A/N: Hi all and welcome to another HP story for the fandom featuring my favorite nutjob, Barty Crouch Jr., and another sort-of-redemption arc for the man. I am trying something brand new this time and featuring my very first main character who is a vampire. I've done werewolves to death, as Remus Lupin is one of my favorite characters, but vampires in the HP novels are so rarely explored so I thought it would be fun to create a character who has, like Lupin, suffered from an affliction the rest of the wizarding world treats as monstrous and attempts to ingratiate themselves into wizarding society...with consequences, of course. I hope that you enjoy it!
Trials of Fire
By HeadintheCloudsForever
CHAPTER 1
LAYLA Wydman looked up, momentarily interested, as the little brass bell above the front door to Borgin and Burke's shop jingled. The snow had been coming down so hard for so long that the single employee of Borgin and Burke's aside from the shopowner himself, didn't think that anyone would be coming into the store today. Mr. Borgin owned the shop tucked away in a corner of Knockturn Alley and only regular customers came in during the off-season when parents had already sent their children off to school.
When the weather got so bad, like it was right now, they typically only had one to two customers per day.
Her night thus far had been dragging on, only one other wizard coming into the shop just before the nasty blizzard had started, and so, she was happily surprised when this new customer came in. She rose off the stool she had been perched on behind the front counter, setting down the paperback book she had been reading that she usually kept tucked in her purse that she stowed underneath the counter for slow afternoons, and moved out front behind the counter to greet him.
The new customer remained lingering in the doorway and unmoved from his spot, which gave the young twenty-eight-year-old shopkeeper a moment or two to observe the man undetected.
Normally, it would not be so strange to see a wizard with a thick black knit cap on his head in this weather, nor with such a thick black woolen coat and black gloves, but the fact that he did not remove his sunglasses while even inside struck Layla as odd. And judging by the looks of the man in front of her, he did not appear to be like her. He was tall, even with his shoulders hunched in against the snow and biting cold.
"Good evening, sir." The bright greeting strained the vampire's sore throat and when she smiled, it felt as though the muscles in her face ached. "Quite a storm out there, isn't it?" she chuckled shyly. His head moved slightly to the left and it was only then that Layla got a good look at him.
Handsome face, from the looks of him, probably just as equally attractive eyes, if only he would take those damned sunglasses off, well-defined cheekbones. Silence started to stretch between them, thick and awkward.
Mr. Borgin was still in the back, and no other souls were wandering about the shop, and she knew damn well this wizard had caught her staring at him.
Perhaps she should apologize? After all, she had been staring and it was more than a little rude, but this chap was easily one of the most handsome mortal wizards she had ever met, and she had not even gotten a good look at his eyes.
But bringing it up would likely only succeed in making things worse for her. But she also couldn't stand how loud her thoughts were in the heavy silence that lingered in the air between them, almost murky and suffocating them, like poison.
Anxiously, she flicked her gaze back up to him and that piercing gaze of his snapped back to her, crushing the vampire under its weight. She tried to read the man's face for something, a lick of the lips, hardening of the jaws, visible tics humans were prone to when they were angry or uncomfortable, but there was nothing there.
His face remained blank and apathetic. The man's cheeks were red and windblown, and the snow was beginning to melt, making him glisten slightly. She eyed the coloring of the man's cheeks with critical interest, swallowing down hard past a lump in her throat and ignoring the sudden tingling burning in her throat that reminded her she'd not eaten.
The dry aching, the hollowing yearning in the pit of her stomach, the excess flow of venom coating her mouth made her swallow it all down and try to assume the expression of a normal human being, hoping it was enough.
She had lived among humans ever since the Turning, her kind called it, and had been attempting to ingratiate herself into normal wizarding society ever since.
Mr. Borgin had been the only shopkeeper in all of Knockturn Alley who had even taken a good long look at her resume when she had dropped off her application six months ago, trying to get a part-time job that would help supplicate her rent somewhat in her small townhouse downtown.
