The Daily Prophet – Front Page
CROUCH SCANDAL ROCKS MINISTRY
Infamous Death Eater Found Alive in Family Home – Father to Face Charges
By Marietta Honeycutt, Senior Political Correspondent
In a shocking development that has left the wizarding world reeling, Barty Crouch Jr.—the convicted Death Eater believed to have died in Azkaban more than a decade ago—was found alive and hidden in the basement of his father's home late Friday evening.
The discovery, confirmed by the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, has prompted immediate action across several Ministry departments. Bartemius Crouch Sr., former Head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement and until recently Head of the Department of International Magical Co-operation, has been formally dismissed from his post and is facing a full criminal investigation.
Sources within the Auror Office have confirmed that Crouch Jr. was placed under the Imperius Curse and concealed using an Invisibility Cloak, allegedly kept hidden from the world since his escape from Azkaban more than twelve years ago. The escape itself—long thought impossible—was orchestrated by his father, who appears to have facilitated a Polyjuice-fuelled swap with Crouch Jr.'s terminally ill mother.
The reappearance of Crouch Jr. has ignited renewed horror among the public, particularly among those who remember his involvement—alongside the Lestranges—in the brutal torture of Frank and Alice Longbottom, both of whom remain permanent residents at St. Mungo's Hospital.
Crouch Jr. has since been returned to Azkaban to serve his original sentence, now amended to include additional charges for his escape and continued evasion of justice.
Minister Fudge's office has issued a brief but firm statement:
"The actions of Bartemius Crouch Sr. constitute a severe breach of public trust and legal process. The Ministry will not tolerate such egregious misuse of power. Justice will be pursued."
Critics have also pointed to the disturbing precedent this sets regarding oversight in high-level Ministry appointments. Particularly damning is the revelation that Crouch Sr., while still Head of the DMLE, failed to follow proper sentencing procedure in the case of Sirius Black—then imprisoned without trial.
"It paints a picture of systemic negligence," one source in the Wizengamot told the Prophet. "Or worse—wilful corruption at the highest levels."
Speculation is already mounting about further fallout from the scandal, including whether Crouch Sr. may soon be occupying a cell near his son in Azkaban.
For now, the wizarding public is left grappling with the bitter truth: that justice, delayed for more than a decade, has come at the cost of countless lives, liberties, and trust in the very institutions meant to protect them.
More as this story develops.
Sirius stretched, blinking blearily at the ceiling as the sunlight spilt through the half-drawn curtains. For a blissful moment, he didn't move—just listened to the quiet hum of the house and the slow, even breathing of the woman curled against him.
Hermione was out cold.
He turned his head slightly to look at her. One arm tucked beneath her pillow, the other draped lightly across his chest, curls in wild disarray and mouth slightly parted. Peaceful. Soft. Completely unaware that the man beside her was starting to feel like a leggy dog trapped in a teacup.
Sirius exhaled slowly, trying to honour what he'd promised her before—about letting her wake up next to him. Not disappearing. But it was already ten. The sun was up, his mind was pacing, and his legs were doing that twitchy thing again. He was going to lose what little was left of his precious, hard-earned sanity if he didn't move soon.
Hermione didn't stir when he gently shifted her arm off his chest and slid out from under the duvet, doing his best impression of a stealthy Animagus despite the protesting creak of the floorboard under his heel. She merely rolled onto her side and hugged his pillow.
Right. Excellent. She was still alive, just sleeping like she'd been cursed with dreamless sleep and a feather mattress.
He padded out of the room in nothing but his pyjama bottoms, scratching his chest absently as he made his way to the kitchen. Kreacher had already laid out tea and toast, and Sirius grunted his thanks, earning only a disdainful sniff in response—progress.
He flicked through the morning's Daily Prophet on the counter, mug in hand. The headline blared:
"CROUCH SCANDAL ROCKS MINISTRY
Infamous Death Eater Found Alive in Family Home – Father to Face Charges"
Sirius arched a brow, sipping his tea. "Well, that's bloody poetic."
He skimmed the column, reading about Barty Jr.'s miraculous reappearance in his father's basement, how the elder Crouch was being sacked and likely charged, and how the Ministry was busy trying to mop up the absolute PR disaster of having let one of their own smuggle out a torture-happy psychopath more than a decade ago.
He whistled low. "Nice to not be the front-page menace for once," he muttered, folding the paper in half and tossing it onto the table.
