Rotty

Timmy wondered if this pizza place was somewhere they were likely to get murdered on Knockturn, though these days getting murdered just about anywhere seemed like a possibility. Not a thought he wanted to focus on at the moment, especially not with a gang member hanging out in his kitchen. Maybe all the food would slow him down if he decided to violently rob Timmy after all. But hopefully Bertie’s assessment would hold true. The bloke sure didn’t seem like he meant any harm here, even if he was wiping out their supply of leftovers. “Of course,” he answered, surprised at Rotty’s skepticism about cream and sugar in coffee. “It’s way better than drinking it black.” Timmy didn’t know who Nina was but she sounded like she had the right idea on coffee. Timmy should have known better than to offer the sugar; there was something else he’d have to refill. It was another surprise when Rotty sat down across from him. Timmy had expected him to leave once he was done eating, or at least go back to Bertie’s room. But apparently he was going to sit here and talk to Timmy. Okay. This was good, probably. Someone else in their house out to know the bloke Bertie was so into, aside from Benjy’s brief encounters with the bloke in Knockturn. It was a surprise to hear the houses compared to gangs, though maybe this bloke had a point about them all sticking mostly to their own. “Er – yeah, sort of? I mean, we all lived in Ravenclaw Tower and shared a common room. And we ate together in the Great Hall. And we had most of our classes together until sixth year. But there were also some clubs that had people from every house, and a lot of people had mates outside their houses. Drew’s best mate was a Slytherin.” Best mate didn’t quite describe that one anymore, but it had seemed like the case in school whether or not it actually had been. Timmy regarded Rotty for a moment the decided not to worry about asking a potentially rude question since this bloke didn’t seem to have many inhibitions or manners for that matter. Timmy wasn’t really sure what sorts fo things gang members were allowed to talk about, other than the one Benjy and his other mates were in that they weren’t allowed to talk about at all, really. “Are you allowed to talk to people in other gangs?” He asked, pure curiosity; how often did you have coffee with a gang member? “How’s that work?” 

Timmy tried not to stare as Rotty not only inhaled their food but also started shoving it into his pockets like their fridge was his own personal takeout place. He hadn’t really expected Rotty to wipe out all their leftovers when he offered, but apparently that was what was happening and Timmy didn’t have it in him to tell the bloke to quit it. Bertie probably wouldn’t want him to, though Drew wasn’t going to be happy about all their food being gone. Timmy wasn’t really happy about it either. He’d have to go out and get some replacement takeout for dinner after Rotty left. At least the other bloke was finally using silverware. Timmy resisted the urge to point out the napkins that were nearby on the counter. “Uh. Right, we’ll have to give it a try,” he said when Rotty started giving him food recommendations, uncertain if they were friendly suggestions or special requests if Rotty was planning to come raid their fridge again. Or maybe Timmy should suggest Bertie take Rotty there. Timmy sipped his coffee as Rotty searched their kitchen because apparently all of their leftovers weren’t enough, biting back a slight smirk when the other bloke chose the WWN mug that was obviously Bertie’s, if not just from the logo, also from the fact that the top of it was singed and misshapen from Bertie’s attempt at adding a permanent warming charm and his subsequent attempts tof repair the damage. “Erm. I’m not sure. Bertie keeps taking all the biscuits but there’s cream and sugar you can put in the coffee, Benjy always says that’s like dessert.” Timmy smiled at that, though he added, “I think he’s wrong about that one, but might be the best we’ve got right now.” 

He should be? Well that was rude. Now Timmy sort of regretted apologizing at all, since he really did think his assumption hadn’t been off base and he’d tried to be nice about it. But he knew better than to say anything more on that subject to a bloke who didn’t think assaulting and robbing people was mean. And that Bertie fancied for some reason. He seemed nice enough, Timmy supposed, if not a bit – or a lot – rough around the edges. 