The wizened old wizard had taken one look at the young witch's sunken-in cheekbones, the dark purple circles that clung to the skin underneath her eyes, her too pale complexion so bone-white that it resembled paper, and the only evidence that she was not human, her sharpened incisors, slightly pointed ears, and the tiny two pinpricks, scars, on the left side of the column of her throat and all the wizard had said to her was, "I suppose when you want to tell me about your…accident, Miss Wydman, you will."
He had hired her on the spot following her short interview, in desperate need of someone to take over the shop as Mr. Borgin was getting on in years, and his memory was not what it once used to be, to say nothing of his physical stamina.
No longer able to lift the heavy boxes of assorted shipments that came to his place of business every Friday, that was where Layla came in.
It helped that the young vampire was pretty enough and tended to attract plenty of male customers to Mr. Borgin's shop. She remembered Borgin asking her once if there were any Veela women in her family, to which Layla had responded no, not that she knew of.
Layla rose her thin dark eyebrows, jolted out of her mind's wanderings, and pulled back to the present reality of her situation as movement caught her eyes as the man finally shuffled towards the wall to look at the Hand of Glory perched on the mantle place of the fireplace that was connected to the Ministry's Floo Network.
"Is there anything I can help you find, sir? Are you looking for something in particular?" she asked, grimacing as she winced at the hoarseness of her voice, but as she reached up a hand to gently caress the column of her throat in hopes of soothing the burning and trying not to look uncomfortable in the man's presence, he stopped abruptly and turned to look at her.
His thick black sunglasses reflected her surprised face at her as he turned his head to regard the petite little vampire, but the wizard did not immediately go back to his searching. The stranger in black looked at her a moment and cocked his head before he nodded slowly.
"Could I perhaps get you a basket?" she asked, eager for him to say something, interested to know if this guy talked at all, but did not give him a chance as she darted towards the front of the shop to retrieve one for this tall and pale stranger.
When she returned and held it out to him, the wizard clad in black robes placed his items inside before taking hold of the handle, the Hand of Glory among the various other Dark artifacts he had bought. Peruvian Instant Darkness Powder, a spool of magically enchanted barbed wire that made her swallow and a violent shudder claw its way up and down her back.
He was about to step away when Layla made an odd little noise at the back of her throat and shook her head. He paused and looked at her.
"What are you looking to do with it?" she asked, unable to tear her gaze away from the spool of enchanted wire in the basket, suddenly not sure she wanted to know. Borgin's shop and the Dark artifacts they sold attracted many different calibers of clientele through his door, most of them loyal followers of the Dark Lord himself, some of them even high-ranking Death Eaters.
He picked up the spool of wire she was pointing to and examined it. The man offered no verbal reply by way of response, and she glanced back over her shoulder nervously, suddenly hoping to spot any sign of Mr. Borgin, but the ancient old wizard was likely still in the back, in his office, balancing out the accounting books for the end of the fiscal year. She was about to leave to fetch him, unable to examine away the pit of unease that had begun to settle in her stomach when he stepped forward and tapped her on the shoulder.
He looked down at her and the vampire smiled up eagerly at him, eager to help and end the monotony.
"I'm looking…to keep something out," he spoke to her in a rich voice that was smooth and deep, melodious even, heavily accentuated.
She peeked down at the spool in the wizard's basket and then towards another on one of the shelves which emitted a faint blue aura, signaling to any potential-would-be-buyer of its strength. Furrowing her brows into a slight frown, she plucked it off the shelf and held it carefully at its base to not hurt herself.
"If that's the case, sir, then I'd recommend this one then if for safety, sir. It's strong and could easily sever a digit if someone grabbed onto it, so I'd put up warning signs around your place," she laughed. "But it has the potential to hurt animals if they get tangled and if you live out in the countryside and deer or fox or whatever is around, I'd recommend this one then," she muttered, holding out her arm for the man to take it. "If it's just to deter people from trespassing on your property. It's strong and can do some damage, but it's not as sharp and should save you from a lawsuit and appearing in front of the Wizengamot in case whoever you're trying to keep out decides to sue you for personal liability," she nervously joked, her lame attempt at a joke to diffuse the tension falling flat.
He grabbed the spool she recommended in her hand and plunked it into the basket.
Venom coated on her tongue as their fingers accidentally brushed together from the interaction as he took it from her.
