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“And then he asked me,” Barty clears his throat obnoxiously and lowers his tone by a good two octaves to try and emulate his father's voice. “Do you not think it is time to cut off your sporadic conquests, Bartemius, and focus on finding yourself a good, honest pureblood wife?”
Evan outright snorts at that, spitting pumpkin juice all over Dorcas’ sleeve. “Ouch, full name and all.” While Dorcas complains about her newly acquired stain and tries to clean it on Evan’s own robes, Barty snarls and curls tighter around Pandora, who is a frequent visitor at the Slytherin table on weekend mornings, placing his head on her shoulder. She pets his dark hair gently and Barty eagerly leans into the touch.
“Indeed.” He groans. “My mother basically coerced him into trying out this gentle parenting thing with me, so he's trying to engage in conversation now instead of avoiding me. Calls me by name and all, instead of ‘boy’, and randomly asks me about school stuff.” Barty pauses momentarily to loudly chew on his eggs, which makes Regulus visibly shudder, and then finishes with, “Oh, and subtly calls me a slag by offering unsolicited advice about wives, too, apparently.”
Dorcas sighs wistfully. “If only my father would urge me to take a wife. What a terrible destiny that would be.”
Regulus snorts and Barty rolls his eyes. “Alright, Lesbian Extraordinaire, by any means feel free to take my place at the Crouch estate!” He spreads his arms to really drive the point home. “Just know that you'll be expected to work an awful job at the Ministry until you die of boredom or Avada yourself in the office. If you don't, you'll be branded as the family’s disappointment and shunned forever. Do you accept?”
Dorcas stares at Barty with an amused glint in the eye. “Do I get to eat my secretary out at the awful Ministry office, though?”
“I don't see why not, as long as you're proper secretive about it. Like he is with his own secretary.” Regulus barely reigns in a gasp at that taunt, which is weird because Mr. Crouch’s infidelity has never been a secret, at least not where Barty is concerned. Perhaps he has simply been taken by surprise by the openness of it, which is so unlike the Blacks, who never, ever, air out their dirty laundry. Well, most of the Blacks.
Barty shrugs his shoulders with a smirk on his lips and his head bounces lightly as Pandora's shoulders shake with laughter. It makes Barty smile wider as he offers Dorcas his hand to shake. “So, do you accept, Meadows?”
“I do! Call me Crouch, now, if you please.”
The group of Slytherins and their unofficially adopted Ravenclaw keep messing around lazily, enjoying their Sunday breakfast and each other's company in equal measure.
Barty keeps getting distracted, though, both by trying not to let his eyes wander too close to the Gryffindor table, and by thoughts of his insufferable father piling expectations onto his shoulders like dirty dishes in the hands of the kitchen elves.
A wonderful idea finally seems to strike him when Professor McGonagall announces the amount of points that each house has won or lost in the past week. The House Cup is approaching, isn't it?
Barty lights up like a Christmas tree.
“Ladies and gents, what do we think about revolutionising this old tradition a little? In honour of my dearest progenitor, that is.”
Evan, forever his partner in crime, zeroes in on Barty in a millisecond. Regulus turns his head too, seemingly just as intrigued.
Dorcas merely urges him on with a kick to the shin. Ah, isn't she just wonderful?
“Father wants me to be monogamous? Bet.” Barty stands up from the bench and raises his chin up high, a million dollar smile painted on his face.
“As of today I'm instituting the Crouch Shag Cup of 1979. For every good lay with a member of Hufflepuff, Slytherin, Ravenclaw or Gryffindor, ten points will be attributed to the rightful house. Snogs are worth… I'd say five points.” Barty pauses to add to the suspense, then proceeds with a self-satisfied nod.
“There’s no way to lose points, and whatever house ends up with the highest total amount by the end of June wins.”
He's not speaking loudly enough for the rest of the tables to hear him, not over the general noise that fills the Great Hall on a Sunday, but Barty knows from the looks on his friends’ faces and on the other seventh and eighth year Slytherins around him that his idea is being warmly welcomed, and that the entire school will be talking about it soon enough.
He also knows that a certain Gryffindor, albeit unable to hear his speech, is looking straight at him; Barty can feel those grey eyes trained on him, running down his face and body with poorly disguised hunger reflected in their irises.
He knows, because his skin is positively tingling and he is trying very hard not to look back at Sirius Orion fucking Black, current part-time owner of both his heart and cock.
Regulus drags him back down onto the bench while grumbling something about “making a fool of yourself” with a small smile on his face, and Barty settles placidly back down. All his friends seem on board with his idea, though, even if just to witness Barty effectively making a fucking fool of himself and his father by exposing his own escapades.
It takes him and Pandora exactly thirteen minutes to magically transfigure a plate into the brand new Shag Cup’s point table, which they later hang in the Slytherin’s common room.
As he stares at the four animal symbols of the Hogwarts houses and their empty - for now - point rows, Barty looks way more smug than he thinks he should about this entire endeavour.
How’s this for finding a good wife, Father Dearest?
♱✮♱
“So,” Sirius places both hands on Barty’s shoulders while panting, cute heavy breaths coming out from his puffy lips. Barty smiles against his better judgement and lowers his mouth onto the Gryffindor's sharp jawline instead, since Sirius seems adamant about not letting him reach his mouth. Sirius laughs a little breathlessly at his stubbornness, the sound echoing just underneath Barty's lips, but he continues speaking. “What is this thing I heard about a Shag Cup?”
Barty grins against the soft skin of his neck and bites down onto it gently, then drags his pierced tongue slowly over the reddened spot.
Sirius bruises so easily that covering him in love bites might just be the most gratifying part of their whole ‘relationship’. Not that Barty likes feeling any kind of ownership over the older Black, no Sir, but the curious stares that these bruises get Sirius almost weekly, along with the secrecy of it all, the fact that they leave dozens of people guessing and wondering and speculating, well, all of that excites Barty to no end.
He finally releases Sirius’ skin and meets those beautiful grey eyes - so similar to Regulus’ in colour yet so different in shape - with his own dark ones. Sirius kisses him again, apparently unable to resist Barty's innate charm, causing the younger boy to laugh against his lips. At least, until Sirius decides to play dirty and tug at the tongue piercing with his own teeth.
Barty's whine conveys a dirty mixture of pain and pleasure that makes Sirius downright purr inside his mouth, and the entire situation is getting way too hot and steamy for two people who have just finished shagging a couple of minutes ago.
Barty feels almost all his blood drain from his brilliant brain to dangerously head south, but curfew is nearing ominously and the perspective of getting caught by Filch messing around in the potions class is terrifying enough to make Barty, reluctantly, take a few steps back… away from Sirius and his evil mouth and his deceitfully long legs still spread out on the desk.
Because you see, this whole thing between them, it has worked perfectly so far because Sirius Black and Barty Crouch Junior are damn smart people, and they know how to carefully tread the line between excitingly dangerous and dangerously stupid just fine.
Most of the time. A great majority of the time actually, since they've been doing alright for over six months now and none of their respective friends has gotten any closer to figuring them out.
The marauders think that Sirius is shagging a new girl every week, still stupidly caught up in his honestly terrible pretence of heterosexuality, and Barty's own mates are running themselves into the dungeons' ground trying to figure out his secret partner's identity. Not that he could ever blame them, which he doesn't, since they've been playing this game since the very day puberty has decided to hit Barty like a freight train and has led him to discover the pleasures of casual sexual rendezvous. Barty usually crushes on someone new almost monthly, if not bi-weekly, and Evan, Regulus, Dorcas and Pandora go snooping around until they find out who’s the occasional fortunate bastard; they have even made a betting pool out of it.
That is the way it has always worked between him and his mates.
But this time Barty doesn't want to be found out, and he's really not sure of what the reason might be (besides the most obvious one of risking having his head forcibly removed by Regulus if he knew) but he's been ignoring that particular doubt all along and will continue to do so.
All he knows for sure is that this: Sirius in front of him, starry-eyed, dishevelled and completely kiss-drunk, is something he is not willing to share just yet.
This is his, and no one else's.