Speaking of. “Sure,” was all Timmy had time to say before the bloke was back on his feet headed toward the kitchen. Timmy hesitated a moment before deciding he should probably follow, if only to make sure the bloke didn’t decide to rob them of something other than food. Assuming he hadn’t already done that. He stopped at the kitchen, watching in a mix of surprise and mild horror as the bloke emptied their fridge of leftovers and helped himself without any silverware. Which wasn’t all that strange when he was eating the chicken, but something else entirely when he started shoveling noodles into his mouth. Good thing Bertie had gone for ice cream instead of italian food with this bloke. “Uh…no thanks,” he said at the offer of his own food, shutting the fridge lightly with a wave of his wand. Even if he had been hungry he doubted he’d have much of an appetite now. Thank Rowena Drew wasn’t here, at least. “But, erm, help yourself,” he added, as if Rotty hadn’t already done that. Clearly he needed the food, though. “Er – there’s silverware in that drawer,” he couldn’t help adding with a nod at the drawer in question. Feeling awkward just standing there, Timmy summoned the mug of coffee he’d left sitting on his desk in his hand Benjy’s room and sat down at the table.

Rotty nodded at Timmy’s answer to his offer, not at all upset to have all of it to himself. Once he swallowed down the noodles he paused eating long enough to give Timmy a smile, “Will do,”  he replied as if he wasn’t already helping himself plenty. He’d just started working on another piece of chicken when Timmy told him about the silverware. Rotty didn’t slow down just nodded. He ate like a bloke who hadn’t eaten in a week. While it had been a long time since he’d been that hungry, food was never a sure thing in Rotty’s life. Not that anything was ever really a sure thing. So a chance at some really choice leftovers was like a feast. Rotty shoved half the chicken in one of his pockets for later. One of the sodas went into another pocket. All the while he ate. When he came across some mashed potatoes he did open up the drawer and got out a spoon even if he was tempted to use some of the chicken to scoop it out. He wanted to save that for dinner. It was only after he’d made his way through a good chunk of the leftovers that he spoke again. “Should definitely buy more of that chicken it was choice,” he told Timmy. “Pizza was kind of shit though.  There’s a much better place, ‘Just Dough It.’ Dumb name but great pizza.” Hopefully Timmy would get them to start ordering from the good place so that next time he raided the fridge there would be better pizza. Rotty started poking around in the other drawers and cabinets, after all the bloke had said help yourself. “Got anything for dessert,” he asked as he stared at a bunch of mugs and wondered which might be Bertie’s. Rotty picked out the one he thought was and went to pour himself a cup of coffee.

“Right, sorry,” Timmy mumbled quickly, though he wasn’t so sure he agreed with the other bloke that being in a gang had nothing to do with being nice. This bloke hadn’t hurt him but he had broken into their flat and taken their food. Not that Timmy would have minded sharing with Bertie’s…whatever, but he could have just knocked and asked for some. He decided to keep those thoughts to himself, though, lest this bloke prove those thoughts correct should Timmy decide to voice them. The smile when he told the bloke probably a little too much about what Bertie said about him was sort of a surprise. Seemed Bertie really did still have a chance after all, which was good. Hopefully. Timmy still wasn’t so sure about this bloke, but he supposed he did trust Bertie’s judgment of people, even if he didn’t necessarily understand Bertie’s taste. It was sort of surprising to hear that Rotty also seemed not to know they’d gone out on a date. Timmy quirked an eyebrow but grinned and said, “Yeah, that’s what we told Bertie.” 

His small grin widened when Rotty guessed who he was, mostly because Rotty identified him as the one Benjy’s with, though it was also sort of amusing to think about how Bertie had probably described Drew to give Rotty that impression. “Yeah, that’s me. Uh. Nice to meet you.” Timmy mostly meant that, it was just that the situation was really weird and he’d have rather met the bloke because Bertie invited him to their flat and he’d come in through the front door. Or even through the window but with some advanced notice first.  “…You’re here for food?” He couldn’t help voicing his skepticism. Maybe he just thought they’d be easy targets with good food since he clearly had broken into Bertie’s old place plenty of times before. But the fact he was currently on Bertie’s bed suggested there was more to it than that. “Well uh, you can help yourself to anything else in the fridge,” he felt compelled to add, since Bertie clearly cared about the bloke and Timmy figured if he gave him permission it wasn’t stealing anymore. “Bertie won’t be back from work for a couple more hours.”

“Should be,” Rotty replied. It was really rude to just assume people weren’t nice just because they did a little thieving and light assault. You had to survive. But people like Bertie and his mates probably would never really understand that. Which just seemed a point in Kaz’s favor with his whole thing about how anything between him and Bertie couldn’t work. Rotty was a little too happy to put that out of his mind when he found out that Bertie was definitely into him. Sure it could be all some elaborate scheme but Bertie didn’t seem like that much of a schemer. And this bloke definitely didn’t look like one at all. He grinned at the fact that both he and Bertie knew that it was a date. Rotty wondered if that meant they were dating. Which might mean they were boyfriends. He hadn’t thought things out that far along but he didn’t think he minded if that was the case.

