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Barty Crouch Jr spent his life trying to get his fathers attention. At first it was positive attention, cooking dinner, doing chores around the house, reading every book in the house and trying to become the best. When that didn't work, he took a different approach. Befriending people his father hates, acting up at Hogwarts so Dumbledore would call his father in, making as many people hate him as possible, and of course taking the dark mark the moment he saw it, scarring Regulus and Evan’s Arms in its tantalizing glory.
At first he’d done it for them, but now they’re gone. The side his father praises so much kills just as much as the death eaters. He knows it’s their fault, the light side, he watched them kill Evan and he doesn’t know where Regulus is but he knows it was their fault. It’s their fault Dorcas (when she was still alive) and Pandora or even his mother won’t look him in the eye. It has taken everything from him and he will return the favour.
Barty Crouch Jr spent his life trying to get his fathers attention. He always failed, but this? This is his final masterpiece. He’ll like to see his Father try to avoid his eye after this one.
“Crouch! Hurry up!”
“Hang on Lestrange!” It’s almost shocking how easy it is to put the mask and robe on now. A few years ago he was shaking next to Evan and Regulus as they anxiously eyed their new uniform. Changing from their Hogwarts school uniform to their death eater uniform, creeping through the forbidden forest to where the barrier stopping apparation ended.
Eventually he meets Rodolphus, Rabastan and Bellatrix in the hall, not his preferred company but they’re the ones who will get the job done. Regulus hated Bellatrix in the end, but surely he’d understand? Barty’s doing this for him and Evan after all.
“I don’t care what you do to them but we need the information before we kill them. Got it?” Bellatrix has always been an intimidating figure, she has the typical looks and mannerisms of a Black, sharp and dark features creating a haunting beauty, a blank poker face and an almost impossible stillness even in the worst situations. Knowing Regulus for 7 years had almost desensitized Barty to it but no one is fully immune.
They all apparate and are greeted by a small and unsuspecting house in darkness due to the late hour. It’s almost laughable how easy it is for the four of them to undo the wards and enter the house. The silence is almost deafening and Bellatrix and Rodolphus grin, they always like a hunt.
Separating to look for the family, Barty clings onto his nerve, this would be the worst possible time for second thoughts, he’s far past the point of return. He thinks of the man he’s looking for, Frank Longbottom, a good friend of James Potter . Barty doesn’t know what Regulus was doing to get himself killed but doesn’t have any doubt that it was because of something Potter had said or done. He thinks of the woman he’s looking for, Alice Longbottom, Regulus hadn’t minded her and Evan had only spoken kindly of her from the brief times he’d spoken to her. It’d almost be a shame to watch her die. He thinks of the baby he’s looking for, Neville Longbottom, he hasn’t done anything but he’s bound to get in the way of Barty’s plans in the future if he were to be left around. Maybe they could stick him in an orphanage. More likely they’d just kill him.
“Here!” Rabastan shouts, a little too loudly, the yell would follow Barty forever, maybe if he’d turned and left, then the following decade wouldn't have occurred. He follows the sound and sees Bellatrix and Rodolphus are already there, the family of three are frozen with a spell, Frank with his wand aimed at them and mouth open, Alice with a baby in her arms turned away from them and shielding her son with her body, head looking back in horror.
“Grab the baby.” All three men move to follow the woman’s orders but ultimately Barty gets there first, walking back to the others as Rabastan releases the spell. He watches the fear and anger in Frank’s eyes and wonders if his own father ever felt that much emotion for Barty.
“Give me our son!” The rage in Frank’s eyes does not compare to the malice in Alice’s words but Bellatrix just grins.
“Oh but Fortescue, this is what you get, she sends her love!” No idea what Bellatrix’s vendetta is or who ‘she’ is but Alice’ face drops and betrayal fills her eyes. Animosity courses through the air and Rabastan looks at Barty in confusion, a look Barty shares. “You’re going to tell us where the Dark Lord is!” Frank scoffs.
“How should we know and even if we did we’d never tell you !”
“Cut the bullshit Longbottom! We know you Aurors did something.” Rodolphus takes a step forwards, voice dark and clearly tired of having the attention off him. It doesn’t take much for spells to start flying and Barty is itching for a fight so he places the baby in the cot and throws himself into it, finding himself fighting Frank with Rabastan, it feels like years they throw spells back and forth but finally Barty manages to destroy Franks shield and sends him careening towards the wall where he falls down it. Now a four vs one, they take Alice down quickly too. “Tie them up.”
