Chapter Text
It happened in a matter of seconds. Maybe that was why it never truly sank in for Barty.
They'd been on a mission for the Dark Lord. They'd learned that Dumbledore had stationed Moody on that street, which had to mean it was close to the headquarters for the Order of the Phoenix, right? At least, that had been Bellatrix's suggestion. Barty himself thought it was obviously a bluff, but Bellatrix's stupid shrill voice always got through to the Lord, so they'd been sent to deal with Moody and break into the 'headquarters'.
By they, of course, he meant himself and Bellatrix… and Rosie.
Rosie, who had, just a few minutes ago, broken Moody's nose with his bare fucking elbow—and Barty had cheered and cursed the Longbottom woman who'd been trying to sneak up on them. He'd turned around briefly to deal with her husband, who was throwing jinx after jinx at him—jelly-legs, seriously? What were they, twelve? It was ridiculous, the way the order refrained from using dark magic and Unforgivables even when their lives were in danger. Sheer stupidity, Barty thought.
That had been his last thought—sheer stupidity—when he heard a blood-curdling yell that made his heart stop for a beat.
It happened before he could so much as turn and look. He wasn't even sure what exactly did it. All he knew was that Moody had done something to Rosie. Rosie, who was lying on the ground in a heap; Rosie, whose mask had fallen off and clattered to the ground; Rosie, whose eyes had slipped shut; Rosie, who wasn't moving.
Barty forgot all about the Longbottoms. He didn't know whether he ran over to Rosie or apparated the few feet between them. It didn't matter. He felt for Rosie's pulse, ran all the diagnostic spells he could think of.
Everything came back negative.
It was like someone had thrown a dripping blanket over a fire. Barty felt cold. His vision felt clearer, his hearing sharper. He smelt blood—the scent so strong he might have been having a nosebleed. He touched his face briefly, just to confirm that he himself wasn't bleeding. Slowly, mechanically, he dragged Rosie behind a building for safety, leaning him against a wall as though he were sitting on the ground, resting.
There was a distant shout from behind Barty—whether it was from Bellatrix or one of the Order members, he didn't know, but he turned back to the fight slowly and raised his wand. He cast a curse, then another, then another, not caring whether they hit Moody or the Longbottoms or anyone else who walked across his path. He felt a little as though he were watching himself from the outside. It was an odd feeling. He vaguely wondered if this was what it felt like to be Imperiused—to watch yourself do things, not being completely sure why you're doing them, but feeling oddly like you have to act or else you'll fall to pieces.
Bellatrix, oblivious—or maybe not—laughed. Barty thought she might have complimented one of his curses, perhaps. He wasn't too sure. He heard her scream crucio. Crucio. Yes—yes, that was a good idea. Barty knew how to cast crucio. He wanted to—he wanted to hurt someone.
He was aware of uttering the incantation, aware of the spell landing. Whom it was hitting, whether he spoke the spell quietly or screamed it—those were blurry details. Someone was screaming, he didn't know or care who. At some point, he distantly heard the pop of someone disapparating. The screams died down and turned into sobs.
Then Bellatrix pulled his hand and started talking to him. He blinked at her, his eyes unfocused for a second.
"Moody is going to come back with reinforcements. We need to go," she said. Reinforcements? Oh. Right. The Order of the Phoenix. The Dark Lord. The war.
"Okay, okay, I'll, uh—I'll get Rosie—"
Bellatrix made a small sound of impatience. "Rosier is dead. We don't have time to get him. Grab hold, we need to leave right now." She snatched his hand and tried to get him to hold onto her elbow.
Barty snatched it back. "I'm not leaving him."
She scoffed. "Crouch, he's dead. Reinforcements will be here any second, let's go—"
But Barty wrenched his hand away from her just as she disappeared with a loud crack. He couldn't leave Rosie there, tucked behind a building, where anyone could find him. He needed to—he needed to go back home. Rosie always went back home, even on nights when meetings ran late and their hosts offered them spare bedrooms. No, Rosie liked going home to his bed, to his toothbrush, to the snake-shaped alarm clock he kept on his bedside table.
