Author's Note: My writing efforts have been annoyingly intermittent lately, because any time spent writing could be time spent applying for jobs. But now I've got the job I wanted, and it's back to writing for a few weeks before it starts! And then after, too. I'm well experienced in fitting writing into an already full schedule.
First on the chopping block for finishing, a somewhat rough alternate perspective! This can be considered canon to the main story, as it mostly exists to fill in gaps that the narrative there couldn't cover from the main POVs. Dark forces mostly moved in the shadows in the main narrative, popping up and then disappearing again, but they were moving somewhat logically in the meantime, out of sight…
Barty Crouch Junior, loyal servant of the Dark Lord Voldemort, current captive of his own father, presumed dead, was going to see the Quidditch World Cup. A reward for good behavior, as begged for on his behalf by his less-callous jailer, Winky.
At the time he was told, he didn't care. The Imperius curse addled his mind, drowning him in complacency and obedience. It had for years, on and off, a compounding effect. He wasn't allowed to express an opinion on the matter.
He would have said yes, if asked. He very much would want to go. Anything to present a chink in the defenses his father had set up to keep him captive. Quidditch he could take or leave, but people, chaos… those were valuable opportunities in very short supply in his father's household.
If it were him holding a captive, he would never let them go see the World Cup, Imperius curse and elf minder or not. But his father was soft.
All thoughts he had in retrospect; at the time he was more of a prop than a person. Attempting to resist the Imperius, yes, always, but that meant little and left no mental space for other thoughts. He sat, under an invisibility cloak, with Winky by his side, in the VIP box. The game was to begin soon. His father would arrive soon.
Then, surprise. Yelling. The useless Aurors were pointing wands at him.
One of the commands subduing his mind today was to 'not be discovered'. He stood. Winky clutched his side, confused. He ran.
He'd only just sprinted onto the stairs below the VIP box when everything went black.
His mind was a lot more ordered and clear when he awoke. The pain in his head helped him focus, as pain always tended to do. Sharp and invigorating. It was dark, he was on his back in the grass somewhere, and Winky was fretting.
"Master said get young master away, said not to let anyone know about young master, but young master is hurt and Winky cannot fix it and master doesn't know what happened to young master but master is in public and master said Winky was not to show herself in public today!"
He was free. For the moment. Winky didn't know. How could she? She thought he was still unconscious, and house elves didn't understand the intricacies of proper magic. Such as how falling, hitting his head, and getting stunned were more than enough to help him finally break through the Imperius.
Free… The tattoo on his arm itched, but his need to remain free itched more.
"Master…" Winky muttered. "Master must be told as soon as Master is alone!" She popped away.
Barty rolled over, clambered to his feet, and looked around, his sight rapidly adjusting to the darkness of what appeared to be the inside of a very small, very unimpressive tent. Not a speck of magic to be seen, so cheap it was basically a tarp propped up on a single vertical stick in the center, his head replacing the stick as the tallest point for the tarp to rest on if he stood straight. No floor, just grass. No door, either. Where had Winky found this mess of a hideout?
No matter. She was going to get his father. He needed a wand. He couldn't run, his father must have dozens of tracking charms on him. He needed to fight–
Winky popped back into the tent with Barty Crouch Senior. They were both facing away from him.
Barty Crouch Junior panicked and did the first thing that came to mind. He shoved the tent's single support stick to the side and lunged for his father's wand, which was in a holster up his right sleeve. The tent came down on the both of them as they fell to the ground, heavy canvas weighing them down and throwing the already dim space into complete darkness.
Barty wasn't very good at fighting with his hands, but neither was his father, and he had the advantages of surprise and a lot of built-up feral rage. Winky was trapped somewhere under his father's bulk, squeaking loudly as they flailed at each other, getting more and more wrapped up in the canvas.
Barty blindly seized a stick when it was pulled by the wild flailing against the back of his arm. It wasn't a wand despite being roughly the right diameter, it was a piece of the broken tentpole. He jabbed it at his father's neck, and wonder of all wonders, while it didn't really do anything it must have felt like a wand tip because his father immediately shifted to trying to take it from him, leaving his arm holster wide open.
Barty let his father have the stick, yanked his father's wand out of the holster, and used the fastest curse he knew. His father did exactly the same.
Two muffled voices yelled incantations.
Barty Crouch Senior's spell did nothing, because he had a useless stick in his hand, not a wand.
Barty Crouch Junior's spell pierced straight through his father's chest and most of his throat at an oblique angle, terminating just short of the top of his skull.
Winky shrieked as the inevitable splashback of such a violent spell in very enclosed space splattered over them both. Barty didn't have the luxury of shrieking; he had to turn his wand on the canvas and cut through, before the horrendous smell and lack of air did him in. Only after he exposed his face to sunlight, precious sunlight, could he take a moment to bask in the knowledge that he was finally free. His father was dead.
Good riddance to the old, uptight, stupid, Light-loving hypocrite!
Winky's sobbing and the sound of distant voices forced him to break from his joyous stillness. "Winky, take us somewhere safe!" he commanded. She was his elf now!
"Winky is pinned!" Winky sobbed. "Pinned under body of old master, why master Barty, why–"
"Merlin," he cursed, crawling further out of the canvas, dragging blood and other unmentionable gory bits with him. The tiny tent was set up in a little clearing in a forest, alongside many, many other tents of similar sizes. He could see house elves peeking out from some of the tents, most staring at him in unbridled horror.
He ignored them for the moment – not much he could do about them, he didn't have the strength to kill them all and they wouldn't attack him, not without orders – and turned his wand on the canvas, vanishing it with some difficulty. Then he kicked his father's body over, freeing Winky.
Several pops could be heard. House elves leaving. He didn't have much time.
"Winky, take me somewhere safe!" he commanded again, not trusting his own ability to apparate. He had seen some truly impressive splinchings when people tried to apparate while covered in body parts or fluids that weren't their own. Caused a few, even.
Winky, now free but still sobbing, grabbed the sleeve of his robes and popped them away.
Barty would have to word his orders more carefully in the future. He did not consider his father's house to be in any way safe. It would do for a few minutes, maybe an hour or two at best. He'd left his father's corpse behind, and the Aurors would eventually find reason to come here.
