RP Ficlet : Barty Crouch Jr. Who: Barty Crouch Jr. When: 13 January, 1980 Where: Azkaban Prison What: Epilogue for a character. Rating: PG
Athena sprung out of Zeus's head fully formed. Barty likens himself to her sometimes, because he understands coming from something but owing nothing to it. Barty may have his father's angular face, and he may eventually grow into his father's frame, filled out and with the fat sinews of adolescence hidden beneath muscle and tweed jackets. But he isn't of his father. They are nothing alike. Barty pays attention, after all, and his father never did. What his father doesn't pay in attention, his father will pay in birthdays. He will celebrate fewer.
This is justice, Barty thinks. The DMLE doesn't know justice. Barty does.
He is certain of all this as he enters the cell that will be his home for the next-- well. The next little while. Barty isn't certain how long he will be in Azkaban, but he has faith that he will not be forgotten. Those who are truly loyal are never forgotten, he knows, and despite his mistakes, he was always truly loyal. Killing a blood traitor - what's the harm in that? Watching a little bit of brain fall to the icy pavement... why, that's just fitting, when the man he'd killed had used so little of his brain to begin with.
Barty had heard about Dobbs, of course. Knew that he'd been found cut up and bled out and every which way but outside in. He supposes that's who will satisfy the public now - whoever killed Dobbs has a flair certainly. But Barty wonders if they're truly loyal. If they'll turn on a sickle.
He wouldn't.
Meredith doesn't understand now, but Barty knows that in the future, she will. When he gets out, he'll visit, he thinks, and he can envision it very clearly: she'll slap him until his lip bleeds and collapse against him crying and then they'll kiss and things will be fine. That's what women do on the wireless, and Barty likes the wireless programs nearly as much as Meredith and brains on the street.
He's not sorry. Not really. He's sorry that he didn't get to kill his father, but all things can wait. Barty is certain of that. He made it a point during his trial to look each of the DMLE in the eye. Words are dangerous doorways to the truth, but calm smirks say so much more. Hello. I can't wait to see you again.
It's very cold in Azkaban.
He hadn't always thought of things this way. Maybe once when he was barely to his father's knee, he thought of him with something like awe. Awe is nearly love.
Nearly.
Not enough, Barty thinks. Not nearly enough.
But no. No, he remembers loving his father, a very long time ago. He wanted to be an Auror, not because he knew what it meant, but because that's what would make his father proud. His father was so busy, so great a man, and so important. There were parties, Barty remembers, with unfamiliar people who were equally busy, great, and important. The house elf was always bustling, his mother was always in pearls, and the door was always opening and closing, opening and closing, his father in the thick of it. But one day, the door to Barty's bedroom opened and closed, and when Barty told his father about it later, he wasn't believed. Don't spread lies, and mustn't have a scandal, and can't ruin my career over an overactive imagination.
Barty imagines now that Azkaban is temporary. He imagines that the Dark Lord will come for him. He imagines that Meredith will wait for him. He imagines that his life is only beginning.
He imagines until it becomes so cold with the breath of the Dementors that he can barely think at all.