(no subject)
Title: Be Honest
Universe: Harry Potter
Type: Slash
Genre: Dark Humor/Amusing Angst
Pairings: Severus Snape/Barty Crouch Junior, with insinuations of Sirius/Remus and Remus/Barty
Characters: Severus, Barty, McGonagall, Cornelius Fudge, Random Dementor #5
Rating: PG-13 for questionable language and upside-down Death Eater snogging
Summary: After the incidents of the Third Task, Snape is set to guard his old lover until the Minister can come for confirmation.
Spoilers: Up until GoF
Word Count: 2,985
Disclaimer: JK Rowling made up the Potterverse; I just write the fanfic. No money is being made in this venture and I have nothing to sue for.
Beta: Chelsea/unrulygarden/thisfarfurther
All was not well in Hogwarts, and Severus Snape knew it first hand.
First, the Potter brat and Hufflepuff’s pretty-boy, Cedric Diggory, had brought glory to all of Hogwarts - even Snape and his Slytherins, though none of them wanted to admit it - by being the only champions to reach the Triwizard Cup. Then, they had turned it into fear and confusion when they disappeared. He and Karkaroff knew what had happened as soon as they felt the Dark Mark burn on their arms.
Lord Voldemort was back, with Potter and Diggory as the witnesses to his rebirth.
Well, only Potter as it had turned out. According to his account, Wormtail had murdered Diggory - Avada Kedavra, clean, simple, effective - and Potter had been robbed of precious blood and forced to watch as Lord Voldemort himself rose out of a cauldron, restored to human form…if you could call him human after what he did.
Everything after they’d returned had gone by so quickly - Moody had led Potter off; Albus had called him and Minerva, and they’d interrupted the scene right as Moody got too close; he had gone for a Veritaserum and a House Elf called Winky; the real Moody had turned up in his own trunk, and the man everyone thought was Alastor Moody turned out to be, of all people, Bartemius Crouch Junior.
Severus had felt a chill run up his spine, then down his throat at the very sight of Barty. Even with his confessions, and having been able to eat Hogwarts food for the past nine months, he looked thin, and tired, and, worse than that, completely depraved. Of course, some of the tired look came from the drug haze the Veritaserum had put him into, and…it hurt to look at him like that. He used to be vivacious in his fanatic loyalty to the Dark Lord. He used to be quite pretty, actually, in an unusual way, a way not quite unlike a kicked puppy. After all that his father had done to him, it wasn’t surprising.
And now…Severus sat in Dumbledore’s office, opposite the man he used to consider loving, who was cackling maniacally and bound to his chair. The lateness of the hour finally got to Severus, forcing him to double over, resting his chin in his hand, which, in turn, rested on his knee. His greasy black hair flopped around his skin and, through the dimmed lights, his inky eyes peered at Barty.
It almost seemed like Barty was purposely avoiding his gaze, staring off into nothingness and cackling incessantly about the Dark Lord this, and the most faithful that, and no one else could share this glory. Finally, though, he looked back, and his eyes met with Severus’.
“Why so silent, Severus, my love?” He chuckled in a far off, mad voice.
“You’re mad, Barty,” Severus hissed. “You’re completely starkers.”
“Yes, well, a stint in Azkaban and being placed under the Imperius Curse by your own father would have that effect on someone.”
“Be quiet, Barty. I’m supposed to be guarding you, not reminiscing about your angst.”
“Oh, come on,” Barty sighed warmly. “Don’t be like that.”
“Don’t be like what? Don’t be completely reasonable?”
“No, lover. Don’t be so cold.”
“You tortured the Longbottoms, Barty.”
“Old wounds. Water under the bridge.”
“You starved Mad-Eye Moody for nine months and stole his hair for a Polyjuice Potion that, oh by the way, you had to steal from me to make.”
“You never liked him anyways, admit it.”
“Regardless, you still set up for Potter’s murder and you aided in Diggory’s.”
“That wasn’t supposed to happen!” Barty snapped. “It’s not my fault that Potter’s one of those…moral people!”
“Morality can be a good thing. You should try it sometime.”
