Romance at its worst

Barty ~

In the end, Barty found that his new hair was very hot indeed. Hot enough to once again attract the Ravenclaw girl he’d met at the last party (what was her name again? Mattie? Maddy?). They were near the edge of the common room, a little less on show than last time, and she was giggling drunkenly into his neck.

“Everyone can see!” she sniggered, as if everyone hadn’t already seen at the last party.

“They’re too drunk to care,” he said truthfully, “Besides, don’t you want to put on a show?”

She only giggled even more. She was a little too drunk for him to be kissing her. Mostly he just held her as she slumped into him, swaying slightly. Merlin, she was pissed. Barty looked over the room for one of her friends (she hung out with Mary sometimes, right?) and was instead met with Evan.

Barty could never waste an opportunity to taunt him, and he held Mattie (or Maddy? Or was it Maisy?) even closer, his cheek in her hair. Evan, predictably (with that sixth sense of his), noticed, and stared right at him. Barty grinned. Evan never shied away. He always held his nerve. Anyone else would’ve looked away, but Evan never did.

Or, usually he never did. This time he stared for a few minutes, then walked off. Barty’s eyes followed him as he moved through the room. Evan had gone to get a drink from Pandora (she was the one in custody of the ‘moon water’ this time). On his way there, he tripped over a drunken Gryffindor boy, who landed in a crowd of other students, creating even more havoc. Barty snorted at the sight.

“You’re so funny,” hiccupped Maisy. Barty rolled his eyes and leaned away from the girl, extricating himself from her embrace.

“Let’s go find your friends,” he suggested. She leaned sluggishly into his side, neither agreeing nor disagreeing. Barty quickly found a group of girls who he seemed to remember seeing her around with. They kindly took her off his hands, with worried coos of ‘Oh dear’ and ‘Oh Maggie’ (so that was her name - he’d been close).

“Watch out,” warned one of the girls, “She’s got a crazy possessive boyfriend,”

Barty groaned. Of course she had a boyfriend.

“Cheers,” he thanked the girl.

“He’s crazy,” she stressed, “I keep telling her to break up with–

Her mouth snapped shut and her eyes widened.

“He’s right behind me, isn’t he?”

She shot Barty a sympathetic look, and before they could exchange another word there was a rough hand on his shoulder turning him around.

“Crouch,” scorned the boy. He was shorter than Barty (most people were), but stronger.

“Charmed, I’m sure,” mocked Barty, who was always ready for a fight, especially when he was drunk. He often won them too.

“Stay the fuck away–

“Twat.” he interrupted.

“What?” asked the boyfriend angrily.

“You’re a twat,” clarified Barty. The shorter boy turned red with rage. He looked as if he was just about to throw a fist at Barty, when the oncoming brawl was interrupted.

Evan~

Evan walked over and picked up Barty by his waist, slinging him over his shoulder like a particularly gangly sack of potatoes. Barty had managed (as he often did) to get himself into a fight (which he often lost). It was something of a habit for Evan to swoop in and extricate him from the situation before he got beaten to a pulp.

The other boy, some angry boyfriend Evan assumed, was so confused and surprised that he let them go. Evan thanked his lucky stars, he was not in the mood to get into a fight himself.

“Oh what the fuck.” whined Barty.

“You’re meant to say thank you, you little git.”

“‘You’re meant to say thank you’,” mimicked Barty childishly. Evan reached the rest of their friends and dumped Barty on an empty armchair, where he landed with a yelp.

“Barty, were you fighting again?” chastised Pandora.

“No,” he lied, turning away from her and crossing his arms. Evan flicked him in the forehead only to be batted away by his cousin.

“Are you injured?” she asked worriedly, holding his face in her hands and inspecting each side.

“No Evan saved me,” swooned Barty, bringing a hand to his forehead dramatically, “My knight in shining armour,”

“That’s romantic,” smiled Pan.

“No it’s not.” Evan cut in, speaking perhaps a little too fast.

