Chapter 2
The following week tended to stick to a pattern. Barty would wake up to get ready and Evan would already be gone. He didn’t bother searching for them. There was no point. He would avoid talking to him throughout the day and Barty didn’t make an effort to try and force him to. He had made it clear he didn’t want to be around him and Barty decided that it was Evan’s loss. Regulus didn’t bother pointing it out either. He must have noticed, though, Barty sometimes saw him send odd looks to him when he would deflect yet another of Barty's remarks with a nod, a shrug or a hum.
He thought about asking Regulus to talk to Evan for him but decided it would only end with an irritated Regulus and even more distant Evan.
The strange sensation in his chest and throat continued and seemed to worsen each day, though only fractionally. There were moments when it got worse, like it was building up to something. But nothing ever happened. He found it a little odd that this uncomfortable feeling had first appeared right after Evan had started acting strange, maybe it was connected? Some sort of ‘anxiety’ thing that Nott girl always spoke about when she was around. He wasn’t too sure but it was definitely strange.
On the Thursday, Barty put extra effort into trying to speak to Evan. In each lesson they shared, he was sure to be as close to him as possible in the hopes of being able to get anything out of him.
During Divination, Barty walked right past his partner and sat himself down at Evan’s table, smiling at him as he opened his books. He caught Regulus staring at them warily from the other side of the room, sitting opposite Pandora Nott.
“Hi, Evs,” He muttered, paying close attention to the way Evan closed his eyes and took a few deep breaths before he opened them again and looked away.
He waited for a few seconds, giving Evan the chance to change his mind and talk.
Luckily, it seemed to work. Evan took a while, but eventually he managed a simple ‘hey’, without turning back around.
The teacher started babbling on about bone reading and Barty didn’t let his eyes wander from Evan for even a second. He sat and stared at him, trying to figure out how best to talk to him.
Eventually, he slowly reached out and let his hand gently rest on top of Evan’s, tapping the back of his hand twice to get his attention.
“Ev,” He whispered, getting no response. “Evan.”
Evan sighed and pulled his hand away slowly, tilting his face so Barty couldn’t see what his expression was.
“Evan-”
“I’m trying to focus, Crouch, stop talking to me,” He spat, sending him a sharp glare.
Barty scoffed and pulled his hand back, shoving it into his pocket harshly and rolling his eyes. “Damn, okay then.”
Evan ignored him and the two of them went back to listening to the teacher. Well, Evan went back to listening and Barty spent the next 50 minutes glaring daggers into the back of Evan’s head. He caught Regulus’ questioning gaze and stared back, watching the way Regulus smiled in pitying understanding and looked away, turning to Nott to whisper something to them.
-
By Monday evening, Regulus had gotten thoroughly fed up with his friends. It was usual for them to be stupid, especially around each other, but they didn’t usually do anything this pathetic and extreme. Evan was being entirely irrational and it was driving him up the wall. He had thought for a while that Evan was slowly becoming more and more distant from them, especially Barty, but he hadn’t expected him to go to sudden neglect with little to no warning. Earlier the same day he had first started acting oddly, Evan had been talking to them both just fine. Not as much as he had for the past 6 years of school but nothing out of the ordinary.
But after the incident on Tuesday, Evan had been even worse. He had stopped talking to Barty almost completely, only saying the occasional word or two when it was necessary, or when it would help prove that he wasn’t ignoring him. And Regulus found it ridiculous. It was their NEWT year, he had much better things to be thinking about than how his friends were coping with their pathetic crushes on each other.
He could see so clearly that Barty was hurt by it and he knew that Evan wasn’t oblivious to it either, no matter how much they tried to act like Barty didn’t exist. The last few days, he had stopped trying as hard to get Evan’s attention, but to begin with, he would try and try and try until either Evan snapped and walked off, or Regulus had to intervene and distract Barty to pull him away from making Evan angry and hurting his own feelings in the process. And honestly, it was getting tiring. Regulus didn’t want to be a babysitter, he just wanted them to figure everything out on their own.
