radio, someone still loves you

Rosiers don’t cry. Rosiers don’t back down. Rosiers don’t fail. And more than anything, Rosiers don’t show weakness. Ever.

Evan broke this rule for the first time in second year. He’d come back that summer covered with bruises, his arms and legs black and blue from the relentless Quidditch exercises his father had forced him through. Every step hurt like hell, and he couldn’t sleep without hearing his father screaming in his ear. 

“Idiot! Embarrassment!”

“You are no son of mine.”

Fighting sleepless nights that fall of second year, Evan had taken to escaping to the astronomy tower, burying his head between his legs and succumbing to the weakness. His father was right. He wasn’t a Rosier. He was a humiliation.

It was one October night that Regulus had found him there. Evan hadn’t realized in time to wipe away his tears. And when Regulus had sat beside him, the first person to ever see him cry, Evan couldn’t manage to still his shaking shoulders. 

The second time he’d broken the rule was before his first Quidditch match in third year. Dorcas had stumbled upon him in the greenhouse, eyes swollen from tears, broom thrown across the room in a fit of anger. That time he’d simply been too exhausted to hide his own weakness. Let me be fucking weak, he thought. It’s killing me to be strong. 

He hadn’t let Pandora see him weak. He couldn’t. If she knew he was afraid, she wouldn’t allow him to defend her. Evan would gladly watch himself disintegrate if it meant Pandora could be happy.

Evan had never planned for them to see him weak. But it had happened, and though he’d always brush it off after, letting the shards pierce him where they couldn’t see, the damage had been done. The one person he hadn’t let see him weak, besides Pandora, was Barty. One would call it chance that Barty had never found Evan in one of his episodes, but Evan rather thought it luck. People like Evan worshipped at the altar of self-inflicted pain. Barty seemed to avoid feeling anything, at any cost. 

Evan wasn’t quite sure why Regulus had sent Barty to find him. He’d gone to the astronomy tower because he’d known the only person who could possibly find him there was Reggie. It was something sacred. He’d hang his legs over the railing, imagining how those few seconds before hitting the ground would feel. He’d fantasize of a far-off destination, rolling plain or tall building, anywhere where he could exist outside of the context of the Rosier name. Somewhere where his first name wasn’t constantly overshadowed by his last. And Regulus had sent Barty to infringe on its sanctity. Barty, with his immature jokes and stupid smirk. 

Barty was like a mosquito. Or a particularly annoying gnat. And as much as Evan tried to swat him away, Barty seemed to know exactly how to get under his skin. He hadn’t planned on telling Barty anything. The crowning jewel of Barty Crouch Jr. was his constant ability to surprise you, as Evan was coming to learn. He never did what Evan expected him to do, needed him to do, for his own sanity. Evan liked to think of the world as a realm of constancy. People were good or bad, tolerable or insufferable, and the only way to survive was to simply accept that. He didn’t know how to deal with Barty, who disputed Evan’s assumptions of him with every new sentence.

He had barely prodded Evan into saying anything. All Barty had needed to do was raise an eyebrow and repeat back the name of a Canadian province in an uncharacteristically soft voice, and Evan had opened the floodgates to his life. It fucking scared him. It had taken Regulus weeks to get details of his family out of Evan. The arsehole had done it in under five minutes. 

“Big day tomorrow,” Barty said, snapping Evan out of his thoughts. Barty kneeled by his bed, folding his Quidditch sweater, glancing over at Evan. 

Tomorrow. The first match of the season. The very reason for Evan’s bloody moment of weakness. Why couldn’t he deal with this like normal people? Then he wouldn’t be in this position.

Evan attempted a smile. “Mhm. Excited.”

Barty opened his mouth, then closed it again. He looked over at Regulus, who laid in bed, immersed in a paperback. 

“You doing anything right now, Evan?” Barty asked carefully, standing from his spot on the floor.

