Chapter 2
After his…enlightening conversation with Pandora the previous evening, she continued to hug him for another hour until he said he was tired and wanted to go to bed. Evan wasn’t tired of course, he just wanted to be alone with his thoughts. He also couldn’t deal with listening to her pitying cries. Evan always hated hearing her cry, even when they were younger and she had something as simple as a grazed knee. He loved her so much it pained him to hear her upset.
Evan had wandered around the castle for a while, passing by the occasional student, even coming across a couple snogging against a wall as if the other would disappear. It just made him feel even more sick and, regrettably, more sad.
He cast a tempus and saw it was almost curfew. He felt his insides freeze at the thought of seeing him.
Evan became more light-headed as he reached the slytherin common room. He could feel the tickles grow in his throat and steadily tried to swallow them down. At least until he made it to the bathroom and was alone. He couldn’t cough up the petals here. He couldn’t have everyone knowing. He couldn’t have Barty know.
Evan mumbled the password to the serpent painting and trudged through the open door, keeping his head down as so to try and avoid anyone talking to him. He didn’t think he could face any conversation right now.
Luckily, he made it to his dorm without any notice, people usually kept to themselves in slytherin unless there was a particular reason to do otherwise. Evan closed his eyes for a moment, wincing internally for what was to come. For having to face Barty and Regulus. For having to talk to them and act like he wasn’t dying inside, literally, whenever he saw them together.
He pushed the door open, opening his eyes. Evan scanned his eyes over the room and thankfully, didn’t see anyone else there. As grateful as he was for not having to face either of them right now he thought it was odd that they were both missing this close to curfew. His stomach tickled, threatening him as he came to the miserable conclusion that they were probably snogging in an alcove somewhere. Thinking about it harder made the petals come. He rushed to the bathroom and coughed up another few flower petals.
Great. He wasn’t just imagining it then. He readily cleaned up the blood and petals before anyone came back. How he would explain this, he wasn’t sure.
Evan had a quick shower in an attempt to wash off the whole day from his body. It didn’t work, unfortunately. He was still the same person with the same predicament when he came out.
He went back into the dorm and Barty and Regulus still weren’t there. Evan looked at the time, it was quarter past ten. Fifteen minutes past curfew. He rolled his eyes and trudged to his bed, trying to ignore his now painfully churning insides. Evan busied himself with packing his bag for the next day. Sadly, it was only a Tuesday. He was dying and had to pretend to be worried about exams even though he knew he wouldn’t even make it till then. Well, he didn’t know exactly how long he had and Pandora said it varied but Evan thought he most likely wouldn’t make it to the end of the year, especially with his luck. If it was even lucky to live longer. He thought he might just kill himself now and save him the pain of stage three: suffocation.
The door opening made Evan jump up and look to the source of the noise. It was Barty and Regulus of course. Evan looked down at their interlocked fingers and quickly willed down the tickling in the back of his throat.
“Hey Evan,” Regulus said as he walked towards the bathroom, leaving Barty standing in the doorway staring at his retreating form, as if Evan wasn’t even there.
Barty’s eyes darted to Evan once the bathroom door had shut and he made his way over to where Evan was sitting up against the pillows of his bed.
“Hi.”
Evan looked up to see those stupid brown eyes looking at him concernedly. Fuck, he hated himself. “Hi,” Evan managed to respond after a few seconds.
“Are you okay? You left pretty soon after dinner, we didn’t get much of a chance to talk”
“I don’t think you were that concerned with talking to be honest Barty,” Evan said harshly, eyes looking pointedly at Barty’s neck.
Barty scoffed and reeled back as if he had been struck suddenly. He didn't know how to respond so he just took a step back before walking to his own bed, changing into his pyjamas.
Later that night, Evan heard Regulus climb into Barty’s bed. Thankfully, Barty’s bed was one down from his so he didn’t have to be right next to them as they…well Evan didn’t really want to think much about what they were doing. Evan just prayed they would use silencing charms. He thought hearing them would send him over the edge into a coughing fit.
***
The next morning Evan woke up with deep bags under his eyes. He only got to sleep about an hour ago after a whole night of broading and wracking his brain trying to think of solutions and what the hell he was going to do next.
He heard nothing from Barty or Regulus throughout the night so they either used silencing charms or nothing actually happened. Evan didn’t want to think about them for too long but rather wanted to focus on literally anything that wouldn’t make him want to violently cough for half an hour.
First lesson was potions, which was good because Evan liked potions and was fairly good at it. Usually, he would partner with Pandora or Dorcas. Today he went with Dorcas because he didn’t really feel like facing Pandora again after yesterday and couldn’t face Barty or Regulus. They would most likely go with each other anyway. So he left his sister to partner with another Ravenclaw. Anyway, Evan liked Dorcas, she had a cool style and didn’t say anything unnecessary or relied too heavily on small talk when she interacting with people, Dorcas went straight to the point. Evan liked that about her. She was also fairly easy to be around. They had all become quick friends in Slytherin, Evan and Dorcas more so because of how infatuated Regulus and Barty were with each other. Pandora also was particularly close with Regulus, despite being different they seemed to fit together.
“You look like crap,” Dorcas pointed out, snapping him out of his thoughts.
“I know,” Evan replied grumpily. He didn’t really know what else to say if he was honest.
Dorcas furrowed her brows. Normally, he would have some witty comeback to say. She grew more concerned as he stayed looking at the table, quietly cutting up the ingredients.
“Are you okay? What’s wrong?” She asked quietly.
Dorcas gasped quietly when Evan’s eyes fleeted over to where Barty and Regulus were grinning at each other, talking loudly, fingers brushing momentarily.
Despite his look being so quick almost any other person would miss it, she noticed. She became prone to looking at finer details after the realisation of her longstanding crush on Marlene Mckinnon. Dorcas understood quiet queer pining and so looked at him solemnly.
She didn’t say anything else for the rest of the hour, letting them work quietly until the lesson ended.
“How are you feeling, Evan?” Pandora asked. They were now in Care of Magical Creatures and luckily for him, neither Barty nor Regulus chose to take this subject as they thought it was ‘boring’. He always thought it was quite interesting.
Evan scoffed inwardly at the question, “How do you think i’m feeling Pans?”
“Sorry,” she said, looking sincere.
He didn’t reply, focusing on what the Professor was saying about Nifflers. As much as Evan wanted to focus, he couldn’t fully when he knew none of this would matter. He would still die before ever getting to do his NEWTS.
***
At lunch Evan went to the kitchens, not wanting to face any of his friends. He hated Pandora and Dorcas’ worrying looks and Barty and Regulus for getting him into this mess in the first place. If only he had been sorted into Ravenclaw like the hat offered or he hadn’t become friends with Barty, none of this would have happened.
Evan tickled the pear and quietly opened the door, a harsh smell of all different kinds of foods hitting him.
One of the house elves came up to him, Mitsy. “What can Mitsy be doing for Master Evan?”
He smiled at her, after weeks of insisting she call him Evan she had resulted on ‘Master Evan’ as opposed to ‘Master Evan Rosier’.
“Hi Mitsy, can you just get me a small plate of whatever’s upstairs.” He didn’t want her to go out of her way to make him something, he found house elves quite easy to be around. They would never ask intruding questions or pity him.
He quickly ate the food she gave him before heading up to the library, hoping he could find some information about his curse.