He needed to get in the house. He needed to. But how could he do it? There were protection spells and charms surrounding it as far as a block away. He had tried to enter despite the protections. But they noticed him as a thing that wanted to harm and had cursed him away. He was lucky Moody hadn't caught him.
He had come back to the neighborhood a week later, lurking in the alleys and next to the trash cans. He stole food and some money from the houses, but he still had no way to get in the house. If he didn't enter soon the Dark Lord would kill him for being useless.
Then, one night, while he leaned against a dirty wall, unable to sleep, a man walked into his view. He was dressed in dirty wizarding robes and he walked straight towards Barty Crouch Jr. He waved his wand over Barty Crouch and apparently found nothing wrong for he spoke.
"I have a deal for you."
Barty Crouch jolted himself out of the paralysis he had gone into as soon as he had seen the man enter the alleyway. He had been afraid the Dark Lord had finally come to kill him. "What...what sort of deal?"
"A deal you'll like. I can get you into Moody's house."
Barty knew it was better to not ask any questions about how the man knew where he wanted to get into or if he knew why. "What do you want for it?"
"Something very small. I want a genuine glass chessboard. A pocket one."
Barty nodded. "I...I can get you that."
"Two days." The man walked away the direction he came and Barty was left alone in the alleyway.
A glass chessboard you could hold in your pocket. Where could he find that? But he needed to find it. He needed to. He got up and started walking towards the richer side of town. If anyone would have such a thing it would be the overly rich Muggles. They collected and kept such strange things.
The next morning he hadn't found anything. He decided to debase himself and walk into a Muggle newspaper shop and ask about putting in an advertisement asking about small glass chessboards. Genuine.
He found a small shop and entered. A fat woman was sitting at a messy desk eating chocolate. He turned up his nose. Muggles. But no matter. It was for the Dark Lord. And...and he didn't want to die.
"Hello," the woman said. Her accent was almost unintelligible.
"Hello." He hated talking to Muggles. They were so far beneath him and this one was dirty, too. "I need to place an advertisement."
"Why didn't you ring on the telephone?"
He decided that the sentence was something Scottish. "It's about a small, glass chessboard. One that will fit in your pocket."
"How many words? Here, write it down." The fat woman passed him a something thin and white that he supposed he was supposed to write on and a pencil. He hadn't used a pencil since he was five and had learned to write with a quill, but he picked it up anyway. He was doing this all for a much higher cause.
"Seeking glass chessboard that can fit in pocket," he wrote. "Contact at Magnolia Road."
"That will be 15 pounds."
He took out the money he had stolen from the houses in Moody's neighborhood and passed it to the woman. He waited disinterestedly as the woman gave him back the change. He just wanted to get out of the stinking, Muggle shop.
He continued looking in the rich houses through the morning but he didn't find anything. Towards evening he returned to Magnolia Road. By now, people would have read the newspaper. As he walked towards the neighborhood he thought he saw Moody walking in the street. He hid behind a trash can. When the figure came closer he saw it was an old woman leaning on a younger, brown-haired woman.
Entering Magnolia Road he saw nothing that was of interest. Just a boy who looked around eleven kicking a pebble and a small girl playing a game where she jumped in boxes drawn on the sidewalk a few houses down.
Then he saw what the boy was holding. A small, glass chessboard that he could fit in his pocket. Perfect. He sneaked up behind the boy and Stunned him, making sure that the chessboard didn't break. He took it and hurried back to his alleyway.
He waited there all the next day and most of the next night. Barty had already begun to think that the man had found someone else to get him the chessboard when he came. He again waved his wand over Barty and then over the chessboard. He dropped a small bag into Barty's lap. When Barty looked inside he could see a few dark shapes. Curse breakers, he thought. He handed the man the chessboard. The next night he kidnapped Mad-Eye Moody and stuffed him in the chest his Lord had prepared.
Challenges: The 2016 Monthly Prompt List, Transfiguration Classroom
Prompts: Homeless!AU; Write about an exchange, though it cannot be an conversation. It must become obvious throughout your assignment that something takes the place of something else, and that this probably affects the persons involved heavily, 300 words, Emmeline Vance