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Barty Crouch Jr takes the dark mark on the 21st of November, 1979.
Evan Rosier knows the day it happens, and takes it with him on the date of the 25th of November, 1979.
Perhaps he knows the consequences. Perhaps he could never have guessed. Perhaps it was always bound to happen.
~~~~~~~~~
Evan doesn’t suspect anything when it happens. He’s sat on his couch, watching an episode of some muggle show, that he’d probably be disowned for if he was caught watching it. That’s part of why he does it. Barty didn’t even want a television, but when it suits him, Evan can convince him to do just about whatever he wants. He doesn’t enjoy the show, nor is he invested in it, but he thinks about how badly it would piss his dad off and watches it anyway.
Evan isn’t like Barty. Barty will do anything and everything to piss his dad off, he’ll go so far it hurts everyone around him, just to garner that tiny amount of negative attention, because the Lord knows that Barty would never get a grain of positive attention from his father. Evan isn’t like that. He never has been. He doesn’t like the commitment of pissing his dad off well and truly, it’s so much easier if he just shuts up and pretends that he’s listening and uses his cutlery in the right hands. Unlike Barty, Evan doesn’t go out of his way to make life harder for himself.
So simple rebellion like this, watching a shitty muggle television show with his shoes on the couch brings him such an inexplicable amount of joy that he does it at every opportunity. It makes him feel good in a way that nothing else does, these simple rebellions. Barty doesn’t get it. He always wonders why Evan doesn’t go further. Why Evan doesn’t go to the extremes Barty does. He always pushes him to take a leap of faith and actually provoke his dad, doing something Vincent will actually know about.
But Evan doesn’t. Barty can push Evan to do a lot of things, but never this. Barty could push him far enough to plunge a dagger into his own heart, but family is another matter, one that Barty has just never quite respected. Evan is a pushover, especially towards Barty, but towards just about anyone overall, and so whenever Barty finds a little button within him that doesn’t activate the second his fingers brush over him, he makes it his duty to press harder and harder, until he gets that reaction of which dreams have been consuming him.
That’s another thing about Barty Crouch Jr. He’s desperate for reactions. Always has been, really. First it was just from his father, but when he came to Hogwarts and Barty Crouch Sr was hardly ever in his line of vision anymore, he went to provoking other people. Even as young as eleven, he was forever getting into scraps with his peers, or even the older years, and was always trying to annoy teachers, often getting the lowest grades on tests despite being the smartest student in their year, if not the whole school.
And it wasn’t just their peers or their elders or their teachers. It was his friends, too. Every time one of them implied a topic was sensitive, Barty would make it his god given mission to worm it out of them, or even just get a backhand off one of them. He was content either way, really, and none of the backhands or the jinxes he got ever deterred him from doing it again, and again, and again. If anything, they only encouraged him to go further, deeper, to do it to such an extent that the reaction he got was of colossal proportions.
Dorcas was the one who figured out how to stop it, in the end, not that Evan nor Pandora utilised her methods. Barty and Dorcas were an odd pair. They were close as enemies, and fought like siblings. Nobody ever suspected that the two didn’t hate each other, it was open and obvious and right there in front of your eyes, but nobody ever doubted that they loved each other more than anything else. They fought and hurt and cut one another brutally almost daily, but they had a sort of agreement that the only hand that would ever be raised at the other would be theirs, and heaven help anyone else who dared.
~~~~~~~~~
3rd of December, 1977
“I just wanna know why you’re avoiding talking about it!” Barty yelps. He’s standing face to face with Dorcas in the Slytherin common room, as their fellow Slytherins watch from the side, snickering and certain that a fight is about to break out. Fights between the pair are legendary, as each are a good magician, in polar opposite ways, and so it’s always difficult to work out who’ll win. The Slytherins take bets, sometimes. Evan wishes he didn’t participate, but he always does, throwing the odd galleon on Barty, forever loyal even when his chances are abysmal.
Today, they’re fighting over Dorcas’ friendship with Hamartia Penhallow. Evan uses the term friendship lightly, as Evan and Regulus especially aren’t very sure at all that it’s just a friendship, however to suggest otherwise in front of prying company would be blasphemous, and exceedingly disloyal. Barty is sure she’s cheating over some stupid quidditch shit, and Dorcas refuses to give him answers to his questions, which Evan must admit doesn’t exactly help her case in this.
