“What the fuck is this?” Evan exclaimed into the darkness of the chamber. There was someone else there, the person who had pulled him into one of many secret little alcoves in the Slytherin common room. The person was unfortunately smart, and had stripped him of his wand before he had the time to grab it. The channel was small, about the size of a broom closet in width, and it was one of the ones that had no lanterns, leaving Evan both in the dark and a bit chilly. The dungeon was already cold most days, especially winter days like this one, and nobody ever bothered to make their heating charms extend all the way into these hidey-holes. It didn’t help that Evan’s uniform sleeves were rolled up to showcase the Dark Mark decorating his forearm. He’d taken it during summer holiday, and it was a source of pride for Barty, who he found himself always trying to emulate, therefore making it a source of pride for him.
Evan’s captor (was this a hostage situation, or was he being dramatic?) cast lumos in a disoriented mumble, but the spell flickered for only a moment before going out. Not even enough time for Evan to get a glimpse of the person who’d snatched him from the common room. Great, so he’d managed to be captured by someone who was either magically challenged enough to not know how to cast a proper lighting charm, or dumb enough to mix up their wands. If he kept this up the Order would have him executed and nobody but Barty and Regulus would notice or care. He’d have to be more vigilant if he wanted to survive through the war.
“Need some help?” he jeered, feeling sarcastic. If this person was going to kill him at Hogwarts (a bold and respectable move, but still unlikely), he’d have fun with it at least. He hoped to die with a quip on the tip of his tongue.
“Come off it, Rosier,” James Potter said from the darkness, struggling to locate his own wand in his robes.
Evan almost kicked him, out of instinct. He had assumed the sod wouldn’t be able to show his face after whatever he’d done to Regulus. Evan didn’t know the details of it in full, but he knew Regulus was just as bad as he had been when Sirius left. James stopped coming around about a month after the beginning of term, and then Regulus became an all too familiar shell of himself. He wouldn’t eat, couldn’t sleep, refused to go to classes more than half of the time, refused to even leave his desk let alone the dorm. He only got up from his desk to shower, brush his teeth, and do something with his hair occasionally. The unavoidable hygiene related things he refused to forego even at his lowest. All he seemed to want to do - to be able to do - was write. What he was writing Evan wasn’t privy to, but it must’ve been a long manifesto judging by the sheer amount of time Regulus was writing.
Instead of resorting to violence (a wasted opportunity to emulate Barty, now that Evan thinks about it) Evan turned out of the alcove, tossing a, “Fuck off and die,” behind his shoulder as he went. He’d go to a teacher and file a complaint about his stolen wand, something he knew wouldn’t be taken lightly, especially when the thief was a trouble maker such as James, who Evan would argue was a connoisseur of pissing off both the staff and student body. And what was Potter going to do about him walking off? Stop him?
Yes, apparently. Potter reached out and, after a missed attempt or two of coming down on the air and having to chase down Evan, clamped down on the blonde boy’s shoulder. Evan, upon being touched, backhanded the boy, causing him to recoil but not move his hand completely off of the former’s shoulder. “Fuckin’ hell, you pack a punch.”
“What exactly,” Evan began, already fed up with the interaction as he turned around to face the boy (even though he still couldn’t see him), “About ‘fuck off and die’ is hard for you to comprehend? And,” he bit out, swiping at James until he had his own wand in his hands, “I’ll be taking that back, thank you very much.”
He cast a lumos himself, since apparently the great prankster of Hogwarts was too incompetent to. It was quite a powerful one, illuminating the entire pocket he’d found himself in, and James Potter. He looked exactly as he had last year, when Evan and Barty had to endure his unprecedented visit to Regulus in their train car. Maybe his goatee was growing in a bit more (which was unfortunately fitting on him, as was everything), but other than that he was the same piece of shit as ever, if a bit tanner from the Indian sun (Evan had unwillingly learned from Regulus that Potter spent most of his holidays visiting extended family in India).
“I need to talk to you about, uhm,” Potter stated nervously, pathetically. He didn’t even bother trying to take back Evan’s wand (laughable. James was the type to think every Death Eater he came in contact with would avada kedavra him without second thought, so letting the wand land back into Evan’s hand was amateur to say the least). He coughed and nodded at the dark mark on the arm Evan was using to hold up the light.
