The soul is everlasting, from birth to death a soul lives deep within us. We die in life and our soul will follow us to the next. Over and over the cycle will go.
Every life is always different yet surprisingly always the same, we are different.
Changes continuously but life stays the same, you're born, you live, you die.
It's all the same. But it's those small differences that really make living a life tolerable. Life brings different friends and family, different people to learn, to find and love. But in every life, no soul is ever alone, always destined for another. A soulmate or soulmates.
—
It's bright and sunny outside, a beautiful picture-perfect day, warmth surrounding the small room and within it the man that lay in bed. Both hands held tight, in his left is a hand he has come to learn and love, from the scar on his thumb to the bitten nails and the rough calloused fingers. In his right hand he holds a gentle coldness, nothing too sharp that it’ll burn. It’s just cold. It's death.
He squeezes the hand that holds warmth and urges him closer for one last kiss goodbye, the dying man is not scared nor is he sad to go. He is ready and at ease, he knows it's time and although the only thing he worries for is the hand that keeps him warm he leans in, lips brushing against one another the dying man feeds into the open mouth:
“I've loved you in this life I'll find you and love you in the next”
with a last breath, he walks out hand in hand with gentle coldness, with death.
—
Every life, always different yet surprisingly always the same. But each mundane life, no matter how simple, is always worth living.
The soul does not know how or why or who chooses which life is meant to be lived next, the soul has very little decision in the choosing of the next life. It doesn't know how it works or if there is even a system in place, maybe it's all random, all cards shuffled out and now it must play the hand it's been dealt.
All the soul knows, it is that it must dig.
The soul has buried itself in hundreds of vessels, it knows the procedure all too well now, it's an art form. It knows exactly how to fold, knows when to curve, how to stretch and bend itself to fit perfectly, it finds its vessel and buries itself deep inside. It finds the spot, nestles in, prepares to live another life, play the hand and guide.
Live and die.
So, when the soul has dug its nest, it knows.
It's hard. This doesn't seem right.
This vessel feels different, no matter how hard the soul digs and shapes itself, it can't seem to fit to perfection it has always known, can't find the sweet spot it desires. The burial took a long time in this life.
Buried, it feels it then, the tightness, the suffocation.
It’s no matter, it’ll make it. It will learn to breathe, adjust to the tightness and make friends with the suffocation.
This life will not be the same mundane it has come to appreciate. It will be different, vastly different, there’s something thrilling about it.
Hundreds of lives have been lived but nothing has felt quite like this, something magical. It's exciting to know something different awaits. Yet, frightening to feel so different, too different. Not being able to breathe properly and having to adjust the pace of breath no matter how thrilling - or magical. The tightness and suffocation almost seem worth it.
—
The soul knew he felt something magical, but never did it think there would be actual magic here.
Life moves along and, in this life, the soul has been christened Bartemis Crouch Junior, Barty, he prefers. He's a very smart boy. lively and funny.
Barty lives with his wizard parents' mom and dad and his house elf winky.
His mom is a beautiful woman, she loves him very much, always playing with him, they lie in the living room for hours under the sunlight pouring in through tall windows drawing and talking. They play hide-and-seek throughout the big house they run in the garden. It's wonderful to have his mom so close, Barty truly loves his mother and doing all activities with her.
Barty doesn't get to see his dad much; he is always in the office. When his dad is home, he’s locked in yet another office, always working and never does seem to have time for his son. But it's okay because daddy needs to work or else who is to take care of the family and so Barty excuses his father, telling himself everyday “daddy’s just busy”.
He is playing outside, with a ball and the wall. It's a slow afternoon and mom is napping, so Barty plays by himself throwing that damn ball with no effort or strength in his hands, he didn't realize the ball would smash the window with such little effort. His luck it seems does not have good timing, because daddy arrives and begins to scream at Barty
What an idiot and careless and how could you not be paying attention and that's when he feels a hand strike the back of his head. The first blow of many to come. He didn't think daddies hit kids', mommy doesn't so why would he?
