Butter?
Barty can hardly think as he bites into Evans’s hip, he pierces it hard enough to draw blood and the kiss he peppers next to the wound has an imprint of his lips in blood staining Evans’s precious skin.
“Rosie, Rosie, Rosie,” he mutters between kisses, “Rosie, Rosie, Rosie, Rosie.”
He says it till he reaches the waistband of Evan’s pyjama bottoms, there are the Slytherin ones the school give you. He grabs the fabric with his teeth and pulls gently, but before they can lower, Evan pulls his hair. The moan escapes Barty before he can think otherwise. The sound is guttural and one he did not know he could make.
Evan’s eyes darken significantly.
Barty tries again to tug at the waistband but Evan stops him again, “No.”
Barty pulls himself forward and crushes into Evan’s lips.
He’s been with boys before. Well, one boy and that was in a threesome so he doesn’t know how well it counts. There have been other experiences like when he would be getting with a girl and one of his Ravenclaw friends would be in the same bed kissing a girl as well. But that was normally in a drug-hazed state. This feels intimate… dangerous.
The only thought in his head is Evan, Evan, Evan. The name can’t stop pounding in his head, bouncing from one ear to another. A gentle rhythm wraps around him like a warm coat on a crisp, winter day.
Evan.
Evan.
Evan.
But he can’t stop the buzzing. He kisses Evan harder, it’s all teeth and guilt.
Barty can hear how heavily he is breathing. He pushes his tongue further into Evan’s mouth as a distraction from the sound. He wants to feel desperate and as if his mouth is not his own. As if this desire isn’t his but a carnal need. He’s kissing him deeper trying to find an excuse.
Love, he reminds himself, this is his love.
But what does it say about him if his ‘love’ is bloody kisses and a harsh grip? Barty wants to hold Evan so hard there are bruises and ugly cuts. He wants to crush him under his weight in sins.
Sin.
God.
His father.
This is not the time to be having these fucking thoughts, he thinks, but it won’t stop. Barty has never thought of himself as a particularly moral person yet the buzzing sound won’t dissipate.
Sex is a sin, but it’s also a carnal ritual of skin, hard work and force. Barty loves sex, fast or slow, calm or ravenous. He loves the closeness, not for intimacy’s sake, in fact, he does it in spite of intimacy. The heat of someone else’s skin against his own is addictive. He loves sex because he wants to be closer, as close as he can be. And there’s no way to be closer than being buried deep inside someone.
He knows it’s a fucked way to look at things, but to him, sex is like eating. Not because he needs it or because it sustains him. But because he can’t think of a way to be closer. He wants to consume someone entirely till all that’s left is writhing, sweaty dignity. He wants them to understand that it is a craving, not a crush.
And there’s also the being wanted part of sex that he loves, that everyone loves. He’s half convinced that that is why most people have sex because they want to be wanted. Everyone wants to escape, whether it’s a dead-end job or a pointless marriage. Everyone wants sex. He’s not an anomaly in that aspect, He dreams of being desired. He wants someone to look at his body and want him. Want to fuck him, want to hold him, want to fight him, it doesn’t matter, just as long as they want him.
Sex was a bloodied brutal thing. He liked sex because it was like him, well good sex was. It was loud and harsh and unforgiving and yet giving. It was an object that could be crafted into desire.
His forearm is pressed under Evan’s head and he snakes it forward till it is wrapped around his perfect throat. Evan lets out a shuddered breath and jerks his hips forward. Barty uses his free hand to press Evan’s hips into the mattress, to frustrate him further.
He expects a snarky remark or a quick-witted comment, but Evan’s only response is biting, hard, on Barty’s lower lip.
Barty hears a whimpering sound and only realises the noise had come from him when Evan smirks and says in a voice as smooth as honey, “Quiet.”
Barty finds himself nodding to Evan’s instructions. ‘Quiet’ he can be quiet.
He watches as Evan slides a hand between them and gently pulls at the buckle of Barty’s belt. The buzzing stops. Evan does the same move again but harsher and with more intent. Barty has been staring between them, where Evan’s hand was and as he looks back into Evan’s eyes, he sees how they have darkened, hazy with want and tethered desire.
Barty kisses him, harder than he had ever kissed anyone before.
The name is back, harsher this time with unbridled force.
