Barty Crouch jr closed the wooden door behind him, shivering as the air around him grew rapidly cooler. He followed the small flicker of wand light down the concrete steps into the Lestrange's cellar, gripping the thin metal hand rail for support as the darkness swarmed around him. Once they reached the bottom, Barty let out a breath, taking in the smell of dust and old stone that filled the space at the bottom of the stairs.
The light, which was coming from Bellatrix's wand, went out unexpectedly, before transforming into a red jet which lit a row of candles lining the corridor beside them, and one on the wall opposite them.
"Kitchen, laundry and elves quarters," began Bellatrix, pointing to two adjacent doors in their immediate space. This was the first time Barty had seen the lowest floor of their manor, and Bellatrix and Rodolphus were currently giving him a tour.
"There's nothing through there," Bellatrix explained, pointing through an archway in front of them. "We just store things there sometimes."
"So where are we going?" asked Barty, curiosity heightening the pitch of his voice. He knew they hadn't brought him down here purely for a tour, he knew that he was going to be doing part of his training. The Lestrange's had been training Barty as a Death Eater for three weeks now, and he had shown good progress. Since he first met them, Barty had been at their house almost every day, learning and observing and practicing. He liked being at theirs far more than he liked being at home.
"We're going down the corridor," explained Rodolphus, clapping Barty on the shoulder. Barty swayed under the unexpected force.
"Okay," he said eagerly, wondering what they were about to show him, before the three of them filed into the narrow hallway to their right.
As he followed them down the corridor, Barty watched his footsteps in the dim candlelight, thinking about all the other new recruits that may have walked down here with them. His mind fixed on Bellatrix's cousin Regulus, who he knew they'd trained, and who had also been missing for almost a year. Barty felt an ache in his chest as he pictured Reg's face, pictured him walking the exact same route he was now, a nervous and inexperienced trainee.
After a left turn, the space grew wider, and eventually the pair leading Barty stopped in front of a door made from metal bars. Rodolphus unlocked the door, allowing Bellatrix and Barty to step through before he did. As soon as they were inside, Bellatrix lit the room, and Barty's eyes fed on the sight in front of him.
The room was long, and mostly bare, apart from a chair rooted to the floor in the centre. There were metal hoops and brackets lining the walls, and in some places lengths of metal chains extending from the walls and trailing down into a pile on the floor. Barty blinked, continuing to take in the details of the room despite the dim light. He looked down at the concrete floor, which in places were splattered with burgundy stains.
"This is the interrogation room," announced Bellatrix, with a level of excitement and pride that made Barty's stomach swoop as he remembered all of the tales of her notorious sadism. In the weeks he'd trained with them, they'd mostly focussed on duelling, and he'd learned that she was a very powerful witch, but he was yet to witness her love of torture.
"So what do you want me to do?" asked Barty, eyes flitting around the room for any signs of what today's session would hold. They hadn't discussed training for interrogation, and he'd been assured that they wouldn't move onto curses until he'd completed his duelling practice. "Do you want me to get in the chair?" They both laughed.
"No dear," replied Bellatrix, amusement heavy in her voice.
"And don't think about sitting down on it for a rest either," added Rodolphus, placing one hand his hip and the other in his robe pocket. "Or else you won't be getting up. If you need a rest sit down on one of the stools." Barty looked around.
"He can't see them idiot, they're at the other end of the room," said Bellatrix, shaking her head slightly. Barty felt a smile tugging at his lips, and turned slightly so that he was no longer looking at her. He couldn't pinpoint exactly what it was about Bellatrix that fascinated him so much, her inexplicable charm, her beauty, her power, maybe all three. But whichever it was, Barty knew that he needed to push the feeling away and focus.
The dull scraping of two wooden stools moving across the room pulled him back to reality. The first one stopped right at his feet, the other grinding to a halt in front of Rodolphus, who had summoned them over. Barty gave a smile and a nod by way of a thank you, before sitting down.
"Now Barty," Bellatrix began, moving so she was stood in front of him. "We've taught you all that we can about duelling while you can see your opponents." She clasped her hands in front of her, starting to pace slightly as she spoke. "But there will be many times you'll need to duel in the dead of night, and often you can't see who you're fighting."
"So today, we're going to restrict your vision and then attack you." Barty felt his eyes widen as he swallowed. She made it sound so intense. "You will need to defend yourself without being able to see us. We're going to start down here so we can assess your skills and areas for improvement, and then tonight we'll take you out to the woods at the back of the estate. How does that sound?"
"Sounds good," Barty answered, watching the devious smile that spread across Bellatrix's face.
Barty returned to glancing around the room as Bellatrix made her way over to Rodolphus and began whispering to him. Their conversation lasted two minutes, before Bellatrix withdrew her wand and waved it in a half circle. Barty was unsure exactly what she'd done, until a strip of emerald green silk slithered into the room. He watched the silk slide along the floor, taking the exact shape of a snake, right down to the scales and eyes, before moving up her body and falling limp in her hands.