Evan hadn’t been avoiding Barty, per se. But he’d been skipping their usual smoking sessions, opting to retreat (read: hide) in the library instead. He wasn’t sure how to face Barty, after laying himself out in front of him. And even more so, he wasn’t sure how to act around Barty after he’d looked Evan in the eye and said that he understands, more than he knows. Because that meant that Barty was like Evan. That he was in pain also. Which sent Evan down a completely different spiral, because, how hadn’t he known? How had Barty hid it all these years, while Evan fell apart at the first sign of danger? Was Barty that much stronger than him?

He felt…guilty, almost. Which was idiotic, because it was Barty, who skipped through life with an arsenal of eye rolls and jeers. But, the more Evan thought about it, it seemed so bloody obvious. It was a front, the same way Evan was cold and reserved. Two sides of the same fucking coin.

So, no, he wasn’t doing anything right now. But if that meant that Barty was going to look at him again with his knit brows, all concern and a trace of understanding, then Evan would find something else to do.

“Evan?” Barty repeated. Evan blinked at him, still lost in his own thoughts. 

“Are you–”

“Oh,” Evan replied, too flustered to come up with a convincing excuse. “No, nothing.”

“I got a new record.”

“T-that’s nice.” Evan squirmed under Barty’s gaze. Rosiers didn’t squirm, either, but looks like he made all sorts of dumbass exceptions for Barty Crouch Jr.

“Wanna come get it with me?” 

Evan was curious where Barty had been getting his records from. He knew this was some lame attempt by Barty to get his mind off the match. Evan considered saying no for a moment, but his curiosity won out.

“Sure, let’s go.”

The castle was dark, curfew only an hour away. Evan had expected Barty to lead him to an abandoned classroom or a secluded corner, somewhere where illicit record dealings occurred, or so Evan assumed. He wasn’t usually a participant in illicit record dealings, but dark corners were usually where his illicit cigarette dealings occurred. 

To his surprise, though, Barty turned left, climbing the stairs to the owlery.

“Where are we going?”

Barty looked at him like he was stupid. Evan wanted to hit him.

“The owlery, obviously.”

Rosiers were also supposed to keep their cool. They didn’t engage in banter, least of all with Barty Crouch Jr. Or maybe that was more of an Evan-specific rule. Clearly, he wasn’t particularly good at following this family rule. The floodgates had been opened in more ways than one.

“Oh, obviously,” Evan snarked. “Where else would we be going at bloody ten o’clock at night?”

“Exactly. Where else?”

Evan was close to banging his head against the wall. 

“Try and keep up, Rosier,” Barty called from a few steps ahead.

“Try and speed up a little, Crouch. My grandmother climbs stairs faster than you.”

“Then why are you huffing and puffing?” Barty taunted.

Evan sped up, overtaking Barty and sprinting the rest of the way up the stairs. He raised an eyebrow at Barty.

“What was that about huffing and puffing?” he challenged.

To his surprise, Barty threw his head back and cackled.

“Merlin, Dorcas is right. You’re the pettiest person I’ve ever met.”

“It’s called being right. You should try it sometime.”

Barty looked at him in amazement. “Where the fuck have you been the past three years?”

“What are you even saying?”

“Did you get a personality transplant or something? I’m being serious.”

“Not all of us need to broadcast every bloody thought we have to all of Slytherin tower.”

“And not all of us are human wet blankets, but I digress.”

“Ooh, big word coming from you.”

“That’s not the only thing that’s–”

“I fucking knew you were going to–”

“Wanker,” they both said in unison. 

“I am this close to pushing you off the tower,”

“That’s kind of hot,” Barty winked.

Evan groaned. “Why am I talking to you right now?”

“I’m irresistible, baby.”

“Call me baby again and I’ll break your fingers.”

“Sadistic arsehole.”

Barty walked across the small room, towards a rather large grey owl holding a large box in its talons. He held out something in his hand, what Evan presumed to be food, and took the package from it.

“Evan, meet Henry.”

“Your owl is overweight.”

Barty covered the owl’s ears (?) with his hands. “Don’t tell him that. He gets insecure.”