"Oh, and if you want to detain someone if intruders ever break into your home, then these are great too," she joked as she turned away slightly and held up a pair of magically enchanted zip ties, that will not come off unless the one who used them in the first place severed them. Her mouth went slightly dry when he reached for the zip ties she had motioned to in her manicured hand.
Layla curiously peeked over her shoulder on the off-chance that Mr. Borgin had returned from the back, which he had, but now the old man was scribbling something down in the ledger book, bending over so far to peer at the parchment through his lenses, it was a miracle the stooped old wizard hadn't managed to break his back with just the effort alone.
The stranger looked at her, his mouth pinching and turning downward. Slowly, the man's head turned down as well and Layla felt a sickening chill run over her and her stomach churn in nauseating knots when she came to understand, without the slightest doubt in the world, that this human wizard was slowly, openly, and without shame, checking her out.
Her pale face turned beet red, and she sharply turned her head away to avert her gaze, trying to pretend she did not notice. For a vampire, she was pretty enough, she supposed.
She had been as a human, she remembered that much of herself. Her features upon her Turning had only become heightened.
She was pretty, not too skinny, but athletic, with short dark brown hair and dark brown eyes that turned red when she'd gone too long without feeding. Good, high cheekbones she had inherited from her mother, her father was always fond of telling her whenever she visited.
Layla had been used to wizards her age checking her out upon graduation from Hogwarts and back home in the wizarding village where her aging father lived, but the fact that this man's appraisal had occurred after, perhaps an off-colored joke about zip ties, gave the pretty vampire the creeps.
Layla swallowed and tried to ignore the man's enticing scent, he smelled of autumn and she could practically feel the man's warmth and blood pulsating through her very veins.
Layla gritted her teeth and hoped her discomfort wasn't evident in her eyes or her stance.
"Ah…I'll be over behind the checkout counter, sir. If you have any more questions or would like me to show you anything, ask me. My name is Layla," she murmured softly and immediately turned on the heels of her black boots, wiping her hands on her black skirt and making a show of adjusting her grey cardigan.
The man who had not even offered her his name turned his head, and she could feel his piercing eyes burning a hole through her as she strode swiftly back towards the counter, relieved for Mr. Borgin's arrival.
She was due for a break anyway, and then it would be time to close up the shop for the evening and come back again tomorrow night.
She shivered and tried to ignore the cold, debilitating feeling of dread in the pit of her belly as she darted behind the counter and grabbed her purse, taking a moment to carefully set the book she had been reading back in it.
A copy of her favorite, Bram Stroker's Dracula, which only seemed fitting these days, considering what she had become. She took a second to sling the strap of her bag over her shoulder and turned towards her employer, with Mr. Borgin already beginning closing duties.
Racking her brain, she thought quickly.
"I…I need some air," she stammered in a timid voice. "If you could take care of this man for me, I—I'd appreciate it, sir."
Mr. Borgin looked visibly startled for a moment but quickly recovered and nodded as he ran a hand through his thinning tuft of white hair and proceeded to adjust his glasses by pushing them back up onto the bridge of his crooked nose.
"Of course, dear. I will see you in the morning. Get some rest, your eyes are darker than my dead wife's soul, Miss Wydman," he added. She nodded but could not resist sneaking one last glance at the handsome stranger in black before slipping towards the back of the store.
Layla could have sworn he looked back at her.
HALF an hour later, Layla furrowed her brows into a scowl as she looked over her shoulder and slid the key of her flat into the lock.
Since she had helped Mr. Borgin to close up shop for the night, she seemed to have this strong feeling that she was being watched.
It was an uneasy feeling, one that she was entirely too embarrassed to share, not that she could share it with anyone, as she only had Father left to call her own, and very few friends to speak of. Surely, she was being ridiculous.
It was just because something of Mr. Borgin's last customer for the night had stuck with her and was unnerving her, she tried to tell herself.
After she had managed to collect herself enough to calm her racing heart and frantic breaths, she had returned from inside and to the front of the shop, where Mr. Borgin had told her that the wizard had asked him to relay his thanks to her and hoped to see her again soon.
