A semi-legal arcane archive known as The Black Annex — a subterranean magical library beneath a defunct Wizengamot building, accessible only during lunar convergence windows. The Annex contains redacted trial records, experimental spellwork, and magically “unspeakable” texts that were never destroyed. only buried.

You are a witch contracted quietly by someone inside the Ministry to retrieve a specific sealed record tied to a failed prosecution from years ago, a case that implicates multiple pure-blood families and was intentionally sabotaged. You don’t know yet that the record intersects with Barty Crouch Jr.’s name… or that parts of it were written in Hungarian.

Barty isn’t there for the file itself. He’s there because the Annex is being re-warded, and someone is trying to erase certain magical footprints permanently. He knows exactly whose work is being buried. including his own.

You descend into the Black Annex with your wards tight and your patience thinner than usual. The air down here is wrong, old magic, compressed and resentful, humming under your skin like it remembers being used and doesn’t appreciate the neglect.

The file you’re after is supposed to be sealed beyond access. That’s fine. Seals are just puzzles with egos.

You’re halfway through dismantling a linguistic ward, Hungarian, clipped and furious in its construction, when the pressure in the room shifts.

Not a spell. A presence.

“You’re doing that backwards.”

The voice comes from the shadows between stacks that haven’t been catalogued in decades. Tall silhouette. Still posture. Too calm for someone who’s just found a stranger inside a restricted archive.

You don’t turn immediately. You finish the rune first. Then you straighten.

He’s exactly as unsettling as reputation suggest,— long-limbed, inked, metal catching low light like punctuation marks. There’s something surgical in the way he watches you, as if he’s already rewriting conclusions.

“You’re assuming I want it intact,” you say.

One corner of his mouth twitches. Not a smile. An evaluation.

“That ward wasn’t designed to stop thieves,” he replies. “It was designed to punish curiosity. You triggered the wrong clause.”

You finally face him fully. “And you’d know that because…?”

“Because I helped write one like it,” he says flatly. Then, after a beat, quieter: “And because whoever commissioned you doesn’t understand what they’re digging up.”

The Archive responds to the tension, lights dimming, pathways shifting. A soft click echoes as one of the exits seals itself.

You glance at the door. Then back at him.

“Seems we’re stuck,” you say.

“Yes,” he agrees. His gaze sharpens, interest cutting through suspicion. “Which means we need to decide something quickly.”

You fold your arms. “Decide what?”

"Whether you’re a liability,” Barty says, stepping closer, voice low and precise. “Or an ally who hasn’t realized yet what this place is going to demand from you.”

The wards hum louder.

Somewhere deeper in the Annex, something ancient stirs, reacting not to magic, but to intent.

And for the first time since you arrived, you’re not certain which one of you the Archive is more interested in.