5

BARTY woke on the bed, not having intended to fall asleep but Christine was not with him nor in the chair or on the cot like he had expected her to be. He sat upright in a rush and looked for the witch to his left and right, his eyes searching the interior of their makeshift camp for the night.

He did not have to look long to know the witch was not yet back from keeping watch. Desperately, the Death Eater's mind took him down a path he would rather not think about. The possibility that she'd tried to escape.

No, he thought frantically, as a surge of anger welled within his chest, and he nearly growled as he leaped to his feet as his mind frantically tried to create a scenario to explain the witch's lateness.

She wouldn't, he told himself. Not Christine. Not her. She would never do that….would she? His mind raced with a thousand possibilities. Barty absentmindedly ran a hand through his wild dark hair, trying to smooth down a few stray flyaways of hair as he rushed out of the tent, leaving the flap wide open in his haste to search for his Christine.

He ran outside, and his heart fell when he spotted no immediate sign of the witch. He stood there, shocked, unable to determine his next course of action.

Barty ran a hand through his hair in confusion as he stared out into the vast forest ahead of him. There was no telling what trouble the witch would find herself in without him at his side, as she did not carry a wand, her kind were not permitted to.

A voice, her voice, from behind, shook Barty from his frenzied thoughts as he felt a surge of anger well within him at thinking perhaps the witch was trying to run away from him.

"Barty?"

Barty turned and found Christine Lestrange staring at him with confusion and awe in her expression. He felt a feeling foreign to him at the look of surprise and perhaps even fear brimming to life behind Christine Lestrange's dark eyes.

He was not angry with the witch for wandering off and not telling him, but he wasn't pleased with the fear in her eyes either. The Death Eater was pulled from his moment of jealousy at the sound of her voice.

Barty felt his anger slowly dissipate as Christine hesitantly broke into a timid smile as she took a nervous step towards him, her skirts swaying in the breeze as she did so. Part of him wanted to hex her and snap her neck for the worry she'd caused him, but the other wanted to shroud the witch in his embrace and never let her go.

Barty simply stopped short before reaching his partner and glared at her, his frenzied mind echoing, She's back. He noticed how she also could not remove her eyes from him, and the wizard secretly reveled in the witch's gaze.

"You should have woken me," Barty snapped, unable to keep the brief note of anger from his voice as it trembled. There was a rumble in his tone that he usually reserved for Winky whenever the house-elf was being particularly bothersome and nagging him over something or other.

It took him a moment to realize it was not anger he felt towards her now, but fear. Fear that his partner would have been stolen from him, perhaps by a rogue giant she'd happened to stumble across while patrolling the area or Merlin only knew what else lurked in these wretched woods. A vicious herd of centaurs, perhaps.

"I-I was just…" Christine stammered as she took a step backward, but Barty interjected angrily, his tone impatient as he cut her off.

"Trying to run away?" he snarled quietly. Christine's movements stilled as she looked at the wizard in astonishment. Barty could feel wrath burning in his eyes, while confusion and horror burned in his partner's.

His voice was almost dull and lifeless. He flinched the moment the words were out of his mouth as he realized he did not sound angry with Christine, but bitter.

But neither of them had the time to ponder why this might be the case, as Christine stepped forward in the apparent hope of rectifying the situation. Christine opened her mouth to speak but was interrupted by the roar of a creature, its haunting hoarse voice echoing across the thicket as the wind picked up speed.

Beneath their boots, the ground rumbled and began to crack.

"Giants," Barty growled hoarsely as he turned on his heels, his eyes growing more alert as he strained to look beyond the forest clearing in which they had set up camp and towards the skirting and rustling of the trees.

Christine felt the blood drain from her face as she craned her neck upward and caught a glimpse of the giant that was coming towards them. This giant was easily the largest and most foul of creatures she had ever seen, aside from the entity that she would sometimes catch glimpses of when she could feel an episode coming on, at the blackness of her own eyes.

"I—I think we need to—" she started to say, though, from behind, the sound of a breaking branch cut Christine off in mid-sentence, a scream erupting from her throat.

Barty's eyes went wide with abject horror, just as they rolled flat onto their backs and the giant's club planted itself firmly between him and Christine, creating a hole the size of a huge crater in the earth that sent a shower of dirt and pebbles into the air.

The giant had found them and had its club raised and prepared to strike them.

Christine screamed.

The scream tore from her lips before she could stop herself as she scrambled away from the giant's crude weapon that had come within an inch of crushing her and Barty to death, her hands fumbling over the hard earth.