Could elves recognize humans well enough to know who they saw for those few seconds he spent getting rid of the tent? Some could, probably. Would they tell their masters about what they had seen? Maybe, certainly if they were asked. Would they take the initiative to report the dead body he and Winky had left behind? He doubted they had the intelligence to simply vanish the corpse, clean up, and continue with their lives. Elves didn't do things without their masters telling them to.
No use crying over spilt blood. It was done. His head was pounding abominably, and he had quite enough to deal with before blaming himself for killing his father in such a public place. It wasn't like it was his fault, Winky was the one who brought them both there.
"Winky, where were we?" he demanded, standing in the middle of his father's precious house. "And stop bawling."
"Elf campground," Winky answered, screwing his face up.
A campground for elves? "Why does that exist?" he asked, confused. Elves lived in the homes of their masters, or perhaps in squalor if they were freed, at least for the few years it would take for the dishonor to kill them.
"The World Cup," Winky hiccupped. "Elves come to serve their masters, masters set up tents, but some wizard tents do not have places for elves to sleep. That was Winky's tent."
"Father had a tent?" That would be useful. He was on the run, a wizarding tent could ease his way.
"Old master did," Winky confirmed.
Old master, meaning his now-deceased father. Barty scowled at his family elf as something else occurred to him. The annoying thing about house elves, aside from their stupidity, whiny voices, and complete dependency on their betters to give them purpose, was that killing the old master didn't mean that the old master's orders no longer applied. "What did my father," no, that wasn't the right way to phrase it, "what orders are you still following?" he corrected himself. General, easy for an elf to understand.
Winky might not be able to believe it, naive little thing that she was, but her answer would determine whether she lived or died. He had no use for an elf compelled to work against him. An elf compelled to work with him was only a minor advantage anyway, now that he had a wand.
"Winky must work to help young master Barty avoid being caught," Winky said.
"That's it?" he asked.
"Old master wanted to give Winky other orders, but Winky wasn't able to remember them all," Winky admitted. "Old master settled on that one. Old master's spell was supposed to do the rest."
Barty smiled, not voicing his contempt for his father's idiotic decision. Letting him go to the World Cup at all was stupid, but this took the cake. In death, Winky was now his with no real strings attached. He didn't want to be caught by anyone, ever.
And on that note, he had already wasted enough time here. He was free. He needed to stay free.
By the time night had fallen, Barty had a place to sleep, food, and security arranged. Winky retrieved his father's tent and set it up in a forest hundreds of kilometers from the World Cup campground. His father's pantry provided food for at least a week, also transported by Winky to the site of his tent. He himself had cast several charms and basic wards to prevent owls and other simple tracking methods from finding him, which took up the majority of his time.
None of it was perfect. His father's wand didn't fit him very well, the tent was far too small and spartan, barely better than a tent with no magic at all, and the food was all preserved or under charms that had a limited shelf life. It did, however, give him time to think. The Aurors wouldn't be apparating in to stun him anytime soon, and if they did his wards would give him advance warning. Not much more than that, but it was enough.
"Winky!" he called.
"Yes master Barty?" Winky asked, popping into view.
"Where is my wand?" His father's wand was usable, but not comfortable.
"Old master broke it years ago," Winky whined. Like a kicked dog. Lucky for her he wasn't inclined to kick her for real. That was bad news. Very bad. He would have to get a new wand soon.
"Winky is sorry, master Barty," Winky apologized, wringing her knobbly little hands and looking at the ground. "Winky is thinking master Barty could buy another?"
"And get arrested?" This was why one never took suggestions from elves, they weren't smart enough to think things through.
"Master Barty could borrow one?" Winky offered. "A nice, safe–"
Barty snorted. "Shut up." What was he doing, talking to an elf? He needed to think.
"Go watch, out of sight, and tell me what's going on at the World Cup," he commanded. "No, wait, first tell me how we got out of there in the first place. What happened before you brought me to the elf tent?" His memory was hazy, but he recalled running… Had someone recognized him somehow, even before he was seen by those elves?
"Master Barty was under an invisibility cloak with Winky," Winky recounted. "There be wizards and witches in the important-wizard stands, but they not be seeing master Barty at first. Then a butterfly landed on master Barty. Winky did not notice in time. Master Barty ran, with Winky, but a witch stunned master and Winky had to take master somewhere safe before he hit the stairs with his head. But Winky wasn't fast enough!"
That explained the shallow gash on his forehead; Winky must have barely reacted in time. "Who was this witch? Did she see my face?"
"Winky does not know the witch, Winky only saw her arm and her wand," Winky reported. "It was ugly and bleeding."
"The arm?" he asked.
"The wand," Winky said, her ugly little face wrinkling up even more as she scowled. "Winky noticed it had flesh inside it! Bad witch stunned master Barty with it."
A wand with flesh in it? That Winky could see?
"Go do what I said earlier," he commanded, trying to remember what he knew of wandlore. "Find out what's happening."
He would need to think about this… among other things.
Lord Voldemort still lived. The dark mark on Barty's arm was proof. It had faded, but it was not gone, and as it was a product of his lord's magic that meant his lord was not gone, either. He would be somewhere, probably not in Britain, recovering from whatever magical strain had followed his seeming defeat.
All Death Eaters, in Barty's opinion, should know this. They were Purebloods, they knew magic, most of them knew dark magic. What else could the faded but resilient mark mean? Even Crabbe and Goyle ought to have been able to read the signs.
And yet, Barty found himself disappointed. He hadn't much thought to spare while in captivity, but half-baked fantasies of rescue by his fellow servants came to mind often enough that he remembered them. Those servants who would still be doing their Lord's work, whether or not he was around, and who should have been searching ceaselessly for him so that they might give him whatever aid he might need to fully return.
Not claiming to have been Imperiused and then doing absolutely nothing with their ill-bought innocence! He had gone to Azkaban proudly, Bella had gone defiantly, and he had only been kept from doing his Lord's work by his father. The Lestranges and others rotted in jail with the Dementors, and their Lord was still out there somewhere, but what had Lucius and the others done in the intervening decade? Played politics in a Wizengamot that they were meant to overthrow, tossing aside their commitment to the cause the moment an excuse was given.
Barty stewed over old editions of the Prophet, filched from his father's office on the way out, while he waited for Winky's report. He had completely forgotten to eat, or tend to his minor head wound, he was so angry.
