twelve
The ride to the lake this year was…weird. Evan’s parents were hardly talking, and Pandora was unable to shut up. That part wasn’t weird, she was quite the talker in general, but it was too much talking. Or maybe it just felt like that because there was no other noise . The radio wasn’t even on.
Something was different. Or wrong. Probably wrong. Evan was sure of it.
Two hours later, they pulled up the driveway. His Mum and Dad gave a nervous glance at each other and he could feel his stomach clench. Pandora was talking about some story that Lily told her on the last day of school.
“I can’t believe her sister, you know Petunia, would say something like that,” Pandora ran her fingers through her hair as the car parked. “She’s completely ridiculous.”
Evan hadn’t been paying attention to the entire first half of the story, but he hummed in agreement. He was fairly certain Petunia said something against Lily’s interests, or maybe the way she dresses, or maybe it was something else entirely.
The house was dark, their Grandma having left for the week to travel with someone. Both Evan and Pandora were pretty sure ‘someone’ meant ‘boyfriend’ but they didn’t question it any further.
It was sort of unnerving seeing the house so empty looking, it almost made it feel cold. Reflexively, Evan's eyes darted to the window Gracie always looked out of.
She wasn’t there. Which made sense, really, because his Grandma wasn’t either, and clearly she needed someone to feed her and let her outside.
Evan jumped out of the car, tugging his backpack over his shoulder before opening up the trunk and reaching for a bag. “Who’s watching Gracie?”
Nobody answered, so he turned to face his Mum. She bit down on her lip, eyes going all soft in the way he really wished they wouldn’t. That look was all it took for his stomach to drop.
—
Evan didn’t go to the creek after that. He went and got in bed instead, climbing deep beneath the covers and wiping at tears that just wouldn’t stop coming. Hours had passed between the time they arrived and now, the sky turning darker by the second.
After an unknown amount of time, the door opened. It wasn’t the first time it had, not even close, and Evan was sick of it. “How many times do I have to tell you to leave for you to fucking listen ?” The door closed and he sniffed.
Then, the edge of the bed dipped. His hands curled into fists, like he was suddenly going to grow the nerve to punch whoever it was, but they remained tucked up against his chest.
“Hi, Ev.”
He could barely hear Barty’s voice through the layers of blankets, especially because he was practically whispering. A range of emotions flew through Evan, mostly consisting of varying levels of rage, before he let himself relax completely, going limp.
“Your parents told me what happened,” Barty started again, laying down next to Evan’s blanket mound.
Evan squeezed his eyes shut, taking in a short shaky breath. He waited a few moments before speaking, focusing on not sobbing the second he opened his mouth. “They didn’t tell me . She died in February and they didn’t tell me.”
He could hear Barty suck in a breath, but there was nothing that followed. After a second, Barty rolled closer until he was nearly on top of Evan.
“I don’t get why they didn’t tell me. My Mum said she thought it would be easier on me to tell me now–,” Evan really didn’t understand that part of it all. In what world would that have made it easier? In what world would that make anything easier?
They’d all been in on it, too.
Well, Pandora didn’t know until today either, so she got a pass on that. Part of Evan felt awful that he’d holed himself away instead of comforting her, or allowing her to comfort him, but this was the way he needed things to be.
His Mum, Dad, and Grandma all knew though.
Barty threw a limb over Evan. His arm? His leg?
“Dad–I don’t even think he cares. I don’t know, he’s never fucking, I don’t think he cares,” Evan’s father was nothing like Barty’s, so he didn’t really think he had the room to complain, but, here he was doing it anyway. It wasn’t that his Dad was a bad person. He wasn’t. He tried his best and usually that was enough, this time it wasn’t.
This time, his Dad had listened to him talk about how excited he was for this summer, how excited he was to see Gracie, and went along with it. For months. God, they’d even made plans involving her. At least, now that Evan thought back to it, his Mum would change the subject when she came up.
He flipped over, facing towards Barty rather than away. It made it more difficult to breathe, especially because he was still beneath the covers, but he barely noticed it. “I’m being stupid.”
“You’re not being stupid, she was there your whole life. It’s normal to be upset. I’d think it'd be strange if you weren’t upset.”