Evan.
Evan.
“Evan.”
At first, he thinks it’s him who said Evan’s name but he quickly realises, by the panic in Evan’s eyes that it wasn’t.
“Well, well, when I told you to kiss and make up, I definitely didn’t expect you to take it so literally,” Regulus says, from where he is leaning against the door frame, arms crossed and a small grin on his very smug face.
“How long have you been there?” Evan thankfully asks because Barty can’t get any words out.
“Well, neither of you is that bright so it doesn’t surprise me that you have never heard of an idiom before,” Reg continues as he ignores Evan’s question.
“I am serious, Black, how long were you there?”
Regulus continues to ignore him blatantly, “It’s a ubiquitous saying.”
Barty rolls off Evan and looks Regulus dead in the eyes. There is something there, the same look as when they were fourteen and he had told regulus ‘you over everyone’, it’s a look of trust. He knows Reggie won’t say anything.
It takes a good few hours for the teachers to get the door unlocked, Barty could do it in a half hour but he’s too glad to be missing lessons and there’s also the joy of hearing the teacher stress on the other side of the door. They are especially panicked considering tomorrow is the last day of the term and if they can’t get them out the train will leave them behind.
That had been the point, or so he later learned. The marauders, while the teachers had been flocking to free the Slytherins, had put a giant squid in the lake. And because apparently consequences don’t apply when you are a popular, attractive Gryffindor, the squid was allowed to stay. They had had the help of some Hufflepuff seventh year so the sunflowers had been a fucked-up sort of ‘calling card’, the yellow of the sunflowers and the muggle painting was supposed to piss off the Slytherins.
It had.
But Barty was sort of grateful because by the time they were out, the light had stopped streaking through the paintings meaning they had missed all their lessons and Barty had decided to formally apologise to Dorcas.
“I’m a wanker,” He said to her on the train. They had stood in the corridor for some privacy.
“Yes,” Dorcas nods, “And…?”
“I am sorry.” He really was.
“For?”
“I’m not like them, the blood purists. I don’t believe in it. And I hate that I hurt you, in truth I couldn’t live without you. Any of you. I just think I am messed up; you know. Fucked in the head. And I say stuff I shouldn’t and I am really really fucking sorry,” He said.
“I forgive you as long as you saying stuff you know you shouldn’t doesn’t turn into actions,” Dorcas says firmly, “Because if they do, I won’t hesitate to end our friendship. I won’t. No. I can’t be friends with someone like that,” then she said more softly, “So don’t make me do that because I won’t be able to live without you either.”
“Love?” It’s a him and Dorcas thing. They say it to each other after an argument, due to them being rather frequent, as a way of saying their love is unconditional. Despite Dorcas just putting a condition on their friendship, their love is unconditional.
“Love,” Dorcas said with a small smile. It’s the kind of smile that makes Barty feel far too young to be arguing over sides in a war.
The train ride breezes past after that. Evan is pointedly staring the whole time as if he can’t believe what happened between them. As if he takes his eyes off Barty he will disappear.
There were lights on in the house. Strange.
His father must not know he is home yet, otherwise, he would be at the office ‘working late’. When his father wasn’t home no one bothered to burn the light, his mother was too fearful of a fire and Barty is normalised with the dark by now.
He was forced to come home this year. It will be the first Christmas in 6 years that he has spent with his family, a small foolish part of his is excited.
“Master Crouch you are home!” a squeaky, excited voice croaks.
The wretched thing comes around the corner, dressed in the same stained rag it had been wearing since before Barty was born.
Barty wants to kick its bowling-ball-looking head off its tiny shoulders.
He won’t, only because Regulus has spent years feeding his brain with creepy facts about House elves and the depressing history surrounding them.
Why couldn’t Voldemort want a war on elves, it would make the whole debacle of choosing sides ten times easier.
It comes up to him, it’s strange little hands trying to pry away his trunk.
He wants to push it down the stairs, he almost laughs out loud at the funny noises it would make on the way down. He could throw his truck down with the elf as well, for good measure.
“Ahhhh!” Barty shouts at it and pulls his hand away, he finds it oh-so amusing how the thing’s eyes go wide.