He smiled again when he got which one of the roomies this one was. This bloke was a toff, clearly so he could have been the Drew bloke but he wasn’t. Which made Rotty wonder just what the other bloke was like. “You too,” he replied back, feeling a little fancy with the whole nice to meet yous. Didn’t get that when he broke into places. Rotty nodded, prepared to defend himself against the skepticism he heard in Timmy’s voice. Not his fault Bertie’s bed was damn comfy. A bloke could want to eat in comfort. Nothing against that. Instead he was surprised by what else this Timmy had to say. “Yeah? That’s damn nice of ya.” Rotty wasted no time in springing up from the bed and stalking off to the kitchen. It probably would be better if he was gone before Bertie got back. Mostly because Rotty wasn’t sure what to do with all that yet. He’d never been in this situation before. Betrayal in the alley got you hurt, ostracized….or worse. There wasn’t a lot of room for forgiveness when you lived in Knockturn. But he’d also never heard of anyone sending recorded messages trying to get someone else to forgive them either. Not to mention he was a little mixed up about just what he was upset over, the fact that Kaz was probably right about Bertie or the other shit. Rotty wasn’t really used to feeling like….well like any of the ways Bertie had him feeling so he was having some trouble with it all.

Huh. So this was Rotty. And from the bloke’s response to hearing Timmy knew about him, something told Timmy that he and the other blokes had been right in reassuring Bertie he still had a shot with the bloke. Not to mention the fact he was here in the first place. Though a second later and he didn’t look quite so happy. “Er…” Timmy hesitated; he had absolutely no idea what he was supposed to say here. On the one hand, he didn’t want to betray Bertie’s trust by telling this bloke anything Bertie had said about him. Not that Bertie had said anything bad, but it still felt sort of weird to tell the bloke Bertie fancied what Bertie had told his mates about him. But on the other hand, this was Bertie’s first crush that Timmy was aware of, and Bertie was still not quite back to his usual self after that awful night. Timmy had a feeling a lot of that was also due to the fact Bertie had been abandoned in that collapsing building, but plenty of it also had to do with the bloke now sitting on his bed. It felt wrong not to try to help Bertie win him back now. Timmy could at least be honest. 

“Now he mostly says he misses you,” he said, feeling sort of awkward about it. “Uh – but he’s also said how you’re in a gang but you’re nice,” which Timmy really hoped was true given the current circumstances. “And, uh,” Bertie had said several times that Rotty was hot, but Timmy felt awkward about sharing that one. The last thing he wanted was this gang bloke thinking that Timmy shared that opinion with Bertie. Not that he thought Bertie had bad taste, he supposed. The bloke was clearly fit, though Drew really had a point about the clothes. Definitely not Timmy’s type. He was sort of surprised this bloke was Bertie’s type. Or maybe he wasn’t surprised; Bertie was an odd one. “That he really likes you,” Timmy said instead. “Which is actually how found out he’s into blokes. And how Bertie found out he’s into blokes, ‘cause Benjy had to explain to him that you two were flirting,” he added on, realizing a second too late that he’d definitely just crossed the line from helping Bertie to probably embarrassing him. Oops. 

Rotty already knew that. Or at least he knew that’s what Bertie said. It was easier to believe when he was hearing Bertie say it then when he heard some bloke he didn’t know say it. At least that wasn’t all this bloke had to say. “Oi! Plenty of us are nice, being in a gang’s got nothin’ to do with that,” he was a little offended on his mates’s accounts. Sure there were plenty that weren’t nice. Rotty liked Kaz well enough but he wouldn’t call the bloke nice by any stretch. But Jes was. Nina. The Wraith was damn scary but she was also nice. Just cause they did things like steal and hurt people didn’t mean they weren’t nice. He raised an eyebrow, waiting to hear what else Bertie had said about him. Rotty wasn’t ready for what came. The smile came on it’s own. Growing when this bloke said how he was how Bertie found out he was into blokes. And the confirmation that they were flirting was great too. “Ha! I knew it was a date,” he told Timmy. Because flirting and being into blokes that all pointed to the ice cream being a date. Rotty had been right.

