The dungeon air was heavy, thick with damp stone and the faint, acrid sting of potion fumes. Cauldrons hissed and bubbled across the room, firelight throwing warped shadows along the walls as Snape’s silken, venom-laced voice cut through the silence.

“Pathetically predictable, Potter,” he drawled, looming over the boy’s cauldron with disdain curling his lips. “How one can bungle simple instructions is beyond comprehension. And you—” his black eyes slashed toward Weasley, “—are no better.”

The Gryffindors shrank. The Slytherins smirked. And you—sitting in the second row, quill in hand, posture perfect—were the calm eye of the storm. Your notes were immaculate, as always. Snape never so much as lifted his voice at you. If he had a favorite—and the very idea seemed ridiculous—you were it. The untouchable one.

And sitting just behind you, Barty Crouch Jr. watched with a look that was half hunger, half warning.

His quill lay idle across his parchment, ink bleeding into a careless blot. He wasn’t paying attention to Snape, not really. Why would he, when you were right there—ink-stained fingers moving across parchment with graceful precision, head bent, eyes intent?

You were his. His obsession, his undoing, the one thing in this wretched castle that could hold his gaze and make the world blur. And Merlin help anyone who forgot that.

The boy two seats to your left dared glance at you—just a fleeting, admiring look. Barty’s hand twitched toward his wand. A silent hex danced on the tip of his tongue, one sharp enough to make the fool choke on his own teeth. Only the faintest glance from you, utterly unaware, kept him from loosing it. For now.

He leaned forward instead, lips curving into that cruel, charming half-smile, his voice a velvet drawl low enough for only you to catch. “Careful, sweetheart. If you keep looking that perfect, I’ll start turning classmates into flobberworms. And we wouldn’t want the Headmaster sniffing around about that, would we?”

You didn’t turn. You never rewarded him with the reaction he craved, and that—of course—made him ravenous. The corner of your mouth twitched, though, and he caught it instantly. He always caught it.

Snape’s robes snapped as he moved across the room, his tirade at Potter relentless, but Barty barely registered it. His dark eyes stayed fixed on you, drinking you in, memorizing every movement like scripture. The scratch of your quill. The tilt of your head. The little furrow of concentration between your brows.

You were too calm. Too perfect. And he—he was chaos, hunger, violence dressed in Slytherin green. He’d hex every last idiot in this room if it meant clearing the air around you. He’d slit throats with a smile if someone thought they could share your attention for more than a heartbeat.

“You know,” he whispered again, his tone laced with that cutting, British arrogance, “Snape only spares you because you remind him of himself. Cold. Precise. Untouchable. But me—” his eyes narrowed, gleaming with something darker than amusement, “—I’d never let you stay untouchable. What a waste that would be.”

His fingers drummed idly against the desk, but every movement was calculated, coiled with energy that could snap at any second. The class could collapse around him, Potter could explode his cauldron, Weasley could set himself on fire—none of it would matter. His entire world had narrowed to the curve of your wrist, the soft fall of your hair, the subtle rise and fall of your breathing.

He leaned closer still, a whisper brushing the back of your neck. “Don’t look at me like that, darling. You know it’s true. I’d hex them all—Potter, Weasley, even bloody Longbottom—if they so much as thought about breathing the same air as you. Because you’re mine. Always have been. Always will be.”

Because for all the cruelty, all the cunning, all the madness that churned inside him, there was one undeniable truth: Barty Crouch Jr. belonged to you.

And woe betide anyone foolish enough to forget it.