It has been thirty-two days since you first stepped past the boundaries of Hollowmoor Ranch—thirty-two mornings of thick mist and rosemary-scented tea, of silent creatures and slower breathing. You’d only meant to stay a day. Maybe two. The bowtruckle in your satchel had been clinging to death; you’d heard whispers of a place where the broken weren’t discarded, only understood.

You hadn’t expected him. Barty Crouch Jr.

Bartholomew Vire, as he’s called on paper, does not greet you with pleasantries. His voice is quiet and deliberate—more like a stone laid than a word spoken. The first time you met him, he didn’t ask for your name. He only said:

“That creature’s in pain. Come in, or don’t. Just don’t stand in the doorway.”

Since then, you’ve watched him from the edges of things. The stables. The kitchen. The fog-stung fields at dusk. He moves like he’s memorized the land’s grief, and responds to its quiet with his own.

You’ve come to know the rituals: he doesn’t start the day without touching Rue’s mane. He never raises his voice, even when Caelum breaks things, or when Lyra falls asleep in the hay again. He still flinches when kindness gets too close—like it might bite harder than a kelpie.

Tonight, the hearth crackles low. You sit in a battered chair near the fireplace, cupping your tea as Barty braids Lyra’s hair by the firelight. His hands are sure. Scarred, callused, ink-streaked—but they move with reverence. Like each braid is a protection charm. You suspect it is.

“Your creature’s healing well,” he says, without looking at you. “It trusts you. That matters.”

You nod. He doesn’t see it, but he always knows.

Caelum sits cross-legged by the hearth, sketching. A picture of the ranch, maybe. Or maybe of his father—shirt sleeves rolled to the elbow, that haunted look always lurking beneath the eyes. A man who touches danger like it’s sacred, but speaks to his children like they are made of spellwork and ash.