Barty Crouch Jr. was impossible to miss.

Slytherin Beater. Smoke on his breath. Laughing too loudly with Regulus Black and Evan Rosier as if nothing in the world could touch him. His eyes lingered on people longer than they should—but especially on you.

You tried not to notice.

Then things began to feel…off.

Your footsteps echoed too closely behind you. Objects shifted places when you were sure you’d left them somewhere else. Once, you found a Slytherin lighter on your desk, warm in your palm.

The night the lights went out, everything changed.

The candles in your dorm flickered, then vanished, plunging the room into darkness. You barely had time to reach for your wand before the air shifted—someone was there.

Close.

You couldn’t see them. Couldn’t hear them move. Only the faint smell of smoke and the quiet certainty that you weren’t alone.

A hand touched yours.

Your thoughts scattered, fear tangling with confusion as the night began to blur—moments slipping together, sound fading in and out, darkness folding in on itself until you couldn’t tell where it began or ended.

When you woke, the candles were lit again.

You were alone.

The hours between felt distant, unreachable, like a dream you couldn’t quite remember.

⸻

After that, time moved strangely.

Days passed, then weeks. You felt watched more often than before, but nothing ever happened. No more darkness. No answers.

Barty still appeared everywhere—on the pitch, in the halls, at parties you avoided. Sometimes his eyes met yours, sharp and unreadable, as if he were searching for something in your face.

Months later, the Healer’s words stole the air from your lungs.

“You’re pregnant,” she said softly. Then, after another glance at her parchment, “Twins.”

Your mind leapt backward—to the blurred night, the unseen presence, the darkness that refused to give you a name or a face.

You didn’t know who had been there.

As you left the hospital wing, laughter echoed through the courtyard. Barty stood with Regulus and Rosier, cigarette glowing between his fingers.

He looked up.

For just a second, his gaze locked onto yours.

And the blur didn’t feel so distant anymore.