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northlt · 2 months

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Once again trying to spread my Rosekiller RWRB agenda...

Bartemius Crouch Sr as the head of Department of Magical Law Enforcement, a household name, respected and feared by everyone. Everyone except his rebellious son.

Barty Crouch Jr, known for getting around and hating his father in general. Barty Crouch who grew up close with Regulus to the point they're both insanely inseparable. He's charming, he's carefree, he tries to actively make things harder for his father, the whole shebang.

In comes Evan Rosier, son of one of the wealthiest pureblood families other than the Blacks. His father is trying to get the position for Minister for Magic. Evan is as Prince Henry is in the book. Kind of lonely, kind of keeps to himself.

For reasons beyond his understanding, Barty hates him, absolutely loathes him. It's completely a one sided feud though and it all bubbles up at Narcissa and Lucius' wedding when they go sprawling in an insanely expensive cake. (For the sake of the story, lets assume the Malfoys are closely related to the Rosiers)

Cue Bartemius Crouch Sr and Rosier Sr demanding they pretend to be best friends for pr purposes.

They get pictures taken for the Daily Prophet, they have to go to St Mungos together and talk to little kids, where there's a threat so they get shoved into a broom closet and Barty reveals the real reason he never liked Evan was because of something stupid that happened in Hogwarts that made him instantly dislike him.

They kind of unpack everything, start talking a lot more. Evan has this really stupid dad joke type of humor that would be completely unfunny if it was anyone else, but Barty fucking cracks up every time.

They start sitting next to each other whenever they have to be present in the Ministry. Evan has to constantly try to keep Barty under control and entertains him with insane gossip and Barty just blurts out any impulsive thoughts he has like, "hey I should just push over a shelf in the hall of prophecies and watch all the balls fall, I think that would be fun" And Evan has to constantly deal with his ass.

Anyway, they become friends, sort of. Barty likes him because no one really looks at him the way Evan does, like there's something interesting about him. No one ever looks or tries to look at the person he is and not just his body. Hell, even his own father avoids looking at him if he can.

Evan is distant sometimes though, like he's dealing with more than he could possibly divulge. And Barty's great at distracting him, great at making him laugh, making him feel like they're the only ones in a room.

Barty always throws the best parties other than the Gryffindor graduates. For the New Years Party, he manages to convince Regulus to show up as well cause he wanted to reunite the whole Slytherin group.

Evan, surprisingly, shows up, even though he had told Barty he wasn't sure if he'd be able to make it.

The party is like a ritual for Barty. He gets wasted, he kisses a girl or usually more than one (that pisses off his dad so fucking much and maybe that's the reason he keeps doing it) then he wakes up the next day hungover. It's fun for him.

It's fun when he tries to drag Evan onto the dancefloor and tries to make him laugh with bad dance moves. It's fun when Evan keeps staring at him and only him. It's fun when he slips his hands onto Evan's waist trying to get him to loosen up, try to forget the pureblood upbringing. It's fun when they're super close and Evan keeps staring at him through his eyelashes like that.

It's fun when the countdown begins and Barty tries to look for a girl to kiss. It's fun when some pretty girl slips into his arms and they chant the numbers and lock lips.

It's not fun anymore when he looks up to see Evan absolutely devastated. It's not fun anymore when he sees Evan look like he's going to throw up. It's not fun anymore when he sees Evan slip out to get fresh air.

So he follows him because that's the rational thing to do. And he finds him under a tree.

It's kind of hard to look away from Evan ever since he started looking at him. It's kind of hard to give a shit about anything else when Evan is in front of him.

Barty knows he'll never know what it's like to grow up in a pureblood family, not in the way Regulus and Evan do. So when Evan starts blabbing about what he can and can't do, its all he can do to nod along.

He tries to be supportive, he really does. But its clear he's way too drunk for it.

So when Evan calls him stupid (that's kind of become his nickname) and kisses him before pushing him away and immediately bolting, Barty's mind kind of stops working.

Evan doesn't call, doesn't send letters anymore. He's laser focused on helping his father's campaign or something equally stupid that does not work as an excuse.

Barty's thought of guys like that before, but he never thought of Evan being into guys. He's not homophobic, but he's not gay either. He's been around Regulus enough to know the terms.