“You don’t really think that!” Barty barked coldly. “You deserted the Dark Lord in his time of need! How could you even think to call that moral?”
“Because torturing and killing Mudbloods and Muggles is so very moral.”
“You didn’t have a problem with it before!”
“How do you know? I never participated; it was all you and Bellatrix and Lucius.”
“Don’t talk to me about Lucius,” Barty snapped. “He’s even more disgusting than you are. Sure, he can masquerade at the Quidditch World Cup, dressed to the nines in his cloak and hood, and torturing innocent Muggles who did nothing but exist and get addicted to Memory Charms…but what about when our Master really needed him?”
“Lucius is a status-whore. You’ve known that since we were all in school.”
“He could have at least tried. But he didn’t. He went and bred that snotty, spoiled little prat Draco instead. Boy makes a better ferret than a human.”
Severus sighed. He had to concede to that point. Although Draco Malfoy was certainly a talented hand at Potions - and a teacher’s pet to boot - it was undeniable that he was spoiled, elitist, and, quite frankly, a prat of the same degree of James Potter, if not more. Barty shifted his gaze and saw that he had made his point successfully. Once again, he threw back his head and laughed that cold, hard laugh…it was more Voldemort’s than his. The way that Severus remembered his laugh wasn’t jovial or warm or anything along those lines, but at least it was beautiful. It was distant at first, but got to be closer; it evolved into something cute and enticing, but, in the end, unattainable, since everyone knew that Crouch Senior would barely let his only son breath wrong, let alone “love wrong.”
Barty sighed as well, suddenly exasperated, and looked back to Severus, who looked up to the other man. Upon the sight of Barty’s genuinely tense and anxious visage, Severus felt his Occlumency shield fall as his stern glare shifted to a stare of pity.
“What are they going to do to me, Severus?” Barty whispered as his chest rose and fell with increasing speed.
“I don’t know,” Severus sighed, defeated after a prolonged attempt to reason it out. “I just don’t know.”
“But you must have some idea! You were always the smart one!”
“Yes, but I don’t know the answer to this question.”
“But…you care about me, don’t you?”
“I did once. Now…I can’t be too sure.”
“Then be the smart one and save me.”
“Let me ask you a question, Barty.”
“Go ahead.”
“Am I smart like Remus Lupin? Or did you think I wouldn’t find out about that?”
“What are you talking about? I’m so confused.”
“You and Remus Lupin, you liar. I heard it from his cuckolded boyfriend himself.”
“Remus Lupin is gay?”
“Was it not blindingly evident in school? I’m well aware that you haven’t seen your little fling since you went off to Azkaban, but that’s no reason to forget how obviously gay he was.”
“I never had a fling with Remus.”
“But I heard Black confronting him about it! I heard it!”
“If you’re talking about Sirius Black, then it was probably a joke, Severus.”
“Of course I’m talking about Sirius Black, you idiot! Even if Regulus hadn’t been straight as a board, he was a foppish pretty boy of no substance whatsoever. It’s really better for wizarding kind that he snuffed it.”
“There!” Barty shouted vehemently. “You see?!”
“See what?” Severus snapped.
“You still have your Death Eater’s amorality! Sure, you can slip into this Potions Master façade, but you still belong to the Dark Lord. And you know it!”
Severus’ anger overthrew his joints, aching with exhaustion, and he rose up, towering over Barty in size and emotional heights. His black eyes burned like coal and smoldered over all of Barty’s face. And yet…Barty’s face shifted again, morphing back to that heart-wrenching, pitiable look of abandoned depression. For all Severus knew, he was remembering the Dementors and all they could do. With the previous year fresh in his mind, Severus couldn’t deny him the point of fear of the Dementors. Even with his reputation as heartless and devoid of emotions other than satisfaction and rage, the Dementors had been no picnic for him, and they were probably that much worse for Barty. After all, his worst memories had to be far worse than an abusive-when-drunk father who still loved his family and being tormented by Potter the First and Sirius Black.
