A/N: Um...did I make it clear he's invited her for the duration of the weekend? *scans last chapter* I don't think I did, did I? Damn, I've made it a little ambiguous. Well, just to be clear he's invited her to stay overnight Saturday evening/Sunday morning.
Sorry for the delayed update. I started writing this on Saturday morning but I felt really ill and was in bed all day. Donating blood doesn't agree with me it seems. I kept nearly blacking out everytime I tried doing anything, so I gave up trying to write and just spent the afternoon sleeping. After I recovered from that I had a visit day to attend at the University of Kent, so I couldn't write for a couple of days. I eventually got round to finishing this though, and I've made it an extra long chapter to compensate for the delay. Hope you enjoy!
Warnings for some sexual content this chapter. Nothing explicit (I would like to keep my 'T' rating) but if it bothers you there's a part towards the end of this chapter you might want to skip (from the second –oOo- to 'They were interrupted by...').
Disclaimer: Gwen and her family are mine. Everything else is JKR's.
Chapter Ten
Her parents took it much better than she'd expected, actually. Her father seemed quite pleased for her, but if he was glad, her mother was practically ecstatic.
"Oh, it's great you've finally started taking an interest in boys," Christine gushed, "This makes him your first boyfriend!"
"Second boyfriend," Gwen corrected, "And in fact, no Mum, he's not even my boyfriend."
"Gwen, if he's invited you round to his house for the weekend, he's your boyfriend."
"Mum, just because he's invited me round to his house it doesn't mean anything's going to happen."
Her mother sighed, "Gwen, you are so naïve."
"No I'm not," Gwen replied defensively.
"Yes, sweetheart, you really are."
Gwen was too embarrassed to take the conversation any further.
-oOo-
When she arrived at Barty's house on Saturday he was waiting for her, dressed in smart chinos and a blue long-sleeved shirt. The only kind of greeting he gave her was a "Gwen, welcome," and a pat on the arm, which relieved her immensely. She'd have hated it to have been anything more physical and then have her mother ask questions about it later.
She'd arrived in the entrance hall again – which seemed strangely smaller now that it wasn't set up for a party – and he led her through to the main living room where there was a cream sofa and two chairs surrounding an oak coffee table. She sat down on the sofa, which she found to be incredibly squashy as she sank down into the cushions. Barty remained standing. "Can I get you a drink?" he offered, his tone incredibly formal.
"Tea would be nice, thank you."
"Milk and sugar?" he asked stiffly.
"Milk no sugar."
"Right." He headed off to the kitchen, leaving her sitting there feeling slightly awkward. She thought he'd invited her as a friend, but now he was behaving as if this was some formal occasion. It was five minutes before he returned with the cup of tea – in fact with a tray carrying a cup, saucer, tea pot, tea strainer and pot of milk. Overdoing it just slightly, she thought.
He sat down in the chair opposite her and she noticed he hadn't made himself a drink. She felt like she'd inconvenienced him for even asking in the first place. "Thank you, but you really didn't have to go out of your way like that. Just the cup of tea would have been nice."
"I'm just trying to do what the house elf would have done."
Gwen suddenly realised she hadn't seen the house elf since arriving. "Where is she?"
"Well, father's taken her with him, hasn't he? Merlin knows why; it's not like Hogwarts hasn't got dozens of house elves if he needed one. So I'm making do on my own, which means that if the cooking is crap later, I do apologise."
She smiled at that and relaxed a little. He seemed less stiff and formal now. Maybe he'd just been nervous? It seemed rather strange and alien to her, the thought that he could've been nervous at the prospect of her visiting him. "Don't worry about it; you can't possibly be a worse cook than me."
"I probably am. Hope you don't mind soggy pasta."
She gave a slight chuckle, "I love pasta of all kinds."
"Looks like we'll be alright then."
