The drawer was cluttered and disorganised, so it took Evan a good bit of rummaging to find what he was looking for. It had been a completely last-minute decision on Barty’s part to wear eyeliner to this gathering, in his words to ‘Show them all what they missed out on’ and Evan had only agreed to do it for him because the last time Barty had tried to do it himself (which had been at a Slytherin party in 6th year if Evan remembered correctly) he had poked himself in the eye once and promptly started declaring he was going to go blind. They could really do without a repeat of that.
Regulus had already gone out to meet Potter at his small country home -Evan thought he should probably just get over himself and move in with him at this point- and Dorcas and Pandora had left to get something to eat before meeting their girlfriend Lily at the event.
If you asked Evan, the whole idea was stupid. Some guy a year older than them had invited every Hogwarts graduate from the past three years to a ‘school reunion’ and almost everybody was rearing to go, for some reason. The only one who hadn't acted like it was the party of the century was Regulus, but even he had caved when Potter gave him puppy eyes. Evan was only going because his friends were. That and Dorcas had promised him one of those strawberry milkshakes from the muggle cafe over the street.
He didn't even have a date, which was part of the reason he was helping Barty get ready in the first place. They were both already dressed and he’d just taken the nachos out of the oven to eat before they left when Barty had called him to help.
“Merlin, Pan has so much stuff, she doesn't even use it all,” He held up a golden liquid eyeshadow. “What the fuck?” He pulled a face and Barty laughed from where he was sitting on Pandora’s bed. In the two years that they'd all shared the house, they'd never actually looked through each others’ things, but Evan was starting to wish he'd searched through his sister’s makeup drawer sooner, it was truly an eye-opening experience. He continued to search through the drawer.
It was pretty evident that Barty was getting impatient.
“Ev, hurry up, she's got loads, just pick one.”
With a sigh, Evan shook his head; he brushed some lipsticks and pot concealers out of the way, still searching. “No, Barty, I can't just pick one, you could get an infection from an eyeliner somebody else has used and I'm not having you blame it on me. I need one that’s not op-AHA!” He grabbed the unopened eyeliner pencil - which still had a plastic seal wrapped around the lid- and lifted it up triumphantly.
“Finally! Come over here and do it, we're gonna be late.”
Barty grabbed him by the sleeve and tugged Evan over to the bed, where he stood and used his teeth to peel the plastic seal off the pencil, taking the cap and pushing it onto the other end of the liner. “No offense, dear, but you're the least punctual person I know, I really doubt you care about being late. You're just scared I'm going to stab you and want to get it over with before you can back out,” He knew he was right because Barty scowled at him.
“Stop pouting, you arse. Close your eyes.” After an overly-dramatic eye roll, he did, allowing Evan to tilt his chin up with his index finger and lean close enough to press the eyeliner to his left eye. He applied it in a few small strokes, keeping it as close to the lash line as possible while also noticing the way Barty held his breath beneath him.
“You can breathe, you know, I won't blind you,” He muttered and moved on to the right eye. Barty smiled slightly and took a slow, shallow breath out. “Calm down, drama queen.” The pencil slipped, leaving a small line on Barty’s face, just above his lash line. “Fuck,” He put down the pencil and grabbed a wipe, carefully rubbing away at the flick of black on his friend’s eyelid. “Stay still.”
He corrected the slip-up and then placed the pencil down for a moment, making sure he hadn't done anything wrong. Smiling to himself, Evan let go of his chin.
“Open them,” Barty did and Evan hummed in satisfaction at his work. “Perfect.” He lifted the pencil again and knelt down onto the ground so they were at eye-level. Naturally, the second the eyeliner was about to touch his face, Barty flinched away.
“Nope!”
Evan groaned and sat on his feet, giving a look of disapproval that Barty didn't even seem to mind.
“Barty, come on, calm down, it's literally an eyeliner pencil. Look, I'll distract you, if you like?” Barty nodded, leading Evan to lean closer again, holding his face in his right hand, the eyeliner in his left, safely held a good few inches from Barty’s eye. “So, who is your date to this dance, then? You haven't really spoken about them.”
“Oh, that. Yeah, it was supposed to be some guy from Ravenclaw,” He looked right at Evan, their eyes meeting for an uncomfortably long span of time. “He used to be in our charms class; I saw him two weeks ago in Diagon but I wasn't really listening to anything he was saying and said ‘yeah’ and it turns out I agreed to go with him. He said he'd meet me there,” He had a dopey grin on his face and Evan couldn't help but snort, desperately trying not to laugh right in Barty's face.
“What? It's true!” Evan gave up, letting his head fall onto Barty’s shoulder to muffle it. When he lifted his head up, Barty looked a little embarrassed, and more importantly, much more relaxed than before. “Anyway, good thing was, his Mum died last week so he had to owl and cancel and now I don’t have a date.”
