22
ALICE stared, fresh tears flooding the edges of her lids in shock and horror, unable to tear her gaze away from her husband's battered, beaten form that was more purple now than pale. Frank struggled to stand up, and as she looked to Barty to plead with her former friend for help, she could never have imagined that Crouch would be this cruel.
And yet, if Barty had done this to Frank, the truth was right in front of her. Had been all this time, but she could tell just by one look at the man's face as he seemed fixated on Voldemort, that Crouch seemed just as frightened as she was.
Unable to breathe, Barty's jaw hanging open in shock as he looked briefly at Alice and then back to the Dark Lord again, he turned to question him, pleading eyes towards the wizard and realized that Lord Voldemort bringing Alice's husband here could only mean one thing: he meant to kill them. His blood ran cold as the Dark Lord turned his head coolly to regard his most loyal servant, and the vengeful, disappointed glower on the pale wizard's face chilled Barty's blood in his veins.
"Did you really think I did not know, Bartemius?" he asked him rhetorically, not giving the younger man any time to answer. "Nothing happens within my ranks that I don't know about."
Barty Crouch Jr. felt his eyes go wide and round with shock and horror as he knew then that the Dark Lord meant to complete that which he feared, though the Dark Lord promised him Alice.
But now he realized that his master had never intended to keep his word.
The Dark Lord's plan was to kill Alice and the babe growing inside her, as well as her husband, and leave him as a witness.
A testimony and a reminder to those within his ranks who would dare try to defy his commands.
Crouch had no time to feel his heart soar at the sight of Alice still alive and breathing. His sorrowful eyes fell mournfully upon Alice's face, and a cold chill went down his back as her expression seemed to mirror the same dread he felt. It was as if she sensed what was about to happen, and she was mentally preparing for it, too. Barty Crouch Jr. stifled a low growl welling in the back of his throat from deep within his chest as a low-ranking Death Eater, one whom he'd never bothered to learn the kid's name, skinny bloke, looked barely over twenty and hardly old enough to shave, wrenched Alice to her feet.
He dragged her a few feet before forcing her into a kneeling position alongside that of her husband, and spinning her around so that she was facing the Dark Lord, keeping a firm grip on her arm in the attempt to show proper reverence to their ruler, their god. Alice landed on the ground with a pained cry.
Looking up through tear-filled eyes full to the brim with an antagonized hurt and a bitter betrayal, her piercing blue eyes caught Crouch's as he lurched forward, his slender fingers curling instinctively around the handle of his elm wand.
But before he could reach the Longbottoms, two more Death Eaters rushed ahead of him and halted Barty's progress by pointing the tips of their own wand at him. A bead of sweat glittered on his scalp before dripping down the slope of his temple and falling to the floor by his black boots.
Crouch stopped breathlessly, knowing he would be of no help to his love if they killed him here and now. But he furrowed his brows into a hateful and spiteful scowl as he memorized the details of the face of the man who had harmed his Alice.
The boy wouldn't live to see another sunrise. With a great effort, Alice finally managed to push herself up to her knees, though the moment she straightened her posture and attempted to jut her chin out slightly defiantly, refusing to look Death in his cold, crimson eyes with any hint of fear, a sharp, shooting pain shot through her midsection.
"Ouch!" she cried, clutching wildly at her stomach as her face crumpled, contorting in pain.
"Alice?" he breathed shakily, feeling a wave of immediate concern and fear wash over him, like nothing he had ever felt before. Not even back in the Forbidden Forest in that ruddy cave with those stupid blood-sucking leeches had been this fear-inducing. "Alice, love, what's the matter?!"
Alice doubled over and tried to respond, though a wave of dizziness and nausea swept over her.
"Alice?" she heard Crouch's frantic voice, speaking to her, though his voice sounded faint. Distant and muffled. Like he was speaking to her from underwater almost. "You're white as a sheet. What the hell is wrong with you? Talk to me, Al…"
Alice barely managed to look up at Crouch as a sheen of sweat started to throng along her brow.
