26

ANNE wasn't sure when first she witnessed it, though she knew that she'd accidentally witnessed it early on in her and Barty Crouch's rocky start as she was assigned to monitor his home and live with the man under house arrest and mend his wounds. It was about six months following her personally escorting Crouch Sr.'s son home following his interrogation and release from St. Mungo's and ensuring he was settling in, with the help of his house-elf.

She didn't think she would ever forget the images and sounds displayed in full view in his bedroom. Him on his knees. The sound of jinxes fired, and the whimpering pitiful cries that followed the noise.

The sound of the former Death Eater whispering hissing curses under his breath to himself, that followed every assault on himself. The blood trickling down his bare torso, onto the floor. Anne froze at the horrific display and inhaled sharply.

Her mind could hardly process what she was seeing. The last she had left Crouch it was under strict orders to rest while she went down to the kitchens and insisted on working together with his little house-elf to prepare him a bite to eat.

She hadn't expected to come back with a heavily laden supper tray to find…this.

At first, Anne wondered if her mind was playing a trick on her, if this was actually Alice's friend and her delusions caused by her sleep-deprived state these last few restless weeks as she'd stayed in the guest bedroom of the man's house at his insistence, staying up late at night to watch over him, make sure he didn't try anything stupid.

Over the course of the last several weeks, slowly but surely, she grew to know more of Barty Crouch Jr. And to see Crouch Sr.'s only son like this, this wasn't the man that she had come to know, this man before her just had to be someone else. But finally, the realization set in her bones as an icy cold chill and it chilled her, rendering her paralyzed.

This was definitely him, and he was punishing himself to atone for what he'd done to his friend.

Anne nervously and mindlessly exhaled a shaking breath and she stiffened as Barty went rigid at the sound. He made no move at all to move from his spot on the floor of his bedroom and Anne knew the man had heard her. She knew she was in possible danger of Barty lashing out at her, as the man was unpredictable and unstable right now.

She wrestled in her mind with the thought of just speaking to him or setting the tray with his meal down on the nightstand by his bed and running away, letting him deal with this on his own terms.

However, a wave of pity and guilt-wracked over her entire body as she looked at him. She did not believe Barty to be a monster like he believed it. He was a person, a human being, and this wizard had lived through an entire world of anguish and hurt his entire life, but she knew she was not about to continue that scorn.

And it was her promise to Alice, her friend, that she would look after Crouch while the man was under house arrest, and if there was one thing Anne prided herself on in addition to her skills as an Auror, it was she was a witch of her word. It was her promise to Alice and a strong desire to help this man that kept her rooted to her spot.

She waited but did so in a panicked stance.

"Hey…" Anne's voice was low and softer than silk as she looked at Crouch's face without a hint of fear or disdain. The nervous man's deep brown eyes met her brimming green ones, his shining eyes filled with a spiraling sense of self-loathing and dread, dread at her having found him like this. His arms dropped slightly in hesitation, having moved to cover his bare chest.

"It's alright, Barty. You don't have to be afraid," she said in a low whisper.

Barty's wide, glazed-over eyes blinked rapidly as if he were processing the Auror's unexpected words. His breaths hitched as he lowered his arm that held his wand in his hand, his knuckles bone white with the effort to hang onto the weapon, but he did not let his wand clatter to the floor either. He looked more than shocked by Anne's kind reaction.

He was too nervous to eye Thatcher for long. His eyes darted from Alice's friend to the floor.

However, the glances Barty did see of Alice's twin were…really something. She was gorgeous.

Just like Alice, Barty thought bitterly, the welling of hot, stinging tears blurring in his wretched vision. The pink sunset that filtered in light through the window of his bedroom framed her beautifully which in his mind only made the witch prettier.

His breaths were coming to him in shallow gasps and Anne inwardly flinched as she could hear the faintness of restrained cries trapped in his throat. Both of them held their stares for what felt like forever as if Time itself were suspended to this exact moment.