Barty ran over to where he'd propped Rosie up against the brick wall of a building. He heard the telltale cracks of Order reinforcements arriving. He checked Rosie's pulse one more time, just to be sure, then hauled him up, draping his arms over Barty's won shoulders. Barty groaned. Rosie was heavy and taller than him, so his feet dragged on the ground when Barty stumbled, trying to steady himself. Well, at least he didn't need to walk. He apparated with a crack just as he heard someone shout, "One of them is still here! Get him!"
He stumbled again when he landed at his destination—a grimy, lonely alleyway where the walls were covered in rude words and the air stank of piss. Hey, Barty didn't exactly have much money of his own. He'd stolen some from his father, exchanged it for Muggle cash and got himself a tiny little flat on this sketchy street. He wasn't thrilled about having to live among Muggles, but he was fairly certain that this would be the last place anyone would think to look for him, so he avoided his neighbours and lay low.
Barty took his Death Eater mask off, made his way to the staircase that led up to his flat, carefully making sure to not accidentally bump Rosie against anything. He glanced at the lift opposite the draughty, grimy stairwell. It was an interesting invention—a little room that one could stand in and wait till it floated up to the right floor. Somewhat tedious and nowhere near as efficient as the Floo, but Barty's flat wasn't connected to the Floo network for safety reasons and he couldn't apparate directly into it either, because of the safety wards he'd set up. He considered for a second, then shook his head and pulled out his wand to cast a levitation spell. He did not trust a Muggle floating room with Rosie.
Slowly, carefully, Barty floated Rosie up the stairs, following him from behind so he wouldn't lose sight of him. He winced when Rosie's foot connected with the wall once, but fortunately it was just a little knock. Still, he focused even harder, barely daring to blink until they had reached his flat and Barty had safely locked the door behind the two of them after setting Rosie down on his chair. There were only two in Barty's flat—one which he himself used and one which Rosie used when he came over. He made sure to sit Rosie down on this second one.
Barty rolled his shoulders back, stretching his neck from side to side to ease the cricks. He glanced at Rosie. His head was hanging forward, his neck bent at an odd angle. No, that wouldn't do. Barty pulled Rosie's head back up gently, trying to keep it upright, but it kept lolling unnaturally. He put a hand to Rosie's cheek and frowned. His skin was warm. That wasn't good, was it? It wasn't a good kind of warmth. Weren't—bodies—supposed to be cold? Barty thought quickly and pulled off Rosie's robes, rearranging his limbs as they were before. He folded the silky fabric into a rough square and kept it aside. He pulled off his shoes and slid down his boxers, arranging everything in a little pile next to Rosie's robes.
They were nice robes. Rosie always wore nice robes, the rich fucker. Barty had nice clothes too, clothes he'd brought with him when he left home and took this flat. He rarely wore them, though. They still smelled a little like the air freshener spell they used at his father's house. Rosie never really understood why Barty let that sort of thing bother him. Spray on some perfume if you care that much, he always said.
Now stripped bare, Rosie would probably cool down a bit, right? Barty touched his cheek. Yes, it was cooler than before. He breathed a sigh of relief and continued to rub a tender thumb over Rosie's cheek. He was so beautiful, even—even like this. The heavy eyebrows, the prominent nose, the long eyelashes, the full lips. Those were unchanged. His skin, though, looked paler than before. Barty scanned his entire body—perhaps staring a few seconds too long at Rosie's limp cock and balls, but who was around to judge him?—and came to the conclusion that maybe sitting in a chair wasn't the best position for Rosie to be in. His feet looked swollen and discoloured, his toes rounder than they should be. Rosie's blood appeared to be moving southwards. Barty had a sudden and horrific image pop into his mind of Rosie's big toe exploding and the insides—yeah, he didn't want to complete that thought. He pulled out his wand and cast another levitation spell on Rosie, this time to float him to the bedroom.
He laid him down on the bed carefully, resting his head on a pillow, and cast a strong stasis spell on him. Barty didn't know if there was a specific temperature or position he should be keeping Rosie in, but at least the stasis would keep anything changing, at least until he figured out what to do.
