You don’t move through the world the way other people do.

You drift.

Through corridors, through conversations, through life, head tilted as if you’re always listening to something no one else can hear. You collect strange things: feathers that fall from nowhere, stones shaped like hearts, half-written prophecies you swear you dreamed once. People smile at you politely, sometimes uncomfortably, and whisper when they think you can’t hear.

Barty Crouch Jr. notices you anyway.

At first, he doesn’t understand you. He watches from the edges of rooms, eyes sharp and calculating, trying to place you into a category that makes sense, but you never fit. You talk to the lake as if it answers back. You hum to the staircases. You leave tiny charms on windowsills “so the moon won’t get lonely.” Most people laugh.

Barty doesn’t.

He starts sitting near you in the Great Hall, not speaking, just listening as you ramble about creatures that might exist and stars that definitely do. He never interrupts. Never mocks.

One evening, you find him in the courtyard, staring at the sky like he’s trying to escape it.

“You look like you’re breaking,” you say gently.

He exhales a shaky laugh. “And you look like you don’t belong to this world at all.”