Finally, Barty peered over his shoulder and met her gaze with a glare, but instead of Crouch's son being angry with her, the Auror only saw the glistening of tears.

Somehow, by some miracle of Merlin, Anne found her voice, barely managing to get the question out due to how short of breath she felt because Anne kept forgetting to breathe the longer she looked at him.

"Wh—what…what are you doing?" she demanded, hoping the tone of her voice did not set Crouch further on edge. Anne's voice was just above a whisper, though laced throughout was a genuine shock as the emotion seeped to the surface.

Barty did not answer her. He just stared over his defined shoulder at her with those tear-filled, angry, unreadable dark eyes that were cracked and red-rimmed at the edges of his irises.

This was, so far, the most dangerous stare in her experience so far in Barty Crouch Jr.'s presence.

"Tell me, please, I—I want to help you," Anne encouraged, speaking with persistence in her tone.

When he finally regained strength enough to answer, Crouch turned his head away in a prideful manner. His response to her was short and curt, flat, even. She might even go so far as to call him emotionless. "Leave me alone, Anne," he snapped.

Anger began to bubble within her chest at the man's mock elitist attitude against her and replied just as fast as Barty had barked the command at her.

"No." She waited as she drew in a breath and held it. Anne felt her body immediately tense as a loud, slow, impatient, and somewhat threatening exhale was heard exiting the man's flaring nostrils.

She almost imagined them flaring like an angry bull, looking for a glimpse of the color red to match the cracked edges of the man's eyes. Anne quickly began to wonder if she'd misinterpreted her face in this foreign situation.

She was technically considered something of a guest in the man's home, assigned to him or not.

Barty had gone out of his way to treat her with cordial respect and kindness these last two weeks, though he firmly kept her at arm's length, refusing to let her in like she was secretly hoping that he would. She knew she wanted to help him, but only if Barty could trust her and learn to let her inside.

Her attention was thrown into maximum overdrive as Barty clumsily rose to his feet and she backed up, her wand at the ready and more than ready to bolt at the first hint of a sign of a temper tantrum from him. However, Anne's own stubbornness kept her feet planted firmly to the spot.

Even after Crouch turned around to fully face her, with wand in hand.

She glanced quickly from his hand to his face and then back up to his eyes again for a second time. They were filled with a raw hurt and fury that she had never seen in the man in the two weeks of knowing him and she could hear his teeth gnash.

"What did you say?" The man's voice was almost too calm and too low.

His was a menacing tone, a tone she'd not heard in him before. Anne decided to try to think as Alice would. Her friend wouldn't kowtow to Barty's snarling and growling, and neither, she decided, would she.

She quickly made the decision to stand her ground against him and take whatever Barty had to give.

"I said no, Barty. You're hurt. I promised Alice that I would protect you, and that's what I aim to do. You need help, you need to allow me to help."

Her answer was firm and louder in order to punctuate her unwillingness to comply with his demand that he be left alone to continue hurting himself in peace, wracked with guilt over what he had done, she could see it in the man's dark eyes.

Barty narrowed his eyes at Anne as his gaze made a quick scan of her figure before clenching his jaw in anger and proceeded to stalk his way towards her. Anne involuntarily flinched and stepped back a couple of paces at the man's sudden advances.

She knew she could not let herself show him fear, she knew it would only feed into his dominance.

So, she moved forward as well, and Barty froze. The young woman's brazenness caused Crouch to loosen his hold on his wand, where it clattered to the hardwood floor with a loud, resounding clang, next to his bare and bloodied feet.

She noticed this, and instead of retaliating by sending a Stunning Spell straight at his chest to immobilize him and then drag him back peacefully towards his bed behind him, she allowed her almost overwhelming, aching need to help this man take over, and it quickly washed away any other concerns.

Her mum had always told her that if she hadn't wanted to be an Auror so badly, that she would have gone into Healing, with as much of a bleeding heart as she was, she had always joked.

