Chapter 1
1st of September 2022
His head is killing him.
Evan spent the whole evening and night cleaning his room and finding his school stuff, including his black and red uniform that was lost over the summer. Lucky for him, it didn´t have any holes or stains after lying under his carpet for about two months.
His carpet though, had been through a lot.
The whole searching and cleaning process had taken over 5 hours of his day and sleep, with music blasting at full volume the whole time. So when he woke up, his head was killing him with the worst headache ever.
It could be because of the dust and music, or maybe the lack of sleep. Or the fact that school´s starting again. Who knows. But it doesn´t change that getting out of bed to go to school is even harder now.
He sits up, groaning and rubbing his head. He checks the time and wishes that he would have at least 10 minutes until he has to get up.
He´s not that lucky.
So Evan drags himself out of bed, takes his towel, and goes to the bathroom for a needed shower, as last night he fell asleep as soon as his head hit the pillows. He towel dries his hair, which should be fully dry when he gets to school, brushes his teeth, and puts on his uniform. He walks downstairs, heading straight to the kitchen to eat a quick breakfast before leaving.
Elise, the younger one of his two big sisters is making coffee, not greeting her brother nor acknowledging him, it´s nothing new or unusual for them.
So Evan takes yogurt from the fridge, skipping coffee to get a Red Bull on the way to school. He steps around Elise, taking some painkillers from the cabinet, and sits down at the table and wordlessly Elise joins him. Evan mixes his yogurt with a spoon, mixing the painkillers in and checking his socials at the same time. Nothing interesting there, his school´s football team has already posted a photo, including information of how to join the team. James is smiling widely in the pic like he usually is. He´s holding last year´s championship cup, which is mostly blocked by the info box added to the photo. Sirius is standing next to him, arms crossed and his long curly hair in a bun. Both of them are wearing their team´s annoyingly red team jerseys.
He gets up, tossing the empty yogurt jar to the bin and going upstairs to get his backpack and tie. Evan shuffles with his tie, leaving it loose but still on to not get dresscoded. He checks the time once more, taking his skateboard and going back downstairs. No one else is awake yet, so he takes his keys and leaves the house.
He puts on his headphones, selecting shuffle and a random playlist. He drops his skateboard and takes the slightly longer route to school to go to the shop first.
Surprisingly, he gets to school on time and the painkillers did the job. He grabs his skateboard and starts to walk to the entrance along with the crowd of people when there´s a loud whistle from his right, loud enough to be heard over his headphones' music. Evan looks up, seeing James, Sirius, and other footballers, + Remus and Peter even when they aren´t on the team.
Sirius waves at him, nodding his head to ask Evan to come by. Evan walks up to them with a “wassup,” and takes his headphones off.
“Ay, Rosier. Have you heard about the back-to-school party yet? This weekend, Friday night to get wasted and get over hangover for Monday. You coming?” Sirius says with an easy smile, sitting on the ground and leaning against a pine tree. Evan struggles with the headphones, trying to put them into his pocket.
“Back-to-school party? Very original,” Evan says, finally getting the headphones into his pocket.
“Don´t be a party pooper, it´s going to be great. As always.” James laughs while Evan wonders how can a person be so sunshiny and happy this early. Maybe it's in the blood, must be.
Evan doesn´t get to answer before Benjy perks up at him. “You finally gonna join the team this year?” Evan shakes his head.
“It´s my last, no use.” It´s the facts, it is his last year and he´d rather focus on school itself.
School was never that important to Evan. He used to like it when younger, then he was taught how it can ruin you so quickly and easily. So school was inconvenient for a long time after that. Evan knows many have it worse, but seeing other destroy themself more and more after one day and another, Evan was worried and scared.
Scared is the wrong word for it, but something quite alike.
“Boo, you´re getting boring, Rosier,” Marlene laughs from behind. Evan turns to the girl, and Marlene gives him an amused smirk before turning to others.
“Mckinnon!” James and Sirius howl at the same time, Remus grimaces and mumbles something from next to Sirius when they shout into his ear. “You coming to our back-to-school party?”
Marlene´s smile widens, “how could I ever pass a party? Yes I´ll come, when is it?”
“This Friday starts at 9.”
“Can make it,” she nods, then turns to Evan. “Evan, Evan, Evan, we have English. Come on, come on. McGonagall is gonna have a fit if we´re late.” She grabs his arm, and Evan groans. McGonagall´s lessons first thing in the morning is a fucking nightmare. You have to be at your best to get good grades and appreciation from her and that's something to dream of this early.
Peter gets up from the ground. “I have it too,” he informs simply, quickly bumping fists with others and falling into step with us.
We walk into the building, the walls are white with red stripes painted on them, to match the school colors. The lockers are white and red too, as well as the decorations. It´s a pain for the eyes when you come here for the first couple of weeks but the school spirit is too strong to not get used to the everywhere red. The building itself is quite large with 3 stories and another building nearby, over the field.
We´re making our way through the hallways and crowd when Regulus joins us, weirdly enough, catching his breath. “The classroom was changed, it´s on the 3rd floor and not first anymore,” he says.
We stop. “It´s on the third floor?” Peter asks. As if we didn´t all hear him.
“Yes, yes, it was informed today morning by McGonagall´s email,” Regulus says, turning around and starting to walk to the opposite direction.
It´s no surprise that no one else than Regulus checked the school´s emails this morning. It also means that they´ll be late.
A heavy sigh from the 3 of us before we follow him.
