Chapter 3
Age 11
September 1972
‘Have you got everything darling?’ His mum asked for the tenth as they made their way to platform nine and three-quarters.
‘Yes mum,’ Barty replied. It was the day. Today he went to Hogwarts where he would spend the next seven years of his life. Today, his life would change.
‘Good. Remember to write and have a good time,’ she said. This was the part where she left. Barty had told her he wanted to go on the train himself, so he could get a seat and not worry about waving out a window. He looked up to see that there were tears in his mum’ eyes.
Suddenly he felt bad for asking her to drop him off here, but he had already made a plan and couldn’t back out now. He would miss his mum. He gave her a tight hug that lasted longer than he’d planned, but he didn’t care.
‘I’ll definitely write,’ he said as he pulled back from her. ‘Bye.’
“Bye. have a good time,’ she called after him but he was already away, not liking the great deal of emotion he was showing.
He continued walking until he saw platform nine and ten. With a quick look around to make sure no muggles were looking too closely, he ran into the wall, suitcase in hand. He looked around him in amazement. The train was massive and there were tons of people bustling around. Kids were saying goodbye to their parents and some were crying.
Barty tried not to think about how his father didn’t bother coming and how he had left his mother behind. He would apologise for that whenever he wrote, he decided. For now, he had to find someone to befriend.
He got on to the train and passed a few carts that were full and a few that had too many people for his liking. Eventually, he found a cabin where a boy sat alone, staring out the window. The boy had curly black hair and porcelain skin. Barty knocked on the door and walked in.
‘Do you mind if I sit here?’ he asked, trying to assess how disapproving his father would be of this boy.
‘I would prefer if you didn’t but if you must,’ the boy replied, turning so Barty could see his pale blue-grey eyes. Barty thought for a moment before sitting down.
‘What’s your name?’ Barty asked, trying to get the conversation going.
‘Regulus.’
‘Regulus who?’ he asked. This was the important part, if he had a name his father didn’t like, this could be perfect.
‘Black,’ Regulus replied. Barty couldn’t help the grin that came to his mouth. In fact, he looked so happy that the other boy seemed alarmed. He didn’t know Sirius had a brother.
‘Why do you look so happy?’ he demanded, looking at Barty with narrowed eyes. It was too much for Barty, he burst out laughing. Regulus looked at him as if he had gone completely mad.
‘I’m sorry. I’m sorry,’ Barty wheezed. ‘It's just you’re absolutely perfect.’
‘For what?’
‘I’m trying to piss off my father. He thinks all the Blacks are all Death Eaters,’ Barty replied.
‘Maybe we are,’ Regulus replied, still staring at Barty.
‘You’re eleven. I don’t think Voldemort accepts children into his army,’ Barty replied steadily. Surely this boy couldn’t already be a Death Eater, could he?
‘I don’t want to be a Death Eater,’ Regulus conceded. ‘What’s your name?’
‘Barty Crouch,’ he said. Regulus stared at him in confusion as people often did when he first told them his name. ‘Junior,’ he added.
‘Oh right. I didn’t know Barty Crouch had a son,’ Regulus said.
‘I don’t think he does either,’ Barty joked. Regulus struggled not to laugh..
‘He sounds utterly delightful.’ Regulus said.
‘Not really. What about you? Being a Black can’t be too good huh?’
‘Toujours pur,’ Regulus muttered.
‘Forever pure?’ Barty asked. He learnt French years ago, but it was really rusty.
‘Always pure,’ Regulus corrected him. ‘My parents are big in to blood supremacy, incest too.’
‘That sucks. My father believes being pureblood means you’re all powerful or something. He doesn’t really like muggles either but he doesn’t want them killed,’ Barty said. He was itching for a cigarette, he hadn’t had one in days and the depressingness of this conversation wasn’t helping.
‘Do you mind if I smoke in here?’ he asked. ‘I’ll smoke it out the window,’ he said, taking out a pack of cigarettes from the backpack he brought with him.
‘No. Just smoke it out the window,’ Regulus allowed and Barty was so grateful.
‘Thank you so much. I haven’t had one in days,’ He said, opening the window and lighting his cigarette.
‘You know that is really bad for you? And how on earth did you get them?’ Regulus asked.
‘By the time my health becomes a problem, I'm sure they will have made a cure for whatever consequences I may face,’ he said, taking a drag of his cigarette. He exhaled out of the window.. ‘And as to how i get them, I pay a friend to pay her friend to get them for me. Although I’m going to have to do something else now I’m away.’
‘How did you start smoking in the first place? As you said, we’re eleven,’ Regulus asked, arms crossed.