This was the third or fourth pain she'd felt in her stomach within the last hour. "I—I thought it was just a regular stomachache," she whispered faintly through clenched teeth. "But now, I—I'm not—"
Though another pain ravaged her insides, cutting off her words with a sharp, shrill cry instead. Alice let out a low guttural moan and doubled over from her kneeling position on the floor by her husband in front of the Dark Lord.
"Alice!?" Crouch cried, though the sound of the Dark Lord making an odd noise at the back of his throat in order to steer the conversation back towards him momentarily lifted him from his fear, though he was unable to take his eyes off her.
"Let's do get on with this, Mr. and Mrs. Longbottom, shall we?" The Dark Lord paused, looking condescendingly to the pair of Aurors, though Alice was doubled over, shoulders heaving in pain, and wasn't able to look him in his eyes. "Mrs. Alice Longbottom. I brought you and your husband here today because you have stolen something that I require. Something that I'd like back," he charged, sounding more than a little annoyed.
The Dark Lord straightened his gait authoritatively and stared down his nose, or what would have been his nose, if the wizard had possessed one, at Alice. He looked towards Barty. Crouch understood that the Dark Lord meant him. His time, his attention, and his loyalty.
"She did not steal anything, Master!" he bellowed. "It was freely given," he corrected, referring to his heart, as well as the other things. "It's always been hers. It always will be, milord."
He looked affectionately towards Alice and tried to smile in the hopes of providing her some small semblance of comfort and reassurance, that he would find a way to get them out, but he didn't know-how, and he was having trouble believing it.
Alice lowered her eyes and looked away from him, her face still twisted and contorted in pain. She turned her face towards Lord Voldemort and dropped her hands to the floor and ducked her head. She knew all too why she'd been brought here. She knew what Voldemort had planned for her, and her and Frank's unborn baby. She would beg if she had to.
"Please," she begged frantically. "Please…let me live. Let me…let me have my baby." Tears began to gather at the edges of her lids despite her best efforts to allow her Auror training to kick in and quell the unhelpful emotions that were currently unhinging her to the pit of her nauseous stomach. She unconsciously stretched her fingers around her flat abdomen to guard the tiny being growing within her, that surely right now, was no bigger than a blueberry. Desperately, Alice continued her plea, crying. "Send the child to live with his grandmother in Ely, but please, let me live. Let my baby live…do whatever you want to me after my child is born, but let me live," she pleaded, tears flowing down her cheeks at a pace that she couldn't control.
"Master!" Crouch shouted in shock, hardly daring to believe what he was hearing from her. "Surely you wouldn't! Y—you promised me no harm would come to her!" He trailed off as the Dark Lord stared at him, now certain that his master would indeed slaughter both Alice and her baby. Crouch's black heart broke at Alice's helpless appeal.
He knew he had to find a way to get them both out of there to safety, though before he could move, the Dark Lord's soft chuckle filled the room. He tensed and stiffened at hearing his master laugh. It was never a good sign when he laughed.
"My dear woman," Lord Voldemort corrected in a mocking tone. "You may be assured that I will do with you and your husband whatever it is I wish," he chuckled, seeing no need to inform the married couple of the prophecy he had been told. "And neither of you are in no position to ask me for anything." His tone steadily rose to match his growing impatience.
Alice sat violently shaking at the horrible thought of whatever was to come.
Crouch's own anger was growing as his mind (and his eyes) raced to figure out an escape route.
"Please, y—you want my allegiance, you have it," Alice begged through tear-filled eyes, lying through her teeth, hoping that by saying what she thought the Dark wizard wanted to hear, it would supplicate him some into showing an ounce of mercy, even he held that word in his lexicon at all.
She reached out a shaking hand and tried to steady herself, though the moment she set her palm flat on the floor, the Dark Lord raised his wand to her chest. A bolt of white-hot searing pain rushed through her and caused a blinding white light to explode behind her lids as it rushed through Alice's already pain-filled body as whatever was going on with her stomach caused a scream to emerge from her lips as she collapsed back on her knees in agony, writhing in torture, holding her stomach, as the Dark Lord burnt a cautionary warning into Alice's very heart and soul, forever changing her.