It was possible some of these Imperius-claiming Death Eaters were working in the shadows, and the Prophet merely was not positioned to report on their doings, but he doubted it. Where were the recurring strikes to keep the wizarding public fearful? Where was the aggressive recruitment of new Death Eaters? Why was Knockturn Alley reported as being less dangerous, wand sales to Muggleborn up, Muggleborn employment slightly up? Even if they were only looking after their own interests, that was just pitiful.
When Winky returned, she narrowly dodged a bludgeoning curse, and only because his father's wand burned in his hand when he cast it, throwing him off. "Punish yourself," he commanded, more to give himself time to cool off than because of any particular failing of hers. He ignored her wailing as she smacked herself around the head with one of the pans she had liberated for his tent.
When she was done, he got her report. Ignoring her sniffling, tendency to talk in the third person, and ridiculous sorrow over his father's death, he gathered that the Aurors were rather busy at the moment, but had been called in and had found his father's body less than an hour ago.
More importantly, as that was all but inevitable, was the news that at this very moment people in Death Eater masks were causing havoc in the campgrounds, and Winky had tracked down the woman with the unusual wand. She must really dislike that witch to go to the initiative of tracking her down.
Barty had, in thinking it over, formulated a few theories as to what that wand might be. He also still wanted a wand that wasn't his father's, and needed to blow off some steam.
A little bit of recreational torture and theft would do nicely to get him back into the swing of things, and once he was done with that he could scare off the pretenders taking their lord's name in vain to satisfy their own petty desires.
"Winky, we're going to get that wand."
Some unknown amount of time later, Barty regained consciousness in a Ministry holding cell. His memories of the fight with the witch came back quickly, ushered in by a cripplingly intense need to take his robes off and scourgify himself to within an inch of flaying his skin off. He didn't have a wand, so he satisfied himself with a thorough physical examination.
Merlin's sagging bollocks, that insect curse was devastating. Dark magic at its finest, surely, though he hadn't seen her cast anything dark or even anything unknown. It was like no spell he knew, far too complicated to be anything less than a major curse. Pervasive. Guided. Unrelenting. The sort of thing Bella would have avoided for being too easy, after using it a few times to savor the screams.
But the witch herself… She was as erratic and unpredictable as she was brutal. Her spell use was restricted, unnaturally so, only a half-dozen different spells over the course of the fight. The insects, yes… perhaps that spell required some form of constant upkeep that hamstrung her. He had expected an easy target to begin with, but after she pulled that spell out and made Winky scream, he expected more. A true dark arsenal of curses to match the insect plague.
Either she only knew that one spell… Or she felt she only needed that one to deal with him and Winky.
A single candle's worth of dark red fire flickered into being above the door to his cell. Barty stood back, knowing that the door would open momentarily. A voice would tell him to put his hands up or be petrified. They would interrogate him…
Perhaps. Or perhaps not. Not as it was Lucius Malfoy who opened the door, but did not enter the cell.
"You're looking…" He took in the older man's distinguished robes, impeccable hair, and refined cane, as well as the Auror waiting with his head bowed behind him. "Privileged," he concluded with a sneer. These trappings of wealth and power in the old regime were the reward Lucius had secured for himself by abandoning their Lord the moment the chance arose. He ought not be allowed to keep them once the Dark Lord had returned.
"You're looking lively, for a dead man," Lucius drawled. "Dawlish. Privacy."
The obviously crooked Auror put up an anti-eavesdropping spell around himself. The semi-translucent triangle-tiled sheen of the domed shield was new to Barty – a new variation of a known spell, probably – but the ear-popping aura of silence from that part of the hallway was not. No sound in, no sound out.
"You are a problem," Lucius said. "The Ministry knows you live. They know you are here. They are set to interrogate you soon. I have stalled it."
"Can't have…" Barty thought about it. "I've been out." For more than a few hours, like he had assumed up until now.
"Six days," Lucius confirmed. "As I said. I have stalled it. 'Erroneous' application of a short-lived Draught of Living Death. The wheels of bureaucracy turn slowly, but I cannot keep them from turning much longer. What do you intend to do?"
"Either see you burn for betraying our Lord, or go in search of him…" Barty smiled innocently, his hands balled up into fists behind his back. "Don't think that killing me will see you safe. Secrets, you know… Father had his hidden caches, and Winky will not help you." Not without Barty's orders. The only way for Lucius to protect himself was to protect Barty.
If there were such caches. There might be. He didn't actually know.
"Winky will not be helping anyone," Lucius told him. "The elf died of its injuries. You will escape, tonight, and go seek out our Lord. I have looked," Barty scoffed at that and Lucius glared at him, "I have, and found nothing. But if you do somehow find him, let him know that the Malfoys are, as ever, his willing servants."
"We'll see what he thinks of that." Barty didn't believe a word of it. Lucius, maybe, but Narcissa was ever reluctant to get her hands dirty for the cause. He knew nothing of the brat.
Lucius turned to Dawlish, who had his back to them. "Stupefy. Obliviate."
Barty smiled grimly. He'd lost Winky, and damn near lost his freedom again, but it looked like he was being given a third chance to serve his Lord.
He wouldn't waste this one on stupidity or frivolous personal satisfaction. That witch's spells could wait. Everything else could wait. He had an itch to scratch. Magic to follow. The Dark Mark wasn't a compass, but it could still guide him, if he listened closely enough.
In the months that followed, Barty grew certain that he was the only truly loyal Death Eater outside of Azkaban.
Following the Mark was complicated. Dark. It required faith and guesswork and more legwork than he was comfortable with, after so long stuck in the basement of his father's house. Walking in circles until the itch intensified in a certain direction, meditation, bloodletting, faith.
But it was not impossible, not even truly difficult, to use it to seek out their Lord. Any Death Eater who had listened to their Lord speak of the mark and knew a little bit of how dark magic tended to behave could have done it, had they the desire and the will. Any of his inner circle, for certain. Lucius could have done it.
No, those who had avoided Azkaban were not simply inept, they were traitors. Loyal only when the one they followed had the upper hand, the controlling grip firmly on the wand of the cause. The moment that hand was wrenched away, even if it still waited in the shadows, they gave up. It was easier to go back to their manors and politics.
Lucius would be in for a rude awakening if he thought freeing Barty would earn him clemency. Not in Barty's eyes, and certainly not in the eyes of his Lord, once he was found.
Barty had many long nights to think of how his Lord might act once he was restored from whatever disadvantage kept him away. As he escaped Britain, as he traveled Europe, ruling out countries and directions in a manner closely resembling the wandering of a hound dog with a faulty nose, sniffing and sniffing and never finding direction as consistently as he would like.
