Dark Mark

Chapter 7


"So, what is it exactly that you plan to do once you get into Hogwarts?"

"I don't really know....not now anyway....I had in mind to do a wee bit of the rape/pillage/plunder thing but you pretty much pulled the plug out of the rape part of it. I'm beginning to have doubts about my abilities as an evil personage."

Hermione giggled, pulling on her shoes and trying to capture her long, unruly hair into a clip. It wasn't cooperating. Barty reached over and took the clip from her, pushing his fingers into her hair and bringing it all together at the back of her neck. A quick *snap* and the clip was in place.

"Well I suppose you could always go into hairdressing if the Evil Wizard thing doesn't work out."

Barty seemed to be considering it.

"Oh I dunno...I rather fancied meself more of the death and destruction type. I'm mad as a ferret you know. Although it would give me access to sharp instruments."

Hermione sized him up, taking him in fully for the first time as he pulled his shirt on and set about tying his boot laces.

He was not bad looking.

For having just spent a considerable amount of time locked away in Azkeban, at least. She remembered what Sirius had looked like the first time she'd seen him, gaunt and wasted and skeletal, with sunken eyes and sallow skin. Barty bore similar physical signs of bondage, but the haunted, desperate look that she'd seen in Sirius' eyes wasn't in Barty's. Sirius had known he was innocent...Barty would be the first to admit he was guilty as hell and proud of it. That must have been the difference. Crouch's eyes were bright and alive with a fevered fire that bordered on manic insanity, where Sirius' eyes had just been dead.

Hermione felt seriously conflicted.

"You know, Barty...I can't just let you waltz into the castle and do...whatever it is that you're planning on doing. I mean, obviously you're up to no good, and those people are my friends, and...well..."

She raised her wand, pointing it at Crouch's chest.

"If you make me, I'll stop you."

Barty looked at her in the dim moonlight seeping in through the myriad cracks of the shack's delapidated walls and thought, My god she's quite beautiful.

What a waste it would be to have to kill her.

"Alright then," he conceded, pulling on his jacket and patting his wand, tucked safely into the pocket, to show Hermione that she wasn't going to have a fight from him on this. "Let's go."

Hermione was confused, her wand still drawn and levelled dead center on his heart. "Go where?"

"To the castle of course."

"But, I---"

"You what?"

Befuddled silence.

"Love, I've scrapped the rape/pillage/plunder thing, although I don't believe I'll be going the hairdressing route either to be quite honest...seeing as there aren't a whole lot of career possibilitiess open to the unreformed Dark Wizard, I think my only other feasible option is to turn myself in."

Hermione stared at him in silent surprise.

"You what?"

"I'm going to turn myself in."

"But---but they'll kill you! It was in The Daily Prophet just this morning, they've begun executing prisoners who are too dangerous for rehabilitation and the prison is worthless now with the Dementors gone---"

"Do you think I'm too dangerous for rehabilitation?"

Hermione lowered her wand. He did seem a bit unstable, but that didn't necessarily mean he was non-reformable.

"Well...no...now that you mention it...you don't seem all that dangerous to me."

Barty felt a dark fury boil up inside him. You don't seem all that dangerous to me??

He'd show the little brat, and all her little friends, just how dangerous he was.

All he had to do was get inside. And this snotty little girl was his ticket in.

"Ah, well there, you see then? I'm no real threat. A little rehab, some lovely drugs, a stint in Saint Mungo's and I should be sparkly new in no time. I'm a victim of my environment, you know."

The charming smile had returned, pulling Hermione in with its devilish spark.

Or so it would seem.

I'm no fool, Hermione thought with a wicked grin of her own, buttoning her coat and wrapping her long scarf around her neck twice. You are my ticket out of detention, Mister Bartemius Crouch Junior, Deatheater extraordinaire. Nobody will think twice about me missing the carriage when I show up with an escaped convicted murderer in tow. Not only will I NOT be serving detention, I'll probably be nominated for an Honorary Order Of Merlin First Class for your retrieval. Not even the Aurors could catch you!

"Alright then, off we go."

The two conspirators made their way down the rickety staircase, neither taking their eyes off the other as they passed through the dark corridor entrance and into the cramped cavern below the house.

I'm going to be a hero, thought Hermione Granger.

Wait till they get a load of me, thought Barty Crouch Jr.


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