Barty Crouch Jr's Rescue (August 1992)
16th August 1992
Why had Regulus thought this was a good idea? Sneaking into houses was easy after doing it more than once, and even rescue missions became redundant after some time, but sneaking into the ancestral home of a family as paranoid as The Forceful and Ancient House of Crouch is another adventure in and of itself.
Arguably, Regulus had done a lot of… dark things in his life – torture, murder, spying, identity theft, and breaking and entering were just among the long list of crimes he’d committed. After joining the Death Eaters at age sixteen, he became impervious to most forms of torture and pain; add to that the fact he’d been raised by Walburga Black, and it made Regulus something of a murder weapon. He’d done things to try and remedy his sins, of course. He’d recovered one of Voldemort’s Horcruxes at the cost of losing almost nine years of his life, and he’d joined the Department of Mysteries to continue this crusade, but this all didn’t mean he’d completely changed or was now scared of doing things no one should or would do.
This is all to say that Regulus Black was completely emotionless as he slowly cracked into Bartemius Crouch’s wards and then picked his front door’s lock.
The inside of the house was as bland as he remembered, only painted in shades of beige and grey. How a child had been raised here, much less his vibrant and creative friend, was a complete mystery. As he moved out of the foyer towards the stairs, a pop was heard and a small creature appeared before him wearing a pink pillowcase.
“Hello Winky.” Regulus greeted, resigned to his fate.
“Master Reggie not supposed to be here!” Winky, the Crouch family’s loyal House-elf, stood before him, looking just as he remembered her with a bit more wrinkles that showed how much time had passed. He hadn’t been in this house since he was fifteen years old, and now he was – shockingly enough – thirty-one.
“I know, but I also know Barty’s here, and you and I both know I need to save him.” And hadn’t that been a shock. His childhood best friend, whom he’d thought had died just like the rest of their friend group, was actually alive and sequestered in his childhood home by his own father, who kept him under the imperious curse at all times.
When he’d woken up and Remus Lupin, his nephew’s Godfather/ Guardian, had told him his friend group had all passed away in one way or another (except Dorcas Meadows, the immortal being that she was), he’d been heartbroken and resolved to drown himself in work, which had led him to the wonderful gem of finding out Barty was alive but completely under his father’s control. Regulus had then resolved himself to rescuing his friend with whatever means necessary.
“But… Winky can’t let Master Reggie through!” The elf exclaimed desperately, and Regulus sighed softly.
“Then I’m sorry for this, Winky.” He said before brandishing his wand (which he’d found in his family’s main Vault like he’d expected – all Black Family heirlooms were spelled to return to that vault upon the family member’s death/disappearance). He waved it lazily and Winky slumped forward as she fell asleep. Floating her behind him, he continued his investigation of the house’s second floor until he came across exactly what he was here for.
Bartemius Carter Crouch Junior had always been a lively and slightly crazy person, all a result from a very oppressive and abusive childhood. His mother had always been too weak to spend much time with him and his father had resolved to ‘toughen him up’ by using means his co-workers would’ve found horrifying. Because of that, Barty had decided to rebel in every way possible as soon as he’d set foot on the Hogwarts Express for the first time.
He’d been sorted into Slytherin, where he became friends with Regulus and then Evan Rosier, The Discerning and Most Ancient House of Rosier’s spare. He’d excelled at the subjects his father hated and almost flunked the subjects his father had pressured him into studying. He got tattoos at fifteen years old from a muggle-born seventh year who’d just gotten lessons on it (he’d had drawings inked into him from his left shoulder to his wrist by the time he was seventeen) and joined the Death Eaters at sixteen – even though he didn’t believe in everything they stood for (if his father hated it, he’d bloody do it).
He was a complicated child, and a crazy adult (he’d given the Black Family Madness a run for its money), but Regulus had never thought for a second he’d actually helped torture Alice and Frank Longbottom, just as he was sure his cousin Bella, her husband Rodulphus Lestrange and her brother-in-law Rabastan – who was also Regulus’s friend – hadn’t done it either.
So what he finds in that room is purely heart-breaking. Barty looked like a skeleton; he’d lost all his muscle mass and weight and just lay there, lifeless on the four-poster bed. He was dressed in simple black robes, which Regulus knew he would’ve hated had he been awake to see it.
“Okay.” Regulus whispered to himself. He took a deep breath, closed his eyes and then opened them. They’d changed from their normal silvery grey to a bright white that blended with the whites of his eyes. He started chanting under his breath as the air around him sparked with electricity that he sent towards his friend. As soon as the shock had reached him, Barty’s head snapped up and his eyes opened, staring at the room around him but not actually focusing on anything. When Regulus noticed his friend was awake, he got a small ball out of his pocket and threw it at him, and Barty disappeared as soon as it made contact with his body, replacing it with another unconscious body that looked exactly like his friend.
He’d paid a heavy price for that body, a prisoner of the Goblins that was brain dead, but it was worth it to get his best friend out of his prison. Now all he had to do was wake Winky up and explain everything to her while getting her to vow not to reveal anything to Crouch Senior, which was a lot easier that he’d anticipated (the alternative had been erasing her memory, but Regulus actually liked the little elf).
With that task done, Regulus returned the wards to how they’d been – going as far as masking his own magical signature so Crouch wouldn’t be suspicious at all – and then he disapparated, leaving the manor like he’d never been there.