Anne could agree to that. "Barty, please," she begged softly, outstretching her hand towards him, though the simple gesture caused him to shirk away and shrink away from her.

His form right now was total hypocrisy in comparison to his normal body language of austerity, she recognized.

Anne could tell the man was distraught at having been discovered in a less than dignified position, in pain, and losing too much blood that needed replenishing.

"Sta…stay where you are, Anne! I—I'm dangerous, I—I don't need you around me!" he barked in a hoarse voice that was so faint, Anne almost didn't catch it. Crouch's anxiety quickly consumed over his anger as she advanced on him.

"Please let me help you. I want to help," Anne firmly continued to offer him and received a hiss of distress and rage from the former Death Eater.

"I don't NEED your help, Anne!" he yelled. His breathing quickly became erratic and Barty had started to sway a bit as his complexion went pale.

Anne flinched but forced herself to stay still. She was about a few feet away from him at this point in their interaction and she could see the finer details of the grim physical condition that he was in.

His dark hair was in matted disarray from sweat, his bangs clinging in damp strands to his forehead. His skin was pale and clammy, bloodied, and his eyes were bloodshot, red, and exhausted.

The Auror could tell just by looking at him, that the former Death Eater hadn't had any quality sleep lately, too plagued by his own nightmares. She wondered if he had eaten recently, hence why she had brought him the heavily laden dinner tray that she and Winky had prepared for him, though by this rate the food was cold, untouched.

"WINKY!" she hollered the minute Barty's legs started to buckle, and he fell towards her and landed on his knees in front of Anne. Anne took advantage of that moment to catch him, holding him upright in a hugging position, and she thanked Merlin that the man did not fight her on this one.

Upon being summoned, the house-elf scampered into the room in a series of terrified little squeaks, her face going even paler than normal upon seeing the state of her beloved master in such a bad way.

"Master Crouch! Oh, Master, what has you done?!" the house-elf squeaked, terrified, seizing on tufts of her short dark hair and pulling on them, hard, as if to berate herself for not keeping a closer eye on what her master did during his house arrest. The house-elf scampered forward to help Anne, though, at this rate, there wasn't much she could do, perceiving that she was quickly getting in the way as she heard Anne let out a frustrated huff.

Anne glanced down at the floor and fixed Winky with a pointed stare. "Winky, would you please go to the kitchen or the storage cupboards or wherever you keep the spare food stores around here and see what you can mix up as a remedy? Your master has lost a lot of blood and is very weak. Maybe see about reheating his food too?" she asked in what she hoped was a kind tone as she motioned with a jerk of her head towards the untouched meal on the dinner tray she'd brought.

Winky's huge round eyes threatened to pop out of their sockets as her eyes drooped in shock and horror at seeing her master so badly off, but she quickly squeaked a nod of understanding.

"Winky will make Master and his Special Miss a fresh plate!" she squeaked, and scampered off, not seeing Anne give a visible start at the strange title the house-elf had just given her.

Special Young Miss? Anne thought wildly, her eyes wide.

For a brief moment, she wondered what it meant but then realized that tending to Barty came first.

She would ask after that later. Turning back to Crouch as the house-elf scuttled down the hallway to head back downstairs to follow Anne's orders, she was able to lift Barty to a standing position with the strength of her shoulders and legs, and she threw one of his arms around her neck and encircled her arm around his waist and they both hobbled to his bed.

Once they were near his bed, Anne gingerly set Crouch on the edge and the second his body touched the mattress, his whole body went limp.

He somehow by a miracle of Merlin managed to keep his head upright, but the rest of Barty swayed.

So much that Anne rested a hand on his shoulder to steady him and only then was the witch able to get a good look into his unfocused dark brown eyes. His lids flickered a couple of times and went heavy, forcing Anne to snap her fingers in his face and he blinked rapidly as she tried to keep him alert.

