Ever since Barty Crouch could remember, every servant in the house, even the House-elves, told him this:
"You are Mr. Crouch's only son, his most beloved child. Your father has high hopes for you, which is why your name, like his, is Barty."
"You must study hard, become strong and excellent, so you don't disappoint your father's expectations."
Barty took these words to heart and diligently practiced every spell.
When he was seven, he excitedly showed his father the result of his Transfiguration, the first time he had turned a matchstick into a needle.
What was his father busy with at that time?
Barty couldn't quite remember, only that his lofty father gave him a cold glance. Then, he let out an "Oh—" sound and averted his gaze.
It was like a bucket of cold water had been poured over him from head to toe. Barty, holding the needle in his hand, suddenly wasn't so happy anymore.
"It must be that I didn't do well enough."
Barty carefully examined the needle in his hand.
Its tip was a bit thick, and the surface color showed the yellowish hue of the matchstick it had been Transfigured from—this Transfiguration was indeed not perfect.
"I need to do better, more perfectly, to get my father's attention."
So Barty threw away the imperfect needle, locked himself in his room, and practiced magic over and over again.
At eight, he tried to perform a Shrinking Charm in front of his father.
But he accidentally shrunk the documents on the desk to the size of a fingernail. As a result, Barty received a slap from his father and three days of confinement.
At nine, he performed the Shrinking Charm for his father again. This time, he successfully shrunk the designated cardboard box to half its original size.
When he looked at his father with hopeful eyes, longing for praise, his father was busy scolding a junior employee for errors in a report. His busy father wouldn't even spare him a glance.
"Father must be too busy, I'll wait until he's free and perform it for him again."
Barty left the living room happily, holding the smaller cardboard box.
He could already imagine the pride and joy on his father's face when he saw his son skillfully using the Shrinking Charm.
That night, he went to sleep, excitedly restless, filled with the most beautiful imaginations for tomorrow.
The next day, father was busy.
The third day, father was busy.
The fourth day, father was busy.
The fifth day, father was on a business trip.
The sixth day, father was not around.
The seventh day, father was not around.
...
It wasn't until Christmas, when Barty was ten, that he finally got his chance at the Christmas family dinner.
He performed the Shrinking Charm, which he had practiced many times, for his father during the Christmas performance.
He had also learned the Enlarging Charm and the Vanishing Charm.
When the cardboard box shrunk, enlarged, and then vanished, Barty looked up, expectantly at his father.
He had rehearsed this performance many times in his mind. At the end of every rehearsal, his father would happily come forward, embrace him, and smile, saying, "You are truly my good son."
He completed every step of the performance as rehearsed, but in the end, his father neither came forward nor smiled. He pointed behind Barty and said:
"You're blocking your mother's way."
Barty turned around in a panic, seeing his mother standing behind him, her hands suspended mid-air, ready to applaud.
Both mother and son had a moment of flustered helplessness.
Barty lowered his head, holding back the tears that were about to gush out, and stepped aside, making a path for his mother.
His mother wanted to take him to the dining table to enjoy the Christmas dinner. But Barty covered his forehead and told his mother that he had a headache and didn't want to eat right now.
His father then spoke in a dry tone:
"According to etiquette, you should finish dinner with your family."
"But Father, I have a headache."
"According to etiquette, you should finish dinner with your family."
"But Father, I have a headache."
"According to etiquette, you should..."
"My son says he has a headache, are you deaf?"
It was his mother, flaring up and contradicting his father.
"It doesn't hurt, darling. Mother will take you to see a Healer now."
His mother gently picked up Barty, carried him to the bed in his bedroom, covered him with a thick blanket, and then said the Healer would be there shortly.
...
When he was eleven, Barty was going to Hogwarts.
His mother took him to Diagon Alley to buy things. It was his first time encountering so many different strangers.
He saw some Wizard families of three, happily browsing from the stationery store to the pet shop, and a little Wizard, about to start school, holding an owl in a cage, jumping with joy:
"Thank you, Father, for the owl! Father is the best!"
When he was getting his school uniform tailored at the robe shop, he saw a boy put a large amount of change on the counter, saying he wanted to buy a men's Wizard robe as a birthday gift for his father.
This incident inspired Barty.
"Maybe if I also give Father a gift, he will be happy because of me?"
Thinking this, Barty begged his mother to advance him some pocket money so he could buy his father a pair of leather shoes.
He carefully selected a pair of shiny black men's leather shoes and presented them to his father when he returned home.
Under Barty's anxious gaze, his father told him that there were many leather shoes at home and that he shouldn't waste Galleons buying inferior ones.
The imagined sadness did not well up in his heart. In his dazed state, Barty seemed to understand something:
"Perhaps Father doesn't love me as much as I thought."
Hogwarts was about to start. A House-elf helped him pack his school bag, and his mother saw him off at the train station.
When they parted, his mother hugged Barty, tears streaming down her face. She was afraid Barty wouldn't eat enough or sleep well at Hogwarts.
Barty didn't know how to comfort his mother, so he could only talk about other topics to make her stop worrying about eating and sleeping:
"Mother, which House do you think I'll be sorted into?"
"Our whole family has been in Slytherin, so you'll most likely be in Slytherin too. But even if you're sorted into another House, it won't change Mother's love for you."
If that was the case, his father was also a Slytherin student back then.