“I’m not avoiding it!” She screams back. They aren’t exactly at eye level, Dorcas being a handful of inches taller, and so she crouches down mockingly to get into his face, and Evan can watch humiliation burn at his cheeks. Okay, Dorcas definitely has the upper hand today, Evan notes. Looks like another of his evenings will be spent watching Regulus heal Barty’s wounds as Barty complains bitterly about how he definitely would’ve won, even though everyone knows he wouldn’t have.
“Yes you are!” Barty yells back, louder. “If you’d just fucking tell me then we wouldn’t be causing a commotion, would we? Everyone fucking knows what you’re doing, so just spit it out, Dorcas!” He says, and he looks seconds away from stamping his feet like an angry toddler. It’s kind of cute, actually. Evan bats away the thought. Now is not the time, he hisses to his brain mentally.
“Oh, so that’s the case for me, is it? Whenever I don’t want to share shit, I just have to spit it out, and you have to push me till I do, right? I’m not allowed to have any privacy whatsoever, on decree of King Crouch, right? But when he doesn’t want to share anything, say, why his father spends more time with Desmonda Belby than his own wife, not one of us is allowed to ask him about it on pain of death? That’s right, yeah?” She screams, her face contorted with fury.
“I- I don’-“ Barty tries, all the fire beaten out of him, lip quivering.
“That’s exactly what I thought! Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need some fucking air!” She hisses, flipping her braids over her shoulder and storming out.
~~~~~~~~~
Barty never did provoke Dorcas like that again. Not, at least, until he could have the last laugh, but that is a little while after our story is set and holds no relevance here.
Right now, Barty is out. Evan doesn’t know what he’s doing. He’s not really all that sure he cares. Barty has a tendency to disappear from time to time, it’s normal and expected. Evan has stopped asking, really, because Barty has little filter and usually tells the truth, and Evan finds that he doesn’t actually want to know, most of the time. When Barty goes out, it’s usually to drink, or to shag, or to either buy or do drugs. Barty never goes out to meet up with friends, or get coffee. Evan can’t exactly blame him. He just doesn’t want to hear about it. The shagging, mainly. Evan doesn’t want to hear about Barty having sex with people, doesn’t want to hear about his name on their lips, doesn’t want to hear about their hands all over him.
See, Evan isn’t one for sex. He never has been. People speak about teenage boys like they’re ravenous for it, all of the time. Like there is nothing a teenage boy wants more than sex, more than tits in his face and a girl making him feel good. But Evan has come to find that that’s certainly not the case at all, or, at least, it never has been for him. At first, the girls thought that he was just innocent. His friends thought he was a late bloomer. Everyone thought he’d grow into it. He never did.
~~~~~~~~~
12th of March, 1978
Glory Crawford was the most popular girl in Slytherin, in their year at least. Now, most of the pupils thought that this had little to do with her personality, which most considered lacklustre, and largely to do with the fact that, in a stereotypical sense, she was gorgeous. She looked just like Sally from The Pom Pom girls, which Evan hadn’t actually watched, nor even heard the plot, but the girls in his year said it often, and Pandora assured him that it was definitely a good thing when he asked. She had dark blonde hair, fringed and always immaculate. Her skin was tanned, a difficult feat in Scotland, where the sun was rare and weak even then, and she always looked like her saturation was turned up more than everyone else. Deep blue eyes, almost black, but they shimmered like the sun on the sea. Perfect face, though Evan wasn’t sure what the perfect face was supposed to be, just that everyone thought she had it. And, the thing that the Slytherin boys dorm room spoke the most of, was the fact that she had nice tits. Evan wasn’t really one to vouch for this, as he’d hardly even noticed their existence, but Barty certainly did. Enthusiastically. Constantly. It got quite annoying, actually. Among other things, of course, her ‘nice arse’ and ‘tiny waist’ also got mentions, but the thing that was always drawn back to was her tits. It made him feel a little weird, actually, to talk about some girl he’d barely spoken to like that, and he knew Dorcas would certainly wring all their necks if she heard the things they said about Glory Crawford sometimes. Still, it was Barty saying them, and Evan could never quite bear to stop Barty when he got going, simply sit back and have remorse in the aftermath while turning a completely blind eye as it happened.