And no one is surprised. They were late. McGonagall was not delighted.
-
Evan drops his tray to the table where Marlene and Regulus already are, sitting down with a sigh. Double chemistry should be banned.
“Rough first day?” Regulus asks, amusement visible in his voice.
“I hate chemistry, why do we have it? All I need to know is that two hydrogen atoms and one oxygen atom make water.” He sighs, tossing his suspicious-looking school salad around the plate.
“How would we have scientists if we didn´t know chemistry at all?” Lily asks as she and Pandora join us, Evan glances up at them as he goes to answer.
But he doesn´t. Because someone he hasn´t seen in a long fucking time is in the cafeteria.
It shouldn´t be possible, because he´s good enough for a private school and Evan can´t see him again.
It shouldn´t be possible because Evan left.
It shouldn´t be possible because the other boy lived on the other side of the city.
The boy turns, looking around the tables. He doesn´t carry any food other than a Red Bull to drink but his backpack and some books in his hand. He´s very old-colored, in a way. Like he was taken from some history book with his dark brown hair and brown eyes, pale skin, and freckles splattered over his nose and cheeks.
Eventually, Barty Crouch Jr´s eyes meet Evan´s. There was a small shift from nothing to something else and then it was gone. Years ago Evan could´ve recognized the emotion, but not anymore. It makes something ache in him.
After a couple of seconds, the brunette turns to leave and he exits the cafeteria. Evan stares after him for a second before something hits his forehead.
“Earth to Evan,” Marlene says in a singsong voice while the others- now also Benjy and Isaac- laugh at him. “You were staring, didn´t know you had a thing for new students, Rosier,” she continues.
He clears his throat, taking the cheese off his forehead and tossing it to Marlene´s water. Now pushing the salad around his plate again, “I don´t have a thing for new students. How do you know he´s new?”
“Never seen him before,” Marlene shrugs, looking at the wet cheese in her glass.
“He´s in my maths class, very quiet one,” Benjy says, leaning over the table when he stops laughing. “All the girlies are head over heels for him. Was introduced as “Barty Crouch Jr”, a stupid name if you ask me.”
“Barty Crouch Jr? As the child of Barty Crouch Senior the lawyer and known as some fucking child genius?” Sirius asks as he drops to sit next to Evan, Remus following him to the table.
“That´s the one,” Isaac says. “Has won- god knows how many competitions from maths to literature and all.”
“They say that he´s aiming to be a lawyer like his father, but he could probably do anything he wants with those grades and wins from competitions,” Lily says with a thoughtful hum.
The others continue their discussion of the -apparently- infamous Barty Crouch Jr. Talking about his achievements, father, education, and so on.
Maybe nothing had changed in 6 years.
-
If not for the discussion in the cafeteria, Evan could swear he had seen things earlier today. But the whispers in every corner of the school now that people realized and get to know that Crouch had changed school said else than Evan´s hopes. It was irritating to walk around the school grounds and hearing the same name again and again, especially when half of the things said were rumors or unnecessary admiration.
As if Evan knew any better, nowadays.
And Evan knew some things better, and he knew to stay away from the brunette.
He was done with school for the day, just finished his last lesson. The first day back was as tiring as every other, the difference being that it feels like a one-time thing. He made his way through the corridors to his locker when someone called his name.
“Hey, Rosier!” A voice he had heard before called from behind, catching up to him.
Evan turned to see a light-haired girl stopping in front of him. She looked slightly up at him with blue eyes pretty enough for a doll. “Hey... Sorry, do I know you?” He asked, hoping that he wasn´t supposed to. He was never good with faces, or names.
The girl gives him a little awkward smile, “uh I´m Ashley, we´re in the same geography class.” Damnit.
But now he does remember her, or her face. “Oh yeah, sorry I'm not good with names. Was there something you wanted?”
“I was.. wondering if you had any company to go with to the party tomorrow.” Simply, does he have a date.
Evan takes a moment to answer because he´s not really interested in going to a party with someone he has talked to twice. But he doesn’t want to seem like a major asshole either. So, “I was just planning to go with my friends.”
“Oh,” Ashley says, taking a step back. For a second Evan thought- hoped- that she´d leave but instead she speaks up again. “I was gonna ask if you´d want to go with me but I understand.”
That’s not fair, “oh, I mean, yeah I can come with you. It´s fine to me.” That´s kinda a lie, but he can´t really take it back either. So he quietly curses himself.
Her face lights up when she looks up at Evan again, “really? That´s great, cool. Would you want to have my number so I could text you tomorrow then?”
“Uh sure, yeah could be useful.” So she does.
“Thanks. See you tomorrow then, Evan?” She says with an easy smile after typing her phone number to Evan´s phone.
“Yea, see you,” Evan answers and she leaves, joining her friends and giggling.
What did he get himself into?
He stopped dating anyone years ago, and he has kept that as it is. Evan really doesn't know what changed with it but as what is done is done. Why not to give a chance to it?
Evan walks to his locker, leaving some books without homework there and taking his skateboard when Regulus appears to his side. Evan shuts the locker, turning to the other boy.
“Got a date now? What happened to the “going to focus on school” and “no for dating”?” Regulus asks, a glint of amusement and uncertainty in his grey eyes.
“I wish I knew. Didn´t want to seem like an asshole y'know.” Evan says as he makes his way down the hall to the entrance.
“You´re an idiot,” Regulus says, and Evan doesn´t argue because it´s true.