The hulking, towering giant loomed over them and snarled at her, exposing a set of rotting teeth, if she could even call them that. More like fangs. Her mouth opened and she wanted to cry out, but no sound came out.

All she could manage was a pitiful mewl of fear as a huge, blackened hand the size of a Muggle car shot out and seized her waist, squeezing hard enough that she swore she felt a rib crack or two and it drew her closer, its breath reeking of decay and blood and guts. Silver droplets of the unicorn's blood dripped down the side of his mouth.

"She…man…" it growled in a low, terrible voice that made her shiver and her eyes go wide and round in horror.

The giant lifted her to eye level and tilted its dark head in a sense of horrible curiosity as a few strands of stringy, wispy black hairs fell across its face, tickling Christine's nose as it leaned its head forward just then for a better look at its latest catch here in the woods.

Its bulbous, round nose looked to have been broken several times throughout its life and never set back right. Its arms were entirely too long for its massive body, and despite the creature's hunched-over form, Christine could feel its bone-crushing strength in its grip around her middle. She forced her eyes to open and met the creature's beady black eyes as it snarled at her unpleasantly, with one clawed huge appendage still curled around its club.

The giant jerked her forward by bringing its hand so it was at his eye level, and then before she could stop herself, she tried to gasp out the one word that might save her and Barty's life. She thought she heard the wizard shouting something, but whether it was to her or to the creature who now held her hostage, she didn't know.

"Christine!" she heard Barty shouting her name, frantic. His voice sounded faint, muffled, and distant. Far away.

She couldn't tell where he was in proximity to her, but the only thing her mind could focus on was how much she hurt. One leg missed the shrug altogether and connected with a stray boulder. Christine crumpled into a heap as the giant flung her and her back immediately stung as she connected with a gnarled old oak tree.

Barty roared in anger, unable to stand here as a witness. He would kill this giant himself or he would die trying, not giving a damn if this bastard was the Gurg or just a lowlife in the tribe.

It would have to kill him to stop him. It had better hope that it killed him here and now.

Blood was raging in his eyes and his ears pounding with the rush of his blood. His only purpose was getting Christine somewhere safe, their mission be damned. In a flash of a reflexive moment, Barty plunged his hand into the pockets of his coat and drew the weapon against the giant holding his partner, his Christine, captive.

Giants' skins were tough as dragonhide and almost impossible to penetrate, which meant he would have to get creative in his attacks against this monstrous bastard from the depths of the seven layers of Hell itself, Barty knew.

First, he supposed he should start with the massive club in its hand that he was preparing to bludgeon her with. With a wide circle of his wrist, he removed the club from the giant's grasp with a non-verbal Expelliarmus.

Would Sectumsempra even work on it? He wondered.

Time to find out.

"Sectumsempra!" he roared, making a slashing movement at the column of its throat.

The giant roared in anger as little more than a tiny cut appeared on its throat, more like a paper cut than anything else. Barty swore in between clenched teeth. The one time he almost wished Aurors would come. It was going to take a whole team of wizards and witches to present in order to just dispatch this single one.

"Back!" Barty shouted, brandishing his wand as though it were a part of his arm. "Get away from her!" Barty had no clue if the giant could understand anything that was coming out of his mouth or not, but considering he'd heard it for himself with his ears the giant speaking limited broken English just now, it had to. Barty felt his temper swell. "LEAVE! GO!"

The giant hadn't budged an inch, trying to understand whether or not the command was meant for it. And Barty's dark eyes narrowed to slits and threw daggers.

"Do I need to say it again a second time, giant? I hate saying things a second time. Back. Now. Go," he growled, having to shout to make his voice heard over the giant's guttural roars that shook the tops of the canopies. "GO!"

The giant growled in response and charged towards Barty, who darted out of the way just as it drew back its arm and swung wildly and missed, though its outstretched hand hit a tree and ripped the tree from its roots, now brandishing the tree as its new makeshift club. Barty felt his face drain of color, his lips parted open in shock.

Just great.

The giant rushed him, yet Barty's anger and fervor met each of the creature's advances as Barty embraced his sadistic side and became a killing machine. Defeat was not an option for him right now, not with a prize so precious at stake. He wielded his wand as though the weapon was fused to his arm, a part of him, sending Exploding Spells to the trees around him in the hopes of creating a barrier around himself and Christine and making it more difficult for the giant to reach them both or that splinters of the wood would gouge out its eyeballs.