He snaps back into focus when Sirius gets up close and personal once again by dragging Barty back towards him by his green tie, and Barty has to deflect because… because curfew, and Filch, and fuck! Sirius is grabbing his crotch through his trousers now.
So he says the first thing that comes to mind. “What about the Cup?” His voice comes out steady enough and Barty manages to pry Sirius’ hands away from their place of interest and moves them over to his hips. They're still entirely too close to the danger zone but Barty thinks this is as good as it's going to get.
Sirius and him are magnetic, these days. It's like their bodies pull each other in their respective gravitational centres against the will of their owners, and it's visibly driving both of them insane. Staying away from one another feels like a chore, like a strenuous effort to be compliant and reasonable and obedient, but Barty has never been obedient one day in his life and Sirius himself is the textbook definition of a rule breaker (he got himself disinherited and disowned from one of the most ancient houses of the wizarding world, for Salazar’s sake).
What a couple they make.
“Explain it to me, how did you get the idea? How is it going to work?”
Sirius’ big, doe eyes search Barty's face for… For what? Barty doesn't know, he doesn’t have the faintest idea. He knows nothing right now but the way the Gryffindor feels, warm and flush against him, and the way he looks.
Completely fucked out and incredibly handsome. Beautiful.
Sirius has always been beautiful, he is beautiful and everybody knows it. The earth is round and the sky is blue and Sirius Black is beautiful, that’s how the saying goes.
Everybody with eyes can see that, even Nott and Avery and Mulciber, who despise him and call him a blood-traitor for the company he chooses to keep, cannot stop their eyes from following the former Black heir whenever he confidently struts down the Great Hall, with his long, equally black hair flowing in the wind.
Sirius is a glorious sight, always has been and always will be. Barty gulps.
“I’ll gladly tell you, Black, but we better relocate if we want to have this conversation now. Filch will be coming to check the classes in a few minutes.”
Sirius hums, pretending to be deep in thought, and crosses his still bare legs at the knee. “I'm quite comfortable here, though.” Barty is completely unable to stop himself from running his hands over the soft skin of his thighs, even as all the alarm bells currently present in Scotland simultaneously begin ringing inside his head.
Sirius captures his lips in another scorching kiss, and the alarm bells start sounding more like chirping birds that are conveying a gentle suggestion, rather than a danger signal.
Still, he begs, “Sirius-” but the other boy moans against his mouth and Barty is gripping the desk underneath them so hard that his knuckles are turning white.
“Sirius, we have to go. Now.”
Sirius captures his lower lips between his teeth, tugs gently at it, and opens those eyes to stare straight into Barty’s soul.
“But I really want to suck you off.”
Barty has never, ever been harder in his entire life.
His gaze keeps jumping from Sirius in front of him to the door at his back, and he's desperately trying to conjure a plan that will: 1) not have them both expelled, and 2) not have him die of blue balls.
While his brain threatens to go into overdrive, Barty starts hearing the uneven footsteps of the Hogwarts’ caretaker approaching them from the corridor and he swears his heart stops beating.
Sirius smirks, jumps down from the desk and reaches for something on the chair where they have piled the rest of their discarded clothes. Then he sinks to his knees in front of Barty.
“No! No what are you-” Barty chokes out panickedly. Filch can't be more than ten steps away and Sirius is moving to unzip Barty's trousers and Barty fears that he might just let him, ready to embrace his imminent expulsion, when Sirius hands him something… something that feels velvety and soft in his palms, but that he can't see.
“Invisibility cape,” is the only explanation he receives. “Hurry!”
Sirius has already vanished the rest of their clothes from the chair with a flick of his wand and he doesn't wait for Barty to drape the cape over them before dragging down both his uniform trousers and pants and taking his entire length inside his mouth.
Barty manages to cover them both, rendering them invisible, exactly three seconds before Filch opens the door and treads inside the room with his horrible cat in tow.
It's complete madness.
Barty hasn't really realised what is happening right now, but he sees Sirius on his knees bobbing his head up and down, up and down , so incredibly slowly to take all of his cock down his throat without making a single noise, and then he sees Filch, repulsive as ever, who's looking around the room with an unreadable expression on his face.
And it's simultaneously the single most terrifying and the hottest thing that's ever happened and will ever happen to Barty.
He has to bite down onto his hand to try not to moan, hard, so hard he draws blood, but it's so worth it.
Mrs. Norris wanders a bit too close to them for his liking, but Filch calls her back to him after having collected some scraps of paper and rubbish he found lying around the room and they exit the classroom together.
The moment the door closes behind Filch, Sirius momentarily stops moving, choosing instead to plant a few kisses on the reddened head of Barty's cock and then smiling up at him devilishly.
“See? That wasn't so bad now, was it?”
Barty stares at him incredulously, unblinking, until a laugh bubbles up from his chest and spills out from his parted lips. Sirius’ smile widens.
“You… Are incredible. Where did you even get an invisibility cape?” Barty’s voice is so full of wonder that if it weren't so deep it would border on childish, but Sirius seems to appreciate it all the same. He begins working him in his hand while kissing down his stomach, and says between kisses, “Well, this is actually James’, so you can thank him the next time you see him.”
James Potter. Beautiful bastard. Barty will physically have to refrain himself from kissing his feet the next time he sees him.
“Oh,” He rasps. “I will.”
Sirius smiles again, and Barty could probably come just from that, but then Sirius takes him back inside between his plush lips and swallows around his cock, throat warm and wet and heavenly and Barty sees stars. One star, actually. The brightest of them all.
For a moment he is afraid he'll never manage to look away.
When he's about to come he warns Sirius half-deliriously, one of his hands even flies down to his dark curls to try and pull him off, but Sirius just moans around him when he does and Barty turns completely powerless when his orgasm hits him with the force of an Unforgivable. To make everything worse, or better, depending on who you'd ask, Sirius swallows every last drop of his release and only then lets go of Barty’s cock with a wet pop .
Sirius is even kind enough to pull up his underpants and trousers for him, since Barty probably looks just as useless as he feels. His head's currently floating on a plane of existence higher than the sky, and he could probably form a telepathic connection with Salazar himself if he tried hard enough.
Sirius laughs at his dumbstruck expression, presses a few kisses to his face and asks, “Hey, how many points for a blowie?”
“Huh?”
Another laugh. Another kiss. Barty's eyes snap back into focus and he almost melts in a puddle on the floor at the sight in front of him. His irises are probably heart shaped right now.
“I said,” Sirius slips on his own trousers and white shirt. “How many points for a blowie?”
Barty connects the dots and he's one second away from dropping down to his own knees and proposing to this wonderful, wonderful boy who enables his every whim of insanity. His father wants him to have a wife, right? He'll have to make do with a husband.
“Ten, I'd say. I think it counts as a shag. Foreplay is always criminally underrated, it's time to change that narrative, no?”
Sirius hums in agreement and kisses him again, the full package, hands around his neck, tongue inside his mouth, rubbing against the metal piercing with every mind-blowing, slow drag. Barty tastes himself on Sirius’ tongue and nearly loses his damn mind.
“Come smoke with me in the Astronomy Tower,” He says without thinking. Damned be the curfew and Filch and everything else. “I’m dying to return the favour.”
Barty returns the favour alright, and he and Sirius end up sharing a spliff curled up around each other as the chilly air of March makes shivers run down their spines, yet still blowing thick clouds of smoke out of one of the windows of the Astronomy Tower.
Once they're done and Sirius has had a right laugh about the Shag Cup , and has fully agreed to participate, they both head down to the dungeons under the invisibility cape.
Sirius really is the perfect pureblood gentleman (which is ironic, really), walking him to the door and all, but Barty definitely isn't, so he snogs him against a wall until they're both breathless and the moon is high up in the sky. Barty falls asleep and dreams of Sirius Black, all lean muscle and firm skin and sharp teeth.
The morning after not even the perspective of 8 a.m. classes can wipe the smile off of Barty's face, but he has to contain his happiness when he spots Regulus looking at him through squinted icy eyes.
