This is a response to the Harry Potter Roulette Challenge on HPFC. My to characters were Angelina Johnson and Barty Crouch Jr. (random or what?), and my given quote is written in bold. And I'm a nice person really, so don't hate me for this!
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"Angelina, is that you?" George Weasley pulled back the tapestry of the Gryffindor lion to reveal the small, stone alcove behind it. Angelina Johnson was sitting with her knees drawn up to her chest, with her arms wrapped around them. She hurriedly scrubbed at her eyes with the back of her hand, leaving them red and puffy looking. She squinted up at George through blurry eyes and wet eyelashes.
"George?" she asked and George smiled wryly at her.
"My inner Seer is telling me that now wouldn't be the right time to play the 'no, it's me, Fred - only joking' game?" Angelina shook her head, not trusting her voice yet. "I always knew not taking Divination was a terrible mistake." he put his hands into his pockets and just surveyed the recently crying girl for a while. "You always were good at telling us apart - not many people are, you know." Angelina sniffed and George took this as a 'thank you'. They remained in awkward silence for a few more minutes; George feeling extremely uncomfortable and wishing he were somewhere else, but not wanting to leave Angelina alone now that he'd found her. After a while Angelina coughed and cleared her throat.
"Is he dead then?" George wasn't expecting that as a topic starter - he wasn't comfortable with death and seriousness at the best of times, not to mention when the serious death in question was the school heart-throb, who had been murdered less than a few hours ago by the darkest wizard of all time, who everyone thought was dead.
"Um, yeah. He was - you know - when he come back with Harry." he told her, Angelina looked momentarily confused.
"No, I didn't mean Cedric. I knew about poor Cedric - I saw his - I was there when they came back. I meant Professor Moo- Mr Crouch's son, Barty Jr." George was even more surprised at this question.
"Oh, yeah - well he had the Kiss, so…" Angelina's eyes when wide and her eyebrows shot up, almost to her hairline.
"The Dementor's Kiss? They did that to him here, in the castle. That's awful. Worse than dying."
"He deserved it - after what he did. They said that he'd gone mad anyway."
"He was always mad." she corrected.
"Yeah." George agreed and nodded, "Wait - what do you mean always?" Angelina rested her head on top of her knees and looked glumly at George.
"When I was a kid, we used to live next door to his family. Obviously he wasn't there a lot - he was here, but he always seemed creepy and a bit crazy when he came home in the holidays.
My mum went to check in on Mrs Crouch when she was taken ill one time, well, she was ill a lot of the time, but this one time was during the summer - it must have been just before I was three. She always took me with her when she went to check on her, and while she was with Mrs Crouch I would play with the cats. The Crouch's had two of them and I'd wanted a cat since I'd first seen them, but my dad's allergic. Anyway, one was called Tom and one was called Lolly. Tom would always come running as soon as you came in, but Lolly was shy and most of the time we would have to hunt for her. But that was fine because I was three and looking for cats was fun. This day was different though, Lolly was sat near the front door, crying to be let out, but Tom was nowhere to be seen. I stroked Lolly for a while then started looking for Tom. We checked the kitchen, the living and dining room, under the stairs - everywhere, and I couldn't find him. I was about to tell my mum, who was in Mrs Crouch's bedroom, when I heard a meow. I knew it wasn't Lolly was still down stairs. I crossed the landing to where I'd heard the meow from, to another door that was ajar slightly. It was his bedroom. He had Tom under one arm. He was petting him as he walked across the room, and placed him on his desk. He bent down and patted him on the head, pulling his wand out of his back pocket. He was talking to him,
'Wanted to come in, did you? Keep scratching at my door, will you? Alright, you persistent, delusional idiot, let's see if you still want to be in here after we play my little game. Now you just lay there - that's it.'
Tom rolled over so that he could scratch his belly - he liked it when you did that. That's when he did it. He used an Unforgivable - Cruciatus. He did that to a poor little cat, just because it wanted him to stroke it - it was his cat! Tom was making a horrible high-pitched keening noise - I've never heard anything like it! That's when I run in and over to Tom. I tried grabbing him from the desk, but I couldn't reach. I don't know what he would have done because my mum ran in then. I think she must have heard Tom screaming. He scooped the cat off of the desk and began cooing to it - after what he'd just done to him. I was crying and my mum wanted to know what had been going on. He told her that he'd accidentally trodden on Tom's tail, making him scream and hiss, and it had upset me. He told me it was alright now and gave the cat to me. He offered my mum a cup of tea, which she declined and thanked her for looking after his mother. Then we left.
My mum didn't take me with her when she went to check on Mrs Crouch the next day. Or for the rest of the summer. I didn't see the cats again, either." She finished her story with a frown. George let out a long breath b before he said anything.
"Wow. And you still remember all of that?" he asked in disbelief, Angelina shrugged her shoulders before replying.
"I think that you don't ever forget something like that."
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No cats were hurt in the writing of this story. And before you all think I'm evil, I really like cats! I have two and I give then catnip treats all the time, and they really like me for it! Honest.