Maybe he hadn’t been completely wrong about Bertie either. Though that part was still pretty confusing. “So which one are you? You don’t really look posh enough to be that Drew bloke. Which means you’re the one Benjy’s with, Timmy, yeah?” Probably wasn’t too surprising that he dated a bloke like Timmy. Kind of a down grade from Jes if you asked Rotty but Benjy was probably just having a whole go at a bad boy along with his hanging out in Knockturn for a few weeks. Good thing really that he wasn’t into Jes. Rotty couldn’t see the other bloke dating. He flirted with anything with a pulse, kind of like Nina. Though pulses didn’t seem to bother her if you went by the way she looked at food. “I was just here to get some food. Didn’t figure you blokes would want your leftovers. Chicken’s tasty,” he added a little wistfully because he would’t mind more. It wasn’t the whole truth but he had been interested in getting some food along with just looking at Bertie’s stuff. Rotty didn’t really know why he wanted to look at Bertie’s stuff other than it was easier than facing Bertie when he was still a little confused. “Didn’t think anyone was home. Didn’t meant to scare ya.”

Timmy’s heart was racing. He’d always figured if Death Eaters or people from the Ministry were going to come for him, one of his Death Eater-fighting friends would be around. That had been stupid. Maybe it had also been stupid not to have gang members on the list of people he needed to be worried about. What if this bloke had been hired by someone who had it out for the Minister and didn’t know that the Minister probably wouldn’t pay any sort of ransom to get Timmy back? What if this bloke was just some murderer who had no idea who Timmy was but was going to kill him anyways? He grabbed his chair from the desk and moved it in front of the door, pausing when he heard footsteps walking down the hall. Shit! The bloke was coming for him. Maybe he could climb out the window. Or – wait. Was the bloke not coming for him? Timmy hesitated, then pressed his ear to his door. He didn’t hear anything, but what if it was a trap? Or maybe the bloke was just a robber who ran when he realized Timmy saw him. That would make sense, and it was a lot less terrifying possibility than any of the others he’d dreamed up. Still Timmy waited a few minutes before he dared to push his door open. “Oh!” He startled at the sight of the same bloke right across the hall from him…eating chicken on Bertie’s bed? That was…not the sort of thing Timmy would expect from a robber or a kidnapper or a murderer. If it was a trap, it was an awfully weird one, especially since he probably could have just stopped Timmy in the kitchen if he’d wanted to. Timmy’s brows pulled together as he looked at the bloke from the doorway to his and Benjy’s room. His eyes flickered to Bertie’s window. Open. Hang on… Timmy looked back at the bloke. “Are you…Rotty?” 

Bertie’s bed was way more comfortable than his, cozy, and smelled like Bertie. He could have napped if he wasn’t currently sucking on the remains of the chicken leg. Rotty was trying to decide if he had enough time to get up and grab the rest of the chicken when the door across the hall swung open. He stilled as he saw that other bloke, shit, was he gonna scream? At least he didn’t have his wand in his hand so Rotty wasn’t gonna have to dodge anything. Though he’d learned pretty quick that most people didn’t know a lot of spells that hurt. Mostly it was just them flinging their things at him. Usually you could tell the houses of people that knew painful shit. Rotty leaned up, surprised and happy to know Bertie’s roommate knew his name. He pulled the chicken bone out of his mouth with a grin. “So Bertie talks about me, huh?”

“Hi, Rotty. Me again. Bertie.” As if that wasn’t obvious. “I dunno why I always say that, realistically even if I wasn’t the only bloke sending you messages on a gadget that looks just like this, you’d still probably be able to tell its me,” he said, his words colored with a sheepish chuckle. “Unless that bloke also sounded just like me…” he tacked on, suddenly less bashful and more taken by the idea. “In which case I’d think I’ve probably got a clone out there, ‘cause that’s way too big of a coincidence. But having a clone could be cool. Like having a twin, I guess. I always thought it’d be fun to have a sibling. As long as it’s not, you know, an evil clone I think it’d be sort of like that. Though I’d be kinda jealous of my clone if you were talking to him and not me.” The energy and enthusiasm in Bertie’s voice rose as he mused on having a clone and then ebbed as he finished and settled back to the reality that his clone would probably have more luck with Rotty than he would at this point. “Hopefully my clone wouldn’t be as big of a moron as I was,” he said quietly. Bertie was pretty sure he’d had something else to say when he started recording this message. Or maybe he hadn’t, really. It was hard to know what to say when he couldn’t even know if Rotty would believe him. For all he knew Rotty was just sending his recorder back without even listening to any of his messages. He let out a quiet sigh that he wasn’t sure the recorder would pick up. “…I’m glad you sent the recorder back,” he finally added, his voice soft. “But I’m still sorry. And I still miss you.” Did Rotty miss him? Or did he just think Bertie was a pathetic loser? “…Guess that’s it. Bye, Rotty.” Bertie clicked the button to stop recording and then remembered something else. “Oh! And sorry about the biscuits. I haven’t had time to go to the store, but these ones are pretty good too so hopefully you like ‘em. ” 

