CONSTANT VIGILANCE

The floor of the circular tower was fouled by owl pellets and sand, the faint smell of recently sawn wood and bonfires filling the air and creating an atmosphere of sorrowful abandon. The windows were broken and darkened by age, latticed metal turned to rust and glass shattered by the multitude of avian species that had had once occupied the tower.
Harry gripped his wand firmly in his right hand, holding it out before him and pacing slowly around the outskirts of the circular room.

The man with the pallid skin and the sandy hair opposite him cautiously circled in the opposing direction, his sharp, blue eyes fixed upon Harry.

"I thought you were dead." Harry remarked after some time.

The other twisted his thin lips into a smile.

"Didn't I teach you anything, Potter? Constant vigilance." He returned.

Harry scowled darkly.

"Yeah, well, you trying to kill me and all that sort of overshadowed everything."

Crouch's expression became agitated, his eyes narrowing as his bruised lips parted and he said, very quietly:

"I was trying to prepare you."

Harry felt all the pent up rage and anger of the months he had spent in isolation amongst the cruelty of the Dursleys exploding into vivid words spilling from his mouth.

"Prepare me for what? For Voldemort? For seeing Cedric killed? Is that what you were trying to prepare for? i Is it /i ?"

Crouch shook his head sadly.

"For life, Potter. I was trying to prepare you for life." He lifted his head up, his expression earnest. "Don't get me wrong, I would have gladly seen you die at the hands of the Dark Lord. Why would I have wasted so much of my time in the likeness of that cantankerous old auror?

"Oh, I would have been happy to see you die, Harry Potter," he spat the name as if it were poison. "It would have solved all my problems if you had. I could have lived in glory at the right hand of my master; I could have had power and glory. After everything I'd been through I thought I deserved some power and glory...but you had to go and change all that, didn't you, boy?"

"Sorry for ruining your plans." Harry pouted. "If I'd known my staying alive was such a problem for you maybe I would have tried to oblige you more."

"You did know, not that it matters now." Crouch hissed, his eyes intently watching the boy's face. "We both survived, which makes us kin of a sort. You're a lot like me when I was younger..."

"I'm nothing like you!" The young boy protested, his voice full of hurt and rage. "I saw you in Dumbledore's i Pensieve /i , you were a Death Eater!"

"I was a child!" Crouch screamed in rage.

Harry felt the rage and hate break in him, washing away in waves of exhaustion and despair and slowly, against all reason, he lowered his wand.

"I was a child," Crouch whispered once more, his voice deathly quiet and his complexion pale. "I wasn't there when...when the Longbottoms were tortured...but I was in the house, Potter. I was in the adjoining room, listening to every word, every cry, every scream and I did nothing."

The older man curled and opened his fists in a slow, rhythmic motion. The futility and shame of his past scored in deep lines upon his poorly shaven face.

"It didn't matter in the end. I might as well have attacked them with my own hands; I still ended up suffering for my part in it all." He turned his face to the rafters, ignoring the tears that streamed from his sharp, blue eyes. "And so as soon as I was delivered from my father's control, I sought out my old master...but in the end that only brought more sorrow. The promised world never materialised and the Dementors all but tore what little soul I had preserved from me."

"H-how did you survive?" Harry asked tentatively.

Crouch smiled again, despite himself.

"By sheer bloody mindedness. By the time the Dementor came for me, my system was so flooded with veritaserum that all they could take from me was my clarity...and the man I had been before I returned to Hogwarts in the guise of old Mad Eye."

He lowered his head and their eyes met once more.

"So what does that mean then? Are you here to finish me off or are you gunning for both me and Voldemort now?"

Crouch shook his head sadly.

"I'm not here to get involved at all." He whispered. "But I am here to warn you, Potter. Listen to me carefully: within the Department of Mysteries located at the Ministry there is a veil. Beyond that veil are the teeming shadows of the lost.

"Stay away from the veil, Potter, if you can do that then you might just stand a chance."

Harry frowned.

"The veil...?" He murmured.

"Stay away from the veil." Crouch repeated.

The boy opened his mouth to question the older man when a sudden flurry of wings filled the air. The glass fell away from the windows and from every direction owls flocked into the tower, soaring over his head and up into the rafters at such speed that he was forced to his knees, his hands on his head.

When the sound and fury of the nocturnal birds had subsided, Harry lifted himself and found himself once more alone in the circular tower.

Of Bartemius Crouch Jr., there was no sign.