Evan, though, liked Glory Crawford for none of these things, though. He liked her mainly because she was kind, which was something very few people were to Evan Rosier. And also because she was affiliated with Barty in no way, which was always nice. Well, he’d tried asking her out to ‘study’ in fourth year, but she’d rather rudely turned him down, snappishly saying her father wouldn’t let her date till she was seventeen, but insinuating it was definitely on a more personal level that she didn’t want him near her. That almost made it better, honestly. For once, he had something that even the great Barty Crouch Jr had failed to achieve. It felt quite nice, really. They’d link arms on the way to classes they shared, they’d go to Hogsmeade together and sometimes he’d pay for her butterbeer, and on nights like these, she’d make her way into his dorm room when the other boys were asleep, and close the curtains around his bed, using a handy silencio.
Now, Evan didn’t pick up on what this looked like. He really, actually didn’t. He genuinely just thought Glory Crawford wanted to be his mate, and he liked it. He didn’t think too much about the lingering touches of her hand to his, the long gazes or that one trip to Madame Puddifoots. He thought they were just mates. So, on the 12th of March, 1978, when they were having one of those nights, where they were laying on Evan’s bed and staring at the ceiling, talking as they usually did on nights like these, he ended up remarkably surprised.
“How’s Barty’s new thing with the Ravenclaw going again, what was she called… Angelique?” She asks, laughing and nudging him in the side with her elbow, lounging back on Evan’s pillow. Well, pillows, actually. He kind of has a pile of them, with the covers taken off, because he really doesn’t like the feel of silk. He never has done, really, it feels too slippery and nasty to the touch. And Evan has kind of always needed a throne of pillows to support his head, he can’t sleep if he’s lying basically flat on his back.
“Oh, Merlin, you won’t even believe it. It’s actually indescribable. See, he tried to sneak into her common room before she got back, so he could surprise her with these roses, but he ended up stuck outside the common room because he couldn’t solve the riddle. Barty’s never been good at metaphors. He’s smart, well smarter than me, but he doesn’t do philosophy. So he has to wait till she comes back, and asks her to let him in for her own surprise! She turns him down, once again, but he’s got a one track mind, bloody determined. Last I heard he’s planning to stage a flashmob in the great hall on her birthday.” He says, laughing. Telling Barty he can’t have things only really makes him want them more. This is less for the actual prize, but more for the trophy, knowing that he had achieved it rather than what he got for achieving it.
“Look, at least he’s better than you on that front. Two months, and you still haven’t asked me to be your girlfriend. Two months!” She says snappishly. He isn’t sure when her face turned so stony.
“I… what? Why would I do that?” Evan asks confusedly, staring at her in earnest.
She makes a huffy noise. “Ugh, for Morgana’s sake.” She says, and she grabs his wrists. He has no idea what she’s doing, but he goes along with this anyway. Maybe whatever she’s doing will add some sense to this. However, his eyes go as wide as dinner plates when she places his pale, slender hands onto her chest.
“Glory? I don’t- why? I’m so- I’m not sure-“ He stammers, and takes his hands off. “I don’t want to have sex with you, Glory.” He says in the end, dropping his hands into his lap like her tits had scalded him. “That’s not something I want. And I’m still, like, really confused, so if you could give some context that’d be great.”
“You… don’t want to have sex with me?” She asks, thrown. Glory Crawford is the most remarkably self confident, unshaken girl Evan has ever met, and so to see her uncertain is to see a solar eclipse. It only happens once in a lifetime. Now, she looks remarkably like a small child being told off, hands on her knees and her bottom lip trembling.
“No, Glor, I don’t. I, if it helps, I don’t really want to have sex with anyone. Like, there’s nothing wrong with you in specific, I’m just not, like. Like that.” He says, unsure of what to do.
Her eyes narrow in suspicion. “Are you queer? It’s alright if you are. My mate Lizzie, the one with the gecko, she kissed a girl at Sirius Black’s party, so it’s no big deal if you are. Times are changing, innit?” She says, flopping back down.
“Yeah. They are.” He says, uncertain where to go next. “But, nah, I’m not queer, I just, don’t like sex. Not with anyone.” He says.
“Huh.” Glory says. “I like sex with everyone, I reckon.”
“Even lasses?” Evan asks, interestedly.
She nods. “Even lasses. Dunno if I’d date them, though, but I could definitely do with some scissoring.” She says, making a snippy motion with her fingers.
He laughs. “Glory, that sounds vaguely fetishising.”
She makes a ‘psshhh’ing sound. “Nah, I wouldn’t exactly go out of my way to shag girls, but if I was offered a threesome with a guy and another lass, I’d take the opportunity, you get me?”
“Yeah, yeah, I get you.” He says, laughing.
“You know, I actually proper liked you.” She says wistfully. “I mean, we can be together. I don’t, like, need sex.” She says, but she looks very uncertain of herself.