He groaned and let his head fall into his arms, where they were resting against the table. A few moments later, he was dragged out of his thoughts by a voice from behind him.
“What has you so tense?” Pandora asked as they sat down on the chair next to him, placing their books on the table softly and flicking her hair over her shoulder.
Regulus sighed and looked up, trying to convey his emotional torment through his eyes. “Who do you think?”
She laughed and leaned her elbows on the table and face in her hands. “Those two again? What’s wrong with them now?”
“Honestly, I have no clue anymore. I think it’s Evan’s fault. He’s been ignoring Barty and it’s been making him upset. I don’t understand why they can’t just admit they’re in love, they were acting really coupley just before this started. It probably doesn’t help that Barty is sick too.”
“He’s sick? Oh, that’s terrible, what if it?” They asked, curiously.
Regulus just shrugged. “No idea, he had this really bad cough, didn’t seem too bad but who knows. It’s been going on all week, ever since Evan stopped paying him attention, makes me think he’s doing it to make Evan worry about him. It seems like a Barty thing to do, doesn’t it?”
Pandora didn’t look too pleased with that answer. “He got sick right after Evan started ignoring him? And you said they were acting extremely lovey-dovey just before?” She confirmed. Regulus nodded and they smiled sadly. “Okay.”
“Pan, I don’t see how those are correlated.”
She smiled, with a look of pity in her eyes. “I wouldn’t expect you to,” She assured him, placing a hand on his arm gently.
Well, that was weird.
-
Regulus wasn’t able to stop thinking about what Pandora had said the whole time they were studying together. He was still debating what she had meant as he walked up the steps to the dorm later that evening, only forgetting about it when he heard a noise from the far side of the room. After a moment of thought, he realised that it was Barty muttering to himself.
Great. That was just what Regulus needed right now.
“Barty? You alright, there?” He called, hearing Barty stop and shuffle around a little, peeling open the curtain around his bed. His face was drained of colour and he looked ridiculously tired.
He narrowed his eyes suspiciously and eyed Regulus, like he was trying to figure out his intentions. “Why? Did Evan send you to bully me?”
“Did- for fuck’s sake, Barty, can I not walk into my own dorm without it being part of Evan’s grand scheme to torture you? I was just checking in on you.”
Barty instantly looked guilty. “Sorry, I’m just extra worried, I guess. Everything with him avoiding me has just been really stressing me and I can’t help but assume that it’s going to spread and ruin everything. Sorry, that’s stupid.”
Regulus smiled sadly and stepped back towards the door. “Don’t worry, I understand. Get some rest, I’m going back to the common room to find Ev, come down and join us in a bit if you feel like it.”
He had to talk to Evan.
-
Evan was stressed. Very stressed. He knew this plan was for the best but he couldn’t help but feel horrible about it. He found himself trying to find excuses to ditch the plan for just a few days, trying to find loopholes in his own logic.
Swiftly crossing the common room, Regulus sat down on the armchair across from him and crossed his arms like a cross mother. “Well, would you like to tell me what you’re playing at?” He demanded, keeping his eyes fixed on Evan’s face, not giving him a chance to pretend he didn’t hear and buy himself some time to make something up.
“What do you mean?” He tried to deflect, making Regulus visibly more annoyed.
“You know exactly what I mean. Tell me why I just found Barty upstairs, looking like he hasn’t slept in a year. And don’t pretend it has nothing to do with you, I know it’s because of you avoiding him, he just told me. Why are you doing it? Are you not hopelessly in love with him anymore? Or do you just enjoy being a dick?”
Feeling a lot more threatened than he would have liked, Evan looked down at the floor and took a moment. “I think you know why I’m ignoring him.”
Regulus laughed coldly. “Please tell me you aren’t avoiding him because you’re in love with him.”