He doesn't understand why his daddy is so mad, last time Barty broke a vase all his mommy had to do was wave a wand and it was fixed, was the window not allowed to be fixed with a flick of a wand? Does magic only work on specific things? Why did he scream like that? Why was I hit?
Time continues with a loving mother and an angry daddy, but time proves to be funny because as Barty grows daddy is no longer daddy, he becomes a distant dad.
“Dad is at work, what else is new” and Barty is not bothered by his absence, and the pain in his chest when his dad is home only to yell his disappointments at his son does not hurt too bad. Not anymore, because “what the hell would dad know, dad is not here, never here”.
—
“Why must I wear this, its itchy” Barty tugs at the collar of his dress robes earning a light slap on the wrist,
“Leave that be” his mother says as she combs his hair preparing him for dinner at the Blacks.
“Your dad and Mr. Black both work at the ministry, it's just for one-night Barty”
They arrive at 12 Grimmauld place. They must sit at a long table, dinner is tasteless and boring but across from him sits a small boy with dark black hair and eyes big and gray. Beautiful he thinks.
And it's here, with a tug in his belly, that Barty's soul wants to hold onto the boy.
For raven hair and stormy eyes follow him from one life to another. He knows him and yearns for him. His soulmate.
He knows Regulus’ soul must be feeling the same pull as well, so Barty's soul guides, he tempts Barty to talk and make friends,
“Hi”
“Hi”
“I'm Barty”
“Regulus”
And just like kids do, they’ve become friends instantly.
After that dinner, seeing Regulus became a part of his routine. He would ask his mom, “Can Regulus come over?” Or “Can I go to Regulus’ house?”, they became inseparable. It was nice, to go from playing alone with his mom, to playing with two new kids, because where Regulus went, so did Sirius. Or more like they followed wherever Sirius took them to explore, but that only lasted for one summer because Sirius received his letter and he left soon after. And so, once Sirius is gone, it's just them against the world.
Regulus is a small boy, he is quiet and shy without Sirius around, but they make do. They like to chase one another outside until Mrs. Black screams at them to get inside and act decent. Regulus, an heir to the black house should not be running around in mud.
“My dad yells at me too” was all Barty could say the first time and Regulus just nodded as he wiped away his tears.
It's always harsh screams, even with Barty there, Mrs. Black does not care that a child witnesses her cruelty to her son and Regulus always complies with his mother's wishes with a head bowed down.
It's routine now. Play outside, get yelled at, go to Reggie's room, sit in silence for a minute before they brush it off and get to playing with all of Reggie's nicknacks until Mrs. Crouch appears through the floo to retrieve her son.
—
Barty has now received his Hogwarts letter.
“My big baby boy is going to Hogwarts!”
He is happy, his mom is proud and Winky is fixing his favorite meal as a congratulations.
When dad arrives through green embers, Barty, naive he’ll make dad smile at him -‘a smile directed at me’- greets him with a big smile letter in hands,
“I've got my Hogwarts letter dad!”
No smile is given but a firm hold on a shoulder and a “well, most wizards get one, now run along I've got work”
He doesn't know why it still hurts, why it still disappoints him that his dad is his dad.
Later he hears his mom yell at dad to come for dinner, she is the only one that can drag that man out of his office. His dad loves his mom, he knows that. He knows his dad is capable of love, just not for Barty.
At least he has love for mom.
They eat, his mom talks about Hogwarts and all its beauty, what classes she had fun in, where she would hang out, what teachers she missed and how she met dad. And dad sits there listening to her talk, ignoring Barty and stays silent until he dismisses himself and retreats to his office.
That night, Barty enjoyed the food, he thought winky had made it extra tasteful, made with extra care for him, he loved hearing his mother talk and talk, he wanted so badly to just enjoy that, to be content with that. But the fact that he felt invisible to his dad overshadowed that small happiness of that evening, he didn't want it to be, but that evening as wonder filled, it held hands with longing.
Barty would go to Hogwarts, and he would miss his mom, but he decided that dad was not dad anymore.
That evening ‘dad’ became ‘father’.