Even when the apology was coming past his lips again, Bertie had known it wasn’t going to do anything. But he’d clearly been holding onto some shred of hope, because it felt a lot like taking another cruciartus curse when Rotty basically dismissed it. And told Bertie he was going to have to go steal something now, in the dead of night, so he wouldn’t get in trouble for saving Bertie’s life. Which he probably regretted now. A large lump settled in Bertie’s throat; he could feel his eyes stinging again, but he tried to ignore the feeling. “Right,” he said quietly. He wanted to say something more. Offer Rotty something from his flat so he could just go back home without risk of getting himself into more trouble because of Bertie. Bertie pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose. He wished he’d gotten them back before all this came out, so he could have a clearer mental picture to hold onto of when Rotty was sitting there holding his hand. That probably wasn’t gonna happen ever again. He wished he’d actually kissed Rotty the other day in his room. Or maybe it was a good thing he hadn’t. This would probably feel even worse, though that was hard to imagine. “Thanks for saving me,” he said instead of anything else, even though Rotty probably regretted it. “I – …be careful,” he finished lamely. 

“Yeah,” he replied to Bertie’s thanks. Rotty realized he’d probably actually saved him since dragging him over to where the aurors would find him probably wouldn’t have helped Bertie. Another thing he’d said that had made him look stupid. He pushed that out of his mind. “Always,” he said with a smirk because careful was relative. Rotty turned to go out the window. Instead of just slipping out of it he turned back to Bertie after he’d opened it. “You be  careful too, Bertie,” he told the other. It wasn’t like he was the only one doing dangerous shit. He’d almost said Sugar Mouse but that felt sour on his tongue now. “Catch you around the alley.” With another smirk he was gone. He’d have rather just gone home, he didn’t have the heart to do anything else. But instead he went off in search of something that’d make the old man forget he’d helped a non-dreg get out of the alley instead of robbing him and leaving him to whatever his fate.

Bertie tried to take comfort in the fact that Rotty thought he probably didn’t have to worry about this Kaz bloke wanting to go after him. But it was hard to feel too good about anything when things still felt so wrong between him and Rotty. And Bertie hadn’t even realized that what they were doing could get Rotty into trouble. Not just because he was in the Order, but the whole time. Only – did that Kaz bloke know about Bertie the whole time? The Order and the radio? Even if he just knew about one of those things, it was a troubling thought. Either Kaz was that good, which was scary on its own, or Bertie was doing a real shit job of keeping a low profile. Fooling around with a gang bloke seemed to point to the latter. But also the former, given Kaz was in charge of that gang. Bertie’s head hurt. Everything felt wrong. And he especially didn’t like the idea that Kaz had known about Bertie’s secrets all this time and just – what? Let Rotty keep coming back, knowing he’d find out and be pissed? What was the lesson there supposed to be? Was it what Rotty had said someone else told him, that someone ‘fancy,’ as Rotty put it, wouldn’t want to spend time with him without an angle? That was bullshit. “I hope you don’t get in trouble for helping me,” he said quietly. “Or for spending time with me in the first place.” Bertie especially didn’t like that thought. It didn’t seem fair. “And – I’m an idiot for not telling you the truth sooner,” he added. He didn’t like all that stuff about Rotty being a dope or Rotty falling on his face. “This was never a game for me,” he couldn’t help adding softly, even though it felt pointless. “But…I’m sorry I screwed things up.” 