In the silence, Severus heard Barty’s teeth begin chattering together, and he whimpered like a weak little kitten. He emitted several shudders, then another whimper, and he finally succeeded in eliciting Severus’ pity. In one motion, he swooped across the room to stand beside the chair. He whispered warmly, trying to calm his ex-lover down. With one hand on Barty’s shoulder, and another pressing Barty’s head to his chest, Severus sighed, exasperated, and stroked his lover’s hair.
“Sssh, quiet, Barty,” he murmured. “It’ll all be okay.”
“I’m scared, Severus,” Barty sniveled. “I don’t want to go back to the Dementors.”
“You really should have thought about that before you tortured the Longbottoms.”
“Do you think I don’t know that?”
“Of course I don’t. I am merely saying-”
“I’ve made so many mistakes, Severus, I know this. I’m well aware that they’re my own responsibility, but…the Dark Lord…I’ll never desert him. He - and you - gave me a place to be accepted, even if I am terribly fucked up.”
“That’s your father’s fault, Barty. Everyone knows that. But, if you won’t renounce the Dark Lord and the old ways, then there isn’t much I can do for you.”
“I’ll never do that,” Barty hissed, going cold and hard faster than an Expelliarmus spell on the unsuspecting. “Drag me through the mud, humiliate me, give me back to the Dementors…let them Kiss me, for fuck’s sake; I don’t CARE. I’ll never betray Him.”
“And that is why you’re going to die.”
“W-w-what?” He was immediately timid.
“When you die, whenever that may be, I think that it will be related to your mad definition of loyalty.”
“I don’t want to die, Severus,” Barty whispered.
“Neither did the Dark Lord, but what both of you fail to realize is that, no matter what you do, we all have to die. It’s simply a part of life.”
“If the Dark Lord can avoid it, so can I.”
“He is a far greater, and far more desperate, wizard than you could ever be.”
“Desperate? Desperate?” Barty hissed. “The Dark Lord has no need for desperation.”
“What you don’t know could fill the Black Lake, Barty. What the Dark Lord has done to avoid death goes beyond the dreams of men.”
Barty cut off his own snappy remark in favor of consideration. He lowered his eyes to the floor and every thought he came up with made him shudder in Severus’ arms. Still quavering like a branch in the wind, he looked back up to Severus.
“Kiss me, Severus,” he whispered. “Like you used to.”
“We both know I can’t do that effectively, Barty,” Severus sighed.
“Why not?”
“In the old days, you weren’t completely off your rocker.”
“Kiss me anyway, traitor.”
“If I must, thief.”
From behind, Severus bent over his charge and pressed his upside down lips to Barty’s upright ones. A charge got to them both - the feeling of trying to reach back into the past. It would have normally been quite impossible to do so without the aid of a Time Turner, but tonight the rules of time and space would have to be bended - just for them. So help them, those rules would bend, they would like it, and, provided they’d done well enough, they’d be allowed to slip back into their usual form.
Starting with Severus first pressing his lips to Barty’s, it was not the deepest part of a night that would be remembered for the return to life of the greatest evil of wizarding kind and the death of an innocent who had done nothing but try to win the Triwizard Cup. No, no, they were younger now. They were back in school at Hogwarts. They were Barty and Snivellus, a sixteen-year-old and his fifteen-year-old boyfriend, snogging in Professor Slughorn’s store cupboard because it was the only place that Potter the First, Sirius Black, et al couldn’t find them. The tongue that Barty so covertly slipped into Severus’ mouth was practically the symbol of the Slytherin House, since no one really paid attention to how slippery and cunning a Slytherin was, but the skill he or she showed with the tongue.
Barty always won that contest. Wrapping his long, thin tongue around Severus’, he showed that he was clearly still skilled, even though he’d been incarcerated and their kiss was upside down. Attempting to work in his own specialty, Severus lowered a hand towards Barty’s trousers…
But their moment was rudely interrupted by the sound of footsteps and shouting coming up towards the office.
“Minister, please! Dumbledore will never let this stand!”
“My dear woman, I must insist on this! If this is truly who you say he is, my protection is of my highest concern!”
“Then leave that thing out here, or you’ll have worse than Crouch to deal with!”