When they meet Dorcas in the Slytherin’s common room to head to breakfast, a quick look at the Shag Cup’s Point-Table reads:
GRYFFINDOR
45 pts
All the other houses are still at zero, and Evan gapes. Dorcas’ eyebrows shoot up as she exclaims, “What?! When?”
Regulus looks terrifying, but Barty knows that it's because he still hasn't been able to find out the identity of his partner - at least, Barty hopes that's why. Still, knowing that they're in Gryffindor gets him one step closer to the solution, and Barty stops to think, to really think, for the first time, that if Regulus effectively does find out he's as good as dead.
Still, it would be worth it.
His friends keep interrogating him all throughout the walk to the Great Hall, but Barty lets absolutely nothing slip. When they get to breakfast and Dorcas tells Pandora she basically starts vibrating where she's sitting, and Barty thinks that he most definitely has to fool around with someone from another house too, as soon as possible.
But first, there's something else he has to do.
Without saying anything, he stands up and heads towards the Gryffindor table, trying impossibly hard to not let his eyes wander towards Sirius.
Instead, he zeroes in on James Potter, who's actually looking fitter than usual with his Quidditch uniform on.
“Hey, Potter!”
If Barty were to turn around, he would find Evan desperately trying to hold Regulus back and Dorcas with her jaw basically hanging so low it's almost on the ground.
But he doesn't, so he just sees a very confused, very messy-haired boy staring up at him through a pair of thick-lensed glasses with a questioning look on his face.
“Crouch?”
Barty bends down and plants a loud kiss right in the middle of James’ forehead, who, on his part, startles as his eyes blow wide. “Potter, I owe you my life. You have my sincerest gratitude.”
The Gryffindors erupt into raucous laughter and cheers as James’ face turns positively maroon and he stammers something unintelligible. Barty loses control over himself for one quick second, and when his eyes finally land on Sirius Black it's like a lightning bolt strikes every single one of his nerves.
He turns away almost immediately and power walks back to the Slytherin table, where Regulus is staring at him like he's personally killed off his entire dynasty and set his french countryside manor on fire. And only then does he remember his mate's crush on the Gryffindor chaser.
Oh well, at least Regulus doesn't suspect that it was his older brother who sucked Barty off virtually in front of Filch a couple of hours ago and won Gryffindor fourty five fucking points in the Shag Cup.
It takes him an entire day to convince Regulus that, no, he doesn't even like James and he most definitely hasn't shagged him.
To be fair, Barty probably would shag him if Potter offered, but he'd definitely ask Regulus for permission first - lads before fit Quidditch players! Usually. Either way, that's not going to happen.
Regulus even makes him drink a drop of his illegally brewed Veritaserum to confirm whether he's telling the truth, but Barty makes him take an unbreakable vow that he won't ask any other questions on the matter if he drinks the truth potion, to which Regulus agrees.
In the end, they're both happy enough with their obtained results, and manage to get to Herbology class in time, too.
What Barty hasn't kept in mind is that Regulus is a Black through and through, which means that - amongst other variously worrying things - he's a vindictive little bitch.
♱✮♱
“Barty fancies himself awfully clever, doesn't he?”
Regulus is pacing up and down their room, which is always dangerous and nothing but an omen for something dark and terrible that will soon befall upon all of them.
Regulus continues muttering under his breath. “Thinks he can disappear on us in a time of need, hiding somewhere with his secret conquest ? After the stunt he pulled last week with Potter, too.”
Evan sighs, knowing that the painful duty of doing damage control has chosen him as today's mediator. He kind of owes it to Barty anyway, as a part of their best friend code or something, although…
I mean, sue him, Evan is curious too. Barty keeps lying to all of them about not being romantically involved with anybody, has been doing it for months, but the numbers on the Shag Cup’s Table tell no lies.
Gryffindor is leading with an astounding total of 270 points, and, sure, the other houses have gathered their own decent amount now too, but nothing comes even remotely close to two hundred and fucking seventy. And Evan is not daft enough to think that Barty is going around as many Gryffindors as he can just for the hell of it. No, he knows his mate.
When Barty falls for someone, he gets obsessive about it. Evan has seen it happen time and time again, so he's sure that there's one person in particular who has captured his friend's heart. Why would Barty feel the need to hide something as trivial as a crush from them, though?
It's not like Barty himself doesn't know all of their deepest, darkest romantic secrets.
Still, the best friend code.
“Just leave it be, Reg. He'll come around when he wants to tell us.”
But Regulus is, and has always been, incredibly stubborn, and not even in the regular, common way. No, he is a victim of the special brand of Black-stubbornness that’s been running in his noble family’s blood for generations.
Is the inbreeding partially to blame for it? Maybe, but no one would dare mention it.
“No, I'm telling you this has just gotten real personal.” Regulus stops his pacing so suddenly that everyone else in the room halts their breath just as abruptly.
“Let's use the Shag Cup.” He declares, and Dorcas immediately lights up. Evan thinks about it, tries to conjure a rebuttal that might stop Regulus from executing the master plan he's doubtlessly conducting in his evil brain right now, but he finds nothing.
Sorry, Barty. I can at least say that I tried.
“How do you propose we do that?”
Regulus plops himself down onto Evan's bed and looks gravely at him and Dorcas. “We enchant the stupid chart to reveal the winner's name at the end of the competition.”
Dorcas gasps, almost delighted, but Evan frowns. Regulus raises one single eyebrow at him, which means he's ready to hear any possible complaint about his plan. He's always been nothing but democratic, after all.
“That’s way too dangerous, Reg. Both for Barty and for the other person. Think about it, what if it's a boy who's not out yet? Or if it's someone from the Sacred Twenty-Eight who's already been betrothed to someone else? Barty would end up in real trouble and we would be risking the safety of a complete stranger whose only crime has been allowing Barty into their bed.”
Regulus is looking at Evan with a sombre face, and he nods silently. He simply says, “You are right,” which Evan sighs in relief at. He knows Regulus is usually quite diplomatic, but for a moment he feared that his thirst for revenge had clouded his senses.
His friend always seems to know better, though. After all, no one knows the dangers of being both queer and the heir to a House as ancient and powerful as his quite like Regulus Black does.
Dorcas perks up on the other hand of the bed, head laying down on Evan's pillow. “Evan's absolutely right, but no one says that the winner cannot be revealed to a few selected people, just not to the whole school. We could enchant it so that only we can see it.”
Evan thinks about it, and finds Dorca’s proposal to be honestly brilliant. No harm will be done to anyone involved - as they are sure to never snitch on Barty or the winner, like ever - and they will be getting back to their friend by beating him at his own game through schemes and deception, pure Slytherin style.
Evan nods, satisfied. “I think that could work, but it sounds like very difficult magic.”
“Pandora will definitely help us out, though. Honestly every time Barty sneaks off she looks ready to implode with how curious she gets. Also, she's been trying to get back at him all year for the dragon scale prank he pulled on her in September.”
“I am quite sure I could figure it out by myself, if given enough time, but it will certinaly be much easier with Pandora's help.” Regulus hums, ever so humbly.
Evan sighs. “Sounds like we have a plan, then.”
♱✮♱
When Barty and Sirius had first stumbled together one night inside the Room of Requirements it was clear to both of them that they were making a huge mistake. The mutual hatred that they reserved for each other had been simmering for years, born of brief but cutting conversations in the corridors, of the old as time rivalry between Gryffindor and Slytherin, and, most importantly, of Sirius’ and Regulus’ broken and apparently unmendable relationship, which dictated that their respective friend groups should not civilly interact with each other.
Still, Barty has always wanted the things he couldn't have, and Sirius was just as unattainable as he was attractive. So, on that fateful night six, almost seven months ago now, when the Gryffindors who had decided to crash a Slytherin party got a little too eager to be tasting the dungeon’s firewhisky, Sirius Black fell right into Barty Crouch Jr.’s lap. Literally and figuratively, because Sirius was so plastered he could barely walk straight.
Barty wasn't that drunk, per se, but he was tripping balls on Pandora's new experimental potion pills, so when one gorgeous Sirius Black crashed right on top of him, Barty forgot that he hated him for one or two seconds too long.