Evan didn’t answer.
“Right, That’s it, I’m sick of you two. Tomorrow evening, you are telling him that you’re friends again because you have not had to see how bad he has been but it’s all because of you and your pathetic crush so you need to fix it. I don’t care what you do after, okay? You can ignore him if you like, but at least put in a little effort to not be as dickish as this again. Okay?”
Evan nodded slowly, thinking through what he was going to do. There was no way he could say no to Regulus, and now he had an excuse to ditch his plan for at least a while. But now he also had to face Barty and try to stick to the original plan as much as possible. And at the moment, that looked like it would require a lot of fluctuation between being friendly and being distant, which he was not sure he would be able to do.
Eventually, he decided that he would slowly ease his way back into friendship with Barty, making sure he only builty it up to half as caring as before. If that was even possible. He didn’t know, he just wanted to deal with this and stop hurting Barty by leading him on, making him think Evan just wanted to be good friends. In his mind, the plan was still very much in action, it would just need a few adjustments to make sure it ran smoothly. It would be fine.
He zoned back in and Regulus was back to insulting him, commenting on how stupid he was for not just talking to Barty about his feelings, as if it was that easy.
-
Exactly a week after he had started avoiding them, Barty decided to stay up so he could follow Evan to wherever it was that he went in the mornings and confront him about it. They had fights occasionally, all friends did but usually, they would only last two days maximum. This had been a week and it was just getting annoying. All he wanted was to be able to joke with Evan. To climb into each other's beds and talk at night, to have an arm around his shoulder so comfort them both. Yes, Evan seemed absolutely hellbent on avoiding all of that.
He had started to doubt his original theory. It seemed less and less likely that he hated Barty and more likely that he was scared of him. Or at least scared that he might do something bad. He wasn’t sure if that was better or worse.
After what felt like years of lying awake, waiting, he heard the rustling of bed sheets, followed by light footsteps. He gave it a few seconds so he knew he was unlikely to be seen and scare Evan off.
He followed him from the dorm and down to the common room, ready to follow him for a bit further until they got to wherever Evan went, he was particularly interested in knowing where this mystery place was. However, he was given away by a sudden cough as Evan started to hum to themselves halfway through the common room.
He turned around at the sound and frowned, their face showing a certain softness that hadn;t been there all week, making him cough again. “Bar?” He coughed once more when he heard that nickname, it felt like whatever had been threatening to show itself was finally getting more and more dislodged in his throat.
“Uh…hey!” He smiled awkwardly, waving stupidly as he realised he didn’t know what he was planning on saying to win Evan over. He paused for a moment. “I just wanted to talk to you, don’t worry! I saw you leaving the dorm so I decided I would…”
“Follow me? Like a stalker? How wonderful.”
“Ev, just, you’ve been avoiding me for a week, I think I have the right to ask questions.” He saw Evan debating what to do next and tried to smile encouragingly, whilst still showing that he was upset. He was pretty sure he ended up looking pained. “Please?”
“It depends. What do you want?” He sounded cold when he said it. Nothing like his Evan, the Evan who always tried to be comforting no matter what. “Sorry, tired. But I still want to know what you are so desperate to talk about. Why not ask me at breakfast?”
“Because you will ignore me at breakfast! Like you have every day for the past bloody week! You will pretend you’re reading or interested in whatever person you purposefully sit next to is doing today! Don’t pretend you think I haven’t noticed. I want to talk to you now so we can sit together like normal friends do and talk properly, without any distractions. Because I miss you.” They looked at each other for a moment, neither going to move or speak, before Evan raised their hands in defeat, sighed and sat on a sofa. Barty decided to go for the armchair across from him, not wanting to sit too close and screw everything up immediately.
“Thank you,” He started. “So…you’ve been avoiding me. Again.”
Evan hesitated. Then nodded.
“Why?”
He shrugged.