Evan looked at him with wide eyes for a second, before opening his mouth in a little ‘o’ shape and letting his face settle into a smirk. “The Dark Lord? I’m sure he’d be happy to know you want to switch sides. A bit too late to get Reggie back, though - once you fuck him over you’re dead to him.” Evan was very aware that this wasn’t the case, that Potter was looking for information about the Death Eaters (information he wouldn’t be getting), but the act was rewarded with an absolutely appalled look from James.
Potter’s response, however, was unexpected. “I didn’t ‘fuck Reggie over-”
“Don’t call him that,” Evan said instinctually. Regulus hated when most people called him that. Calling him a nickname was a privilege, and Evan was sure that privilege had been revoked from James.
It did shock him, just a little bit that Potter’s first thought was to defend himself about hurting Regulus (which he undoubtedly did).
“Regulus then,” James exclaimed with a huff, before shaking his head decisively. “It doesn’t matter. That isn’t what I’m here for and you know it.”
Evan contemplated for a moment (he tutted himself in his head. Barty would never). He could go have a smoke, explain this interaction with Barty and resent the failed opportunity to fuck with pretty boy Potter, or he could see this little conversation through and have a real story to string together with Barty. He decided he couldn't resist the latter.
“What are you here for, then, James?”
“Fucks sake, you’re gonna make me work for it, aren’t you?”
“Work for it implies you’ll get something out of this.”
James' face dropped at that. He wasn’t visibly in high spirits to begin with, but the light, the very essence of his soul seemed to slip out of his expression at the thought he wouldn’t be leaving this corridor more informed about the Dark Lords’ plans than he had entered. He quite resembled how Regulus looked as of recent. He just stared at Evan for a moment, a war waging inside his head visible through his eyes, which Evan shamelessly stared into. He found the easiest way to make someone uncomfortable was to make unwavering eye contact until they backed out. He’d become a master at doing it, practicing at Death Eater meetings.
James never backed down. It was almost amusing if it wasn’t off putting. “Please,” he begged in a whispery out of breath way after the war in his eyes stilled. “I need to know something - anything. For Sirius-” his eyes scanned Evans’ which stayed steely and unmoved. The Sirius card may have worked on Regulus, but Evan was much less forgiving and not at all desperate for the older Black’s approval. “For Remus.”
That was tougher. Reggie cared for Remus a hell of a lot, and Evan had grown fond of him (which was to say Evan and Barty had grown fond of him, because they were basically the same person), but so did Sirius. Evan decided Regulus would kill him if he knew he could’ve helped Remus and didn’t.
So Evan wouldn’t tell him about this.
“You know I’m not your friend,” Evan said indecisively. He refused to lose his life for giving Potter anything of value, but there was something that would be… mutually beneficial in a sense. James got what he wanted, and Evan and Barty got entertainment.
He stared at Evan, blinked like a gecko and said harshly, “We shouldn’t have to be friends for you to care that people are dying.”
Evan barked out a humorless laugh. “You say that like my friends aren’t dropping like flies. Tell me, do you ever think about what your side does for your version of the greater good? Or do you let Dumbledore fill your head with delusions of grandeur while he lets children do his dirty work?”
He smirked at the silence that followed his retort. After man long moments James shook his head and said, “It isn’t the same. We choose to do this. You - your parents-”
Evan made a negative noise somewhere between a groan and mumble. “God, you lot are all the same. You strip us of our humanity and then blame us for being broken, fractured, inhuman things. You go around ripping away our autonomy because bad guys have to have origin stories, right?” he looked up at the man before him, and in the bright light of his lumos he looked so undoubtedly human, so alive and full of want. The war hadn’t drained anything out of him yet. It had been draining Evan and every other Slytherin for years. That might’ve been why the next sentence came so easy. “Maybe, just maybe, this is the one decision I've been allowed to make for myself. But you couldn’t fathom that, could you?”
James seemed dumbstruck for a moment before gesturing around and saying brokenly, “You belong in the context of the whole. No decision is really yours when you’ve-”
“When I’ve what? When I had the misfortune of not growing up with perfect parents who had perfect parents who cared? Oh come the fuck off it, James Potter,” he said it like he was tasting the name on his tongue, and didn’t like his first impressions of it. “My parents did what they had to do to survive their parents before them, and now I’m doing the same. So please, for the love of God, check your privilege.”
James was perfectly silent, a million things happening behind his eyes.
Evan didn’t stop to think about what those things were. He turned around, and this time James didn’t reach out for him. When he reached the end of the tunnel he said in a low voice, but not too low for James to hear, “Peter would know better than me anyways.”