SHE left me. She left me. Over and over again, he said it in his head like a mantra. She left me. His heart pounded loudly in his chest, hard drumming that he could hear in his ears until it drowned out all other sounds around him. Barty barely heard his family's house-elf Winky constantly fussing over him, trying to coax him to look at her, to take a small bite off his meal, but the food was the last thing on his mind.
Barty Crouch Jr.'s one-track mind was currently stuck on one thing and one thing only: Elisabeth. Though he had been relieved that the Tracking Spell he'd cast on her ring had taken him to Hogwarts, well, more specifically, to Hogsmeade, as he could not directly infiltrate the castle outright, he was on edge.
Every single fiber and nerve in the Death Eater's body was on high alert.
He was sure that Elisabeth would have told a teacher as to his true nature by now, though Barty could not even manage to pretend to care, much less how he would explain away the lies to Father, it was not Azkaban and imprisonment the wizard currently feared.
It was the thought that his bride, his wife, would be lost to him forever by another man, a man much lower in status. She had always been off with that bastard Quirrell who did not deserve her. Quirrell couldn't handle a woman like Elisabeth, much less any witch at all, for that matter.
It infuriated Barty that Elisabeth would never willingly choose him, not as she once had. He wished he could have kept his affiliation with her a secret, though he had admittedly not been thinking straight when he had rolled up his left sleeve and revealed his then-newly branded and still sore Dark Mark to his fiancée.
He wondered if she was afraid of him, of retaliation against her, and that's why she had fled with Quirrell.
When he'd woken and risen to his feet back in Doveport in the entryway of Quirrell's ruddy home and he'd caught the tail end of the bastard wanker Disapparating with his bride, he'd seen red.
He had trashed Quirrell's home in his wake in a blind rage and set his bloody house on fire and only quenched those that were in his path as he'd left but left the rest to burn. The thought of Elisabeth intentionally hating him—being afraid of him—tugged at his insides uncomfortably.
He wanted to look into the witch's soulful brown eyes when he finally was reunited with her, so he could see the look in her eyes when he did. That would be all he needed to know, of the witch that had him wound around her little pinky finger and Elisabeth did not even know it.
But it would not make the decision he found himself faced with any easier—to marry her and choose to trust her again or to take Quirrell as his little pet and keep the man alive just enough so that she did not dare leave. If she looked at him when he finally found her and took her away from this place and Barty only saw fear or hatred or disgust in those bewitching eyes of hers, then he would take Quirrell prisoner in his family's own home and keep him locked in the wine cellar without much thought to his conscience.
He would flay off bits of the former Defence Against the Dark Arts Professor one by one each time his Elisabeth would step out of line, as an incentive to make her stay. Barty wanted to tell Elisabeth that he would give her anything she wanted—as long as she stayed by his side and did what he wanted.
As he'd watched Quirinus Quirrell's home burn to the ground, he felt the horrible sprouting of devastation, sadness, and betrayal well within his chest. The last thing he could remember as he'd followed the Tracking Spell on Elisabeth's ring here to Hogsmeade was the feeling of uncontrollable rage.
The hated thief had stolen all of pretty Elisabeth's attention and kisses.
It was not something Barty thought he could articulate.
His knuckles turned white and his hands began to shake as he clawed his fingernails down the sides of the armrest of the leather chair he sat in numbly, staring blankly into the roaring crackling fire in the hearth, as though he could not hear Winky's shrill voice pleading with him to eat a bite of dinner.
The trembling in his hands only worsened as his rage grew at the thought of what they were off to now began to flit through his mind, and the unpleasant image of Elisabeth kissing his nemesis instead of him seared itself into his brain. He wanted to kill Quirrell for what the idiot wanker had stolen from him.
Again, and again and again. He wanted to bash the weak man's skull to the floor, to hear every bone crack as he broke them, slowly, the Muggle way, without magic, so that he would feel every single one. He wanted to watch the clean wooden floorboard beneath his boots turn red with the wizard's blood.
He wanted to see Quirrell's brain matter paint the ground.
His dark eyes narrowed wistfully as he stared into the dancing red and orange flames of the fireplace, still blocking out Winky's pleading tones. The man's long and pale fingers closed into shaking fists as he seized on tufts of his moppy, straw-colored hair that needed a trim soon.
He would have to have Winky cut his hair for him before he ventured out in search of his bride.
It would not do to greet her again looking so sloppy. But her face was everywhere, it was the only thing Barty could see. The witch's oval face was permanently stuck in his mind like a Sticking Charm, he could not get her out of his head, even if he wanted to, which of course, he didn't.
