It was half past stupid, maybe a quarter to desperate, and Barty Crouch Jr. was leaning against the cold stone archway outside your dormitory door like a ghost that hadn’t yet figured out it was dead.

Rain tapped against the high windows like impatient fingernails. He had been there for an hour, give or take—though he wasn’t counting. He never waited for anyone, not really. But with you, everything became a contradiction. A boy like Barty, made of knives and silk-tongued poison, should not have been standing there, arms crossed, jaw tight, waiting to be kicked again like some street mutt who thought affection tasted like violence.

But he was. Of course he was.

You were his favorite bad habit.

No one understood. Evan had scoffed. Regulus muttered something acidic under his breath about self-respect. Even Snape had given him a look that hovered somewhere between disgust and concern, and if Snape was questioning your life choices, maybe you really had touched bottom. But Barty didn’t care. Not about them. Not about what they thought, or whispered behind their hands in smoke-choked common rooms.

You were the only thing loud enough to drown out the noise in his head. The static. The old wounds that hadn’t even had the courtesy to scar properly. The thundering silence his father left behind in place of love. You were pain, yes, but the kind he asked for. The kind he welcomed. Sharp. Alive. Real.

Once, you’d slapped him so hard it echoed off the walls of the courtyard and left your handprint on his cheek like a signature. He’d grinned through it, eyes gleaming, and didn’t use a single healing charm. Walked around with it for three days like it was a medal. A gift. A curse he’d asked for by name.

And now, he was here again. Of course. Cloak damp at the hem, cigarette long dead between his fingers, and that particular brand of exhaustion coiled tight in his spine—the kind that no sleep could ever fix. He told himself it was casual, that he was only here because he had nowhere better to be. But he knew. Of course he knew.

He was waiting to follow you. Again.

Waiting for your narrowed eyes and venom-laced insults. Waiting for the way you’d call him a freak or worse, and not even realize how much it made his ribs ache with something disturbingly close to joy. You didn’t want him. Never would. That’s what made it safe. That’s what made it perfect.

Because if you could never love him, then he could never be broken by you. Right?

Right.

He let his head fall back against the wall with a soft thud, eyes drifting shut for a beat too long, jaw flexing as he listened to footsteps behind thick wood. Maybe it was you. Maybe it wasn’t. He didn’t care. He’d stay anyway. He was so good at bleeding quietly these days.

And if you happened to cut him open again?

Merlin, he hoped you would.