With a sigh, Barty lay down beside Rosie. "What a fucking day, huh?" he said. "I wish I could just sleep. But no, we have a meeting in—" he checked the time "—less than an hour." He groaned and threw his head back against his pillow. "Fucking hell."
He lay there in silence for a while. Rosie, of course, didn't say anything back.
Barty wouldn't cry. He refused to.
He took a few deep breaths, trying to will the tears pooling in his eyes back in somehow. Crying did nothing. It was a waste of time. He couldn't turn up for a Death Eater meeting with swollen eyes. It just wouldn't do.
He blinked rapidly, clearing his vision. It was nearly time for the meeting. He glanced over at Rosie. He really didn't want to leave him. He took a deep breath again, touching the Mark on his left arm, reminding himself of his duty. This was bigger than him. So, giving Rosie one last look, Barty donned his mask and robes and apparated to the arrival spot near the meeting location.
_____
It was at Malfoy Manor today. His house was about all Malfoy was good for, in Barty's opinion. That and his spotless public reputation. That, apparently, was why he was an asset—his contacts in high places and the lack of suspicion around him. Barty argued that that was because Malfoy didn't do anything of any actual use.
He sat down, eyeing the others carefully. He hoped his face didn't betray anything. He'd always been a good liar. The only person who could always see through his lies was Rosie and—well, Rosie wasn't at the meeting, was he?
Malfoy Manor was better than some of their other meeting locations, he thought, as the other Death Eaters gave their reports. He did his best to pay attention—really, he did. He usually did. He just couldn't bring himself to be interested in what fucking Macnair and Yaxley did on their mission. Ministry bootlickers. They'd choose their jobs over the cause in a heartbeat if things went awry. Barty didn't trust them. The Dark Lord liked having spies everywhere though, so he tolerated their presence. They droned on and on, and he heard their voices like he was underwater and they were above ground.
His attention snapped back when the Dark Lord hummed in acknowledgement. "Bellatrix, Crouch? You had a mission today. Where is—" He glanced around. "Was Rosier not with you?"
"He didn't make it, my Lord," Bellatrix said. She was sitting as close to the Dark Lord as possible, leaning towards him as she spoke. "But two people from their side are out of action. The Longbottom couple. They're alive, but mad. Completely useless."
The Dark Lord hummed. "What did you do with the body? Rosier's?"
"Uh—" Bellatrix turned to Barty. "They started calling in reinforcements, so I thought it best to leave. Crouch was still with the body when I left. What did you do with it, Crouch?"
"I left it," Barty said, without a second of hesitation. He'd been practising it in his mind so they wouldn't catch him off-guard or suspect anything. It pained him to lie to the Dark Lord, but it was Rosie. The rules always got a little wonky when it came to Rosie. "I hung back to decide what was best to do, but the reinforcements started appearing, so I had to leave it behind."
The Dark Lord frowned. "You left the body for them to find?"
Part of Barty shrank in shame, even though he hadn't done that. Another part cursed Bellatrix, because she'd actually done what the Dark Lord was accusing him of, and she wasn't getting told off. His eye dropped distastefully to the unnecessarily deep neckline of Bellatrix's robes. At the end of the day, even the Dark Lord was just a man, after all, and Bellatrix knew how to play to her advantages. He pulled himself together and apologised quickly. The Dark Lord was merciful if one showed proper remorse.
"No matter," the Dark Lord acquiesced. "There is nothing they can learn from the body. They already know of your Marks. He wasn't carrying anything of value?"
"No, my Lord."
The Dark Lord nodded and the meeting continued as the others reported back on their missions. Barty's shoulders slumped and he let his thoughts wander back home. He had just been considering his plan of action when Lucius Malfoy cleared his throat quietly, shooting Barty a slight glare. Barty blinked, realising he'd idly been staring at him.
Malfoy was useful for one thing.