“And why does he have a human name? You couldn’t name him something normal, like Alabaster?”

“The fuck kind of owls you have? Alabaster? Posh fucker.”

“You own twenty different hair products. Pot, meet kettle.”

“Do you want the record or not?”

“You were the one who introduced me to Henry.”

Grabbing the package, Barty headed down the stairs, Evan following him down.

They walked through the hallways, the candles along the walls on their last breaths.

“Where do you get them from?” Evan asked, nodding at the records.

“My mother. She’s like me, I guess. Sends me a few whenever I ask.”

“What do you mean, like you?”

“I don’t know. She likes muggle music too. In secret, of course. Imagine, Barty Crouch’s son and wife, a bunch of muggle lovers. He’d Imperio me into the next century.” Barty laughed, but there was no humor behind it.

“Does he,” Evan paused. “do that?”

“Imperio?” Barty chuckled. “Hey, it’s not abuse if there’s no bruise, right?”

“Barty,” Evan started. 

“Let’s listen to the record,” Barty interrupted, pushing open the door to the dorm.

There it was again. Barty brushing it off, hiding behind a joke. Evan would call him out on it, but he knew he was a hypocrite. The whole pretending-he-was-find thing was his speciality. 

“You guys are back,” Regulus said, looking up from his book. 

“We come bearing gifts.” Barty held up the new record.

“David Bowie,” Regulus read. “I’ve heard of him, actually.”

“Really?” Evan asked incredulously. Regulus wasn’t exactly the most up-to-date on muggle culture, considering the whole, you know, blood purity family cult thing. 

“Sirius waxed poetic about him for the past two summers,” Regulus replied absentmindedly. It was the first time he had mentioned his brother since the incident.

“Is he any good?”

“See for yourself.” Barty placed the record down on the player. 

Three boys sat in complete stillness as Bowie’s voice pierced through the October air. As the chorus of Five Years repeated, Evan found himself in a paralyzing numbness. He wanted it even louder, loud enough that it could drown out the sound of his own mind. It was beautifully imperfect. Evan supposed that’s how it felt to be a muggle.

To the likely horror of his parents, Evan thought about what it might be like to be a muggle often. He understood Barty in that regard. It wasn’t that he particularly wanted to be a muggle. Quidditch (and modesty) aside, he was a bloody good wizard. It was more that the concept of being a muggle quite honestly fascinated him. Wizards were always trying to find ways to extend their lifetimes, to preserve their bodies for as long as possible. Muggles, on the other hand, knew their lives were limited, yet seemed perfectly content with the notion. They simply lived. They made art, they built large structures, they played music, they worked, they fell in love, and then they died. Evan wished it could be that simple.

“I get it now,” Regulus said, when the first side was finished. “I thought Sirius was bloody mad, but I think I understand.”

“It’s like a storybook on a record,” Evan remarked. 

“Hell of a lot better than the stories we have,” Barty snorted. “Ziggy Stardust versus Beedle the Bard.”

“I wouldn’t be caught dead reading Beedle the Bard.” Regulus picked up his book – The Odyssey, one of the only muggle books in the Hogwarts library, Evan knew – and laid back against his headboard.

“Put the record back on, Evan.”

“As you wish, Monsieur Black.” 

Regulus flipped him off. “Crétin.”

"C'est celui qui le dit qui l'est,” Evan shot back. 

Barty groaned. “I hate when you guys speak French.”

“It’s the only way to complain about you without you hearing,” Regulus chirped. 

“Oh Reggie, you couldn’t complain about me if someone paid you,” Barty cooed.

“I could be getting paid?”

“You wound me.”

Evan rolled his eyes. They were always like this. Arguing non-stop about the smallest things. But he couldn’t help but smile fondly. Idiots.

He must’ve been coming down with something. Nothing else could explain this newfound, ghastly, sentimental streak. Maybe he was getting soft at the ripe old age of (almost) fifteen. Evan shuddered at the thought.

