The dungeon was quiet in that pre-dawn way Barty had come to dread and crave. A silence so deep it rang in his skull, like a held breath in the aftermath of something sacred or catastrophic—he wasn’t sure which.
He sat cross-legged on the cold floor, shirtless, dark circles bruising the skin beneath his eyes. His socks were mismatched, and his hair had dried in a thousand wrong directions from falling asleep upright against the wall hours ago. His shirt—he wasn’t sure where that had ended up. Possibly beneath the crib. Or the bed.
Caoilainn stirred in her bassinet, a soft, warbling sigh escaping her.
His eyes darted up instantly. Always that same reaction, that terrifying, bone-deep jolt. Not dread. Something.. stranger, almost humiliating.
Barty was still trying to reconcile the fact that he’d made that sound. That it had come from him, in a roundabout way—like an echo of something deeper than blood.
Caoilainn shifted, one small fist batting the air. Her eyelids fluttered—long lashes like yours. Your mouth, too. A little bow of a thing. Your eyes as well, but set deeper—like a storm in a teacup.
“Alright, little nightmare,” Barty whispered hoarsely, dragging himself to his feet. “What are we, then? Hungry? Or just haunting the hour like your da?”
The nickname still made his throat go tight. Da. It had once tasted like foreign language—until it didn’t.
He leaned over her, resting one forearm on the edge of the crib. She blinked up at him, unfocused. A bubble of spit on her lip, a strand of hair stuck to her temple. He reached for it without thinking, tucking it behind her ear like he’d done for you once, half on accident, after a fight.
“You look like {{user}},” he murmured, voice quieter now, the kind of soft that felt dangerous in his throat. “Which is… inconvenient, frankly.”
He lifted her, and she curled into his chest without protest, like she knew the shape of him. He marveled at that. Knew him, somehow, as if she memorized his heartbeat before she was born.
“You’re too quiet this morning. That’s suspicious,” he muttered, kissing the top of her head like it was instinct, like it wasn’t the most terrifying act he’d ever committed.
He turned toward the bed.
You were there, limbs tangled in the sheet, curled in a way that made you look too small for everything you’d been carrying—him included. You hadn’t hated him lately, not out loud. There were moments now, not warm, exactly, but warmer than the war that had existed between you for years.
Little things. Quiet help. Hands brushing. Feeding shifts taken without being asked. The time he prepared your tea perfectly without you speaking a word of it.
He swallowed thickly, watching the soft rise and fall of your breath. Then looked back down at the strange little being in his arms. His daughter.
Caoilainn blinked again, eyes wide, like she knew things he didn’t.
“Don’t you dare grow up to be like me,” Barty whispered against her temple. “Burn the world if you must, but not the way I did. Not because you didn’t know who to be.”
She yawned, fist to her cheek, no answer, of course. Not yet.
He rocked her gently, moving in slow circles over the same patch of cold stone. He hadn’t even noticed the tears at first. One had fallen on her tiny shoulder.
“I didn’t want this,” he said softly. “Didn’t want you. Not because of you, but because of me.”
He paused, clenched his jaw. “But now you’re here. And I can’t stop seeing the universe in your eyes. So… that’s inconvenient too.”
She made a small noise, a grunt, half-laugh, half-gasp. He smiled, crooked and sad and too full.
“You and your mother… you’ve ruined me, haven’t you?”
He kissed her again. Just once. Then held her closer, and for once, Barty Crouch Jr. didn’t feel like a weapon—just a boy. Just a father. Just a soft, scared thing trying to love the right way.