"Traitor." Barty Crouch Jr. hissed through his teeth, "Severus Snape, you're a bloody traitor." Barty tried to maneuver his face away from the end of Snape's wand without getting a stunning spell, or worse, to the face. He'd been caught red-handed while impersonating Alastor Moody and now, he was waiting for a Ministry worker to come take him back to Azkaban.
"Shut up, Barty." Snape said rather loudly, then once McGonagall's back was turned he whispered, "I'm only doing as the Dark Lord told me."
Barty laughed, "Doing as he told you? Please, all you do is sit back and play the lap dog to whoever will throw you a bone. Now, He's back and you're going to die with the rest of the traitors that ran at the first sign of trouble."
Snape grabbed the front of Barty's shirt and pulled him up to face him dead-on, "I said shut up! I hope you rot alone in Azkaban!" He roared.
Barty narrowed his eyes and opened his mouth to yell back at him, but McGonagall interrupted, "Severus!" She put her hands on her hips, "Put. Him. Down!"
Snape slung Barty back into the chair and the wheels spun backwards, slamming the wood into the stone walls of the Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher's office. Barty let out a muffled cry of pain as his head came in contact with the wall, but refused to let Severus see his pain. McGonagall crossed the room briskly and said, "Severus, don't let him get to you. Go stand over there, he's not going anywhere."
Barty tried not to laugh. He was an unregistered animagus, and could change and escape whenever he wanted to; a raven in full flight is hard to catch. But he was waiting for the opportune moment to make his getaway, and now wasn't the right time.
Minerva McGonagall tossed a look in Barty's direction; one that said 'quite agitating people'. Barty rolled his eyes and focused on the wall in front of him; after a few months as someone else, transforming to his animagus form was hard work. Especially since he hadn't done it since before he'd been captured the first time. Bellatrix had rolled her eyes at him and kept trying to convince him to use his form to escape Azkaban, but being in the prison had been a million times better than being at home with Father. He only agreed to escape the prison as his mother's dying wish. Her dying wish and his execution.
Barty's fingers had just started turning into ebony, silken feathers, when the door to the office opened abruptly and Cornelius Fudge strode into the room, bringing an all too familiar chill with him. Barty's feathers turned back into slender fingers that he clenched tight at the sight of his jailers. Dementor. It was looming through the doorway, kept at bay by the warmth and glow of Cornelius's patronus; the silver shark glided through the air and glared threateningly at Barty.
McGonagall spoke now, "Cornelius, where are the Aurors to help take young Mister Crouch back to Azkaban?"
"I have everyone I need." Fudge said, waving the Dementor in Barty's direction.
"No!" McGonagall lurched forward, "Sir, you can't! This is not right. No one deserves the Dementor's kiss!"
"Minerva, I am the law, and I say he does." He pointed a portly finger at Barty and the Dementor glided forward soundlessly and stopped in front of Barty. Minerva ran from the room, she couldn't watch.
The Dementor bent over until it was directly in front of Barty's face; an icy chill shot through Barty's veins and the cold was so consuming, it threatened to drown him before the kiss was initiated. Cornelius gave a nod and a scream cut through the still air. It took Barty a moment to realize that the scream was his own; a sharp yell that ripped at his vocal cords and tried to penetrate the growing numbness in his mind. He was losing feeling in his body and mind, but when he hit the stone floor, he felt every ounce of pain. The Dementor floated out the door, its job finished.
Barty watched the room spin as he lost all movement of his limbs. They say that you're repressed emotions are the last thing you feel when you receive the Dementor's kiss, and Barty was slowly finding that to be true. All he could feel was the pain of his father's rejection, the sadness of losing his mother, and the numbness of his own confusion. He had never understood what he'd done wrong to make his father hate him, but now he was dying for the acceptance he'd searched for so long.
His deep brown eyes glinted with his last spark of life, then cold, numbing blackness became Barty's only reality.
