A Thousand Thousand Slimy Things
Summary: Disloyalty to Lord Voldemort will always be punished. Trapped in his father's house after Azkaban, Barty Crouch Jr. struggles with his guilt and welcomes a chance for penance.
Disclaimer: All characters belong to J.K. Rowling.
A sliver of bitter moonlight glides through the curtain, and the creatures follow in its wake, sliding from their perches, from every dark, lonely corner in the bedroom. Like rats they scuttle across the floor, sharp claws rasping on the old wood as they make for the bed where he lies quaking with anticipation. No matter that he can't see them; a hot, sickly breath on his face and the maddening scritch-scratch on the floor announces their presence. Something light and cold ghosts over his throat, like fingernails, and he longs in his heart to beat it away, but he is, as always, at the mercy of the beasts that creep out every night, eager for the act of penance to begin.
As if unable to resist, one creature digs its fangs lustily into the tender skin on the back of his neck. He can feel a stream of mixed blood and horrible, sticky saliva running down to the pillow, surely soaking it throughout. The others follow suit, and suddenly his body is full of needles. He lies still, though, until the hissing of their thousand voices drowns his senses. "Coward."
"Yes," he whimpers.
"Coward."
"I am."
"Coward and traitor."
"No… Not that. Never that."
"Traitor!"
He has to block out the sound of their voices. He clenches his jaw tightly and screws his eyes shut, even holding his breath until a maddening buzz infiltrates his ears. It's no use, of course: how can he deny the shameful truths that drip like acid from those teeth? For what other reason do they torment him, before in his lonely cell, and now in the lonely house he once called home? Punishment, punishment for unspeakable lies. In a pathetic moment of pure terror, he denied his Lord while the truly faithful stood alongside him, staunch and silent, listening as the filth poured from his mouth. In tears, he cried out to the cruel man who hated him, hated his master, and begged for mercy. What a fool he had been to turn to such a one for help! He should have known that he would receive no pity from those damning grey eyes; there had never been any there before. And now he has a terrible, wonderful chance to redeem himself, to show the creatures and his master that he can be a loyal servant…
"Yes," he chokes to the creatures waiting in the darkness. "I'm a traitor. A dirty, undeserving traitor."
"Oh, but you are deserving…"
"… of punishment."
He lies raw and aching after they purge the stains of guilt from him.
At dawn, he can find no visible mark on his body. The cunning creatures hide their work from others, leaving him confined to suffering with his lonely sin. Still, as he pulls himself up he smells their feverish breath, heavy with his blood. "I didn't, I swear it Father…" A whispered suggestion in his ear. Very well, then, his castigation must not end with the sun's rising. He recalls the exquisite, delivering agony of the creatures' sharp little teeth.
His right arm rises to his mouth, and he bites down, teeth pulling at the flesh, until red finally flows onto the floorboards. Then the left arm, where his eyes fix on the vivid mark which should have reminded him, even in his panic, to whom he belonged. He watches the twin streams of scarlet trickle down on either side of his body, ignoring the house elf's shocked screams behind him.
The creatures rustle excitedly in their shadowy corner as his scarlet guilt pours forth.
"Damned boy. Such a stupid, thankless… she goes in his stead, and he just wants to die…"
The spiteful voice quavers with emotion as the bandages, soaked in a healing potion, wind snugly around his arms. He sits motionless, determined not to breathe a word in the presence of the cruel grey eyes, and wracks his foggy mind. Who are you talking about, Father? Who went to that place in my stead? And suddenly it seems that there had been one; he struggles to remember, but the prickle of claws on his neck snatches the memory away. No one would ever have wanted to save his foul soul, not after such a wicked crime. The man who had calmly sent him to Hell for – what was it? No matter, it must have been a petty offense – looks up from the bandages.
"Do you hear me, Boy?" A tear. "She's gone. Don't gawk at me like you don't understand! She's gone and she can't come back. Do you care?"
He blinks, forgetting his resolution to remain silent. Always so weak, the creatures hiss. "Who?"
