Chapter Text
Hogwarts Castle, after curfew, belonged to shadows and whispers. Barty Crouch Jr. knew each of those shadows, each echo of those whispers; he was an expert at detaching himself, at slipping through the cracks of routine, a displacement spell here, a secret shortcut there. All in the name of an obsession that grew within him like a poisonous, beautiful, and suffocating vine.
His object of affection? Regulus Arcturus Black.
It wasn't something that had suddenly exploded; it was a slow, patient cultivation that had begun the first day Regulus set foot in the Slytherin Common Room. While other first-year boys were slumped, frightened, or too arrogant, Regulus simply entered with an erect posture, a gaze that already seemed to assess and catalog every inch of damp stone, every pale face. He hadn't spoken much, but when he did, it was with perfect diction, a cutting coldness that left even veterans like himself speechless.
Barty, a year older, had become truly fascinated. The obsession had begun as an intellectual curiosity, "How can someone be so... complete?" he thought, then that curiosity turned into admiration, "He knows things that even books don't teach." And then, it became a feverish desire for closeness, for usefulness, for... inverted possession. He wanted to be possessed by Regulus Black's coldness and disdain.
For years, he had observed. He knew Regulus's library schedule (Tuesdays and Thursdays, after Potions class), he knew he preferred the most secluded corner of the lake, under the oak tree, to read alone, he knew his left eye trembled almost imperceptibly when he was extremely angry. Barty collected these fragments like a goldsmith collects precious stones.
But to get closer? That was a risk.
Regulus was inaccessible; he was surrounded by a wall of reputation, pride, and a sharp intelligence that seemed to detect base motives for approaching him from a mile away. But Barty had, of course, tried a comment on a Dark theory during a Defense Against the Dark Arts class, a subtle compliment to his last Quidditch match, in which Regulus, with his elegance and lethality, had secured victory for Slytherin in the final seconds.
Barty was desperate because Regulus responded with a cold courtesy, merely a nod, and then looked away to return to his impenetrable solitude. Until the perfect opportunity arose, not in a dark corridor or a secret meeting, but in the form of an assignment from Slughorn.
The professor, in his eternal desire to cultivate "stars," had assigned an advanced potions project for pairs. The potion was complex, a variant of Veritaserum that required millimeter precision and a deep understanding of magical-chemical interactions. And, by a twist of fate or by Barty's subtle manipulation of the drawing papers (a minimal, almost undetectable confusion spell), his name was paired with Regulus Black's.
Barty's heart raced when he saw the list posted on the Potions classroom notice board. There it was: Black, R. & Crouch Jr., B.
It was his chance, even if it was through a forced collaboration, because however much he had manipulated, his longing for Regulus was legitimate, it was necessary.
They arranged to meet after dinner, in an empty classroom on the seventh floor, away from the prying eyes of the usual potions classroom. Barty arrived twenty minutes early, setting the tables, ensuring the counter was immaculate, organizing the basic ingredients with neurotic precision. His hands trembled slightly.
The door opened at the exact time. Regulus entered, his black cloak flowing behind him without a single crease. He carried a personal ebony cauldron with silver trim and a crystal instrument case. His grey eyes scanned the room, landing on Barty, then on the tidy workbench.
"You seem well-prepared, Crouch," Regulus said in his neutral voice.
Barty forced his voice to sound calm and competent.
"It's an important project, Black, I couldn't risk disorganization."
Regulus gave a brief, almost approving nod, then placed his materials on the workbench and began examining the ingredients Barty had separated. After illuminating the tip of his wand with a nonverbal Lumos, Regulus commented, without looking at Barty:
"The dragon liver is inadequate, do you see these greenish veins? This shows that the creature was fed poisoned iron before slaughter. It will compromise the clarification phase of the potion."
Barty felt a chill at Regulus's remark. He hadn't noticed, nobody in his class, except perhaps Slughorn himself, would have noticed.
"I… I can go to the pantry and get another one, Slughorn trusts me."
Regulus finally looked at him, it was an analytical, penetrating look.
"You have easy access to the restricted pantry?"
Barty shrugged, a crooked little smile touched his lips:
"I'm persuasive, I'm good at persuading, sometimes I do favors, you know how it is, Black, people like… to be useful. And I can be useful, to you, I mean."
He let the sentence hang, laden with double meaning, while Regulus kept his grey gaze fixed on his face for a second longer than socially necessary, making Barty feel as if he were being dissected.
"Then go on, Crouch, bring me a liver with amber veins and a black aconite because this grey one they left here is of inferior quality."
It was an order, not a suggestion from a teammate. An order, and Barty was eager to fulfill it.
