He's eleven the first time she teaches him something, instead of the other way around.
He's woken up that morning by the sound of an incessant tapping noise. He opens his eyes to see a large grey owl hovering in front of his window, a formal looking envelope attached to it's leg, if he didn't know any better he'd say the bird looked rather peeved. He shoots out of bed to open the window and let the tired animal inside. It rests at his desk, waiting for him to take the envelope of his foot, before shooting back out into the early morning sky.
His face breaks out in a grin when he sees where the letter originated from. Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Finally his time has come, finally he'll be able to practise his magic more fully, finally he'll get his own wand and there'll no longer be the need to steal his mother's discarded one.
He rushes downstairs to share the news with his absentee parents, only to find that they're just that: absent. His father's not present physically, ever the workaholic, while his mother isn't there mentally. When he informs her of the greatest news they've ever had, in his opinion anyway, she merely looks up from her dayplanner with an annoyed sigh to tell him that she'll pick up his stuff tomorrow when she goes out shopping for new dressrobes with 'the girls'. The girls being the other shallow, emotionally absent, society bred mothers of the street. With a wave of dismissal she continues her preperations for some fancy event to raise money for some kind of boring disease. He should be used to her uncaring manner by now, has told himself in the past that he is, but he can't shake the sadness that he feels rising within him at his mother's uninvolved attitude to his accomplishment. Parents are supposed to be proud of you when you get into Hogwarts aren't they, even if it was expected?
"What are you still standing there for?" She asks him impatiently as she drags her fingers through her dry dyed blond hair. "Go upstairs and play, I've got work to do." Her tone clearly implying that he isn't welcome.
He shrugs off the hurt and walks back upstairs to get dressed, before leaving the house and walking the twelve blocks to his favourite spot.
He knows someone who will be happy for him.
--
It's still early in the morning and it's exeptionally chilly for mid june, but she's there anyway, sitting on one of the swings reading a book. Lucy's parents were killed during a robbery not long before he met her and now she lives with different people all the time, foster care she called it, but he has no idea what that means. It's just some silly muggle thing he assumes.
"Hello, Luce." He says with a big grin on his face, his fingers still clutching his Hogwarts letter tightly behind his back.
She looks up in surprise. "You're here early. I thought you said that sundays don't start until eleven AM."
"Well, today they do." His says as he feels his grin stretch even further over his face. "Guess what I got in the mail today?"
It takes a few seconds before she understands what he's talking about, but when she does she jumps off the swing with a scream to hug him, the heavy bookbag that was resting in her lap falling tot the ground with a loud THUNK.
"Congratulations, Barty." She says as she releases him with a smile and picks up her bag again.
His own smile falters when she doesn't say anything else. Lucy's smart, she skipped a few grades and she'll be going to secondary school this september, according to her it's like the muggle version of Hogwarts. He's been secretly hoping she'd turn out to be a muggleborn.
"Come on, I want to show you something." He says as he grabs her hand and leads her out of the park, his hope renewed. If he just takes her to a magical location and she sees it then he could write to Dumbledore and she'll go to Hogwarts with him anyway. Yes, good plan.
"Barty, where are we going?" She asks him as he tugs her along yet another street. They've been walking for almost fifteen minutes already and have yet to reach their destination. He doesn't recall the place being that far from his home, then again, he's only ever traveled there by floo powder so what does he know.
"We're almost there, Luce." He tells her as he turns a corner with determined strides. A smile gracing his face when he finally recognizes his surroundings. At least now he knows he's going in the right direction.
"You said that ten minutes ago!" She exclaims with an indignant tone as she adjusts her heavy bookbag on her shoulder and lets go of his hand.
"Yes, well, I lied before. Now I'm not, however. It's just three more blocks, I promise." He says as he holds out his hand for her to take once more.
She takes it with a sigh. "You owe me cookies after this." She grouches as they continue on their journey.
Another six minutes later and they've arrived at their destination. He smiles when he reads the old and worn sign of the café.
The Leaky Cauldron.
"Alright." She says as she looks around the nearly deserted street. "What did you want to show me?"
He points to the creaky black door that sits within the dirty brick wall.
"So, it's just a wall, what's so special about that?"
His heart sinks as he hears her question, but the prospect of going to Hogwarts without his only friend only encourages him more. Maybe if he took her inside? She is only nine after all, she's not yet of magic age and from what he's read muggleborns can't see magical phenomena before their eleventh birthday. But if he gets her inside, she'll see the bar and he'll have his proof for Dumbledore anyway. He's sure he'll be able to convince the newly appointed headmaster.