Evan shrugged, sniffing. He really needed to blow his nose, but he didn’t want to move. “I miss her.”
“I miss her too,” Barty ran his hand against the blankets for a moment.
Evan hadn’t even thought about how Barty might feel. After five summers together, she was practically his dog as much as she was Evan’s. Suddenly, he felt awful , at least even more than he already did, like he was making the whole situation about himself. He was already shoving Pandora away and her own grieving away from him, and now he was doing the same to Barty. “Shit, I didn't think about that. Sorry. I’m–”
“Shut up. Don’t do that to yourself.”
Deep down, Evan found that he wanted to do it to himself. He had a reason to be miserable and upset and torn to pieces and a part of him wanted to make it even worse. He didn’t understand why, and it frankly was a bit scary to think of, but he still felt it.
Instead of responding, he tilted his head forward until it hit against Barty. His chest shook with each intake of air, making his whole body feel gross and weird. Every couple of breaths he would choke, eventually driving him to give up on hiding beneath the blankets and stick his head out, resting on his elbows.
Barty’s eyes were closed, but his hands still blindly moved to push the blanket down off of Evan. After stabbing his fingers into Evan’s eye socket on accident, he opened his eyes back up. They were red, of course, because he probably cried just like Evan had.
“Can we go to bed?” Evan’s voice cracked, coming out in a strange mix of rough and high pitched all at once.
Barty yanked his elbow out from underneath him in response, making Evan drop right on top of him.
—
It took a while before Evan really wanted to do anything again. Barty always assured him he was fine with laying around, that he didn’t mind when Evan didn’t want to talk or went off to bed early. But, even so, Evan could tell he was getting antsy like a cooped up puppy.
So he sucked it up and dragged himself to the field to play football.
He wouldn’t admit that he missed it, and he was pretty excited to show off everything that he’d mastered during the school year – and what he’d gotten in the mail.
Evan got the letter in March. He didn’t want to be the one to bring it up, in fact he was subconsciously worried that Barty didn’t want him at school anymore. But, he also felt like he owed it to Barty. Like a reward for dealing with him the past few weeks.
After Evan tried out a move he’d more recently learned, something called a Cruyff Turn where he’d pass the ball through his own legs instead of doing a normal cross, Barty pointed it out. “You’ve been practising, then? When’d you get so good?” He was panting, a stupid smile sitting on his lips – one that made Evan realise it was now or now.
“I got the scholarship,” Evan blurted, biting down on his cheek in a weak attempt to hide a grin.
“What?! Really?” Barty launched himself at Evan with a scream, shoving both of them into the weeds with an umph . “Oh my god. You better not be fucking with me.”
“I wanted to keep it as a surprise,” Evan coughed, his breath knocked out of his chest. He knew he was blushing, his cheeks began to hurt from smiling so wide. His skin felt like it was buzzing, a wave of excitement washing over him now that it really was official.
“You’re a shit!” Barty was yelling directly into Evan’s ear, flopped across his chest. “We’re going to be roommates! Evs! Totally. We’ll have to share with Regulus too, but he really isn’t that bad.”
Hogwarts was split into four different ‘houses’, your fate decided by a personality test. The school always managed to get weirder and weirder the more he learned about it.
Barty was sorted into one called Slytherin, which apparently you were supposed to be ‘cunning’ and ‘ambitious’ to get into. Evan wasn’t completely sure if he was either of those, but it wouldn’t be his first time cheating on a test to get his way.
Sorry, Mum.
—
Sirius and Regulus came back again, of course.
Barty was right, Regulus really wasn’t all that bad. Maybe it was because they'd lived together for nine months, but Barty seemed to know exactly where to push to get Regulus to have some resemblance of fun with them.
Sirius was more resigned this year than he had been before. Apparently, the whole 'being sorted into a different' house issue was still a big deal. It took him a few days to loosen up, but he eventually caught everyone up on the insane things he and his friends did over the last school year.
Hearing about everything Sirius got up to made Evan somehow even more excited to go, especially because of how he described all of the sports teams. Sports were a big deal there, especially football.
