Chapter Text
Barty never enjoyed the summer holidays, nor the Christmas ones either. And there were never any birthdays to brighten them up. By the summer after third year, Barty was already fourteen. He had turned months ago, back in November. But Evan, he was turning fourteen in just a few days. And Barty was never there to celebrate with him.
He almost felt bad for his friend, at home with just his parents on his birthday. But then he would realise that Evan had never spent one birthday in school. Evan’s birthday falls on a Monday this year, Barty remembered, and where he should be dragging himself up for lessons, he got to enjoy it in bed. No. Barty did not feel sorry for Evan.
But he did miss him.
Of course they wrote back and forth through the holidays. It was the only way Barty got by through the arguments with his dad, with the boredom, with the nights he would sit in his room listening to conversations from next door, guests asking about him at finer parties. Evan got him through those times.
And it was during those times that he would think of Evan and miss him. Their mischief. The late nights when Barty could be vulnerable and Evan would share Barty’s hatred for his father. It was nice. It was comfortable. It was friendly.
So in a way, Evan got Barty through the holidays. Just the thought of him did too.
And one cool summer evening in late August, Barty thought of Evan again as he was called down to the parlour by his mother. Already tired and frustrated, the added crippling anxiety did not help as he walked down the stairs. He only felt this way with his parents. Not his friends. Not in class. Not with Regulus. Not with Evan.
He thought of his best mate as he entered the parlour and sat on the pulled-out wooden chair automatically. He thought of how in just a week he could return to Hogwarts and pull pranks and laugh and joke with him and everything would be okay.
Barty’s mother approached him gently, while his father did not.
“Your behaviour at school is atrocious, Barty. Hexing and jinxing not only classmates but teachers too. Terrorising your younger students and gaining detention every night, times when you could be studying. You’re a disgrace. You tarnish my reputation as the Minister.”
Barty hung his head low. It’s true, he’s a disappointment to his parents. They don’t ever have to tell him directly. He knows. And many parts of him don’t care, but there’s a tiny screw inside his heart that loosens whenever he’s scolded by his father. And he does care. And he does hate it.
“Okay,” Barty shrugged, feigning nonchalance, but his shoulders were tight and his sweaty palm rubbed across his trouser leg subtly.
“Look at me when I speak, boy,” Barty Sr. demanded, and so he did. He looked up.
The disgust on his father’s face told him all he needed to know.
“Now, dear,” his mother inserted herself finally. “Perhaps he has a reason?”
Barty just shook his head.
She sighed hopelessly and his father scoffed.
“We hoped you’d be a Ravenclaw, like us. And we’ve accepted that you are well and truly a Slytherin, but you cannot go on like this. I’d be surprised if you got even one Outstanding in your N.E.W.T.s.”
“That’s years away!” Barty argued. Suddenly the fire roared inside him, hot white flames catching fire to every other emotion and burning them to a crisp. All he felt was anger.
“It doesn’t matter how far away it is. I studied for them in my first year, and according to Professor Slughorn all you do is mess around with your friends. That’s all you have been doing for the last three years!” Barty Sr. snapped loudly.
“I do not just mess about. I study, I work hard, I do everything you ask and more. Why is that not enough for you?” he retorted.
“Because you aren’t acting like a Crouch!”
Barty scoffed and looked away, leaning back in the chair. His knee bounced slightly, part anger, part restlessness.
His father took a deep breath and sat across from him, looking up with tired eyes. He rubbed the bridge of his nose, frustrated. Barty’s mother soothed him with a rub on the shoulder. He brushed her hand away after a while and turned to face his son.
Barty lifted his chin high. “What?” he dared to ask.
“Have you made any female friends yet?”
Barty recoiled at the sudden change of topic. He was thrown right off. Female friends? What on earth did that have to do with anything? Did he mean a girlfriend? He’d never had one of those. And he doesn’t think he’d like to. Girls are sassy and mean.
He heard his father repeat the question.
“No, I haven’t,” Barty sighed, bored now. He caught his mother giving him a strange look, but she didn’t say anything about it.
“Well, you must. You need a woman. A woman to sort out your behaviour, your work ethic, someone who can ground you.”
He was quiet for a short moment. He didn’t understand how a mere girl could change who he was.
“Are you telling me to find a girlfriend?” he asked, baffled.
“If it will help, then yes.”
“I’m fourteen, Dad.”
“Almost fifteen,” he interrupted. “It’s time you stop hanging around with your friends and think about your future. Evan Rosier won’t do that. Now a nice girl from, let’s say, Ravenclaw might. I know Pandora Lovegood had quite the heart to give.”
His dad was calmer now, but Barty wasn’t.
Pandora? He wanted him to get with Lovegood? What good was she?
He was about to speak up when his mother gave him a look, one he would not say no to. So he sighed, and then sighed again before speaking.
“Fine. You want me to find female friends, then I will,” said Barty sourly.
“Wonderful.”
“Wonderful.”
________
Evan lay in bed on his birthday, arms tucked behind his head, staring up at the ceiling. He listened to the steady beat of his heart and the blinds swishing against his window as a cool breeze snuck in. It was peaceful, the atmosphere was peaceful. Only his heart and mind weren’t.
Barty hadn’t written in days. In the past, he would wake up to Barty’s owl pecking on his window at five in the morning with a small gift, some chocolate or a trinket, with a letter. He’d woken that morning expecting the same as usual, foolishly.
But he couldn’t be selfish and annoyed at the moment at the lack of presents or a card. No, Evan’s heart was heavy with worry for his friend.
Evan knew Barty had a terrible home life, worse than his own. His own parents were cold, but at least they were cruel in the way that they ignored him; Barty’s were different. They found any situation to embarrass him in, public or private. They made sure everyone knew that their parenting hadn’t shaped their son to be so horrid, even if it was a lie, even if it was in fact their parenting and pressure that caused his outbursts and bad behaviour.
So Evan was shaken with worry when he hadn’t heard from him in almost four days. They had written every day of summer so far, with not much to share as their lives were quite boring every year. But they shared ideas for pranks and told each other jokes. It made them both feel lighter, less trapped.
But when Evan’s eyes began to fall, he heard the familiar pecks of a hard, pointy beak against the window pane and he shot up, eyes widening, smile brightening, pearly white teeth on show as he moved to get it.
He read over the letter twice so he didn’t miss anything. It was a short letter, but it wished him a happy birthday, and there was a bag of sweets tied to the owl’s foot, a weightlessness charm imposed on it.
As he ate the sweets and chocolate, he read over the neat cursive writing again. Usually, Barty’s letters contained some form of complaint against his father, or some new story that happened that day. But there was nothing this time.
This didn’t soothe Evan one bit. He knew something had happened. Barty obviously didn’t want to talk about it, so in the letter that he scribbled to him in his own scratchy writing, he didn’t ask. He thanked him for the gift and told him of all the new jinxes he’d learned about in books from his home’s private library.
Evan’s parents didn’t celebrate birthdays, so he was forever grateful that Barty did.
And Evan slept that night with a new sense of excitement, thinking that in just two days he could see Barty again and could escape the dullness of his home once more, and immerse himself in new adventures with Barty in fourth year, creating new and better memories.
He didn’t know that for a long time, his best memory with Barty would still be the time he opened up to him about his father in third year. And that there were bad memories to come..