It felt strange, this moment of calm. No Dementors. No howlers. No Rita Skeeter comparing his love life to a cauldron disaster. Just tea, toast, and a deeply satisfying case of someone else's downfall.
His eyes drifted toward the back garden window, where the golden light filtered in like a soft promise. Hermione's nickname from last week popped into his head—the renovation witch, she'd said with a smirk, when he'd mentioned Claire Fawley.
Well, the renovation witch was due any moment now, and Sirius had plans.
The master bedroom had been left untouched since his parents' deaths—dark wallpaper, awful furniture, a creeping sense of inherited malice. But it was the largest room in the house and the only one with an en suite. And after nearly a month of sharing Hermione's perfectly decent but decidedly smaller room, Sirius was more than ready to have a space that didn't require careful choreography just to get dressed in the morning.
And if Hermione rolled her eyes at him and said something about "domestic instincts sneaking up on you," well—he'd bloody earned them.
He scratched absently at his jaw and stood, mind already shifting toward logistics. Maybe add a proper reading nook. Bigger wardrobe. Definitely strip the wallpaper. He'd let Claire go wild—she'd earned it after exorcising the hell out of his sitting room.
As he headed toward the parlour about fifteen minutes later—all dressed—to wait for her, he cast one more glance up the stairs, listening for the creak of the floorboards, for the rustle of sheets.
Nothing yet.
"Sleep while you can, Kitten," he murmured, a small smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. "Soon you'll wake up to paint samples and plumbing decisions."
He snorted and grabbed his wand, just as the Floo flared green in the grate. Claire had arrived.
Hermione padded up the stairs, fingers tightening around the robe belt as she fought back a yawn and the low, persistent throb at the base of her skull. Her throat was dry, scratchy in the unmistakable way that suggested either an oncoming cold or the universe punishing her for spending half of yesterday breathing Ministry air.
Voices drifted down from the third floor—Sirius's low drawl, paired with a crisp, no-nonsense woman's voice she didn't immediately place. Not until she reached the landing and saw the door ajar, and Sirius standing with Claire Fawley.
They were standing in what remained of the master bedroom. Or rather, what was now a half-stripped, half-floating ensemble of spell-marked floorboards, unmoored bookshelves, and rolls of parchment floating with annotated diagrams. Claire was pointing at a hovering sketch with the precise energy of someone who did not suffer indecision.
"—and if you want the room charmed to adjust the lighting based on time of day, we'll need to embed the runes here, beneath the moulding," Claire was saying. "Otherwise, you'll get the sort of flicker that sets off migraines."
Sirius nodded thoughtfully, arms folded. "Right, no migraines. Got it. What about colour?"
"Well," Claire said, turning toward the window, "given the size and light, we could—"
"Don't forget the silencing charm," Hermione croaked from the doorway.
Both heads turned. Sirius's expression lit up in mild surprise, Claire's in professional blankness.
"Sorry," Hermione added, voice rougher than she'd intended. "I didn't realise we were expecting company."
"Hey, Kitten." Sirius stepped forward, brushing a bit of sawdust off his sleeve. "How does sage green sound? I know, I know—green—but it's not Slytherin green. It's more… herbaceous."
Hermione blinked at him, disoriented by the question. Her head was still pounding, and she was suddenly aware of how ridiculous she must look—hair half-tangled, eyes puffy from sleep, wearing a robe with a soup stain on the sleeve from three nights ago.
"I think it's a lovely colour," she said after a beat. "But it's your room. I mean—our room. I mean—it's up to you."
Claire raised an eyebrow, the briefest twitch of amusement behind it.
Sirius gave Hermione a look—just a hint of concern beneath the casual smile—but she'd already taken a half-step back.
"I'll just be in the kitchen," she murmured, not quite meeting either of their eyes.
She didn't wait for an answer.
By the time she reached the bottom of the stairs, she was regretting her tone. And the robe. And every syllable that had left her sore throat.
Sirius hadn't done anything wrong. Not really. And yet…
She sighed, rubbing at her temples, the cool of the kitchen tiles grounding her as she set about boiling water for tea. Maybe what she needed wasn't space or sage green walls.
Maybe she just needed to not wake up with a bloody fever brewing behind her eyes and someone discussing wall sconces outside her bedroom. Or someone else asking her to weigh in on domestic matters when her entire internal compass still didn't quite know what day it was, or whose life she was actually living.
Tea first, apologies later. That, at least, she could manage.