“Who? Dumbledore? Have you not considered that he’s going soft?”
“All lies! And started by that wretched Rita Skeeter, no doubt!”
“It’s of no consequence who started them, as long as-”
Severus stopped paying attention from there. It was Minerva and the Minister, and they had something with them that Dumbledore would not approve one. Given the situation, it was probably a Dementor. He broke apart from Barty, leaving their moment to find its way in the world. He looked like he’d been Confunded, pacing around the room and almost pulling his hair out, trying to devise some quick scheme to get out of this. Then, Barty stared imploringly at him.
“Put your wand to my neck, Sev,” he whispered. “Pretend I was threatening the Minister.”
“Barty, I couldn’t do that to you,” Severus sighed. “Sirius Black, yes, but that blood feud goes far back.”
“Just do it, then we’ll have no excuses to make, and it’ll look good for you.”
Severus nodded and complied; he kept Barty at an arm’s length distance, with his wand squarely on his jugular vein. Then he noticed the sudden drop in temperature. There was definitely a Dementor in the castle.
“They’ve brought a Dementor,” he whispered.
“You think I can’t feel it?” Barty hissed. “Remember, I did have to live with the things for a year.”
“Of course I don’t think that.”
“What do you think will happen?”
“Don’t ask me that; you know I failed the Divination OWL.”
“Then logic it out; you were always good with that.”
“Fine then,” Severus sighed. “The Minister has brought a Dementor ‘for his safety’-”
“Dumbledore will just kill him later.”
“Agreed. But, there is a Dementor here, and it’s probably just going to come and take you back to Azkaban.”
“Are you sure?”
“Not one-hundred percent, but…idiot and fool though he is, Fudge wouldn’t pass up the opportunity for a star witness against the Dark Lord.”
Severus could only remember a few times that he’d been wrong. One of them was thinking that Sirius Black would be sorted into Slytherin faster than anyone before him, except maybe Lord Voldemort himself. Another was assuming that Draco Malfoy would be a decent human being and not a royal pain in the arse to deal with. Yet another was assuming that Potter the Second and his crew of misfits would make it to the logic puzzle in their first year, only to be stumped by the problem at hand.
Before he could react to what was to happen, he added it to this list.
Minerva opened the door and led in Cornelius Fudge, Minister of Magic, and his accompanying Dementor. Both humans gasped at the scene before them, whereas the Dementor merely sized it up.
“You’ll get yours, Fudge!” Barty cackled, switching from tender to stark raving mad with no thought whatsoever. “The Dark Lord has returned and you’ll be among the first to go!”
“I say, Snape,” the Minister ventured, “put away your wand.”
“Minister!” Severus barked. “This lunatic was making threats against your life, I-”
Before he could finish his beautiful lie, the Dementor swooped past Minerva and the Minister over to Barty. With its spectral, claw-like hands embracing his thin face, it began making that sucking noise that Severus had never hoped to hear. If Dementors had faces, Severus was sure that this one would have been smiling madly as it got what it came for: Barty Crouch Junior’s soul.
It dragged its claws down his face and throat, as though coaxing something out of Barty’s body. In the darkness, the sucking noise grew louder - the soul didn’t want to leave its bodily prison; some sort of anchor was trying to keep it there. Finally, though, a small light exited from his mouth, illuminating the entire room, despite its size. Swallowing the tiny orb of light in one, great gulp, the Dementor went back to its place behind the minister, floating in an incredibly self-satisfied manner.
And, to think, it would have been so easy to prevent…just a simple Patronus Charm, and Barty could have been saved.
But no one moved, and as the Dementor cleared its way back to the Minister, it left behind deadened eyes, shallow breaths, and the ultimate mark of what its kind could do. From its seat, the soulless husk of what had until very recently been Bartemius Crouch Junior stared out at the world, neither pleading nor spiteful, merely without any feeling to speak of.
Severus didn’t show or mention it then - even two people were too many to openly admit this to - but, he could’ve sworn before the whole of the Wizengamot and the bones of Merlin and the Hogwarts founders that, just as the Dementor had administered its Kiss, Barty had whispered to him: “You lied.”