He doesn’t torment it on purpose but the thing is loyal to his father and while it’s a rather pathetic thing to feel over a house elf, he sort of envies the attention his father gives it. Even when he hands it his paperwork to put on his desk in the ministry, he feels jealous. That’s a level of trust a father should have with his son, not a house elf.
Plus, the elf cleans the blood of the cane after Barty is occasionally beaten and it’s not that he expects it to say something but he is so sick of people knowing and not caring.
Barty drags his trunk up the flights of stairs and just as he is settling in for a long nap, the door opens.
“Your home,” he hates his mother’s voice. It’s so airy and gentle that it reminds him of everything he isn’t. It also reminds him of everything she is. So lovely yet so cowardly. It’s not like he is a Gryffindor he doesn’t value courage but he does hate cowardice.
She walks over to his curtains and pulls them back, “Let some light in here, it’ll be good for you.”
She is one to talk, she stays in the house all day every day, “Yeah, course mum.”
She gives a timid smile, “Remember on Christmas Eve we have that Ministry thing with your father.”
“I know,” he said, it’s the only reason he was dragged home and the only reason he hadn’t put up more of a fight was because the Rosiers were supposed to be attending as they had a seat on Wizengamot. The Blacks had been invited as well but they were ‘preoccupied’, Barty suspected that meant there would be too many blood traitors there.
“I got you a nice new top to wear,” she said as if that didn’t mean everything. She doesn’t leave the house so how has she possibly brought him a new top?
“You brought it?” he said, he didn’t know why his voice sounded scared.
“Yes, I did,” There was a bright grin on his face, Barty recognised it as one he had seen on his face. People always said he looked a lot like his mother, he heard it less and less nowadays considering people saw less and less of Barty and his mum together, “I popped into M&S before you got back as a surprise.”
He didn’t know if the surprise was her leaving the house or the top. Either way, he was ecstatic. She’s getting better. If she can leave the house, she is getting better.
“Thank you, Mum,” he said sweetly.
‘Thank you for trying to get better’ is what he wants to say.
“It was only cheap,” she said with a wave of her hand but he knows that she knew that’s not what he was thanking her for.
The holiday passes without affair. Well not entirely as the days drag, with nothing to do except send letters and wait for a response. But he’s not hungry. His mum has been cooking. Mostly plain pasta.
“I put some sandwiches in the fridge,” his mum says as she pokes her head in as he is getting dressed for the Christmas party at the ministry. She had laid his top on his bed which was rather strange considering she hadn’t done that before. What was even stranger was his father wanting him to go to this party. Apparently, a bunch of the employees were bringing their families and Barty’s father didn’t want to be the only one left out, “Just in case you’re hungry when you get home.”
He spins so fast to face her that he is surprised he doesn’t get whiplash, “You’re not coming?”
“I’m not feeling well,” she said with a sympathetic look.
“What’s wrong?” he said as he looked her over with his eyes.
“Bit of a cold,” she said as she pulled a handkerchief from her sleeve as if it were proof, “I’ll be fine for Christmas though, you excited?”
She was leaning against his door frame and asking him about Christmas. It all felt so domestic that Barty thought he might be dreaming it.
“Yeah,” he says nodding because in truth he was. It might seem a bit childish but Barty had never had a proper Christmas, only the fake one his father did for the press.
“Good,” she said, “I got you some bits and pieces.”
He hadn’t gotten her anything, he didn’t know they were doing Christmas or else he would have. But in all honesty, he wouldn’t know what to buy her. He barely knew what she liked; she was always such a wisp of life that he didn’t think she had time to like anything other than the sadness, “I didn’t know we were doing Christmas… I didn’t get you anything.”
“That’s fine,” his mum said, “You didn’t need to, it’s the mum’s job to get the presents and spoil their children.”
A mum’s job. He was surprised she knew what that was. He felt like an evil person even thinking it but it was true. It didn’t matter though he had prayed for so long to let her get better that he was just grateful. His mum acting as a mum and getting better was even making him like his father more and making him feel sort of pious.
“Mum seems better,” Barty tries to comment as they step into the floo. His father hadn’t offered a reply.
There are so many people that it takes a solid half hour for Barty to find Evan and when he does it’s a rather shocking scene. The Rosiers are talking to the Potters. It’s such a stark contrast, the warmth of the Potter family and the sharpness of house Rosier.