—
1972-1974 First and second year.
With a tight hug and a kiss from mom, Barty boards the train, and finds his way to his best friend sitting in a compartment...with another boy.
“Hey, this is Evan.”
Evan. Evan Rosier.
And there it is, the second tug in his belly or chest, he doesn't know where this feeling comes from, but something wants out, to embrace the boy sitting next to his friend.
Barty’s soul is confused. In every life he’s only had Regulus, only one.
But here in the train the soul is restless, wanting to break through Bartys ribs, to rip his skin, and grab Evan. it's a stronger yearning than he’s felt in past lives.
Regulus means everything to Barty, they’ve loved one another for forever, always it's him, always just them. Why does it call for another?
Maybe that’s why his nest is tight, too small for two souls he wants, can he have both?
Barty learns to love Hogwarts as his mom told him he would. He got sorted into Ravenclaw, away from Regulus and Evan who both got sorted into the Slytherin house. He hates it, the fact that they aren’t together, but that doesn't stop him from sitting at the Slytherin table or all of them goofing off in the corridors.
Ravenclaw isn't so bad, he meets Evans' twin sister, Pandora. They both seem to be okay with being separated, Evan and Pandora just shrugged it off, unlike Sirius. Barty had to sneak into Reggie's common room to comfort him after his brother made a big deal of his sorting. Barty thought Sirius was being a dick.
Life was nice here. Classes were easy, Barty didn't like to brag but he would get top marks in every assignment, his mom always told him he was smart, but he didn't believe her until now; his friend group grew with one more girl by the name of Dorcas she was super funny and easy to talk to. He writes to his mom whenever he can, and only ever receives letters from mom, but it's okay. He doesn't care for his father or what he thinks, it's a lie he likes to tell himself to soothe the absence of the man.
—
1974-1976 third and fourth year.
“How was your summer?” asks Evan as they board the train.
“It was okay, spent most of it at Regulus’ house”
Barty's summer was like all the other ones he's had, filled with nothing but mom, which he loves to be with, but as time goes on mom sleeps in more, so Regulus’ house it is.
Third year is filled with joy and laughter, their classes are getting harder but it's nothing Barty can't handle, he is enjoying all of them, not that he would admit that to anyone. Though he hardly needs to, all his friends can see just how hard he works on his homework and the time he spends at the library.
With his father not paying him any attention, Barty has grown to run a bit loose at school getting detentions and letters sent home, not that it does much, his father will send him howlers occasionally but overall, it seems the old man is still set on forgetting he even has a son.
At one point Barty just gives up on it, what the point?
He thinks his time would be better spent focusing on his friends and school. It's nice, until there are four boys running around the corridors setting up pranks every week. The Marauders they call themselves, they think they're all that because half the school swoons for them and the other half wants to be them.
Not Barty and his friends, in fact they’re annoyed at all the pranks. But Regulus ignores it, pretends they're not even there. These last few years he has grown distant from his brother, both slowly pulling apart.
Barty has held Regulus crying form many times, always a shaky “I miss him, Barty” he wishes he could help them, but Reggie just wipes at his tear-stained cheeks and asks him to stay out of it, at least until the next time Reggie needs a shoulder to cry on.
Barty does the same, as many times as Regulus has cried on his shoulder, he has cried on Regulus, “he doesn't know I exist.”
Life continues,
One day on his way to class, a fellow Ravenclaw girl had stopped him in his tracks.
“Hey Barty!”
“Uh? Hi?”
“I just wanted to ask if maybe you’d like to go to Hogsmeade this weekend?”
Barty stayed silent. He knows he needs to say no or is he supposed to say yes?
“I think you’re really cute and I just think it would be nice to get to know each other.”
Has she been standing this close? She leaned in eyes closed and lips puckered, all too fast, yeah there might have been a chance he was going to say yes, but she's leaning in and he hasn't even answered, he pulls to the side
“Sorry, no. I'm running late to class”
What the hell was that? Why did he feel funny? Was she going to kiss him? Is she insane?