He doesn’t know why the idea of dating Glory is so… strange, to him. He doesn’t like it, not at all. So, he quickly dismisses her. “Nah, Glor, you need someone who can give you everything. I can’t, not like that, and you’ll want it some day. There’s not much point. Go have a gander at Caspar Bullwhistle, he’s been eyeing you up for an age. Two months, to be precise. I really didn’t pick up on him glaring at me for two months. I’m a little…”
“Oblivious?” Glory offers helpfully.
He nods. “That’s the one, yeah. Oblivious.”
~~~~~~~~~
Evan doesn’t speak to Glory anymore. Last he heard, she’d married a muggle and popped out a kid, poor thing. He almost wishes he could get in touch with her once more, but it’s not meant to be. She will be immortalised as the girl he knew when he was at Hogwarts, and maybe that’s just how it’s supposed to be. He doesn’t know if there’s a word for what he is, but he doesn’t think he needs one. It’s easily explained to everyone but Barty. He doesn’t think that Barty will ever get it. So he’s only ever made vague references to it, never fully telling him because he just knows it’d go badly.
Evan checks his watch. It’s twenty past ten. It’s been five hours since Barty left. Time flies in the war like a wasp buzzing next to your ear, imminent and in so little time you can barely see it coming, if you do at all. Evan doesn’t know how, but it looms over Barty and him, too, despite their little involvement in the war either way, and the lack of negative outcomes for them anyway. But somehow, it puts a damper on things. The good days fly by in seconds and the bad days make minutes feel like hours. Few of his days are good these days, and so even just the time untouched by sadness blur past. Barty says it’s always been like that, for him. That he only remembers the worst, and the good days and hours are fervent blues of ecstasy. That, well. It stings him a little, biting once and always coming back for more, like a particularly annoying wasp. It makes him think of all the good times they’ve had, and makes him wonder if he remembers them. If he wants to.
~~~~~~~~~
4th May, 1979
“You know, Ev, I’m going to get tattoos when we escape this hellhole.” Barty says, joint in hand, waving it around dramatically to prove his point. Weed is hard to come by in the Wizarding World, but it’s the one muggle delight that Evan truly enjoys. They get their weed off some muggleborn seventh years, Matthew and Owen, who’re the only people who don’t overcharge or spike your shit, though Barty always says it’d be better if it were spiked. That it’d add some fun. Evan has always strongly disagreed.
“If that accidentally goes out because of all your faffing around, then don’t go asking for me to light you up, I won’t do it.” Evan warns, quirking up an eyebrow. “And what tattoos would you get, Bats?” He asks, laughing. In the Wizarding World, you get magical tattoo shops, with moving, colour changing tattoos, but Evan thinks he would prefer something more stable. Something unchanging and consistent.
“Not sure, really, you’re the artist of the two of us.” He says, laughing and pointing to the doodles on the back of Evan’s hand done in ink. For once, they’re not actually Evan’s handiwork; he sits next to Pandora in History of Magic, and her mind has a tendency to wander during the topic. He doesn’t know why she picked it, really, she does much better in subjects like Arithmancy, Ancient Runes, Potions and the like. For all her airy fairy nature, Pandora would make a wicked evil scientist. Evan can already see her in a white lab jacket, cackling manically and bringing a haphazardly stitched together set of dead body parts back to life.
“Nah, Pandora did these.” He says, glancing at them. “My handiworks usually a little less like it stepped out of faerieland.” He laughs. Mushrooms and vines are drawn on his hands and up his forearms, and he must admit that it does look pretty cool.
“So? Talent runs in the family. My dad’s a dick, I’m a dick. Stands to reason it’s carried through blood. Or saliva.” He says, scooting over in attempt to lick Evan’s hand.
“Ew! Merlin, Barty, you’re nasty.” He says with a grimace, but with a laugh afterwards.
“Anyway. You should give me tattoo inspiration, Rosie.” He says, taking another drag of his spliff.
“Inspiration wouldn’t exactly work, you wouldn’t know how it’d look like if I’m just giving you ideas. Or how it’d look on you.” He says, rolling his eyes.
“Then draw them on me.” Barty says, a light appearing in his eyes. “There’s a quill and an ink pot over there. Draw them on me. I can take my shirt off, if need be.”
“You being serious?” He asks, arching a blonde eyebrow.
