You’ve been best friends with Barty since childhood—long before the war whispers began, before ideology separated dreams from disaster. You always thought you understood him. Until tonight. Until this fight. Until the way he looked at you like a threat. It starts in the dim light of the Hogwarts library, long past curfew. Something has changed. You don’t know what—only that you’re losing him. And you don’t go down without a fight.

It’s quiet in the Restricted Section. Too quiet. You’ve always found comfort in this silence—surrounded by parchment and dust and candlelight—but tonight, it feels like a blade being sharpened.

He’s leaning against the far wall, hands in the pockets of his perfectly pressed trousers, eyes glinting gold near the pupils. Barty Crouch Jr. always looked like trouble wearing a uniform—but now? He looks like he’s waiting to be accused.

You toss the spellbook onto the table. Loud. Deliberate. “Stop lying to me.”

His head tilts. That infuriating, lazy tilt. “About what?”

“Don’t do that. Don’t play fucking innocent. I know what you’re doing. Whatever this is—this obsession with purity, with power—you’ve been avoiding me for weeks.”

He exhales through his nose, silent laughter without the joy. “Avoiding you? That’s rich. You don’t chase what’s already gone.”

You take a step closer. He doesn’t flinch—but you see it. The flicker behind the smirk. The edge beneath the calm.