The Rosiers are all beautiful. There is no other way to describe them. All are perfectly primed roses, not because they are perfect but because they have the skill of making any flaw seem flawless by utterly embracing obscurity. Pandora is wild and free, yet her parents don’t shun her for it instead they act as if it is how everyone should be. Yet contrasted to Evan, detailed and refined, you would think they could not make two people who are more different seem equally picturesque.
They throw a ‘party’ in summer to celebrate passion and love, it sounds like a sleazy excuse for a mass fucking orgy, but it is not at all. It is elegant and singular, just like them, and anyone can be invited if they deem you ‘beautiful’ enough of a person. Last year Dorcas and her muggle family came but so did the Blacks and Lestranges. They just have a talent for complete inclusivity and yet it’s all a façade. It’s a stone fortress to hide how they slowly seduce you into believing their madness is normality. The Rosier family are the mistress to mischief and all things beautiful.
And they all love Barty.
Pandora jokes her mother has a crush on him and their father thinks he is so devastating, apparently, he had the ‘perfect balance of madness and beauty’ which is just how they like their people. It also helps that Barty’s blood is pure.
Yet they still love Dorcas despite her blood status. They say she is so powerful that she could bring the world to its knees. But after all is said and done, they wouldn’t defend her, if there is a war the Rosiers will play coy. Tittering on the edge of both sides as they do with most things and because they are Rosiers no one will mind their balancing act. So, while they won’t defend Dorcas, Barty isn’t stupid enough to think himself special, they won’t protect him either. They value family more than anything. What they don’t know is that Evan and Pandora would defend Dorcas or him to the end of the earth if it came to it. As he said before they are loyal to their family… it just so happens that the twins consider very different people family.
“Barty, darling,” Mrs Rosier drawls out the words in her RP accent, when she sees him approach, “Oh, it’s so good to see you, darling.”
She puts her hands on his waist, “Pleasures all mine, you look singular, I must say.”
He dials up the flirting when with her or her husband. They are such gorgeous people it’s hard not to.
“This material is stunning,” she said as she threaded his M&S t-shirt through her forefinger and thumb, “Italian silk?”
“No, mulberry silk,” he said, watching her mouth form a small ‘o’ shape. He is flat-out lying and Barty knows Evan can tell by the way he pressed his smile into the back of his hand.
“Wow, that’s darling,” she said, “Sweetheart,” she said to her husband, Gods there are good fucking actors, Barty wouldn’t even be able to tell their marriage was in shreds if Pandora hadn’t told him, “Remind me to look into that. Mulberry, did you say?”
“Yep,” Barty said, popping the ‘P’. He knows they know he’s lying and they know that he knows. It’s a fucking fantastic loop and paradox of lies. It is practically ‘darling’.
“How rude of us,” Mr Rosier starts teasingly nudging his wife, “Barty you know the Potters?”
He turns to Fleamont and Euphemia Potter and smiles, “Of course, great to see you again.”
He has known the Potters as long as he has known Alice’s family. They are all part of the ‘shop-owners collective’, his mum used to run a small tailor shop before he was born, Alice’s family has the ice cream shop and god forbid anyone forgets Potter’s famous hair potion. They only knew Barty when he was very young, then his mum got sad and his father got distant. The Fortescues and Potters remained close to what Alice told him. He was never close with James, they probably only met twice when they were babies. There is probably a very sweet photo of them sharing a bath as 1-year-olds and that’s about the extent of their connection.
“Well, haven’t you grown up,” Euphemia said happily and Barty truly believed she was.
“I would hope so,” Barty said not entirely sure if it came off as jokey or not. He doesn’t particularly care either way.
“How’s mum?” She said.
Barty swallows and for some reason, the next words don’t feel right coming up, “She’s good.”
“I haven’t seen her in years, tell her she can always pop around.”
“Will do,” He said and actually might. It would be good for his mum to have some friends.
He nods his head at both of them and then grabs Evan’s arm. The other boy seems shocked by the suddenness, “Rosie, there’s something I want to do.”
“Burn down the ministry?” Evan teases, Barty can tell by the forced smile it’s for the sake of the adults.
“You think so low of me, Evs,” he said, “I wouldn’t burn down the ministry so close to Christmas, that’s more of a summer activity.”
The parents laughed and he widened his eyes at Evan and pulled him away.