Barty gave him a small smile and nodded politely. Malfoy looked taken aback for a second before realisation dawned on his face and he rolled his eyes, nostrils flaring. Barty did his best to stifle a laugh.
"What do you want?" Malfoy came up beside Barty as they were exiting the room where the meeting had taken place.
"I need to consult your library," Barty said. Usually, he'd toy with Malfoy a little first, make him uncomfortable, maybe even flirt with him just to see him squirm. Right now, though—he just couldn't be bothered.
"What for?" Malfoy asked.
Barty's mind worked quickly. "I've been looking into an old spell invented by the Vikings. It could predict whether the people they cast it on were going to die soon. They used it to anticipate deaths and ensure victories in war by only sending out soldiers who were predicted to survive. Thought if I tweaked it a little, it might be useful with, you know, the—" Barty lowered his voice to a whisper "—prophecy."
Barty had only recently learned of the prophecy. Bellatrix, of course, had already been told about it. She'd made a big fuss, telling him he couldn't tell the others and that it might make them question. If something like that could make the others question, then personally, Barty didn't think they belonged in the first place—but he didn't say that. Malfoy had been told at the same time as him, and he'd gone all pale and serious.
Truth be told, the prophecy was none of his business—the Dark Lord was handling that largely alone—but Lucius Malfoy didn't know that. He just had to say the word once, and any further questions Malfoy might've otherwise asked remained unspoken.
Malfoy inhaled sharply. "Lower your voice!" he hissed, as if Barty hadn't already done that. "Okay. Fine. Use the library. Just don't make a mess. And leave before anyone notices you're missing. You don't want to answer questions about what you're doing there."
He's more right about that than he knows, Barty thought as he made his way downstairs to Malfoy Manor's library. He'd consulted it a few times before, on account of it being one of the largest private libraries in the the country—complete with a secret (and illegal) section on dark magic.
The room was lined with rows and rows of standing bookshelves, but luckily, the books were fairly well-organised, so it wouldn't take Barty long to find what he was looking for. The problem was that he didn't know what he was looking for. He found a few books about death, immortality, necromancy and the like, and flipped through them, waiting for something interesting to jump out at him. He saw a lot of the same phrases—too dangerous, not advised, near impossible, grieve and let go. Useless.
Browsing the dark magic section led him to horcruxes and the Deathly Hallows from fairy tale—which apparently there was proof to suggest might exist in real life. How to make a horcrux—or even how to split one's soul—wasn't clearly mentioned in any book, and anyway, a horcrux needed to be made by the person themself. Barty was almost completely certain Rosie hadn't made one—he'd have known if Rosie'd done something like that, right? Maybe. Maybe not…? Not worth wondering about, anyway. The only Hallow that sounded relevant was the Resurrection Stone, which was, apparently, long lost.
He paused as he came to a book on inferi. The illustrations in it were far from what one might describe as pleasant, but the book was a lot clearer and more informative than the others he'd seen. He'd been under the impression that an inferius was by nature a gross-looking being, but apparently that had purely to do with how old it was and what state it was in. That gave Barty some hope… But the issue with inferi was that they didn't have wills of their own. They needed a master to obey and they couldn't think, make decisions or otherwise act independently at all. The book presented this as a positive thing—and yes, if he had wanted an army of soldiers for whatever reason, for instance, it would've been a positive thing, but that wasn't his goal.
He cast a quick tempus and realised he was running out of time, but at least he finally had something to go on. He picked up the book about inferi, then quickly found a book on death, decomposition, embalming, mummification and the like. He couldn't exactly ask Malfoy to borrow his books, and he knew that they'd be missed if he stole them—so he used a little trick he'd come up with at school.
"Imaginem memoria tene," he said, flipping through the books and making sure not to blink. It was a simple enough spell he'd come up with in fifth year. It gave him (temporary) photographic memory of anything he glanced at, even for a fraction of a second. It'd saved him a lot of time studying. He'd just flip through his books a few minutes before his exams and he'd have all the answers he needed without wasting hours taking notes and memorising dates. The spell had probably been against the rules—but hey, his grades had won enough house points that he thought it cancelled out.