Regulus was on the Slytherin football team, even though he always acted incredibly inconvenienced when they all tried to pull him into a game. Maybe Evan should give him more slack, seeing that they’d be roommates in a few weeks. Or maybe it’s a tactic Regulus uses to keep his talents super-secret.
—
Towards the end of the summer, things changed more. About every other week they’d go to Barty’s to grab more clothes, shoes, or something else that he needed (he could hardly fit into anything of Evan’s anymore after a brutal growth spurt). This time, they ran into his father.
Barty basically shoved Evan out the back door when the man noticed the two of them, so he sat waiting on the back deck. He was trying his best to not eavesdrop on the heated conversation that bled through the screen door, but it was difficult to ignore when the topic was, well, him.
Mr. Crouch was going on about the two of them still hanging out, that Barty needed to pick a better social circle for himself to keep their families status presentable.
Evan knew his family wasn’t the most wealthy out there, especially not compared to the Crouch’s, but were they really poor enough to drag Barty’s family down? Who was even perceiving him in that way? Only Regulus’ parents really knew of Evan’s existence, at least to his knowledge, but jeez . Don’t people have better things to fret about?
No matter how stupid, it still was enough to make him feel nauseous. The ever-persistent mosquitos attacking his skin didn’t help much either. It was a few hours past dinner, so the sun was nearly completely set and prime bug-biting hours.
Of course, Barty was yelling back at his father. Loudly. Evan had never really heard the two of them argue, not past the hushed bitter tones at dinner last summer. Evan never really argued with his parents, just over tiny things if he happened to be in a bad mood. He always apologised right away, too.
Barty and his dad never apologised to each other. For a while, Evan wasn’t completely sure that Barty knew how to apologise. Even when he did, it usually wasn’t along the lines of ‘ I’m sorry ’, but rather ‘ I didn’t mean to do that ’.
Inside, Mr. Crouch’s tone was terrifyingly level in comparison to Barty’s shouting.
They probably should have come earlier, but they put it off because there was a new episode of a show they liked to watch together that came out. His dad wasn’t even supposed to be here in the first place.
The argument was cut off by a hollow slapping noise that radiated out to the porch. Immediately, Evan jumped to his feet and spun around. He wanted to go inside, to grab Barty and run, but would that make things worse? The two of them had never really talked about this before, he never wanted to push on it. Any conversation about his dad made Barty shy away.
A few seconds passed before the screen door slammed open and Barty stepped onto the porch with a bag slung over his shoulder. His right hand was pressed against his ear, left hand sticking out like he was trying to catch his balance. He gave a look to Evan, easily communicating don’t you fucking dare with a glare.
Now Evan really wanted to go inside.
He gave a grim nod and tried to ignore the small spray of blood on Barty’s hand when he pulled it away from his ear.
Reaching down, Evan pulled at his shirt until a chunk tore off. He wasn’t really sure if anyone should ever be putting dirty fabric in their ear, but he offered it to Barty anyway.
Barty took it silently, poking it into his ear awkwardly before walking closer to Evan. Their shoulders rubbed together as they walked, nearly pushing the both of them off of the trail more than once. They took a longer way back, the majority of the lights in the house turned off by the time they went inside. Pandora was spending the night at Dorcas’, and Dad was away working, so Mum and Grandma must have gone to bed.
Wordlessly, Evan went into the kitchen and dug through a drawer until he found a bottle of Ibuprofen. Reaching beneath the sink, he grabbed the first-aid kit before turning around and leading Barty through their bedroom into the bathroom.
“We really don’t have to do this,” Barty whispered, the piece of t-shirt looking ridiculous sticking out of his ear.
“Just sit down, please,” Evan gestured to the toilet. He opened the box and stared at the contents, starting to question if he really knew what to do. A loud creak rang through the bathroom as Barty sat down. “Um, one second.”
The directions on everything were painfully tiny, so when Evan held everything up to his face to find out what it was, it took a bit.
“You don’t need any of that. I know what to do,” Barty stood back up, walking to a shelf and grabbing a washcloth before turning on the sink. Evan watched awkwardly, feeling awfully left behind on what was happening, while Barty waited for the water to heat up.