But now… Now he was close. Albania was a country his Lord never spoke of that Barty remembered, a squalid place with far too many Muggles and too few true wizards. Magic lingered in the soil and the air, but it was untamed and unused. Wild, fraught with danger that might never take the same shape twice.
The perfect place for one reeking of dark magic, or perhaps even consisting solely of it, to hide. A single foul odor ensconced in a charnel house of naturally-occurring stench.
He had traced his Lord and Master here, to a forest sodden in the dark magic that permeated much of the country. All Barty had left to do was follow the specific half-buried trace of dark magic to its origin.
He left his stolen hovel at dusk, leaving a flickering flame in the wood stove that would soon follow the trail of oil to the thick rugs and other flammables he had caused to be piled up in the center of the squalid little dwelling. By morning, the hut would be no more, leaving no trace of his presence.
He went on foot, so as to better trace the intermittent pull of his Mark. Behind him, stumbling on old, gnarled feet, the owner of the soon to be burnt down hut followed mindlessly. She was middle-aged, exceedingly plain with an ugly hooked nose, and had no close family. One more worthless Muggle, free for the taking.
He had made good use of Muggles on his journey. Here in the wilder parts of the world, little protected them from the predations of their fellow Muggles or the elements, let alone an intelligent wizard with an intermittent need for dark ritual components.
The latest Muggle was already bleeding sluggishly from her elbow, her shawl wrapped around it to stem the flow for a time. The unformed curse he had placed on her pulsed in his awareness, a throbbing imaginary vein on the back of his neck. Its miasma, fresh and urgent as it had yet to be dedicated to a singular purpose, pained him. As it should. That pain amplified the similar dark magic in his arm, making it easier to follow. For as long as he could hold the curse back.
The Muggle would die from the backlash when he finally allowed the curse to fully form. He would lose focus, lose his enhanced understanding of exactly where the other dark magic link connected to his body pointed. It was inevitable. But until then, it served to amplify the feeling he was following, and Muggles could be found anywhere, so losing one every day was no real loss.
They walked – well, he walked, the Muggle shambled – for hours, deeper and deeper into an unnamed forest. The dark magic surrounding him and his victim worked as a sort of deterrent for the many, many forms of danger that the forest harbored unseen. Not a threat, but a form of camouflage.
"I am like you," he whispered to the wild magic, with his voice and with his own magic. It did not fool everything that lurked within the forest, but most of the worst things only came out after midnight. The witching hour would see him hunted, similar magic or not. He would have to find somewhere safe or create a safe place before then.
The Mark's irritation led him onward, through brambles and spiderwebs, over sluggish streams and under ominously unsteady fallen trees held up by their brethren… for the moment. Little lights flashed in the distance, sickly yellow and friendly orange, mockeries of fireflies and torches.
His Muggle stepped on an unassuming stick, one he himself had thoughtlessly stepped over. The stick snapped up at both ends, suddenly possessing the flexibility of an eel and the razor-sharp beak of a hawk, on both ends. Even through the Imperius curse's dulling influence she screamed, calling his attention to the little monstrosity.
The thing – a creature, or perhaps a trap woven purely by chance and chaotic ambient magic – burrowed into her leg before he could do much, but a quiet 'Accio' pulled it back out again. He had never seen the like before, but it died when he cut it in half, so that was fine. His Muggle's screams would have attracted the interest of other, more dangerous things, though.
The Mark suddenly dragged at his flesh as he moved his arm, pulling East. Strong, growing stronger.
Barty disillusioned himself and climbed up a tree, sitting in a gnarled crook of the branches. He left his Muggle on the ground, standing thoughtlessly under the Imperius.
That scream would attract predators…
But his Lord was a predator in his own right. Attracting predators was exactly what he should be doing.
A rotting snake slithered out of the undergrowth, and his mark quieted. Just like that, after months of looking… The search was over.
His master lived, but he was weakened by circumstance. Ethereal, a lurking spirit with incredible willpower and incredible magic, but no vessel to channel them through. That was the first thing his Lord directed him to fix once they had reunited and left the depths of the dark forest.
Two snake fangs, powdered. Rotten eggs, whole in the shell. Chicany root, soaked in rooster blood.
Barty had offered up his own body for his Lord to use, but his Lord had refused. He had need of Barty, and unaided possession would drive out his spirit far too quickly, leaving Barty dead and his Lord stuck in a rapidly decaying, magically anathemic husk. There were no unicorns in Albania to fix that problem, even temporarily.
Five vials of raw dreambloom seed oil. Two strips of cured Muggle flesh, and a Muggle heart.
Other solutions required reagents, potions, rituals. Time and supplies Barty did not have. He wouldn't know where to start in returning a disembodied spirit to a suitable mortal shell with ideal ingredients and facilities, either. To do so in the squalid wilderness was beyond him.
One stolen child, three years old and four hours parted from his late mother, stunned but not dead or injured in any way.
All went into the cauldron, which sat, inert, in a claw-foot tub filled with conjured ice.
His Lord, though? His Lord knew infinitely more than he, and that included a suitable ritual, with all of the necessary substitutions to fit the country's natural resources.
Last of all, Barty cast a preservation spell over the cauldron, intentionally weak and feeble. He took the snake, whose scales flakes off at the touch, and held it over the frozen brew and child.
"Do it," an unearthly voice hissed.
Barty snapped the snake's spine, waited until wisps began to come from its nostrils, and dropped it in the cauldron. His spell collapsed, the smoky figure emerged into the mix, and all of the liquid within sluggishly seeped into the child.
"This will suffice." The child's eyes were red when they finally opened. His voice was sibilant. "For now."
Lucius hadn't changed his wards in the slightest since Barty had last sensed them more than a decade ago. They were old, violent, and hungry. That was the thing about old family manors and their wards; the kind that grew stronger with time were also the kind that were flat-out illegal to cast anew these days, and often the knowledge required to do so had been lost. If rich man Malfoy took down the centuries of safety, he couldn't get them back for all the money in the world.
This did leave him vulnerable, though. Only recasting a new set of wards could possibly keep his master out after Lucius had included him in the wards during their glorious revolution. That kind of permission, once given, could not be taken back.
Barty knew better than to think the nonviolent welcome magic granted them to Malfoy Manor meant anything. Only that Lucius was more worried about being attacked by those who did not have permission to enter.