Barty entered Defense against the Dark Arts with a faraway look, late and distracted he didn't realize what the professor was on about, something about a ghostly figure. It wasn't until he had readied his books and parchment, that he looked up to see exactly what the professor was referring to.
Dementors. An empty hollow darkness, a ghostly figure who drains happiness and light from witches and wizards. Feeding on souls.
The funny feeling from the Ravenclaw girl left in an instant, overpowered by a new feeling, something wrong, Barty was scared.
Maybe this is what that tight suffocating feeling is. The foreseeable danger. No past life has contained such a creature.
There is fear nestling next to his soul.
Barty is scared but he doesn't know why. There are much scarier things here in the wizarding world, he doesn't understand the fear, yet he knows it's ugly, this whaling inside of him.
He doesn't like today, not feeling like being around his friends, he walks to the library to get some homework done, but nothing happens when his parchment is laid in front of him, he just lays his head against the cool wood and plays with the feathers of his quill.
He stays like that for what seems to be hours as the library empties.
It is Regulus who comes looking for him, he doesn't say anything at first just sits next to him and lays his head as Barty has, so that their eyes meet.
“Hey.”
“Hey.”
“Are you okay?”
“I don't know. It's just been a long day.”
“Okay.”
They sit in silence just looking at each other when he feels his chest calm and the wrong feeling slowly dissipates. Barty finds calm in Regulus’ stormy eyes.
“I love you” he doesn't know why he says it, but it feels like the right thing. He knows it's true, he does love Regulus. Regulus doesn't say it back, but it's okay because Barty knows that he loves him too. They're best friends, how could they not love each other? He thinks maybe that's why he felt weird with the girl, he knows love can exist in him, but he always thought his love was reserved for his mom and friends.
“A girl tried to kiss me today.”
“Why?”
“I don't know.”
“Did you two kiss?”
“No.”
They sat there just looking at each other, silence in between them.
“Have you learned of dementors? We learned about them today. I don't think I like them.”
“Yeah, we learned about them today too, I don't think anyone likes them, Barty.”
“Right.”
“Did you want to kiss her?”
“No.”
“Do you want to kiss anyone?”
He doesn't know what he expected Regulus to say, but it wasn't that. His head starts hurting from the wood digging in his skull so he peels off and Regulus follows, he knows what's coming, he doesn't want to stop it, in fact he thinks he might want it. And as they both pull into each other he doesn't feel funny. He doesn't feel time go fast. It's just right.
Their lips meet, only a brush at first and then a small kiss.
The soul is eager to meet with his soulmate but when it does it realizes there is no feeling there, none he's felt before in other lives when he's gotten to kiss Regulus.
It's quick and nothing too serious.
When they pull apart, they don’t say a thing, they just stare at each other. A silent understanding that it was a kiss, just a kiss. Nothing happened.
After that kiss they continued as friends. Fourth year came, summer came, life continued.
—
1976-1978 Fifth year and sixth year.
When fifth year came, and hormones grew, and they learnt to feel safe with each other's body, they kissed again. And that kiss became two became more. And they were boyfriends, away from people and only for them. Barty loved Regulus and he learned to care for him in a different way than before.
They became closer as their families became more distant, and as a war grew.
They would spend too many nights fearing the future, they would spend lunch arguing with their friends about blood. Pure and non-pure. They discussed the war and what was to come.
Regulus is from the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black, the pure blood of pure bloods of course he is going to join Voldemort and of course Barty is going to follow him.
Barty doesn’t care for the great blood debate, but his loyalty to his friends and his hatred for his father is what places a dark mark on his forearm.
The war makes Regulus grow cold and distant; they break up.
It's hard but he finds they both find they both don't mind much. In fact, the breakup goes like this:
“You should ask Evan to Hogsmeade.”
“What?”
“I'm just saying, you guys really like each other. He likes you, you should give him a shot.”
Now, Barty is smart. But he has been so engulfed in his behind-closed-door-boyfriend Regulus he hasn't realized a love for Evan has been sprouting, slowly growing in his chest, so yes Barty is smart, but he's always loved Evan, as he has always loved Regulus as he has always loved Dorcas and Pandora.