“It was so romantic,” disagreed Barty. Evan flipped him off and he winked.

“You two done flirting?” asked Reg. Oh, Evan could have killed him.

“Never.” said Barty.

“We’re not.” said Evan. Reg ignored them both.

“There’s a game of spin the bottle starting in the boys dorm, let’s go.”

“Since when do you play spin the bottle?” inquired Evan, eager to get his revenge on Regulus.

“Since now,” replied Reg easily.

“What’s changed?” pressed Evan, raising an eyebrow.

“What’s changed is that now I feel like playing.”

“Who for? The same person that had you dancing in the middle of the room last time?”

“Let’s go!” interrupted Pandora happily, linking an arm with Regulus and towing him over to the stairs. She was way too nice. And she was playing favourites. Letting Reg attack Evan for ‘flirting’ with Barty and then jumping to his rescue about his mystery Gryffindor bloke? Unbelievable.

“Come on,” urged Barty, linking arms with him in a similar fashion.

“Merlin, no,” protested Evan, pulling back in resistance.

“Merlin, yes!” countered Barty, pulling with all his might (and not budging Evan a single centimetre). “Oh come on Rosier, it’ll be fun.” he reasoned, Evan quirked an eyebrow. “More fun than watching me and Maddy.”

Evan was caught off guard. Barty had never addressed his staring before.

“Pretty sure her name is Maggie,” he drawled.

“Jealous much?” teased Barty.

“Me? Jealous of you?” he scorned.

“No, jealous of her.”

Evan’s jaw tensed.

“If you don’t come and play I’ll scream to the whole room that you’re a creepy stalker who watches other people kiss,” threatened Barty.

“Go ahead.”

“EVAN ROSIER–

“I’ll play! I’ll play,” he caved, clamping a hand over Barty’s mouth. He wasn’t sure why he’d agreed. People never listened to Barty anyway, and Evan could’ve easily just wrestled him into silence, but what was the harm in playing a little? Why not indulge Barty? (he usually did).

They climbed the stairs (following where Reg and Pan had gone - those two definitely knew their way around) and entered the dorm. It was a lot like the Slytherin one, but arranged slightly differently and of course the beds were all draped in red. Evan and Barty joined the circle, sitting a few spaces away from Dora and Reg (who were holding hands and whispering). To Evan’s disgust, the circle was mostly Gryffindors. Beside him was Benjy Fenwick who was sitting next to Mary Mcdonald, who was sitting next to Lily Evans, who was beside Alice Fortescue, then there was James Potter and Peter Pettigrew (part of that silly ‘moorders’ gang), then Marlene Mckinnon who was sitting next to… Dorcas? (so that’s where she’d disappeared too). Beside them were a few people Evan didn’t know, and beside those people were Pandora and Regulus, who were next to Bertha Jorkins and Amos Diggory, who were next Barty, who was next to Evan. Evan was regretting his decision already.

Bertha went first, her spin of the empty butter beer bottle skidding off to the side and landing jauntily at Benjy’s feet. Benjy’s feet that were right next to Evan. Right next to him. Evan thanked the gods he’d avoided a kiss from Bertha, who gave an eager peck to Fenwick and then crawled back to her seat.

Perhaps it had been Evan’s imagination, but for a horrifying second during her spin, it had seemed almost as if the bottle were going to land in front of him instead, before it jerked off suddenly to face Benjy. Curious.

Evan looked at Barty from the corner of his eye. Barty gave him a sneaky look back. Maybe it wasn’t the gods he had to thank. Even curiouser.

Evan hadn’t been paying attention, and Benjy was now receiving a kiss on the cheek from Alice Fortescue.

“Gotta be on the mouth!” slurred one of the people Evan didn’t know.

“Kisses on the cheek count too!” defended Lily Evans.

“House rules!” joined Mary.

The person stood up and left, grumbling something about ‘nancys’. Good riddance, thought Evan. The game continued, and Alice landed on James Potter. They met halfway in the circle and she kissed his forehead with a warm laugh. James took the bottle from her and returned to his seat.