"Amber and black, all right, I'll be right back," he murmured and left the room almost running.
The mission was accomplished in record time; Barty only needed a little smooth talk, a convincing look of academic urgency, and he returned with the impeccable ingredients. When he returned, Regulus already had the base of the potion heating, the smoke rising in perfect spirals.
The work continued in silence, but it was a different kind of silence. Before, it was the silence of distance, and now, it was a silence of shared concentration. Barty followed Regulus's silent instructions with the devotion of a novice. He was no longer just Barty Crouch Jr., the nervous and somewhat disturbed student; he was an extension, an instrument that Regulus seemed to be learning to play.
At one point during the preparation, the potion, a shimmering silver mass, began to emit a sharp hiss; the recipe said to reduce the heat. Barty moved, but Regulus raised a hand, stopping him, without even taking his eyes off the undulating surface.
"Wait, the hiss is from the mint essence trying to escape. If you reduce the heat now, it will get trapped and make the whole batch bitter. Stir counter-clockwise, three times, precisely three times."
Barty obeyed, counting mentally. One, two, three.
The potion's hiss faded, and it acquired a milky, serene glow.
"Perfect," Regulus said softly.
The word echoed in the empty room, and Barty felt he could fly. He had pleased Regulus Black; he had been perfect for him.
When they finished, the potion rested in its crystal bottle, emitting a faint silvery glow. It was a masterpiece! As Regulus meticulously cleaned his tools, he said without any emotion to Barty, who heard the words as if they were music:
"Good work, Crouch, you have steady hands when needed."
Barty didn't want it to end, the closeness with Regulus, the purpose of serving him. So he spoke, his voice more intense than he intended:
"I… enjoyed working with you, Black. It's different, it's necessary." It's quiet...
Regulus put away the last spatula and looked at Barty. In the dim witching light, his face resembled a classic mask, beautiful and impenetrable.
"Noise is the refuge of the incompetent, Crouch. The Dark Arts demand silence, demand discretion."
Barty replied quickly, his brown eyes gleaming with fervor.
"I can be discreet, Black. I can be silent, I can be… useful. Beyond potion projects, even."
Barty was throwing himself into the abyss again, but the night's success had given him an intoxicating courage.
Regulus remained silent for a long moment, merely holding Barty's gaze. He didn't seem surprised. He seemed, once again, to be assessing, measuring the depth of that offer, that poorly disguised devotion.
"Every man of worth needs reliable instruments, instruments that understand that true loyalty seeks not reward, but purpose."
He picked up the potion bottle, their masterpiece.
"Continue to be discreet, Crouch, and perhaps you will find your purpose."
Barty stood there, trembling, not from cold, but from pure ecstasy. Regulus had given him no friendship, no camaraderie, but he would give him something infinitely better: the possibility of being an instrument, a subject. And for Barty Crouch Jr., whose world was a blur of confused loyalties and a furious desire for something to cling to, that was more than enough.
He left the room with a new gleam of insane devotion in his eyes. He had, at last, come close to the throne of the Prince of Slytherin and was willing to do anything to never have to leave it again.
Without another word, Regulus turned and left the room, his black cloak billowing as he disappeared down the dark corridor.
The Slytherin Common Room, after curfew, was a den of green shadows and conspiratorial whispers. The fire in the fireplace, fueled by magic, burned in shades of emerald and jade, casting liquid reflections on the damp stone walls; the air smelled of ancient rain, leather books, and an ambition so dense you could almost taste it.
Barty Crouch Jr. was huddled in an armchair, far from the main circle of light. An Advanced Rune Studies book lay open in his lap, but its letters danced and jumbled before his eyes, unable to compete with the images burning in his mind.
Regulus, always Regulus.
The potions project had been a week ago, but every second was etched in Barty's bones. The calm voice, the analytical eyes, the surgical precision. "Perfect," the word still echoed in his ears like a sacred mantra. He had been useful, they had been perfect together, and since then, he clung to that minimal compliment like a man clings to a life raft in the open sea.
But the distance had returned, Regulus had resumed his impenetrable routine, and Barty watched, as always, but now with a new and agonizing longing; the proximity had been a taste of paradise, and the abstinence was torture.
His fingers drummed nervously on the book cover. He saw the greenish fire dance, and in the flames, he saw Regulus's elegant silhouette cutting through the rainy sky, a figure of pure and serene lethality. The stillness that preceded the perfect blow, the intelligence that planned each move with the coldness of a chess player playing against death itself.
He closed his eyes, imagining. If he could be that shadow again, if he could deserve another order, another calculating gaze that would measure him and find him... suitable.