He loves his friends, and being able to kiss Regulus hasn’t changed that. This growing love, he thought he could give to all his friends. Yes, his heart beats harder when it's Evan he is talking to, yes, his hands sweat when Evan is near, and there is a longing in his chest but, that's how he has felt with Evan always.
“Right. Sorry Reg,”
“Don't be. We both knew what this was”
“I still love you”
“And that won't change just because you go kiss another boy.”
There was hesitation and sadness before Regulus said, “I love you too.”
The soul now knows that his love for Evan is deeper and, thankfully, Evan finds his love for Barty is just the same. It's different with him. Kisses more eager, more filling. Hands wrap around each other as they sleep side by side, Evan lets Barty enter the Slytherin chambers once all lights are out, and all kids are tucked in their rooms.
Boyfriends that are known to their friend group and are not hidden behind closed doors.
Private but not secret.
Sixth year arrives, and there’s nothing to complain about because he has his two soulmates.
One soulmate, his always, his best friend, and now this new soulmate, his boyfriend, his love.
He has his Pandora and Dorcas, whom despite the tattooed marks on the boy's forearms, stick around. It's been hard. The war gets louder, a dark lord is rising, friend groups falling apart. The seventh year Gryffindor's always going on and on about fighting in war, they only know because Dorcas is going out with a girl named Marlene who so happens to be the one swaying Dorcas into joining an Order after her seventh year, Barty just hopes the war is over by the time they graduate and he doesn’t have to actually fight.
So maybe there are a couple things to complain about after all. But Barty tries his best to push that all away. No thinking of his worthless father, and the stupid war.
As his father would know, ignoring the problem doesn't mean it isn’t there.
—
With all the hardships they must endure, at least finding each other was easy in this life.
The war continues for eleven years, and in those long years the soul residing in Barty has been suffocating, drowning more than usual. Barty has been strong. But war has a way of making sure no one leaves unscathed. Barty is no exception.
So, Barty has been strong. Eleven years strong. Five deaths strong. But with every blow that strength weakens. And his soul drowns in deep tight suffocation. No clue as to how he’s been able to breathe. How is he standing on two feet? He has no clue, not a clue as to why he is still alive.
The pain, the time, the losses all too much.
How on earth has Barty stayed this strong?
It’s a question he’ll never know the answer to.
With war the tightness in Barty deepens.
—
1978 the first suffocation.
The first time Barty felt the tightness in his soul tug harder at his chest was one late night in 1979. He lay in bed buried in warm comfortable sheets next to Evan, until all the warmth drained, and he awoke in cold sweat, not being able to capture the air his lungs so desperately called out for. It was painful, the cold in his skin and bones mixed with the fire in his head and chest. Evan tried his best to calm him, but nothing seemed to help Barty catch his breath.
The soul knew before Barty did.
He felt it eat at him, screaming at Barty for his mind to catch up, and when it did, it was painful like never before, it hit him square in the chest with a powerful blow.
Regulus was dead.
He called out for Regulus, again and again.
Barty knows nothing of muggle gods, he knows nothing of a high power, but he can't help but beg to whatever it is out there.
He screams at the skies, at the moon, at the stars.
He screams for Regulus, for his soulmate.
Barty couldn’t breathe, not without Regulus, he needed him. Wanted him.
Where is Regulus? Why isn’t he here? How did this happen? Why?
The soul doesn't think it can bear the pain, doesn't think it can go on without Regulus, his always.
The soul knows death better than anyone, has held its hand. Knows death is only a part of life. Death is just a transition, never will it be easy, it’ll always hurt, even when it knows they’ll meet again.
But this damn life has brought too many differences, and this death hurts like no other. It feels like what it never has felt.
It feels like an end.
It takes him several tries before he can take a gulp of air and proceeds to cry into Evans' chest.
—
Life continues,
They graduate without Regulus, join a war without Regulus, fight without Regulus.
