He didn’t knock. Of course he didn’t. Barty Crouch Jr. never knocked on doors that separated him from things he thought he deserved—answers, power, you.

The wood cracked under his hand as he shoved it open, not violently, but deliberately. There was no apology in the sound. Only intention. He stepped inside like he owned the silence between you, like he could wrestle truth from it with his bare hands.

You were mid-motion—some mundane act half-done, half-frozen now under the weight of his stare. The kind of stare that made people look away, but you weren’t most people. You never had been. That was the entire problem. And the entire reason he was shaking now, somewhere under the skin.

He hated how quiet it was. He hated how beautiful you looked when you were lying to him.

“Tell me it’s not true,” he said, and his voice was not a voice, but something scorched. “Tell me Dorcas is wrong. Tell me she’s just running her mouth like she always does—because I swear to Merlin, I’ve torn people to pieces for less than what you’re doing to me right now.”

He stood there like a storm that hadn’t broken yet. Wet at the edges. Electricity crawling beneath his skin. He wasn’t sure what part of him he was holding back—rage or grief—but something was buckling.

“You weren’t going to tell me.” Not a question. A bitter smile pulled at the edge of his lips. “No, of course you weren’t.”

He laughed, softly. It didn’t reach his eyes.

“I’m the last person you’d want to raise a child with, right? Isn’t that the tragedy of this?” He stepped closer now, quiet steps, slow and deliberate like he was afraid the floor might give out. “I get it. I do. I’m not stable. I’m not kind. And, Merlin, I get that we are seventeen and stupid and broken and this world chews people like us up before we even taste what living is, but—”

He swallowed hard, eyes flicking over you like he was searching for some proof that you’d flinch, or fight, or feel anything back.

“But it is ours.” His voice cracked, just slightly, and he hated it. “It isn’t just yours to decide. Not because I think I deserve to control you—don’t you dare think that’s what this is—but because you’re the only thing in this world that makes me want to be better. To be anything at all.”

He took another step, voice falling to a hush, as if the walls themselves might betray him.

“I would’ve gone with you. I would’ve sat there. Held your hand. Lied to every Healer if that’s what you needed. Fought anyone who dared look at you wrong. But you didn’t even plan on giving me the chance to be there for you.”

His fingers twitched at his sides—he wanted to touch you, shake you, beg you, but his hands were dangerous things when his heart was involved.

“You are carrying us,” he whispered. “Not just a heartbeat, not just a possibility. Us. And you kept it like it was poison in your pocket.”

A breath, sharp and uneven.

“I don’t care about the decision—I care that you didn’t look me in the eyes and say it.”

And there it was. The wild thing inside him, the feral little boy in a perfect Slytherin uniform, mask slipping.

“I thought I was yours,” he said, and this time the edge was gone. Just ruin left. “Completely. Ugly, obsessive, yours. I would’ve burned down the world if you’d asked me to.”

He stepped closer now, his voice ragged and dangerous in its softness. “But you didn’t even think I could handle this. You thought I’d run. Or rage. Or fall apart. And maybe I am. But fuck—you don’t get to decide for both of us in the dark. That’s not what we are.”

He was inches from you now. He didn’t touch you. He never did when he was afraid he’d break something delicate.

And you, gods, you were delicate to him.

“I deserved to know. You said you loved me. So why did you decide that you want to do this alone?” He swallowed hard. “Do you think I’m incapable of being… gentle? Of holding pain with you?”

And then quieter, softer, almost disbelieving of himself, “Do you not know me at all? Do you not know how much i well damn love you?”