Once everything was squared away with Claire, and she'd set to work waving her wand about like a well-paid domestic storm, Sirius wandered back downstairs with a faint hum under his breath and the unmistakable air of a man dodging responsibility by pretending he wasn't.
He paused in the hallway, taking a quick glance at the library—empty—and then headed for the kitchen, only to catch movement in the corner of his eye.
Hermione was there, barefoot and swaddled in her dressing gown, standing at the kitchen counter like she was still half-asleep and visibly pale. Her hair was a bit more frizz than curl this morning, and she was blinking with the sluggish concentration of someone who hadn't yet convinced herself tea could solve everything.
She looked up as he entered, eyes widening slightly. "Sorry," she said at once, voice hoarse. "I didn't mean to walk out on you like that earlier—I was just caught off guard about needing to have… interior design opinions."
Sirius tilted his head and gave her a slow, crooked grin. "I only asked if you thought sage green was a good option. Hardly an interrogation."
"I know," she mumbled. "I just—wasn't expecting to need a thought about colour schemes before caffeine."
Sirius wandered over, resting his hip against the counter beside her and bumping her shoulder gently with his. "I asked because I want you to be comfortable. You'll be using the space too, you know. Not like I plan to banish you back to your room every morning like some illicit mistress."
Hermione smiled at that, tired but sincere. "I know. I just—wait—huhhhh-ktsschhh!"
The sneeze snuck up on her so quickly she barely had time to turn aside. She swiped at her nose with the cuff of her sleeve, groaning softly.
"Bless you," Sirius frowned. "Are you getting sick again?"
She blinked up at him blearily.
"This is what—third time in barely over a month?" His brow furrowed deeper as he folded his arms. "Toddlers have better immune systems after two weeks of daycare, Hermione. You've been sneezing since August."
Hermione coughed lightly into her fist and muttered, "Body's probably still adjusting. You know. Time travel. New-old pathogens. It's the '90s. My immune system probably forgot what era-specific viruses looked like."
Sirius gave her a flat look. "You make it sound like your white blood cells need a bloody history lesson."
"I mean…" She sniffled and reached for her tea. "That's not… entirely inaccurate?"
He arched a brow. "You're just lucky I like you. If I didn't, I'd say you were taking an awful lot of sick days for someone allegedly younger than me."
Hermione lifted her mug in mock salute. "Sorry for single-handedly dragging down your household health statistics."
Sirius stepped closer, gently pressing a palm to her forehead. No fever. Yet. Still, her skin was a bit clammy, her eyes a little watery, and she hadn't so much as touched her toast.
She leaned into the touch for a second, exhaling quietly.
"I'm fine," she said after a beat. "Just a little run-down."
He didn't look convinced. At all.
She sighed and finally relented, raising her hand like she was swearing an oath. "Alright, if I get sick again after this, you have my full permission to rain Healers upon me. All of St Mungo's if you want. I'll even wear a little badge that says 'Chronically Cursed with Sniffles.' "
"Don't tempt me," he muttered, but his thumb brushed gently across her cheek before he dropped his hand. "One more virus, Kitten, and I'm signing you up for quarterly check-ups and bubble charms."
"Deal," she said, smiling just a bit. "But only if I get to pick the Healer."
"You mean the one who gives you tea and doesn't ask questions about your mysterious magical history?"
"That one." She smiled faintly, then winced as she sniffled again. "Right now, I'd just settle for a tissue and a nap."
Sirius brushed his hand over her curls affectionately. "Alright. Nap. And I'll get you tissues, tea, and Claire's colour swatches. You can decide whether sage green or cool greige is the hill you want to die on."
Hermione groaned into her sleeve. "If I die, I want 'greige' banned from my tombstone."
"Good," Sirius said, pouring the water with a smirk. "Because I already told Claire to go with the green."
Hermione shook her head, amused. "Typical."
Sirius passed her a fresh cup of tea, then leaned in to press a kiss to the crown of her head.
"Get better, Kitten," he murmured. "I've got plans for that en suite."
She sipped her tea with a faint sniffle. "I'm already regretting that colour choice."
He grinned. "Too late."
Funny, how quickly it had become normal to share a kitchen with her, to argue about colours and steal sips of her tea. He used to dream of freedom like it was a fight. Now it looked a lot like this: soft mornings, sage green walls, and trying not to panic over the person you loved catching another bloody cold.
From upstairs, a faint crash echoed followed by a cheerfully shouted, "Everything's fine!" from Claire.