He hears the other man's breathing hitch as a small, familiar voice begins to sob somewhere behind him. Then a sharp blow to his face knocks him to the floor, where he lies like a ragdoll, wondering why the pain seems so distant. Now that he thinks about it, staring up at the ceiling, nearly everything has been enveloped in a kind of mist since the day he awoke in his father's house. He frowns. Have things always been this way here? He should remember, he grew up in the house… but the mist clouds the eyes of his mind, and he quickly yields to its influence.
Suddenly a stone drops into the pit of his stomach: does the mist mean that they're here? Even with his thoughts covered in grey clouds he remembers vividly how the fog swirled around those slimy, decaying limbs. The floating apparitions and their putrid, rattling breath… something moves in the corner of his eye, and he whimpers, trying to pull himself up to flee. But the moving thing has brown eyes, not empty black voids, and large, flapping ears. He collapses again, panting from fear and exertion.
"Master Barty! You is not to be moving about, you is not well yet!" A long finger wags at him. "It was a very bad thing you did, Young Master, hurting yourself and making your father so worried. He is trying to help you!"
He listens passively to the elf's tiny, shrill voice, unsure what to make of her until the twinge of needles on his neck sends a jolt to his brain, which sets it racing. The wretched little beast is in league with his evil father, trying to make him forget the debt that he owes to his poor Lord, the man he betrayed! He can't give them the satisfaction of seeing his hesitation; he'll show them both how readily a loyal servant – for such he is determined to be – accepts his due…
A dusty old vase sits atop the windowsill above his head. He purposefully grabs the thing by the handle and brings it crashing to the floor. The house elf shrieks and flies from the room, but the frightful creatures which surround him, always invisible yet ever-present, hiss with excitement, egging him on.
He tenderly selects a razor-sharp sliver of the frosted glass and brings it up to eye level. Part of him dearly wishes to toss the shard away, to save himself from the pain, but he knows that this is the weakness in him which he must never again allow to dominate. The creatures snap their spectral jaws impatiently, and he smiles, bringing the glass down to his arm and pressing it against the untouched pale flesh just above the bloody bandages. "Shan't be a coward or a traitor anymore, no…"
The bedroom door bursts open, shattering his blessed reverie. His father storms across the room to haul him bodily to his feet, hands under his arms like a naughty child. He watches in agony as the beautiful, translucent glass falls from his hand. I'm sorry…
His father says nothing this time, just glares at him with grey eyes full of loathing. At first the man's mouth gapes as if to speak, but snaps shut again when the words won't come.
Then his body is being jerked along, into the long corridor and down the stairs, where he feels himself thrown backward onto a sofa. His father collapses into a chair directly across from him and covers the slate-grey eyes with violently shaking hands.
But his eyes are drawn to the picture just visible above his father's bowed head. An ashen-faced young man with tangled fair hair and vacant, emotionless blue eyes peers out of the frame. He squirms uncomfortably under the young man's hollow gaze, and the figure in the picture fidgets as well. Without quite knowing why, he giggles, watching as the other youth's face breaks into a feverish grin.
A sharp intake of breath from under the picture, and then: "Is this my punishment?!"
He nearly jumps out of his skin at his father's angry outburst, but refuses to let his vision stray. Still, he can see that the older man has turned on him once more, seeming to expect an answer.
"Mine. My punishment…" He trails off. He hadn't meant to say it aloud. What right did the man have to know of his deep longing to redeem himself for his master? How could he ever understand it, a man who seemed to him to feel nothing, who had always pushed him away? But that doesn't hurt anymore, he tells himself. After all, his master welcomes any who swear to provide loyal service, and he will be welcomed with open arms, once his debt is repaid. Feeling the sharp, yet somehow reassuring sting of claws, he locks eyes with the young man in the picture, who smiles dreamily back.
He hears a rustle of movement underneath the frame, but can't draw his gaze away.
"Imperio."
The world disappears deeper into the mist, until only he and the creatures remain.