#It shouldn't be hard to share it though once I've given the general vibe of the story to you

[katakosmos]

The Rosier twins in the First Wizarding War

This is the first part of a story I will never finish, but that I couldn't abandon in my docs, not when it's probably the best version of the Rosier twins i have ever created.

In a universe where Voldemort is winning the First Wizarding War, Evan realizes that he has lost everything. He doesn't have friends, love, he doesn't even remember how happiness feels like anymore. He only has his sister, in France: if he can still call her that, since he hasn't heard from Pandora in years.

Evan only learned of his parents' disappearance a year after it happened.

He hadn't seen them for a long time. In fact, he hadn't even heard from any of his relatives in years. He probably would have never known if he hadn't attacked the Ministry on October 20th.

Among shards of glass and plaster, in a cloud of dust, Evan wandered boredly through the deserted and destroyed rooms. In the distance, he could hear more explosions and see a succession of green beams of light, as wizards tried to escape and save themselves, in vain. There were bodies around him, too: two women who had been hit in the head by bricks from the wall that the Death Eaters had blown up to make a way through.

Bellatrix had emptied every single drawer and cupboard as she passed, spilling mountains of paper onto the floor. If it hadn't been for a curse that flew over his shoulder and illuminated the ground, Evan would never have noticed the photograph he was about to step on.

It was burned and dusty, so ruined that the figures didn’t even move anymore. Evan lifted it slowly, as the world exploded around him, and he blew the dirt off his mother’s face. She still had her black hair in a bob, and she was wearing an explorer’s hat as she smiled at the camera; his father had an arm around her waist. Behind them, there was a thick forest. In the middle of the picture, in red ink, someone had stamped the word MISSING.

Evan didn’t exactly have good memories of his parents, but when at that moment he realized that he would never see them again, he still felt a terrible pang in his chest.

Alexandre and Beatrice Rosier were a very special couple. On the surface, they seemed stern and scary, but they had the spirit of two children. They loved to laugh, joke, play; when they were home, at Rosier manor the sun never set. They were curious adventurers, always moving, travelling. They returned home with strange potions and ancient amulets, collected during their absurd expeditions.

Thinking about it, there was no other way they could have died: their curiosity had swallowed them whole.

Evan placed the photograph on the nearest surface, and he tried to fix it and bring it back to life. It moved only for an instant, when his mother turned her head to look at his father; her hat rose, blowing in the wind, and Alexandre caught it just in time. Evan could hear their happy voices, their laughter and their shouts.

Missing. There weren't even their bodies left to mourn.

Behind him, the screams were growing louder. Before he could think better of it, he stuffed the photograph into a pocket of his crumpled, dirty jacket: he couldn’t leave it there.

“Evan–” someone called, as a louder, amplified voice murmured “Morsmordre” and somebody threw the Mark into the sky. The skull and snake took shape in the clouds, followed by cries of despair and defeat.

Evan raised his head. That was the signal.

Holding his breath, he apparated.

Part one: nostalgia

Even though he claimed to believe in the cause, Evan had joined the Death Eaters for two reasons: to escape his family and to be by Regulus’s side. But he had died too, leaving him alone and without a place to live.

That’s when Barty became part of his life.

They shared a small flat in Muggle London. A squalid place, really, with four rooms in all, mold on the walls, and the water always cold. But Evan didn’t need anything more.

Barty had offered him a place to stay when Evan had lost everything in one night. He wasn’t exactly a nice guy, but he was at least generous. He reminded Evan of a fox: cunning, mean, and deceitful. He couldn’t believe half the things Barty said, because he lied so naturally. He faked smiles, faked kindness, he even faked moans as they fucked. But as long as he thought Evan was worthy of sharing his bed, Evan would take him for what he was: a criminal, a madman, an obsessed maniac; but also frank, sweet, sensual and lethal.

He didn’t know what they were, maybe partners. Barty had a beautiful smile and big blue eyes, and hands that could do wonders. For some reason he didn’t know, he found Evan attractive and likeable—but maybe even that was an act—despite his laziness, softness, and sullenness.

But deep down, Evan hated him a little, even if he was grateful. Because Barty knew him: he had gotten under his shields, under his skin, inside him. Barty could see him. In fact, he noticed that he was thoughtful, as he lay beside him under the covers.

“What are you thinking about?” he asked, drawing spirals on Evan’s back. His skin tingled with every touch.

It was a dark, silent night. Barty still smelled of smoke and rubble, and he hadn’t been able to get the adrenaline off him. He liked to attack, kill, blow things up; Evan didn't anymore, not like he used to. That was why Barty was one of the closest Death Eaters to the Dark Lord. He was loyal.

“My parents are dead.”

Barty watched him carefully for a couple of minutes, searching his face. He looked tiny under the covers up to his chin, but he was actually very tall.

He ran his tongue quickly over his lips. He had a little tic.

“I can sense that this is bad news for you, and that’s pathetic. But anyway, what are you thinking about?”

There was no escape with him. Evan hated the way Barty undid him; it humiliated him. And yet, he always came back to him.

He exhaled. “My sister.”

He hadn’t been able to stop thinking about her since he’d found the photograph of their parents.

“What’s her name?”

Evan rolled over onto his back. There was no point in hiding the truth from him; and besides, he was a man of few words.

“Pandora.”

Pandora wasn’t just his sister, she was his twin. He had once believed that, for this very reason, they would never be separated. Instead, Evan hadn’t heard from her for years.