Regulus checked his watch. “It’s getting late. We should get to sleep. Dorcas will kill us if we don’t get eight hours.”

“Afraid she’ll yell at you?” Barty mocked.

“I am,” Evan put in. “An angry Dorcas with a quaffle is not a pleasant thought.”

“I have to side with Evan here,” Regulus agreed. “I’m rather fond of my fingers.”

Sighing dramatically, Barty turned off the record player. “Fine, I suppose Bowie will continue to serenade us another day.”

Evan headed to the bathroom to get ready for bed. He stared at his reflection in the mirror, trying to find some escape from the overwhelming panic in his own face. Rosiers don’t fail, he thought, making eye contact with the Evan in the mirror. This is what you’ve been preparing for. 

All that stared back at him was an overgrown boy with a hopeless look in his eye. He wasn’t convincing Mirror Evan. He tugged at a braid near his ear. They were getting unruly. He needed to ask Pandora to do them for him again soon. Or maybe just to take them out entirely. 

Someone knocked at the door. 

“You done in there?” Regulus asked through the door.

“One second,” Evan called back. He splashed some water on his face, raked some gel through his short braids, and shot himself one last determined look in the mirror. Mirror Evan looked at him like he was insane.

As he opened the door, he came face to face with Regulus, whose nose must’ve practically been pressed up against the door.

“Bloody hell, you almost gave me a heart attack,” Evan swore. 

“Are you alright?” Regulus whispered, stalking past Evan into the bathroom. 

“Why wouldn’t I be?”

Regulus glanced outside the door, then lowered his voice. “Tomorrow. I wasn’t sure if Barty had mucked it all up when I sent him to the astronomy tower.”

“Oh, that.”

“I was worried Barty made the problem worse.”

“He,” Evan paused, “helped.” In the process he had created another problem, the problem of Evan and Barty now apparently revealing intimate details of their lives to each other, which still mildly unsettled Evan, but he wasn't in the mood to unpack that all with Regulus right now.

“Really?” Regulus asked, a little incredulously.

“I’ve not lost my head, yeah? That’s about as good as it’s gonna get.”

“But are you–”

“I’m fine. I should be asking if you’re okay, with all this bloody feelings talk.”

“Your sister has brainwashed me.”

Evan snickered. “She has a habit of doing that.”

“But you’re—?”

“Reg, I’ve let you deal with your shit. Let me handle mine.”

Regulus let out a breath. “Fair enough.”

Evan began to open the door.

“Evan,” Regulus called. “Barty means well.”

“I know.”

Night fell and morning came, and it was the day of the Hufflepuff match. Evan slipped into his Quidditch kit, pulling the green sweater over his head. 

Kneeling on the hardwood, he pulled his broom from under his bed, dusting it off. At first contact with the cold wood of the handle, Evan’s heart jumped. It was practically an automatic response. He felt his hands begin to sweat, and he attempted to dry them against the wool of his sweater.

“You ready, Evan?” Barty shouted from the bottom of the stairs. 

“Coming,” he called back, balling his hands into fists to stop the shaking. 

He took a deep breath. Rosiers don’t get scared. It was Hufflepuff, for Godric’s sake. Not the bloody World Championships. 

“Breakfast?” Regulus asked as Evan jogged down the stairs. He nodded, and the three boys walked through the dungeon, sleep still in their voices.

At the table, Dorcas pushed three goblets of pumpkin juice towards them. The hall was mostly empty besides them and the Hufflepuff team, much of the castle opting to sleep through breakfast on the weekends. 

“Drink up,” she said. “you lot need your energy for today.”

“How do you have so much energy at 7:30?” Barty asked, rubbing sleep out of his eyes.

“I wake up by 6 every morning. Not all of us are lazy sods like you.”

Before Evan knew it, they were on the pitch, warming up. Match days always went like this. It felt as if Evan blacked out everything leading up to the match. It was like he was in some sort of drunken stupor – drunk on his own fear, perhaps.