“No, Evan, tell me why. I take back what I said before. You’ve been a twat lately and I deserve to know why,” He demanded.
“I’m sorry.”
Silence.
“Ev, I don’t want you to say you’re sorry. I want you to tell me what’s happened. If I’ve done anything I want you to tell me what it was and how I can fix it. If someone else has done something to make you go all distant then I want you to tell me what and who. Okay? Don’t just sit there and tell me you’re sorry, tell me what’s wrong.”
“You didn’t do anything. I told you that.”
“Then what the fuck happened to you? I thought we had agreed we weren’t going to do this whole avoiding each other thing. I thought we had figured things out.”
“I know.”
“Come on, Ev! Just tell me! Why are you acting like this? What happened? Who did this to you?”
“Me. I did this to me.” He didn’t let Barty interject, continuing on with his explanation. “That sounds weird. I sound like I am about to tell you a stupid sob story. I’m sorry. I know you’re angry at me. I stopped talking to you because being around you made me angry at myself.”
-
Shit. Shit shit shit. Why had he said that? Now Barty was looking at him like he had just confessed to fucking an elephant.
“That makes no sense.”
He shrugged, making him want to slap himself for being so pathetic. “I know.”
“So…?”
“So I don’t know how to explain it. I can’t…explain everything but it got to a stage where I felt like I was using you, so I…decided to avoid you so you would be more free.”
“You still aren’t making any sense.”
Evan grabbed their hair and pulled hard, wanting nothing more than for the ground to open up and swallow them right then and there. “I KNOW!” Barty jumped and he immediately felt bad. As if he didn’t already feel evil enough for giving him the cold shoulder all week, he was now scaring him too. Good going, Evan. “Okay, no sorry, that was rude. I know I’m not making sense. And like I just said, I can’t actually think of a way to tell you the truth so that is all you’re going to get. Okay?”
“Brilliant. I waited and stressed for a bloody week just to be told I can’t know the truth and now you’re expecting me to just say that’s fine and move on.”
Evan did not know whether they wanted to punch Barty or himself more at that moment. “Yes.”
“Of course.”
Silence.
“If it means anything, I don’t want to avoid you.”
“Hmm. That seems to make a lot of sense, considering nobody is forcing you to do it, meaning you’re doing it of your own free will and can stop at any moment if you get the guts to grow up and actually talk to me instead of being a dick.”
“I spoke to Reg about it yesterday. I was going to come and apologise after dinner. You can ask him if you like,” It was true. He had spoken to Regulus about it. They had made an agreement, then Regulus had said ‘I don’t get why you can’t just admit you’re in love with him and get over it instead of pulling stunts like this.’ which was not particularly helpful.
“I don’t really care.”
-
That was a lie. He did care. Had Evan really meant to apologise or was he just saying that to make him feel better?
“I was going to ask if you wanted to be friends again.”
Barty felt the tickle in his throat intensify and coughed a few times before he managed to answer, rubbing his chest in an attempt to ease the aching.
“I don’t understand.”
Evan laughed and the ache became worse. He coughed even more and it only seemed to get worse when he felt Evan’s hand rest gently on his back.
“Are you okay?”
He nodded, despite knowing he was clearly not. Feeling his eyes begin to water, he brought a hand up to cover his face, trying to ignore Evan. He didn’t know why he did, usually, Evan’s comfort would make things instantly better, though this time…
He supposed things were so different now that being comforted by Evan just felt wrong. Extremely wrong.
Evan brought him over to the sofa to help him sit down in a position to stop him from losing is balance and falling, as well as to help him breathe easier and despite his brain telling him ‘no’ he let himself lean into Evan ever so slightly. Evan stayed with him for a few moments longer before standing and taking a deep breath.