Once he was through with all the books, he put them back in their spots on the shelves and slipped back upstairs.
_____
"I'm home!" Barty called as he let himself in to his flat. He hurried to the bedroom, not bothering to take off his mask or robes. He left his shoes on, not really caring that he'd stepped in a muddy puddle on his way home and had probably dirtied the floor.
Rosie was on the bed, just as Barty had left him. He took a closer look, to make sure nothing had escaped his stasis charm. Fortunately, Rosie was exactly as he'd been before Barty left.
"Alright, let's see what we can do now…" Barty murmured, rolling up his sleeves and closing his eyes. He mentally flipped through the pages of the book on death and decomposition. It seemed like he'd done the right thing so far by keeping Rosie horizontal, cool, and under a stasis charm. He skipped the chapters on mummification. He had no intention of removing Rosie's brain through his nostrils. Nor did he want to put his organs in jars. He wanted to leave everything as it was as far as possible.
It seemed like that was possible; it'd just need maintenance. He'd need to keep Rosie at a certain temperature. Cold, but not freezing. Luckily, the temperature Rosie was at right now was just about perfect, but stasis spells needed renewing, and Barty couldn't rely on the weather being right all the time. He would need to add a temperature clause to his stasis.
He fiddled around with the spell a bit, and once Rosie seemed safely preserved for the time being, he carefully helped him off the bed. It was about time for dinner. He levitated Rosie to the living room in a roughly seated position, settling him down on the sofa. The stasis was strong enough that there probably wouldn't be any toe swelling incidents like before, and Barty liked having company when he ate. Since leaving home, he'd eaten nearly all his meals alone, except on days when Rosie had come over. And, well—Rosie was here for good now, which meant Barty could eat all his meals with him.
Barty scrounged up some greasy leftovers and nibbled on them, curled up on the sofa beside Rosie. He hesitated for a second, then reached out and rolled Rosie's eyelids open. His eyes were—well, they were still beautiful. Dark brown, almost black, easy to get lost in. But they looked wrong. Glassy. Barty sighed and gently shut Rosie's eyes. He looked more like himself with his eyes shut. Like he'd just dozed off.
"You did that quite a few times," Barty said out loud with a soft chuckle. "When you're tired after a particularly intense mission. The number of times you've fallen asleep on the sofa…" He was silent for a moment. "I always wanted to offer you the bed."
The silence was a little awkward. Barty cleared his throat. "I had a really crazy day today. Above average. You'd be amazed. Well…" He considered. "You were around for most of it, so maybe not. Meeting was pretty standard, though. Ministry bootlickers being themselves. Bellatrix using cheap tricks to buy the Dark Lord's favour. Her lipstick today was practically vulgar." He shivered. "You would've hated it."
Barty ate in silence for a while, not taking his eyes off Rosie. "I miss you," he whispered. "Wake up."
Rosie didn't.
After dinner, Barty tucked Rosie into bed beside him. The stasis would hold—he wouldn't overheat under the sheets. He turned the light off and said good night before falling asleep within seconds. He'd had a day.
_____
If a stranger were to have observed Barty over the next several months, they would've said that each day was near identical to the next. He woke up, rolled over, said good morning, and refreshed the stasis spell. After a breakfast of questionable nutritional value, he checked if he needed to attend a meeting that day or go on a mission. If he did, he called goodbye, Rosie before leaving home. He performed his Death Eater duties out of dedication, and still did them as well as he could, but he didn't linger after meetings or go out of his way to volunteer for missions anymore. He made sure he was home to cast the second stasis spell before the first one ran out. He said good night before bed every night, after having eaten another unhealthy meal on the sofa. He spent all his remaining time writing on seemingly endless amounts of parchment. He wrote more notes than he had in the entirety of his time at school. Yes, Barty's routine might have looked monotonous to someone on the outside, but what a stranger wouldn't have been able to tell was that Barty was making significant progress in his goal.
He'd spent the first day more or less copying out the contents of the books he'd memorised at the Malfoy library—abridged—before his memory spell ran out and he lost all the information. He skipped some of the definitely irrelevant chapters, but if he was unsure if something would be useful, he wrote it down anyway. Just in case.