Crouch's heart threatened to explode from his chest as he watched Alice's torment, her husband beside her too weak and powerless to help, much less even utter the first syllable of Alice's name.
"Master!" he shouted, pleading. "Stop this!" he roared, nearly mad with his need to help Alice.
Almost as if to supplicate his faithful servant, the Dark Lord ceased his assault on Alice Longbottom, leaving the poor witch gasping in ragged gasps, shoulders heaving to catch her breath, though she dared not look up at the man.
The Dark Lord's lips curled up into a sneer as he looked down at the floor where Alice knelt nearby.
"Do not think me unsympathetic to your plight, witch," the Dark Lord stated in a calm, cold tone to Alice, with horrible, mocking compassion that chilled even Barty's bones as he shuddered. "You must be extremely tired from your endeavors." He nodded, as if confident in his own words now. "In fact…" The Dark Lord's voice trailed off, and a light seemed to ignite in the man's red slit-like pupils, seeming inspired by an unvoiced idea. "I think that my followers and I would be doing you a favor, Mrs. Longbottom, if we relieve you of your burden," the Dark Lord softly declared.
Alice's eyes grew wide and beside her, Frank let out a guttural pain-filled moan as he tried to stare at his wide through his one good eye not swollen shut. She couldn't be sure, but it looked as though he had been hit with a very nasty Stinging Jinx.
She tightened her grip around her flat stomach. She shook her head in horror. "No…" she begged tearfully through her choking sobs as bile rose in the back of her throat, and tried to move backward, towards the very far away door, their only way out.
As in Lucius Malfoy's home, the Malfoys had taken great care that in using their home as a safe haven for the Dark Lord and any under his servitude should they require it, no one save for a select few was allowed to Apparate or Disapparate within the manor's walls.
"Now!" the Dark Lord ordered the pair of Death Eaters closest to him, as he stood back and let himself watch the scene unfolding, as Bellatrix and Rodolphus Lestrange moved around Alice and Frank, stopping the Aurors from any hope of escaping.
They knelt, violently kicking Frank's barely conscious form out of the way. Crouch watched and flinched as Longbottom crumpled to the floor. Merlin damn the man, he thought angrily through gritted teeth, clenching his fists.
Get up, Longbottom. I might need your help to get out. Get up, get up, get up, Barty silently willed Frank. Barty breathed a barely audible sigh of relief as he watched Longbottom struggle to rise to his knees, though his attention was torn away by hearing an ear-piercing scream cut through the air.
He whiplashed his head back around to the front, just in time to see the Lestranges kneel in front of Alice, Rodolphus at her wrists, and his wife Bellatrix at her ankles, as the couple pinned Alice to the hardwood floor of the Malfoys' dining room.
Alice squirmed with all of her strength as Rodolphus began to fumble with the buttons of her dress, slowly lifting up towards her hips. Her terrified guttural screams flooded the crowded room and echoed off the soaring vaulted ceiling.
"STOP!" Crouch roared, nearly sending his mind insane with his need to help Alice. "Master, you promised me!" he bellowed. "Order them off her!"
"No! Please, no!" Alice screamed in terror, her husband's pain-filled moans and weak shouts of his own mixing with her guttural shrieks as she could only writhe against the Lestranges as the wizard and witch held her down, as a third man approached her, Rosier, Evan Rosier, from the looks of him underneath his hood, but instead of his wand that he held in his hand, a long silver dagger glinted even in the dim light, ready to cut Alice and watch the witch bleed slowly to death.
Barty recognized Rosier immediately holding Rodolphus Lestrange's knife, he recognized the silver 'L' initial carved into the hilt of the blade all too well. Rosier must have borrowed it off of him. Crouch heard himself roar in anger, louder than any dragon or lion could. He couldn't stand by as a witness anymore, it didn't matter that Alice was Frank's wife and not his. He would kill every last Death Eater in here or die himself before allowing Alice even one second more of physical anguish.