“Deadly.” Barty grins, and passes Evan his spliff. Evan takes it bemusedly, and watches as Barty begins to skilfully unbutton his shirt. Well, it checks out he’d have skills, judging by the amount of girls’ shirts he unbuttons regularly. Evan tries not to stare too much, unable to help the way that his eyes keep drifting down. Barty’s torso, like the rest of him, is muscular and filled out, and for once Evan can see what the girls see in him sometimes.
He flops down on the couch, torso exposed and with a cheeky, salacious grin on his face. Evan rolls his eyes at the sight, though he can’t deny that some previously undiscovered fire in his veins comes to rise up and clash against his blood, burning through his skin until the flames consume him wholly. Evan sighs to himself. Well, he may as well. Not like he’s got anything better to be doing, really. Well, there’s his neglected Charms homework, but that can wait. Again. Evan grabs the inkpot and the quill from the coffee table, and pauses. “Barty, mate, the only way I’m actually gonna get at you is if I’m sat on you.”
“And?” He smirks. “You wouldn’t be the first.”
Evan slaps Barty’s thigh teasingly. “Cool it, Rasputin.”
“Who?” Barty says confusedly.
“Nevermind.” Evan says, and stares at him.
“Cmon, sailor, climb aboard.” Barty says, patting his lap.
“Urgh. You suck.” Evan says, but he clambers onto the sofa, more specifically onto Barty. He swings his legs on either side of his lap, sinking down. He notices the way that Barty goes quiet, and thinks nothing of it.
After a few moments, Barty coughs with a wry grin. “So does your mum, mate.”
“Took you all that time just to think of that?” He says, but his face doesn’t match the sentence, ridiculously concentrated and beginning to draw a pattern of nettle leaves on Barty’s shoulder, leaning down so he’s excruciatingly close to Barty, and Evan can’t help but note how fucking warm his skin is. Human radiator, that one.
“Well, I thought it was a pretty good one.” He says, with a barking laugh.
“For you, maybe.” Evan says, brows furrowed because for some reason one of the leaves just don’t look right and it’s bugging him. It’s no big deal, really, and he doubts Barty would even notice, but he wants it to be perfect. Because he’s a perfectionist. Just because he’s a perfectionist.
“What’s that supposed to mean?!” Barty pouts, looking so remarkably like a moody toddler that if Evan wasn’t holding a precarious quill, he would be laughing so hard he shook.
“Never you mind.” He says, doing the fine little details that matter to nobody but him.
“Whatcha drawing?” He asks, craning his neck to look.
Evan swats his head away with his other hand. “None of your beeswax, mate. You’ll see when it’s done.”
“Urgh. You wound me, Rosie.” Barty complains.
“Feel wounded, then. I really couldn’t care if I tried, mate.” He says, and gets back to work.
In a matter of a few hours, Barty’s skin is decorated in an assortment of flowers; fuchsias on his forearm, daffodils on his bicep, azaleas on his hipbones and most notably, a singular, detailed rose etched over his heart. He looks, in Evan’s slightly biased opinion, breathtaking. The ink has dried at last, and Barty has been hardly able to sit still and impatiently craning his neck for the last half hour, and so Evan has sighed and finally let him get up to go see a mirror. They ascend the stairs to the boys dorm together, in silence, Barty in front of Evan in his haste and Evan trying desperately hard to not notice the way the muscles in his back work.
Then, they’re in their dorm, and Evan thinks for one last time how pretty Barty looks with all this, knowing that he’s going to wipe the ‘girly’ drawings away first chance he gets. He watches as Barty stands in front of the mirror, and he’s quiet, for a moment. Evan watches his hands trace over each tattoo, fingers ghosting over each set of black lines. Evan tries not to notice that his hand lingers the most over the rose that Evan has painstakingly etched over Barty’s heart.
“I love them.” Barty says quietly, eventually, and it’s not with a bright grin or lit up eyes. It’s said with a certain reverence that Evan wants to hear him say again, again and again. “You did great, Ev.” He tells him, still with that reverent tone. Hearing him say his name like that sends sparks down Evan’s fingertips, and he tries desperately hard not to flush.
Evan coughs. “Thanks, mate. What’s your favourite.”
“The rose.” Barty says softly, like there’s nobody in the world in that moment other than them.
And Evan can’t help but think the same.
Two weeks later, Barty gets that tattoo, etched over his heart. He’s the biggest crybaby Evan has ever seen, but he doesn’t cry when he gets it. He gets that rose permanently inked into his skin, Evan’s rose, directly over his beating heart.
Two weeks later, Evan Rosier realises that he’s desperately in love with Barty Crouch Jr, and that perhaps he always has been.