Those few seconds sealed the deal, and not even five minutes later the most improbable duo in the entire school was stumbling through the empty corridors of a (mostly) sleeping Hogwarts in search of a place to be alone together. That's how the Room of Requirements found them.
Barty would be lying if he said he remembers something of how that night went, he just knows, somehow, that Sirius had been the best lay of his young life.
Barty had freshly turned eighteen at the beginning of the school year, but he thought he knew everything and anything about what made a good shag, seen as he always prided himself in his extensive anatomical knowledge of the human body and how to best draw pleasure out of it.
Well, Sirius introduced him to a whole new world from the exact moment he let him slip inside, making Barty feel like the student instead of the teacher for the first time in the last couple of years.
Sirius Black rocked his fucking world with every single rock of his hips, and although Barty had been seeing blue flames in the corners of his eyes and little, tiny dragons whenever he shut his pupils for more than a few seconds, he had been completely mesmerised only by the vision that was Sirius on top of him. Bouncing on his cock.
It's the only vivid scene he remembers of the night up to date, and of the morning after too, when Sirius Black had left him alone and naked in the most comfortable bed Barty had ever had the pleasure to sleep in, and he had woken up with an indescribable itch that he didn't know how to scratch.
He learnt how to, exactly five days later when he discovered, to his extreme horror, that a shag with Sirius was worth its weight in gold even when he was stone cold sober.
And he’s still learning it today, in that same feather-soft bed, under that same warm body that makes his head spin like a tornado at the mere sight of. Sirius is kissing on his neck and collarbones like a man starved, tracing the pale skin with his tongue and peppering small bites all over it, while he bounces up and down tirelessly.
Honestly he’s bound to have taken horse riding lessons from a young age because Sirius’ particular skill set cannot just be attributed to natural talent, can it?
Barty gasps and moans and feels completely subjugated to the tight heat that surrounds him and he’s painfully aware that he’s showing unprecedented weakness, because if Sirius were to ask him, now, to give all the Galleons to his name away, murder his father, set his house on fire and run away to the countryside together, Barty would tell him yes, yes, anything you want, just to get him him to keep moving those terrible, terrible hips.
That’s what compels him to flip them around: a desperate need to regain some kind of control that makes Sirius laugh a little breathlessly. His big, stormy eyes are searching the boy above him for something, once again, he’s always fucking searching… and I fear that one of these days he’s going to find exactly what he wants.
Barty needs a minute - or a century - to gather his wits. His thoughts are flying all around his head at supersonic speed, and he’s used to his brain being a big mess, really, but he’s not used to it being a big mess over someone else.
Weirdly, out of all the thoughts he could focus on, his head decides to settle on Remus Lupin, on the way he always stares at Sirius just like Barty must be doing in this moment.
Like he’s ready to forsake the world for him, too.
The memory of that look on Lupin’s face draws a proper giggle out of Barty, as a mean, possessive idea makes its way through the fog in his head.
“Lupin is such a fucking fool.”
It visibly startles Sirius, who has waited patiently for Barty to come back to the world of the living just to hear this come out of his swollen lips. He deflects, obviously, because he’s Sirius fucking Black, not a simpleton.
“Thinking of other men in such a situation, are you, Crouch? That’s not very gentlemanly of you, didn’t daddy dearest teach you any better?”
Barty adores him. Who else would have thought to bring up Crouch Senior mid shag but Sirius parental-issues-extraordinaire Black?
“The only thing my father’s taught me is how to be a conniving, lying bitch.” As he speaks, Barty finally finds the strength to begin rolling his lips again, slowly but efficiently, if Sirius’ sudden shudder is proof of anything. “What did yours teach you, Black?”
Sirius locks his arms around the back of Barty’s neck, scratching his shoulders with his dark painted nails every time Barty pushes forward. They stare in each other’s eyes in silence for an interminable moment, breathing in the same air and exhaling it on each other’s parted mouths, until Sirius decides to reply.
“He taught me to shut up and take it.”
Barty’s heart jumps in his throat, his hands grip Sirus’ hips like a lifeline.
Who gives this Gryffindor the right to be so incredibly sexy? How can he look like sin personified while undoubtedly talking about his childhood’s physical punishment?
Barty’s father used to hit him, too, but he doesn’t think he could ever make it sound nearly as hot as Sirius does.
He picks up the pace a little, thrusting inside the former heir of House Black at a steady rhythm - not fast enough to make either of them come too quickly but not slow enough for it to be unsatisfactory either. “You’re a nightmare Black..” Barty pants when his brain catches up to his previously devised plan. He starts kissing Sirius’ neck and shoulder blades with the new purpose of leaving behind very evident love bites. “How Lupin manages to sleep next to you every night and still refrains from taking a bite out of you is beyond me.”
There it is, there it is. Sirius tightens around Barty’s cock and Barty bites down onto his shoulder way deeper than he intended. He draws blood.
“Don’t- ah! Don’t talk about Moony now, Godric’s sake…”
Barty stops, slips out of Sirius’ wet hole with one quick movement, making the older boy gasp at the sudden emptiness.
“Why, don’t you like to imagine him doing this to you? Taking him deep inside as hungrily as you take me, bending down for him like you bend for me? Screaming on top of him like you scream on top of me?”
Barty sounds out of his mind even to himself, but when he stops leaving bruises on the other boy’s neck for a moment and starts searching his face for an answer he sees that Sirius’ pupils have completely swallowed the grey of his eyes.
The Gryffindor crashes their lips together aggressively, hungrily, while his hand stretches towards Barty’s hips in search of his cock. He looks desperate for it, and when he finds it Barty shudders full-bodily. Sirius’ slender fingers wrap around his length while his tongue works magic inside his mouth, and then Sirius shuffles his hips lower so that the head of Barty’s cock catches at his rim. Both gasp at that, but Barty especially has to focus on not coming with all he has because he’s seeing stars.
Not even plural, he’s seeing one star. One star, one star, one star.
“I can share, you know.” Is the last thing he says to try and redeem himself, with one shallow breath. “You can invite Lupin to join us next time.”
Sirius’ hands find their way around his face and he places them on Barty’s jawline, soft fingers just above his cheekbones, in order to drag him down closer to himself. They see eye to eye, again, and again Barty’s heart threatens to just stop .
“I don’t share, Crouch. What’s mine is mine and mine alone. I don’t want Remus, I don’t want anybody else.” Sirius places a sweet kiss on his lips, a kiss that has no business existing within the confines of their violent desire, a kiss that is most definitely going to be the end of Barty.
It’s the kiss that, for the first time, makes him think no, I don’t share either.
“So let me ask you now,” Sirius is ruthless, his eyes growing darker by the second. “Are you mine, Barty Crouch?”
Barty thinks yes, yes, a thousand times yes. He thinks that Regulus would never forgive him, that Slytherins don’t do these things with Gryffindors, he remembers that he used to love Evan Rosier, once upon a time, and that he wished to have him probably just like Sirius once wished to have Remus Lupin. But Barty can’t find any of that desire left anymore; it’s like Evan has been erased from his chest and he hasn’t even noticed until now.
I am all yours, I am yours! I have never been anybody’s but, by Merlin, I know that I am yours.
Barty’s heart is bleeding Black, his lungs are breathing Sirius and his eyes will never be able to move away from the creature underneath him that has swallowed him whole, and refuses to spit him out.
“Yes,” Barty growls, a mere millimetre away from Sirius’ mouth, from the lips he craves the most in the world. “Yes, I am.”
And Sirius smiles like he knows he’s won the war, like he never even entertained the thought of losing it for one single second. Like he’s undefeatable, glorious, sinful, warm, warm, warm, warm and so, so tight, warm, warm, warm-
He has won and he knows, so he can smile all he likes.
He’s gentle, still, his fingers caress Barty’s cheeks like they’re made of glass as he places soft kisses over his forehead. His hips shuffle lower, taking more of Barty’s cock inside with a happy sigh.
“Do I own you, Crouch?” is what he asks.
Barty is stumbling on his words before he can even think of an answer.
He gasps, “Yes!” and tries to capture Sirius’ lips in his but Sirius’ hands keep him still.