The Aurors are bound in the centre of the room, “ Renervate !” Two sets of eyes fly open as they take staggering breaths, Alice’s eyes immediately finding Neville before glaring at the other woman.
“Should’ve brought Lucius.” Is all she says calmly as Bellatrix’ eye twitches
“We don’t have time for this! Where is the Dark Lord?” Rabastan growls, Barty’s always thought the Lestranges were closer to animals than humans. The two don’t reply, just staring back in defiance, “ Diffindo !” Multiple, precise cuts appear on the couples body and they hiss but still say nothing as thick carmine blood dripped onto the cream coloured carpet.
“ Legilimens !” Barty sifts through Frank's memories but he can feel him pushing back the relevant ones, he is about to pull away and tell them there is nothing but instead he stumbles upon something else, an older memory.
Frank was entering a room in St Mungo’s hospital, it was all blindingly white and sterile, the air was stale and all that could be heard was the whirring of machines. As he rounded the corner he saw Alastor Moody, laying in a hospital bed with bandages wrapped around his face. “Moody! Bloody hell what happened to you?” The scarred man just chuckled and waited for Frank to close the door before allowing his face to take on a serious look.
“We found the location of a Death Eater attack that was due to happen, took a few of the Order, just Black, Potter, Lupin, Pettigrew and you know the rest of their lot but somehow they also knew we were going to be there. Of course then it turned into a double sided ambush, luckily for us it was some of their lesser members, other than Rosier and who I assume was Crouch Jr. It’s lucky the younger Black croaked when he did, difficult bastard. All of ours made it but we didn’t get all of their lot, managed to get that Rosier though! Course he took my nose with him!” Frank shook his head.
“That Rosier was always a pain, he was young but maybe it was for the best-“
Barty rips himself away and feels the fire that had been simmering inside him for the past year roar, Frank’s eyes were blown wide as he looked at Barty. “They know something.” He says shockingly calm, staring Longbottom in the eyes. Bellatrix smirks.
“Then let’s find out what shall we?” The three men grin back. “ Crucio !” Both Bellatrix and her husband yell. It’s interesting in a morbid way, how fast the spell hits, how their bodies contort and their screams echo, triggering their son to start wailing. They both shook violently, almost in sync and foam and blood started oozing out their mouths when finally the spell stopped, “feel like telling us now?” The woman’s eyes are manic as she looks down at them. Neither of them reply. “ Crucio !” The couple's eyes roll back and it almost seems like their veins are bulging out, like they’re about to burst. This goes on over and over and over again and Barty watches in fascination. “Tell us!” Bellatrix screeches and goes to curse them again.
“Bella.” She raises her wand, “Bella.”
“Cru-“
“Bellatrix!”
“What Rodolphus!”
“Look at them.” All four look down and suddenly Barty realises what he means.
“What?” The woman gets more agitated.
“Look at their eyes, Black. They’ve lost it.” Barty accidentally uses her old name, for a moment she isn’t Bellatrix, she’s someone else with dark features and suddenly Barty is looking at his, and the boy who’s like a brother to him, first kill, all those years ago. Their eyes staring emptily at the ceiling, it’s shockingly familiar, almost as if they're dead, the only sign they aren’t being the weak rise and fall of their chests.
“For fucksake!” Rabastan steps back “We were meant to get fucking information!” The other three all start shouting, Bellatrix saying they weren’t going to admit anything anyway, never one to admit being wrong. Barty waits bored, seeing Neville still crying his eyes out in the corner and wonders briefly what they’ll do with the kid. But all of a sudden he hears a creak. Like a wooden door being pushed open slowly. “Shut up!” He whisper-yells and all three turn to glare at him, “Listen!” The sound of boots on the stairs. The death eaters all get in a defensive position and Barty sends a silencing spell at the baby. The steps get closer and the door slowly groans open. Rodolphus, who's closest to the door, rolls his eyes and drops his wand down. “Malfoy? What the fuck are you doing here?” Everyone but Bellatrix lowers their wands.
“Just making sure you lot aren’t fucking this up, which clearly you are!”
“Fuck off Lucius!” Bellatrix finally lets her wand arm drop down.
“Shut up Bellatrix. For Merlin’s sake!” He looks at the two bodies. “We’re leaving. Now.”
“You cannot just-“ Bellatrix takes a dangerous tone but is cut off.
“Apparate back to Malfoy Manor.”
“What about the kid?” Rabastan just about gets out without stuttering.