As he flew laps around the field, he tried to push his father’s voice out of his head. Terrible form, he hissed in Evan’s ear. When I was your age, I could make goals with my eyes closed.

Shut the fuck up, Evan told his own thoughts. 

As Evan landed on the ground for the final huddle, Barty touched down next to him. Evan saw him glance in his direction, but Evan couldn’t look up. Letting Barty see him weak right now would only make it worse. 

“ –let’s wipe the floor with those Hufflepuffs,” Evan heard Dorcas say as he tuned back in to her speech. The Slytherin team cheered.

He watched Dorcas fly towards the middle of the pitch, shaking the hand of the Hufflepuff captain. Evan was still shaking, grasping his broom and attempting to normal his breathing. He felt Barty fly up next to him.

“Fuck him, Evan,” Barty whispered. “Play for yourself today.”

Evan’s breathing slowed. His father wasn’t here. He wasn’t watching him. It was just Evan, on his broom. 

The match began with a whistle, and Evan sprang into action. Despite all his anxieties, all of his anger, flying was an autopilot. He eyed the Quaffle in held loosely Fenwick’s hands, swooping down to steal it from him. He flew towards the goal, coming face-to-face with a Hufflepuff player. Faking right and then left, he swerved around him, eyes fixed on the goalposts.

He heard a whistle to his right and turned his head to see Barty, hovering a few meters away. Glancing at the Hufflepuff heading his way, he threw the Quaffle sideways towards Barty before diving below the other player. And he shot back up, he imitated Barty’s whistle. Catching the Quaffle, he leaned left on his broom, gliding a dozen meters before throwing the Quaffle towards the hoop.

“TEN POINTS TO SLYTHERIN!”

He flew back towards the other side of the pitch, grinning at Dorcas, who gave him a thumbs-up. 

“Guess you took my advice, Rosier,” Evan heard Barty murmur next to him.

“Let’s win this thing.”

It felt Evan and Barty were in perfect sync. Evan would ‘drop’ the Quaffle and Barty would swoop down to get it, shooting up to make another goal. Barty taunted the Hufflepuff beater, leaving an opening for Evan to shoot. Evan found himself tossing the Quaffle towards Barty instead of to Oscar Bulstrode, the other Slytherin chaser, like he usually did. On the pitch, Evan didn’t overthink things. He went with his instincts, and it seemed like today, Barty was wherever he needed him to be.

“AND SLYTHERIN HAS GOT THE SNITCH!” the announcer yelled. “SLYTHERIN WINS!”

Dorcas whooped, flying towards Regulus to give him a high five. Evan hovered a few feet over the ground, still holding the Quaffle. He held out a fist to Barty.

“I told you my flying was sexy as fuck,” Barty joked, fist-bumping Evan.

“I’m too tired to make fun of you right now,” Evan replied, dismounting from his broom. 

Dorcas ran up to them. “Holy shit. You two were fucking insane up there today.”

“I told you,” Barty singsonged. Evan shoved him with his shoulder. 

“Did you practice without telling me or something?” Dorcas asked. 

“No, we–”

“When Evan threw the Quaffle to you without even looking at you– I was so proud I almost died.”

Evan laughed. 

“I knew you two were good, obviously. But, Merlin, that was something else.”

“Relax, Dorcas,” Barty said. “It was just Hufflepuff.” Evan saw the pleased blush on his cheeks, though.

“No, she’s right,” Regulus spoke from behind them. “It’s like you two could read each other's minds.”

Barty laughed uneasily, and Evan shared the sentiment. All this talk of mind-reading wasn’t helping with his discomfort with his and Barty’s new friendship.

“Did you guys see when Fenwick dropped the Quaffle?” Barty said, clearly trying to change the subject. Evan silently thanked him for it. 

Regulus chuckled. “He never learns, does he?”

“Come on,” Dorcas declared. “Let’s go celebrate. Hard work starts again tomorrow.”

“Yipee,” Barty drawled, sharing a smirk with Evan.