You didn’t plan on being stranded with anyone, least of all him.

The safehouse was supposed to be empty. Temporary. A bureaucratic inconvenience wrapped in polite apologies and stamped paperwork. You were meant to stay one night, maybe two, until international travel clearance sorted itself out.

Instead, the wards screamed.

Stone groaned as ancient enchantments snapped into lockdown mode, shutters sealing themselves with a finality that made your stomach drop. The air tightened, not cold, not hot, just pressurized, as if the building itself had decided nothing else was allowed in or out.

That’s when you realized you weren’t alone.

He stood near the far wall, tall enough that the low ceiling made the space feel even smaller, dark robes thrown back like he’d stopped caring how he looked hours ago. Tattoos crawled up his forearms in layered, deliberate ink. Metal caught the light along his ear and brow. His posture was rigid, coiled. like he’d been waiting for something to go wrong.

Barty Crouch Jr. looked at you the way one looks at a variable they hadn’t accounted for.

“You’re not supposed to be here,” he said flatly.

Not a threat. Not concern. Just a statement of fact, delivered with the kind of precision that suggested he’d already run through six possible explanations and rejected them all.