Sirius gave Hermione a long-suffering look and muttered, "Well. That's reassuring," before heading off to investigate.
Behind him, Hermione curled tighter over her cup of tea, sneezing again, but smiling faintly.
Sirius returned to the kitchen a few minutes later with a faint trail of sawdust in his hair and Claire's cheery assertion that "levitating furniture is an art, not a science" still ringing in his ears.
The kitchen was empty.
His eyes narrowed slightly.
"Kitten?" he called, peering into the hallway. No answer.
He frowned and crossed back through the corridor, instinct leading him two doors down to the library.
And sure enough—
There she was.
Curled sideways in one of the armchairs, a thick tome propped precariously against the armrest and a half-drunk cup of tea balanced on a stack of cursed object journals. She hadn't even lit the lamp properly—just the faint blue flicker of her wand hovering nearby, like she'd tried to cast Lumos and then got distracted mid-incantation.
He leaned against the doorframe and didn't say anything for a beat. Just… watched.
She was pale. Not in her usual I've-been-up-all-night way, but grey about the edges. Shadows under her eyes. Nose pink. A faint crease between her brows that never really disappeared, but today looked carved in.
And still, there she was. Wrapped in a blanket like some scholarly burrito, flipping through another bloody text on soul magic with the same exhausted intensity of someone trying to disarm a bomb using instructions written in Gobbledygook.
He exhaled slowly.
"You're doing it again."
Hermione blinked, looked up, and sniffled. "Doing what?"
Sirius crossed the room, plucked the mug from its precarious perch, and gave her a look.
"Doing research. While you're sick."
"I'm not—" she began, but her voice cracked mid-denial, and she coughed into the blanket, eyes watering.
"Uh-huh," Sirius said, unimpressed. "That sounded very 'perfectly healthy' of you."
Hermione waved a hand. "I'm just a little stuffy. It's not like I'm brewing illegal potions in the cellar."
"No, you're just reading books that literally bleed if you turn the pages too fast," he muttered, eyeing the one in her lap. "What even is that one?"
" On the Partition of Souls: Ritual Theories and Ethical Implications," she said, voice hoarse.
Sirius sat on the arm of the chair and looked down at her. "Catchy."
"It has a chapter on non-invasive excision." She rubbed her temple. "I haven't found anything promising yet. Most of the successful cases involve deliberately separating the soul fragment and the host's soul at the same time, and then guiding them both back to wholeness. Which, as you can imagine, is incredibly risky and—"
He gently pulled the book away from her. She let out a small noise of protest but didn't fight him.
"Hermione."
Her eyes lifted reluctantly to his.
"You're sick," he said quietly. "You need rest, not an existential deep dive into how to remove a cursed splinter from a teenage boy's head."
"I have rested," she said weakly.
"Being unconscious for eight hours isn't the same as rest when your nose is dripping and your brain's cooking itself like a Sunday roast."
"I can't just do nothing, Sirius. You know that."
"I'm not asking for nothing," he said. "I'm asking for an hour. An hour where you're not hunched over soul-mangling literature with a fever and a sniffle."
She looked at him for a long moment, then pulled the blanket tighter around herself, her chin wobbling slightly.
"I just want to help him," she whispered.
"I know."
"I don't know how to fix it. Not yet. And I'm running out of time."
Sirius swallowed thickly, then slid down from the arm of the chair to kneel in front of her. He rested his hands on her knees, thumbs brushing gently back and forth over the blanket.
"Then let time run out tomorrow. Just for today… breathe. Let your body catch up with the rest of you."
She sniffed, this time into a conjured tissue he handed her without a word.
After a beat, she nodded.
"Alright. One hour."
"Good," he said. "And I'll be timing it. If I catch you sneaking books under the blanket, I'm calling Claire and telling her you want everything painted bright yellow."
Hermione made a face. "You wouldn't."
"Oh, I absolutely would. She's got a paint swatch named 'Lemon Drop Lunacy.'"
"Cruel," she muttered, sniffling again. "You're cruel."
"And you're exhausting yourself for people who aren't even old enough to drink legally." He gave her a kiss on the forehead. "Nap now. Plot magical brain surgery later."
Hermione allowed herself to be helped up, leaning against him more than she meant to. But Sirius said nothing. Just tucked her under his arm and steered her toward the sofa, a conjured blanket and hot water bottle already waiting like a silent truce.
And for a while, she let herself rest.
Just one hour.
Then she'd save the world again.