Universe: Harry Potter
Type: Slash
Genre: Dark Humor/Amusing Angst
Pairings: Severus Snape/Barty Crouch Junior, with insinuations of Sirius/Remus and Remus/Barty
Characters: Severus, Barty, McGonagall, Cornelius Fudge, Random Dementor #5
Rating: PG-13 for questionable language and upside-down Death Eater snogging
Summary: After the incidents of the Third Task, Snape is set to guard his old lover until the Minister can come for confirmation.
Spoilers: Up until GoF
Word Count: 2,985
Disclaimer: JK Rowling made up the Potterverse; I just write the fanfic. No money is being made in this venture and I have nothing to sue for.
Beta: Chelsea/unrulygarden/thisfarfurther
All was not well in Hogwarts, and Severus Snape knew it first hand.
First, the Potter brat and Hufflepuff’s pretty-boy, Cedric Diggory, had brought glory to all of Hogwarts - even Snape and his Slytherins, though none of them wanted to admit it - by being the only champions to reach the Triwizard Cup. Then, they had turned it into fear and confusion when they disappeared. He and Karkaroff knew what had happened as soon as they felt the Dark Mark burn on their arms.
Lord Voldemort was back, with Potter and Diggory as the witnesses to his rebirth.
Well, only Potter as it had turned out. According to his account, Wormtail had murdered Diggory - Avada Kedavra, clean, simple, effective - and Potter had been robbed of precious blood and forced to watch as Lord Voldemort himself rose out of a cauldron, restored to human form…if you could call him human after what he did.
Everything after they’d returned had gone by so quickly - Moody had led Potter off; Albus had called him and Minerva, and they’d interrupted the scene right as Moody got too close; he had gone for a Veritaserum and a House Elf called Winky; the real Moody had turned up in his own trunk, and the man everyone thought was Alastor Moody turned out to be, of all people, Bartemius Crouch Junior.
Severus had felt a chill run up his spine, then down his throat at the very sight of Barty. Even with his confessions, and having been able to eat Hogwarts food for the past nine months, he looked thin, and tired, and, worse than that, completely depraved. Of course, some of the tired look came from the drug haze the Veritaserum had put him into, and…it hurt to look at him like that. He used to be vivacious in his fanatic loyalty to the Dark Lord. He used to be quite pretty, actually, in an unusual way, a way not quite unlike a kicked puppy. After all that his father had done to him, it wasn’t surprising.
And now…Severus sat in Dumbledore’s office, opposite the man he used to consider loving, who was cackling maniacally and bound to his chair. The lateness of the hour finally got to Severus, forcing him to double over, resting his chin in his hand, which, in turn, rested on his knee. His greasy black hair flopped around his skin and, through the dimmed lights, his inky eyes peered at Barty.
It almost seemed like Barty was purposely avoiding his gaze, staring off into nothingness and cackling incessantly about the Dark Lord this, and the most faithful that, and no one else could share this glory. Finally, though, he looked back, and his eyes met with Severus’.
“Why so silent, Severus, my love?” He chuckled in a far off, mad voice.
“You’re mad, Barty,” Severus hissed. “You’re completely starkers.”
“Yes, well, a stint in Azkaban and being placed under the Imperius Curse by your own father would have that effect on someone.”
“Be quiet, Barty. I’m supposed to be guarding you, not reminiscing about your angst.”
“Oh, come on,” Barty sighed warmly. “Don’t be like that.”
“Don’t be like what? Don’t be completely reasonable?”
“No, lover. Don’t be so cold.”
“You tortured the Longbottoms, Barty.”
“Old wounds. Water under the bridge.”
“You starved Mad-Eye Moody for nine months and stole his hair for a Polyjuice Potion that, oh by the way, you had to steal from me to make.”
“You never liked him anyways, admit it.”
“Regardless, you still set up for Potter’s murder and you aided in Diggory’s.”
“That wasn’t supposed to happen!” Barty snapped. “It’s not my fault that Potter’s one of those…moral people!”
“Morality can be a good thing. You should try it sometime.”
