Tell me what you think of how I handle Barty! Comments are screened, anonymous is not enabled because I don't know how to.

Assorted Threads.

Life after the war was difficult to adjust to, but it would have been difficult no matter what. Barty had never experienced normalcy and hardly ever felt freedom. Now he was unattached to any cause, because his cause was dead. His cause was dead and so with his father, so was his Lord, so were the few people he had known that he felt kinship with.

But the world was also changing. Finally there was movement in a system so ancient and constricting that it was creaking at the seams. Barty still believed that it had to be broken before it could be fixed, but he didn't yet know where to start that and sometimes he felt old. Barely 37 physically, but he felt as if he'd seen too much and he was tired.

Idealists were trying to bring about change through the slow ways of politics and bureaucracy. Barty didn't believe in it, but he didn't really believe in anything these days. However, he saw names he recognized, saw his old students doing politics. Mostly badly. But Hermione Granger, well, she stood out. It wasn't difficult to find out everything about her, given her role in the second war it was more difficult to avoid her.

She was smart, Barty knew that, even from his memories of her when she had still been a child. But there she was, a young woman, fighting for the rights of those oppressed and being smart about it. Barty couldn't help but keep an eye on her. They agree on surprisingly many points.

He never showed his face, but he started to send her letters. He never gave his name. The letters were unsigned. Unsigned and stubbornly addressed to Miss Granger, never mind her title or marital status. He gave her advice, he praised or criticised her and every now and then he would help to influence things in her favour. He had dirt on everyone who had been in the ministry long enough and he wasn't above playing dirty, not if the ends justified the means. And occasionally also just not because it was amusing to have grown men fear for their lives just because of a little note they got.

Regulus Black and Barty Crouch jr. Muggle AU!

All the threads, collected here.

It's not as if Barty Crouch Jr. isn't good at making small-talk. It's not as if he can't network, can't win people over easily when he puts his mind to it. It's not as if he and his father have nothing in common.

It is however true that his father was adamant about not seeing any of his son's qualities, especially when they were his own, as good. It is true that Barty rather stays in the shadows than mingling under his father's suspicious eyes.

The war is in full swing, everyone suspects treason everywhere. Barty has the urge to shout it out, lift his sleeve and flash the dark mark. See his father crumble when he realizes that it's worse than he ever feared.

But he's not risking what worth he could have for his Lord for petty revenge. He'd have his revenge, he'd hear him scream, see him die. All in due time. For now, he just has to endure, leaning against a wall in his own house and feeling like an intruder, just waiting until he can excuse himself and leave.