Rotty’s answer felt like it confirmed that maybe he thought everything else Bertie had said about who he was, about wanting to start his own radio show, had probably been a lie. Which was fair, but it stung. And it left Bertie feeling like there might now be a way to fix things. Only he couldn’t help getting distracted by the prospect that he might be the target of a very dangerous bloke. Hearing Rotty hadn’t been happy to hear Kaz knew about Bertie was not helping his worries, though he was confused by how certain Rotty seemed that Kaz knew everything Bertie was up to given that Rotty hadn’t known until tonight. But he kept his focus on what Rotty was saying. He couldn’t really blame Knockturn folks for not being so concerned about the Death Eaters; they already had it bad, and they seemed to have a lot of pressing issues to deal with even without Death Eaters. But this Kaz bloke sounded pragmatic as hell. Cold. Calculating. Brutal. Which was how someone ended up as a Knockturn gang boss, Bertie supposed. He really hoped Rotty was right, that this was just about Kaz wanting information and wanting to make sure Bertie’s show didn’t affect his business. “I’m not trying to get in the way of any Knockturn stuff,” he said, wanting to make that clear even though there was no reason for Rotty, or Kaz for that matter, to believe him. But there was something else Rotty had said that worried Bertie for different reasons. 

“What was that stuff about punishment? Punishment for what? For talking to me?” That didn’t make sense. Rotty hadn’t told him anything about his gang, not really. And Bertie didn’t think he’d done anything to get Rotty in trouble. Other than not tell him the truth. But that hadn’t affected Rotty or his gang stuff. Right? “Are you in trouble?” Bertie couldn’t help asking, couldn’t help the worry in his voice. All this was bad enough without the chance of Rotty getting into trouble with a bloke who sounded pretty damn awful because of Bertie. 

Apparently people were listening. Bertie wanted to be happy about that. He was, mostly. It’s just that in this case, the person listening was a gang boss who’d sent Rotty out to gather information about the bloke running the station. Which was Bertie. And apparently they already knew that, too. Or that was Rotty’s way of telling Bertie they were going to know it was him. If he hadn’t already been pale from the beating and the healing, he definitely would have been now. “Oh.” His voice was soft, worried, though he was still hoping he didn’t need to be. Only Rotty was still asking questions that felt more like questions to report back to his boss, rather than anything person. Maybe that was all this was now that Rotty knew the truth: a business transaction. Fuck. Bertie was an idiot. But he was still glad he’d told Rotty the truth. Maybe he deserved this. “Yeah,” he answered with a slight nod. “All any of this is about is stopping the Death Eaters. I mean, my dream wasn’t ever to have a secret radio show reporting on who’s dying and where and what the Ministry is covering up.” And said secret show wasn’t going to help him much with actually getting on the WWN, given the secrecy part. What he was doing wouldn’t suddenly become something he could announce to the world once the war was over. It would still get him in loads of trouble. Speaking of which. “Er….do I need to be worried that this Kaz bloke knows about me?” Aside from the fact that if this Kaz bloke was onto him, plenty of other people could be. That was bad enough. Fuck. 

Rotty let out a soft snort. “That’d be dark as fuck if it was your dream,” he replied. He thought over Bertie’s question. It was a fair one. “I mean I wasn’t happy about it.” Because he hadn’t been. “But should have known Kaz would find out. Kaz knows everything.” Another idiot mistake on his part. “Kaz only cares about the Death Eaters cause of what they’re doing to business. He knew people were fighting them, sometimes in Knockturn, and didn’t give a fuck, that could change if you damaged his property,” he added the warning just so Bertie would know that Kaz had limits. “Sure he’s pleased as fuck what they did to Borgian but he’s not climbing into bed with ‘em. For one thing look at what they did to Borgian and he was in bed with ‘em. But that’s not his style. He only makes deals he knows he’ll come on top of. Only helps someone if he knows it’ll help him more in the end. Plus the fact that most of ‘em are rich, Ministry types who like waltzing in and acting like they own the alley just makes Kaz hate ‘em more.” Kaz was purely mercenary. “I thought he was just wanting to know who was doing the show and why, make sure they didn’t start exposing his business. But now I figure at least part of it was cause he knew I was being a dope and decided to let me find out for myself. Punishment. Or the start of punishment.” Who knew if it was all Kaz was gonna do or not. “But as long as you’re not messing in his business I doubt Kaz is gonna do anything. I think he mostly just likes knowing shit. It’s how he stays twenty steps ahead of the rest of us.” It was kind of awe inspiring thinking what all Kaz must know but also made Rotty’s head hurt. He was way more suited to be muscle.