Every time he tried to close his eyes, she was there, Elisabeth Raywood's bright white smile shining so brightly against the darkness of his closed eyelids that it was harrowing and very nearly blinded the wizard. Barty wanted nothing more than to carve it right off her pretty face with Rodolphus Lestrange's favorite dagger because her smile was not directed at him. And when he did open his eyes, all he could see were those haunting brown eyes of hers, beckoning him to her with just a single look
Except they were never looking at him, he knew, they were always looking at Quirinus.
It made him want to tear her retinas, gouge out her eyeballs, and stuff them down her throat.
If she was not looking at him and him alone, then his bride would have no further need of her eyes, then, would she? His tongue darted out to lick at the edges of his lips.
Merlin, but Barty could practically feel his hands running through her soft red tresses, even now. No! Barty angrily drew his wand, leaving Winky with little to no time to react as he sent a spell to the wall, creating a large crater-sized hole in the portrait of one of the inn's previous owners that had sadly been caught in the crossfires of the wizard's rage. Winky squeaked and scrambled on top of the bed in fear.
"Young Master Barty, you bad boy, you's must calm down, please, you's is making a mess!" his terrified house-elf squeaked in a shrill voice, seizing on tufts of her short black bob, and pulling on locks of her hair.
The house elf's huge eyes were wide and round as dinner plates and threatening to bug right out of their sockets as his family's servant stared at him in fear as he rose to his feet and kicked aside the chair he had been sitting in, beginning to restlessly pace an aggravated line in front of the fire.
Back and forth, back and forth he went. Winky's little heart sank to the pit of her stomach as she followed his steps. Her heart broke for her master.
"Master, please, Winky wishes you's would eat a bite off your meals, Winky is worried about you!" she squeaked, scampering off the bed and darting over to his master, tugging on his boot. She hoped to convince the wizard to look at her. She was more than eager to make her master listen to the words of wisdom she wished to impart. "Your Young Special Miss will not come back with us if you's is causing such a horrible ruckus and behaving so rudely!" she squeaked, scrunching her nose in disgust.
Rage coursed through Barty's veins at the thought that Elisabeth did not want to be with him, but he made no immediate attempt to track her down the moment his feet had stepped down onto Hogsmeade soil. He was a patient man, it was one of his virtues, perhaps his only virtue.
He need not give away his intentions too soon. He imagined killing Quirrell. He looked away from Winky and stared up at the ceiling and imagined plunging Rodolphus Lestrange's borrowed knife for this little excursion into the wizard's chest, straight through his heart.
Or sliding the edge across the wizard's throat and killing him that way. And it felt good.
Barty felt his muscles twitch and again, his tongue flicked out to lick the edges of his lips, a visible twitch that always unnerved Father. He yearned for Quirinus's blood and to punish Elisabeth too for what she had done with him. He wanted her to watch as he killed Quirrell, he wanted her to know that he was the only man for her. He had wanted to find her, to kill her, at first, though Winky had talked him down from his anger the moment she was called. The more Winky apologized on Elisabeth Raywood's behalf, the angrier Barty could feel himself growing. He wanted to believe his family's house-elf when she said that his 'Special Young Miss' just must have fled with the other wizard because she'd gotten scared of his temper.
Winky had done her best to soothe him and calm him down from the worst of the dark tempest swirling around in his mind, clouding his thoughts and hindering his ability to think rationally.
He wanted back the love he thought he'd had with Elisabeth, but she had ruined it when she broke their engagement the first time, and now again, when she'd fled from him a second time and gone off with Quirrell. His knuckles clenched into shaking fists at his side.
He was not even aware that he was causing a shower of red sparks to burst forth from the tip of his wand and burning a hole in one of the planks of wood in the floor until one nearly burned a hole in his boot. Letting out a growl of frustration, he angrily pocketed his wand and flexed the fingers of his wand hand. He did not think that Elisabeth leaving him a second time was something that he could forgive.
Winky wanted him to speak to her, to tell him what he was thinking, what he planned to do with his 'Special Young Miss' and Master Quirrell when he found them, but Barty did not give her any sort of response. He knew full bloody well that if he told his elf the truth, she would do everything in her power to stop it from happening. He hated Quirinus Quirrell with every fiber of his being and wanted the man to die. But he did not only wish to kill him, oh, no. Merlin's Beard, no. He wanted to torture him first.
He wanted to watch Quirrell suffer, the disgustingly weak stupid sod that he was.
Always, Barty had enjoyed killing but had never desired to draw it out. He was not like Bellatrix or Fenrir Greyback, the accursed wretched filthy dog, that beast. Both of them preferred to play with their food before they ate it. He, however, had never seen the point in prolonging the suffering. But with Quirrell, he wanted it, needed to watch the light leave his eyes so badly that it began to physically hurt.