“Where is it we are going?” Evan asked as they weaved between people.
“The Minister of Magic office,” Barty said, “I want to break in, it’s the perfect opportunity, everyone is busy. We may never get to do this again.”
Evan sighed, he was clearly not up for the idea, “But it’s Christmas.”
Barty turned to him, “I feel the same- oh you mean it’s actually Christmas.”
“Fine, how do you plan to do this then?”
“I am very talented.”
“I know, but it’s probably the most guarded place second to Azkaban.”
“That me want to do it even more,” Barty said and turned to Evan who had a bright smile on his face.
Evan is lightly shaking his head happily, “Something is seriously wrong with you.”
“And yet you kissed me,” Barty states.
Evan stares at him seemingly at a loss for words. Did he cross a line or was Evan just not excepting him to be so devil-may-care about the whole thing?
“Say what you want about you, Barty, but you certainly know how to shock someone,” Evan seems to settle on saying.
Barty grins and slides his hand down Evan’s forearm where he had been holding and grabs his hand. He hears Evan sharply inhale.
All the offices look the same. Each one is identical, “Merlin this would be my worst nightmare.”
“What? An office job?”
“Don’t even say the words, Rosie, it makes my skin crawl.”
Barty feels Evan grab his shoulder and breath against his ear through bounds of laughter, “Office job. Office job.”
Barty swings around and clamps his hand over Evan’s mouth, “Don’t say it a third time you might speak it into existence.”
Evan tackles Barty’s hand away, “You’re such a pretentious cunt, you know, that right?”
“And you are an ostentatious prick, see we can all use big words.”
“How are you going to get past century-old runes if you think pretentious is a ‘big word’?”
“Because,” Barty said slowly, taking a step closer to Evan so their faces were inches apart, “I. Am. Really. Fucking. Smart.”
“Your full of yourself is what you are.”
Barty smirks to himself, “When I unlock the door you are going to lose your fucking mind, Rosier.”
“How are going to unlock the door when you can’t even find it,” Evan says through a grin.
Barty couldn’t help himself, he quickly pecked Evan on the lips and then turned around and kept on walking trying to find the door. He didn’t check to see Evan’s reaction, if it was bad it might just be enough to break his heart. His heart is very fucking fragile when it comes to Evan Rosier is what he is learning.
“Yessss,” Barty hissed under his breath when he found the door. It was the same as all the other, except it had ‘Minchum’ inscribed on the door.
He swore he heard Evan mutter, “Bastard” under his breath. Barty can’t help but grin.
Barty got to work opening the runes.
It’s taking longer than expected. The magic is fucking ancient, a binding of light and dark, of push and pull. The alphabet is clearly sealed but Barty is understanding most of it now and all he has to do is pull away the layers of shieling without disruption. He tilts his head slightly to look at Evan, who is leaning against the wall, watching intensely.
He stares at the keyhole and notices something from his lockpicking days. The office isn’t fucking locked!
There are about 250 wizards downstairs, some of them are dark and some are light but you still don’t leave the Minister of fucking Magics door unlocked!
The runes aren’t sealed, they just open, freely. It’s so easy it feels like a trap, but with the state of the country, it feels rather fucking in keeping.
It’s unbelievable.
Barty doesn’t even care about the ministry but fucking hell, next time lock the fucking door!
“Something wrong?” Evan asks, probably because Barty is frozen in between joy and bewilderment.
“It’s unlocked.”
“Oh, well done then.”
“No it was just left unlocked,” Barty said, still staring in disbelief at the unlocked door.
“Salazar, we are fucked if this is our government.”
“Mh, you can say that again,” Barty agreed, pushing the door open.
The office’s walls are covered in shelves, but overall it is pretty tidy which is utterly shocking all things considered, for example, the unlocked door. It was going to take Barty a while to get over that one. He had been so excited to collapse down the runes and actually break in but no, the ministry had to deprive him of his joy.
“I hate this place.”
“Why have we broken in then?”
“Because it’s funny,” Barty said turning to face Evan, who is a lot closer than he had anticipated.
To his surprise, it was Evan who kissed him this time. He grabs the front of Evan’s shirt and pulls him towards the desk. Heat is pooling through him and all his blood is leaving his brain and going to one very specific place.
Yes.
Yes.
Yes.