Despite the seemingly kind words, she continued to feel put off and unsettled by the whole scenario she had hoped would fade away on the walk home, but it didn't.
Mr. Borgin, the generous soul that he was when it came to his only employee's well-being, had offered her the use of his Fireplace to Floo home, but she had politely declined.
Despite the frigid cold of the weather outside and the still fresh snowfall, the cold invigorated her and helped her to think and clear her mind of things she would rather not think about.
Layla inhaled sharply as she stopped at the topmost step of her complex building, the burning biting cold of the winter air around her feeling her lungs and burning them with its crisp clarity.
She held it for a long moment, savoring it, letting it fill her up. As she released the breath, slowly, she felt a great deal of tension leave her sore joints and muscles. Again. In. Out. Breathe. Just breathe.
Good, she thought encouragingly to herself. Just…breathe. It was far too soon for her to look back at the terrible memories and visions of her accident that had left her scarred and forever changed her life. Doing so would only send her into a panic and the young vampire could not afford that. Not now, and likely not ever.
But if not now, then when?
When would she be able to confront all this year that she had been suffering with, for the better part of two years, since that fated night one dull and grievous Tuesday evening, when she had been walking home from finishing her shopping, only to be attacked in an alleyway and thrust under the clutches of a clawed hand and piercing crimson slit eyes. She could remember waking up to a horrible burning harrowing feeling in her throat, lying on her back on top of discarded bags of trash in the back of Knockturn Alley, seemingly left for dead.
She had woken to a mouthful of Galleons, the thick taste of metal on her tongue and fragments of the most horrific nightmare she thought she had ever had. As she had smacked her lips, trying to get the taste of blood out of her mouth, bits and pieces came flooding back to her. The vampire who had assaulted her and caught her unawares near the alleyway, holding onto her from behind, his red lips on her neck.
The Dark creature loomed over her, its eyes full of a hot and unearthly hunger.
Her screams were ripped from her lips in gasping, agonizing, pain-filled horrible gurgles, filled with her blood. Her hands had groped at her neck, feeling two small puncture wounds in her skin that still tingled and burned. Throughout the night, they had scabbed over and felt as if they had been healing for weeks already, but she had not felt them since today, nor had they been there last night, before the attack.
She remembered running her shaking fingers over the small scabs, her entire body quaking as she realized what this meant. She was now an accursed wretch, a creature damned to a lifetime spent in the shadows, never able to go out into the sun during the day again, or it would kill her.
She jolted out of the memories with a startled gasp, her chest heaving for calm and her fingers curling over the strap of her purse for support. She blinked owlishly as she came back to herself a bit. Now, as the brunette vampire gazed nervously over the white landscape of the streets of downtown London this late at night, she saw nothing. Not a single person, Muggle, witch, or wizard, in sight, but she felt eyes on her.
It was dark, anyone could be hiding out there, waiting for her, watching her. She shook her head and let out a deep, dense breath.
"Get a grip, Wydman, there's nothing out here watching you," she whispered and opened the front door to step inside.
She was being utterly foolish. This wasn't one of those Muggle horror movies she loved to watch on weekends during her spare time.
This was real life and things like that didn't happen in real life, especially not to vampires like her. She entered her townhouse and sighed, taking off her hat and scarf. She frowned as she noted the darkness of her home and the utter quiet. Layla could have sworn she left at least one of the lamps on for light and the radio going, playing Celestina Warbeck Christmas songs in the hopes of cheering her desolate and dank interior of her dreary place up a bit.
Layla hung up her coat on the rack by the door as well as her purse and turned around.
She headed towards the top of the stairs with the intent of seeing if perhaps her father had popped by unannounced for a visit as he was prone to and had taken a kip upstairs in her guest room and had not yet woken up.
"Dad?" she called softly as she got to the top of the stairs? "Did you eat?"
She got to the bedroom door and had her hand on the handle, about to turn it, when her slightly now-pointed ears perked up at the sound of a creak, coming from her right.
Suddenly, her ears were burning as they twitched and her stomach was in knots, and she could have sworn that her heart, which had ceased to beat the moment she had been Turned into a vampire that night, had begun pounding in her throat painfully. She swallowed and it felt like she was swallowing knives.