“Okay, I am no expert on different types of coughs, but that doesn't sound normal. At all. So, I am going to go and get Reg and make sure he can keep an eye on you, and then I’m gonna go down to Pomfrey and make sure she comes to see you. And don’t say I’m overreacting, because if I’m honest, that sounds a lot more like a choke than a cough and I don’t like the idea of you dying via choking on air in the middle of a conversation. Stay there.” He nodded and watched as Evan quickly hopped up the stairs, two at a time, as to get to the dorm quicker.
The coughing seemed to get better once Evan was out of sight but continued until he felt something flutter from his mouth onto his lap. Something small and light…a petal. A singular rose petal. It was orange, though the more he looked at it, it seemed to be more of a delicate peach shade. He faintly remembered his mother telling him about what different flowers meant when he was younger. This one was sincerity and adoration. He softly turned it around in his hand but did not have time to think about it too much as he heard two pairs of footsteps coming down the stairs.
Hastily, Barty dropped the petal on the ground, crushed it beneath his foot, and smiled weakly as his two friends came into view.
-
Regulus squinted at Barty slightly, trying to see if there was anything obviously wrong with him, not seeming to find anything. “I don’t know, Ev. he seems perfectly fine to me,” He declared, standing up straight and turning to look at Evan, eyes full of disappointment. “I swear to Merlin, Rosier, if you have just woken me up from my beauty sleep for nothing, will skin you both alive.”
Barty laughed at the words ‘beauty sleep’ but immediately regretted it as he felt his throat throb slightly. He coughed once but recovered rather quickly. Evan noticed this and pointed at him sharply, looking at Regulus with exasperation. “See?!”
Looking extremely bored, Regulus groaned and shook his head. “He’s fine, Evan. Not that you noticed, but he’s been coughing all week. It’s just a cold.”
Evan narrowed his eyes at Regulus. “I did realise, thank you. I just didn’t bring it up because it wasn’t that bad until now. That was not a little cough. That was…there was something wrong with it. You know? Whatever, you go back to sleep, I’ll take him to get checked out. Goodbye Reg,” He placed a hand on Barty’s back as he stood up to help lead him along and out of the common room, but Barty immediately started coughing again. Choking.
Regulus stared in mild horror. “Oh shit.”
“Exactly!” They cried, waving an arm at Barty, where he was choking and spluttering. “That is not normal.”
“Fuck. Okay, you stay with him, I’ll go to Pomfrey, it’ll be faster if I go.”
“Right,” Evan agreed, moving closer into Barty’s side, almost protectively. It was an odd feeling after a week of ignoring and tormenting him, being so close. He was embarrassed to say that he missed it.
Regulus nodded and left. “He’ll be fine!”
Evan rubbed his back soothingly, muttering sweet words of comfort that Barty had missed hearing, but the coughing only got worse. It did make him angry, if he was honest. Evan spent a week ignoring him, refused to say why, and then decided he cared enough to stand and hold him while he was in pain. Barty was led back to the sofa and sat down, stupidly letting Evan pull his closer and run a hand through his hair, muttering something about getting some water before he slowly stood and walked back to the dorm, looking back at Barty as he left, as though he may possibly have dropped dead in the few seconds they had their back turned.
Barty felt something else shoot up his throat and into his hand, another petal. Where the fuck were these coming from? This one wasn’t even the same colour as the last one. It was not a delicate orange, but a deep, rich red. Desire and longing, he heard his mother’s voice say in his head. Red roses are the most famously romantic flowers out there! You send red roses to someone you love deeply and desperately want to be with. That’s why they are exchanged on St Valentine’s day, sweetie. Save these for somebody truly special, okay?
This was…more than abnormal. Well, that much should have been obvious. Coughing up rose petals was not exactly a universal experience, he was certain of that. But there was no point in worrying too much about it, maybe it was just a joke someone had pulled on him. A hex somebody had created and decided to try out on him. Anyway, two times was still a coincidence, wasn’t it? Though, the fact they were different colours didn’t do much to reassure him.