Once it was warm, he soaked the cloth, wrung it out, and held it against his head wordlessly.
“What is it?” Evan asked, feeling dumb. He’d never seen someone bleed out of their ear before. He wasn’t really sure what he was supposed to be saying here anyway. It’s not like he was going to say he heard the entire argument between Barty and his father, including the hit and all of the comments about the Rosier’s.
Barty had sat back down, looking up through his lashes with a slight scowl. Evan knew he wasn’t mad , Barty never really got all that mad. If he did get angry, he was usually sad and didn’t know how to deal with it. “What is what, Evan?”
“You said you knew what to do. It’s happened before.”
“Obviously,” Barty snapped, his voice raising. Maybe he was mad. “Can we not do this? It's fine.”
“This is not fine , Barty,” Evan crossed his arms, mentally criticising himself for acting like his parents but not moving an inch.
“This is fucking bullshit. I’m not–I’m not fucking doing this,” Barty stood up and tossed the cloth into the sink. “Don’t look at me like that.”
“Look at you like what ?”
“Like I’m…! I don’t know. You’re looking at me like how those puppies look in those stupid-fucking-guilt-tripping animal shelter commercials,” Barty spewed out before looking into the mirror. “God, fuck off!”
Evan met his gaze through the mirror, raising his hands in a mock surrender before silently brushing his teeth for the night. He left the bathroom without another glance, crawling into the bed and placing himself on the edge. He usually ended up sleeping in the crack between the two beds, but he assumed Barty would want space.
But, when Barty emerged from the bathroom a few moments later and slid beneath the blankets, Evan could hear his breath hitch as he paused. A couple seconds passed before he scooched across the bed and shoved himself into Evan’s back.
Evan froze up for a moment, feeling Barty breathing onto the back of his neck.
“Is this fine?” Barty whispered. Evan nodded. He was the last person that would mind, at least with Barty, but didn’t expect him to even want to be near him.
The sound of their breathing was the only thing that filled the room for several moments, so much so that Evan thought Barty had already fallen asleep. He always was the one who fell asleep first, no matter how awake he seemed beforehand.
“Can I tell you something?” Barty turned so he laid on his back instead, still keeping his right side pressed against Evan.
“Mhmm.”
“Do you remember when we were eight?” He sucked in a breath. Evan stiffened again, feeling far more awake than a second ago.
“Yeah, I do.” How could he forget?
“I didn’t fall, when I showed up with the black eye and told you I did. I didn’t.”
“I know, B.” Evan turned over, having to grab onto Barty’s shoulder for a second so he wouldn’t tumble off of the bed.
“I didn’t mean to get mad at you earlier.”
“I know that, too. It’s okay. You don’t have to apologise for being upset.”
Another beat of silence passed between them. Barty squeezed his eyes shut tight and yawned. “My cousin slapped me on my ear when I was little, like five, and something like this happened. Mother freaked and took me to the hospital, they said I ruptured my eardrum.”
“Oh. Did you hit your cousin back?”
“Duh. Kicked his ass the next morning. Had to rest up and all beforehand.”
—
On the last night of summer, Pandora bugged them until they agreed to watch The Fault in Our Stars with her, Xeno, and Dorcas. She'd read the book during the school year, and wanted to make sure that it was better than the movie.
By the time the movie was halfway through, Evan and Barty already had wrestled each other to the other side of the tent. Eventually they were yelled at by Dorcas, who told them to get more blankets because she read it was supposed to be cold tonight. Her eyes didn’t even leave the screen, and it was pretty obvious she was lying – especially since it was roasting outside – but they complied anyway.
“Are you excited for school?” Barty’s strained voice rang out from behind the stack of blankets in his arms.
“I don’t think I’ve ever been so excited in my life,” He was being completely honest. Being excited for the summer took up the last three months of every school year, but he had been thinking about this for years now.
“I could probably ask this in the spring but, you’ll be here next summer?”
“Yep. Every summer,” He grinned, pulling some of the blankets down and putting them into his own stack to reveal Barty’s face.
“Swear it?”