The man needed to suffer, to bleed, to scream, to cry, for stealing his Lis. Barty glanced down at his bone-white hands and his mind's eye filled them with the image of Elisabeth Raywood's face.
He knew he would be more than happy if those eyes were looking at him, but then he knew without a shadow of a doubt in his heart and black wretched soul that he was losing her to Quirrell. He felt the urge to kill again pump through his veins. He wanted to make it stop, but he wanted to hurt Elisabeth.
It was a horrible conflict. One that the Death Eater had never felt before. It yanked at him and threatened to tear him asunder. It only lasted a moment, though that one moment felt like an eternity.
His decision quickly became clear to him as he felt the desire to kill Elisabeth too dissipate. He would only take Quirinus and then his blood lust and need for revenge against Quirrell would be satiated. After he persuaded him to tell him where their master had gone. And he needed her with him. He needed her.
Words were almost impossible to describe his need. It was the strongest desire he had ever felt before. Even stronger than killing. Furious though he was with Elisabeth for leaving him again a second time, he could not kill her. At least…not yet. Not when he felt like this.
He strode towards the window of his room and looked out and down into the streets of Hogsmeade. The more this feeling, this pulling feeling to the witch he ached to marry and to call her his wife, the more he hated her. He hated Elisabeth Raywood for making him feel these things and cherished her too.
The pain, the sadness, the betrayal. Alice Longbottom had made him feel sad once when she had insulted Elisabeth once for taking an interest in him, called her a right mental bit, and he had as good as killed her and her bastard mental bit of a husband, Frank Longbottom, for the insult, wanting to defend his lady.
The pair were now permanently incarcerated in St. Mungo's with permanent brain damage. He had accidentally tortured sweet Alice into insanity. Elisabeth had found him out and she had left him.
But not a third time. She could not leave him again. This time, he would see to that, personally.
Barty looked towards Winky, who shrank back as the wizard's dark brown eyes shone with a horrible unhinged craziness, that she feared the next words that would come out of his mouth.
"Y-Young Master?" Winky squeaked in a voice that was barely above a whisper as she ran her tiny fingers through her bob to smooth down the tresses. She dreaded her young master's next words.
His mind churned with a dozen possibilities the longer he looked at his family's house elf. He needed to give Winky a task. He needed to know where exactly Elisabeth was within Hogwarts, and when, if there was the slightest chance, she would be heading into Hogsmeade at any point with his nemesis.
He could not risk exposure by sauntering into the castle and taking her by force that way, he did not want to draw any unnecessary attention to himself. But if he could draw his bride out of her sanctuary, then Elisabeth Raywood was his and his alone, and as for Quirrell…
The pathetic excuse for a wizard would tell him everything he wanted to know as the man's knowledge pertained to the Dark Lord and his whereabouts, and then, when he had no further need of him, he would kill him. He turned back to face Winky, who flinched.
"Quirrell has blessed me with a hunt, Winky, and you will help me recover my bride. Help me smoke out my pretty bride from the castle. I want to know who she's with at all times, where she's going, and if she intends to come to Hogsmeade in the future. If my wife thinks she can hide from me, she's mistaken. Will you help me?" Barty growled, lowering his voice an octave and using his Power voice.
He watched, momentarily awestruck, as the fear in Winky's black eyes briefly dimmed as his elf could only gape at him. For a moment, he thought his family's house elf was going to say no and refuse, for which Winky would be punished. The stubborn house elf would not be an easy one to convince.
Winky's black eyes went flat, the same way an animal did when deciding on how best to deal with its fear, if they should take their last stand fighting in the corner, knowing they would lose or flee.
Then, after an interminable pause, Winky gave the tiniest of nods. Barty's lips twitched upward as he heard his family's servant sniffle as fat tears dripped from the edges of her eyes. "Good girl, Winky," he praised her and stooped down to give her head a little affectionate pat before he straightened his gait and rolled his neck to crack it. "Find her, and follow her. Keep a close eye on her, but don't let her know. Go."
He did not bother to watch his family's house elf disappear. He turned away and the room flooded with the temporarily deafening cracking! sound of Winky Disapparating to follow her master's orders and tail Elisabeth Raywood and Quirinus Quirrell, for however long it took. He kept his hands folded strategically behind his back as he looked toward the proud and illustrious structure in the distance.
The smile that tugged Barty Crouch Jr.'s lips upward this time was real, not strained, and as the worst of his anger towards Quirinus Quirrell and Elisabeth Raywood dissipated, what took its place was excitement.
He had his wife to find.