As if on cue, just as Evan stepped back into view, he felt his throat tighten as he began choking again. As Evan finally got up to him, not one, but two petals landed in his hand this time. A red and a lilac. Lilac is the colour of friendship blossoming into something more, very similar in meaning and intent to a yellow petal with red tips. It is a very delicate colour for very delicate emotion. If you ever feel that tender, loving feeling around someone, send them lilac roses to let them know of your feelings.
Shut up, mum! He told himself, this was not the time to be pondering over what romantics thought flowers were trying to say. He was supposed to be pretending he was okay. Shoving the petals into his pocket in a hurry, he looked up at Evan, smiling as if it would make him forget about the horrific coughing fit he had just witnessed.
Evan crouched down in front of him and handed over the water, reaching a hand to his forehead to check his temperature, the tickling sensation of petals threatening to show got worse.
“You don’t seem to have a temperature but this isn’t a normal cough. This is weird, Bar. What have you gotten yourself into?”
-
“I’m telling you, I’m fine, Evan,” Barty insisted.
Evan shook his head and looked over Barty’s face sadly, trying to find something to help him prove that something was not right. For the time being, his plan to avoid Barty and sneak his way out of suspicion wasn’t at all important. Tough, closed-in Evan was gone, and the Evan who constantly cared and worried and helped was back. He would worry about saving the plan later, when he was sure Barty wasn’t currently dying. That would not be a particularly good outcome of his plan and he didn’t really want Barty’s last thoughts and memories of him to be related to the neglect Evan was putting him through.
“Don’t lie, Barty. I know something is wrong and I don’t know why you’re pretending you’re perfectly fine all of a sudden!” He whined, spotting a look of pain in Barty’s face. “You yelled at me for being distant and now you’re doing the same thing! Look, I’ll tell you everything if you just tell me what's actually wrong so I can help you. That’s all I want to do Barty. Help,” That was a lie.
Not the part about wanting to help, of course, that had been nothing but the truth. But he had lied about telling the full story. And he knew that Barty knew that.
He knew that telling him everything would not only ruin their plan, but ruin any chances of redeeming himself after said plan, and possibly his entire future in the process. Logically, he knew that Barty was the last person who would tell everyone that Evan was gay, he had been supportive towards him and Regulus before, but some stupd part of his brain had him convinced that it would be different if Barty found out it was him that Evan loved, not some randomman he had no affiliation with. It was a stupid thought but it stuck with him. What if Barty didn’t feel comfortable around him anymore? What if he felt threatened or objectified? That was why the plan was so necessary. That was why Evan needed to distance himself. It was only a few months, and then he would never have to see or bother Barty again. Then he might be able to try and forget his existence. It would be best for everyone.
But Evan already knew from how he was currently acting, and how it conflicted with his simultaneous thought process, that it would not be easy. He knew that he would go through phases of caring for Barty so much and so intimately that he would destroy all progress he had previously made. But he couldn’t see a world in which that didn’t happen. It was inevitable.
Maybe they could afford to be friends for just a week or two longer before he destroyed it all…just to get it out of his system. Yes, okay, he would try and be friends with Barty again again, but soon they would have to go through with their plan properly, for the greater good of not only him and Barty, but for that of Regulus, their families, and everyone else they knew.
He felt a hand shaking his shoulder gently and pulled himself out of his thoughts and back into the real world, their eyes finding Barty’s face right in front of them. “Evan,” He was whispering between small coughs. “Oh, thank Merlin, I thought I had broken you or something. Are you alright? Not thinking about avoiding me for another week, are you?” He joked, though something in his eyes gave away that it was not entirely intended to be funny.
Evan smiled softly and shook his head. “No, don’t worry. I was just worried about you. I really think that something is wrong, Barty. It’s just scary.”
He reached out and played with a loose thread on the collar of Barty’s sleeve to distract himself. It was a habit he had picked up a while back, messing with somebody else’s clothes. It made him feel more connected to whoever it was, making him feel less alone. Now it felt weird. But that didn’t make it any less comforting.
