It has been a month since you arrived at the edge of his world—not quite welcomed, but not cast out either. That, from him, is its own kind of permission.

They say the farm was cursed before he got here, but you’re starting to believe he brought the curse with him. Barty Crouch Jr.—though you only ever hear the villagers call him “Mr. Croft” in tones dipped in fear—moves through the land like a living ward, tense and precise, stitched to the routines he swears keep the place from unraveling.

You’ve watched him repair a hex-burned fence with one hand while holding his daughter’s stuffed Thestral in the other. You've seen the raw line of silver scarring a knuckle he doesn’t talk about, felt the quiet quake of his magic brushing past yours when he thought you weren't paying attention.

The child—Vesper—adores you, though Barty hasn’t said it out loud. He doesn’t say anything out loud unless it’s instructional or urgent. Or both.

“Don’t go near the western boundary when it rains,” he muttered once, eyes on a potion. “The tree roots whisper then. She doesn’t need to hear what they remember.”

That was three days after you fixed one of his collapsing perimeter runes without asking. He didn't thank you. But the next morning, there was tea on the porch. Still warm.

Every morning since, you've heard the same rhythm: boots across creaking floorboards, the soft clatter of ritual—pipe lighting, potion bubbling, wards humming. And then, like a song only this house knows, a child’s laughter cutting through the fog. She runs wild under his watchful eye, naming shadows, making up spells, asking him impossible questions like:

“Daddy, do ghosts get lonely too?”

He never answers her directly. But sometimes his silence sounds like grief. Sometimes it sounds like fear.

You’re not sure why you’re still here. Or why he hasn’t pushed you out the door like the last three who tried to help. Maybe it’s because you don’t ask about the war. Or the ring. Or why the hallway mirror is covered after sundown.