I hardly looked at Barty during our first tutoring session for fear that my cheeks would redden and betray me if I did. He turned out to be an excellent tutor, guiding me through the potion's brewing process, explaining the ingredients and their effects on one another, his instructions easy and concise, and with my long auburn hair always falling in such a way that it hid my face, I made an incredible effort to focus on more than just the simple yet pleasant sound of his voice.

"Nice improvement," Barty said at the end of the hour as he peered down at the bubbling liquid inside my cauldron. "Tomorrow will be even better, yeah?"

I finally looked up at him just in time to catch his encouraging smile before he left for dinner, and I remained behind, alone in the classroom, staring at my cauldron with a pounding heart and thinking of how, despite my anxieties, he hadn't found me to be a disappointment after all.

We continued to meet twice a week with Professor Slughorn's blessing after he, too, noticed my improvement in class. I was delighted to find myself making considerable progress as term went on, and not just with my potioneering: as Barty and I spent more time together, I found it easier to be around him, to meet his gaze, to speak to him and laugh with him.

There was a day when, as we reviewed the errors in my latest brew, Barty became particularly distracted.

"Is that fir wood?" he asked, leaning in to peer at my wand after I'd readied it for an incantation. "Because it looks very similar to mine."

"No," I answered, taken aback. "Mine's cedar."

"Ah. Makes sense, I suppose." Barty had drawn his own wand to compare the differences.

"Why's that?"

"Cedar and fir, they're both in the evergreen family."

This, for whatever reason, made my heart swell with an odd sense of pride.

"What's your core?" asked Barty.

"Unicorn hair."

"Dragon heartstring, for me."

"I've heard those cores are quite powerful, but difficult to control," I replied, hoping to sound casual.

"I bet the prat who came up with that just wasn't any good at spellcasting and needed an excuse." Barty took on a mocking tone. "I swear it's not me, it's the bloody core!" And we both roared with laughter that echoed down the dungeon halls.

Somewhere in the midst of it all, I came to realize just how cherished the sight of his smile and the sound of his laugh had become to me. I began to yearn for it even when he wasn't at my side.

Yet I did not find myself in his company beyond those hour-long sessions. Twice a week we walked together to the Great Hall for dinner after his tutoring, though he always lengthened his stride at the door so we never entered side by side, and we would not speak again until the next session. Even in Potions class, Barty no more than acknowledged my presence with a nod before turning his attention back to his Slytherin classmates. I began to wonder if his good nature toward me was only for show.

"He's a Slytherin, what do you expect?" said Alba one day as we climbed the spiral stairs of Ravenclaw Tower together.

"I don't know," I mumbled, adjusting my book bag over my shoulder. "What should I expect?"

"Oh, come on, they're all tossers. You've seen the kind of pranks they like to pull, especially the older ones. Dark Magic, I bet. My mum's told me loads about what their parents are like." Alba gave me a sidelong look that I pretended not to notice.

Even though we were sorted into Ravenclaw together on the same night, Alba and I hadn't properly met until Christmas break of our first year, when we were two of the very few who'd elected to stay behind and spend the holiday at Hogwarts. With dark eyes, chin-length dark hair, and an olive complexion, Alba had the sort of features that would only sharpen as she became older, and I saw myself as looking rather soft in comparison.

"Not everyone in Slytherin is like that," I finally insisted.

Alba opened her mouth to continue the argument, but we'd reached the door to our common room, and the large eagle-shaped door knocker spoke first.

"What can you keep after giving to someone?" it asked patiently. There was no way to enter the Ravenclaw common room without answering a riddle.

After a moment of consideration, Alba said, "Memories?"

The eagle remained silent.

"Your heart?" I offered, and my thoughts flitted, embarrassingly, to Barty.

"Your word," came another voice, and we both turned to see Jessamy, a black girl taller than both of us and who seemed to embody an inherent grace, waiting behind us. "And then you keep it, hopefully."

"One would hope," replied the eagle knocker, and the door swung inward to reveal their common room, which bustled with other students who'd also finished classes for the day.

"Anyway," Alba persisted as we all crossed the threshold, apparently determined to continue the argument, "I've seen him talking to some of the worst of those knobs. Like that one Slytherin kid in fifth year, the one from the Black family, and you know what their reputation is like— although I think they might be cousins, distant ones, or so my mum says, but still—"

"Are you talking about Barty Crouch?" Jessamy interrupted. She'd sat down in one of the unclaimed squashy blue-cushioned chairs, and now she was undoing the bun in her hair, letting her springy curls fly in all directions.

"Alba doesn't like him," I said as I collapsed into what was more of a squashy love seat across from her. Alba fell onto the cushion next to me, looking defiant.

"You could've asked me to tutor you, y'know," Jessamy pointed out. She was one of the fourth years in my Potions class.

"I know," I said, my tone apologetic, and I really did feel guilty for overlooking her. She had always been very kind to me while others seemed to resent my childish presence in their class. "I think I sort of panicked when Professor Slughorn asked who I wanted. He really isn't bad, though. Barty, I mean."

"I'm telling you," Alba urged a little too loudly for my comfort, "they mess around with Dark Magic."

"But Crouch's father works for the Ministry," countered Jessamy. "He's head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement. That's the one that catches dark wizards and witches."

"That's his father?" I gaped, no longer rummaging through my bag for my homework, which I'd hoped to distract myself from the conversation with.

Alba raised her brows at me. "Come on, Junie, you really didn't know?"

"My dad's a Muggle, and my mum's never really cared about Ministry stuff," I sheepishly defended. Truth be told, my mother seemed to want to forget the entirety of the magical world, aside from my own part in it, now that it was at war. I didn't want to think about it much, either. My parents did their best to shelter me from knowing the worst of it but I could tell, from the whisperings of teachers and older students, it wasn't getting any better.

"Then Crouch's dad would know right away if he was practicing any Dark Magic," Jessamy continued, pulling me from my thoughts. "He's quite strict, or so I've heard."

Though she still did not appear convinced, Alba let the subject drop.

The murmurings of other students around them became a soft drone that mixed with the crackling of the fireplace, creating the usual comforting atmosphere of Ravenclaw's common room. Alba and Jessamy pulled out their homework and both soon had their noses buried in notes.

Instead of doing the same, I tilted my head back and let my eyes drink in the vast dome of the common room ceiling, where a night sky had been painted in such a way that the stars seemed to twinkle, and I became lost in them, wishing briefly that Barty could see them. I quickly banished that thought, but then I wondered if he was in his own common room now, and I wondered what it looked like, and what his own eyes would see if he were to look around, too, and wondered if maybe, just maybe, at this moment, he was wondering anything about me.