“Swear it.” Their fingers reached to link automatically, immediately leading to some of the blankets toppling out of their grasps.
✧⋄⋆⋅⋆⋄✧⋄⋆⋅⋆⋄✧
School was awesome.
Evan got into Slytherin, though he still didn’t know if it was because he had cheated or not. Maybe the fact that he was willing to cheat is what made him qualified for it.
Pandora ended up in Ravenclaw, which surprised nobody. She spent a lot of time in the Slytherin common room anyway though, mostly to see Dorcas, but also because she had managed to become good friends with Regulus.
Nobody understood how that happened.
Once football started, Evan basically became consumed by it. Regulus would do extra practice with him some nights, saying that he couldn’t have ‘dumbass number two fucking up the win streak’.
Evan was just upset he was number two. (Barty didn’t even play, why did he get the top spot?)
Even though he was typically temperamental, once they got halfway through the school year, Evan was pretty sure Regulus enjoyed his presence more than he would ever let on.
Summer Barty and School Barty were, unsurprisingly, exactly the same. Though they usually kept to their own beds, occasionally Barty would crawl into Evan’s as soon as Regulus’ portion of the room had gone quiet. More often than not, it happened after he got a letter from his father, but occasionally it was just because.
Sometimes they’d just lay next to each other and whisper about drama throughout the school. Other times, they’d plop on top of each other and go to bed without a word.
One time, Evan woke up to Regulus standing above them with a weird look in his eye. “What’re you guys doing?”
“Sleeping?”
“You two are really odd.”
Evan had never thought of their friendship as weird. They had always been like that, for the most part.
Sometimes they’d get weird looks in the hallway if they were practically hanging off of each other, but was it odd to be close with your best friends? Evan didn’t act the same with his other friends, but Barty was different. There was a difference between friends and best friends. Obviously.
—
It was the last night of school and Slytherin had just won the last game of the season, securing their undefeated record for the third year in a row.
“Ev! Ev! Ev!” Evan spun around to look for the voice, rubbing at his sweat-soaked face with the bottom of his jersey. He lifted himself onto his toes, spotting Barty jumping up and down while he moved through the crowd.
“That was so sick! Little close though, nearly shit myself for a second there,” Barty beamed when he got closer, swinging his arm around a nearby Regulus and yanking him to his side.
The game was close. Gryffindor was good, they always had been, and they really put up a fight this time. Slytherin just barely scored the deciding point with a few seconds left in the game.
“Get off of me, you sociopathic freak,” Regulus was shoving at Barty’s head, which of course only made Barty tighten his grip on him. “Rosier, leash your dog.”
Evan laughed and took a swig from his water bottle, tuning out Regulus’ complaints and Barty’s witty remarks as soon as Marlene tapped on his shoulder. She was one of Pandora’s friends and played on the Gryffindor team – she always seemed to use her teeth as a weapon mid-game, so he tried to stay away from her.
“Not half bad, Rosier,” She shrugged, glancing at the two boys wrestling next to them with a look of confusion.
He nodded back eagerly, “Not bad yourself, was a good game. You’re, like, freakishly sneaky.”
Marlene always managed to snatch the ball from practically anyone on the field, only Dorcas could rival her – her height giving her the upper hand. They spiralled into the normal pleasantries, but all Evan could think about was taking a shower.
Eventually, he was saved by Marlene jogging off to talk to Dorcas and the slam of bodies against the dirt.
“Okay, ow . Prick,” Barty frowned, rubbing at his arm. Regulus sat right next to him, their legs tangled together, with his signature scowl. He was just as sweat-soaked as Evan, if not more, he was on the field the majority of the game.
“I wish I never had to see you again,” Regulus said blankly, pulling himself back to his feet. “Actually, the both of you. I wouldn’t miss either of you at all.”
“Awh, Reg! I can’t wait to spend the next five years together,” Evan fawned, sticking out a hand to help Barty back up.
There was absolutely no chance Evan wouldn’t be back, he loved it there. There was even a chance that it rivaled the lake. A lot of his free time was spent either studying or training, as he needed to keep good grades and a good performance for the scholarship, but he didn’t mind it – he was already looking forward to next year.