Nobody has said no to him before, Dumbledore won't either he imagines.
"It's not just a wall, Luce, it's so much more than that." He tells her with a slightly manic gleam in his eye as he guides her over to the door.
He grabs the doorhandle and grabs her hand as he moves forward, only to find her resisting his grip, an aprehensive look on her face. She doesn't know what he's trying to do, he realizes, she only sees him trying to shove her into a wall.
"It's okay, Lucy. Just trust me." She relaxes somewhat and he takes it as a sign to move forward. With a loaded sigh he turns the doorknob and steps inside.
His senses are immediatly assaulted by the dark interior of the bar, the smell of smoke and beer and so he doesn't notice that his hand s empty at first.
"Ah, young master Crouch. What can I do for you to-" The bartender asks jovially, but he's already back out the door before the man can finish his sentance.
When he's back outside he's greeted by his very confused looking muggle friend. "Where'd you go just now?"
"Inside the Leaky Cauldron, remember me telling you about it?"
She nods. "That's the way to the magic mall, isn't it?" He almost bursts out laughing at her description of Diagon Alley, though he has to admit that that's exactly what it is.
"Yes, I was trying to take you inside."
Now she's frowning in confusion. "I thought you said that muggles couldn't go to magical places, that that's why we don't see 'em."
"They can't, but I was hoping-" He trails off as he looks down at the ground.
"You were hoping that I wasn't." She finishes for him in a small voice.
He nods, but doesn't say anything. Inside he's a bit ashamed that he can't seem to completely accept the fact that she's simply a muggle, that he somehow feels that isn't enough.
"Come on, let go home." She says as she takes his hand and starts walking back the way they came.
He follows silently.
--
"I just don't understand why I can go and you can't." He says sulkily once they're back at the playground, both occupying a swing.
She just shrugs. "You're a wizard and I'm a muggle. You're Glenda and I'm Dorothy." She says with a sad smile.
"What?" He asks, not understanding why she just called him a girl's name.
"It's from a movie. Glenda's a witch in this magical land called Oz and Dorothy accidentally ended up there too and she had a lot of fun there, but she was a normal person and in the end she had to go home." She explains, though he still doesn't understand what she's saying.
"So, what has that got to do with it?"
She sighs. "I don't belong in your world, Barty. No matter how much we'd both like me to."
Sometimes he can't help but wonder how she got to be so wise.
"Yeah, but why am I a wizard and you're a muggle?" He knows that even wizards like Dumbledore probably couldn't answer such a difficult question let alone a nine year old, but he doesn't know who else to ask. Next to his parents she's all he's got and his parents have made it perfectly clear on more than one occasion that they have better things to do than answer his questions.
"Well I don't know for sure, but I suppose it's got something to do with genes." She tells him as she gently sways her swing back and forth.
Now it's his time to frown in confusion. "What are...djeens?"
"Oh, right you don't know about science. Genes are thing inside human bodies, both muggle or otherwise, and they decide all kinds of things in your body. Like if you have blue eyes or green or brown, your hair colour even intelligence up until a certain point. I'm sure there's a gene for magic too, how else could muggleborns exist?" Even though he usually has a hard time following her when she talks about muggle science, and finds her ideas rather rubbish, he has to admit that this time she makes sense.
"So how'd we get those djeens?" He asks. He may not be very interested in the muggleworld, but when he does find something to catch his attention he wants to know everything about it.
"During the evolutionary process, I guess."
He's confused again. "During the what?"
"Oh, boy." She sighs. "How to explain that? Oh, I know." She says as she reaches into her overstuffed book bag. She takes out at least six others before finding the book she wants. She lets out a triumphant yell as she finds it and shoves it in his hands.
"Here, read that." He looks down at the old and thattered book with a mixture of disdain and curiosity. The origin of species by Charles Darwin reads the title. Unlike Lucy, he's not a big fan of reading, but he'll read this one for her. He did drag her halfway through London for nothing, after all.
When he's curled up in bed later that night, reading that book she gave him, he grudgingly admits to himself that he's very intrigued by what this muggle wrote, even though he promised himself he wouldn't be.
The idea of survival of the fittest, certainly speaks to him.
Yes, he decides, he definitely like mister Darwin.