Calm down. It's an old townhouse. It makes noises, the vexed and agitated vampire tried to tell herself and let out a shaky breath.
She was about to turn the handle again when she heard another creak and whirled around on her heels.
"Dad?" she called in a harsh whisper. She licked her bottom lip and waited for any reply from him.
She grabbed onto the door handle from behind her and turned it quietly. She stepped into the bedroom backward and turned towards her guest bedroom's cot, finding it made and untouched.
"Damn it," she whispered and headed towards the window with the intent of using her wand to send for a Patronus to check up on him.
Though another creaking sound had her lower lip trembling before she could so much as taking one step forward to the window.
Layla was so startled that she dropped her wand, where it clattered to the hardwood floor by the soles of her boots with a loud clang, louder than the vampire would have liked. She swore, flushing, and dove for her wand, cursing her carelessness through her gritted teeth.
Great, she thought miserably. There goes the stealth part of my plan. If someone IS in my house, they know I'm home now. Bile rose in her throat as she swore her pointed ears perked up at the sound of heavy footsteps.
"No, no, no," she moaned lowly. She looked around. With only her wand, this was going to have to do.
Just run. Just get downstairs and to the front door. Run like you're on fire from the sun if you have to.
She held her wand defiantly in her left hand, raised by her face, and held at the ready, ready to fire the first jinx if need be. She inched forward and stepped out into the darkened hallway, listening intently, her pointed ears perked up for any more noise.
Layla struggled to listen for noises, but her breaths were coming to her too heavy. The vampire drew in a breath and held it, closing her eyes to try to listen a bit better.
When she heard nothing, she stepped forward and opened her eyes to find an incredibly thin line of enchanted barbed wire spread across the landing, at the level of her face.
Layla's eyebrows shot high up onto her forehead that they almost disappeared into her hairline in disbelief. She found nothing but wire cable spread out in front of her every which way she turned her neck to look. She frowned and ducked underneath the wire, her grip on her wand tightening even further as she moved gingerly through the hallway.
She squeezed onto her wand, feeling the handle slip in her sweaty palm. The vampire let out a long and shaky breath and moved to the stairs.
Layla could see the front door from where she was. She felt like she was going to drop dead, this time a second time, from fright.
Her throat hurt, and she felt incredibly dizzy. She saw spots snaking their way into her vision at the edges of her eyes and then, with a deep breath, summoned just a little of her inhuman speed and bolted down the stairwell, jumping two steps at a time, and sprinted in a blur for the door.
She wound her hand around the handle, ready to turn it, when she felt an incredible fiery pain shoot through her palm and she ripped her hand back, a startled cry of pain escaping her lips.
Wound around the handle was magically enchanted razor wire like Mr. Borgin sold in his shop and she knew. Layla looked down in despair at her now bleeding hand and desperately looked around.
She began running for the back door, her wand still clutched in hand.
But she slammed into the kitchen table and cried out but circled it quickly enough. The vampire groped for the back door, not even giving a damn if this doorknob also had wire around it or not. Even it had been there, it would not have mattered.
She was going to open that door and then Disapparate. And she did. And she almost made it too. The witch and vampire reached out, ready to plant her boot onto the snow-covered front step, but before she could, she felt a cold feeling on her elbow yank her back.
Layla could not stop the yelp that left her throat as she was yanked roughly backward and went flying onto the floor. The door was slammed shut and she heard the sound of it lock and a muttered dark curse under someone's breath.
A man. Someone was inside her home.
He stepped towards her, and she lashed out but the wizard was not close enough. He pretended to lurch towards her, clearly enjoying this sick little game of cat and mouse and she tried to jinx him again, but he was too agile. He finally got close enough. One of her Stunning Spells almost hit the man's knee and would have sent him tumbling to the ground, though he sidestepped out of the way at the last possible second and grabbed her arm, wrenching it behind her back and pulling her upright to her feet, ignoring the startled squeak of surprise Layla let out.
When he took a step forward, she attempted to scramble backward, but the towering wizard continued to approach her slowly and calmly, his skull mask gleaming in the moonlight that streamed in through the open windows of her living room.