“You don’t really think that!” Barty barked coldly. “You deserted the Dark Lord in his time of need! How could you even think to call that moral?”
“Because torturing and killing Mudbloods and Muggles is so very moral.”
“You didn’t have a problem with it before!”
“How do you know? I never participated; it was all you and Bellatrix and Lucius.”
“Don’t talk to me about Lucius,” Barty snapped. “He’s even more disgusting than you are. Sure, he can masquerade at the Quidditch World Cup, dressed to the nines in his cloak and hood, and torturing innocent Muggles who did nothing but exist and get addicted to Memory Charms…but what about when our Master really needed him?”
“Lucius is a status-whore. You’ve known that since we were all in school.”
“He could have at least tried. But he didn’t. He went and bred that snotty, spoiled little prat Draco instead. Boy makes a better ferret than a human.”
Severus sighed. He had to concede to that point. Although Draco Malfoy was certainly a talented hand at Potions - and a teacher’s pet to boot - it was undeniable that he was spoiled, elitist, and, quite frankly, a prat of the same degree of James Potter, if not more. Barty shifted his gaze and saw that he had made his point successfully. Once again, he threw back his head and laughed that cold, hard laugh…it was more Voldemort’s than his. The way that Severus remembered his laugh wasn’t jovial or warm or anything along those lines, but at least it was beautiful. It was distant at first, but got to be closer; it evolved into something cute and enticing, but, in the end, unattainable, since everyone knew that Crouch Senior would barely let his only son breath wrong, let alone “love wrong.”
Barty sighed as well, suddenly exasperated, and looked back to Severus, who looked up to the other man. Upon the sight of Barty’s genuinely tense and anxious visage, Severus felt his Occlumency shield fall as his stern glare shifted to a stare of pity.
“What are they going to do to me, Severus?” Barty whispered as his chest rose and fell with increasing speed.
“I don’t know,” Severus sighed, defeated after a prolonged attempt to reason it out. “I just don’t know.”
“But you must have some idea! You were always the smart one!”
“Yes, but I don’t know the answer to this question.”
“But…you care about me, don’t you?”
“I did once. Now…I can’t be too sure.”
“Then be the smart one and save me.”
“Let me ask you a question, Barty.”
“Go ahead.”
“Am I smart like Remus Lupin? Or did you think I wouldn’t find out about that?”
“What are you talking about? I’m so confused.”
“You and Remus Lupin, you liar. I heard it from his cuckolded boyfriend himself.”
“Remus Lupin is gay?”
“Was it not blindingly evident in school? I’m well aware that you haven’t seen your little fling since you went off to Azkaban, but that’s no reason to forget how obviously gay he was.”
“I never had a fling with Remus.”
“But I heard Black confronting him about it! I heard it!”
“If you’re talking about Sirius Black, then it was probably a joke, Severus.”
“Of course I’m talking about Sirius Black, you idiot! Even if Regulus hadn’t been straight as a board, he was a foppish pretty boy of no substance whatsoever. It’s really better for wizarding kind that he snuffed it.”
“There!” Barty shouted vehemently. “You see?!”
“See what?” Severus snapped.
“You still have your Death Eater’s amorality! Sure, you can slip into this Potions Master façade, but you still belong to the Dark Lord. And you know it!”
Severus’ anger overthrew his joints, aching with exhaustion, and he rose up, towering over Barty in size and emotional heights. His black eyes burned like coal and smoldered over all of Barty’s face. And yet…Barty’s face shifted again, morphing back to that heart-wrenching, pitiable look of abandoned depression. For all Severus knew, he was remembering the Dementors and all they could do. With the previous year fresh in his mind, Severus couldn’t deny him the point of fear of the Dementors. Even with his reputation as heartless and devoid of emotions other than satisfaction and rage, the Dementors had been no picnic for him, and they were probably that much worse for Barty. After all, his worst memories had to be far worse than an abusive-when-drunk father who still loved his family and being tormented by Potter the First and Sirius Black.