Barty and Evan take every chance they can to meet up with Pandora and Dorcas. These meetings are hard to come by, always in secret, fighting on different sides of the war doesn’t kill their friendship as hard as it tries to kill everything else.
Barty misses his friends, he misses Regulus. He misses a time where their biggest worries were O.W.L’s or NEWTs. He misses his mom, even though he sees her all the time, it's not the same.
They can't lie on the living room floor bathed in sunlight, where all it does is burn instead of warmths.
He misses his dad. Or he doesn’t, he could never grasp his feeling for that man, he knows he hates him and doesn’t want to do anything with him, but it's that small boy who broke a window that still rubs at the back of his head where his father's hand struck, the boy that cried from all the yelling he had to endure.
He misses the idea of his dad, the hope that one day he’d realize Barty isn't just disappointment, Barty is his son, the one he can get to know and learn to love if he just left that damn office.
—
1981 It tightens and he suffocates.
The second time, the tightness almost killed him. This time he knew instantly.
Barty hates mornings in which he wakes to an empty bed, he knew he was going to, Evan told him last night he had an early mission, something Voldemort needed checked. So, Barty gets up and goes along with his day, he too has assignments he needs to get to. When he gets home, he expects to be met with Evan, not an empty home and an immense pain in his chest.
Evans' death completely crushed Barty, shattering any, and all happiness he held. His lungs could explode. It was an all-consuming pain, every bone and muscle screaming in agony, mind and body breaking. He beat at his chest begging for it to calm, to do its job and breathe, but the soul was drowning in blood, his heart bleeding right into it. And Evan was no longer there to calm him.
With no Regulus and no Evan. Barty was alone and bleeding out.
Barty’s soul has experienced the death of his soulmate in many lifetimes, but it has always known it would find it time and time again. This was different, it was fear that maybe there wouldn’t be a next life.
No matter how hard life got, Barty kept going, his soul kept pushing. The fear was there but it would find Evan and Regulus, it would look for Dorcas and Pandora, his mom and anyone he’s ever loved and lost. it would fight the fear. Barty would keep fighting in this stupid war. For Reggie, for Evan he wouldn’t let their deaths mean nothing.
Barty had all but become familiar with the tight suffocation, not being able to breathe was normal. He has lost two of his dearest loves. How was he to know that the suffocation could tighten even more.
Another clandestine meeting, Dorcas and Pandora holding onto him. Pandora looked exactly like Evan. It was too hard to look into her eyes and see him there, and it was too hard for Pandora to look at Barty without Evan clinging from his arm. They just held onto one another and cried until no more tears could be shed. Barty knew his pain was real, he hurt all over. He loved Evan more than life itself; the loss of a boyfriend was crushing; he couldn't possibly imagine how awful the loss of a brother was.
They met less and less, an occasional owl, hope you're okay, I miss you, take care. He needed his friends now more than ever, but the war raged and life continued, Barty would wake up, go on missions, go home and hurt.
This third time, the pain is no stranger, the loss of breath and cold bones engulfs him. He is at Malfoy Manor, death eater meeting and whatnot. There is a quick whisper of “Dorcas Meadows has been killed by Voldemort himself”. The girl that he laughed and joked with at Hogwarts, the beautiful friendship they had built, all gone for a pointless war. He desperately wanted to see Pandora go to her and make sure she was safe, but he knew that wasn’t possible. Instead, he mourned his old friend alone with a struggle for air and a burning in his chest.
Life fucking continues,
It's after the Potters died, that Voldemort too dies, or at least that's what is being said. And with no dark lord to lead, the war ends. The ministry gets hot on all death eaters, negotiating names for different sentencing. As this life has proven to hate Barty, his dear old dad is leading the Department of Magical Law Enforcement.
It's here his father hears his name being tossed around and quickly finds him guilty of being on the wrong side of the war.
Barty has apparently not learned, still foolishly hoping his father would care, desperately holding onto what was never there. He doesn't know why he screamed and pleaded with his father, he knew the man hated him, always had. This was perfect for the old man; this was exactly what he needed to be rid of his son.
