Barty woke up.
An out of body experience. When everything had been going too well for too long, he felt dread, and nothing happened. Then it did. It was like a cheap jumpscare in some slasher.
He was sitting in the drivers seat, but he wasn't holding the wheel.
Like, he became completely insane and didn't think rationally about his decisions. He didn't anyway, but at least he was able to resist when his friends told him they were stupid as hell. In the span of three months after turning seventeen, he assaulted people, destroyed talking paintings, and became a death eater, then tortured Frank and Alice Longbottom with the help of Bellatrix Lestrange of all people. Maybe that went from zero to one hundred quickly, but that's how his emotions seemed to change.
Of course, Barty would partake in pursuing Voldemort like many others his age, but something snapped inside him when the dark mark was placed upon his forearm. Everything got worse.
The point of no return, that was what his reputation now.
From the moment that he could grasp to reality after that time jump, he didn't know what to do. He would be on trial to go to askaban. He was sure he wanted nothing less.
As soon as he left the courtroom he cried and sobbed until his face was covered in stains and rashes.
Who could he go to? Obviously not his father, he wouldn't in the first place. He loved his mother more than anything, but he couldn't bear to face her. All of his friends from school were out of the question, Regulus was gone. Snape and Avery were two of the wizards who got him into the sort of dark magic in the first place, but as they moved closer to The Dark Lord, he shrank.
Evan Rosier.
The name crossed his mind briefly, him being the one that Barty would contact at the drop of a hat. He felt he could let his walls down around him. So he would run to Evan and cry most pathetically.
But he couldn't anymore.
Evan was dead.
Barty had been so out of everything in his own time torturing people he used to call friends that he hadn't had the time to cry about it.
Everything around him crumbled, and it all came crashing out of his eyes. Why did he do this? Was everything some sick and twisted game? Barty had to come to the horrible realisation that he had enjoyed this. He enjoyed torturing the Longbottoms. He pursued Voldemort with his long-time friends and thought that this was their dream.
Now that he was struggling with the consequences, it wasn't so fun. Now he understood why Regulus bailed. At least, that's what he thought.
Barty was lonely, and you would never think that because of how many people there are around him. He felt more alone than when he was in a room with his father.
Now he was sitting in the back alleyway of a muggle pub attempting to cry everything away, and it wasn't working. He didn't know what time it was or how he was going to get home, he could vaguely remember walking there. He got a few weird stares because of his runny nose and his sulking.
Some of the muggles didn't laugh, some of them walked past him with a look that said "I understand". The other ones kept their heads down and looked busy. Oh, how Barty wished he wasn't busy.
This was all his fault, and he was crying like a tall child. Knees clutched to his chest in the darkness. He was shaking now. Everything came to one big realisation at the worst time, and he couldn't move on from one horrible thing to the next.
Crying about Evan, sobbing about going on trial, weeping because of Regulus, crying his eyes out about his own sense of unawareness in the past, then wailing about Evan once again.
Eventually, he found himself on a bus. Most people on there would've thought he was going through a bad break up, in a sense he was.
Because he loved Evan.
Loved.
He adored Evan, everything about him. He was everything Barty aspired to be and more. Barty always told him that he would be a good psychologist, which is what he practically was to him. Now he was bailing on him, and if this happened a year ago to Bartys real therapist, he would've gone to Evan immediately. Evan didn't even need to physically be in the room to comfort him (mostly because Barty proffered to cry in his bed) because knowing he was there was enough.
Evan was all he had after Regulus went missing. Now they were together. Barty was always clingy. He'd always harboured the private thought that he would die first out of the trio because he didn't think he could cope without his best friend, and the one who wasn't his boyfriend but wasn't a friend either.
Now, he felt responsibility to keep going, despite everything else telling him to simply give up. He was probably going to azkaban, Evan wouldn't of wanted him to die in there in the first week. He wouldn't do that. Evan was strong, independent, and self-assured. Everything Barty thought he wasn't, that's why he looked up to him so much.
Barty was utterly terrified though. He couldn't go to azkaban. He was only seventeen, but that didn't stop the Ministry.
So he cried and pleaded with all his might at the trial, but it was no good. He was to be locked in azkaban for however many years, it felt like hundreds. He was also in there with the worst people possible, which should be expected. When he walked in, though, he was met with Sirius Black. Who was reading the paper, in school Barty could have a good laugh with Sirius (behind the back of Regulus, of course) now he looked at Barty with dead eyes, and he could understand why.