"They're charmed come when called," she explained, obviously noticing the look of intrigue spread across Barty's face. Barty closed his mouth, realising just then that he'd left it open. His mind began to race, wondering what she was going to do to him with the piece of silk, why it was charmed to come to her side like an obedient pet.
"Why?" asked Barty, his heart rate picking up for a reason he couldn't pinpoint. He watched her thread the silk through her fingers, twisting it around each one.
"Because you never know when you might need them," she answered, her voice lowering slightly in a way that made Barty's face flush. He felt thankful for the dim light.
"I'm going to use this to blindfold you," explained Bellatrix as she walked over to Barty, the words making heat flood through his body. Barty fought the urge to squirm. "Blocking your vision for when you need to defend yourself." She stopped in front of him, stretching out the piece of silk and moving towards his face. "This will make your other senses work harder in order to protect you, a very necessary skill."
The silk was warm as it covered Barty's eyes, and smelled faintly of candles. He fought the urge to shudder as he felt Bellatrix move around him, standing just inches from his back. He'd been close to her enough times in training, but something about this moment made him feel much more vulnerable. It felt uncomfortably intimate.
He tried to picture her doing this with all of the other new recruits that came down here and received her specialist training. He imagined Regulus sat in the same chair that he was now, his cousin wrapping silk over his eyes. Barty then found himself remembering Regulus's clammy hands covering his own eyes, the gentle roar of the fires in the Slytherin common room filling his ears as Regulus demanded he guess who was behind him, and Barty laughing at the sheer silliness of it all, because there was only one person it could possibly be.
A pull at the back of his head so sharp it made his eyes water sent him back to reality, and he winced as the memory faded back into the far corners of his mind. He could feel Bellatrix's long nails scraping his scalp as she tied the silk in a knot at the back of his head. He tried to avoid making his discomfort known through sound, not wanting to appear weak to her.
"You're pulling his hair Bells," said Rodolphus from his stool. Bellatrix's assault on his hair immediately ended, and she freed the strands that had become entangled with the knot she was attempting to tie. Barty mentally thanked him.
"Sorry Barty, force of habit," responded Bellatrix as she finished the knot, tugging to test its strength. Barty felt her body moving behind him, as if she were laughing, and then heard Rodolphus snicker quietly, followed by a 'tsk' from Bellatrix. Barty felt immediately awkward.
One of the reasons Barty had enjoyed being trained by the Lestrange's is that there were very few times they had made him feel uncomfortable or out of place, which surprised him, given all that he'd heard about them from other Death Eaters. When Rabastan wasn't there, Barty never felt like a spare part, in fact it often didn't feel like he was being trained by a married couple at all, just two people who knew each other very well. But there were times Barty saw looks he wished he hadn't, or they were laughing over a shared joke that he wasn't privy to, like now, that reminded him exactly who he was working with.
"Are you ready to begin?" said Bellatrix, commanding and authoritative, all traces of silent laugher gone. Barty nodded, getting off the stool. He heard it move to the wall so it wasn't in his way, and tensed his body in preparation for their attack.
After two hours of training in the cellar, afternoon began to merge into evening, and it was time for dinner. Sat at the longest dinner table Barty had ever seen, he felt completely at ease. Rabastan had even returned home from whatever errands he was running, so the atmosphere was even better with all three of them there.
Bellatrix had made good on her statement when they first met that the three of them would take care of Barty. They felt more like his family than his own parents did, taking him in as if he was one of them. He didn't feel the need to beg for their approval like he did with his father, he felt accepted. The fact that he was a minister's son seemed to make them want to see him succeed even more, and he and Bellatrix had often discussed his friendship with Regulus.
He wondered if she knew just how close he and Regulus had been, that their relationship had transcended the boundaries of friendship. He knew that she'd paid Regulus extra attention since his older brother Sirius had been disowned by the family, building him up to meet their family's expectations of who the Black heir should be. His mind pulled even more memories of Regulus forward as he sat drinking his wine.
"Crap," muttered Barty as he tripped over the bottom of his robes, falling uncomfortably against the stairs up to the Slytherin boys' dormitories. He looked around quickly to check if anybody saw. The last thing he needed was to be the kid that made an idiot of himself by falling up the stairs on his first day of school. He winced at the pain that rippled over his knee and down his leg, clutching it as footsteps from someone descending the stairs caught his attention. He shot up in a panic, straightening out his robes as a small boy with a mess of curly black hair emerged in front of him.
"Hi," said the boy, who looked at him with kind eyes.
"Hi," Barty stammered in response, trying to act like he hadn't just fallen over.
"First day, right?" said the boy. Barty nodded.
"I'm Regulus Black," he introduced himself, extending his hand. "I'm a second year."
"Bartemius Crouch," said Barty as he shook Regulus's hand. "But please call me Barty."
"Okay Barty, nice to meet you," said Regulus, a smile forming on his pale face. "I can help you out if you need anything."
"Thanks," beamed Barty. He'd made a friend already, maybe school wasn't going to be as bad as he anticipated after all. "I'd like that."
