I can’t feel my senses, I just feel the cold
Character: Barty Summary: Barty has another nightmare.
Barty looked Death in the face and realised, as its grinning mouth opened wide, that its tongue was a snake. However, Barty wasn't frightened. There was beauty in the white of Death's skull and in the deep green of the snake's skin. Entranced, he reached out to caress both skull and snake, but before he could touch them they were snatched away. He screamed with his grief as he was left suddenly alone.
And then he wasn't alone, and he shuddered with the sudden cold and fear that sank deep into his bones. There was another face in front of him now, another gaping mouth. This one was cloaked in shadows and ugly. He heard a rattling breath, and felt as though the last of his body's warmth had been inhaled by the creature in front of him.
It moved closer, and Barty screamed. Screamed for his beautiful Master to come save him. Screamed for his Lord's protection. He had done everything his Lord had asked of him. Risked everything. Why had he been left to this fate?
Just before the mouth locked over his own, Barty was surrounded by a sudden calm. He was dying for his Master. Willingly he tilted his head up for Death's kiss...
Barty sat bolt upright in his bed, and then began to struggle against the sheets wrapped about and clinging to his sweat-soaked skin. He kicked the sheets clear of him, and shuddered violently as the night air touched his feverish skin. He lowered his face into his hands and just tried to breathe.
He'd had the nightmare again. Again, his dreams had been full of images that had felt as familiar and seductive as they had been repellent: groups of people in dark cloaks and masks; a powerful man as beautiful as he was ugly; Bella, younger and laughing as she tortured a couple of Aurors. He had been there, and while now he was awake he knew how terrible those images were, in the dream he had adored the wizard with red eyes, had loved and laughed with Bella in her element.
He let out a strangled sob, because he was coming to think that the dreams were not his imagination at all. He had hoped that they had been images fuelled by what Bella had told him when he had been with her. However, the more detail that was revealed to him, the more that he thought and feared that they truly were memories; memories that he shouldn't remember, but which now were slowly coming back to him dream by dream, nightmare by nightmare.
While the events in each dream were different, the ending remained the same when, for the sake of his beloved Master, he offered himself up as a sacrifice to the Dementor's kiss. He shuddered again at the thought of willingly embracing his death. No, not his death, a fate worse than that: to be left an empty husk, his soul consumed but his body remaining behind, remaining so that years later a madwoman could come and try to refill that void with the same poison.
But she had failed, Barty thought, as he rolled off the bed and staggered to the door of his bedroom. His limbs were still shaking as he made his way slowly down to the kitchen. She had failed, he kept thinking, repeating it in his head, trying to convince himself. He had read all the books that Padma had pointed out to him. His soul had been consumed by the Dementor, and so had passed to the other side, taking with it his memories and his magic. He had Rilind Hedera's soul now.
Of course, having Hedera's soul did not mean that he had Hedera's memories, that he was now Hedera in a different body. The soul and the brain and the body were all connected and so were not so easily transplanted. According to the books Barty had read, all three would have to be reunited to bring back the memories and magic that they had created together. He was not Hedera, and neither was he the Barty Crouch as was. He was something in between, and still struggling with what that meant.
But the dreams! The dreams were bringing back something - memories. But how was that possible? The books had said that his old soul would have to be reunited with his body and brain for him to retain memories! While soul magic was not a precise field and was mostly theoretical, it had felt right when applied to his experience. How was it possible for him to be having these dreams when his soul had passed over?
Barty rubbed at his face as he stood in front of the kitchen sink. There was a buzzing in his head that wouldn't go away. He turned the tap on and filled a glass with water. He gulped the cooling drink down, and then repeated the process. The buzzing didn't go away.
Barty flinched as something brushed against his bare shoulder. He wheeled around and spotted the large bluebottle that had invaded his kitchen. Angry at being scared by such a thing, he flung his hand out towards it. A sudden jolt of energy ran down his arm and burst from his fingers. Green light smacked into the fly, making its small body explode with the force. The spell spun into the cupboards behind, and there was a loud crash as the glass they contained shattered.
Backing away in alarm, Barty stared at his hand. He had killed something! And he had done it wandless.
Fleeing to the living room he began feverishly searching through the books he had been reading. What was wrong with him? Why was this happening to him now, when he had just begun to hope he might have a life for himself?
Tomorrow he would go out and find more books. For now he would go back over what he had already read, and wait for the dawn. He wasn't sleeping again until he knew just what was happening to him.