{david tennant character oneshots}

Barty Crouch Jr. ~ Busted

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Up the desk the wand rolled...down the desk it rolled. Up it rolled...down it rolled...up it rolled....down it rolled...up it rolled...down it—

Carys smacked her hand down on Barty's wand, glaring at him. "Will you pay attention for once in your life?"

Barty stuck out his tongue. "I pay attention just fine."

"Not by messing around with your wand you don't!" she hissed. "Focus before Professor Slughorn notices and takes away more points. Rory will kill you if you cost Ravenclaw any more points after last week." Last week, Barty had lost Ravenclaw one hundred points in one go for "accidentally" making all of Professor Dumbledore's robes bright pink. Dumbledore had found it amusing; the students who had also gotten hit with the spell didn't. 

"Oh, fine," Barty grumbled, stuffing his wand into his pocket. "What are we supposed to do again?"

"Amortentia."

He gagged. "The love potion? He trusts us to make a love potion and not spike somebody's drink with it?"

Carys shrugged. "Apparently. I'm half-expecting Rory to dump a whole vial in Tina's pumpkin juice at dinner."

"Only half-expecting?"

"Nothing gets out of this room without Professor Slughorn wanting it to," Carys reminded him. 

Barty sighed. "Alright, alright, you've got a point." He flipped open his potion book. "What page is it?"

Carys grimaced and showed Barty the page. She hummed as they made the potion, each of them working on a different step: the current step and the upcoming one. It was a method they had employed since they'd first been partnered in Potions in first year, and it hadn't failed them yet. 

Barty scowled. "Oh, will you stop with your infernal humming?" 

She glared at him. "Then stop getting in the way!"

"I'm on the opposite side of the table!"

"You keep reaching over me!"

"You're hogging all the ingredients!"

"And you have the knives, fair is fair—"

"Oh, don't you get started on—"

"Crouch! Piett! Enough bickering," said Slughorn. Carys turned pink and went back to work, this time silent. 

They remained silent until they were nearly done with the amortentia. Barty leaned over the cauldron to glance at it. Carys did the same at the same time, and they managed to smack their heads together. They both yelped out an 'Ow!' and pulled back to glare at each other. Then Barty coughed.

"Merlin, Carys," he groaned. "You put the perfume on a lot this morning, didn't you?"

"What?! Bold of you to say, hypocrite, your cologne's about drowning me."

Barty sniffed. "Yeah, right, I didn't put any cologne on this morning, I ran out a week ago."

"And I didn't have time to put perfume on this morning, so you can shove it, you're just pissed off that you hit me in the head."

"You hit me!"

Then they realized the class had gone silent.

Rory, another Ravenclaw with them, was smirking. "Hang on, hang on, hang on. You mean to tell each other neither of you put on your signature scents this morning, yet both of you smell them, while making amortentia?"

"Yeah," said Barty and Carys together, then realized what he meant. They both turned rather red and turned to stare at each other, then looked away very quickly.

Carys' heart was pounding. Crap crap crap now he knows now he knows now he knows.

Barty was having a similar panic attack. Great, just great, the secret I've kept for five years and now she knows.

Rory, who had known they both liked each other for years, glanced slyly at Slughorn. "Professor, I'm pretty sure Barty and Carys have their potion worked out alright."

"Have they now?" asked Slughorn and he ambled over, peering into the cauldron. "Oh, yes, I believe they have!"

They turned a deeper shade of red.

"What do you smell?"

"Him," Carys squeaked, jerking her thumb at Barty. "Sage and spice and...um...it's what his cologne smells like."

Professor Slughorn blinked. "You—you smell Barty?"

Carys nodded mutely. Slughorn turned to Barty.

"Her," he said sheepishly, mimicking her movement. "Her perfume and her shampoo. Roses and sugar and an oceany sort of smell."

"That's my shampoo," she whispered. 

"Oh. Um. I like it."

"I can tell."

Barty blushed.

Slughorn glanced back down at the potion. "Well," he said eventually, "considering that your potion is made perfectly, I'll leave you two to sort out what that means..." He continued off. "Anyone else have any luck?"

Barty and Carys both sat down slowly. And stared at each other.

Barty cleared his throat first. "Sooo...how long have you, uh, liked—"

"Four years."

"Oh."

"You?"

"Five."

"Oh."

"So we could have just..."

"Got together a long time ago and saved the embarrassment of finding out in front of the whole class? Yeah."

Barty gulped. "Oh."

"Yeah." Carys sighed. "Are we gonna...forget this happened?"

Barty groaned. "I doubt Rory would let us. And, um...I'm not sure I want to. Would you mind if I...?"

His hand reached over, just a finger at first, and when she let him touch her hand, it was followed by the rest of his hand. She squeezed it tightly. 

"We good?" Barty asked.

She glanced down at their hands. "I am now."

They walked out of class holding hands, both thinking it was simultaneously the longest and shortest time anyone had ever taken to start dating and thinking themselves fools for not having done this sooner.