The Dark Lord himself would have to kill him in order to stop him. At this point, he, and the rest of his Death Eaters, had better hope they killed him. Blood was in his eyes and roaring in his eardrums. His only new goal, his new purpose, was getting Alice and her husband to a safe place.
In a flash of reflexive movement that surprised even him, Crouch drew his wand against the men currently holding him at bay. With a quick flick of his wrist, he sent them sprawling to the ground and removed their wand hands, their screams music to his ears as they clutched their now bleeding stumps close to their chests in agony.
Those two quickly fell away, unthreatening as they slumped to the floor and lost consciousness.
Frank crawled slowly out of the way, summoning every last ounce of strength within him to reach his wife as Crouch sent a Stunning Spell towards both Lestranges.
The pair crawled out of the way and kept their hands raised over their faces, as Alice's old friend became a killing machine, taking on all of the Death Eaters in the room, while the Dark Lord merely watched, almost looking interested, to see what he would do. They rushed him, yet Crouch's fervor and anger met each of their advances as they tried and failed to subdue the Dark Lord's once most trusted lieutenant. He spent his fury well vented in a sea of masks, all of them wearing his father's face.
Defeat was not an option for him now. Barty Crouch Jr. brandished and wielded his wand in his hand as though the weapon were a part of him, dispatching all of them as easily as he could blink an eye.
Finally, when the living room stood empty of all but the Longbottoms, himself, and the Dark Lord, Crouch turned his wand, though his wand hand instantly startled to tremble as he raised it.
"You have to go, please, Alice," Barty whispered. "Please let me help you." His dark eyes were almost brimming with tears as he implored Alice and Frank to make a run for it. "Go now, before more come. Do I need to say it again a second time?" he growled, a note of anger seeping into his voice, as he realized what he was about to do for her, that there was no coming back from this at all.
It was fear and apprehension that kept Alice almost rooted to her spot as she kept one hand clutched over her stomach, her face twisted in pain, and another wound around Frank's waist as she helped her husband to stagger up to his feet.
Alice stood with Frank for a moment of uncertainty that broke Barty's heart. All he wanted was to take the witch in his arms and never let him go. Though he supposed, once her husband had regained his full strength, the truth would come out, and she would learn that he had been the one to stab Frank in the Forbidden Forest.
That there was no way to mend their friendship after she learned the truth. Better to die this way, he tried to tell himself. That Alice and her baby should live. He thought he could live with such a death.
"Please," he begged her again, imploring her and Frank to get somewhere safe. "Your baby's life depends on it. Go to the woods. Disapparate, go anywhere, I—I'll find you there, I-I promise, Al…"
Alice shot him a look that was truly heartbreaking. Crouch could read her expression quite well. She knew that he wouldn't be coming back.
"No," she whispered, hoarsely, shaking her head no, though the cackling laughter of the Dark Lord's amusement broke her out of her thoughts.
"I see it now, Bartemius," he rasped, his bone-white hand curled over the handle of his wand as he stared around in minor bemusement at the unconscious or dead Death Eaters scattered on the floor near them. "She really has spelled you all this time." His thin, almost non-existent lips curled upwards into a snarl as he observed Alice angrily.
The Dark Lord straightened to his full height and raised his wand, though he did not immediately strike. Crouch's chest constricted at the expected motion, but the younger wizard held his ground.
"Perhaps," his former master mused softly, though there was nothing 'soft' in his tone now as he hissed his words, sounding every bit the Parseltongue that Barty Crouch Jr, knew him to be. "This would be a more fitting end for you, Bartemius, wouldn't you agree? Defending those who have tried so hard to shield you from me."
"One more word, master," Here, he spat the former title for the Dark Lord as though it were poison that had settled upon his tongue, "and I will do you the kindness of removing your wretched head from your miserable body, snake," he growled, his voice so low and deep that you would have thought that a lion had just roared loudly.
Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed that Alice and Frank still had not taken his advice and left.
