Chapter 3
His body's failing again. Not that he's surprised in any way by now, Pettigrew was only good for a toy for Nagini. He weakly raises a pudgy fist and glares, in contrast to his weakening body his magic runs around the room he sits in with a burning intensity. A part of the problem he admits to himself, his magic is too strong for the poorly crafted flesh he is forced to inhabit. It is bothersome but he will never regret taking the Potion of Empowerment, never regret freeing himself from his body's bonds. Still, he's going to have to have Pettigrew redo the runes on the homunculus again and he so loathes letting that snivelling rat anywhere near him in his weakened state. It's made worse by the fact that he has no idea how much Potter saw while she was wandering around his mind. How had she even achieved that while he was having such trouble doing the same? And what she'd been wearing while doing so, it's not that she had worn anything revelling. No, it's the contrast. The way the white makes her tan look darker, makes the green in her eyes match the shade of the killing curse that refused to work on her.
What had his eyes looked like to her? He knows she had caught sight of one before she ran away because he'd seen her eyes widening. He supposes that she would have little knowledge of the colour of the Cruciatus Curse but he has been told that the colour of his eyes had slowly changed to match. It amuses him whenever he imagens her face when she figures out the connection, when she understands that there is a new link between them. Because everyone else may be content to stick their heads in the sand and pretend that her eyes had always been this way but he was there, he had looked little baby Potter in the eyes for a long moment before he had failed in killing her and her eyes... the green in them had been dull and infested in flecks of gold and blue. Her eyes had changed due to circumstance like his had.
It is moments like these when he morns the fact that he needs to kill her. A new feeling that had only started when she had turned back up for the first task in his trap. Before he had been wholly unimpressed with the 'prophesied child', her first year in Hogwarts had been especially insulting to him because this brat who couldn't even do her own research was supposed to kill him. He'd never been one to laugh in the face of fate but really? Her? Now though, he's starting to see it. He'd felt the echos of light magic brushing over Crouch in the tent, weak as the brushes were the fact that they were there at all spoke of power. That fact that it was Light magic was just as interesting, not the lies Dumbledore and his headless chickens bosted about but actual, true Light magic. Harry Potter was a light witch, she was Light and she was becoming stronger. He had always been a little fascinated with how Light Magic worked, how someone could use magic without any emotions at all, and the scholar in him longed to chain her up somewhere they wouldn't be disturbed so he could figure it out. How can you gauge how much power to use if you don't have an emotional level to compare it to? What did magic feel like to a light witch? Was all magic warm to the user or was it just as cold as it had felt brushing over Croch?
"M-master?" Pettigrew whimpers pathetically. He turns towards the trembling man slowly, raising an insulting small, hairless eyebrow at him. He refused to let Pettigrew know that he had been lost in thought about Potter of all people. "C-crouch is b-back."
"Bring him here." He hisses, bordering on parseltongue. He watches Pettigrew scramble away curiously. What did Barty have to report so soon? With Potter's insistence on hiding from everyone and everything, even him which vexes him to no end. If he could just see how many of his plans she had seen, he needs to know how many adjustments he needs to make to the ritual! It was fragile enough as it was, any unforeseen change could be fatal. He shifts the frustration away when he feels Croch entering his magic, the heat of the younger man's mark doubling this close. The dark magic of the mark and his dark magic creates a small feedback loop. "Barty Crouch Jn." He hisses lightly as the man enters the room. "Have you found out where little Harry is hiding? "
"No, master," Crouch says as he bows deeply and he would display his displeasure at the failed task so that he, and Pettigrew who was cowering in the corner, would know not to fail him again but... but Croch is excited, so excited that he almost quivers with it.
"I see and while that displeases me greatly it is clear by your excitement that you have found something." He hisses slowly as he leans back in a show of disinterest.
"Yes, master," Crouch says brightly.
"Well? " He hisses boredly, his already tired body failing even further. Pettigrew will come to regret being so incompetent.
"Oh, master. There is so much." Crouch exclaims as he finally straightens, his eyes shining with unholy glee which further sparks his interest. "I don't even know where I would begin."
"The most useful information." He suggests.
"She trusts me!" Crouch cries happily. "Little Potter." He adds making Pettigrew choke a little.
"And how have you come to that conclusion? " He asks. Crouch grins manically as he brings out a jar containing a... spider.
"Y-you think she trusts you because she gave you a spider?" Pettigrew mocks Crouch who's grin turns more violent.
"Do you remember, master, when I got Dumbledore to agree to let me cast the unforgivables as one of my classes?" He waves for Crouch to continue because they both know that he does, it was one of his more amusing days. "Well this is the spider from the last class, I hadn't gotten rid of it yet because it was an amusing reminder. I cast every unforgivable on it."
"B-but it's alive?!" Pettigrew cries in shock.
"Because Potter brought it back!" Crouch shouts in glee as he waves the jar in front of Pettigrew's face. "She did it in front of me, and I don't mean that I was hidden. Oh no, we were sitting right across from each other eating dinner in my office and she just did it. Just used advanced necromancy without even blinking, then when she left she didn't even ask me to keep it to myself! She just trusted that I would!"
And this, this changes everything. He watches the spider calmly making its web no matter how much the jar shakes and is drawn into a memory, an old one from when he was attending Hogwarts.
"But why?" He demands as he waves the book in his hand, completely insulted by the fact that he was being told that he couldn't do it.
"Because you are a Dark wizard sweetheart." The mirror in front of him coos. "And while you are a very powerful dark wizard necromancy of that level is Light magic. The best you will get is inferni since that is grey." He seethes which makes the mirror chuckle. "I do adore you sweetheart but you can't be good at everything, sometimes someone is better suited to one type of magic than another. With your power level if you were a light wizard then this level of necromancy would be as easy as breathing, you might even be able to do it without realising it."