Still Barty screamed, he cried for being caught, cried for losing his friends, he cried for the father that was sitting in front of him, looking at him trying to plead for once look at me like I'm your son, like you know who I am. He cried for the things he lost and never had. Cried for a dad that never was. Cried and cried in that court room for mercy he wouldn't receive.
“Father, I didn't, I didn't! I swear it father! don't send me to the dementors!” to no avail, he was thrown in a dirty cell.
Barty cries at night. Cold and numbing, drowning in torment, slowly falling into darkness the dementors have surrounded him in, stealing his happiness, his memories, his last remaining warmth.
But as much as the dementors hang about driving Barty into madness, his soul hangs on, with a strong grip it buries deeper within, holding as much warmth as it can.
“It gets easier-” a voice speaks through the cracks one day,
“-just focus on your happy memories. Try hard.”
Sirius black, so happens to be in the cell next to him. Barty remembered hearing that it was Sirius that sold out the Potters,
“I know it wasn't you.”
“What?”
“The Potters. You didn't sell them out. You couldn't have, you and James were- brothers.”
He got no response, and it was quiet for a moment before he heard the quiet sobs coming for the cell. It was like this for months, just a nineteen-year-old and a twenty-two-year-old trying to keep each other alive by talking to each other.
Being each other's comfort. Barty never would have guessed it would be Sirius Black that could get him to talk, he realizes they both needed each other, both were the last thing that held a piece of Regulus.
“You know, I hear you talking with him, I talk to him too”
“Who?”
“Regulus, I hear you talk to his star at night, I think he’d appreciate it. He missed you all the time.”
“I missed him too. I still miss him.”
It was darkness with a sliver of light for a year.
Talking with Sirius helped remember Regulus as a kid and Sirius appreciated learning what teenage Regulus was like. They both talked to that star, he found that Sirius would talk to the moon and sun as well.
Barty spent a full year in Azkaban before his mom showed up. She was dying, and begged him to leave the cell, change bodies and escape. He wanted so badly to leave, needed it, but leaving Sirius felt wrong, but it was Sirius who pushed him to leave.
“There is no point in staying here, you should go.”
So, he was free from one prison and entered another. Of course, his mom didn't think that his father’s hatred would allow him any real freedom. His escape meant nothing to him if it meant having to be under his dad's imperius curse locked away in his house. He often found he missed talking to Sirius.
Life continues, and as he sits in his room, reading the daily profit, his chest begins to tighten for the fourth time. Cold and heat surrounding his body, lungs aching for air. Pain is drowning his being and he’s suffocating again. His dad arrived drunk and meaner than ever.
His mom had died.
And life continued, eight years of nothingness. He missed his friends and his stupid cell, talking with Sirius and looking at a night full of stars. Regulus was ten times better than no control over your body, of fear and boredom.
Eight years of light breathing, but no suffocation until again, he felt it deep within. And its aching bones and burning lungs pain and pain and pain, something all too familiar but time does nothing to dull the pain, for he feels it all over.
What does he have left? Who could possibly cause such pain?
A week later he reads in the daily profit, an obituary to one, Pandora Lovegood.
Apparently, it was a potion experiment gone wrong. He learned she had been married and had a kid.
He hadn’t seen her in almost a decade, she probably thought he was still in Azkaban, did she ever think of him?
That's all Barty ever thought of these days, his old life at Hogwarts before he entered the war, when everything had been easier and happy, with his friends and love at his side. Barty missed his friends. He should’ve tried harder to go see Pandora, fight his father’s curse harder, he shouldn’t have ever been on the wrong side of war.
He knew he and Pandora were the last of his friend group, it broke him apart knowing the others weren’t here, relying on the comfort of knowing Pandora was out there, he thought up a whole life for her in his head.
He beat at his chest, the tightness, the breathless pain of having to be the last one. He was alone with no friends, no lover, hell he didn’t even have Sirius to talk to and he had no father who cared for him.
So, what else was left?
