Written For:
- "Convince Me" Competition: (pairing) Barty/Luna
- OTP Boot Camp Round 1: How does your OTP Meet? / Prompt: (word) Forbidden
- Gringotts Prompt Bank/The Last Present Prompts: (dialogue) "You just kissed me." / "I know.", "Things change. People change. You make some choices you can never take back."
- Gringotts Prompt Bank/Code Breaker Prompts: (action) Staring, (dialogue) "I will never forget. No matter what, not ever.", (dialogue) "You finally smiled for me."
W.C: 2,071
Luna paced through the long, seemingly never-ending corridor. It was painted stark, bright white, with no windows, a tiled floor, and gleaming lights from overhead. The walls were adorned with paintings and collages and intricate mosaics, probably work done by the patients who lived here.
She had taken up a summer internship at St. Cecilia's Wizarding Hospital for the Mentally Impaired. It had been two years since she graduated from Hogwarts, and she had only travelled during that time. Now that she felt worldly and well-travelled, she wanted to start in the world of work.
Only, Luna had no real idea what she wanted to to do as a career, so she had sat down to study her options with a Career Advisor. The advisor, who worked for the Ministry of Magic, had come to the conclusion that Luna would do well to work with people, as she had quite a sunny disposition and a natural urge to help people. "Have you heard of St. Cecilia's?" she had asked.
Luna hadn't, and upon learning several things about the small hospital located deep in the Yorkshire countryside, she had decided to take up the advisor's offer on an internship, just for the summer. If she wanted to continue working there after the summer, then the hospital might just keep her on.
Finally, her first day had arrived. She was excited to meet new and interesting people, and she was excited to commence within the world of work.
The hospital looked small and cosy from the outside, if you ignored the five-metre high iron fences that surrounded it, and the heavy-duty locked gate of which a security guard had to unlock to let her in. The main building was red-bricked with a thatched roof, and the long corridor within led to several smaller buildings attached. Each smaller building was a different ward, and all the wards had different purposes.
There was a ward for children and adolescents, a ward for older people, and then wards for different types of mental impairments. A ward for short stays, which generally included witches and wizards who were suffering from depression. A ward was entirely dedicated to eating disorders. Another ward focused primarily on members of the wizarding community who had been mentally impaired due to curses, deteriorating spells, or dark magic. There were lots more, many of which Luna wasn't even told about.
The ward she would be working at was probably the most intimidating ward of all, but Luna had faced far worse things than a hospital unit. As she arrived at the grey, steel door of the unit, she looked up at the plaque. Psychiatric Intensive Care Unit.
A little button with a speaker above was situated to the side of the door, and Luna pressed the button as she had been told to do so during her telephone consultation, when the hospital had contacted her to say her internship request had been accepted. "PICU ward, how can I help you?" a female voice, interrupted by static, blared through the speaker.
"Luna Lovegood. I'm interning in this ward for the next seven weeks."
There was a pause, and some shuffling of papers. "Great, come through. Quickly, though, the door only remains unlocked for two seconds." The static ended, and a loud clicking sound came from the door. Luna quickly grabbed the handle and let her self inside. It locked almost immediately behind her.
The reception was directly in front of the door, and (presumably) the woman who spoke over the intercom was sat behind the desk. She was a fairly old woman, with lined features and snow white hair. Her thin framed was dressed appropriately in a grey dress suit, with matching grey tights and clunky, flat buckled shoes. She smiled warmly at Luna. "Well, I must say I was expecting someone a little older. I don't think we've ever had a young witch come to intern within this ward." She stood up, and stretched out her hand for Luna to shake. "My name is Jolene. Welcome to the Psychiatric Intensive Care Unit—though we affectionately refer to it as 'picu'."
oOo
It was a good week before Luna was allowed to interact with any of the patients. For the first five days, she was given administration tasks and kept firmly within the office. She only saw patients in passing, but was advised not to speak to them just yet. If she worked the night shift, the other staff on duty would give her quick tours of the ward to get her used to her surroundings whilst all the patients were asleep.
Just when Luna was beginning to get bored of sorting through organised filing cabinets, her job suddenly changed. "Luna Lovegood?" her boss and the senior Mind Healer of the PICU ward, called her breathlessly. "Are you busy?"
Luna sat back, gesturing to her clear desk. "Not at all."
"We're down a counsellor today," he continued. His name was Derek, and he was a nice, if not strict, boss. He was always looking for the opportunity to give new employees a chance. "How do you fancy having a go at sitting and talking to one of the patients?"
"You want me to counsel somebody?" Luna clarified, feeling a lot more alarmed than she sounded.
"Not counsel them. You're not qualified to do that," Derek laughed, though it sounded forced. He ran a hand through his hair, and Luna noticed the vein pulsing on his forehead. He was clearly stressed. "Just sit with the patient for an hour or so. Ask about his day, how he's feeling. Here." He reached onto a nearby desk, grabbing a clipboard. There was some lined paper attached, with a pencil tucked into the clasp. He tossed it towards Luna, and she caught it, clutching it to her chest. "Come on, I'll introduce you to him."
Luna nodded and followed Derek out of the office. "What's his name? Is there anything I should know about the patient?" she paused. "Is there anything I shouldn't talk about?"