The sudden sound of the stone door sliding open made his eyes snap back open, Barty's heart leaped violently against his ribs, and he realized it was him.
Regulus Black entered the common room, his face even paler than usual in the firelight, his features as if carved from marble. He carried with him a faint scent of night air, of wet grass and the dampness of the dungeons; he must be returning from his patrol as a prefect.
His gray eyes scanned the room, disinterested, then that icy gaze slid to the corner of the shadows, to where Barty sat.
Barty froze, feeling like an insect under a magnifying glass, but to his astonishment (and to an ecstasy that began to bubble in his stomach), Regulus did not look away. Instead, with silent, deliberate steps, he crossed the room toward him.
Barty's heart pounded in his ears, drowning out the crackling of the fire. He forced himself to remain seated, not to fidget, not to spoil the moment.
Regulus stopped before his armchair, his gaze shifting from the closed book in Barty's lap to his face.
Barty felt his breath catch in his chest, his lungs burning from the lack of air that had settled in with Regulus's presence. His fingers dug into the velvet of the armchair, searching for something, anything, to prevent his hands from betraying the trembling that began at his fingertips and spread through his arms. He could feel his own pulse pounding furiously at the base of his throat, a wild drumming that he was sure Regulus could hear in the oppressive silence of the room.
"Crouch" Regulus said in such a low voice that Barty had to lean forward to hear, the movement causing a strand of hair to fall over his eyes, which burned fixed on the pale face before him.
"Black. Quiet rounds?"
Regulus ignored the banal question, his eyes narrowing slightly, studying Barty with an intensity that made the air colder.
"Can't sleep?"
"Sleep is for those who have nothing better to do."
"And you do?"
"Observe, learn, and wait."
Regulus turned completely, leaning against the window. The light from the fireplace now illuminated half of his face, leaving the other half in deep shadows. It was disconcertingly beautiful and terrifying.
"Wait for what, Crouch?"
For the first time, Barty didn't have a ready, rehearsed answer; the truth, naked and raw, rose in his throat like acid.
"For you."
The words came out in a hoarse whisper, a secret confessed to the night air, and Barty felt as if he had just been completely undressed, each layer of protection ripped away until only exposed flesh and nerves on edge remained. His hands trembled openly now, abandoning any pretense of control; he could feel the cold sweat running down his spine, contrasting with the feverish heat radiating from his face. His lips were dry, and he nervously moistened them with his tongue, unable to look away from Regulus, even if it meant his own destruction.
Regulus did not recoil, showed no contempt. His face remained a mask, but his eyes… his eyes seemed to refract the dim light. He studied Barty like an archaeologist studies a rare and disturbing artifact.
"I'm not a nighttime spectacle to entertain you, Crouch," Regulus said, but his voice lacked its previous cutting coldness.
"I know. This isn't about entertainment, but about instruction," Barty said, rising from his chair and approaching Regulus.
"Instruction?"
The passion contained for years, the madness that finally broke through the doors of Barty's rehearsed reason, overflowed like a river after a shattered dam. There was no longer room for "Black," for formalities that served only as a shield for a desire that gnawed at his insides. He decided to throw himself into the abyss, and each word he spoke was another step towards total rejection or impossible acceptance.
"Yes, you teach without saying anything. Your quietness, your patience, your lethality that needs no grand gestures." I… I want to understand, Regulus, I want to learn this language, the language of silent power.
The name, spoken like that, in that tone of surrender and defiance, hung in the air between them like a spark on gunpowder. Regulus's face, half illuminated by the greenish fire, did not change. But his eyes… ah, his eyes… The coldness in them trembled, cracked for an instant at the recognition that the final barrier, that of the surname, of distance, of impersonal hierarchy, had been crossed. Barty was no longer addressing the Black heir, he was addressing the man behind the crown of ice.
Regulus did not move away, he remained leaning against the window, a statue of contemplation and danger, but now his attention was no longer that of a prince observing a curious subject, it was that of a predator assessing another predator who, suddenly, had decided to speak the same secret language.
Regulus remained silent for an agonizing time. His gaze swept over Barty's face, his eyes burning, his trembling hands slightly clenched at his sides, his posture tense and pleading at the same time.
"It's a dangerous language, Crouch. It's not written in books, it's written in intentions and in silences. And once learned… there's no unlearning it."
Barty replied abruptly, before he could even contain his despair. His brown eyes burned with an almost feverish intensity, fixed on the gray eyes that now gazed at him with a new depth.
"I don't want to unlearn it, I want to be fluent, to speak this language with you, even if it's just to hear your silence in return."