—
Fucking life continued,
It was 1995 when Barty found himself back at Hogwarts and once again on the wrong side of a new war, it was to begin with this mission, he would help. Why? Because why not? He was so tired of being locked up and he had nothing and no one to lose. So, who cared if again he played at war?
Here at Hogwarts, he played teacher under Polyjuice potion. He hated it. he had to become the person who killed his Evan, it was gross having to walk around knowing he was wearing the face Evan last saw. But he had a job to do. So as life and time did, he kept going.
Here at Hogwarts, he was met with a boy with the same face of two people he tortured years ago, he felt now what he did not then, it was disgust and regret.
Here at Hogwarts, he walked the corridors his friends had. He visited the alcove Reggie would try to hide and read, he visited the class he would hide with Evan to kiss and laugh. He visited the spot right next to the lake where he would run his fingers in Pandora's hair. He visited the table where he sat next to Dorcas and ate and laughed.
Here at Hogwarts, he walked the corridors alone and as he turned from one corridor to another he bumped into a small girl with hair as long and as white as Pandoras. And if the mere memories weren’t enough to break him, the spit image of his friend did. Two in one, she had the same green eyes Evan and Pandora shared.
He held onto the girl's shoulder, feeling a tightness in his chest once again,
“Are you okay professor?”
“You- sorry you look like...sorry”
“Who?”
“Sorry?”
“Who do I look like?”
“An old friend of mine, her name was- it was Pandora.”
“My mom's name was Pandora.”
“Lovegood?”
“Yes! My name is Luna Lovegood, my mom is Pandora Lovegood. You were friends with my mom?”
“Sort of, I knew her” he had to lie, because Moody didn't know Pandora, Barty did.
He knew it was dangerous and could possibly blow his cover, but he needed a bit of his friend back. He didn't stop walking along with the girl and telling her everything he could. The pain in his chest became almost soothing after that. He enjoyed having a piece of Pandora back, even if it was only for a moment.
If Barty was grateful for one thing, is that despite having been part of war, he never killed anyone. Not a soul. Yes, he unfortunately participated in grave acts, but he didn't kill.
Not until today, his first and only kill. It was fast and easy, yet it broke something in him. He watched as his father's body hit the floor. He wanted to cry or laugh. He wanted Regulus. He wanted Evan. He wanted to not have killed his father. He wanted to not have wanted to kill his father. He didn't regret it. He was just tired.
Barty was tired. The soul was tired, no life quite like this one. It was beautiful in the beginning, full of love and laughter from his friends and mother. The soul was tired and always suffocating, it never really learned to breathe properly. No life had made him fight a war, no life had introduced so much death and sorrow. So yes, the soul is tired and ready to succumb to that tight suffocation, ready to move on, to a life where he can find Evan and Regulus, maybe he’ll have Dorcas and Pandora in the next life as well.
—
It's on June 24th, 1995, in which he finally realizes why when arriving in this life all he felt was fear. That tightening suffocation has led to this.
The soul has never feared death. The vessel has known fear of dying but never the soul, for it is always reborn, death never being an actual fate.
But tonight, the soul screamed and pleaded to whatever it is that has made him, whoever it is that makes the soul, whoever shuffled the cards and made him play such a shitty hand.
Please don't let it end like this, let me move on, let me find my friends and my lover. Please don't let it end.
Barty lies very still as the creature made of empty darkness hovers over him, silent tears roll down his side as he feels the tightness of his soul cry out, nails digging into Barty, it makes no difference how hard or how desperate it clings to Barty's body.
The dementors kiss begins to pull.
The soul begins to be pulled apart, taken from Barty, but no matter how much it screams its pleas, crying to the universe and every god it has met, the soul will inevitably die.
Never will it go to Regulus or Dorcas or Pandora or Evan.
One dementor's kiss has left other souls forever missing a piece, feeling empty.
No soul is meant to be alone. A soul needs its mate, and Evan and Regulus will no longer have theirs.
And Barty is left, an empty vessel to one day rot.
There is no longer tightness, no suffocation, just emptiness.
And no hope for the next life.