~~~~~~~~~
Evan snaps back to himself, eventually, because he hears a key twist in the lock and the front door of their little flat swing open. His ears prick up. Barty, Death Eaters or the Order. Barty, Death Eaters or the Order. Death Eaters and the Order have been likely to stop by since the two moved in, to recruit, or to murder. Evan isn’t sure, really. Both would probably be beneficial, however they’re natural Death Eater recruits. The pure blood in their veins and their (or at least, Barty’s) penchant for duelling makes them naturals. But Evan is afraid of war. He’s afraid of blood and hot sparks of magic and the reek of death and loss and Evan does not want to be a soldier. Evan doesn’t think he has enough belief or loyalty to any cause to join a war. He has loyalty to nobody but Barty. He would fight for nobody but Barty. Evan will run to France at the first sign of war in England, as his family already have. He is a coward. There is no denying it, not even by him. He will not fight. He is afraid. Nobody will make him.
Then, he hears the familiar sigh once the door closes, and Evan’s previously taut muscles relax. Barty. Oh, his Barty. He sits up a little straighter, and turns off the television. Barty doesn’t like it, and Evan has a sinking need to please Barty, every second of every minute of every hour. “Hey, Bats!” He calls out, lying back onto the couch.
He doesn’t get a response for a few moments, until Barty comes walking into the living room, shoes still on but his coat off, though Evan isn’t sure he even took it. Evan looks at him expectantly. Barty doesn’t answer the silent question, instead choosing to answer the spoken words. “Hey, Evan.” Full name. Somethings wrong. Something is very, very wrong, and Evan, coward as always, isn’t sure he wants to know.
But he asks anyway, because it’s Barty, and he looks so fucking ashy, like all of the flames have been drained from him, the light that has always ebbed from him snuffed out. “Where were you?” He asks primly.
“Fuck off.” Barty snarls bluntly.
Evan is growing more worried with the second. “Bats. Come on. Talk to me.”
“I said fuck off, didn’t I? So fuck off.” He says, growing clearly more agitated by the second.
“Barty, are you hurt? Did someone… do something, to you?” Evan says, lips parted in worry.
“I said,” He says, coming closer to the couch. Evan stands up, facing him. He’s the taller of the two, though his posture is always crooked so they tend to seem the same size. He straightens his back out, so he’s an inch or two taller. Well, more, actually, but he’s feeling pitiful. “Fuck off.”
“Barty.” Evan says, grabbing his left wrist to calm him. Then, Barty lets out a hiss of pain, and Evan knows. He does. “Barty.” He whispers.
Barty pulls his arm away like he’s been burnt. Maybe he has. Evan doesn’t know how the dark mark works. “I don’t want to do this right now.” He says, and those big doe eyes are vulnerable, so vulnerable, and Evan wants to drop it. But if he drops it he won’t have the courage to bring it up again, and he’s spurred on by his mental Pandora whispering ‘you need to stop letting him walk all over you, Evan.’
“You got the dark mark.” It isn’t a question. It’s a statement. A fact.
Barty doesn’t dispute it. Doesn’t try to deny it. Doesn’t apologise. Just hangs his head, though in actual shame or falsification, Evan will never know. “Yeah. He’s got the right idea of things. I know he sounds like a madman, but Merlin, I want to fight. I want to defend my people. I want to defend us, Rosie.” He says, doe eyes glassy and looking up at Evan like he hung the stars.
Because of the reappearance of that reverent tone, Evan doesn’t even think to ask ‘do you really want to defend, or do you want to attack?’. He would never have gotten an answer.
Instead, Evan Vincent Rosier joins the death eaters a week later. In doing so, he seals his fate. If you had told Evan Rosier on the dismal afternoon of the 25th of November, 1979, that if he did this, he would lose everything, all of his friends, his family, his morals, then he would have hesitated for a second before asking you;
“But what about Barty? Do I lose Barty?”
And you would have to answer;
“No. He loves you until the end.”
And that would be enough for him to walk away, and let the dark mark be branded upon his skin. In every seething hiss of pain he lets out, he will hear the honeysuckle sweet tone of Barty saying his name, and the pain will be numbed in an instant. It is the same when he dies. He dies without a care, because all he can hears is his name on Barty’s lips. Barty will never know. Evan will be glad.
Horrible things are done.
Evan regrets all of them.
Barty regrets none of them.
As is the tale, and as is the pattern.
Barty Crouch Jr takes the dark mark on the-