, “in that case… I’d like to officially apologize to the Gryffindors for every mean thing I’ve ever said about this prank.”
Evan snorted. “You’re not going to actually apologize.”
“Of course not,” Barty said. “But in my heart, there will be a very private, very grudging thank you.”
Evan shook his head, smiling.
Barty tugged him gently down so they both ended up sitting on his bed, legs tangled. Evan leaned into him without thinking, letting his head rest against Barty’s shoulder. It felt startlingly natural. Like it had been waiting to happen for a long time.
“You know,” Barty said after a moment, “this kind of ruin the whole ‘just friends sharing a room’ vibe.”
“I’m devastated,” Evan murmured.
“Me too,” Barty said. “A real tragedy.”
His fingers slipped into Evan’s hair, brushing through it with affection.
Evan hummed, content.
They sat like that for a while. The quiet around them no longer heavy, just full. Eventually, the lamps dimmed on their own, enchanted to match the castle’s rhythms.
“Do you think you’ll still talk in your sleep?” Evan asked.
“Oh, absolutely,” Barty said with a smirk. “I am a man of chaos and zero self-control.”
Then he paused, the bravado slipping just slightly. He leaned back a little, just enough to look Evan in the face.
“And… umm, since we’re already here, this actually wasn’t the first time I’ve talked about you in my sleep.”
Evan’s eyebrows lifted. “No?”
Barty rubbed the back of his neck, looking almost shy. “No. It’s… happened before. I don’t know how often. Regulus started putting a Quieting Charm on me every night so he wouldn’t have to listen to me babbling.”
Evan stared at him unblinking, heat curling low in his stomach. “Right. Good to know.”
Barty suddenly sat up straighter, horrified amusement spreading across his face.
“Bloody hell, this explains everything!” He burst out, the words tripping over themselves. “Nott’s been giving me odd looks lately. We were roommates during the second week of the prank. And last Tuesday he even asked how long you and I have been friends.” Barty dragged a hand down his face. “I thought he had a crush on you and I hexed him for it. Now it’s just… awkward.”
Evan couldn’t help the quiet chuckle that slipped out as he shuffled closer.
“Brilliant,” he murmured. “So half the school probably thinks you’re obsessed with me.”
Barty let out a soft huff of laughter.
“Half? Evan, please. I’ve been subtle as a brick to the face. It’s definitely more than half.” He tilted his head, giving Evan a pointed look. “Honestly, you’re the only one who didn’t notice.”
Evan raised his brows. “What is that supposed to mean?”
Barty beamed, wicked and fond all at once. “It means everyone else put the pieces together ages ago. I was literally one wrong move away from writing a ballad about you.”
Evan groaned. “I can’t believe I’m hearing this.”
“You asked,” Barty reminded him, nudging his knee against Evan’s. “And anyway… it’s not like it’s a secret anymore.”
Before Barty could say anything else, Evan leaned in and kissed him again. Barty freeze for half a seconds, then surged forward, kissing him back with unmistakable eagerness.
When Evan pulled back, he hooked a hand in Barty’s sleeve and tugged him down, guiding both of them into the mattress of Barty’s bed. Barty let himself be pulled, landing beside him with a soft thud of breath.
They shifted automatically, fitting together without effort. Evan curling in close, Barty’s arm sliding beneath and around him, pulling him securely against his chest. The blanket bunched around them.
Evan’s voice was already growing drowsy.
“And by the way… the things you say about me at night,” he whispered. “Now that I know what they mean… It’s nice. I like it.”
Barty sighed happily, a brightness settling over him. “Yeah, darling?”
“Mmm.” Evan tucked his head beneath Barty’s jaw, breath warm on his collarbone. “Yeah.”
Barty pressed a slow kiss to Evan’s temple. “Go to sleep, pretty boy,” he murmured, and this time it wasn’t sleep-talk, it was intentional.
Evan exhaled, the last of the unsaid tension slipping away as he relaxed fully into Barty’s hold.
“See?” Barty breathed, a small smile curving his mouth as he let his eyes close. “Already so much better.”