Through the bars, his eyes pulsed with black intensity into her own, staring her down, daring her to take another step. His hands, now pale and wrinkled from lack of sun exposure, gripped the bar painfully with a force that had tortured so many others. He was stuck, trapped, invisible; and she was free, young, alive.
His eyes bored through her soul, just like the dementors had done to him so many times before. He wanted to scare her, to frighten her! Anything to prevent her carefree parade down the aisles of the dark and demented habitat. The place where desire is a fable; where coldness is a custom — where happiness and freedom are sins.
She wandered down the vast pathway, stopping as she felt his presence trapped behind those magically metal bars. For once, he thought, someone had paused in their journey to look at him, to see the hollowness behind his eyes, to think a second thought about somebody who was so like the others in that place; so full of filth, crime, and danger. Someone had spared a moment to see that he truly was a person, not a mannequin in a window to be stared at, more than just a prisoner in such a land of isolation. He was a living soul, a human being. She noticed.
She knew she shouldn't have stopped in her venture toward the person she was here to see. She should have walked right past that cell, occupied by the skin-and-bones body of one she knew so well yet knew nothing about. She should have ignored the burn that those dark, broken eyes inflicted upon her. She should have ignored him. But she didn't.
She turned her head in almost slow-motion, whilst slowing down her pace as well. Her feet panned down into the floor; they would not move once they saw those eyes. Those eyes that had once, at a certain point in his life, been alight and joyful, almost like her own. Those eyes that had gone from human…to dead.
There was more death in those eyes than there was in the experiences she had witnessed in her life. She was captivated by his stare, his glare, his unwavering gaze. He seemed as though he could go on for hours. Days. Lord knew how long he could hold her stare. He raised one bony finger away from the bar, and in an almost raspy motion, beckoned her to move in closer.
Slightly hesitant, but oddly eager, she gently cascaded toward his cell. Years seemed to pass as she walked over to him, their eyes never once parting. She was being summoned; she was complying.
She was now in front of his face. His hand shakily reached up at her cheek, where it felt the warm smoothness of her skin. She shivered at the abominably cold, gray feeling that his touch produced. Even his skin was full of lifelessness.
She saw the corner of his pale, crackle-lipped mouth twitch, and she knew instantly that he wanted to speak. Could he spare but a few words? If so, why waste them on her? She didn't dare open her mouth, however; she was eager to see what was on this undead man's mind.
"Hermione Granger," he gasped at her, instantly rubbing his throat in pain. She was startled as she looked at him, watching him caress his throbbing neck. He was dehydrated, starved, abused. She could do nothing.
"How do you know my name?" she asked, a slight twinge of apprehension laced into her voice. His eyes had still never left hers, but as he prepared his answer, probably one of the last things he would ever be able to say during his time at this hellhole, the ghost of a smile appeared on his sickly face.
"I always have, my dear. You are my Hermione Granger."
She watched in horror as he erupted into coughing fits, having used up all of his air. He was gradually turning purple from too little oxygen, and those black eyes finally unlocked themselves from hers as they slowly rolled toward the back of his head. Unable to face this man any longer, she completely ignored the cell she had intended to visit in the first place. Sparing but one last glance at Barty Crouch Jr., Hermione Granger rushed out of Azkaban in a flurry, confused at the words he spoke seconds before his death.
Alrighty. No idea what this is, really. I realllllly want to see a BCJ x HG story, but there are none, so I wanted to write one myself. But this kind of ventured away from romance, and turned into just…whatever it is. Haha. Please review, loves.