Barty pouted.
He didn't really want to go to Slytherin anymore.
But at the Sorting Ceremony, the old hat left him no choice. The moment it touched his hair, it shouted:
"Slytherin—"
Barty reluctantly accepted his fate and walked towards the Slytherin table, adorned with silver and green ribbons.
But Barty soon discovered that he absolutely loved this House—no matter when or where, as long as he spoke his surname, he would always receive a flood of adoring gazes from Slytherin.
"Crouch, one of the Sacred Twenty-Eight pure-blood families! So excellent, so noble!"
Barty would always hear such praise in the common room.
These praises were what he had longed for but could not obtain in the past eleven years of his life. They were like clouds gathering beneath his feet, lifting him high into the sky.
So he lay in the sky, looking down at the ground. Those Muggle-born Wizards seemed so small and ridiculous in his eyes.
On the surface, he was still the noble young master of the Crouch family, excelling in both academics and character.
But only he and the friends he knew were aware that many of the unfortunate incidents experienced by Muggle-born Wizards were no accidents.
Little Wizards' school bags filled with toads, little girls' hair ties turning into venomous snakes, a Professor studying Muggles receiving threatening letters…
"That's typical of you, Barty!"
A friend put his arm around his shoulder, laughing loudly:
"That stinky Professor who praises Muggles, after he received your threatening letter, he even praised you as a diligent and hardworking student!"
They despised Mudbloods, ostracized Mudbloods, and from it, they drew their sense of superiority and happiness as pure-blood nobles.
Barty didn't care what this happiness was built upon! He only knew that he had never received so much affirmation and praise in his life.
Now, he preferred to spend his summer holidays at the Lestrange's house rather than going home. If it weren't for fear of his mother's tears, he wouldn't even want to go back for Christmas.
Whenever Barty created chaos and fear in the Muggle world, Mr. Lestrange would praise him for a job well done, like a true father.
Later, through the solemn introduction of the Lestrange couple, Barty met the Dark Lord who changed his life.
The Dark Lord admired him, directly stating that he was talented at a young age. On the day of their first meeting, the Dark Lord spoke to him about many things.
Most of it was about the Dark Lord's disappointing father.
Barty found that he and this Dark Lord had astonishing similarities.
They both had disappointing fathers, and at the same time, they both shamefully inherited their father's names.
At the end of that long conversation, Barty knelt on the ground and heard the Dark Lord say to him:
"You are a clever and capable young Wizard, with great potential for the future. I like you very much. As long as you serve me wholeheartedly, you will receive more of my favor and can become one of my confidants..."
Barty had wished countless times that these words would be spoken to him by his father.
Unexpectedly, it was this Dark Lord, feared by all, who first said these words to him.
Barty would follow the Dark Lord until death.
He wanted to become the Dark Lord's closest confidant.
As the Dark Lord's power grew stronger, Barty answered the call and devoted himself wholeheartedly to the great cause of Wizard bloodline purification.
As one of the smartest and most capable Death Eaters, he effortlessly moved through the darkness, eliminating one Auror after another who dared to obstruct the Dark Lord's rise.
"You will get your comeuppance."
These were the last words an Auror said to him before dying from the Killing Curse.
"Comeuppance? Where is it? Why don't I see it?" Barty grinned, then ended his life.
The comeuppance came quickly.
The Dark Lord died.
His identity as a Death Eater was discovered by the Ministry of Magic. Aurors arrested him and brought him to trial.
He saw his father, the Head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, sitting on the high judgment stand, presiding over his trial.
He also saw his mother sitting next to his father, sobbing violently.
It was a desperate struggle; he couldn't go to prison, he still had to serve the Dark Lord!
He feigned ignorance, denied all charges, and tearfully begged his father not to send him to Azkaban.
"He is my father after all, there must be at least a trace of..."
"Now I ask the jury to vote. Those who agree with me that these crimes should be punished with life imprisonment in Azkaban, please raise your hands!"
His father raised his hand, and the jury uniformly raised theirs.
Heh, what was he even expecting?
This time, even his mother couldn't sway his father. He was about to be sent to Azkaban.
He would die in Azkaban.
...
Barty hadn't expected that his mother would actually be willing to stay in Azkaban in his place, in exchange for his freedom!
But his mother was terribly mistaken. He was placed under house arrest by his father, still without freedom.
With his mother gone, his former home became a cold prison. Every long night, Barty, curled up under his Invisibility Cloak, cursed his father with the greatest hatred.
"Young Master Barty! You must understand the Master!" Winky, the House-elf who cared for him, said, "As long as you behave well, I will try to get special treatment for you from the Master."
"Who wants special treatment from that old geezer!"
He suddenly flared up, kicking Winky into a corner of the room.
He thought he might have to wait until his father died of old age before he could see the light of day again, but the opportunity didn't make him wait that long.
On a stormy night, someone attacked Crouch's large manor.
He was curled up on his bed in the room, covered by the Invisibility Cloak, and heard the commotion outside the door. Before he saw the attackers, he saw the expressions of the servants at the door suddenly turn joyful.
"Veela?"
He quickly closed his eyes, and then heard a woman's voice:
"Not bad, both you father and son know to close your eyes! You and your father are among the smartest Wizards I've ever seen, much better than those fat-headed, idiotic pigs!"
"Come out, that enchanted House-elf said you're in here."