‘The friend I pay offered me one, so I took it. If you're wondering why I continue smoking let’s just say it helps me relax, smooth out the rough edges, you know? As someone once told me “we’re all pretty messed up eleven year olds”’
‘If your life is rough, you should try to preserve your health for whenever its better, not ruin it.’
‘Maybe,’ Said Barty, taking another long drag. ‘Or maybe this is just what I need to preserve my mental health before being ok.’
Regulus was silent. ‘Fuck,’ Barty exclaimed all of a sudden.
‘What is it?’
‘Where am I supposed to put this when I’m done?’ He gestured to his cigarette. He didn’t want to throw it out the window, without stubbing it out, but he had nowhere to do that.
‘Are you done now?’ Regulus asked. Barty nodded. “Flamma abiit,’ Regulus took out his wand and gestured at the cigarette. It was out now, as if he had rubbed it against an ashtray. He threw it out the window.
‘Thanks.’
‘No problem,’ Regulus replied.
The train slowed down and they saw the castle through the window.
‘Wow,’ Barty breathed.
‘Yeah,’ Regulus said.
They got off the train and onto the platform. Regulus and Barty walked together over to some boats where an extremely tall and hairy man told them they would be rowing over. Barty thought that was weird and couldn’t they just go with the older kids but apparently not.
Once they got into a castle they were led into the great hall. It was a massive room with candles floating above it and large windows along the sides. All the first years were told to stand at the front of the room until they were sorted.
A woman who was introduced as Miss McGonagall brought out a hat that apparently sorted people into their houses. She called out a few names and the kids walked up and sat on the stool with the hat placed on their heads. The hat would then shout out a house and the kid would walk to their prospective house.
Regulus was fifth to be sorted, his name being early on in the alphabet. He walked up to the platform and had barely touched his head before it shouted Slytherin. Regulus walked down to a lot more applause than the average person, and Barty suspected that was because he had family members clapping for him.
Barty was quite early on since his last name began with a ‘c’. ‘Barty Crouch junior,’ McGonagall called out and he walked up to the platform, nerves making his stomach flip. When he sat down, much to his alarm, the hat spoke.
‘Your smart so that would suggest Ravenclaw,’ the hat said and Barty bit his lip. ‘However, you’re cunning and ambitious. It’ll have to be…’
‘Slytherin!’ the hat yelled.
Barty got up, his leg shaking as he sat down on the Slytherin table next to Regulus. He took in a few shaky breaths. He had done everything left on the list of how to disappoint his father. He’d have to make a new list. Maybe Regulus would help him make it.
‘What’s your two names?’ a boy sitting across from Barty and Regulus asked. The boy had dirty-blond hair, pale skin and piercing blue eyes.
‘I’m Barty, this is Regulus,’ Barty said, responding for Regulus as well since he didn’t seem the type to like talking to new people. ‘What’s yours?’
‘Evan,’ the boy replied easily. ‘We’ll probably be in the same dorm room’
‘Yeah.’
‘Do you want to celebrate if we are?’ Evan asked.
‘Sure that would be great,’ Barty replied.
‘Don’t we have school tomorrow? I already look tired enough without staying up half the night,’ Regulus asked.
‘Yeah, it's kind of a Slytherin tradition, get to know your roommates the first night. Plus we won’t even stay up that late,’ Evan answered.
‘They won’t make us do work tomorrow anyways, it’ll be introducing yourself and stuff anyways,’ Barty backed Evan up.
‘Ok, I'm in, we might not even get in the same room but ok,’ Regulus said reluctantly. They continued talking about how exciting it was to be here, what classes were going to be like and what teachers to look out for when Barty looked up and saw someone staring at him from the Gryfindor table.
It was James. Beside him another boy who looked like Regulus except he had longer hair was staring at Regulus. Barty presumed this was Sirius and by the look on his face, he wasn’t happy that Regulus was Slytherin. Barty smiled at James and James smiled back, but the smile looked odd and forced.
Barty wondered if it was because he got sorted into Slytherin. James didn’t seem to like the house very much. He said he would still be friends with him though, so he should be fine. What Barty was really worried about was Sirius and Regulus. Barty had only met Regulus but he sensed that they would become good friends and no good friend of his was going to be shamed because of their house.
Barty raised his eyebrows at Sirius, as if to say ‘what are you looking at?’ and Sirius looked away. Satisfied, Barty returned to the conversation only to find Regulus looking at him.
‘Thank you,’ Regulus whispered. Regulus must have noticed the looks his brother was giving him.
‘No problem,’ he whispered back. If Sirius couldn’t accept his brother was in Slytherin then that was his problem, not Regulus’. It wasn’t right to judge someone based on a stupid house.
