Chapter 2
Age 11
August 1972
‘Are these your textbooks?’ Barty asked. He was sitting on a chair in James’ bedroom. He was peering at a stack of books that had different names on them; herbology 101, A beginners’ guide to potions,Magic; the then and the now and a few others.
‘Yeah, don’t know why I kept them, they’re pretty much useless now,’ James replied as he flipped through the pages of a magazine.
They could be useful to Barty. He could look through them now to get ahead. ‘Can I have them? I might look over them so when I get there, I’ll be ahead,’ Barty asked.
‘Sure I don't need them anymore,’ replied James.
‘Thanks,’ Barty said as he flipped through the pages of the first book ‘Studying the stars, a look into astronomy.’ Barty had never done astronomy before. Unlike other kids, he didn’t go to primary school, instead, his father had hired a private tutor, in the hopes that Barty could learn more. He had never done astronomy though, his father believed it was a load of utter nonsense. Barty thought it was interesting though, and he had to learn astronomy anyways, so he may as well get ahead.
He decided that would be the first book he would read. James peered over Barty’ shoulder. ‘Astronomy is quite boring. You should read the defence against the dark arts book, it's better.’
Barty did as James said and looked through the defence against the dark arts book. Barty already knew most of the hexes, jinxes and protective spells listed in the book. Since Voldemort had risen two years ago Barty’ father had taken extra precaution by getting his tutor to teach him how to defend himself and to learn a lot of spells and what they do. He hadn’t been taught how to cast the hexes and jinxes, but he knew all of them and he could cast all of the defensive ones.
However, he hadn’t been taught any of the dark creatures that the book was talking about and so he made a note to memorise them all. He didn’t want to be made a fool of for not knowing this.
‘James, do you think I’ll get into Ravenclaw?’ Barty asked suddenly.
‘Yeah I’m sure you will. Your parents were in Ravenclaw right? Although, my friend Sirius’ parents were all Sytherins and he’s a Gryfindor,’ James replied. Barty had heard about this Sirius. He seemed nice enough and Barty was glad James had nice friends. Sirius was a Black and Barty’ father seemed to think they were all Death Eaters. It seemed though, that Sirius hated his family and everything they stood for.
‘Hopefully I’ll get into Ravenclaw. I feel like my father keeps bringing me Ravenclaw t-shirts in a bid to get me in,’ Barty said with a sigh.
‘You do you. If you're not suited to Ravenclaw, that’s fine. Even if your father hates it, at least we’ll still be friends. You could be a Slytherin and we’d still be friends.’
It was a touching thought, but Barty didn’t like the way he put an emphasis on Slytherin. He decided to ask.
‘What’s wrong with Slytherin?’
‘Most of them are future Death Eaters. They’re all really smug as well, sometimes I wish I could punch the smug looks off their faces. That’s why we prank them.’ James said. Then he seemed to realise this wasn’t very encouraging and backtracked.
‘Not all of them are bad. I’m sure you’d be a good one, and you’d never join the Death Eaters.’
‘Thanks?’ Barty felt bad for any poor Slytherins that had been pranked for no reason other than what house they were in.
‘No problem,’ James said as he returned to his magazine.
When he finally got home after staying at the Potters’ for hours, he pored over the books, committing the information to memory.
When he was done reading for the night, Barty thought of James’ friend Sirius. He purposely disappointed his parents by making friends they wouldn’t approve of, joining a house they didn’t like (although Barty wasn’t sure if that was a choice or not), pranking the house they wanted him to be in. Barty was a constant source of disappointment for his father. That seemed to be the only emotion he could feel towards Barty.
So what if Barty decided to purposely disappoint him? Maybe Barty should be like Sirius, and piss off his father by making friends he wouldn’t approve of.
The more Barty thought about it, the better idea it seemed. He annoys his father by making friends he wouldn’t approve of. Or maybe he should gain his father’ approval. Barty didn’t think he'd ever get that. So if he couldn’t get his approval, he would gain his disappointment. He was going to be such a big screw-up it would ruin his father’ reputation. The only way to get his father’ attention was to piss him off.
Barty made a list of all the potential things he could do to piss his father off.
Pissing my father off.
-Make friends he doesn’t like
-Get bad grades
-Get in to a house that isn’t Ravenclaw
Barty was sure that if he became friends with somebody his father didn’t approve of, say for example somebody from a family who his father thought were Death Eaters (but wasn’t actually a Death Eater) that somebody would tell his father.
The only thing about the list was that he didn’t want to get bad grades, so he crossed that one out. Maybe when he was older he would date people his father didn’t like. He still had to like them, of course, but being someone his father didn’t approve of would just be an added bonus.
Suddenly, Barty thought of his mum. What would she think? The smoking, the trying to be a disappointment. Well his mum wasn’t as judgemental as his father so maybe she would be ok with all this. As long as he was happy. He was sure his mother wanted him to be happy. Would he be making himself happy if he did all of this? That didn’t matter, he decided. The thought of his father feeling any negative emotion, including disappointment, made him happy.
He decided he needed a cigarette, so he got one of the boxes sellotaped to the roof of his drawer. He bought a few off Ada a week ago. He was trying to save them up to bring to Hogwarts but he really needed one right now.
He opened the window and sat on the windowsill. He lit his cigarette with the lighter he had stolen from the kitchen the first time he smoked at home. He took a long drag, and watched as the smoke flew in the air. The cigarettes no longer made him feel nauseous or dizzy, he was long since used to them by now.
His muscles relaxed and he let his head rest against the window frame. Normal eleven year olds played tag and baseball. He wished he was a normal kid, but he had been forced to grow up too quickly, become more mature than most normal fifteen year olds. He wished he wasn’t on a balcony smoking a cigarette, to keep himself calm, he wished he was still able to be a child, he wished he had a father who cared about him. Or maybe even a father who didn’t put work before everything else.
That night he fell asleep crying, wishing for all the things he never had.