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"Why do you do that?"
"Do what?"
"Fuck around with them like that?"
"I don't know what you mean, Barty," you shrug easily, twirling a cigarette between your fingers. You're propped up on one of the grand, stone windowsills in a hidden corner of the Slytherin common room, the blue-green light filtering in from the lake through the stained glass and washing over the two of you.
"Yes you do," Barty scowls, and when he stomps over to you and reaches out, you move to hand him the cigarette. But he just wraps slender, pale fingers around your wrist and lights it for you with a flick of his wand. Then he watches, tall enough to tower over you still as you sit on the sill and he stands, as you blow smoke just past his face.
"Why are you looking at me like I'm doing something wrong?" you ask softly, tipping your head back against the cool stone wall.
"I just don't know why you do it."
"Do what?"
"We're talking in circles," Barty snaps.
"So say something new," you quip back. He places his hands on the windowsill just shy of where you're sitting, leaning a bit closer to you. This time, you blow a puff of smoke right into his face, watching as he blinks through it.
"Are you really going to make me work for it?" he sighs, but there's an airiness in his voice that isn't often there.
"You're a clever boy, Barty. That's what makes you so fun." You watch as he plucks the cigarette from your grasp. "Ask the right questions and you'll get the right answers."
"You don't have fun with me," he says lowly, and this time a frown tugs at his lips as he tilts his head away from you to blow smoke off to the side before passing your cigarette back to you. "Why do you fuck around with all the guys like that?"
"That's not the right question, Bart," you offer gently in lieu of a response.
"I don't care," he scowls. "Answer it anyway."
"It's just fun," you shrug. "That's what these parties are for, right? We all go, we drink, we flirt, we - it never really means anything, you know."
"I know," Barty stresses, frowning at you still. "That's my point. You're playing games that only you can win."
"You… worried I'm gonna hurt someone's feelings?" Barty's sure that it's supposed to come out as light and teasing, but your voice is quiet instead and you can't quite look at him anymore as you pluck at a stray thread on your ripped jeans. "Is it Evan? He'll be ok - he doesn't care about me, either."
"I'm worried about your feelings," he responds in a rushed sigh, and the comment makes your fidgeting fingers freeze. Your foot slips where it's propped up on the windowsill.
"I thought I was winning? Can't do that with my feelings hurt, can I?"
"You are winning." Barty reaches gentle fingers to wrap around your ankle, keeping you from slipping further off the ledge. "I'm just not sure this game is so good for you, that's all."
"I don't need a babysitter, babe," you snap back with a mocking tilt to your voice, and there's a bit more bite in your words than he deserves, probably. But Barty just tightens his grip on your ankle and stares.
"I'm trying to ask you the right question," he stresses, and the genuine waver in his voice has you pausing, twisting to put out your cigarette on the stone sill before you lean back against the glass and watch him.
"No you're not," you say quietly. He shifts, placing his hands on either side of your hips now as you spread your legs a bit to let him stand closer in front of you.
"I am," he insists gently, and a scrambling, desperate part of your brain pleads for some kind of sanctuary from his kindness - pleads to go back to before he showed you that he knew how to be gentle. "You're not letting me in."
"What are you talking about?"
"Why don't you fuck around with me the way you fuck around with them?" And there it is , you think. And as soon as it's here, you wish you hadn't pushed for it. You wish he hadn't twisted the knife quite so far into your soul.
"Do you want me to? Hm?" It's a weak attempt, you both know, to gain some kind of control back from him. But Barty's crossed some kind of line, he knows, and he's never really learned how to back down from things like this.
"I want to know why you don't," he offers firmly, and you tilt your head to look past him into the busier part of the common room, the music rattling through people's drinks as smoke curls through the mass of students.
"Maybe you're just not worth it," you say lowly, and Barty huffs out an annoyed breath while he angles his head to look you in the eye again, trapping you in whatever it is that you're not admitting.
"Why don't you ever tell me the truth?"
"Why do you always let me get away with lying?" He's got an answer for that, you're sure. You're also sure that he's clenching his teeth together instead of telling you to spare you, just a bit. You feel a bit like a prey animal, caught between him and the window right now. You feel a bit like he's cracked your ribs open and can see the way that your heart beats in an off-kilter rhythm.
You feel a bit like biting back - like telling him to fuck off and find someone else to whine to. But then he reaches to twirl a lock of your hair out of your face and you find yourself sighing in resignation, instead, slumping down just a bit against the cool glass.
"You're not worth it, Bart. You're worth a little bit more than all that. That's all it is."
"A little bit more, hm?" he pushes, and you roll your eyes in a vacant attempt to hide the way that your heart thumps at his voice - at the warbled little insecurity that twists somewhere almost unseen in him.
"You deserve something good," you offer haltingly. He scowls a bit at that - and you know his ticks and his movements enough to know it as an act of love.
"And you don't?"
"I have what I deserve - what I want , I mean." Your head's starting to hurt, you think, something about the music and the alcohol and Barty mixing together into some kind of oncoming illness - some kind of reason to run away.
"Why do you mess with people so much? Why can't you just - be honest, god, for fucking once ." There's a bit of bite coming back to Barty's voice, and you can't help but perk up at it, recognizing this more than anything else.
"You're the only one who ever knows when I'm lying, you know," you say instead of answering, and Barty knows you well enough by now - knows your movements and your subtleties enough to know it as an act of surrender.
"Of course I do," he sighs. "You're my…"
"Friend?"
"I wouldn't say that."
"Ouch," you say dryly. He shoots you a pleading look.
"I'm not this nice to my friends," he offers softly. You cock your head to the side.
"And I'm not this mean to mine." Barty hums a bit at that, leaning back on his heels as he lets his eyes sweep over your frame.
"You're allowed to be, you know."
"What?"
"Kind," he says simply. You reach up to flick him on the forehead.
"Speak for yourself," you murmur, but he's staring at you like he's not sure how to let you get away this time.
It's a shame, then, he thinks, when the party just beyond the two of you gets a bit too rowdy. It's a pity , really, when a fight breaks out - Evan and Regulus getting tangled up with a few loud Gryffindors. Barty swears that he sees the older Black brother mixed up in it, too, and pulls a hand away from the windowsill as he gets caught between helping or hurting . He sways on his feet a bit as he wonders whether to try to break up the fight or if he should just join in.
Then he thinks that maybe… he understands a bit more what it is that you're not saying to him.
"Better luck next time, Bart." It's your voice in his ear, then, that jerks him back, and he doesn't have time to appreciate the way that you've leaned up on your toes and wrapped your hand around his bicep to whisper in his ear. He doesn't have time to catch you or trap you again before you're slipping away into the fray, disappearing into some sweaty, dark corner of a party gone stale.
One of the Gryffindors stumbles out of the fight, his round glasses askew and his dark curls tousled, and Barty rolls up his sleeves and sighs.
Oh well, he thinks as he grabs the older boy by the collar of his shirt. Better luck next time .