In the silence, Severus heard Barty’s teeth begin chattering together, and he whimpered like a weak little kitten. He emitted several shudders, then another whimper, and he finally succeeded in eliciting Severus’ pity. In one motion, he swooped across the room to stand beside the chair. He whispered warmly, trying to calm his ex-lover down. With one hand on Barty’s shoulder, and another pressing Barty’s head to his chest, Severus sighed, exasperated, and stroked his lover’s hair.
“Sssh, quiet, Barty,” he murmured. “It’ll all be okay.”
“I’m scared, Severus,” Barty sniveled. “I don’t want to go back to the Dementors.”
“You really should have thought about that before you tortured the Longbottoms.”
“Do you think I don’t know that?”
“Of course I don’t. I am merely saying-”
“I’ve made so many mistakes, Severus, I know this. I’m well aware that they’re my own responsibility, but…the Dark Lord…I’ll never desert him. He - and you - gave me a place to be accepted, even if I am terribly fucked up.”
“That’s your father’s fault, Barty. Everyone knows that. But, if you won’t renounce the Dark Lord and the old ways, then there isn’t much I can do for you.”
“I’ll never do that,” Barty hissed, going cold and hard faster than an Expelliarmus spell on the unsuspecting. “Drag me through the mud, humiliate me, give me back to the Dementors…let them Kiss me, for fuck’s sake; I don’t CARE. I’ll never betray Him.”
“And that is why you’re going to die.”
“W-w-what?” He was immediately timid.
“When you die, whenever that may be, I think that it will be related to your mad definition of loyalty.”
“I don’t want to die, Severus,” Barty whispered.
“Neither did the Dark Lord, but what both of you fail to realize is that, no matter what you do, we all have to die. It’s simply a part of life.”
“If the Dark Lord can avoid it, so can I.”
“He is a far greater, and far more desperate, wizard than you could ever be.”
“Desperate? Desperate?” Barty hissed. “The Dark Lord has no need for desperation.”
“What you don’t know could fill the Black Lake, Barty. What the Dark Lord has done to avoid death goes beyond the dreams of men.”
Barty cut off his own snappy remark in favor of consideration. He lowered his eyes to the floor and every thought he came up with made him shudder in Severus’ arms. Still quavering like a branch in the wind, he looked back up to Severus.
“Kiss me, Severus,” he whispered. “Like you used to.”
“We both know I can’t do that effectively, Barty,” Severus sighed.
“Why not?”
“In the old days, you weren’t completely off your rocker.”
“Kiss me anyway, traitor.”
“If I must, thief.”
From behind, Severus bent over his charge and pressed his upside down lips to Barty’s upright ones. A charge got to them both - the feeling of trying to reach back into the past. It would have normally been quite impossible to do so without the aid of a Time Turner, but tonight the rules of time and space would have to be bended - just for them. So help them, those rules would bend, they would like it, and, provided they’d done well enough, they’d be allowed to slip back into their usual form.
Starting with Severus first pressing his lips to Barty’s, it was not the deepest part of a night that would be remembered for the return to life of the greatest evil of wizarding kind and the death of an innocent who had done nothing but try to win the Triwizard Cup. No, no, they were younger now. They were back in school at Hogwarts. They were Barty and Snivellus, a sixteen-year-old and his fifteen-year-old boyfriend, snogging in Professor Slughorn’s store cupboard because it was the only place that Potter the First, Sirius Black, et al couldn’t find them. The tongue that Barty so covertly slipped into Severus’ mouth was practically the symbol of the Slytherin House, since no one really paid attention to how slippery and cunning a Slytherin was, but the skill he or she showed with the tongue.
Barty always won that contest. Wrapping his long, thin tongue around Severus’, he showed that he was clearly still skilled, even though he’d been incarcerated and their kiss was upside down. Attempting to work in his own specialty, Severus lowered a hand towards Barty’s trousers…
But their moment was rudely interrupted by the sound of footsteps and shouting coming up towards the office.
“Minister, please! Dumbledore will never let this stand!”
“My dear woman, I must insist on this! If this is truly who you say he is, my protection is of my highest concern!”
“Then leave that thing out here, or you’ll have worse than Crouch to deal with!”