He went in through one of the many side-doors lining the expansive manor's exterior, remembering the footpath from when he and others used to apparate onto the edge of the property after a successful raid. Narcissa was such a prissy clean freak, keeping them from making portkeys directly into the manor. Their emergency injury portkeys took them elsewhere, to one of Rowle's old country homes, because Merlin forbid any pure blood stain the manor rugs.
"Take me to Lucius," his master commanded from the disillusioned pack Barty kept strapped to his chest. Barty stamped twice on the rug in the drawing room, not bothering to use magic. Let Narcissa's elves clean up after him.
"He is only opportunistically loyal, my lord," Barty said. "Will you be punishing him for his fecklessness?"
"Perhaps." his lord said ominously. Barty turned onto a main hallway from the mudroom. A portrait of a distant Malfoy ancestor watched silently as they passed by. They took three more turns and walked long enough for the silence to grow heavy with anticipation before Lucius found them.
"My Lord…" The elegant wizard quaked fearfully as he folded himself into a deep, subservient bow upon seeing them. "You have returned!"
"Yes… Little thanks to you…" his master hissed. Barty grinned viciously at Lucius, whose eyes widened.
"My Lord, I freed Barty from the ministry to search for you, where I could not!" Lucius objected, somehow managing to sound both terrified and smug at the same time. Barty wanted to kick one of those emotions out of him.
"Barty… Your wand." He obligingly handed his wand to the homunculus housing his lord's spirit. He often did, though as it worked much better for him – his master needed a commanding wand, not one fit for a faithful follower – so he kept it most of the time.
"Crucio!"
Barty watched, content, as Lucius writhed and screamed on the floor of his own manor. Hopefully this was the first of many such moments, because he could stand around all day enjoying it. Such was the lot of the faithless.
"We will be hosted here," his master hissed after a solid minute of torturing Lucius into compliance. "We will be given full access to the library, to the elves, to the portraits. Your wife will not interfere. You will make your resources available to us."
"Anything, my lord," Lucius gasped.
Yes, it would indeed be anything. Barty accepted the wand as his master's homunculus handed it back to him. "Bartemius, to the library. We must… refresh my memory. This shell is exemplary," Barty smiled, "but it will not last forever. More permanent alternatives are necessary."
"I can-" Lucius began, rising to lean on his hands and knees. Barty took the initiative and kicked his shaking arms out from under him.
"No," his master said, leaning forward in his carry-holster to look down at the back of Lucius' head as he lay motionless. "Bartemius will aid me in this."
It was good to be the trusted one.
The return of the fearsome He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named was nigh, but over the coming weeks, it became clear that there was one final hurdle before the other Death Eaters could be called home, disciplined, put to work, and the revolution begun anew.
Barty fully understood the problem. His master needed a permanent body, to better inspire fear and devotion with. Lucius was cowed – for now – and his wife a shadow who wouldn't dare try anything, but some of the more militant Death Eaters might make a play for power if they saw Barty carting around his master's temporary homunculus baby form, or feeding it milked snake venom, or changing the regrettably necessary diapers…
No, his master couldn't go out in public like that. On the way back to Britain from Albania his master had spoken of a resurrection ritual to permanently re-house his soul, but the Malfoy library presented a second option, that of a possession made permanent by a potion and associated ritual.
Barty wasn't privy to all of his master's thoughts on the matter, but as of the end of November the plan was to use one of the two rituals. The first required blood forcibly taken from an enemy, while the second required someone his master wouldn't mind permanently possessing, and by extension driving out the host's soul completely In neither case was his master willing to settle for second-best. No common enemy would do. Lucius, though he didn't know it, was the backup plan for the second ritual, but Barty fully agreed that his master could do better.
"Potter," Barty had been told. "Get me Potter. His blood, his body, or as bait for Dumbledore… Potter is the key." The boy definitely counted as an enemy, having vanquished his master once before, and if they were to do the possession… Who better for Voldemort to take over, than the famous Boy-Who-Lived?
Leaving the homunculus back in the dubious care of Lucius, with a few monitoring curses to ensure no 'accidents' happened, Barty set out on his new mission. Find the boy, get close to the boy, grab the boy. Easily done, with the current fat, decadent state of wizarding Britain.
Basic reconnoitering and catching up on the news in Knockturn Alley gave him a place to start. The boy was a Hogwarts student – of course, why wouldn't he be – and was going around using a different last name, not that it was doing him any good. Hogwarts was impregnable, but as luck would have it the Triwizard Tournament was going on this year. That meant unusual one-off events, which meant new people on Hogwarts grounds. People who could be subverted.
Barty purchased a good supply of Polyjuice with Lucius' money, used a hair he had left over from one of the Muggles he had used during his trek through Albania, and transfigured a set of robes to fit the feminine figure of the thirty-year-old woman he had temporarily become. From there, he went to the usual haunting ground of up-and-coming Ministry employees: the Ministry employee cafeteria.
Security at the Ministry was, true to Lucius' report, as abysmal as ever. Barty slipped into the cafeteria and bought himself a cup of tea with absolutely no trouble. It was just before lunchtime, and he had enough polyjuice to last him until the night shift. He was prepared to wait all day if need be, and to come back as many times as necessary.
After a week of mostly boring scouting in the Ministry, Barty knew who, when, and where.
The where was either Hogsmeade or failing that Hogwarts. Potter would probably go out for Hogsmeade weekends, but other than that he wouldn't be seen outside of the castle's grounds until summer, and at that point Ministry gossip hit a brick wall. Nobody knew where he might go in between school terms. Somewhere Dumbledore picked for him, obscure and well-defended, probably, but even that was Barty guessing, not a known fact.
The when was informed by the where; there was one big Hogsmeade weekend coming up in a few weeks, and then nothing. There were supposed to be more throughout the year but the Tournament mucked that up, much like it did Quidditch. He couldn't understand why the students hadn't rioted yet.
The who was Percival Weasley, an arrogant stick-in-the-mud who came down to the Ministry cafeteria to eat his lunch every day at twenty after noon. He was new to the Ministry, inexperienced, and inexplicably one of three individuals other Ministry employees could confirm was allowed onto Hogwarts grounds several evenings prior to the first task, to assist Minister Fudge himself in… taking notes, presumably. Administrative work.