Before Barty could question his actions, as the giant lumbered forward, he flung himself at the massive creature and faced with no other alternatives, climbed.

A vent of adrenaline forced him to complete this otherwise should have been an impossible feat of physical ability, until he was able to wrap his hands around its stout neck, struggling to keep it away from the fallen witch. Much to Barty's relief, it loosened its hold on the fallen tree, which fell to the earth with a splattering crack that shook the ground and was sure to alert other giants to their presence. However, his small moment of triumph was not to last.

The giant did not appreciate the Death Eater's newfound perch around its neck, nor did it relish the idea of having its precious air supply obstructed. It shook Barty violently, all the while attempting to pry his hands from around its thick, beefy throat. Yet Barty's grip tightened as Barty gnashed his teeth together, a wild feral cry of rage that was hair-raising erupting from deep within his chest and his throat now.

At least, until the giant blindly groped with its hand. Just the giant's index finger, which was the size of a small rectangular table, landed a successful blow to Barty's ribs that was sure to have cracked at least two.

His grip upon the massive hulking monster instantly loosened and Barty slipped from its shoulders altogether, falling twenty-five feet below to the ground. He flew downwards and backward, meeting the ground hard on his back, almost screaming and gritting his teeth in pain. He was sure he'd probably broken it. He coughed violently and writhed in agony as his ribs throbbed painfully.

The vibrations that could otherwise be mistaken for a small earthquake shook the forest floor beneath where he lay. It was coming for him. He breathed in slowly through his nose and furiously blinked away hot, wretched tears that were gathering at the edges of his eyelids, clearing his vision just long enough to see the creature's massive hand swoop down and seize his throat. Out of instinct, Barty began to wildly thrash against it like a rabid dog that had been cornered and knew it was about to get shot and put out of its misery.

He wrapped his hands around the giant's wrist to try to dig his fingernails into the giant's grubby sausage fingers in the hopes of hurting it enough to convince him to let him go. However, the giant only issued a feral snarl and a grunt, its hot breath wafting across Barty's face and powerful enough to blow his bangs off his forehead. Merlin, but this monster's breath reeked.

Barty spluttered and gasped violently as the giant squeezed. He surely only had seconds left until he was dead. Even so, he continued to claw at the creature in the vain attempt that it would somehow, manage to let go.

Though, just as black spots started to creep into the edges of his vision, a startled yelp from somewhere behind him caused the pressure against his throat to dissipate. His breath returned in full force as his lungs heaved to cough, causing Barty to turn his head sharply to the side as the giant let go of him again a second time.

He rolled over, gasping raggedly, his shoulders heaving as he gulped in the air as though he were drowning

Hot tears spilled over, drenching his front and further marring his eyesight, preventing him from seeing what in the seven bloody hells was going on right now.

"Don't touch him!" came Christine's voice, shaking and taut with rage. "Don't!" she yelled.

Barty furiously blinked trying to rid his vision of the black spots and the haze as oxygen was slow in returning to him. He felt like he was in some kind of trance, his heart racing so quickly he feared it might explode in his chest, his breaths were now shallow, and his ears were filled with a rush of his pumping blood.

On instinct, he groped for his wand, and only when he managed to maintain a firm grip on his wand did he prop himself up using an elbow and struggled to see what was going on.

Christine stood behind them, by some miracle of Merlin, and had managed to regain her consciousness. Christine was glowering up at the giant with dagger eyes, and if looks could have killed, the giant would have been pinned.

She didn't seem as agitated as a normal human being should be, considering the unusual circumstances, but there was something different in the witch's beautiful features, as a shadow passed over her face and she grew angry.

Maybe it was her kind of fury, he thought wildly.

Either way, watching the giant's face twist in confusion and seeing the growing look of anger on Christine Lestrange's face gave Barty hope that she cared. Watching her grow angrier over what the giant was doing to him brought Barty a sick delight. Christine, on several occasions, had felt real fear in her life, and she was only twenty.

This…thing, this giant, was trying to kill them. For a moment, she thought it had succeeded. When Christine woke and came to, the first thing her eyes managed to focus on once her vision cleared was Barty.

Barty, of all people, was wrestling with a giant that was ten times the size of them both, trying to draw it away from her and had climbed up on its back somehow, a feat of pure adrenaline flooding through his veins, and preventing the giant from delivering any sort of mortal blow to her form.

But then, the monster threw poor Barty, tossing the poor battered wizard to the ground twenty-five feet and down, surely breaking his back in the process, and had now seized its prize by the throat and was trying to strangle him.