Layla looked up and the fear flooding through her veins in addition to her venom was so powerful she could not even scream, much less utter the first incantation she could think of that might save her life. It was fear that kept her paralyzed and rooted to her spot, stricken.
Her mouth opened but no sounds came forth. Her intruder into her home stood there, tall, looming, powerful, totally in black.
When her eyes adjusted and she had blinked away the tears that were threatening to spill over, she at first could not process the information. Her mouth went dry, and she felt as if her chest caved in terror at the sight of one of the Dark Lord's best and brightest lieutenants.
The steel skeletal mask he held loosely in his left hand at his side appeared to glow in the room and Barty Crouch Jr.'s body looked taller and stronger than she had ever seen it a few times in passing when the wizard would do his shopping in Knockturn Alley.
But she had never thought she would see the man again, not after their graduation from Hogwarts a few years ago now, much less have him inside her house. Hearing the reports of the Dark Lord and his armies' victims, Layla had never been able to fully appreciate or understand the sheer terror his victims must have felt before they died. Now, she thought she could.
All it would take was for her to be bound and subdued and left outside and wait for dawn to come. No other method existed of killing their kind, as far as she knew. She knew her chances of escaping the man at this point were slim to none.
He would likely catch her before she could get two feet, much less think about Apparating anywhere, he would just follow her or see where she was going. He could snap her in half like a twig if he wanted, but something inside of Layla told the vampire that he would much rather use the wand in his hand. His right arm rose over her and Layla put her hands up, though not before she heard the involuntary hiss that left her barely cracked lips.
"I—I'll kill you, Crouch, what the hell are you doing in my house?" she whispered but her breaths trembled and betrayed just how scared she felt. The pain of her arm being twisted forced the vampire to twist her body around and as her wand once more slipped from her grip and collided with the floor, she felt herself being shoved towards the coffee table.
Tears began to come to her eyes as she felt Crouch push her down onto the table with just one hand. The handsome wizard grabbed onto her free wrist, the one now coated in blood, and brought it up to rest on top of the other. Her tears spilled onto the table as she tried to squirm, but he was too strong, even for her.
The man's calloused and free hand went to squeeze the back of her neck and she felt his hips press against her. Oh, Merlin.
She could feel the undeniable feeling of the man's arousal, and she readied herself to be assaulted. Pain shot through her limbs from the fall, and she could feel the coldness of her blood that was now trickling down her wrist and staining the fabric of her cardigan.
Instead, she felt the man's hand leave the back of her neck and softly burrow into wisps of her hair and stroking them with a tenderness that she would have expected of a lover. It sent revulsion on her stomach, and she swore she tasted bile.
The cup of chicken's blood she had drunk for lunch earlier today was threatening to come back up now. She forced herself to swallow it back down and tried to think of something to say.
"Please," she cried, furiously blinking back tears. "Please don't kill me, Crouch, what—what the hell do you want? Why are you here?" she begged him, not sure if she wanted to know the answer, but she knew at the same time, she just had to get the question out in the open.
"Shh…" he whispered in a rough, grating voice calloused with ire. "The Dark Lord, pretty little Layla, has been watching you for some time now. I've been watching you," he clarified, whispering his words in a smooth, buttery purr into the shell of her ear that sent a tremor down her spine. "My master, he calls for you. He's taking a liking to you, pet, he wants you to join our side. He sent me here to...persuade you to come with me, so that the two of you could talk, nothing more and nothing less than that. None of us in the organization wants to hurt you, Lovely Layla, trust me on this," he murmured in a dangerously quiet tone she wasn't sure what to make of. "Shhh…." He hushed her softly and gently dragged his fingertips over her cheekbone. She felt his hand bury itself deeper into the back of her hair, gripping tight onto a fistful of her short strands. "No need for you to make a fuss. Come with me, quietly now, Layla, and you'll be alright. You'll see…"
She squeezed her eyes shut and barely repressed a half-choked sob.
Oh, Merlin. This was bloody it. how she died she was sure of it.
