It was incredible how in a single moment all of my plans dissipated into nothing. All of my years of running, chasing Horcruxes, and fighting Snatchers had suddenly vanished and left me with no experience. Even my battles against Death Eaters had abruptly gone from my mind.
All it had taken was looking at those eyes.
Crouch was lying on his side on a cot, and though he seemed consciously aware of me and everything around him, he did not move at all. His body never flinched. I could not even see him breathing.
I had not moved either, and I wondered if perhaps what I had read was wrong (it would not be the first time, though it would again challenge my faith in texts) and that their eyes just seemed empty in comparison to before their souls were taken from them. Perhaps his eyes were always looking at the door.
Slowly, I removed my wand from my sleeve. I had to do this. I wasn't sure quite why I had to, yet I was completely sure. I needed to do this. I would do it right then and there. I pointed my wand at him.
Then Crouch's mouth opened slightly and, instead of doing anything relatively intelligent, I gasped and my wand faltered.
And then, the man I knew to be a soulless body spoke. And he didn't just speak. He said my name.
"Hermione Granger."
My resolve, my fierce determination, was diminishing. Hearing my name slip from his lips was not something I was prepared for. Of course, I wouldn't be. He was supposed to be, for all intents and purposes, dead.
And coming from the mouth of a murderer, and a completely insane one at that, I did not expect his voice to be so steady.
"How do you know me?" I heard myself say, pointing my wand at him again.
He raised an eyebrow at me and sat up. I watched him carefully, looking around for anything he could use as a weapon before looking back at him.
"You forget I was your teacher for a year."
Right. That was why I was here in the first place.
"How? How are you…" I failed to find a word.
"Alive?" he finished. His face remained completely impassive, as if it was a usual thing for people to burst in on him. "Azkaban's best kept secret. Actually, the Wizarding World's best kept secret."
"Your soul…it was taken." I stumbled, hating myself.
"Who said so?"
I struggled to remember, "Professor McGonagall. Cornelius Fudge."
"McGonagall was there long enough to see the dementor begin the process before she pranced off to her precious Dumbledore—"
"You watch it!" I interrupted him and held my wand up straighter. Crouch sat on his bed and leaned his hands down into the mattress on either side of him, like he was holding himself up. His tongue darted out to lick his lips briefly.
"Oh that's right," he narrowed his eyes at me, "he's dead now."
"Yes, just like you will be. Very soon," I told him and lifted my chin, trying to appear confident.
Then his mouth curved into a sinister smile. I remembered thinking he had looked boyish at first. Now I saw him for the man he truly was. His grin was absolutely terrifying and yet I knew in another life it would have been counted as almost sexy. To me, it was repulsive.
"You've come to kill me, Hermione?" he asked and rolled his head back to assess me from another angle.
"You don't deserve to live."
"You came here to kill a soulless man, who has long since paid his debts, and I am the one who does not deserve to live?"
"You tortured Frank and Alice Longbottom into madness."
"Yes, I did," he confirmed.
"You spent a year posing as Alastor Moody, while keeping the real man locked in a trunk, only opening it to occasionally keep him barely alive and rip chunks of hair from his head."
"This is correct."
"You killed your own father and transfigured him into a bone and buried him," I reminded him.
"Gladly." He said, his tongue licking his lip again.
"You let your own mother die for you in—"
"Don't you bring my mother into this!" he shouted at me, his face transforming into a fearsome glare. Accidentally, I stepped back against the door. My wand held firm, but his sudden anger was frightening.
"Touchy subject?" I tried to taunt him.
He glowered at me and then stood up. I noticed that he wore no shoes and, for some reason, it made him more human to me. He was wandless, I knew, but that would not stop him from choking the life out of me. I prepared to jinx him in any way possible.
Then he was walking towards me slowly. As if he knew how absolutely intimidating his actions would be, he walked ever so slowly. It was incredibly dramatic. But it was working, because my heart had begun to drum loudly in my ears.
