The Mark of Bartemius Crouch Jr
When I was a little boy, my mother told me that I was a genius with a beautiful mind. She told me I had the kind of mind that could change the world.
My father told me that my mind gave me several maladies of temperament. He told me that the door to my brain had a loose hinge.
Both my mother and my father were correct.
It is my father, now, who controls my brain. He has snaked his way through my sulci and has torn up my meninges like a neuroparasite. My prognosis is poor.
I have moved from one prison to the next. The dementors were pleasanter on my psyche than Father. Father did not keep my childhood bedroom the way it was when I left the house at seventeen. I spend my days surrounded by boxes of expensive but useless trinkets he collects. I keep thinking, “I want to go home,” but I barely remember what that is. Each day I am a belligerent in the psychic war against my father. Each day I have lost. Today I win.
I remember things. I almost feel myself. I am not Barty Crouch. That is his name, not mine. I am not Crouch’s slave; I am somebody else’s loyal servant. I am not Crouch’s dishonour; I am somebody else’s pride and joy. Before Crouch, before the dementors, I was once loved.
A perfect rush of warmth traces along my skin, and my numbed mind tries to latch to the sensation. I stare at my left forearm for twenty minutes as my skin watercolours to deeper and deeper hues. With a sudden splash of black, a splash of memory reminds me what the scar once was.
My Dark Mark. It is a birthmark I inherited from my true Father.