Percival had no friends in the Ministry, ate alone, and had the access Barty needed with very few responsibilities to go with it. He was something of an introvert, his coworkers didn't know him well enough yet to spot an imperfect imposter, and if Barty didn't manage the kidnapping at Hogsmeade, Percival was well-placed for him to make an attempt on Potter within the castle or even Dumbledore should his lord desire it.
Also, he was a single male in his twenties, and Barty's recently established Polyjuice persona was a witch. That right there was ready-made bait for the hook, so there was no point in wasting it by going after someone else. His other options were all horrible. He had no confidence in his ability to slip by whatever personal security Fudge had for himself, and Umbridge… No, he couldn't stand to waddle around like her. He would do it, if necessary, but his discomfort might affect his ability to play the role, which was unacceptable.
Barty sauntered up to Percival's table, plopped his now cold tea down, and sat directly opposite the young bureaucrat, deliberately rearranging his robes as he did. "I heard through the grapevine you're the one to ask about bottom thickness," he said. "Cauldrons, I mean."
Percival looked up from his book and food, his eyes lighting up. Barty subtly pushed his chest out.
"Yes, Cauldron bottom thickness," Percival said earnestly, the innuendo going completely over his head. "Did you know that insufficiently thick cauldron bottoms are responsible for twenty-two percent of all brewing-related accidents involving cauldrons? I have my report right here." He reached into his robes. "Would you like to read it?"
Oh, the things Barty did for his master.
"Weatherby, where are the negotiation transcripts from the talks with the Black Lake Mermaids?" Fudge asked. "My copy is missing from the Minister's office."
It would be. Percival Weasley was not nearly as well-connected as Ministry gossip made him out to be; his connection to Fudge hung by a thread, the only thing elevating him from a common secretary being his knowledge of the Tournament's planning and administration back end. Fudge's copy of those transcripts was missing because Barty had stolen them the week before.
"I think there's another copy in the archives, but we don't wish to be late, do we?" Barty asked. He was still getting used to the utterly pathetic boot-licking tones Weasley used with his superiors; it had taken Veritaserum interrogation in the Malfoys' dungeon for Weasley to convince him this sniveling behavior managed to get him this far up in the Ministry's ranks. There was a difference between deferential and doormat, but Percival had never figured that out.
"No," Fudge burst through the door connecting his office to Percival's little secretarial nook. "Go get them, run!"
"I memorized all the important details back when the negotiations were held, sir," Barty offered. Because there was nothing for leverage quite like being the only one who knew something important.
"Oh, very well then, come along Weatherby," Fudge blustered. "Dolores won't be attending, it will just be you and me from the Ministry."
Exactly as planned. Barty followed Fudge as he waddled through the secured Floo to Hogwarts, stepping out into Dumbledore's office behind the corpulent fool. Dumbledore, the mixed breed, and the traitor were already there, waiting for them.
Dumbledore and Fudge immediately launched into a discussion of the preparations for the second task – hostages yet to be determined, time limit still under debate, Gobul imports still delayed, Mer-people still making a fuss about dangerous creatures being dumped into their lake for the tournament despite agreeing to that in the initial negotiations, all of the fiddly details that wouldn't be solidified until right before the task.
Barty chimed in whenever Fudge needed backup, quoting the negotiation agreement he had gone to great lengths to memorize, but otherwise focused on sounding, moving, and acting like Percival Weasley. In the presence of Dumbledore, a single mistake might be disastrous. He needed this identity to last him, not be blown to pieces by an accidental 'Mudblood' slipped into conversation in the wrong company.
As such, the meeting passed glacially slowly for Barty. Little was determined, even less progress was made, and everyone, from Dumbledore to Fudge to the traitor in the corner, was annoyed.
"We are decided, then?" Dumbledore asked at a point long after everyone in the room wanted to be done with the meeting. "The Gobuls will be written off if we cannot get any into the country by the end of the year?"
Everyone muttered their assent. Giant angler-fish-esque toads the size of elephants that hunted by burying their bodies into the sand to ambush and swallow prey whole from below would have made a delightfully violent addition to the second task, in Barty's opinion, but the damn Japanese were blocking them from obtaining any with reams of parchment work and demands that the British Ministry was unwilling to meet, such as a promise that the beasts would not be harmed.
"Then that seems to be everything." Dumbledore clapped his hands together. He had masterfully taken over directing the meeting from Fudge five minutes in, and Barty could tell Fudge was still sore over it from how he scowled every time he opened his mouth only to be preempted. "Maxime, Karkaroff and I will finish our duties this evening, and we will all reconvene shortly before the second task to decide on hostages and cover any other last-minute issues. Until then, please enjoy the holidays, everyone, and I will see you all at the Yule Ball!"
Fudge shook hands with Dumbledore, then the traitor and the mixed-breed. Barty busied himself collecting up his notes – Percival was a prodigious note-taker, annoyingly – and watching out of the corner of his eye.
Once Fudge was done making a fool of himself with the woman, Barty presented him with his hat and his copy of the notes. "It's after five, sir," he noted. "Do you want to floo to the Ministry, or directly home?"
"Ah…" Fudge hesitated, his hand in the Floo jar by the fire. "Ministry, for me," he sighed. "Lucius wanted a meeting… half an hour ago." He grimaced.
Of course, he did. Their master had ordered it. "I'll be going to Hogsmeade," he told the Minister.
"Yes, of course," Fudge waved him off, then called out "Minister's Office!" and stepped through. Barty followed behind, choosing the Three Broomsticks as his destination fireplace with a low mutter.
All of that, the meeting and the notes and getting Fudge out of the way, was just a prelude. Getting the necessary pieces into place, or rather, out of the way. Dumbledore and the other headmasters were buried in parchment work up in the castle. Fudge was stuck taking Malfoy's monthly bribe. The students were all out at Hogsmeade. Percival the harried Minister's assistant was going to get a Butterbeer – damn teetotaler that he was – and go wandering, reliving his glory days as a Head Boy on a Hogsmeade weekend.
If he happened to spot and speak to Harry Potter, that was normal. If Potter happened to never come back to Hogwarts… Well, some might suspect the Weasley, but that would only throw them further off the trail, as Potter would be in Malfoy Manor. Imperio the real Weasley, toss him out into Muggle London and have him blow himself and a few Muggles up like Pettigrew did, but without the faking of the death… Plenty of breadcrumbs for people to form their own incorrect conclusions with, and nobody would suspect a thing when Potter 'escaped' whatever desolate cave Percival had imprisoned him in… Or was found dead there.