An old wizened man known as Dumbledore gave a speech Barty didn’t listen to and then food appeared and Barty found that much more interesting than whatever Dumbledore had to say. He tucked into a feast of mashed potatoes, gravy and turkey. He presumed it was house elves that made it, and he made a note to thank them for it if he saw one.
Once the three of them had finished eating, they were told to follow their prefects. Their prefect was a tall boy with long blonde hair. He led them to the dungeons where they were told the password was ‘Quidditch’. Barty didn’t know why everybody was so obsessed with Quidditch. It was just a game after all.
They were told where the girls and boys dorm rooms were, and as it turned out, you got to pick which dorm room you went to. They’re were a few ones for the first year boys.
Barty, Regulus and Evan found the smallest dormitory in the entire Slytherin house. It only had three bedrooms, which was just perfect for them.
The dorm had three four-poster beds that were positioned along the walls. There was a stove in the middle and a bedside locker beside each of the beds. Barty picked the bed in the middle, because it was right next to the window and he could smoke out it. He had recently bought an ashtray because he doubted he would be able to throw cigarette butts out the window and it go unnoticed.
Barty had heard that the Slytherin dorm was underneath the Black lake and the common room certainly was since he could see the water through a large window but in the dorms he could see outside fine. Although his window was very close to the ground. He supposed this was because the dorms were upstairs.
Barty looked and found all of his things arranged on the locker-chest beside his bed. He reached into his backpack and found his cigarettes. Thank goodness. He can’t imagine what he would do if they were taken off him. He wanted to talk to the other boys so he put them away again, opting to take one later.
He gestured Evan over to him and they both sat on Barty’ bed. Regulus joined them a moment later.
‘So what are we going to talk about?’ Barty asked.
‘Well, we should get to know each other. Why not we play a game or ask each other questions,’ Evan suggested.
‘I know! Let’s play truth or dare,’ Barty exclaimed. James had told him how fun it was to stay up playing truth or dare with your friends.
‘What’s that?’ Regulus asked, clearly confused.
‘It's a muggle game. You ask someone truth or dare and then they have to pick a dare, where they have to do something or truth, where the person must answer a question correctly,’ Evan said.
‘Ok. Who will start?’ Regulus asked.
‘I will,’ Barty replied. ‘Evan, truth or dare?’
‘Dare,’ Evan said with an infectious grin. Barty found himself smiling too.
‘Run around the room pretending to be a gorilla.’ Evan got up and started jumping around the room making silly noises and both Barty and Regulus fell into a fit of laughter.
‘Ok my turn,’ Evan said once he was done. ‘Regulus truth or dare?’
‘Definitely truth,’ Regulus replied.
‘If you had to get a tattoo right now, what would it be?’ Barty said.
‘Jamais Pur,’ Regulus replied. Never pure. Well that was slightly depressing.
Regulus quickly changed the subject. ‘Barty truth or dare?’
‘Dare,’ Barty said.
‘I dare you to not smoke for a week,’ Regulus said smugly. Barty was outraged.
‘I can’t do that! Anything else,’ Barty exclaimed.
Evan looked at him curiously. ‘You smoke?’ he asked.
‘Yes and it's one of the only things that keeps me sane. Please change it,’ he said.
‘Go outside and howl at the moon,’ Regulus changed it.
‘Ok, you two have to come with me though,’ Barty replied.
‘Sneaking out, this is what I'm here for, I know most of the secret passages in the school,’ Evan said, a mischievous glint in his eyes.
‘Any that can get us outside?’ Regulus asked.
‘There’s one just outside the dungeons behind a tapestry. It leads upstairs and outside,’ Evan said, revelling in the knowledge.
‘How do you know this?’ Barty asked. After all, they had just gotten here.
‘Let’s just say I have my resources,’ Evan was grinning ear-to-ear now. ‘Let’s go.’
They got up and left their dorm, looking around to make sure nobody could see them. Then they snuck down the stairs into the common room. It was almost empty and nobody there wasn’t looking at them. They crept forward and left the common room. They were in the dungeons now. Evan gestured for them to follow him.
They followed Evan to a tapestry displaying a war. Evan pulled it aside and it revealed a narrow spiral staircase. They climbed up the staircase until they reached a door. Upon opening it, they discovered they were outside. Very close to the Black lake.
Doubting anybody would be looking out their windows at this time of night and not really caring if they did, Barty ran out into the night. He howled up at the moon like a crazed werewolf. Evan laughed before joining in, running over and howling at the moon. Regulus joined not a moment afterwards after sighing heavily. The three of them ran around howling and laughing. Anyone who would have looked out the window would have thought they were on crack. Barty felt like he was drunk on happiness.
Soon they got tired and snuck back inside, fighting to hide their giggles. Even Regulus was smiling and Barty didn’t think that was a common occurrence. Barty genuinely believed this was the best night of his life.