A/N: Well, this is my second-ever Harry Potter fic that I've posted on this site :D I'm hoping to one day write a chapter story for this series, as I'm rereading it. I'm almost finished with the Order of the Phoenix now, but it occurred to me during Goblet of Fire that it'd be really fascinating to write something from Barty Crouch Jr.'s point of view. I'm really honestly convinced that he was mentally unstable. (That tongue thing, man) Anyway, this is basically his "waking up" in GoF, when he started coming back to himself more and more. I really wanted to capture the feeling of freedom after a long imprisonment, the feeling of waking up after a very long sleep. As if you've been locked in a cell this whole time, and you didn't even realize it until you escaped. I hope I captured it pretty well :)
I've here. I hear you, I hear you calling my name, and I see you standing in front of me. For the first time, I can see you clearly, and it feels wonderful. Your edges are not blurred and your image is not shaking slightly. You are real, and I am real, and I am here. I have been sleeping for so long, I have been trapped, frozen, but now I'm here, now I'm awake. I'm waking rather slowly, it's true, but I've been sleeping for years and years. Please give me time to wake up, to come fully back to myself before I do anything.
I am unchained. For once in my life, I am unbound, but I have lived so long with those familiar shackles on my wrists that it feels very odd to be free. I'm taking one step, slowly, so slowly, because I'm not sure if it is okay. I have not been ordered to do so: I am walking of my own free will. Walking away from you. Walking away from your control, and back to myself. Back to who I am, to who I once was. I will never get the years you stole from me back, because you controlled me for far too long, forcing me to sleep soundly for so many years, forcing me to be everything you wanted me to be. You pushed me onto the bed and pulled the covers over my head, crushing them against my face, tight, so tight.
Suffocating me. I was dying under your control, but now I am away from you once more. I have now taken two steps, all of my own free will. I am waking up. I am walking, little by little, bit by bit, back to myself. I will find who I was, who I am, and who I once wanted to be. I will find all of these people once I have left this hazy aftermath of dreaming, this sudden dawn after an eternal night. The sun is rising once again, but this time, I am rising with it.
I am free. I am walking away from you, I am walking and breathing and laughing and smiling of my own free will. For the first time in a long time, I can really and truly breathe again, without fear of suffocation, because you are no longer there to stop me. I am my own person once again. I am past the stage of dreaming. I am through waking up.
Now, for the first time in so many years, I am wide awake once more.