The atmosphere became at lot more relaxed after that, and she felt quite comfortable talking to him about her job and Hogwarts and the article on Dutch Argentite that had been in the Daily Prophet the day before. She tried bringing up the topic of his financial investments again, but he avoided giving her any more detail as to what he was up to, and she wasn't brave enough to ask about it directly. Despite that, they talked companionably for over an hour before Barty got up to start preparing dinner, and he led her through to the dining room before disappearing into the kitchen to work on the pasta. She noticed there was a bottle of red wine on the table in between the two places he'd set facing opposite each other, and she became worried about how she was going to tell him she couldn't drink it. He'll either think I'm weird, or rude, or both. But if it made her sick then he'd probably think even worse.
When he came back in carrying the dishes of pasta he looked quite pleased with himself. "I had to charm off some of the excess water and I think carbonara sauce is supposed to have more ham in it, but it should be edible."
"It smells great."
"You're just saying that."
No point denying it, Gwen thought, but it didn't exactly smell bad either. She watched as he unstoppered the wine bottle and was about to start pouring her some, but she thought she ought to stop him. "Oh, no Barty. Thanks, but I don't drink."
He stopped to look at her with a mildly incredulous look on his face. "Seriously?"
She blushed, "Yeah, I just really…well, don't like it."
He looked surprised for a moment longer, then shrugged as if it was of no importance. "Okay. If you're not, I'm not either." He put the stopper back on the bottle and pushed it to one side before sitting down opposite her.
Gwen felt rather bad about it. "Oh no, don't feel like you can't drink it because of me. It's fine. I don't mind."
"But then I'd be the one feeling bad about it." He noticed she seemed quite distressed, and gave her a friendly smile. "Gwen, just relax. We'll have lemonade instead. You do like lemonade?"
"Yeah, I like lemonade."
"Okay." He waved his wand over her glass so a stream of cloudy, fizzy liquid poured into it, then did the same to his own. "There you go." He set down his wand and then picked up his knife and fork to start eating. She looked down at the pasta then back up at him, biting her lip nervously.
"Barty?"
He looked up from his food, surprised to see she hadn't started eating yet. "What?"
"You didn't buy that wine especially for this evening, did you?" she asked, looking worried.
"No," he answered immediately, and then realised that must have come across as seeming like he hadn't cared enough to buy anything special. "Well, it's something I've been saving for a special occasion," he quickly justified, "But if you don't like it then there's no point you drinking it, is there? I'd rather save if for someone who actually wants it."
She still looked uncomfortable. "I don't mean to seem ungrateful or anything."
He sighed, wishing she'd just relax and stop getting herself worked up over something this stupid. "Honestly, Gwen, it's no problem. Now will you please start eating; I put a lot of work into that pasta and I don't want it to go cold."
She didn't reply, just quietly and rather timidly picked up her cutlery and began to eat the tagliatelle. He watched her silently for a few seconds, surprised by how shy, and quite frankly how lifeless, she was. She'd been like this more or less ever since she'd arrived, and it almost seemed like she didn't want to be here. Even though she'd seemed reasonably content when they were talking earlier, he didn't get the impression she was really enjoying herself. "Gwen, have I been boring you all evening?" he said quite suddenly.
She looked up, puzzled and slightly worried. "No, not at all."
"Then why are you acting like this? It's like you don't have any enthusiasm for anything."
She didn't really have anything to say to that, just mumbled, "Oh. Sorry."
He stopped eating in order to concentrate on her. "That's what I mean. If I'd said that to most other girls they'd probably have taken offense, argued with me, maybe even got really mad at me. I'd have at least got some kind of reaction. You just…sit there. Is it because of something I've done or...what?"
She looked at him, her expression apologetic. "No, it's not you at all. You've been great."
He leant across the the table to look at her thoughtfully. "Then what is it? I can't figure you out."
She stopped eating as well to look at him. It was strange having someone interested in her like this. "Well, that's just the way I am," she responded meekly, unable to offer any real explanation. He was studying her intently and she felt her cheeks begin to redden. It felt awkward to have him look at her like that.
"How can you be so passive?" he asked, seemingly intrigued by her behaviour, "After what I said to you just now you didn't even try and disagree with me, instead you just apologised for it. How can you just not react to things like that? I know I couldn't."
She was blushing, finding it embarassing the way in which he was trying to analyse her. "Well, I just don't really like getting into conflict with people if I can help it."