"Barty? Hey! Come on, don't go to sleep!" He tried to stay at attention. Anne snapped her fingers again and Crouch looked at her coherently enough to instruct him. "Lie still. Just go to sleep. When you wake up, I promise, you'll feel better."

Barty shifted and brought her back to reality. He allowed Anne to help him rest against the mountain of pillows, sitting upright in the event that he didn't actually want to sleep and was hungry by the time Winky returned with a plate.

Anne narrowed her eyes cautiously in a guarded manner, watching Crouch. Barty drew in a deep, shuddering breath, almost as if he were trying desperately not to showcase what he was feeling.

Much to the Auror's own surprise as she perched herself on the edge of the bed, Anne felt an odd and completely inexplicable rush of protectiveness towards the man. She briefly wondered if this was how Alice felt towards Barty during the long years of their intense friendship, but first a relationship.

Alice and Frank filled in the gaps in their correspondence to her in letters sent to Crouch's home via owl post, though they suggested that if Anne truly were curious about Barty, that she ask the man her questions herself directly, that it would do him a world of good to move on from her, settle down with a nice witch who would treat him well enough.

The Longbottoms did not directly come outright and stated as such in their letters, though Anne suspected Alice had asked her to look after that Barty for that express purpose. She wasn't sure why. Perhaps Alice was aware that Anne always looked for the good in a person, even when said person couldn't see it themselves.

"He's going to kill me when he finds out I'm still alive. The—The Dark Lord. He'll go after Alice again when he learns that her baby survived…"

Anne blinked at him, a cold dread seeping over her pores. She didn't know what to say to this. However, she quickly recovered, knowing that she was going to have to help Alice's friend through this in whatever way that she possibly could right now.

She made a promise to Alice, and she fully intended to keep her word, that they would see the two of them in a year outside the Three Broomsticks, together, Anne secretly hoped for that.

"Hey," she whispered in what she hoped was a soothing enough tone. "It's alright, Barty. You don't have to be ashamed of what you did. You—you did the absolute right thing. You're going to live, and you're going to be just fine, you'll see…"

Barty heaved a heavy sigh, an immeasurably sad sound that caused her heartstrings to tug just then. His eyes became glassy as he stared at a spot on the wall on the other side of the room, with Anne not really sure if he was seeing her by his side or not. His eyes looked like they were a thousand miles off, something cold, desolate, devoid of all hope.

"What if I…what if I don't want to live?" he whispered, steadily lifting his gaze, and staring at her weakly, his eyelids flickering closed, barely perceptively, while he waited for Anne to speak, though he could only manage to look into her piercing green eyes for a second as he leaned forward and buried his face in his hands. At an utter loss, Anne sat by the man's bedside, feeling helpless and strangely like an unwanted presence in Barty's life.

But she knew she couldn't leave him. She'd sworn an oath to Alice, and to Moody too. In their letters, Alice told Anne that Barty had been alive his entire life, save for his parents; ostracized and alone.

Taking a deep breath, Anne leant forward and gingerly touched the man's bleeding arm.

"Don't talk like that," she snapped in a firm voice, her fear briefly manifesting as anger. He was unmoving. She sighed, hoping to try again with him. "Barty?" she whispered, her voice soft and shy.

Reluctantly, he lowered his hands from his face and his eyes met hers. As Barty held her gaze longer than in times previous, she momentarily found herself entranced by the richness of his eyes.

He shook his head as if disgusted with himself.

"I—I'm sorry, Anne, I—I must seem so ungrateful to you, what you have done for me," he stammered, a look of utter misery on all of his face.

Anne didn't know what to say to that either, so instead, she set about working on mending the man's wounds, murmuring an incantation under her breath that almost sounded like a song as the blood flowed back into his veins.

The sound of the syllables of the incantation Vulnera Sanentur flowed throughout his bedroom from her lips like a soft wind, and the flow of his blood seemed to ease. She repeated this process a few more times, and the man's wounds appeared to be knitting themselves together, though they would all scar.