"Alice." The sound that escaped from his lips was not his voice. It was rough, coarse, and grating, like the physical embodiment of the grave, with just a resigned twinge of acceptance of a man who knew he was about to stare down Death in the eyes. As if he were holding back a dam about to burst. "Get your husband out of here. Go. Now!"
Alice blinked owlishly at Crouch, feeling certain she had misheard. She numbly shook her head.
It took the witch a moment to find her voice and when she did, it came out broken, more than a little heartbroken, and incredibly frightened. She knew what this meant for Barty if she left him here. "Barty, n—no. Y—you can't do this!" she screamed, slick tears pouring down her pale face.
"GO! DON'T MAKE ME SAY IT AGAIN, ALICE! GET OUT OF HERE! LEAVE! NOW! RIGHT NOW!" he roared, losing the last vestiges of his patience, frustrated with his friend's stubborn insistence that she remains behind.
He could not let her die, even if his Alice could never be his.
Barty let out a startled gasp of surprise and shock as the Dark Lord sent a spell straight towards his chest via the use of a nonverbal incantation, though Crouch was able to deflect it, they kept coming.
Crouch grunted roughly as he struggled to hold back the sheer force of the power of the spells sent his way by his former master. Alice noted the muscles in her friend's forearms strained under the sheer strain of holding back Voldemort's raw strength and power of each Dark curse he fired. Barty could not hold the Dark Lord back for much longer before the man disarmed him and then he would turn on Frank and Alice and follow through on his promise to slaughter all of them.
"Alice. Go." Barty's voice was terse and clipped, his tone insistent, and his tense posture told Alice and Frank that they had a window of maybe five minutes to get to safety before Crouch's own strength failed him and then they were all as good as dead if Frank and Alice lingered here. "Get Frank out of here. Go and find your friends, get somewhere safe, Al. I can hold him off to give you some time, but only a moment, do you hear me?"
Alice froze, her eyes widening as her mind felt like it was reeling, struggling to process Barty's words.
She couldn't possibly just leave him here! How could he ever expect her to leave without him? He'd done so much for him, his status as a Death Eater no longer withstanding in her eyes, the fact that he had just saved her and Frank's lives and was now willing to sacrifice his own for hers, spoke volumes. He was behaving like a Gryffindor. He had risked his life over and over…
It was too much. Entirely too much. No. She couldn't leave him. She wasn't going to leave him.
"I—" Alice started to say through her tears as she wildly blinked them back, hoping to convince him otherwise, though she squeaked, and her breaths caught in her throat when she heard him growl.
"YES, YOU CAN! NOW GO, ALICE, PLEASE!" he roared, not letting her finish her protesting. His wand arm faltered for a moment as a muscle in his jaw twitched as he deflected a jet of red light the Dark Lord sent his way, but then a new way of determination hardened his facial features and fueled him to keep up his defenses a minute longer. "Get out of here while you can! LEAVE!"
Never before had Alice thought she would disobey a request from Barty, even in the days of their relationship as students at Hogwarts, and then in their friendship. Never before did she want to stay beside him despite Crouch screaming at her to take Frank and leave. She didn't want to leave Barty, to abandon him to the non-existent mercy of Lord Voldemort.
Not to the one who had dealt so much pain and hurt to her best friend. She couldn't obey him. Not this time. She couldn't just leave him for Voldemort to kill him. Not when Alice realized just how much their friendship meant to her, despite everything else.
But then, suddenly, something shifted next to her. Reminded that she still had one hand-wound around Frank's waist, Alice glanced over to her left briefly and saw that what little strength and color her husband had regained, disappeared entirely.
His brown eyes focused in and out, and a moment later, he faltered on the spot, swaying.
Her heart sinking into the pit of her churning stomach, she realized they couldn't stay here. Alice had never felt so conflicted in her entire life, torn between who to try to save and to leave behind. There could be no compromise, no in-between. She had to choose between her best friend and her husband. Crouch spoke up, shattering her broken heart into a hundred pieces.