"You were so smart, Hermione," Crouch started, "you probably still are. You can recall things that people forget after a moment. You really were a joy to teach. I barely had to teach you. You were brilliant, you were."
I felt a lump in my throat. It had been years since anyone had called me brilliant.
He smirked, "And you know what? So was I. In school, I was just like you. Severus hated me, you know. I beat him at everything. He had set records for his class and then I would come in behind him and break his records. It infuriated him. When I saw you, you reminded me of myself. You were so eager to please. I was that way too."
"We are nothing alike." I said, but it was barely over a whisper. He was so close now. Only a few more small steps and he would be touching my wand, which had started to retreat.
"We're more alike than you know," he smiled at me. I grimaced to see his teeth were perfect, "Gods, you were so brilliant in classes. But, looking at you now, I am second guessing myself."
He was getting closer.
"You've come here with the assumption that you are justified in killing me. But let's assess that, shall we, Hermione? You came here to kill a defenseless and practically dead man. You talk to me as if my actions deserve death. But, surprisingly, you haven't done your research. You're a rather empathetic person, if I remember. You care for people. Yet, you've come to take the life of a man you know nothing about. A man whose life you caught the tail end of. Did you even consider how I got here, Hermione? No, of course not, because I am vermin next to you. You think of yourself so highly that you think it is completely ok for you to sneak into my cell and murder me."
"I didn't…" I stuttered, but went silent as he bravely stopped walking just in time for my wand to touch his chest. His hands came up then and, again, all my instincts failed me. Luckily, they went to my hand rather than my neck or to bash my skull against the door. He enclosed my hand in his own two hands, his skin freezing compared to mine. He looked right into my eyes. Oh, he was so incredibly close.
"You know what I think?" he whispered to me.
He fearlessly placed my wand directly under his chin.
"You don't know anything."
My breathing was heavy and ragged as we both stood there a moment, his hands enveloping my wand hand, the tip poking at his chin. We stared at each other for ages. His face had become that impassive mask again, and as he no longer looked like a madcap killer, I could not help but see how damned intelligent his face was. His eyes were dark, but they were communicating years of knowledge beneath them. His face was practically flawless. He had to be forty years old, but there were no lines on his face at all. Not even around his eyes. His cheekbones were beautiful and it was clear he had his jaw clenched. I pushed down bile as I realized that, if I had not known, he would be attractive to me. More than attractive. I felt sick at the thought, but with every passing moment, my eyes would not drag themselves away from his.
I couldn't tell how long I had been standing there just staring at him. I had lost track of time.
Then, suddenly, he pushed my wand from his chin roughly and his mask shattered and his face almost broke. His mouth erupted into a maniacal, teeth-baring grin and his eyes shot wide open. He looked absolutely psychotic.
"Run, Hermione," he said quietly at first, his voice taking a higher pitched tone. Then he laughed and ordered me again:
"Run Hermione! Run as fast as you can!" he cackled and I did not need to be told again. I turned from him (an utterly foolish rookie mistake, but he did not seem to want to take advantage of it), making the door recognize my wand signature to let me out before flinging it open and running as fast as possible down the hallway and out into the regular lobby of the prison.
I looked back to see if I had accidentally set him free, but I doubted suddenly that, even if he had had the chance, he would not have escaped just then.
I was hyperventilating and unexpectedly began sobbing, and I found myself collapsed against a wall.
He was right. I knew absolutely nothing. I knew nothing about killing a person. I had come to the prison with the intent to prove to myself that I really could take a life and had chosen Crouch as a man who obviously deserved it.
Or so I had thought.
He was right. I knew nothing.
But Barty…Barty knew everything. And even as I sat, weeping on the floor and petrified out of my mind, I knew that a twisted desire to know what he knew would soon consume me.
I stood up and resigned to go home and sleep.
But I would be back.
And I would have bet all the money in the world that Barty would be waiting for me.