The back of his thighs digs into the desk and he lifts his leg slightly around Evan to get more friction. He claws at Evan’s shirt and he makes a noise into Barty’s mouth that makes his knees falter slightly.
Fucking hell what happened to him? He used to be so good at holding back till he couldn’t, now apparently, he can’t hold back at all. Imagine the best kiss of your whole fucking life is your best friend. He was so fucked.
“Did you lure me here just so later you can say you have kissed someone on the Minister of Magic’s desk?” Evan asks and bites down on Barty’s lip.
“You’re the one who kissed me remember? If anything, this is your strange fantasy,” Barty said aimlessly. He isn’t really paying attention to what he is saying but he is hanging onto Evan’s every word.
He tries to catch Evan’s lips again but Evan pulls away at the last minute, “Eager.”
“Fuck you,” Barty laughs breathlessly.
“You clearly want to,” Evan said.
“God, don’t put that thought in my head.”
Evan seems to halt at that and Barty can feel Evan’s gaze raking over him, his skin burns with the intensity of it.
“I can’t tell if you haven’t had sex in ages or the fact, we just Minister of Magics office that’s doing it for you?” Evan said with a slightly furrowed brow.
“It’s you,” Barty said truthfully and rolled his hips forward.
Evan moans loudly, Barty can feel his eyes widen in amazement. Evan definitely hadn’t made that noise last time; he would remember if he had. He was going to remember that sound forever, he wanted it seared into his brain.
“We need to go back downstairs,” Evan says pulling away.
“No,” Barty reaches for him again.
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“My parents will be looking for me by now and it amuses me to see you so worked up,” Evan grins and Barty believes him.
“Fuck you.”
“You said that bit already,” Evan teases and starts to walk out of the office.
Barty mutters his farewells to the office he will never have to chance to shag in again.
The rest of the evening goes somewhat smoothly, well not when he first gets back to the party but Barty kept on banishing the sounds Evan was making from his head and he was getting better at it as the party went on.
He flooed home with his father, ready to pass out in his bed but as they arrived in the living room, he saw her.
It’s strange because when he first saw it, it wasn’t his mother’s limp, writhing body or the smeared blood that caught his eye. No. it was the look on his father’s face. There was so much emotion, something akin to heartbreak.
Everything was moving slowly as if gravity was tugging him through the floor.
“No. No. Merlin. Merlin. Oh Lucy, oh,” Barty didn’t recognise the voice coming out of his father, it was a guttural and devastating sound. It made Barty feel sick to his stomach. His father had fallen to the floor, his body contorted at a strange angle as he reached his fingers out on the polished floor as if he were trying to reach her. Nothing kept his father from running to his wife and scoping her into his arms. Yet he wasn’t moving and, ridiculously, it made Barty feel as if he couldn’t move either, as if some ancient barrier held him back.
So, he stood still, furling and unfurling his fists as he watched his mother bleed out on the cold, wooden floors of their living room.
Blood was streaked across the walls and the mirror that only a few hours ago he had been checking his hair in.
“Not again,” his father was wailing like a madman.
His father’s cries broke Barty out of his trance and he took a step forward. Then another. And another. He can’t see any of his mother’s tanned skin, just blood. Her wrists were slick with it. It was almost comical; she had only slit one of them. Had she been too cowardly to do both?
Barty could hear his father wailing about not noticing her getting bad again but mostly it was wrecked sobs of apologies. And that was suddenly funny too, he had never heard his father apologise before, not to him or his mother. Yet he also hadn’t seen his father love anyone but his mother.
His mother. She was supposed to be his. He wanted her to look after him, to hold him, to love him as everyone else’s mother loved them like Euphemia Potter loved her son.
He wanted to be a child again when he didn’t know love could be something greater than having toast made for him. When he thought he couldn’t be loved more than his mother loved him.
She wasn’t a bad mum. Not by a long shot, he knows bad mums. Mums who should never have been given children. She just wasn’t anything, she never raised her voice or protected him. He wanted to shout in her half-dead face to say something.
To do something.
To stop being such a coward. He knows it’s awful and selfish but he really wanted his mum. He wanted her to hug him but instead, she bleeding out on the floor. He wanted someone to hold him, to comfort him, to save his mum.
He thinks of the muggle car. He thinks of the water. He tries to stop thinking.