“Alright,” he says too sweetly, voice dripping with honey. “Then you own me, too, so fuck me like I’m your property and don't you dare to let me go.”
Barty knows absolutely nothing after that; he has no memories of what his body has done, of what his mouth has said, he has no recollection of the scenes that followed. He thinks that he obeyed, if nothing else because he was physically unable not to, and remodelled the space inside of Sirius to the shape of his cock. He thinks that he kissed him to asphyxiation and then some more, he’s pretty sure he’s painted his insides white, made him cry out his name - not his family name, not his father’s and grandfather’s name, no. His own, Barty, Barty, Barty! - and that he’s held Sirius close to his chest and didn't dare to let him go.
He’s still a shell of himself when morning rolls around, completely unable to let Sirius out of his arms as the Gryffindor reasons with him that they have to go eat breakfast, go to class, return to their own dorms unless they want their secret to be found out.
Let them find out, then. You’re mine anyway, is what Barty thinks in reply. And I’m not letting you go.
In the end, though, reason prevails and Sirius slips out of the Room of Requirements first, promising to meet him somewhere later on during the day. Barty finds some comfort in the fact that Sirius looks like he’s been mauled by a feral beast, with his neck, shoulders and chest resembling a battlefield.
Barty thinks of Remus Lupin and smiles so brightly he could blind the sun itself. Oh well, what is it that the Muggles say? One man’s loss is another man’s gain. Lately Barty feels like all he's been doing is gaining at the expense of other stupid men.
He gets dressed and hurries straight to the Great Hall with that thought forever ingrained inside his mind.
Unfortunately Sirius is not present at breakfast, despite his own complaints about missing the first meal of the day. Either he’s seen Barty’s artwork and has decided that it would be too evident if the both of them turned up to the Great Hall completely debauched at almost the same time, or one of his roommates has cornered him and asked for explanations. The marauders have all always been disgustingly attached at the hip after all - especially Sirius and James Potter, much to Reg’s dismay - and Sirius’ mates are probably not taking very well to all the time he’s been recently spending with Barty.
Especially if he returns to their dorm room at ass crack of dawn looking like he’s been shagged within an inch of his life.
Barty is sure that he’s smiling like a nut-case when Evan nudges him. His eyes refuse to come back into focus, though, and he doesn’t look up from his bowl of muesli, so Evan straight up elbows him in the ribs.
Barty hisses, rubbing at his sore sides - to be fair, his everything feels sore and he doesn’t even know why - and finally looks at his best mate.
Evan gasps. “Barty, have you even slept? You’ve got eyebags down to your knees, mate.”
Absolutely not. No, I haven’t. I’ve spent the entire night between the lovely thighs of Reg’s lovely brother-
Barty blinks his thoughts away, refuses to turn to his left where Regulus is sitting, and just huffs in reply. Dorcas smirks at Evan, and it’s evident that she thinks it’s her turn to take the piss now.
“Yeah, Barty, and where were you last night?
“Working on the Shag Cup, definitely.” Interjects Pandora, who is usually much more merciful than the other bastards but has evidently decided to join the dark side today. “This,” she says, running a hand through Barty’s hair. “is the messiest bedhead I’ve ever seen, and I can bet you guys anything you want that Barty has nail scratches on his back.”
Barty does; he knows he does because he can feel the sting anytime he moves, and because by now he’s well aware that Sirius always searches for something to hold onto, to tear apart, when he’s about to come.
Dorcas leans in closer to him as her grin grows bigger. “Well, do you?”
Barty is unsure of the best course of action, so he opts for the simple truth. “Of course I do, do you think I’m a bad shag, Meadows?” to which Dorcas raises her a challenging eyebrow.
“Don’t know, Crouch. Any man is a bad shag for me.”
Regulus grumbles something about it being obvious in his snarky tone and the topic of Barty’s wild night out gets forgotten pretty quickly.
It reopens that very evening, though, when Barty forgets to go change inside the bathroom and distractedly takes his robes off by his bed. Dorcas, who always lounges in their room until later at night, gasps as if she’s been stabbed as her eyes fly open wide, and with that she manages to stun the other three boys into silence. Barty raises his head, searching for the imminent danger that must’ve scared his toughest mate, since Dorcas rarely startles, only to find three pairs of eyes fixated on his bare body.
Barty looks down at himself and he barely contains his own gasp. He has handprints, handprints, just above his hip bones, probably the result of Sirius’ death grip while he was riding Barty to his heart’s content. Besides that, the rest is pretty regular indication of a normal night of sex: bite marks, red and purple bruises all over his chest and neck… Barty turns his head back towards his shoulder and, sure enough, there they are: the scratches.
They kind of look like claw marks.
Dorcas is on her feet at the speed of lightning, wand in hand, and she inspects his back with eyes so wide Barty fears they might fall out of the sockets.
“You are an animal, what the hell!”
Barty shrugs her hand off with a hiss of pain when she starts to touch the scratches, and grumbles. “It’s not like I did it to myself.”
“Yeah, but still!” Dorcas gapes, her jaw hanging half open still. “The things you must have done to that poor soul… Crouch, I have lost all respect that I had for you, you're the biggest slag Hogwarts has ever housed within its walls and I fear that you'll corrupt us all.”
Evan, who appears to be completely unbothered by his best mate's proclivity , says, “You should know that's like a compliment to Barty. I mean he has created the Shag Cup unironically.”
Dorcas perks up at the mention. “Right! Would anyone go check on the points while I fix this absolute scoundrel’s back?” She asks, turning towards Regulus and Barty.
“Sure.” Evan springs up from the bed and heads straight to the door. “Though I have a feeling I already know what I'll find there.”
Regulus stands up at that, too, and silently follows Evan down the hall to the common room. The two return mere moments later, with, respectively, a scowl and a shit eating grin on their faces.
“Gryffindor, 405 points. There were only three hundred and fifty last night, Barty, you dog.”
Dorcas gasps, feigning shock but she really just sounds delighted, as she finishes healing the scratches on Barty’s back with a lazy flick of her wrist. After a quick contemplative pause she says, “Wait, the rules say that a shag is worth 10 points right? You fucked the same person five times in one night?”
Barty should've known better, should've remembered that Dorcas is a cunning, manipulative schemer; a Slytherin through and through. With that notion in mind, the smart thing to do would've been keeping everything vague, insisting on denying the existence of one singular partner he's allegedly spent the night with and making up a lie about having had multiple people yesterday, but the memory of Sirius claiming him is still too fresh in his mind and Barty won't, can't betray it. Not so soon, not when his handprints are still painted on Barty's hips.
So he slips. “Nah, we didn't have five proper shags, we only went two rounds, but blowjobs are worth ten points too, you know?”
When he turns around to face Dorcas her raised eyebrows tell him all he needs to know: she looks like a hunting hound who has located her prey.
“So there really is one secret Gryffindor lover..” She concludes slowly, carefully pronouncing every word.
Up until now Barty has managed to keep everything unconfirmed and vague, but now he knows the game is on. His friends will not let go of this once they have a clear target, once they know for sure that Barty is so caught up in someone he will sleep with them regularly and almost exclusively. Which he has to admit is an absolutely idiotic tactic for the Shag Cup, really, but Barty has been finding it really fucking difficult to engage in any kind of activity with people who aren't Sirius.
Especially after last night, he doesn't know how he'll manage to keep diversifying.
The meagre points the three other houses have gathered so far do, in fact, mainly come from lazy broom closet snog sessions. Nothing… serious .
Barty finds himself smiling like a starstruck fool at his own joke, which is his second mistake because Dorcas-the-predator pounces as soon as she spots an opening in his defences.
“C’mon Barty, tell us his name.”
Barty’s brain doesn’t catch up quickly enough, he doesn’t manage to mask his stupefied horror in time. Because just how does she know that? Evan and Regulus are watching him too, like hawks, and Barty stutters. Mistake number three.
“W-what?”