He had left her at the manor, in France; he had never even written her a letter. When Evan decided to leave, she had cried. He remembers her standing in front of the door, wrapped in her long blond hair, while big tears were running down her cheeks. She was elegant even when she cried: like a marble statue, sculpted with perfect proportions, wet from the rain.

Like everything that was linked to France, Evan had locked the memory of her in a bottle. And yet, it had been inevitable for him to think about her at that moment.

Pandora, of the two, was the one most similar to their parents. She also loved to explore, discover, experiment. But if Evan had lost his mom and dad only a few hours ago, Pandora had lost them for whole year.

He had no contact with her anymore, but he was still her brother: he was worried. Those feelings, those sensations, were exactly the reason why he had left France.

“Mhm” Barty said, tangling his legs with Evan’s under the covers, seeking warmth.

Evan turned to him, sinking into the pillow. Even in the dim light, Barty was breathtakingly beautiful.

“What’s wrong?” he asked.

He leaned in closer. “You should go to her, if that’s what’s bothering you. Your sister, I mean. If I were you, I would.”

Evan was surprised by that. “Really?”

“What, you don’t believe me? I may not be a good son, but I’d be a good brother. Or at least I’d try.”

He yawned, wrapping his arms around Evan and pressing his face into his bare chest. He bit the skin lightly, and then licked it.

“Now turn off the light, though: it’s late,” he said, looking up with his big innocent eyes, “Let’s go to sleep.”

Evan ran a hand through his hair.

Barty slipped away again just as Evan reached for his bedside lamp.

He turned off the light, and darkness fell.

The days Evan had spent among the Death Eaters had been the most glorious of his life. At first.

As a boy, he had always found comfort in violence. He liked to hurt, to kill, to terrorize: to instill fear meant to be in control, and therefore to be free. But he couldn’t feel any of that anymore.

Something was missing; Evan had lost himself. He could no longer put on his mask with pride, to cast curses that painted the sky red and green. He had started to cover the mark on his forearm.

It wasn't shame, just tiredness. Sadness. He felt a little lonely.

Everything had started to fall apart when he lost Regulus. Regulus had been his center.

He was reserved and quiet, weak and sickly; he always went to meetings and almost never on missions, and for that not many among the Death Eaters appreciated him. But Evan adored him like few people in the world. Like a brother.

He admired him: he was witty and bubbly, and he could always warm his heart. He made him laugh; he had taught him English. Only Regulus had been kind to him.

Now, no one was kind to Evan anymore.

When he came home from a mission, no one ran to the entrance to ask how it went: Barty wanted Evan to come to him. No one smiled at him with affection, no one hugged him.

Evan had forgotten what it meant to be human. He was a machine that obeyed orders. He killed, tortured, hurt, but in the faces of his victims he no longer sought terror, only pity. He wanted to be pitied.

He had wanted blood, but he had always run to Regulus for love. Regulus had been the only one in those years to turn to him with anything close to mercy in his eyes.

Only one other person in his life had done that.

That's why Evan needed to go back to France.

Surely it was selfish to want to see his sister again just because he missed someone who loved him. Evan should have gone to France to give Pandora all the love he had, not to take it. But one morning he woke up with a splitting headache. No potion Barty kept in the kitchen had eased the pain, and Evan found himself thinking: Mum would have know what to do.

It was embarrassing to admit that he missed his family. So he just said that England—with its clouds and rain—had bored him, and that he missed France. But he knew the truth.

There was only one problem: Evan couldn’t leave. He couldn’t abandon the war.

The Dark Lord, terrifying and majestic, had been adamant.

No.

Evan had to stay. He had to fight.

Put on his mask, take up his wand, cast curses, go home and crawl to the bed where Barty was waiting for him. Hurt, torture, kill. The course of his life couldn’t be stopped because of a simple loss.

War, war, war. That was all Evan heard about. The war, which he had fought with honor, was eating him from the inside. It was that war that had taken away his friends, his family, his love. That endless, aimless war, which razed cities to the ground and killed entire populations; a war of all against all, where only the innocents suffered.

That war, that was supposed to protect, redeem, free him, did nothing but keep him prisoner in a foreign country, not allowing him to mourn his parents; it stained his hands with blood, stripped him of his humanity. Evan should not have been a victim, and yet that war had taken everything from him.

It's not certain when the anger, mixed with sadness and self-loathing, becoming one with the pain, but Evan was soon submerged by remorse and nostalgia.

With every breath, he found himself longing for France. Its beautiful sunny landscapes, its clear and limpid skies, its crystalline waters. He missed the language, which he had so diligently forced himself to forget, and his accent, now lost.

It's also not certain when this feeling became so uncontrollable that Evan, just to never feel it again, decided to betray the Death Eaters and the Dark Lord.

The night he deserted and left, he woke Barty as he was gathering his things. He was wandering around in the dark like a thief in his own house, quickly rummaging through drawers and throwing everything into a bag.

Barty walked up to him, silently. His lips tightened in obvious contempt, but he didn’t stop him or scold him.

He just asked: “Are you leaving?”

And when Evan nodded, he warned him.

He was wrapped in a blanket, and he was holding it tight around his neck like a cloak. There was a strong wind that night, and it was getting in every draft, freezing the room.

Barty looked him straight in the eyes. “They’ll kill you.”

Evan let out a smile.

He knew it.

But even in this war, sooner or later, he would die. And he couldn’t leave without seeing his sister one last time.