He ends up confiding in Regulus about everything that happened and takes his advice.

The next time they meet, it's at the ministry.

Evan looks positively ravishing. Barty almost leaps across the room to drag him away. He knows Evan won't come willingly. He bribes and lies but he gets his way.

And it's just the two of them alone in a room again.

This time, Barty isn't stunned or hesitant. This time he kisses the way he wished he'd kissed back when Evan kissed him.

And well, it may not be a very easy road, but they make it eventually.

#marauders #rosekiller #barty crouch junior #evan rosier #rwrb alex #rwrb movie #rwrb #red white and royal blue #regulus black #hogwarts #dead gay wizards #the marauders

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agostobuwan · 3 months

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forged by fire and crafted with care

firstprince | Henry holds the high expectations of the Crown on his shoulders, and it crushes him to the point of self-doubt and self-sabotage. That is, until he finally chooses a life for himself and chooses to live truthfully. He refuses to hide among the shadows no longer. He is Henry Fox, and no one will take that away from him.

OR The story of Henry's bravery and journey towards happiness as told through different pieces of jewelry.

5.5k words, rwrb-compliant, henry-centric, based on this beautiful piece of artwork by @artofobsession

Also read on AO3

Bea makes him a bracelet of beads and thread when he is six years old. It’s pink and sparkly and fits loosely on his small wrist when she puts it on for him. He can spell his name out just fine—he tells his Papa he’s a big boy almost everyday—so he can see that his sister added beads to spell out his name.

H-E-N-R-Y.

He traces his fingers over the letters and the sparkly pink beads around his wrist. It’s very pretty.

“What’s this for?”

“It’s a friendship bracelet, Henry. All my friends at school were making one, so I thought I could make one for you, too.”

“But you’re my sister.”

“Sisters can be your friend, too, silly.”

“Oh. Well. But I don’t want you to be my friend. I want you to be my best friend, Bea.”

His sister laughs, and it’s the best thing he’s ever heard—well, second best, next to his Papa’s voices when he tells him his bedtime stories.

“Okay, okay, fine! I’ll be your best friend, Hen. As long as you’re mine.”

That night, when he is all tucked in under the covers and in his warm pajamas, he traces the black, blocky letters of his name and smiles, big, unrestrained, and most importantly, happy. He doesn’t have to wonder what his grandmother truly thinks about boys who play with their sister’s dolls and wear pink, sparkly bracelets. That will happen another day.

For now, as he falls asleep with Bea’s friendship bracelet secured around his tiny wrist, he doesn’t have to worry about the entire world’s burdens bearing down on his shoulders just yet.

****

His grandmother gifts him a watch that sits heavy on his wrist. It is a present fit for a man—fit for a king (even though he is only the spare)—and at thirteen years of age, he is already expected to act like one. She tells him that the watch will build character. That it will finally make him focus on playing the part of the dutiful Prince of England.

“A prince’s wardrobe will not be complete without a solid timepiece,” she tells Henry as she passes the box to him on the evening of his thirteenth birthday, and her voice has yet to adopt the tinge of disappointment that always seemed to be reserved for her two youngest grandchildren. That will come at a later time.

While the craftsmanship is objectively beautiful, the watch is rather bulky, interlaced silver brackets for the wristband with a deep blue face, gold accented numbers, and sturdy hands fixed meticulously to its center. It is the kind of accessory a boy his age is expected to wear. If it is quiet enough, he can hear the solid ticks and tocks of the watch’s inner machinations, a foreboding countdown to something further down the line.

But the line doesn’t seem far enough, and he is sent to Eton that following fall. He is terrified.

He is a sensitive soul, or that is what he overhears his family, but mostly his grandmother, says about him. He doesn’t know what it means, but he guesses it has something to do with why he’s so poor at making friends, even if he is a prince. During the first few months at school, he struggles to open up to the other boys in his year, choosing instead to hide away in the library or in his dormitory and bury his nose in a book when he isn’t in his classes.

The extra-curriculars he is expected to accomplish break open his shell, but only just. It isn’t until Percy Okonjo forcibly inserts himself into his life that he starts to feel the armor around his heart begin to crack.