He just had to find the Potter boy.
"Crucio!"
All was agony.
"You failed to find the boy!"
His master was displeased.
"The simplest and best opportunity, wasted!"
Both were bad. But as the crucio finally, miraculously ceased, Barty heard Lucius' simpering, smug voice, and he hated that most of all.
"Perhaps my son, my lord. Draco might do better? He is already in Hogwarts, unsuspected. Based on his letters, he never interacts with the Potter boy, but he could do something."
"No," Barty's master said darkly. "This is not a task for a child. Your son must remain ignorant of my return."
That, at least, was good. Barty grabbed a chair leg and began the extended trial that was pulling himself onto his feet. He left a sweaty mark on the antique furniture.
"He would serve you without hesitation," Lucius objected.
"But his mind is not protected," Barty groaned, saving his lord the trouble of educating the idiot advocating for his son. "Dumbledore, Snape…"
"Snape may or may not be loyal," his lord mused. "Dumbledore, on the other hand… he must not know! Neither can know until I have moved on from this temporary shell." Barty saw a spindly, twisted limb waving from up on the reading desk, where his lord was situated. Lucius was sat on the other side of the desk, two old, thick leatherbound tomes forgotten by his elbow as he tried his best to bow respectfully from such an awkward position.
"I must have Potter, or Dumbledore." Barty finally straightened up, every muscle, vein, and little unnamed bit of his body protesting. He hadn't been struck by the torture curse again, so his punishment for failure was over… for now. His lord had moved on to more important matters. "The blood traitor in the dungeons will serve in case all else fails. Bartemius, my vitals!"
Barty reached out, and with a shaking hand took back the wand offered to him. He noticed Lucius tensing up as he cast a dark analysis spell, one he had been taught was specifically used for alchemical constructs. The resulting feedback was… difficult to parse. But one thing was clear.
"A year, at most," Barty reported.
"There is still time to take one of them," his lord said. "Potter would be best for the possession. Dumbledore is too well-known and erratic, with many public responsibilities. Dumbledore would be best for the resurrection. Potter would be… suitable, for the resurrection, but only just. A single act of infantile defiance cannot match all that Dumbledore has done to oppose me, as my greatest enemy."
"Which we want to use depends on the ritual," Lucius summarized. "Have you determined which is best yet?"
"We will proceed with both," Barty's master said, completely ignoring Lucius' question. Barty was curious as to the answer himself, but he was happy to see Lucius snubbed. "Bartemius. The second task. You will be at Hogwarts."
"Yes, master, but I will be forced to stick close to Fudge." The man was too important to Imperius, Merlin only knew what protections he might have on himself that would be set off by blatant magical manipulation. It was safer to work around him with more subtle measures, but nothing subtle was going to get Barty away from waiting on him hand and foot during the second task. Possibly the third task, since the Minister was already talking about having a podium to manage and other tasks for 'Weatherby' on that occasion.
"Do what you can without revealing yourself," his master ordered. "Potter's blood, Dumbledore's blood, Potter himself… Any of the three. If you cannot, ensure that you will be free to act at the third task. It must be done then, if not before."
It was with his lord's instructions in mind that Barty sat in on the final meeting prior to the second task, disguised once again Percival Weasley. The disguise of an obnoxious, constantly-polite ministry worker had begun to wear on him months ago, especially with the long hours he was forced to keep to uphold Weasley's well-known workaholic tendencies, but needs must. He was slowly easing back on Weasley's most annoying qualities as time passed, to avoid any suspicious sudden changes while keeping his temper and sanity intact.
"These are the names of the Champions' dates to the Yule Ball, as well as a few likely alternatives if any are objectionable," Dumbledore told the assembled group, unrolling a short piece of parchment on his desk. There were more people in his office this time, adding Mad-Eye Moody and Dolores Umbridge to the mix of headmasters, Minister, and Death Eater in disguise.
Barty was thankful Mad-Eye's famous eye couldn't see through Polyjuice, and doubly so that he was on the other end of the room, more occupied with glaring at the traitor than the ongoing discussion. The traitor, for his part, pretended to be engrossed in the list.
"I have no doubt Relene will serve as a hostage, no need for these others," the traitor said, referring to Krum's Yule date. Some French girl. Barty had spent the Yule Ball lurking as Percival Weasley, hoping to catch Dumbledore drunk for the occasion to nick a little bit of blood, or Potter alone, but neither had happened. Potter had a big group of friends and stayed on or around the dance floor until the end of the ball, and Barty had been forced to leave before they shut down the Floos for the night, missing any chance to catch him afterward. Thankfully, his lord had agreed that the Yule Ball was a long shot that was unlikely to pan out, so it was an acceptable failure.
"Cho Chang…" Umbridge made a face at the name. "Could it not be someone more… local? For the Hogwarts hostage."
"Miss Chang is a fine student and as local as can be," Dumbledore said stiffly. "She was born and raised in Britain. I see no reason for that to matter, in any case. This is an international tournament."
"Fleur will not care for Michael," the half-breed interrupted. "He has… overstepped himself, since the Ball. They are no longer on speaking terms. I can contact the Delacours to arrange for her sister to come here, though she is young."
"I say get her mother, instead," Moody opined. "One family member is as good as another, and kids add risk."
"There is no risk, the hostages will be perfectly safe," Fudge blustered. "But this list seems… uninspired. We need to think about the spectacle." He waved his hands about. "The champions dive into the lake, off to rescue… two dates and a mother, or two dates and a sister? It doesn't really roll off the tongue. If it was all three dates…" He looked to the half-breed.
"She may well leave Michael under the lake simply to spite him," the half-breed said firmly. "No. Do you have a better suggestion? Someone 'inspiring' that my champion would want to rescue, something she holds most dear?"
"Perhaps a pail of birdseed?" the traitor suggested.
Moody bristled at the traitor, his eye rolling around to stare directly at the traitor. "Thin ice, Karkaroff," he warned, tapping his wand against his palm threateningly.
The half-breed's question was all but rhetorical, but it gave Barty an idea, and seeing as everyone was momentarily distracted... "If it's name recognition you want, sir, the Boy-Who-Lived might do nicely," he whispered to Fudge.