Dorcas yells an overjoyed “ah ha!” and dramatically falls back on Barty’s bed (adding insult to injury) with a dull thud, arm covering her smiling face and all. She gloats out loud, “I knew he was a boy! You only ever get like this with boys! Thanks for the tip, Crouch, this greatly reduces the available options we have to sort through.”
Barty groans and sits beside her. He can’t even really complain, she outwitted him fair and square so she gets to brag about it all she likes.
When he glances at his two other friends, Regulus immediately meets his eyes.
Barty gets kind of lost in the icy colour of them, which is far from his proudest moment but there’s not much he can do about it because they look exactly like Sirius’ in this light, and Merlin knows Barty hasn’t seen Sirius in twelve hours and he feels like his head is going to implode. Both his actual head and the one down low, too.
Trying to go see him now would be a death sentence, though, as his friends are sure to follow him in some way or another, so he surrenders to the perspective of a lonely, cold night in the dungeons with a heavy sigh.
“Yes, alright. You got me," he admits. “It’s a guy and he’s the best lay of my life. And no, Reggie, he’s not Potter!” The reminder seems to pacify Regulus who apparently needs all the reassurance he can get because the poor thing is really, really insecure about his crush on the Gryffindor captain.
Luckily no one else questions him on the matter, but Barty knows better than to be relieved by it: it just means that his friends have accepted the challenge and will try to find out through their own means. He has to warn Sirius as soon as possible, and to search for more plausible excuses to leave his dorm after curfew. He’ll probably have to start bunking off classes or skipping a meal or two, but those are all sacrifices he’s more than willing to make.
Sirius really has him all wrapped around his finger, and isn’t that just tragically sexy? Barty needs him more than his wand at times, which is a terrifying thought he prefers not to dwell on.
He resorts to secretly catching Regulus’ gaze a little more than necessary for the rest of the evening.
♱✮♱
“So let me get this straight,” are the first coherent words he gets to hear leave Sirius’ mouth in the last couple of hours. He sounds just as breathless as Barty feels, which is always great to hear because it makes his voice catch every few seconds and that’s just so hot .
“My dear brother and your other degenerate friends are onto us?”
Barty nods while his hand involuntarily moves over to Sirius’ dishevelled hair, tucking the wilder strands back behind his ear. Sirius smiles at him and cuddles in closer, chasing Barty’s body heat.
It has to be said, for as useful as the Come and Go Room (most recently also renamed the “Come and Come Room” quite uncreatively by the two of them) is, its heating system is far from the best: most of the time it’s colder than all the other areas of the castle by a good five degrees. It’s part of why it makes for such a good place for cuddles, though.
“We should ask the room for a fireplace next time.” He reflects aloud.
Sirius arches one eyebrow at him in question from where his head is laying on the crook of Barty’s shoulder. “I’d rather have you keeping me warm, but stay focused, Barty! My brother, your good pal Reggie, the only heir of the most Pretentious and Inbred House of Black.”
Barty snorts. “I wouldn’t complain as much as you do about my parents being cousins if I had a face like yours.”
“Why thank you, Crouch, flattery can and will get you very far with me.” Sirius replies with mirth in his voice.
Barty is afraid that if he turns towards him right now and sees the bright grey of his eyes sparkle in the dim light of the room, he’ll never be able to take anybody else to bed for the rest of his life.
He does it anyway.
“You’re saying it as if there's still any farther left for me to go with you, Black.”
And there they are, those stormy eyes made of molten silver and thunder. They have been waiting for Barty, ready to drag him in like a siren’s song and keep him captive until the end of the earth and all the planets that surround it. Barty lets himself fall in their abyss, the most willing of prisoners.
If Sirius were Azkaban, Barty would ask his father to lock him in and throw away the key, and Judge Crouch would probably comply quite happily.
“I reckon you’ve taken me to every angle of your body by now.”
Sirius bites his lower lip - because of course he does, the nasty tempter - to stifle a chuckle. “Yes, and? You've always seemed rather appreciative of it.” He lazily starts playing with Barty's mullet, twirling a couple of the longer strands around his middle and pointer fingers. “Suddenly changed your mind?”
“No, never.” Is Barty’s much too quick reply.
They get lost in a heated kiss, all tongue and teeth, and Barty forgets about all his problems. He forgets about Regulus being onto them like a bloody hunting hound, he forgets about his Father and the way the two of them can't help but tear each other apart whenever they happen to exist in the same room, he forgets about the upcoming end of seventh year and having to return home for the summer and get started on an apprenticeship he's going to loathe.
But then it suddenly dawns on him: Sirius is going to leave Hogwarts in a couple of weeks.
He should feel relieved by that notion. Ideally, Sirius will graduate with his merry band of marauding friends, probably move in with Potter and the rest for a while to figure out bits and pieces of his future, and Regulus will never find out that Barty knows his older brother's body better than the school grounds, that he's mapped it with his hands and mouth with such care he'd probably be able to carve it - blindfolded - in marble by now.
He should also feel relieved for the fact that the tightness in his chest, the way his heart seems to constrict around nothing, whenever he hears Sirius’ ugly bark of a laugh, will disappear next year along with the Black boy and Barty will never have to worry again about dying of a stroke at such a premature age.
Somehow, he isn't.
He holds Sirius tighter instead, much tighter. A hand sneaking around his waist to pull him even closer, the other burying itself in long dark curls. Sirius chuckles - and there go the heart somersaults.
“Are you planning on kidnapping me, Crouch?” He asks in his annoyingly sarcastic way that Barty is so attracted to. “What's with all this clinginess?”
“Your pillowtalk manners are downright horrible, Black.” He bites back defensively. “You've never heard of aftercare, have you? How come you're older and I have to be teaching you stuff, still?”
Sirius doesn't even try to argue, instead he simply smiles, but Barty can tell that he doesn't buy it. Too smart for everyone's good, this one.
“Alright then,” he says lightly, burrowing his face into the skin of Barty’s clavicle.
The tip of his nose is cold. Barty works really hard to smother the ruthless tenderness that grows inside his chest like a cancerous cell.
“Teach me all about this aftercare shite, Oh Wise One.”
Barty plants a kiss to the top of Sirius’ head without thinking too much about it. If he does, he'll lose his mind trying to analyse the why’ s and the when’ s and the what the fuck’ s that have started making his spine turn to jelly in Sirius’ general proximity.
Sirius, for his part, starts running his slender fingers down Barty’s chest, then his torso, then his waist. The black nail polish is starting to chip on the pointer finger and thumb of his right hand.
“See? You're a natural already. No need to teach you nuthin’.” Barty mumbles. Half sleepily, half bewitched.
“Am I?”
“Yeah. It's quite easy after all. You just need to…” Sirius flips his head, settles back down on Barty's chest on his other cheek to glance up at him, and Barty gets distracted by the way his long hair falls over both of their shoulders.
He gulps. “You - you just need to make a bloke feel special after sex, you know. That's all there is to it.”
Sirius arches an eyebrow. The corners of his mouth tilt upwards.
He smiles a hell of a lot more, recently.
Barty finishes the sentence a little unstably, stumbling over some syllables. “And you're…quite very good at making a bloke feel special when you do stuff like that, Sirius Black.”
Sirius is studying him, his grey eyes glistening like the surface of the Black Lake in the warm candlelight of the room. Similar, the two of those, even in name.
“I'm glad. You make me feel like that too. And besides,” Sirius steals a quick kiss, barely a peck really, and Barty wants to tell him that he doesn't have to steal anything from him, he'll be given it all gladly. “You are something special to me, Crouch.”
Barty doesn't have anything to say to that. He doesn't even know how to begin to process the meaning of those words, and he's not particularly inclined to start trying now. He kisses Sirius, closes his eyes and gets lost in every little breathless exhale. In the warmth of the boy's lips. In the fact that he's still here, for now, that he's not gone yet.
Don't go, don't go, don't leave me behind. I have never fancied anybody the way I fancy you. I have never lo—--
Sirius giggles against his lips and Barty realises that he's involuntarily started grinding against his thighs, half hard again already.
Salazar, the things he does to him.
“Alright, lover boy, shall we go another round then? Shall I fuck you, now?” Sirius asks devilishly, sinfully, while tugging on Barty's lower lip with his teeth.