****

Pez is a whirlwind, a summer storm, a rogue wave violently crashing into a wall of stone. He barrels into his life and never leaves, taking him by the hand and showing him a new world beyond the palace walls. He chips away at his armored heart with relative ease, and Henry has no idea how he is able to let his sensitive soul be placated by this boy of ultimate exuberance. He is gregarious where he is not. He is the extrovert that somehow has given one look at Henry and decided to keep an introvert like him forever.

And somewhere along the line, he decides he wants to keep him, too.

Their later years at Eton are spent hopping between dormitories, with the other uppercrust boys in their year and above, who are one day going to run England to the ground. They sneak in liquor from their father’s cabinets, the head boys pointedly looking the other way so they can join in on the merriment. They do ridiculous, stupid things, and drink themselves even stupider.

For the first time in a while, he feels free.

Henry is absolutely sloshed from stolen vodka and sambuca shots when Pez suggests he stick a needle through his earlobes. At least he has the wits about him to ask him why.

“Because! It’s what the cool kids do, Hazza.”

“You are fucking mental. That’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard.”

“Just live a little, darling! Look, I’ve done this before, so you just need to hold still, sit pretty, and let Auntie Pezza do all the work. And besides, don’t you just want to absolutely piss off your old Gran?”

He opens his mouth to protest, but the rebellious part of him takes over, and he decides that yes, he does want to piss off the Queen of England . He doesn’t need much convincing, piss drunk and all, and against his better judgment, he takes another huge swig from the vodka bottle right before Pez pushes the needle into the fleshy part of his ear. He chases down another mouthful when Pez has to the other one, and all he’s thinking about is how horrified his Gran will be if she sees the right state he’s in now.

The alcohol does enough to mask the stinging pain, and everything becomes a right blur after that. When he wakes up hours later, head pounding and mouth dry as sandpaper, his ears are throbbing, the skin pink and angry, and there is a silver stud in each of his earlobes.

“Oh, bloody hell.”

****

His father leaves and the only thing left of him is his memories and the signet ring on his little finger, the one he had presented to him when he’d just turned eighteen. He presses his thumb hard against the ‘H’ engraved into the face of it, feeling the grooves etched into the metal and thinking about his father all the while. He can almost feel his warmth embedded in the metal, but he knows it is only his grief blinding him with wishful thinking and a vibrant imagination.

He twists the ring round and round, mimicking the downward spiral he feels himself succumbing to as he watches his father’s coffin being lowered into the ground.

Then, he loses a mother, a brother, and a sister not long after. Mama loses her heart. Pip loses his love. Bea loses herself. And he is all alone with nothing but the memories of his loving father to remind him of what he has lost.

The world is heavy on his shoulders, and he doesn’t know what else to do.

****

It’s his birthday, and he feels a little less like the world’s closing in on itself now that his psychiatrist has re-adjusted his medication. He still doesn’t sleep all that well at night, but it is still a start.

He doesn’t hear from his mother, but he does receive a message via Shaan to “buy himself something special” along with an envelope full of banknotes. He understands why she travels so much, but one can only do so much to distract themselves from the pain of losing a loved one. He tried. Bea tried. Even Philip tried. It’s been years, and his mother is not the same person he used to know.

He asks Bea to accompany him for lunch, their PPOs trailing a few paces behind them. He hopes he can use his birthday to establish some kind of normalcy since it is just the two of them. Twenty-two, after all, is just a number. There isn’t anything significant about the age. No extravagant milestones attached to its connotation. But still, there are only two things worth noting on the day he turns twenty-two years old: Bea is sober, and he is gay.

After lunch, Bea takes him shopping to make use of the money their mother sent to him to spend, but nothing catches his eye. That is, until they’re in an antique shop, and he sees a pearl necklace sitting in the display case.

The string of pearls is delicate, reminiscent of the friendship bracelet Bea made him all those years ago. It looks as if it is glowing, like tiny moons held together by a gossamer of stars, and he wonders, wistfully, how it would feel on his skin.

“Oh, Hen. It’s so beautiful. I think you should get it.”

Bea is the only one who knows who he truly is. She is the first one he tells, after all. She hadn’t judged him then, and she still doesn’t judge him now. In fact, she openly encourages him to explore the part of himself that he keeps hidden away because of the watchful eye of the Crown.

“I- I don’t know. It’s just- It isn’t fitting for a prince, is it.”