“I’m fine. Pomfrey will tell you so and then we can go to bed and everything can go back to normal,” As he said it, Barty’s face seemed to give away the fact he was trying to comfort himself more than he was trying to comfort Evan.
And, however much he shouldn’t have, Evan let himself believe him. It would be okay. Things would go back to normal. At least for a little while.
“Yeah, yeah, okay. You’re right. It’ll be fine,” He smiled.
-
The medi-witch leaned back, stepping away from the sofa and crossing her arms. “And you are certain you have not had any other abnormal symptoms, Mr Crouch?”
Well, yeah I actually spewed up petals a few minutes ago! That wouldn’t be a symptom of a common cold, would it? Will you be sending me away to be dissected now, Madame Pomfrey? “Nope, just the cough,” He shrugged with what he hoped was a reassuring smile.
He caught Evan and Regulus share a look and saw Evan turn to him with a deadly glare. He ignored it, thinking to himself about how annoying it was that Evan went from not caring at all to only caring so quickly, like it was nothing.
“Hmm, well I really don’t see too much of an issue. Mr Black made it out as if you were dying,” Well, I might be actually, so he wasn’t exactly wrong. “But I really don’t see anything too wrong with you, so I will let you know that if things get worse, you must come and see me but I really do not think they will.”
Barty nodded along with everything she was saying.
“You don’t feel sick at all, do you, Mr Crouch?” She asked as a final confirmation, and he shook his head with a smile.
“Nope. Tip-top.”
“Well I must say that this is likely just a dramatisation of a little issue. Goodbye boys, I recommend you go back to sleep now, you still have two hours before breakfast,” She stood to leave but both Evan and Regulus stood at the same moment with identical expressions. “What?!”
“You both heard it from your friend himself, he doesn’t feel ill in the slightest. It is just a simple cough, nothing to worry about. I am sure it will go away in a few days.”
She ignored the two boy’s protests and left the three of them in the common room. Regulus muttered something about blaming her for the death and Evan threw himself into an armchair rather dramatically.
“What the fuck was that? ‘Tip-top’? You are fucking unbelievable, Bartemius.”
“Oh, the full name, is it? Give it a rest Evan, I’m fine.”
“Literally two minutes ago you were hardly breathing because you were choking. Not coughing, choking. Why didn’t you tell her the truth?”
“Look, Evs, I’m perfectly okay, I promise. I would have said something if I wasn’t, okay?” He held his gaze, and so did Evan. They glared at each other for a few moments until he groaned and gave up. “Fine, if it isn’t gone in three days, I’ll go back to Pomfrey, is that alright?”
He paused for a moment, then nodded. “Fine.”
“Good.”
Regulus seemed satisfied with the conversation and got up to go back to the dorm, Evan following after. “Coming?”
“Yeah, in a minute, just gonna take a moment if that’s alright.”
Evan nodded and turned to make his way to the stairs, then they paused and thought for a moment. Evan turned around to face Barty again. “We never finished our conversation earlier. Are we…friends again?”
“Yeah. Sure, fine.”
They both looked at each other for a few seconds, then Evan stepped closer and reached out hand. Barty felt his lungs and heart clench but pushed down the feeling as best he could, reaching out his own hand to shake Evan’s. Coughing up petals would do nothing to ease Evan’s newfound worry.
“Friends.”
Barty smiled, not sure why saying the words back made the cough threaten to return even more vicious than it previously had. “Friends.”
Evan let go and walked away.
He stayed where he was for a few seconds, until he was sure Evan was gone, then stopped trying to hold back the feeling in his throat. In a single cough, five vividly red petals dropped to the floor in front of him.
Okay.
He had a few days to practice this suppression thing. He would hold it all back until he was on his own, then get rid of these blasted petals in one until he figured out what was happening to him and how he could deal with it.
That couldn’t be difficult at all, could it?