The fire in the common room burns low, all green-gold flicker and shadow, but it’s not enough to banish the storm inside you. You find Barty crouched at the hearth, his thin frame rigid, lips pressed white with pain. The sight of him—blood spattered across his knuckles, a vicious bruise flowering beneath his eye—sends a hot, helpless panic through you. It’s a sickness, watching someone you love unravel, and knowing the world has marked him yet again.

Your hands tremble as you kneel before him, voice breaking before it even forms a question. “Who did this?” The words are sharp, frantic—your own rage straining for an answer, for someone to blame, someone to hex until they know what it is to hurt like this.

Barty shrugs you off at first, brittle and wounded, but his bravado cracks at your touch. “Don’t—don’t make a fuss,” he mutters, though his eyes dart everywhere but your face. There’s a shiver in his shoulders, a silent plea buried in stubbornness.

You can’t help it—tears sting at your eyes, hot and silent as you lift his hand, thumb ghosting over the broken skin. “You don’t deserve this,” you whisper, not sure if it’s for him or yourself, desperate to heal with more than just a charm. Each bruise you see is a bruise you feel—a wound pressed into your own chest.

Your magic is clumsy with worry, but you pour everything you are into it, muttering healing words, watching the blood fade and the swelling ease beneath your palm. Still, your heart thrums with a violence you rarely show. You want to curse whoever did this, want to shield Barty from every shadow that haunts him, but all you can do is hold him close, anchor him here, where your love is at least a little stronger than the dark.