She flinched. She couldn't believe how awful it looked. As her spell mended his body, blood oozed from some gashes and others still looked to be dried.

Anne could tell, judging by the darkened edges around some of them. Her hand flew to her mouth and her throat hallowed and her chest constricted. She fought back a sob that threatened to release, and her eyes glossed over with a wave of her tears. She reminded herself that she was an Auror. She needed to keep it together, for Alice's friend's sake.

After a long moment, Barty spoke up in a low voice.

"I…I'm…I'm sorry," he said again, whispering it as though he was afraid he would never say it enough, but to whom was he apologizing? Her, for what she had walked in on, or to Alice, for the hurt and pain that he'd caused?

"No," Anne snapped, almost firmly, forcefully. "You don't apologize, Barty. It's you who deserves an apology, for what you went through." She leaned forward with the intensity of her feelings. "I don't know what you've been through—I'm sure only Merlin knows the true extent of that—but I swear to you, on my grave, all of…that, is behind you now. No one's going to hurt you. Not anymore. I made a promise and I aim to keep it." She covered his hand with hers. "I'm not going to leave you, Barty," she said.

Barty stared down at Anne's hand over the top of his as though it were the most beautiful thing he had ever seen, in a look akin to utter amazement. Then he swallowed down past a lump in his throat as his eyelids flickered and quickly grew heavy.

"If you say so. Everyone always leaves me," he whispered as he kept his eyes closed, his breaths slower now. Anne furiously blinked the unshed moisture in her eyes as she scanned his features.

If it was possible, the man was pale, paler than before. She moved her hand to his right cheek and ran the knuckle of her index finger softly along with it. Crouch immediately roused with a jump at her tender touch, looking at Anne Thatcher through unfocused, glossy pupils and with utter confusion.

The man wore an expression that told Anne he was just ready to give up.

A look that told the Auror that he just wanted his suffering to end. Suffering no one but him knew of and it was threatening to break her heart. He seemed void of hope for himself.

But Anne knew she would do what was right. She would not abandon Barty, not when he was like this. Alice was right. He needed help. She could be the help if Barty would have her.

After conjuring a damp cloth with her wand and clearing away most of the dried blood around the broken skin that her incantations failed to catch, Anne drew in a sharp breath as she discovered scars, older ones, that rested under the newer ones. They traveled all along his torso and went deeper. She could tell they were old by the white color, she could also tell, just by their size, that these were no doubt made when he was younger.

"Just a boy," she whispered, horrified. "I—I'm sorry, I'm so…so…sorry…" She managed to sob while Crouch drifted off into a state of semi-consciousness. She squeezed his hand, hoping that even in his state of semi-consciousness, he felt it.

That he knew, just by her holding his hand, that he was not alone. That she was not going to leave.

After a while, Anne forced herself to regain her composure. She rose quickly, glancing around the room, waving her wand, and summoning her black purse from the guest bedroom just down the hall.

She needed to go to Diagon Alley before the shops closed down and visit a few apothecaries. Barty was going to need a few poultices applied despite her incantation being able to stop the bleeding.

Winky will look after him while I'm gone, she told herself as she slung the strap of her purse over her shoulder and began to walk towards the door.

Without ever breaking her sight from him, she backed out of the room slowly and with one more glance, Anne turned on her heels away quietly and moved through the small arched bedroom doorway to head downstairs to his living room parlor to borrow his fireplace to use the Floo Network to take into one of the shops.

As she walked away, she was not aware that Barty Crouch Jr. had noticed her absence, as the room instantly seemed to grow colder whenever she wasn't around and was watching Anne Thatcher leave.

She was already halfway down the hallway by the time his vision slowly but surely cleared, and he was able to sit upright, and as a consequence, she did not see Barty struggle to swing his legs over the edge of the bed and pad towards the hallway, following her swiftly and silently to the downstairs.