After that, he read through all his notes several times over and wrote down various possibilities with long lists of pros and cons. He slowly came up with a list of different possible routes of action.
"What do you think, Rosie?" Barty asked one night, turning to him in bed. Rosie wore one of Barty's old pyjama sets that was too big for him now. "Do you think something'll work?"
It would be a lie to say that having Rosie in his bed every night hadn't been a temptation for Barty. He was right there; it was so easy to just reach out and touch him—so he had. Hey, repression and abstinence was Rosie's thing, not Barty's. He'd run a hand over Rosie's lovely chest, kissed his soft cheeks, touched the hair Rosie had been so precious about with curious fingers. He'd taken his cock in his hand, cupped his balls with the other. He'd loosened Rosie's hole with his fingers and his mouth. He'd slipped his tongue into Rosie's mouth after opening it gently. He'd done it all several times over. He couldn't count the number of times he'd wiped Rosie's body with a damp cloth after he'd touched himself to the feeling of his body under his hands and mouth.
But Rosie himself never got hard, his mouth tasted dry and bland, not like Barty thought it should, and he never made a sound.
He spent weeks and weeks making calculations and theoretical predictions on how his ideas might work. He experimented—not on Rosie, of course. On random objects. A tattered taxidermy bird he'd got for ten knuts in a shop in Knockturn Alley, a muggle child's doll fallen in the street, a few dead mice. He observed the results, made adjustments and changes to his spells, tried again and again and again.
It was around noon on a Tuesday when one of the dead mice he'd brought back home from a nearby alley stood up and turned its head this way and that to observe its surroundings, its little nose twitching. All on its own, with no command from him.
Barty stared at it, barely daring to blink or breathe. It looked up at him, its nose still twitching. It didn't run away; it just stood there, looking at Barty with what he guessed was curiosity. It was still there when Barty left to get a large jar, and it didn't protest when he picked it up and put it inside the container. It just walked around its new home, sniffing and exploring.
Carefully, so as to not startle the mouse into biting him, he put his finger in the jar and held it under the mouse's nose. It sniffed at him, but he didn't feel a single puff of warm air against his skin. No need to poke holes in the lid of the box, then.
He carried the jar containing the mouse to the kitchen and set it down on the counter. He'd forgotten to screw the lid on, but the mouse still made no attempt to escape. It just sat there with its paws pressed against the glass, observing the world around it. Barty screwed the lid shut.
This could be the breakthrough; the final trial. He tried to ignore the anxious churning in his stomach as he watched the mouse. Everything seemed to be going fine so far, but there was still one final test that needed to go well. If that went well… it meant he was done—done with his research, done with his notes, and done with his animal corpses.
He sat cross-legged on the kitchen floor, staring at the mouse for hours on end, getting up only to use the bathroom and pop his head into the bedroom to check on Rosie. The mouse wandered around the jar, sniffing the base and peering out at the kitchen, of its own completely free will.
When the mouse's knees buckled, Barty was ready for it. He drew his wand and re-cast the spell he'd cast on it before—and the mouse stopped falling mid-collapse. It tilted its head and looked at Barty through the glass like what was that?
Barty's breathing was shallow and his heart was pounding. Seven hours. The spell needed refreshing every seven hours, and it worked. It fucking worked.
He sat Rosie down in his chair, settling his hands neatly in his lap and making sure his legs weren't twisted awkwardly. He drank in the sight of Rosie in his chair, knowing it might be the last time he'd see him like this. He had enough faith in his magic to know that he wouldn't fail. But unexpected things happened sometimes, things he never could've predicted. Was that a risk he was willing to take?
Yes. When Rosie was involved, always, a hundred times, yes. He leaned in and pressed a soft kiss to Rosie's lips, then straightened up.
"It's now or never," Barty said, raising his wand. He took a deep breath and cast the spell.
For a second, nothing happened. Barty held his breath, waiting. Then there was a flash of blinding white light.