"Then I want to know something else." He snarls. "Something that no light witch or wizard is able to do!" He refused to let these light magic users have more magical avenues than him.
A book comes flying at him making him drop the book about necromancy. As soon as he catches it he feels his anger dissipate:
The art of Enchantment, how to make your enemies fall to your feet in devotion.
Well, with a title like that how could he not read it?
The memory circles his mind almost mockingly as he watches the spider. With your power level, with your power level. He is under no illusion that Potter knew what she did, she may be taking her own steps for the first time in years but she didn't strike him as someone who would dive face-first into illegal magics. So it had been an accident, something she had done in the moment without thinking. Something she is only able to do because she is just as powerful as him, because she is his equal.
He has to kill her, because neither can live while the other survives but he doesn't want to. A necromancer, a highly powerful necromancer just sitting there being treated like a weak child. Oh, it grates on him. So much power and potential being wasted because Dumbledore was a petty old man who wanted to murder magic and make friends with muggles! It is an insult to both of them, him and Potter because he knows that Dumbledore had tried the same trick on him, he wasn't even trying to change his tactics.
He needs to know more because Crouch does have more. Why was Potter eating in his office? What had led to her using necromancy? Did he find out if she had a plan in place for the rest of the tournament? She can't have seen much while slinking around his mind because she would never have trusted Crouch if she knew that he was not Moody.
"Why was she in your office? And why did you not follow her to her hiding spot? " He hisses drawing Crouch's attention away from Pettigrew.
"Because I offered her sanctuary from Dumbledore after she publicly announced that she would be starting her social debut at the Yule Ball," Crouch says with a massive grin. Pettigrew looks as if a small breeze could make him faint at that and while he is just as surprised he keeps the fact hidden.
"That is... unexpected as I thought Dumbledore was planning to keep his golden child away from all of our customs but I fail to see why he would be angry about being able to secure her more firmly to his side. All he needs to do is have her married off to one of those Weasley's and she'll be bound to him." He says with a wave of his little hand, annoyance sparking at both the thought and the sight of the grotesque thing.
"Yes, that would be true if he was her sponsor but he clearly isn't because her chosen debut partner is Pansy Parkinson, a Slytherin." Crouch points out smugly. "Not only that but when the Malfoy brat raised a fuss she, once again, publicly asked him if he wished to compete meaning..."
"That her sponsor is taking all options, no matter affiliation." He finishes making Crouch's grin grow to painful levels. "Did she say anything about her sponsor's goals? Their requirements? "
"Power," Crouch says like he's revealing the most precious secret, which is not too far from the truth in this case. "Her sponsor is looking for someone who has the same level of power or more than Potter. And..."
"And? " He prompts, this was quickly turning into a very informative evening.
"... I think you should put your name forth," Crouch adds quickly. "I mean no disrespect to you my Lord and I know that your plans involved killing Potter once you were done with the ritual but she's just... everything about her is so different from everything I've heard about her!" He throws his hands up as if he can no longer contain himself. "Her plan for the second task is to simply swim towards her goal and behead anything in her way for Merlin's sake! And the necromancy! Not to mention how much she currently hates Dumbledore for leaving her with her relatives, did you know that they made her sleep in a utility cupboard until her Hogwarts letter came? Because Dumbledore did apparently and all he did about it was tell her that no one would help her because they all knew so she just had to deal with it. She's was so mad about it that she just shut down, I thought that I was back in Azkaban for a moment because everything was just so cold and..."
Crouch is cut off by Pettigrew fainting and Voldemort would be furious with the pathetic man if his mind wasn't racing in all directions. Marrying Potter, the very concept made him want to laugh at first with how preposterous it sounded but then he thought about it more. It would make everything so much easier, a few clauses in the marriage contract and she would be unable to kill him making the prophecy void, as his wife she would have to abandon the 'light' side, and the almost solitary nature of Light witches and wizards would mean that she wouldn't build a faction of her own. There was also her power level which would be a boon and access to magic that he couldn't perform like necromancy. Not to mention the connection they already shared would only grow stronger with the added bonds of marriage. It would be no hardship when he had a body to find her blood family to present as a courting gift and until then all other gifts could be bought and sent by Crouch.
How amusing that just before Crouch arrived that he had been annoyed by the fact that he would have to kill the girl and now it wouldn't have to. "You have done well Barty." He hisses pleasantly making Crouch beam happily. "Very well, this is not the information I had sent you to obtain but I can see that it is much more valuable. Because of this, I have a new mission for you. You are to continue to gain Potter's trust and to keep her from Dumbledore as much as you are able without arousing suspicion. You are also to find out more about her sponsor's requirements."
"Yes, master!" Crouch says as he bows again.
"And wake Pettigrew on your way out. I have need of him." Crouch's grin is vicious as he turns to leave, kicking Pettigrew in the ribs on the way out of the door making the pathetic man cry out. "Peter, how nice of you to join me again. I want you to bring me parchment, a quill, and an inkpot. When you are done I want you to find me an Isolation Jar." He hisses in mock kindness making Pettigrew scramble up.
"Y-yes, master. R-right away, master." Pettigrew squeaks before he darts away.
When he's alone he sinks into his floating chair tiredly, his pathetic body degrading faster with how he had pushed it. Tomorrow. Tomorrow he will have Pettigrew update the runes, today he needs to write a letter of intent then section of a fraction of his magic to present his power level to Potter's mysterious sponsor. Even with how tired the very thought made him in this form he still manages to smirk. Potter would be furious when her sponsor revealed the winner of her hand, and he would win if power was all the sponsor asked for. He was determined to get ahold of the memory when he had the chance, a trophy to commemorate his winning of the game they had been playing since before she was born.