“Leave it. We don’t have time for this, you lot were being so loud that Aurors are bound to be here any second.” After some convincing, Bellatrix agrees and they all leave the house, the last thing Barty sees is Neville's silent weeping before being greeted with the outside of the grand Malfoy Manor with its towering presence and expensive decor. It’s pouring it down and the sun seems to be just about to rise.
The front door swings open and a fuming Narcissa Malfoy storms out, heading straight towards her sister, raising her wand she screams, “ What did you do !?” Not wanting to witness whatever this is, Barty turns away.
“I’ll see you again Lestrange.” He aims at both brothers before Apparating right back to his pathetic little flat.
—-
With any luck no one heard enough to know it was them but over the past week or so Alice and Frank Longbottom have been on the front page of the Daily Prophet every day. Multiple death eaters have been arrested, which makes the back of Bartys neck sweat just thinking about it. The most recent arrest being Karkaroff but he doubts that’ll lead to anything, the man is selfish but he’s surely no snitch. In fact Barty is sitting down at the man's trial, it’s well suspected that Barty is a death eater but there's no real proof, which is most likely for the best but Merlin, would he love to see the look on his Fathers face.
The trial’s just starting and nothing of interest has come up, just Karkaroff in a cage with metal arrows pointed at him. It’s taking everything within Barty to not vault over to his left where he can see Moody and Dumbledore are sat, it’d be so easy to just grab his wand and-
“Igor Karkaroff. You have been brought from Azkaban at your own request,” his fathers voice echoes around the room. What? Barty was told this is a trial? “To present evidence to this council. Should your testimony be consequential, the council may be prepared to order your immediate release,” Oh no. Oh Merlin no. Karkaroff may not usually be a snitch but with a deal like that anyone would become one, this is not good. Barty needs to contact Bellatrix or Rodolphus or anyone -
“There was a Rosier, Evan Rosier!”
“Mr Rosier is dead.” The words bounce around in his head as they have been for the past year, along with some other memories.
“ Evan is dead Barty!”
“I fucking know that Dorcas! I watched him die! I was there and I saw it and-“
“So why the fuck are you still doing all this? It won’t bring him back, it won’t bring Regulus back and it sure as hell won’t make me or Pandora forgive you!”
“THEY killed them, Dorcas. Your precious little Order killed our best friends.”
“How do you know about the-“
“Please, it’s obvious.”
“Yeah well your side killed Marlene. I loved her, truly loved her. Have you even ever loved someone purely? Do you know how to without revenge and blood and hurt? Her entire family is gone, SHE is gone-“ Her voice wavered. “Pick a side Barty. Me? Or them? But here’s your warning now, I swear to you I will kill every last one of them. I will rip their fucking heads off, yours included if you don’t realise what you’re doing and sort yourself out.”
“I will never associate myself with the people who murdered Evan and Regulus.”
“You're dead, Crouch.” Dorcas’s voice was almost always steady, her eyes were the only real way of telling how she was feeling, and he knew that in that moment she meant it. Maybe if she wasn’t killed a week later, she would’ve been able to follow through on it.
Shaking himself out of the memory, he tunes back in and watches Karkaroff sell out Augustus Rookwood and is already preparing to leave when he hears words that send chills up his spine, words that would inhabit his mind in the years of solitude to come. “The torture of the Auror Frank Longbottom and his wife-“
“Give me the name! Give me the wretched name!" Barty flies up out of his seat as his fathers voice rings out but it’s too late. His fate is already written out.
“BARTY CROUCH.” The Council hall goes into stunned silence and Barty tries to sneak out “Jr.”
Twenty seconds is enough to ruin a person's life, believe it or not. Those past twenty seconds would irreversibly change the next decade.
Uproar explodes through the hall and he makes a break for it, what else is there to do now? He sees Moody send a spell flying at him out of the corner of his eye and finds it somewhat fitting that the person who ended Evans' life should also destroy his. He feels as gravity betrays him, sending him flying down to the floor. Aurors grab him from every side and pull him up, apprehending Barty in mere moments. He drags them to where he knows his Father is and lets the resentment and agony take over, “Hello, Father!” He snarls out and his Father still looks at him emptily.
“You are no son of mine.” A father condemns his son. His son is a monster and he knows this now, yet he looks at his son the same as he ever has. The same as when he was a baby, a toddler, a child, a teenager and now an adult. The Father looks at his son and does not see his son, he never has and now he never will.