Fudge brightened considerably. "Yes, that's a thought!" He looked to Dumbledore. "What of Harry Potter? Do any of the champions know him? Close friends, quidditch buddies, maybe even a romantic interest for the girl?"
"Not as such, no," Dumbledore said. "He is a Hufflepuff, like Cedric, but–"
"Excellent!" Fudge beamed. "Hufflepuff loyalty, that which Diggory will miss most if he loses it! We can have Potter as Diggory's hostage. Familial love for Delacour, romantic love for Krum, and… uh…" He trailed off.
"House affection for Diggory," Barty offered, giving his unwitting pawn a way out of his own verbal dead-end.
"Exactly!" Fudge snapped his fingers. "What say you? It'll make for good press, 'Boy-Who-Lived Lives Again as Hogwarts Champion Rescues From Black Lake for Second Task'. There's no real danger, but we'll be playing that up anyway."
Barty could tell that nobody else in the room liked the idea much. "If Diggory is not going to have his mettle tested by a proper hostage, Victor will not either," the traitor declared. "The boy celebrity has no reason to be a part of this."
"You'd not want him around to ruin another one of your plans, right Karkaroff?" Moody spat.
"I think it's an excellent idea, Minister!" Umbridge simpered. Of everyone in the room, she was the only one whose support would be worse than nothing at all. Nobody liked her.
"Ah, there is a potential problem with that," Dumbledore said diplomatically, steepling his hands together. "Mr… He prefers to be called Mr. Hebert, by the way, would have to consent to this."
"Not if you lot didn't have me around," Moody muttered. "Taking hostages without asking them first… utter foolishness. Get you attacked, or sued."
Dumbledore ignored his attack dog. "I've had reason to interact with the boy often enough these last few years, and I think I have the measure of his character. Exploiting his fame and placing him in perceived danger, to increase his fame? Nothing could be less appealing to him. No, that will not work."
Half of the room – the stupider half – erupted into objections, questions, and general weasel-word whining at that. Barty chimed in with a few Percival Weasley witticisms, ostensibly in support of Fudge, but he mostly tuned it out. Whatever Potter's demeanor, either they would decide to make him a hostage, or they wouldn't. He'd succeeded in planting the seed.
When Barty returned from the political disaster that was the second task, he happened across Malfoy getting exactly what he deserved, quaking on the floor yet again under his master's Crucio. The wand his master was using was one of the old Malfoy family wands, which just went to show how powerful his master was. Those wands should not suffer another to wield them against a member of the family like that, but he did it anyway.
"Master." Barty bowed deeply. "I have returned from Hogwarts."
"Without the boy." His master's current form was propped up on Malfoy's desk. "Again."
"Fudge would not let me out of his sight once the task began…" He stepped around Lucius and grinned as he looked up to stare at the desk, not meeting his master's gaze but not cowering, either. "I sabotaged the hostages, though. One almost died. The Minister is running himself ragged, Dumbledore is under scrutiny, and everyone involved in planning the tasks is going to be exceedingly busy with placating the French for the rest of the Tournament. Everyone but Percival Weasley, who was only there to take notes and is below the interest of the French. Anyone could have sabotaged the hostages." It had been a spur-of-the-moment act, when he realized exactly how unattended the hostages were while running an errand for Fudge, and it paid off wonderfully.
"You did not get Potter," his master reminded him. "Him, his blood, or Dumbledore."
"But I know he was there, and I saw who he sits with," Barty said. "With the right distractions, he will be exceedingly vulnerable at the third task. My cover remains secure." If not for the magical contracts on the contestants he might have worried about the controversy forcing the Tournament to end prematurely, but that couldn't be done without killing the Champions.
Lucius crept out of the office behind Barty.
"Lucius did not agree with keeping his wife on strict house arrest," Barty's master remarked. "He said that appearances still need to be maintained."
Barty took the change of subject as his master saying he had done acceptably well, but not well enough to merit any kind of praise. "Narcissa is not loyal," he offered. "But it would be noticed if she stopped leaving the Manor entirely, and if we do anything too… direct… to her, Lucius may falter." Especially with his lord physically infirm at the moment. Lucius' behavior alone was reason enough not to contact any of the other Death Eaters. The fools would think his lord was vulnerable, and many of them were not as cowardly as Lucius and might act on that thought.
"We cannot be discovered yet," his master hissed. His words bordered on something other, a language Barty couldn't understand, sibilant and menacing. Nagini was somewhere in the manor, retrieved from a hiding place that his lord had directed him to shortly after arriving in Britain. His lord only spoke to her in that language. "I will… remind Malfoy. What the costs of her indiscretion will be, should it occur. You remind Narcissa. Nothing permanent."
"Yes, my lord." He bowed his head.
"Now…" his master said. "Let us plan for this third task. You cannot fail there."
Author's Note: Never cover the same ground twice, if it is indeed the same ground. I opted to not show near-identical alternate views of scenes we've already witnessed in the main story, and I also chose not to sick too closely to things that we as readers already know are either doomed to fail (looking for Harry in Hogsmeade) or doomed to succeed (sabotaging the hostages). This left the narrative feeling somewhat incomplete, and I stopped it where I did to avoid covering the still in-flux events of the third task (the pre-Portkey events are going to get revised quite heavily, but I'm still not sure of the final flow of events). But then again, that's what a side-perspective is for! This is made to fill in blanks.
On another note, how did Pettigrew find Voldemort in canon? I don't know if we ever get an explanation for that, partly because it's not really necessary with the way the canon series goes. Here I kind of had to flesh it out at least theoretically, showing Barty's journey as I am. I enjoyed making it a sort of evil spirit-quest only someone as dedicated as Barty could hope to intentionally complete, while also giving a few subtle hints as to how Pettigrew might have managed to find Voldemort were he around to do the canon plot. (Basically, by fleeing to a place he knew he could hide in magical obscurity, and then stumbling across Voldemort-wraith from there, luck and cowardice replacing Barty's fanaticism to get him close). Lucius and the other 'pardoned' Death Eaters never found Voldemort because they never truly looked to the extent needed, believing him dead. It's all very fuzzy, soft magic (in the technical sense).
Let me know if I missed anything continuity-wise, by the way. This one was kind of complicated to match up with everything else, and I keep getting the nagging feeling I'm forgetting something important. It wouldn't be the first time I forgot something related to Barty.
Next up: Something! I have four different half-written entries that I've been wanting to finish once I have time, and now I have time. We'll see which ones come easiest.