He continued to look at her for a few seconds before replying. "Sometimes conflict can be good," he said, as if he was trying to reason with her.
"Like when?"
"Well, say for example you were at work, and somebody tried to tell you they wanted to invest loads of money in a company that was losing hundreds of galleons a day. Wouldn't you tell them they were a fucking idiot?"
She blushed even harder at the suggestion she might say something like that to a client. "Not in those exact words."
"But you'd say something, right?" He was determined not to let this drop.
"Well, it's my job to give good advice, so…"
"Gwen, for once will you stop being so diplomatic and just say what you're really thinking."
There were a few moments of silence during which they simply stared at each other, then Gwen finally replied, "What I'm really thinking is that I'm finding this whole conversation a little uncomfortable."
He gave an exasperated sigh. "There's no need to be so polite about it," he said, sounding a little frustrated. "If I'm pissing you off then I'd rather you just got mad at me instead of trying so hard to be nice."
Despite still feeling incredibly awkward and put on the spot, Gwen couldn't help but find his behaviour both intriguing and flattering. He seemed genuinely interested in her, although she wasn't quite sure why. The idea that someone might find anything about her interesting was quite alien to her. "Well, I don't really want to get mad at you. I'm pretty sure you're not trying to piss me off."
As he replied the corners of his mouth turned up in a mischievous grin. "You think? It's such a challenge to get any kind of strong reaction from you that I kind of want to try."
Gwen looked at him uncertainly. "So are you trying to?" She wasn't sure what to make of that.
He smirked. "Maybe."
"Oh," she responded, a little stunned and not at all sure how to react. She thought he'd just been curious about her, but what he'd just admitted to was a little odd. Even odder was how he wasn't even trying to hide it, and it intrigued her just as much as she seemed to intrigue him. "Well, that's...that's not very..."
"What? Nice?" he finished for her, still smirking. "Come on, Gwen. Surely there must have been times when you've wanted to piss off someone just for the hell of it?"
She frowned at him. "You mean like you do with your father?" she said reproachfully.
He gave a casual shrug, as if he didn't particularly care about admitting that to her. "Yes, sometimes. It can be quite fun to annoy him."
It surprised her how ready he was to own up to it. "Well, I can honestly say that no, I have never wanted to piss off anyone - particularly my father - just for the hell of it," she responded, her tone disapproving.
He scowled in response, and she thought she might actually have irritated him with that reply. "Well, your dad doesn't seem to be a stuck up git like mine, so I suppose he's never given you much reason to," he said bitterly, before looking away from her and going back to his food.
She did as well, and they both ate a few mouthfuls in silence before Gwen tried to resume the conversation. "What exactly is it about your father that's so bad?" she asked rather timidly, sensing that this might be a sensitive subject, but she really wanted an explanation as to why he disliked his father so much. It was one of the many aspects of him she was struggling to make sense of.
Barty had taken on a rather defensive posture and seemed to be hunched over his pasta bowl in trying to avoid making eye contact with her. There was a pause of a several seconds before he responded. "The fact that if you asked him he probably wouldn't even know what my favourite Quidditch team is, or that he couldn't tell you the name of my first girlfriend or that he isn't even all that sure what subjects I took at NEWT," he answered her, with a distinct note of bitterness in his tone.
Gwen couldn't help but feel rather sorry for him once he'd said that. From what she'd seen of his workaholic father she suspected that Crouch Sr. really didn't take much of an interest in his son, and she wasn't sure how she was supposed to respond. "That is quite shit."
He looked up at her and gave a shrug, as if trying to look like he still didn't care but not quite pulling it off. She could tell the conversation was bothering him, and although she still felt a little sorry for him it gave her a sense of payback for the way he'd been quizzing her earlier. "I suppose, but honestly I'm past caring when it comes to him," Barty said, trying to sound nonchalant, "It's not like I can ever hope to change anything. Anyway, how's the pasta?"
She noticed how he seemed to be trying to change the subject, and she didn't think she was going to let him get away with it. "It's very nice, thanks," she said in response to his question, but she was intrigued by what he'd just told her and she had every intention of finding out more.