Derek slowed down, his face suddenly shining with embarrassment. "You might already know him, actually."
"Oh?"
"Yeah. Gave the Wizarding World a bit of bother a few years back." Derek stopped outside a door and peered through the window, gesturing for Luna to do the same. She did so obediently, and her eyebrows rose slightly.
"I'm a little confused, Derek." The room was empty apart from a table, where the patient sat, dressed in white slacks and a white t-shirt. He was in his late thirties, slightly underweight, with dark sandy hair and dishevelled, stubbly features. Luna recognised him immediately. She remembered his face in the newspapers, not that many years ago.
Barty Crouch Junior.
"I know," Derek scratched the back of his head. "Look, Luna, I'm not supposed to talk about this. He was supposed to receive the Dementor's Kiss, but someone from St. Mungo's intervened at the last minute. Insisted that he needed a psychiatric evaluation before being committed to Azkaban, because his mental state was clearly fractured. So, he was transferred into our care," Derek paused. "And it seems that the rest of the world has just forgotten about him."
"And there's no one who can work with him?" Luna questioned. She had a cold sensation deep within her chest. This man had tortured Neville's parents, and done countless other horrible things.
"We've never had a Death Eater here before. Some other employees have attempted to work with him, but they always end up requesting to move on to another patient. He makes them uncomfortable. He makes me uncomfortable." Luna noticed that Derek had ducked away from the window, as Barty Crouch was suddenly staring over in that direction. She made eye contact with him easily.
He should have scared her. His gaze was cold and brown, like soil left out in the winter. He sat with his arms folded, a look of total disinterest plastered across his face, his legs wide apart, signalling that he felt quite at home here.
But Luna had dealt with much scarier demons. He was just a man, and she wasn't scared of men.
oOo
"I know you." Barty Crouch leaned across the table, his lips curling with interest and his hands clasping in front of them.
Luna carefully extended her hand for him to shake. When he didn't take it, she placed it back on her lap. "My name is Luna Lovegood. It's nice to meet you."
"Is it?"
"Of course," Luna put her clipboard down on the table.
"Luna Lovegood," he drawled, as though he was passing her name around his mouth like a sweet. "Didn't your friends call you Loony?"
"I don't really have any friends anymore." Luna kept her face impassive. It was true—she hadn't spoken to any of her friends since returning from her world tour.
"Well, you have one now."
Luna looked down at her clipboard. "Is there anything that you would like to talk about?"
Barty smiled. It wasn't an ordinary smile; it was sinister, with too many teeth, like a shark. Luna wasn't fazed. "What do you want to talk about?"
oOo
Luna's meeting with Barty became frequent; a daily occurrence. Derek was so impressed that Barty hadn't scared Luna off yet, that he insisted she meet with him every day.
In a way, Luna began to look forward to the appointments. Finally, she felt like she was actually doing something worthwhile within her job. She was helping someone.
"Hello, Mr. Crouch."
"You know that everyone else calls me Barty."
"You were my professor once."
Barty's eyes flashed, and Luna stared back at him solemnly. She was always testing him, with comments so below the surface that other people might not understand the references. "Careful," he murmured.
Luna wrote something down on her clipboard, the sound of the pencil scratching softly. "Can I ask you something?"
"Of course."
"Do you ever wish you could go back and change the things you did?" she paused. "You hurt the parents of a good friend of mine. I wondered if you ever regret what you did."
Barty's smile never faltered as he spoke. "Things change. People change." He paused. "You make some choices that you can never take back."
"Does that mean you would take it back?"
"Would you?"
"I think you and I are very different people."
Barty smirked. "I don't." Luna smiled softly, automatically, and his face suddenly lit up. "You finally smiled for me."
Luna looked across at him, unsure of how to respond. "Does that bother you, Mr. Crouch?"
"I think it's beautiful."
oOo
"Azkaban was horrible, but living with the guilt was even harder," Barty said during one of their sessions. He was sitting on a lounge chair in a different room, instead of his usual table, and Luna was perched on a chair beside him. "I will never forget. No matter what, not ever. Their faces haunt me."
"Do you regret what you did to them, Barty?"
"Every day," he whispered. He was no longer smiling, no longer protected by his shark-like exterior. After dozens of sessions with Luna, he had finally let his walls down. He was finally willing to share the raw, pure side of him.
Luna put her clipboard down. "You've done really well today, Barty. We can cut the session short, if you like."
Barty sat up suddenly, looking stricken. "What?" he glanced over at the clock. "But we don't finish until four. It's three-thirty."
"We don't have to—"
"—no. We finish at four." He was firm, and Luna nodded slowly, offering him a small smile. His eyes lingered on her lips. "Your smile always follows me out of these appointments," he murmured. "I remember it for days." Before Luna could reply, Barty had suddenly closed the few inches between their faces, crashing his lips into hers.
For the smallest of moments, time seemed to stop. A hundred words flashed through Luna's mind: traitor, forbidden, how could you? She pulled away from him slowly.
"You just kissed me."
"I know." He moved towards her again tentatively, more slowly this time. He gave her time to respond, to back away if she wanted to.
She didn't. She allowed him to kiss her again softly, slowly, savouring the moment.
She savoured it too.
"Things are going to be different now, aren't they?" she whispered into Barty's mouth.
"I don't think I mind."