“And you didn't think to tell him that you don't even know his name? Or that you weren't paying attention to anything he said?” Barty shrugged. “Look up, dear, I don't want to stab you.”
Not without a little hesitation first, Barty did, allowing Evan to bring the eyeliner to his waterline.
“You know,” He started. “For the second person to get all 12 OWLs ever after McGonnagall, you're an absolute dumbass.”
Barty smiled but didn't move, scared of causing Evan to mess up. “Mm, you're mean.”
“You've only just realised?” Evan mused. He put the pen down and admired his work for a minute. “All done.” He let go of Barty’s face.
“Really?”
“Yeah.” He assured.
There was a small amount of time where neither of them spoke, Barty slowly opened his eyes, blinking a few times and looking at Evan for the verdict. He wasn't able to see the mirror from where he was so he had to trust that Evan hadn't made him look like a fool.
“Wasn't that bad in the end was it?”
“Shut up,” There was no bite to his voice, it was hushed, he looked almost spaced out. Then he came back to himself and broke out into a huge, stupid smirk. “Do I look hot?”
No way was he giving Barty that satisfaction so quickly. He tilted his head to the side, looking at his face for a minute before sitting on his feet again with a small grin. “I suppose it's some improvement.”
“Hey!” He felt a slap to his arm and looked up at his friend's smug face. “You know I'm hot.”
“Do I?” Evan feigned confusion.
“Whatever,” He laughed. “Thanks, Evs,” He placed a hand on Evan's neck and pulled him into a quick, chaste kiss. It was over as soon as it started and Barty smiled, pulling his feet onto the bed and scooting off to leave the room.
Evan stayed on the ground, looking down. He couldn't think. This was normal, he kissed his friends all the time, but that didn't stop it from making his heart flip every time Barty did it.
Barty poked his head back into the room. “Ev? You coming?”
He looked up sharply. “Oh, shit, yeah, sorry, I got lost in thought.” Slowly, Evan pushed himself off the ground and walked over to the door, feeling Barty loop an arm around his shoulder and tug him out of Pandora and Dorcas’ room, into the main living-space.
Neither of them spoke for a while. They ended up standing in the kitchen area, picking at the bowl of nachos. It had been silent for a few minutes and Evan was growing suspicious.
Barty stopped and turned to him slowly. “Evan…”
“No.” He didn't even look up.
“I didn't even tell you what it was!” He whined.
Evan turned to face him with his arms over his chest. “You're going to suggest something mean, I can tell.” Barty tried and failed to suppress a guilty smile. “See? I knew it.”
“But Ev, we're Slytherins, being mean is our whole thing!” Carefully, he stepped closer to Evan and placed a hand on his arm. “It'll be fun.”
“Will it?”
He nodded frantically. “It will! You'll find it fun, Ev.”
Evan looked at him sceptically. “I don't believe you.”
“No, no, listen,” He pleaded, eyes lighting up with something mischievous and almost cruel. “I don't want to go to this thing without a date, right? I'll look like an idiot. And you don't have a date…”
Evan stepped away, going to the fridge to get a drink. “Barty, no. I won't go with you. What if the guy changed his mind and shows up anyway? Absolutely not.”
“Evs, listen, I have a plan, just hear me out on this, yeah?” He waited for Evan to walk back over to him. “Look, we show up together and it turns out that Eagle guy changed his mind, I tell him the truth! I didn't mean to agree, I actually wanted to go with my boyfriend and here we are!”
“Boyfriend?” Evan echoed, dumbfounded.
“Well yeah,” He shrugged as if that didn't mean anything. “It's more believable if I'm in a committed relationship you know? Anyway, we could also completely ignore him if we see him anywhere, no?”
“Our friends will see us.”
“They'll play along,” He pleaded. “You know they will, Ev. Please?”
Evan thought about it. And thought about it more. And a bit more. It was quite possibly the stupidest plan he could ever agree to and would almost definitely end in disaster. “I can't believe I'm about to say this-” Barty cut him off completely by yelling ‘Yes!’ And pouncing, grabbing both of Evan’s arms. He pushed him off gently, holding him at arm's length. “But…I'll do it on one condition.”
Typically, Barty didn't even take the chance to consider it. “Anything, Ev, anything.”
“I want you to take off that hideous jacket.”
Gawping, Barty looked down at his leather jacket and then back up at Evan with a look of betrayal. “But it's my favourite jacket!”
“It makes you look like Sirius Black.”
Evan had never seen him take that jacket off so fast on his life. “Okay, gone, but if I get cold it's on you.”
“You're literally a wizard, Barty, you can find a way around it,” He holds his arm out. “Come on.”
They apparatus away and Evan took a moment to rethink all of his life choices.
He was fucked.