"Do you really mean that or are you just being nice again?" he asked with a smile.
"No, I really mean it. You've done great," she replied, but now she was determined to steer the conversation back to his father. Maybe he didn't want to talk about Barty Crouch Sr. but she certainly did. "But anyway, your dad does seem like a complete workaholic from what I've heard. My mum was telling me how he was at work over sixteen hours each day last week."
He scowled at her slightly, but seemed to accept the direction the conversation was going in. "He is a workaholic," he responded in a tone filled with resentment, "Doesn't seem to want to do anything else other than work, except perhaps find time to look after my mother when he needs Winky for something else. He hasn't got time to pay attention to me when he's completely obsessed with catching the Dark Lord's supporters."
Once he'd said that she stopped eating and gave a slight frown. She'd wanted to force him to talk about his father, but following that reply there was something else that had intrigued her.
He noticed she'd paused with her fork half way to her mouth. "What?"
"Nothing, it's just…I've never heard anybody refer to You-Know-Who as 'The Dark Lord' before."
He stopped eating too at that moment to look at her. Just for a couple of seconds there seemed to be a tension between them, then he shrugged. "It's easier to say than 'He-Who-Must-Not-be-Named'."
"Hmm, I suppose," she went back to her food, but there was still something about it that bothered her. As they got back to their dinner though and resumed talking about the Dutch Argentite they'd been discussing earlier, her discomfort was quickly forgotten.
-oOo-
After dinner he led her to the first floor guest room, where she thanked him for a great meal and set her overnight bag down by the bed. She was about to start unpacking when she realised he still hadn't left the room. She paused and turned to look at him, beginning to suspect where this might be going. "What?"
He was looking at her with one eyebrow raised, "But you aren't actually planning on staying in this room all night, are you?"
"What do you mean?"
He shook his head and gave her an almost disbelieving look. "Gwen, will you please stop acting so naïve or you're going to make me feel like I'm taking advantage."
As much as she wanted to pretend she had no idea what he was talking about, she had to admit that she did. And that only made her even more nervous.
Making use of the time it took her to respond, he quickly closed the space between them in a few long steps, and just as she'd been about to open her mouth to say something he pressed a firm kiss to her lips. It lasted only a few seconds, during which time she didn't move, and he pulled away to gauge her reaction. She was just staring at him in complete shock. Yes, she'd sort of had an idea it was coming, but she hadn't expected it to happen so suddenly right there and then. She noticed he was looking at her as if confused by her reaction and was wondering what to do next, but to her surprise she found herself initiating the next kiss.
Whywhywhy am I doing this?
Because he expects you to, she thought in answer to her own question. It wasn't that she was finding it unpleasant, she just wasn't finding it all that enjoyable either. It was just sort of a nothing feeling, like well-this-isn't-all-that-great-and-can't-we-do-something-else. But she knew she couldn't expect him to think that way too. She remembered the time a few years previously on graduation day at Hogwarts, when her then-boyfriend Zach had tried initiating something like this hidden away in a secret alcove behind a tapestry on the fifth floor. At the time she'd been wondering what the fuck is this? and she suspected she'd managed to confuse the hell out of Zach with her reaction (which was no doubt the reason he'd only stayed with her a few more weeks after graduation). She was at least grateful that however awkward it had been last time, at least this time she knew what to expect.
Barty had begun working at the buttons on her blouse, and realising what he was expecting her to do she began fumbling with those on his shirt. At that point however he pulled away from her and said, "Wait," before pulling his wand out of the back pocket of his jeans and using it to turn the lights out, then tossed it down on the bedside cabinet before resuming kissing her.
Oh good, Gwen thought in relief, I don't care if he's shy 'cause I prefer it like this too.
He pushed her down onto the bed so he was on top of her, and they continued kissing as his hands moved over the bare skin of her stomach. This isn't too bad, Gwen thought, and she supposed she might actually grow to like it if things carried on.
They were interrupted, however, by the sudden sound of loud knocking coming from the main door of the house. At that point Barty pulled back from her and went very still, and she noticed he was holding his breath as he listened to what might be going on outside. She wondered what the hell was going on too, and she suddenly felt very nervous. After a few beats of silence, the knocking sounded again, and she thought she could hear the sound of a man calling out, "Crouch!"
