There were many things to notice about Barty in this way. One was that he rarely ever removed his clothing in front of others, all of the buttons were done up to his neck and his tie was never loose. Not a thread could be out of place on his uniform and he gave off the air that he never relaxed, not even in private. But here he was, exposed, and it was unusual in that he did not appear to be uncomfortable in any way I might recognize. On the contrary, he had a languid grace about him, the way he moved, he was completely secure in his own body and cared not for the prying eyes[ my own] that drank in every inch of him that he had offered.Â
Two: I had not expected him to be so well prepared to take on physical threats. Do not mistake me, I had not spent time examining his clothed form and having mental discussions with myself about how he might fare in a tussle had he lost his wand somehow. Barty was not known to be a force with a wand, though I had few doubts that he was not. Sometimes it was the silent ones who displayed the most prodigious skill in the end. However, he was what one might call a book nerd, and it is not within most imaginations to assume that these types could also knock you out with one punch, or stand up to one of yours. So no, I had not expected Barty to be so fit and it left me wondering why he seemed to feel he needed to be. There is something to be said about health, yes, but what would this particular boy need to be so fit for? Was he fighting battles I could not fathom? Was it arrogance perhaps, a touch of vanity I had missed in his demeanor? Or, and most sadly, was he focused on making himself stronger, was he intending to be seen as something less than a weak human being that could be appropriated as a punching bag? All these thoughts left me dizzy and off balance and my heart ached for the boy I’d never spoken to.
Three. I was concerned at first, was he attempting to drown himself? The water was beyond frigid, small sheets of ice floated past on the current but Barty kept his face in the water for more than a few seconds. I know how cold can burn, how it is more like fire than anyone would care to admit, that ice can burn as uncomfortably as a raging inferno. But there he was, submerged. I began to worry, I could not help it, how was he breathing? And how, for I could not fathom it as I preferred warmth, was he not screaming at the way his face must have been tingling with pinpricks of pain? How was this quiet, bookish boy managing this feat? And if he wasn’t trying to drown himself, to lock himself into eternal sleep, than the only other option was to wake up. The water could certainly do that, set neurons firing and pain receptors squealing off their axis, what hell was he trying to force from his mind and body? Why did he feel the need to use such drastic actions to wake himself up? What was bothering around in that head of his that he was forcibly trying to drive out?
In the end I have only myself to blame. Had anyone been looking more closely they might have noticed that those who were so put together were the ones falling apart most rapidly. Perhaps Barty had once been a lovely statue, one that had been chipped away at, one that had already crumbled and he was nothing more than a boy who had spent countless hours and days and weeks slowly gluing back the tiniest parts of himself. He was stone, he was marble but had anyone gotten close enough to see the small fissures and minuscule cracks that lined his entire being?
There was once a time that Barty Crouch Jr. happened upon what appeared to be an abandoned notebook out by the Black Lake one January morning. He was, at first, not inclined to read it as that would intrude on the owner’s private thoughts. However, he was not able to find or identify an owner and curiosity simply dictated he had to read it to discover who might have penned it. Upon opening it he discovered entries concerning many people, the thoughts of the owner reflective and insightful. Barty was rather intrigued, until he found the entries about himself. Feeling as if he’d been unmasked, and by a stranger no less, left him cold and he buried the notebook at the very bottom of his trunk never to be found or read by another. If one person had seen so much of him, surely there were more. Barty spent months despising the author, not knowing who it was, and also desperate for an answer, a name so he might find the one person that had truly seen him. In the end he could not decide what was more fortunate, that he didn’t know and wanted to, or that he did know and didn’t want to.