She supposed some would think it ironic that she was about to be murdered by Crouch, considering Barty Crouch Jr. had once been a fellow Slytherin alongside her and in the same year, how kind she had been to him when they were in school, though she had not spoken to the man since graduation at all. His obsession with Longbottom's girl, Alice, ran thick. She had thought for certain nothing would pull the man's attention away from Alice Longbottom once Alice Prewitt had married Frank.
"Please," she begged, not sure what else she could say to her fellow Slytherin who she had once harbored a stupid crush on, back when she was just a stupid girl with stupid dreams who never learned her place and was beginning to see what a foolish mistake that had been. "Please don't kill me, Barty, a-and don't take me to the Dark Lord, I-I cannot help him, I'm useless, I'm a nobody among my kind, I…I'll do anything," she wept, slick tears streaming down her cheeks, hating hearing the faltering crack and dip in her tone as she pleaded softly.
She squeezed her eyes shut, unable to stomach looking into the man's cold and listless dark brown eyes. It felt like a horrible betrayal of some sort. Layla knew she was no doubt ridiculous to feel betrayed by Barty Crouch Jr., her old classmate owed her nothing special, but she had tried too hard in the past to reach him, by trying to be kind to him in class. She had tried so hard to bring out the good in the man, and now, the Dark Lord's most trusted and faithful lieutenant was going to kill her, and she would just be another victim, another notch on his belt.
"Barty! Please! Don't! We were...we were friends! I...I liked you! I trusted you!" she screamed hoarsely, trying to think of something to say, as he suddenly raised his wand to her face and the man froze.
She squeezed her eyes shut and waited for the inevitable feeling of a stake to be driven through her heart, while not enough to kill her and the wound would heal, it would be more than enough to incapacitate her for the next several hours while her body healed its wound. More than enough time for the wizard to whisk her away to wherever Crouch had in mind.
She waited for the inevitable feeling of the sharp blade ripping into her flesh and penetrating her heart, but it did not come for her.
When the vampire had managed to recover some courage, she peeked open an eyelid and looked up at her former classmate.
The man stared down at her blankly, but even in the dark, she could see Crouch's eyes, burning brighter than midnight torches.
They had the look she'd always used to attribute to him in class whenever the man was trying to make up his mind on something.
"Barty?" she asked again, much more softly, her voice barely above a whisper this time, and to her utter amazement, he dropped the hand wielding his wand.
Layla drew in a sharp breath and held it as she looked up at him curiously. She honestly did not know how to go about this. She flinched when the wizard slowly brought his left hand up and hovered his fingertips over the icy skin of her cheekbones. She felt his fingertips on her face, though Barty never once touched her. It was like an electrical current that caused the prickling of goosebumps to erupt all over her skin.
As she watched Barty, Layla inexplicably felt a rush of happiness swell up inside her, spreading warmth throughout her insides.
He wasn't going to kill her! Maybe, just maybe, he had formed some type of attachment to her that she'd never known about from their days at school. Maybe the man was willing to look past her lowly status as a disgusting creature of the damned, a creature of night and shadow, and try to befriend her again. Maybe it would be enough to convince the man to let her go free.
At that moment, she felt as though everything she had done in her life, granted it was only twenty-eight years, had all been worth it, even her accident. She had done the impossible. She had made a connection with a wizard that she remembered everyone else in their year saying was a lost cause and would not follow in his father's footsteps and go far in the Ministry. That he was destined to go down a path of darkness.
She knew a thing or two about that. Perhaps, for him, it wasn't too late.
But if only Layla could know what sort of attachment Crouch had formed….
Though her surge of triumph quickly began to fade, however, as the vampire did not have time to register the pain that engulfed as the man yanked on a tuft of her hair, pulling her head back. In a swift movement, he shoved her head back towards the table and her forehead slammed onto the hard surface with a loud, sickening thud that was sure to leave one hell of a bruised and black eye later when she woke up.
She saw spots blotting her vision and a little cry of pain left her lips.
"Shh," he said again, more forcefully this time, with just a twinge of impatience seeping its way to the surface of her voice, and her head was yanked back again a second time and her head slammed down.
This time, the vampire felt no pain and heard no thud as she fell into a crumpled heap at the man's boots but saw only black as her world went dark and she slipped into sleep.