AN: Don't own HP. Nearing the end. One more chapter and an epilogue, I think.

"How could you?" For the first time today, I remember why I shouldn't like Barty Crouch, Jr.

"Much too easily, Anwen. For once, I was the one with the power. People respected me."

"You stood for nothing defensible, nothing good. Neither did your leader."

"He stood for me. Or so I convinced myself. I was so young. Hard to think of how long ago it was."

"And then?" Ron pushes.

"And then he began to hurt people, to cause untold harm. He did it gleefully. His ideas morphed from a power grab to total conquer. I couldn't go that far. Couldn't justify it, though I'm ashamed to tell you I tried. I began to question it all, began to back away from the inner circle."

"He knew." Harry says this with complete understanding. If anyone in this room can appreciate Voldemort's ability to read people, it is Harry Potter.

"Yes," Crouch confirms with a nod to Potter. "And he couldn't have that. I was a prize, you know. The son of a government official. I realized too late that that was my true value. He was not willing to lose me."

"The Longbottoms," Harry supplied. He and Ron both wear drawn expressions. Neville Longbottom is their friend.

"They were my test. My trial, I suppose. Torture them, kill them once I had the Ministry information the Dark Lord wanted." He stops talking, stops pacing, faces away from me and stills.

I step closer, stop myself from touching him. "What happened, Barty?"

"I can't talk about this. No, can't talk about it. I tried!" He's so agitated, his shame and regret showing as anger. Angry at himself, surely, but who else? It's clear to me how he has driven himself to madness. It must have been the easiest way to cope.

He paces again, faster, aimless. This time I do reach out, though I try to stop myself. He needs the human contact more than I need professional distance, and I lay my hand on his forearm as he passes..

Harry Potter does not agree.

"Hafgan," he says. "Back up."

And I do. What the hell am I thinking?

"I showed up at the ambush site," Barty says, still now and facing me. Only me. "It was very well planned. Rodolphus was a master of tactics. I'd contacted my father for the first time in over a year. Asked him to warn Frank and Alice, you know. He didn't. Didn't believe me. They were there, the Longbottoms, with no protection, no warning, no idea what was waiting for them."

"Oh, no," I breathe. How does this keep getting worse? Because I keep hoping for a different ending.

"The moment came to fulfill my duties, to carry out my orders. And I didn't. Couldn't. I refused. Bellatrix had her wand raised; no doubt she was going to deliver the Killing Curse. But I was saved." He laughs, all the bitterness he feels in the sound.

"Your father?" I ask.

"Oh, not him. The Dark Lord stayed Bellatrix's hand." Ron has to leave. Even now I forget how real these names are to them all here, how much pain comes with their mention. Barty spares him a glance and softens his eyes, but redirects his gaze to me, and continues his tale. "He cast the Cruciatus upon those poor people as I watched."

"He was there? That isn't the story we all heard afterward," Harry informs him.

"He was everywhere," Barty answers. "The stories that were told later were the ones he wanted told. He controlled it all. The people, the message, everything but the ultimate outcome."

"None of you could leave, could you? Not even if you wanted to," Harry concedes. It is a huge concession.

"Not many of us wanted to. Death Eaters were a dedicated lot. But yes, those of us who began to reconsider were not offered an exit."

"Will Ron be okay?" I ask into the silence that has fallen.

"Yeah, he's good," Harry assures me. "Go on, Crouch. The Longbottoms."

"They were so brave, you know. So brave. He got nothing from them. Their bravery served only to highlight my own cowardice."

"You refused Voldemort. That was brave," I tell him.

"That was overdue self-awareness. Please do not bestow upon me false praise, Anwen."

"What. Happened." Harry, for all his stoicism and control, is reaching the end of his tether. I know him well enough now to know that he wants desperately to check on his best friend and brother-in-law, no matter his assertion that Ron is fine.

."You know this part - he chose to leave them alive. Alive and drooling, cruelty with kind explanation. He told me I was wrong, that he wasn't only a bringer of death. That he would leae alive the Aurors as well as his fallen Death Eater. He told me my punishment would not be of his making. He was right."

"Your father?" I ask again.

"This time, yes. He covered his guilt with my own. He hid the truth behind me. No one ever knew he could have warned them. He cast the Imperius on me after my mother got me out of Azkaban. It was powerful, lasted so very long."

"And when you escaped?" Harry asks, as invested in this new version of truth as I am.

"He tried to kill my crazy ass!"

"Mad Eye?" Harry asks with a lingering sadness.

"Revenge. Escape. Madness. Take your pick. Voldemort freed me from the Imperius Curse, and I gave my tenuous loyalty to him again. Or so he thought. I had a plan. A monumentally stupid plan, but a plan, nonetheless."

"What do you mean?" I need an explanation. Harry walks closer leaving the comforting solidity of the wall behind.

"Voldemort. I only wanted to bring out the truth, my truth. But I did it all wrong. He maneuvered me again, I fell for every trap. I made so many mistakes and nearly became as bad as you think I am. Anger and madness are not a good recipe for success," he says with some of the flippancy with which I was becoming familiar.

"And the Nature spirit?" Because my actual job is finding out what happened to the prison, right? Right?

"It stayed with me through my time at Azkaban, through it all. I wonder if it didn't somehow protect me from the Dementors. It was Always there, keeping me from being alone. I guess Nature was my escape this time."

"Mine, too. Always."

"We have that in common," he says with a quizzical look.

"Nature is the escape . . ." I murmur.

"Hafgan? What are thinking?" my boss prompts.

"Nature is the escape!" I tell Harry, then turn to Barty. "Show me."