His voice startled her out of the slight trance she had been in. She jumped and turned on her heel to leave. After only a few brisk paces, she felt a hand clasp her arm.

'Where are you going, darling? Didn't you come to see me, like last night?' Her blood froze upon hearing that last bit. He stepped even closer and whispered in her ear, 'Won't you come in and stay a while?' She stiffly nodded, knowing she had no choice in the matter, and followed him back into the classroom, noticing as he locked the door behind them.

'Barty Crouch Jr., at your service,' he introduced with a dramatic flourish and a wink. The menacing glint in his eye told her to play along.

'Hermione Granger, nice to meet you.' Her stiff response elicited a laugh from her companion which somewhat confused her.

'So, dearest,' she cringed at the term of endearment, 'care to explain why you were performing such extensive research on my father earlier?' Silence was the only answer she gave. 'Unless... it was actually me you were studying with such fervor.' She could hardly breathe. 'Bingo, that's the ticket. Care to tell me what you found, sweetness?'

'That you tortured poor Neville's parents to insanity and went to Azkaban.' She sounded much stronger and calmer than she felt. He chuckled. She raised an eyebrow at him and he took a seat on one of the desks before patting his lap.

'Come here and let me tell you a story.' She found herself walking over to him in spite of herself, perching herself on the desk across from him rather than on his actual lap. He merely grinned at her and shook his head.

'Once upon a time there was a very smart young lad who went to school and made friends like everyone else. However, one day, his father decided to wrongfully accuse him of a heinous crime in order to solidify his reputation as a professional hardass. He sentenced his son to Azkaban, only for the boy's mother to use polyjuice to take his place, since she was dying and he had an entire life ahead of him. For 13 years, the boy's father hid him under an invisibility cloak and kept him under the imperius curse to ensure that no one knew of his existence. One fine young lady did find out, however, when she called the house and the father was gone, but he hit her with such strong memory charms that it caused permanent brain damage. Finally, the young lad broke free and rallied all of his little friends. His true master, not that fool of a father, entrusted him with a very important task. In order to perform said task, a very clever and rather convoluted plan was developed, and the lad was sent in undercover for what was supposed to be an entire year. One fine night, a fine young lady happened upon him without his disguise and decided to do some research, because that's her thing. To his surprise, she came back the next night after reading that he was a crazed lunatic who tortured her friend's parents to insanity. The end.'

All Hermione could do was gawp like a ninny. She was utterly flabbergasted and astounded that someone who was the head of the magical law department would do something so cruel, unusual, and highly illegal. Her heart ached for the man in front of her, despite the fact that he was clearly a death eater who had infiltrated Hogwarts. She was startled when he laughed.

'What's so funny?'

'Earlier you looked scared, offended, and a bit nauseous, but now all I see is pity. Funny how a sob story will do that.' Her stomach turned at his harsh words.

'It's not just a sob story, it's abuse, which my best friend has also been forced to endure, thanks to Dumbledore.' He quirked an eyebrow at that.

'So you don't like the old man either?' Her immediate instinct was to deny it, but she couldn't bring herself to, and shook her head instead.

'There is never an acceptable reason for putting anyone in an abusive home and especially not for forcing them to return to it. I don't think I'll ever be able to forgive him for that.' He was impressed by the truly murderous glint in her eye.

'Then why do you fight for him?' The question truly took her by surprise. She had to think long and hard for about a minute before she could provide an answer.

'Because Harry believes in him, and at the very least, he has power and information that is useful, and I have no reason to believe that he is lying about which side he's on. I do think there's loads more that he's not telling us, and probably never will, but I don't believe that he actively wishes us harm, even if he either puts us in dangerous situations himself or turns a blind eye so that we may do so ourselves.' Barty nodded his head thoughtfully.

'So I take it he hasn't mentioned the prophecy?'

'What prophecy?' A chill went down her spine, and her uneasiness only grew as he simply smiled wider.

'What prophecy indeed.' Resigning herself to the knowledge that he wouldn't tell her more, Hermione decided to change the subject.

'So why do you fight for Voldemort?' The look that consumed his face terrified her.

'Revenge. I want to break the Ministry from every possible angle and watch the rubble crush his pretty little skull.' Hermione shivered. 'I want people to see the debris that used to be their precious Ministry and be reminded by it that my father, the great Bartemius Crouch, was the one who failed them. That he failed to enforce their stupid laws to such an extent that order imploded because he allowed their beloved society to crumble into madness.'

As much as his words scared her, she was able to understand. Yes, it was very extreme, but so was what his father had done to him. Gathering her Gryffindor bravery, she decided to ask another pressing question.

'Forgive me if this is rude, but I would like to know why it is that after all those years of being forced into hiding that you are willing and able to stay undercover for an entire school year.' This caught him by surprise, enough that he wasn't angered by the inquiry.

'I suppose it just comes naturally after so many years to just stay hidden and follow orders whispered in my ear. Anyway,' he gesticulated toward the door, 'it's getting late, you should really be heading off to bed.' Reluctantly, she pulled herself to her feet and trudged over toward him as he unlocked and opened the door. She shot him a quizzical look as his hand shot out and grabbed her arm to stop her before she left.

'How do I know that you will keep my little secret?' The inquiry was very much expected, yet Hermione had been hoping he wouldn't ask, since she didn't have an answer.

'I don't know,' she replied honestly. 'I suppose you'll just have to trust me. I haven't told anyone anything about last night or my research and don't really plan to.' She hoped this was enough, and relaxed significantly when he released her.

'Goodnight, princess.' A shiver shot down her spine as he whispered that in her ear. With a simple nod, she flew out of the room, opening the map as quickly as possible so that she could avoid Filch on her way back to her dorm. By the time she reached her dorm, it was roughly 20 minutes past curfew. She tried to sleep but soon found that she couldn't.

What the hell was she thinking? Not only did she just spend a good 10 minutes or so talking to a death eater in a locked classroom with no one knowing she was there, but she had also lied to her friends in order to do so, however indirectly that may have been. It was a dangerous game she was playing and she could not for the life of her figure out why she was going along with it. She rolled over and groaned, pressing her pillow to her face. The only logical explanation was that she was simply going insane. Yet, she still could not bring herself to regret any of it or wish to betray him by consulting Dumbledore.

His apparent honesty had caught her by surprise. Why on earth would he tell her all of that stuff about himself, and why did he mention that prophecy? The way he barely addressed that prophecy indicated that he knew something important that Dumbledore was deliberately hiding from them. She hoped that he would eventually be willing to tell her. The way that he had purposely let it hang in the air made her think he wanted her to visit him again. That thought made her chew her lip nervously.

Tomorrow was the last day before they all left for Christmas, so if he didn't tell her then, she would have to wait until after New Year's for him to do so. This worried her, because in that gap of time, he could easily be found out and sent back to Azkaban and never get the chance to tell her. Of course, she could ask Dumbledore, but she trusted him even less to be truthful than the death eater who was pretending to be her defence teacher. She snorted at that thought, but it was accurate. Dumbledore would inevitably brush her off by claiming that he had no clue what she was talking about, and maybe even promise that he would look into it. No, the only way she could definitely get the information was to have Barty tell her himself and just trust him to tell her the truth. After all, she could always confront Dumbledore with it once she knew more specific information about it, and if all else failed, she could consult Trelawney. She found it quite ironic that earlier she had told him to trust her not to tell and now she had to trust him to tell her what she wanted to know. Turning to face the ceiling, she drifted into a restless slumber.