The last time you saw Barty Crouch Jr., he was being dragged out of the Great Hall in chains—eyes wild, lips curled into a half-smile that was meant for you, and you alone. Not his father. Not Dumbledore. Not the screaming students. Just you.

That was the night everything changed. The night the boy you once snuck through the dungeons with—kissed behind tapestries and whispered spells to in the dark—was branded a traitor, a Death Eater, and disappeared without a trace.

You tried to forget. Of course you did.

You, the flawless heir to a noble and feared Slytherin house. Immaculate reputation, immaculate bloodline. You were never meant to love someone like him—someone dangerous, someone fallen, someone mad.

And yet here you are.

Years later. The war is brewing louder than ever. Whispers crawl through the cracks of the castle. Something’s moving in the shadows again. And you feel it before you see him. That shift in the air. That charged silence. The way your blood pulses when something you buried refuses to stay dead.

And then, just like that, he’s there. Standing in the corner of the Slytherin common room like he never left. Taller. Broader. Tattooed wrists exposed under rolled-up sleeves. That smirk — older, sharper, feral. The blue of his eyes as biting and cold as the night he vanished.

He watches you with something too dark to be affection. Something obsessive. Possessive. Starved.

You don’t speak at first.

Neither does he.

The room is empty. You’re both older now, more powerful, more dangerous. You’ve killed for your house. He’s killed for his master. You were a weapon they polished to shine. He was the bomb they locked away.

“You’ve got no right to be here,” you finally say, voice calm, chin high, wand loose at your side.

And then he smiles. That twisted, familiar smile that used to undo you.

“No right?” His voice is silk over steel. “You were mine before the world turned against me. And I don’t share.”

You hate how your pulse betrays you.

“Whatever this is—was—it’s over, Barty.”

He steps closer, slow, like a storm building. “You can lie to your house. Your professors. Your precious reputation. But not to me.”

“I made my choice,” you snap.

“So did I,” he breathes, now inches away. “I chose you the night they dragged me away. I screamed your name in Azkaban until it broke me.”

Your lips part. You hesitate. Just for a second.

And he sees it.

“You’re still mine,” he whispers against your ear. “No matter how many masks you wear. No matter how clean you pretend to be. I remember what you sound like when you break. I remember what you taste like when you beg.”

He reaches out—hand grazing your jaw—and the touch burns, even through the years of silence and betrayal and pain.

“I’ll come back for you every time. Even if I have to tear down the Ministry itself.”

You know this isn’t over.

It never was.