He placed it in front of him, and with a flick of his wrist, spun it around. Evan wondered if he would get lucky and land on Lily, the object of his loud, embarrassing affections. He thought, well he could’ve sworn… Had James subtly used some magic? There’d been the shadow of a wand movement, but it was difficult to tell in the dim light of the common room (especially while somewhat drunk).

Even more unbelievable, was that the charmed (or not charmed, Evan really couldn’t tell) bottle landed on none other than Regulus Black. Evan and Barty stared in disbelief at Reg, then at each other. From the glint in Barty’s eyes Evan could tell he’d seen it too; that subtle wand movement. He looked over at Pandora, who was actively and obviously ignoring him by looking pointedly at the ceiling (not that this was unusual behaviour from her, but she was much too attentive to Reg to space out around him).

For a second Evan, and probably lots of the others in the circle, didn’t think Regulus was going to do it, but sure enough he pushed himself onto his knees and, smirking (Merlin, he must have been drunk), crawled (yes, crawled) slowly over to James, who was looking slightly terrified. Once he’d reached James (fucking James Fleamont Potter), Regulus leaned down even slower before placing a soft, slow kiss against the other boy’s lips. Beside the pair, Pettigrew didn’t look nearly shocked enough not to have known something. Something about… whatever this was. Merlin was Potter lucky that Reg’s older brother wasn’t there to witness the kiss. Barty and Evan exchanged glances again.

“That little slut,” breathed Barty, and Evan snorted.

“Look who’s talking,” he retorted.

“Never with Gryffindors!” he defended. Evan shot him a scathing look.

“I have seen you with more Gryffindors than I can count on both hands.” he said dryly.

“Stalker,” huffed Barty, and Evan deflated a bit.

Regulus was returning to his seat in the circle, proudly holding the bottle and ignoring Barty and Evan (who were both staring daggers). He spun it… and it landed on James. No doubt Potter had charmed the bottle again.

“That means seven minutes in heaven!” piped up Peter and Evan could’ve sworn he saw James blush. Absolutely unbelievable.

Regulus stood up gracefully and began walking over to the Gryffindor dorm bathroom. Potter trailed behind him like a lost, lovesick puppy.

There was silence for a while as everyone processed what had just happened, but finally Diggory broke it.

“Who goes next?” he asked.

“I will!” announced Barty eagerly, and he practically leapt to Reg’s place to retrieve the bottle. Before Evan could ask him what he was doing he’d spun it and it spun and spun and landed on… Evan. What?

“Come on Evs,” giggled Barty, sitting expectantly beside him.

Rolling his eyes, Evan leaned over and gave Barty a rough kiss on the mouth.

Only later, when Lily was kissing Marlene, did it strike Evan just what Barty had done. He turned accusingly to the boy next to him.

“You charmed it, didn’t you?” he hissed.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” lied Barty happily.

“Yes you bloody well do,” insisted Evan, “You saw Potter at it and decided to give it a go.”

“Actually have no idea what you’re talking about,” Barty maintained. Evan glared at him.

On the subject of Potter, he and Regulus had yet to resurface from the bathroom. Potter was really, really lucky Sirius wasn’t there.

Pretty soon Evan had had enough, and he beckoned Barty and Pandora to leave. They both got up and the three of them began to walk over to the stairs. Evan trailed behind and briskly turned and crossed back over to the circle. He leaned down to talk to Lily, who looked quite surprised to be receiving any attention from him. He didn’t think they had ever spoken before, but he’d had a sudden and urgent thought.

“I should marry you,” he said, and this must’ve been the last thing she’d been expecting because her eyes went wide, “So that my name is ‘Evan Evans’.”

There were a few seconds of shock where she stayed very still, but that soon wore off. A confused smile tugged at the sides of her mouth.

“Uh, you should,” she agreed, breaking into laughter. Evan nodded solemnly.

“Evan Evans,” he repeated seriously. Then he went back to join his friends.