"Shit," Barty muttered and suddenly scrambled off the bed and headed to the door, doing up his shirt. "Gwen, wait here," he instructed, and she laid very still and waited until she'd heard the last few creaks that indicated he'd just reached the bottom of the stairs. At that point she got up and creeped onto the landing, thinking she'd like to know exactly what was going on.
She knelt down next to the banister and looked down onto the ground floor. She couldn't see the front door from here, but she heard it creak open and saw the moonlight from outside spill across the white marble floor of the entrance hall. She could also see the elongated shadows of Barty and whoever it was on the other side of the door, and the eerie effect did nothing to comfort her.
As the two men spoke they did so in subdued voices, but Gwen found that if she breathed as quietly as possible she could just make out some of what they were saying. She wished she'd brought her wand with her to cast an amplification charm, but she'd left it in her bag next to the bed.
"Have you got the money yet? Pettigrew's getting nervous," she heard the stranger say.
"I'm working on it. It's going to take time." So is this what his trading shares is all about? she wondered.
"We haven't got time. He's saying that if we can't pay him he'll go to Dumbledore."
"Can't you just threaten him?" When she heard the word 'threaten' she began to feel the onset of panic. She had absolutely no idea what this was about, but it sounded bad.
"What do you think we're doing? He'll call our bluff eventually. He knows he's too important."
Barty said something else then which she couldn't make out, but everything she'd heard already scared her immensely.
"You know the spell means it won't work if he's under duress," the stranger responded, "We need to pay him off."
"What happens when we do?"
"We'll see but…" something else she couldn't make out.
"Why do I have to provide the full sum anyway?"
"You're expected to prove your worth. If you can't…" she couldn't hear the last part of the sentence, but she knew by this point she was immensely frightened. Her heart was pounding violently as a dozen sinister explanations for this flooded into her head. What the hell had she gotten caught up in? If she could run back to the bedroom now she could grab her wand and apparate home, but she was too scared to move.
"We can't talk right now. I'll meet with you tomorrow." She heard the final part of the conversation and the door creaked shut, and then as Barty's footsteps sounded across the entrance hall she ran back to the bedroom in terror. She flung herself down on the bed and lay there shaking, wondering what the hell she was supposed to do. If she disapparated now he'd know she'd heard everything, but she still didn't know what any of it meant. What if…
She didn't have time to finish that thought before the bedroom door opened and Barty came back in. "Sorry about that," he said calmly as he shut the door behind him.
"Who was that?" she asked, trying to keep her voice as calm as possible.
"Just someone looking for my father. I'll told them he wasn't here."
"Mmm," she squeaked as he lay back down on the bed and tried to pick up where they left off. She stiffened under his touch, and suddenly he pulled back from her.
"Gwen, why are you so tense?"
"Just nervous." She certainly sounded nervous, although it wasn't the right kind of nervous for the situation.
He glared at her, and even in the dark she could tell what kind of threatening expression he had on his face. "Gwen, how much of that did you hear?"
"Nothing." She realised it was the worst possible thing she could have said a moment after she said it.
"Don't lie." His tone was deadly serious.
"Just something about some money, that's all, I swear. I don't know if you're in gambling debt or what but I swear I won't tell anybody." It came as a shock to her to find she was crying.
He got up off the bed and started pacing the room. "Gwen, why the fuck couldn't you just have stayed where I told you to?" He sounded angry.
"Look, Barty, I'm sorry…"
He stopped by the cabinet next to the bed and picked up his wand. Then he levelled it to point at her.
"Barty, please…"
He looked at her, seemingly regretful but resolved to go through with what he was about to do. "I'm sorry too, Gwen."
She didn't have time to react before the spell was cast.
"Obliviate."
A/N: And I hope things just got interesting for you readers! I made sure this was a nice long chapter too, to make up for the shortness of the last one and the delay in updating. And I do promise to explain what Dutch Argentite is, as long as you keep reading. Hope you enjoyed. Please review!