Instead, he kneels beside her and he can feel the blood seeping through his trousers. He messily grabs her wrist. It’s limp. Don’t think.
Barty looks back at his father, who is still on the floor howling, and realises he has to be the one to save her. Because it always has to be him. He saved her last time. Don’t fucking think.
He aimlessly grapples at her wrist. Stem the bleeding. Stem the bleeding. Stem the fucking bleeding. He pulls his new top over his head while trying to hold his mum’s wrist together. The flesh is strange. It’s slippery but he doesn’t look at it for too long. He refuses to. He can feel his thumb inside the wound, if he held it tighter, he would indefinitely feel the bone.
He stuffs his shirt in the gaping hole of open skin and then wraps it tightly around her arm. Barty can’t bring himself to look at her face, because he is so fucking terrified, he will see the look he had seen years ago. That pale, hollow face that was supposed to be his mum. He hates so fucking much that he has seen it before and he hates even more that he has to see it again. If he counts his birth, it has been three times his mother has died and three times that Barty has been there to see the look on her face.
He stares at the makeshift bandage and oddly his hands aren’t shaking. Why does he have to get used to seeing his mum dead? Why doesn’t it make him shake anymore? Why has he been here before?
Except last time… last time… “Mum,” the voice croaks out of him. She doesn’t respond. What if she is dead this time? “Mum, please.” His voice is tiny and hoarse. He doesn’t want his father to hear.
That was like last time too. It was a secret, them going out. ‘A mum and son’ say she had called it. They were only going up the road for a picnic, but it didn’t matter how far they went they would still be back by the time his father was home. It was always like that to Barty but to his mother it must have been so sudden. They had the child, the son, they always dreamed about and then a few days after his birth, his father started working later hours, working any hours he could. He hoped his mother didn’t resent him for driving his father away.
It was a secret not because they couldn’t leave the house, of course, they could, his father wasn’t controlling. He didn’t care enough to be. But it was still a secret, just a day for them. Even though every day was just them he was still excited. Why wouldn’t he be? He hadn’t known his mother would drive them into a lake. When it happened, he didn’t realise what she had done. He certainly didn’t think it was on purpose. Fucking hell, why would he, he was eight and he thought it was a day out. He just remembers the moment he stopped being excited and he was suddenly very, very scared. Like fucking petrified. He kept staring at the sandwiches next to him in the back of the car, and he remembers thinking she hadn’t buttered the bread. He had always scavenged for his food around the house, so his mother hadn’t made sandwiches before but she always asked if he wanted butter on his toast. So why hadn’t she buttered the sandwiches?
As he got older, he realised it because she had been in a rush to leave the house, she knew they weren’t having a fucking picnic, no one was going to eat those sandwiches so why bother with butter.
He doesn’t blame his mum. He knows she was sick, and still is, but he really wished he had a healthy mum. As evil, as it is, he prayed at every mass, since he was little, for her to get better, not for her sake he wasn’t good enough to pray for her sake, but for his, so he could have a mum. One who didn’t drive into lakes, instead one who buttered his sandwiches and told him bedtime stories and held his hand. He couldn’t understand it. Why did she clean up his cuts? So, his corpse looked clean? Why did she brush away the dirt in his palms if only a year later she would try to drown him?
A man had saved them. A stranger. The car hadn’t sunk that much and his mum, who didn’t understand muggle cars, had left the window slightly unrolled and the doors unlocked. Which meant the man could drag them both out of the vehicle before the water could fully submerge them. But his mother had also taken something, a combination of pills, a back-up option and Barty had seen the lifeless way her head swung. His father brushed the whole thing under the rug, paid off anyone he had to to keep them quiet, and shipped his mum back to her parents in the USSR for a few months so she could ‘get better’.
She hadn’t.
If she wanted to die so badly why wouldn’t she jump or was she too much of a coward for that?
Why did she have to keep trying such abstract and theatrical methods that she could survive?
Why was she so creative with the ways she tried to kill herself? She was never creative in life so why did she feel the need to be creative in death?
“We need to take her to St Mungo’s,” Barty says looking at his father.
“What?” his father’s voice was broken and distant but his eyes were focused on Barty. And because something was irrevocably fucked up inside of him, he felt fucking joyful. He was an evil, malicious cunt because his mother was half-dead on the floor and he was so happy that his father was looking at him. That he had spoken to him. That he acknoledg- “No.”
