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Walburga Black.
There was something magnetic about her—a brutal, unyielding allure that seemed to charge the very air she moved through. Barty Crouch Jr. had watched her all summer, always from a careful distance, knowing she was out of reach. And yet the pull remained. She commanded attention without even trying; she was power made flesh, and power was what Barty craved more than anything.
He had always been drawn to darkness, but in Walburga, he saw it most clearly, most purely. She was the sharpest blade in the room, cutting through pretension, slicing past masks with a glance.
Grimmauld Place was suffocating, but he knew exactly where to find her: standing at the top of the stairs, framed by a window, watching the street below. Late afternoon light pooled through the glass, sliding over the black of her dress and turning her into a living silhouette. She didn’t need to look down to sense him; she turned, slow and deliberate, and her eyes found his.
Barty stopped mid-step. He couldn’t move. Couldn’t breathe.
Her gaze was cool as winter, but there was something else buried in it—something haunting.
“You’ve been staring for quite some time, Bartemius,” she said. Her voice was velvet over steel. “Did you think I wouldn’t notice?”
He swallowed hard. His pulse roared in his ears, and for a moment he felt the full weight of his own hunger—unspoken, but searing. “I wasn’t staring,” he managed, his throat dry, eyes fixed on hers. “I was… admiring.”
Her lips curved faintly. The word “admiring” hung between them like smoke.
“You think you can admire me from a distance?” she asked, voice dipping lower, all command. Her eyes swept over him, measuring, appraising, as if deciding where to cut.
The tension thickened until it felt like the whole house was holding its breath. Barty couldn’t look away. He was drawn to her like a moth to a flame, knowing it would burn him alive.
“Tell me, Bartemius,” she said at last, her voice a blade being drawn. “Do you truly think you understand power? You want it, don’t you? You think it’s something you can claim—wear like a crown, display like a prize.” Her eyes speared him, relentless. “But you have no idea what you’d have to give up to hold it. No idea what it costs. So tell me—what would you sacrifice? Your soul? Your sanity? Your humanity?”
The question landed like a blow. She wasn’t taunting him for sport. She was stripping him down, forcing him to confront the truth of his ambition.
“I’d give anything,” he said at last, voice darker, steadier than before. “I’ll do whatever it takes.”
Walburga tilted her head, almost amused. “Anything?” she purred. “What about your pride? Your honour? Do you think those matter in this world? In mine?”
Her words lashed through him, but they sparked something within him as well. She wasn’t mocking; she was testing, prodding him to step further into the dark.
“Prove it to me,” she said, her voice low, a command masquerading as a whisper. “Show me you’re more than a little boy who wants to play at power. Show me you understand what it costs.”
Barty’s chest tightened. He couldn’t speak. Couldn’t breathe. He moved instead, one step closer, as if proximity itself might convince her.
She came down the stairs with measured grace until she was standing so close he could feel her heat. Her scent—smoke, polished wood, something older—closed over him. She was all-consuming, and he was drowning.
“Your petty ambition doesn’t interest me,” she murmured, so softly it was almost lost to the hush. “What matters is what you’ll give. What you’ll become to stand with me.”
Her fingers brushed his arm, light as a ghost’s breath, but it left a trail of fire in its wake. He tensed. Trembled. She could see it—the way his control frayed at the edges.
Her eyes glinted, dangerous and knowing. She stepped closer, until their bodies almost touched. “What’s this?” she whispered. “You claim you want power, but already I see the cracks. Perhaps there’s something else you’re craving.”
Her breath grazed his cheek, warm, intimate. The world shrank to the two of them in that narrow space. Her gaze was predatory, a queen surveying prey. “You want me, don’t you?” The words were a soft command. Not a question.
Barty’s pulse thudded. Every instinct screamed to reach for her, to take her, to prove himself. But his feet stayed rooted.
Her hand traced his jaw—delicate, precise, a mark he would never wash away. It felt like a brand burned into his skin. His fate, sealed in a touch.
“You’ll have me, Bartemius,” she breathed, her lips grazing his ear. “But not yet. Not until you’ve earned it. Not until you’ve proven you’re more than a boy with a head full of dreams.”
His heart hammered. His hands ached to seize her, but she stepped back, just enough to slip out of reach. Her eyes were dark with promise and peril, a storm waiting to be unleashed.
“You’re not ready,” she said, soft, almost pitying. “But you will be. When you’ve shed what’s holding you back. Then I’ll give you everything you crave. But only then.”
Every fibre of him burned with frustration, with longing. She had him completely. But Walburga Black was not a prize. She was power. And power always demanded a price.
She turned on her heel, the train of her dress sweeping behind her, and left him standing there—shaking, hungry, desperate. Not for her body alone, but for what she represented: the dark throne he dreamed of, and the woman who sat upon it.