"Alice…go…" Barty gritted out from under the strain of the flash of green light the Dark Lord sent. It was clear that he could buy her and Frank only a few more seconds. Alice's heart broke at hearing the resignation in his voice as she glanced sideways at Frank, who was growing weaker by the second. His features were pale and slightly gaunt.
Frank needed medical attention immediately, so did she, as her stomach pains were almost so bad, that they were rendering her barely able to move.
Carefully shifting her grip around her husband's waist, she knew that she had maybe now three minutes to get Frank out of this home and to Disapparate back to Frank's mum's house, hoping that they could get him help, or even to St. Mungo's, if that's what they needed. She paused for one last glance over her shoulder in the open doorway, bolted for the door with Frank in tow, where they disappeared around the corner, down the hallway, and out of her best friend's sight.
As she ran with Frank to their freedom, Alice felt the weak and quivering muscle that was her broken heart within her chest, shattering into several pieces. While she and Frank made a break once they reached the outside, she tried to shake away the feeling that she would never see her friend again.
The moment that Alice, with her husband in tow, disappeared from his line of sight, Crouch swung his wand in a counterclockwise arc the moment the Dark Lord sent one of the Unforgivable Curses his way, the Cruciatus Curse, from the looks of it. The force of Lord Voldemort's blow gave Barty the chance to fall back a few paces in order to catch his breath.
It was proving more difficult than he had anticipated. In fact, if Alice hadn't gotten out of there and hopefully to safety in the exact moment which she did, Barty was sure what little was left of his strength would have failed him right there and then.
If that had been the case, then all three of them would have been dead. His breath came in heaving gasps and at this rate, it was all Barty could do not to collapse to the hardwood floor of the Malfoys' dining room in utter exhaustion, his body and strength spent from taking on the rest of the Dark Lord's followers, and he knew it too, judging by his glare.
His lightweight wand suddenly felt heavy, like a stone, in his wand hand, and its tip dipped to the ground and struck the wood beneath his feet with a resounding clang that caused the blood to pound wildly in his ears, his dark eyes wide with horror.
The Dark Lord clucked his tongue and shook his head as though he were disappointed in Crouch.
"Your obsession with that witch has become a thorn that has festered in my side long enough, Bartemius," he said as a deep growl passed harshly through his gritted teeth as he hissed the words more than spoke them to his former lieutenant.
The Dark Lord's grip on the handle of his own wand tightened to the point where the tall pale wizard's already bone-white knuckles had almost gone translucent. His crimson eyes burned with such anger and hatred at Crouch's loyalty to Alice that an icy cold chill ran up the length of Barty's spine, temporarily paralyzing the man in fear.
"I see you've now since sided with the wrong side, Crouch. What, you're that witch's dog, now, yes?"
Crouch swallowed past a lump forming in his throat, his mouth suddenly rendered useless and dry.
"I don't obey to you anymore, nor will I answer you. Master," Barty hissed angrily, though even as he whisper-hissed the words through gritted teeth, his words felt rather hollow and cold.
The Dark Lord chuckled. "You place far too much trust in that woman, Crouch. Would you have really thought that between you and her husband, that she would choose a bastard like you?"
Crouch's teeth chattered, his voice hardly above a whisper. "Be quiet, shut up, shut up, SHUT UP!" he snarled, his voice shaking. Dropping to his knees in utter exhaustion, shoulders heaving with exhaustion, he forced enough strength on his throat to answer in a voice throttled with repelled fury.
The Dark Lord remained impassive despite Crouch's savage snarling and growling at him like a mad dog. The Dark Lord gave him a cold stare. Barty felt a sheen of cold sweat glitter along the top of his scalp before dripping down the sides of his temples. As he stood kneeling in front of the Dark Lord, he held himself firm and strong.
He was admittedly scared and had no desire to die. But if this was to be his end here today, then it would be an end that he hoped his Alice would be proud of. Perhaps Father and Mother, and even Winky, and many others, would understand why.