Christine felt something dark and ugly shift within her, a feeling that Father had told her would happen when she found a person one day who made her feel the way he had for Mother.

She closed her eyes and let the all-too-familiar and horrid darkness seep into her core as she let loose the Obscurus and surrendered control of her willpower to the parasite within her.

She felt her eyes turn purest black as a hair-raising shriek that did not sound human at all left her lips.

Black mists emanated from every orifice of her body and she lunged towards the giant threatening to kill her partner, desperate to protect the Death Eater, as Barty had protected her.

Christine felt the Obscurus attack the giant savagely, more monstrous than she had ever known the entity to be since the parasitic force had attached itself to her following her attack.

Even through the demonic shrieks that came from her, she thought she could hear Barty screaming her name, but the wizard's voice was faint and muffled, as though the man were speaking to her from underwater.

Christine's vision blurred and it was with a wave of cold terror that she realized there was only one way to save Barty's life. Her hearing was muffled and her sight useless. All the witch knew was the pain she felt at this moment and the pain she knew would come. Her heartbeats slowed as they occurred to her as darkness swept through the forest and obliterated nearly everything in her path that the giant was no longer fighting back.

She began to fade away only when she perceived no imminent danger.

Christine fell against the cold hard earth and inhaled deeply, her burning lungs beckoning her to fill in with air. Her lips barely parted, and her fingers clawed at her throat as she rolled over onto her side, waiting for the darkness to leave her eyes to see what had transpired. The horror that met her eyes was nearly too much to bear.

What was left of the forest clearing was reduced to ashes. No trees were left and the Obscurus within her had made a bloody mess of the giant that had attacked the two of them just now.

The giant's body was nearly mutilated beyond recognition, the only way she could tell it had been a giant at all was due to the sheer size of its missing arm which had been ripped from its socket and lay scattered a few feet away from her. She screamed, shuddering away from the bloody and violent massacre, hating that the moment before had been too real and that she had a hand in the giant's death.

"Christine!" She could hear Barty yelling her name.

That was when Christine realized she was crying, as tears were running down her cheeks as she openly sobbed.

A pair of rough and slightly calloused hands grabbed onto her, and Christine screeched wildly at the top of her lungs, thinking perhaps that the giant still lived, overcome with hysteria to think rationally. She lashed out with her fists and shoved against her captor's chest, hard and strong, she was sure, yes, she was sure, though to no avail.

"Christine, Christine, stop, stop, stop! Look! It's me, it's Barty, look!" she heard her partner's hoarse voice call to her desperately and she reached for the familiar voice as the haze in her mind slowly dissipated and she calmed.

She heard his voice, calling to her, his voice was trembling and sounded broken. She did not think she had ever heard Barty Crouch Jr. sound so desperate before, in all the years she had known him. Christine's eyelids flickered open and shut a few times, barely perceptively.

Though shaky and hoarse, she was grateful her voice decided to cooperate as she parted her lips to speak the wizard's name, eager to alleviate his concern that the experience had just hurt her.

"B-Barty….?" Her voice was barely audible, emerging from her as scratchy and hoarse, cracking horribly as she tried to form his name. Her stomach twisted with hot liquid as the haziness in her vision slowly but surely cleared and she could make out Barty's face hovering inches from hers as he cradled her limp, weak form in his arms.

He immediately shrugged out of his leather jacket and pressed one of the sleeves around her wrist which was bleeding. She only became aware of it after feeling the warm and wet trickle as blood dripped down her wrist. When he shifted her in his arms and pulled her slightly upright into a better sitting position, letting her head rest against his shoulder, a gasp left her mouth. She felt the unexpected and surprisingly tender contact throughout her whole body and for that brief moment, warm relief flooded through her bruised and broken and aching body.

She could feel her magic thrumming in her veins as a gentle hum rushed through her and connected her to the man holding her. She let out a moan as her cheek brushed against his and she felt his hands running through her dark curls gently.

"It's alright, it's alright, Christine. I'm here, I'm here, the giant is dead. It can't hurt you or me again," he muttered.

She felt rage at first as her red and wild eyes looked around wildly until they landed on the giant's corpse as she realized just how close they had both come, then fear at what the Dark Lord would think if they were forced to abandon the mission he had set them to task for, and then even more rage.

And now, the slightest contact with Barty was nearly sending her over the edge and she immediately calmed in the wizard's shockingly tender embrace. His hand moved through her hair slowly, while the other pressed against her back, holding her steady as she trembled violently in his arms.

