You Only Live Once

CHAPTER 32

"What do you mean you broke up!?"

"Technically we didn't break up. We just had a huge argument and let's just say we're not on speaking terms at the moment."

Mira and Barty had struggled to find a single hour to see one another during the winter holidays. The weeks had slipped away in a blur of cold mornings and stiff family dinners, and now, with only three days left before they were due back at Hogwarts, the tension was thick enough to choke on. They had a mountain of things to say.

The conversation started with the usual gossip. They talked about her and Theo, and how the social climate in Slytherin had shifted since the term ended. None of Theo's old friends were talking to him; the silence in the common room must have been deafening. According to Barty, the only person Theo had for company was Christina, with the occasional, unwelcome addition of the Carrow twins and Mulciber. It was a bleak picture, but predictable. In the world they lived in, loyalty was a fickle thing, often sacrificed for the sake of power or pure blood politics.

What Mira didn't expect to hear, however, was the news of the massive blowout between Barty and Evan just before New Year's Eve.

"What happened, Bart?" Mira asked. She stopped walking, her boots crunching on the frost-covered grass. She reached out and took hold of her friend's hand, feeling the chill of his skin. "We're in the middle of nowhere. No one will hear you."

She gave him a reassuring smile, noticing the way his eyes darted around the landscape. He looked haunted, his usual sharp wit replaced by a heavy, brooding hesitation. They had started their walk down in a small Muggle village about fifteen minutes away from Potter Manor. It had been quiet enough there, but Barty had been insistent. He wanted total privacy to discuss the events of the last two weeks. He had led her up a steep, winding hill, far away from the smoke of chimneys and the sounds of distant carts, until they were standing in a desolate stretch of land where the wind whistled through the dead trees.

"He didn't want me to get the Dark Mark." Barty finally spat the words out, his voice cracking with a mixture of anger and hurt. "He told me it was too dangerous. He told me I should stay out of it, keep my hands clean. Honestly, I don't understand where all this sudden morality came from. He has it. Almost everyone we know has it. It's expected. It's what we've been preparing for."

Barty began to pace, his hand slipping from hers as he grew more animated. "I tried to explain to him that he can't control my decisions. I'm my own person, Mira. My father already tries to run my life; I won't have my boyfriend  doing it too."

"Barty..." Mira interrupted his rant. She felt a cold pit form in her stomach. Her eyes were wide, searching his face for any sign that he was joking. "Did you do it?"

There was a sharp edge of urgency in her voice that made Barty stop in his tracks. He looked genuinely confused. To him, this was the natural progression of things. Half of their social circle were already Death Eaters, or at least proud supporters. He couldn't comprehend why Mira, a girl who spent every day in the heart of Slytherin house, was looking at him like he had just admitted to a murder.

"Why do you sound so scared, Mira?" he asked, his eyebrows furrowing.

Mira couldn't find the words. She felt like the air had been sucked out of her lungs. She just kept shaking her head, her gaze dropping to his right arm. The silence stretched between them, heavy and suffocating.

"Yes." Barty finally answered. His voice was defiant. He reached over and grabbed the edge of his sleeve, sliding the thick fabric up his forearm.

Mira gasped. There it was. The ink was dark and fresh, the image of the snake slithering through the skull looking vivid and cruel against his pale skin. She had seen the mark before, but never like this. Even among their peers—Theo, Evan, Regulus—the mark was treated with a sort of grim secrecy. They kept it hidden, a heavy weight tucked away under layers of robes. But Barty displayed it with a terrifying casualness, as if it were nothing more than a school prize.