Even he can hear how defeated he sounds in his own ears. An echo of his grandmother’s biting tongue, tutting at his behavior like an ever-present devil. A prince like him would have never been allowed to wear, let alone have, a piece of jewelry so…feminine, so insinuating of a life he isn’t meant to lead, a life his own grandmother would never approve of. Heavy is the Crown he wears, and it is suffocating.

He leaves the shop empty-handed and heavy-hearted.

Days later, he finds a box addressed to him sitting on his bed. He lifts the lid and what rests inside it knocks the air right out of his chest.

“I know it’s a few days late, but…do you like it?”

“Bea…you didn’t have to.”

“I know I didn’t. I wanted to. You’re my best friend, Hen. I like seeing you happy.”

He looks down at the pearl necklace, delicate in his hands, and his gaze becomes blurry with tears.

“Can you…can you help me put it on?”

“Of course, Hen.”

They stand in front of the mirror as she helps him close the clasp around his neck, the pearls sitting perfectly, gently, against his collarbone, and the boy staring back at him looks inexplicably…happy.

****

The constant appearances and camera-ready smiles have slowly begun to whittle him down to a shell of himself. The engagements have only seemed to ramp up since his father’s death marked the beginning of the Fox family’s detriment. The Crown has a reputation to uphold, and so under the orders from the Queen herself, Henry is carted off around the world, as the family’s sole representative, to make sure everyone sees how normal and happy the royal family is, when truly, they are anything but.

But it all becomes too much eventually, and he sneaks off needing a moment alone, a moment to be Henry Fox and not Prince Henry of England. To breathe and not have the heavy weight of the Crown looming over him.

He buys the earrings on a whim. He tells the jeweler they are a gift for his mother as he watches her pack them into a small velvet box. She gushes to him about the pearls, telling him how they’re ethically farmed from their supplier in Japan. She explains how the cooler waters in which they’re farmed cause the pearls to grow more slowly, making them more compact and giving them more luster than the average pearl.

He simply smiles and nods, half-listening. He glances over his shoulder and sees the lone PPO he wrangled onto this impromptu journey and his equerry still stationed at the door.

He takes the bag, cream and discreet, and turns to leave immediately.

“Finished, Your Royal Highness?”

He wordlessly nods at Shaan and disappears out the door and into the black car waiting for him at the curb. When they arrive back at Kensington Palace, he goes to his room, feigning exhaustion as an excuse. Shaan fortunately leaves him be, letting him know that he does not have any more engagements for the rest of the day.

Henry sits on the edge of the bed, pulls out the small felt box containing the earrings and sets it down. He then reaches into his bedside table and pulls out the box that holds the necklace Bea had gotten for him on his twenty-second birthday and places it down next to the earrings.

He releases an unsteady breath and waits a beat, before getting up to check that the door is locked. He knows no one will bother him at this time of day—Shaan will make sure of it—but he still goes to check anyway. He takes both boxes to the dresser, the mirror sitting right above it. He takes the necklace out first and caresses the pearls with his fingertips. He doesn’t have Bea’s help this time, so it takes some moments of fumbling before he manages to clasp it around his neck. He runs his fingers along the smooth surface of the pearls once it’s secured, cool against his skin, and lets out another breath.

Then, he opens the second, smaller box. The hinges are smooth as he lifts the lid and reveals the pearl earrings sitting prettily on a bed of felt. He lifts one to examine it. The silver hoop is cool between his fingertips, and a droplet of pearl hangs from it with a chain of delicate filigree.

He takes extra care to put them on. The left ear goes on first, and then, the right. They slip right through the holes that have miraculously not closed up after years of not wearing any earrings.

He stares at himself in the mirror for a long moment and watches as his eyes turn bright with tears. They spark with a newfound confidence that had laid dormant for years, beaten out of him by his grandmother’s incessant rules and expectations. But he sees now, as he stands there adorned in pearlescent jewelry, that she was not successful.

This is Henry Fox. Not the Prince. Not the grandson of Queen Mary. And absolutely no one is allowed to take this away from him.

Continue on AO3

#firstprince #firstprince fic #rwrb #rwrb fic #red white royal blue #henry fox mountchristen windsor #alex claremont diaz #henry is a pretty pretty princess #my fic

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