"This," his cold, steely quiet voice cut through Crouch's thoughts, drawing Barty back to his impending doom, "will be the last time you interfere, Bartemius," he said in a calculating and calm tone.
The Dark Lord looked down his lack of nose at Barty groveling on the ground in front of him. Barty looked up.
No. There's one bit he's not spilling. Something Barty couldn't bear to hear it. "What did you do?!" Crouch could feel his tears make way, clearing a path through the blood in his face as the Dark Lord half-smiled at Barty then.
The Dark Lord sneered. "You guess, Crouch."
Crouch bared his teeth, attempting to get to his feet, while the Dark Lord remained unfazed, looking down at him and successfully sending chills of mockery down Barty Crouch Jr.'s spine.
He paused and thought for a split second, thinking how pale and clammy her face had been, her stomach cramps.
Horror plastered across his face as he realized what the Dark Lord had done.
"You wouldn't!" he shouted, realizing what it was that was causing his best friend's intense cramps.
"I would," Lord Voldemort answered calmly, looking only slightly perturbed at Crouch's rage. "I had hoped that she would consume every drop of the tea," the Dark Lord sighed, furrowing his brows. "Though she did not consume the entire cup, it's more than enough to cause the fetus within her to die. It's bound to be bled out when she loses consciousness, Crouch. It is quite easy. She will still live, and the babes which were spoken of in the prophecies will be...taken care of, with no harm to its mother, Crouch. I have kept my word, did I not? I am a merciful lord. I see no reason to spill any more magical blood, Bartemius." Barty's former master turned to him donned in a sadistic grin that spoke how pleased he was of himself. "I see no reason to go after the witch, Bartemius. She and her husband will be joining you soon enough. We do the strangest things to gain someone's trust, Bartemius, as you well know, and all in the name of power, and now, because of this, what have you to show for opposing me?" he asked, raising his wand, and pointing it steadily at Crouch's chest. "You've only delayed the inevitable. They shall both die, one way or another, in time, whether by my hand or not. You didn't save that little witch."
Barty felt his entire body quiver in pain and rage. Alice meant the entire world to him. She had always been the one that he could turn towards.
"Shut up!" he spat, flinging his eyes wide open, now ablaze with a fiery rage of his own that darkened his brown eyes a shade further. He glared at the shell of the monstrous creature in front of him, heedless of the tip of the man's wand now pressed against the column of Barty's throat. "You don't know anything about Alice!" he yelled.
The Dark Lord's crimson slit-like eyes narrowed at his boldness and slowly backed away a few paces. "It matters not," he stated coldly and calmly. He readjusted his grip on the handle of his wand and carefully pulled it away from his throat.
Crouch's vision began to blacken at the edges, and it was with a cold wave of fear that this was it. There was no escaping this. He closed his eyes slowly and breathed out a shuddering inhale.
"I'll take some pride in the fact that it took you to kill me," he growled through gritted teeth.
I'm sorry, Alice. I tried. Please forgive me. I'm sorry….
His former master scoffed and looked like he was fighting back a chuckle of amusement. "Indeed. That's a fine way to rationalize your death, Bartemius. You shall die with your honor intact."
Crouch barely peeked open one eyelid and looked just in time to see the Dark Lord raise his wand at his chest.
Why? Why couldn't he have done more? He should have done more to try to save Alice. In the end, all he had done was make things worse. All he wanted for his best friend was to be happy.
He should have told her, just how much she really meant to him. And now, it was too late.
The Dark Lord raised his wand, and then a cloud of white pain erupted behind his eyes, temporarily blinding him as the sudden gush of something warm erupted from his chest. His blood. He screamed, the hair-raising scream of agony chilling his own blood and causing the fine hairs on the back of his neck to stand upright.
Then darkness claimed him as Barty Crouch Jr. slipped into sleep. The man was already unconscious and did not see Lord Voldemort Disapparate from the living room with a loud resounding crack, his business concluded, leaving his former most loyal servant to bleed out to his death in the Malfoy's dining room among the other Death Eaters' corpses.