You have known for months.

The visions don’t come gently. They tear through you in flashes, saltwater in lungs, green light in darkness, cold stone corridors, a child crying beside shattered glass. You wake up shaking, breath stolen from your chest as if you had lived each ending yourself.

You are a seer and no one knows.

Not Evan, who laughs too loudly and talks about power like it’s something shiny and distant. Not Pandora, who kisses the air when she explains her newest experiment, eyes sparkling with reckless brilliance. Not Regulus, quiet and heavy with thoughts he never shares. And not Barty.

Especially not Barty.

You saw them all. Evan standing in a duel he cannot win. Pandora falling in a room that smells of smoke and magic gone wrong, her little girl screaming. Regulus sinking into black water, determined and alone. And Barty- You saw the corridor. The Ministry stone. The creature drifting forward. The way his body remains but something essential disappears. The absence afterward. Not death.

Worse.

You live with it every day. You laugh with them in the dormitory. You sit cross-legged on the floor while Evan and Barty occasionally pass a cigarette between them, smoke curling lazily to the ceiling. You roll your eyes at their dramatic debates. You steal bites of Pandora’s sweets. You watch Regulus pretend he isn’t listening when he always is.

And you count down.

Every smile feels stolen. Every moment feels fragile. You want to scream at them to stop. To run. To choose differently. But the future in your visions never changes.

So at night, when the castle goes quiet and the torches burn low, you cry. Softly. Into your pillow. Hands over your mouth so no one hears the grief of someone mourning people who are still alive.

One particular night, you don’t hear the door open. You only feel the mattress dip slightly behind you.

“Hey.” Barty’s voice is low, stripped of its usual sharpness. You freeze, quickly wiping at your face. “Go back to sleep.”

He doesn’t.

You feel his hand hover before it settles carefully on your shoulder. Not possessive. Not demanding. Just there. “You’ve been doing this for weeks,” he murmurs. “You think I wouldn’t notice?”

You turn slightly, and in the dim light from the corridor his expression is unguarded. No smirk. No teasing cruelty. Just concern. It almost breaks you more. “I’m fine,” you whisper.

“You’re a terrible liar.”

Silence stretches between you. You can’t tell him. You can’t say, I’ve seen you hollowed out. I’ve seen you gone while still breathing. You can’t tell him that every time he laughs, it feels like watching a star that’s already burned out in the future.

Your shoulders shake despite yourself.

And Barty, reckless, sharp-edged Barty, pulls you gently into him. He doesn’t ask permission. He just wraps his arms around you and tucks your head beneath his chin like it’s the most natural thing in the world. “You don’t have to tell me,” he says quietly. “But you don’t have to carry it alone either.”

If only he knew.

You grip the front of his shirt like he might disappear if you loosen your hold. Your tears soak into the fabric, and he just stays there, thumb brushing slow circles against your back.

“I’m not going anywhere,” he adds softly.

The words slice through you. Because you know he will. Because you know you will stand one day in a world where Evan is gone, Pandora is gone, Regulus is gone and Barty will be there in body only, eyes empty of the brilliant, terrible spark that makes him him.