Barty nods so hard that his head starts spinning a bit, all the while the words lover boy echo in his eardrums and reverberate against every corner of his cranium. They remain there, when Sirius begins opening him up slowly, and they only get louder with every thrust, with every damning sound their hips make when they meet in the middle.
Barty sees the words in capital letters flash behind his eyes when he comes, Sirius’ name heavy on his tongue.
Lover boy,
lover boy,
lover boy.
♱✮♱
It's finally the Day.
Exams are over, the school is a blur of happy students, some ready to graduate, some to return home for the holiday, and of relieved teachers. Quidditch players fill the sky at any hour of the day, the house elves prepare deliciously refreshing food and Hogwarts is filled with glee.
And today is House Cup’s Day.
Which means that it's Shag’s Cup Day, too, and the whole school is vibrating in excitement at that. One month ago, in order to preserve the hype for the grand reveal, Barty has hidden the Point-Table somewhere away from view, so no student, not even Barty himself, is aware of how many more points any of the four houses have currently gained.
Evan now has that same Table in his hands, and Regulus’ and Pandora’s secret spell inside his mind, mentally repeating it in order to get it right. They have unanimously decided he will be the one to cast it, since he can do it wandless, and he's the one who ultimately put it together by figuring out how to merge the various charms his friends invented.
Barty nods and Evan clears his throat with a smirk. He unravels the folded parchment and mutters the revealing spell under his breath, just then the points begin dancing in front of his face along with the names of the participants.
“Hufflepuff comes in fourth position with 35 points!” Evan reads aloud, and the Hufflepuff table explodes with cheers. They all walk over to a certain girl to pat her on the shoulders, so they all probably already knew of her and Barty's romantic escapades.
Surely enough, the enchanted Point-Table secretly reveals to Evan that all Hufflepuff points have been won by a certain Maryam Merrygold.
Evan whispers her name to Pandora, Regulus and Dorcas, who all nod in understanding but don't look that impressed. Dorcas has cast a very precise Muffliato over the four of them to act as extra precaution, but Barty has already joined the Hufflepuff’s table in messing with Maryam, and he's just so distracted and hyped up that he wouldn't have heard them either way.
Someone from the Slytherin table clears his throat quite loudly, effectively managing to recall the attention back to Evan, who is still standing with the point table in hand.
Barty beams right at him, “Do continue, good Sir.”
Evan bows his head, a mischievous grin painted on his lips, and announces the house that has won third position.
“With a pretty high score of 85 points, Slytherin..? Slytherin comes third!” Evan's eyebrows shoot up as he sees three highly improbable names appear on the parchment.
Emma Vanity: 25 points
Canary Greengrass: 30 points
Marcus Zabini: 30 points
Well, Marcus and Canary are a surprise to Evan too, but when he relays the three names to his friends Regulus shoots him a pointed, withering look that screams I want to know about the Gryffindor loud and clear.
So Evan goes on leaving little time for conjectures to the murmuring Slytherins at his own table. Sue him, he’s curious too.
“Second place goes to Ravenclaw, that managed to collect an impressive 100 points!”
The parchment reveals to him the two names of the lucky Ravenclaws who each scored half of the points.
Daisy Hookum: 50 points
Ernest Cresswell: 50 points
Evan whispers those two names to his expecting friends while Barty celebrates the blue House's success at getting second place.
On Pandora, Dorcas and Regulus’ faces he finds the same burning desire he recognizes within himself, though. Now it's finally time to uncover the truth behind the identity of Barty's secret lover.
Evan is almost shaking with poorly concealed excitement by the time he clears his throat and starts speaking.
“And finally, with a grand total of… Oh, wow.” Evan's eyes widen a bit at the astronomically high number that presents before his eyes. “Gryffindor comes first with 1360 points! Damn, Barty, what…”
But then a name appears underneath the number, and Evan blanches. He immediately folds the parchment and shoots a concerned look at his best friend.
“Barty,” Evan's voice comes out a little shaky. “What have you done, mate?”
Barty looks confused, but then he spots Evan's expression, sees Regulus trying to pry the parchment away from Evan's hands and it apparently dawns on him that something isn't right.
Barty scrambles towards his friends, almost yelling, “Merlin’s tits! Reggie don't!”
Evan is holding onto the Point-Table for dear life, but Regulus is fuming, probably convinced that Barty somehow found a way around the Veritaserum and has been shagging Potter behind his back this entire time. The parchment ends up in Pandora's hands, but by now the entire Slytherin table is absolutely dying to see what's written inside, most people having figured out that the name of Barty's secret lover has, magically, somehow been revealed. Someone grabs it from Pandora before she even notices, and spells fly around ceaselessly, people are now legitimately duelling to try and get the Table.
Until it ends up right in the hands of Professor McGonagall.
“Mr. Crouch, what is this?”
Silence falls upon the Great Hall, and Barty looks like he's about to pass out. He keeps sending terrified glances to the Gryffindor table - to Sirius, Evan realises - but can't find the words to explain the sheer absurdity of The Shag Cup to the old witch.
“Very well,” McGonagall says sternly, and proceeds to open the parchment. She scans its contents quickly, seemingly perplexed at what she's reading, and then looks over to her Gryffindors.
“Mr. Black, is this your property?”
At first Evan himself thinks she's talking to Regulus, as do all his friends, but it immediately gets really clear that she's asked the question to Regulus’ older brother, instead, when Sirius answers.
“No, Professor.”
McGonagall doesn't quite grasp the gravity of the situation, though, and she says, in her severe tone, something she really shouldn't have said.
“Then why, pray tell, does this parchment say,” she clears her throat and prepares to end Barty's Crouch Junior’s young life in one brief sentence . “Gryffindor: 1360 points. Sirius Orion Black.”
Regulus is on his feet before anyone else can even think to move, wand drawn, and looking downright murderous as he points it at Barty.
Dorcas gasps, while Pandora keeps looking back and forth between the Gryffindor and the Slytherin table as If she can't decide where she really wants to focus her attention on. Evan stands up, too, and looks at Barty who's rubbing the back of his neck sheepishly.
“Barty.” Regulus almost hisses between clenched teeth.
“Reggie.”
“Tell me it wasn't my brother you went off to shag every damn night you sneaked away from the dorm.”
Barty turns around towards the Gryffindor table, where Sirius is staring at him with shock written clear as day on his face. And if Sirius looks surprised, then James Potter seems like he's just witnessed the resurrection of Merlin with his very own eyes. And, damn , Remus Lupin is probably ready to kill a man with his bare hands, no need for something as nonsensical as a wand.
Barty turns back around towards Regulus. “Uhm…”
Regulus recoils in shock, as if the full extent of what he's just learnt has only hit him now. “Barty!” he urges his friend, but Barty doesn't know what to say.
“I-” He turns back towards Sirius, who's now slowly standing up too. “Well, uhm.” Barty clears his throat. “I mean, yeah. In a certain sense I didn't, sometimes he shagged me not…not the other way around.”
Regulus is frozen in place like a marble statue, James Potter emits a sound so choked that Lily Evans has to check if he's still breathing. Peter Pettigrew is holding onto the table and Remus Lupin for dear fucking life.
And Sirius… Oh, Sirius looks so betrayed that Barty doesn't care about the impending death that awaits him at the hands of Regulus Black, doesn't care about anything but wiping that frown off Sirius’ beautiful face.
Oh, oh… How his perfect features are looking all wrong, contorted in pain as they are.
Barty stumbles over his own robes clumsily as he takes one, then two steps towards the Gryffindor table. He must explain, he has to put a smile back on that beautiful face.
He feels something, or rather someone, grab him by the back of his shirt and pull him backwards but Barty's gaze is absolutely glued to Sirius and he doesn't even attempt to remove it from his stunning frown.
Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful. Beloved face.
“I promise you I didn't know, Sirius, someone must've put a spell on it or something…” are the pitiful words that fall from his lips as he tries to wrap his head around the realisation that has hit him straight in the chest with the full power of an Avada.
Beloved face, beloved face, beloved… Sirius is loved, wholly, completely. Face and body and mind, beloved!