Bertie was surprised by the question Rotty asked him. It sort of reminded him of that day when Rotty had been asking him all the questions about radios. It wasn’t the sort of thing he was used to Rotty asking about, and it hadn’t made sense at the time. Now he knew why Rotty had been asking. Was that what he was doing now? Gathering more information to bring back to the bloke he’d told Bertie to stay away from? Bertie wasn’t sure if that was a good or a bad thing. But he still couldn’t help feel like Rotty wouldn’t set him up for something dangerous. Josh would probably tell him he was being an idiot. Maybe he was. But he was in this deep now, there was no reason not to keep being honest. He nodded. “Yeah. I dunno how many people are even listening, but it’s just to try to get out the kind of information the Ministry isn’t sharing and the Prophet isn’t writing about. Things are a lot worse than they’re telling people.” And it was already obvious things were bad. “But – this isn’t connected to the fighting Death Eaters stuff. I mean, that’s where I’m getting the information I’m sharing. But, uh…they don’t know I’m doing it.” He couldn’t help glancing back at Simon’s door again. “There’s only four people that know it’s me. Well…five now,” he added. 

Bertie grimaced when the first thing Rotty said was that he’d known Bertie was being cagey. Josh had told him he needed to learn to lie better. Only Bertie hadn’t really wanted to practice it on Rotty. Maybe he could just chalk up his shit job of it to his heart not being in it. It didn’t really make him feel better to know Rotty still hadn’t thought he was involved. It definitely didn’t make him feel better to know that Kaz bloke was the reason Rotty was asking. Bertie’s eyes widened when Rotty said that. It didn’t seem fair to feel any kind of way about the fact that Rotty had been asking him questions for the terrifying gang leader that apparently not only knew Bertie existed but also knew he was involved in radios. That was…disconcerting, to say the least. He believed Rotty, though, when he said he didn’t think Bertie would have to worry about it. Only he’d clearly thought that when he’d thought Bertie wasn’t involved. Did that mean Bertie had to worry about it now? He’d been so busy worrying about if Moody or Dumbledore or a Death Eater found out he hadn’t realized he needed to worry about gangs too. Shit. 

“Erm – yeah,” he answered Rotty with a slightly distracted nod, still preoccupied with being on the radar of a gang boss. His brain caught up with him a second later. “Well – no,” he corrected himself with a frown. “Not like the paper does, ‘cause the paper doesn’t really tell people shit, does it? That’s the whole problem. But – yeah. People need to know what they’re doing. They need to know how bad things are. And no one else is doing it, so…I figured it might as well be me.”

Now that Bertie’s glasses were on he noticed the way Rotty stepped out of the owl’s way as it flew out the window. He wondered if that was because of Bertie’s owl pecking at him that time he sent those cookies. He wondered if Rotty would ever want to get an owl from him again. Bertie was half-expecting Rotty to turn him down at leave, though it wasn’t exactly a relief when Rotty agreed to hear him out and walked back over to the stool by his cot. Now Bertie had to actually tell him about the radio station. “Thanks,” he said softly. 

Bertie felt like he was about to hammer a nail into his own coffin, but not telling Rotty at this point felt even worse. He really, really hoped Rotty would forgive him for lying. Or tricking him. Or whatever it was that Rotty was upset about. But if he did and Bertie was just sitting on another giant secret, it would definitely be over. Of course, if Rotty didn’t forgive him, Bertie could be setting himself up for a whole new mess of trouble by telling Rotty about the station, especially since Rotty had definitely been asking about his radio program that day. But Bertie didn’t really think Rotty would put him in danger. Even if he was mad. 

“Right, um…” Bertie’s voice was low. “I dunno if this is why you were asking me about radio stations. Secret radio stations,” he added. There was no going back now. He glanced over at Simon’s door and lowered his voice a touch more. “But…I’m sort of running one. Out of my bedroom. I’ve been, um, taking stuff I’ve learned from the other people fighting Death Eaters and just…trying to get the word out. About what the Death Eaters are doing. I just think people need to know what’s going on and no one else is talking about it so….” Bertie trailed off. The why wasn’t really the point. The point was he was doing it and he’d lied about that too.