“Who? Dumbledore? Have you not considered that he’s going soft?”
“All lies! And started by that wretched Rita Skeeter, no doubt!”
“It’s of no consequence who started them, as long as-”
Severus stopped paying attention from there. It was Minerva and the Minister, and they had something with them that Dumbledore would not approve one. Given the situation, it was probably a Dementor. He broke apart from Barty, leaving their moment to find its way in the world. He looked like he’d been Confunded, pacing around the room and almost pulling his hair out, trying to devise some quick scheme to get out of this. Then, Barty stared imploringly at him.
“Put your wand to my neck, Sev,” he whispered. “Pretend I was threatening the Minister.”
“Barty, I couldn’t do that to you,” Severus sighed. “Sirius Black, yes, but that blood feud goes far back.”
“Just do it, then we’ll have no excuses to make, and it’ll look good for you.”
Severus nodded and complied; he kept Barty at an arm’s length distance, with his wand squarely on his jugular vein. Then he noticed the sudden drop in temperature. There was definitely a Dementor in the castle.
“They’ve brought a Dementor,” he whispered.
“You think I can’t feel it?” Barty hissed. “Remember, I did have to live with the things for a year.”
“Of course I don’t think that.”
“What do you think will happen?”
“Don’t ask me that; you know I failed the Divination OWL.”
“Then logic it out; you were always good with that.”
“Fine then,” Severus sighed. “The Minister has brought a Dementor ‘for his safety’-”
“Dumbledore will just kill him later.”
“Agreed. But, there is a Dementor here, and it’s probably just going to come and take you back to Azkaban.”
“Are you sure?”
“Not one-hundred percent, but…idiot and fool though he is, Fudge wouldn’t pass up the opportunity for a star witness against the Dark Lord.”
Severus could only remember a few times that he’d been wrong. One of them was thinking that Sirius Black would be sorted into Slytherin faster than anyone before him, except maybe Lord Voldemort himself. Another was assuming that Draco Malfoy would be a decent human being and not a royal pain in the arse to deal with. Yet another was assuming that Potter the Second and his crew of misfits would make it to the logic puzzle in their first year, only to be stumped by the problem at hand.
Before he could react to what was to happen, he added it to this list.
Minerva opened the door and led in Cornelius Fudge, Minister of Magic, and his accompanying Dementor. Both humans gasped at the scene before them, whereas the Dementor merely sized it up.
“You’ll get yours, Fudge!” Barty cackled, switching from tender to stark raving mad with no thought whatsoever. “The Dark Lord has returned and you’ll be among the first to go!”
“I say, Snape,” the Minister ventured, “put away your wand.”
“Minister!” Severus barked. “This lunatic was making threats against your life, I-”
Before he could finish his beautiful lie, the Dementor swooped past Minerva and the Minister over to Barty. With its spectral, claw-like hands embracing his thin face, it began making that sucking noise that Severus had never hoped to hear. If Dementors had faces, Severus was sure that this one would have been smiling madly as it got what it came for: Barty Crouch Junior’s soul.
It dragged its claws down his face and throat, as though coaxing something out of Barty’s body. In the darkness, the sucking noise grew louder - the soul didn’t want to leave its bodily prison; some sort of anchor was trying to keep it there. Finally, though, a small light exited from his mouth, illuminating the entire room, despite its size. Swallowing the tiny orb of light in one, great gulp, the Dementor went back to its place behind the minister, floating in an incredibly self-satisfied manner.
And, to think, it would have been so easy to prevent…just a simple Patronus Charm, and Barty could have been saved.
But no one moved, and as the Dementor cleared its way back to the Minister, it left behind deadened eyes, shallow breaths, and the ultimate mark of what its kind could do. From its seat, the soulless husk of what had until very recently been Bartemius Crouch Junior stared out at the world, neither pleading nor spiteful, merely without any feeling to speak of.
Severus didn’t show or mention it then - even two people were too many to openly admit this to - but, he could’ve sworn before the whole of the Wizengamot and the bones of Merlin and the Hogwarts founders that, just as the Dementor had administered its Kiss, Barty had whispered to him: “You lied.”