“What?” the words shot out of Barty before he could even think.
“We can’t go to St Mungo’s,” His father said, “I know people there.”
Barty couldn’t do anything but stare. His father wanted to sweep this all under the rug, yet again. He hated himself for being so desperate for this man’s approval. But sometimes it wasn’t hard not to idolise his father.
“We can go to a muggle hospital,” his father says slowly, not taking his eyes off Barty. And Barty realises he is only looking at him because he can’t bear to look at his mother.
“She is nearly dead,” Barty said, “Only magic can help her, don’t you get that?”
His father pathetically dragged himself closer to his wife’s body, still unable to look, “Is she dead?”
“She is still warm.”
“No,” Barty’s father says, “Her face? Is it you know?”
Barty knows all too well, it’s why he hadn’t looked at his mother’s face yet, “I can’t look.”
“Look, tell me if she looks…”
“I can’t look.”
He wasn’t lying he physically couldn’t bring himself to see that glazed look in his mother’s eyes and that pale, ghostly skin.
“Look,” his father demands, “Look and tell me.”
Why? Why? Fucking why? Why does he have to look? Why can’t he be the child for once? Why can’t he be looked after?
Slowly, he drags his eyes up his mother’s body and stares, her head has limply fallen to the side. He uses his hand to gently turn his mother’s head. She looks like she had before, just more bloodied this time. She looks so small cradled in his arms, like some tragic painting.
“She… she looks like she did last time.”
His father’s eyes flicker up to her face and he lets out a choked noise as if someone had punched him in the chest. The cries start again and Barty knows that if doesn’t move right now he will be stuck at this moment forever, with his nearly dead mum in his arms and his trousers soaked in blood.
He picks her up. She is so light, even her dead weight is nimble.
`’Where… where-”
He cuts his father off, “St Mungo’s. I won’t let her die.”
And that seems to be enough because his father stops his croaking and lets Barty walk to the floo.
The swirling doesn’t help the sickness in his stomach, but he clutches hold of his mum so tight he is scared he will break her.
It must be quite a scene because every head turns towards him as soon as he is in the cream building. That’s all he can see, yellow walls, yellow floors, yellow lighting. And stark blue chairs. The smell of magic hits him in the face. He normally likes that smell but this has a different tinge to it. Something clinical.
He imagines he must look insane, like some sacrificial lamb to the slaughter. He is shirtless and stained with his mother’s blood, there is something of a Shakespearean tragedy in it.
“How is she hurt?” A nurse asks him, he recognises her voice. He feels like he can’t speak, as if his words are controlling him instead of the other way around, “Barty? What happened?”
It’s James Potter’s mum. She’s the nurse. God does have a sense of irony after all.
He doesn’t pick up on much of what anyone is saying. It’s all a blur. He couldn’t look at Mrs Potter anymore, he couldn’t take it. The nurturing look in her eyes was horrific when he thought of his own mother’s eyes that were rolled back in her head.
So, he let them take her away as he sat in the scratchy blue chair. For hours. And hours. And hours.
His father doesn’t show up.
And when a nurse tells him to go home and shower, he agrees. He can’t take feeling like an even worse person just because he left his mum there. She wouldn’t remember.
When he gets back to the house, the blood is gone, scrubbed away by the loyal house elf no doubt. The floor is hard and polished once more. Even the handprint on the mirror is gone.
Nothing left of the massacre it’s gone like the tide.
The sun streaks through the thick curtains, his mum isn’t there to pull them back. He does it himself. No point waiting around for his mum to be a mum, she won’t.
And stupidly as the morning light floods in, he feels sorry for himself. Not because he doesn’t know where his dad is or because his mum is in hospital but because he won’t get to have a Christmas. He wants one so badly. He doesn’t even know what it’s like and he wants one. He wants a muggle Christmas tree and a family to sit around it with.
Was he so deeply unlovable that god didn’t see him worthy of a family or was he this unlovable because of his family?
He trails into the kitchen and opens the fridge.
He might be sick.
There is a mashed-up, clingfilmed sandwich sitting there. He desperately uses his teeth to rip open the film and dissects the sandwich.
Huh. He doesn’t know what he expected. No butter.