"Silence is the hardest part to interpret and the most revealing."
Barty was breathless, his heart felt like it wanted to escape his chest. The devotion, the obsession of years, the distorted and unhealthy love, everything overflowed, unrestrained.
Regulus stepped away from the window, a single, fluid, silent step that halved the distance between them. Now, Barty could see every detail of his pale face, the shadow of dark eyelashes on his cheekbones, the firm line of his lips.
"Power is a burden, a crushing privilege, not something one desires, something one carries."
"Then let me carry it with you, the smallest fragment. Let me be… useful, not just in potions, in everything, be your instrument, your shadow. Whatever you need."
Barty was kneeling on the cold stone floor, though physically still standing. Regulus looked at him and then, something unbelievable happened.
He reached out, landing lightly on Barty's face, his fingers incredibly cold even from being near the fireplace.
Barty shuddered violently, a chill running through his entire body, and his eyes lifted, unable to resist, meeting Regulus's. And then he saw.
In those silver eyes, normally so glacial and calculating, lay something in the depths that made Barty's blood boil and freeze simultaneously. It wasn't kindness, because Regulus Black knew no kindness. It was recognition, the kind of recognition one abyss offers another when they finally meet.
There was a darkness there, vast and ancient, promising ruin and redemption in equal measure. It was the consciousness of a predator recognizing in another being the same insatiable hunger, the same capacity to devour and be devoured without remorse.
Barty saw in Regulus's silver eyes the reflection of what he himself was: something broken seeking to merge with something equally shattered, in the mad hope that two ruins could create a profane cathedral.
And beneath it all, so deep that Barty hardly dared believe he was seeing, lay a silent, dangerous question: Could you truly bear the weight of my darkness?
Barty's answer was in the way his lips parted, in the way his breath trembled, in the way he unconsciously pressed his face against the cold palm, like a devotee seeking the blessing of a cruel deity.
"Your loyalty is… terrifying, Crouch."
Regulus's words sounded like a solemn statement, almost reverent, as if he saw an abyss in Barty's eyes and glimpsed his own image reflected in its depths.
His cold fingers withdrew from Barty's face, leaving behind a void that yearned for the return of that ice. Regulus adjusted his posture and looked at Barty for one last moment, his gray eyes seeming to weigh the future, to measure the reach of the monstrous devotion offered to him.
Then, with an almost imperceptible movement of his head—a nod that was both approval and postponement—he made to leave the room.
"Keep reading, Crouch, knowledge is also power," Regulus said, his voice already assuming the distance that physics was about to impose, as he walked away.
He paused at the threshold of the darkness of the corridor leading to the dormitories. He turned his head just enough for Barty to see the austere profile, the severe line of his mouth molding to the final words, the coup de grâce that was also a seed planted:
"The quietest of them all."
And then, he was gone, his silhouette dissolving into the shadows, the sound of his footsteps swallowed by the ancient stone of the castle.
Barty remained behind, the tremor that ran through him was no longer from cold or fear. It was the vibration of an instrument that had just found its purpose. The common room, once a place of petty intrigues and noisy ambitions, now seemed an empty sanctuary after the passage of a shadowy deity.
His eyes lowered to the abandoned book on the armchair, which had once been just a heavy volume, a tedious obligation, but now, the leather cover seemed to pulsate.
Regulus had asked nothing tangible of him, given no explicit order, no target, no mission. Instead, he had given him a key, a direction, a purpose that intertwined perfectly with Barty's morbid devotion: Learn, become dangerous, be a weapon so sharp and discreet that your mere existence is an unspoken threat.
It was more than Barty had ever dreamed of; it was a canonization of his own madness. A slow, vast, and completely unbalanced smile spread across Barty's face; it wasn't a smile of happiness, but of pure ecstasy. The kind of ecstasy only a fanatic knows when he finds his ultimate altar.
His hands finally relaxed, but now they trembled for a different reason, not from fear or nervousness, but from a frenetic energy that coursed through his veins like liquid fire. He brought his fingers to his own face, touching the exact spot where Regulus had touched him, as if he could capture the ghost of that ice and keep it forever etched into his skin. His breath came in short, uneven bursts, his chest rising and falling as if he had just emerged from deep waters. His eyes, wide and feverish, fixed on the void where Regulus had been, as if he could still see the ghostly silhouette of his dark god.
The waiting, that passive agony of years, was over. It had been replaced by active anticipation; he was no longer merely gazing at the throne where the Prince of Slytherin sat. He had received a mission to become worthy of standing beside him, or rather, at his feet.