"Please," she choked out and felt her own hands come up and wind around him as she let herself hug Barty without restraint, not caring how it must look or what he thought of her.

"What is it, Christine?" he asked gently and as she pulled apart, he glided a finger over her cheekbone, eliciting a shudder from her. "Are you hurt at all?"

"No," she whispered. "I just…hold me. Do not go far from me, where I cannot follow," she begged in a shaky voice.

She cringed the moment the heartfelt yet awkward plea left her mouth and chewed on her lip as she nervously studied Barty's face for any signs of the wizard's reaction.

He looked shocked to hear her words, yet he nodded, and Christine felt some hope swell in her chest as he lifted her to her feet and did his best to steady her on shaking legs that felt as though they'd been hit with a Jelly Legs Curse with how badly her body still shook. It was a moment before Barty spoke to her.

"We're leaving, darling. You will be safe back at the house, Luv. I'm not having you out here on my master's behalf, it's too dangerous for you, I see it now. I will come alone," he proclaimed, sure of his decision, and without waiting for Christine to react, began to take her hand and prepared to pull her flush to him to Disapparate for his home. Yet Christine shook her head and pulled back, refusing to leave.

"N-not yet, Barty, wait, please," she pleaded, reaching for his hand, and squeezing the man's hand. "I…I can't go yet. We…." But she trailed off, unable to continue as her gaze landed once more on the ruined forest and the giant's viciously mauled body, what little was left of it, that was.

Bile rose in her throat as she sharply turned her head, not wanting to look at the body.

Barty halted, taken aback by Christine's sudden request to linger here in the forest, the sight of a bloody massacre and yet one more place that would harbor nothing but bad memories for the witch. The wind as it picked up rustled the ends of her skirts, and a few of her curls flew haphazardly in front of her face.

"Burn the forest," she pleaded so softly in a hoarse whisper that at first, Barty was not sure Christine Lestrange had said a word at all.

He was rendered speechless. Vengeful thoughts raced through his mind. There was a part of him that wished he could have been the one to kill the giant who'd nearly killed Christine, but if burning down what was left of the forest was a step towards revenge, then for Christine, Barty thought that he could do anything.

He vowed to himself that Christine would be kept safe back at his home, no matter the cost, even if it meant he would return to the tribe of giants on his own once he'd gotten Christine situated at the house.

But beyond seeking revenge, Barty knew he wanted to fulfill any request that would make the witch smile again, especially if it was because of him and him alone. His lips twitched as he turned and raised his wand.

"Incendio." The incantation left his lips without any hesitation.

Barty pulled Christine away from the woods as the forest clearing around them began to burn, urgently, yet he took great care to move at her pace as she was still very weak. His hand never left the witch's small waist.

Together, Barty and Christine watched in silence as the forest burned, consumed by the red and orange flames. Barty felt the fire was the only solution at times like this, though nestled deep within the wizard's black and wretched heart, there rested a deep-rooted need, a want to know if what he was doing for her was right. Was it foolish to abandon their mission for the Dark Lord, even albeit temporarily, and insist that Christine stay safely within his house?

It would be ugly for Christine if she were to remain here, and while he was pondering this, a light spritz of rain began to fall, the bitter air and the raindrops clearing a path through the dirt, grime, and blood on Barty's face. With the rain, he almost felt vindicated and free. He looked around, searching for something he wanted to see, but he wasn't sure what it was at first. But then, Barty found it as he looked down into his partner's face to find him staring at her with pride, and dare he hoped for this next part, the beginnings of affection brimming in her dark eyes.

He hoped it was simply not what his eyes wanted to see, not merely a trick of the light. Even in the light of the fire and her anger towards the giant that had nearly killed them, Barty could not deny Christine Lestrange's beauty, as broken and damaged as the Obscurial was. The ashes and remnants of debris on her shoulders went unnoticed by Christine. Her brown curly hair seemed to glow under the sky that was steadily turning black and purple with the approaching storm as thunder rolled. Her skin seemed to radiate a fiery amber glow from the burning forest.

She tugged on his jacket sleeve, bringing Barty back from his conflicting thoughts. Christine's arm rested on his bicep as she pulled him forward. Christine and Barty locked eyes briefly before she looked away, silently signaling that she was ready to go, as she eyed him nervously out of the corner of her lowered and bashful gaze.

And Barty swore that he saw Christine smile at him.