And that is the missing jigsaw piece, that is what makes the sex so magical between them, the kissing, the lingering touches. That is what makes every single second spent with Sirius an experience unlike any other and every minute apart from him a horrible suffering.
Fuck, I love him, Barty thinks.
So, “I love you!” is what Barty says. Out loud, for the entirety of the Great Hall to hear but, ultimately, only to Sirius.
Regulus’ bony fingers grab Barty by the collar of his shirt as all his patience seems completely expired and shakes him, but Barty still doesn't look away from the older Black brother.
Because Sirius is smiling now. Beloved face, beloved face, beloved face with a smile worth all the Galleons in Gringotts that I love, love, love.
Barty feels like a new person, like he's suddenly shed the skin of the boy he used to be and has become a man, fully grown, capable of loving someone. And if that isn't incredible!
He turns to face Regulus with renewed courage, thinking that right now he'd be able to face a dragon head on and win.
“I'm sorry that I lied to you Reggie, but I’m absolutely mad about your brother and you cannot kill me until I get to hear him say he loves back.”
Regulus looks positively flabbergasted by the sheer nerve of Barty but, once again, Barty couldn't care less. He turns towards Sirius again, just like every other student and teacher present in the room at the moment, while silently praying that the news of his impromptu declaration won't reach his father's desk before noon.
The entire hall stays frozen in silence for one long, uncomfortable minute before McGonagall herself interferes, deciding to put an end to the chaos she has contributed to creating.
“Well, Mister Black, what do you have to say to that?”
Sirius glances at his Head of House with clear disbelief, then looks around at all the pairs of expectant eyes trained upon him. A quick look at James Potter’s still ajar jaw, at Peter Pettigrew’s crimson blush and at Remus Lupin’s now dejected expression. At last, he finally looks over to the Slytherin table, at his brother and their friends. At Barty.
Sirius breaks into a fit of giggles so sudden and border-line hysterical that Barty fears for his sanity, before remembering that Sirius doesn't have one single bone inside his body that isn't bat-shit insane and that he loves him all the same for it. Maybe even more.
Professor McGonagall clears her throat as Sirius’ laughter finally begins to dissipate and urges him on with a stern, “Well?”
(She's just as ravenous for gossip as her students, really.)
Sirius shakes his head, long dark curls falling all over his face in a way that makes Barty hold his breath almost painfully, and then bites the inside of his cheek to stop himself from smiling and Barty knows.
He's making a run for the Gryffindor table before his legs even register that he's moved, before Regulus can let go of his shirt and therefore avoid getting dragged halfway through the hall in tow.
Barty basically jumps on top of Sirius, pushing him back against the table, mere inches away from Lily Evan's forgotten plate of hard boiled eggs and James Potter’s befuddled face, and squeezes his cheeks between his slightly trembling hands.
“You do? Really?”
Sirius’ expression melts and he presses a small kiss against Barty's thumb closest to his lips. “Fuck yes I do, I've loved you for months, you absolute wanker.”
The Great Hall erupts into deafening cheers that Barty doesn't get to hear because he's entirely too lost in Sirius as he locks their lips together and snogs him silly, halfaway on Potter’s lap.
♱✮♱
FOUR YEARS LATER
A hesitant knock on the office door startles Judge Crouch out of his boredom-induced trance; the documents he's been working on the past week are threatening to push him towards an early retirement.
“Sir, a letter has been delivered for you. The sender has marked it as extremely confidential, Sir,” comes a voice from behind the closed door to the study. The man sighs and pushes his chair back, a wrinkled hand running through his hair, as he says “Do come in, then.”
His assistant - a young witch who should be around his estranged son's age - unceremoniously drops a white envelope on top of the hardwood desk, and Crouch's eyes almost threaten to bulge out of his face. He reaches out for the sealed letter slowly, carefully.
“This is not parchment. Is it… muggle paper?”
She nods warily. “Would you prefer me to stay in the room while you tend to it , Sir? The letter has already been checked for dangerous enchantments but one can never be too sure with these kinds of muggle machinations, after all.”
Judge Crouch dismisses her with a quick wave of his hand. If this is the way he has to finally go out then the damned letter better make it quick.
He opens it to find, almost disappointingly, a simple column of text. But then again, one definitely not written with a simple wizard's quill.
The man's eyes quickly skim the first few lines and his heart drops almost immediately; he knows these words like he's written them himself a hundred times over. In some ways, he has.
Barty.
Barty - Bartemius Junior, his only son - has written him a letter after years of stubborn silence, and it's every bit as irreverent and vulgar as Crouch would have expected it to be.
It starts with: “Good morning, Father. I hope this message finds you either at your worst or dead,” and at first it almost makes the man choke on an outraged gasp. Four entire years have passed since Bartemius Senior and Junior have spoken one word to each other. After the scandal his son put their whole family through, Judge Crouch moved out of the home he shared with his wife and never spoke to his son again.
And now here he is, Barty. Pouring his thoughts out on paper like no time has passed at all. Not one day.
Judge Crouch takes a deep breath, mentally buckles up and starts reading.
Good morning, Father. I hope this message finds you either at your worst or dead.
In case your current condition is neither of those two consider me incredibly disappointed, but also, feel free to continue reading. You see, some things have changed in the past few years, and I think that you will find yourself appreciating one of them, at least.
Do you remember when you told me that it was time to focus on finding myself a good honest pureblood wife? Well, I did!
(Sort of).
In the last four years, dear Father, I've been part of a quite serious - heh - committed relationship, and my lovely partner and I have recently decided to get married.
Now, before you get all overjoyed and try to reclaim me as your son so that I can carry on the legacy and yada yada… I feel like it's important to tell you that neither of us can get pregnant (yet! but I'm working on it), so no grandchildren in store for you as of now.
We are using our last name, though, because Sirius hates the Blacks way more than I hate our pretentious family of stuckups. So Crouch it is!
I know that you may be thinking: ‘Sirius is a bit of a weird name for a lady’. Well you'd be right. Sirius is indeed a man, and trust me on that, I've checked thoroughly.
I don't really know where you stand on when it comes to homosexuals, but hey! I am marrying a good honest pureblood so don't go getting all pretentious on me, alright? I've tried my best.
All this being said, you're invited to the wedding. Sirius convinced me. I really didn't want you there at all, but he said that he'll curse you for me if you dare step out of line. He has mean reflexes, that one, so I'd be very careful if I were you.
Also, Mum kind of needed a plus one.
(Also because the Fathers-in-attendance quota is looking really fucking low and not too many of the guests can help with that, so I'm trying to do the heavy lifting here).
You can confirm or deny your participation at the bottom of the page with a tick on the YES or NO boxes. In case you really don't want to attend you can even write ‘hell no’ or ‘go fuck yourself’ or even scribble a picture of a middle finger next to the NO box.
Here, I'm giving you one first so you can feel more comfortable giving one back. Also because you're a miserable piece of shit.
…………………./´¯/)
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…………./´¯/’…’/´¯¯`·¸
………./’/…/…./……./¨¯\
……..(‘(…´…´…. ¯~/’…’)
………\……………..’…../
……….”…\………. _.·´
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Thank you for your attention. Also we're getting married in a muggle church, so you may want to dress appropriately in case you choose to come.
Best regards.
With very little love, a decade old amount of pent up rage and hatred, and a really good soon to be husband who said I deserved some closure with you if I wanted it.
- Your son, Barty.
☐ YES ☐ NO
Bartemius Crouch Senior goes through the rest of his workday in a permanent state of befuddlement fueled by his son's words continuously spinning around his brain. Barty would be marrying the disowned eldest Black boy soon, and the man doesn’t really know what to do with that.
As a judge of the Council of Magical Law he shouldn't even be thinking about attending such a sacrilegious event, and in a muggle setting too, to add insult to injury.
He doesn't even own any muggle clothing, and he hasn't spoken to his wife (is she still his wife? He misses her terribly) in years.
He ticks the box during the night, plagued by dreams that haunt him like nightmares, and loneliness, and the carefree distant laughter of a little boy.
☑ YES