The Craziest Warlock 1 (Patreon)

The Craziest Warlock - (HP x Xovers, BartyCrouch!SI)

1962. The Year I was ‘reborn’.

I wouldn’t say that I had gone back in time with this, rather, I took a slightly oblique rush outward into a completely different dimension. Well, not completely but… Close. Close enough.

The first thing I got during my first years of this second life was that my name is Bartemius Crouch… Junior. I was the supposed crazy son of ‘Grumpy Crouch’ the Dark Arts-hater that would pretty much wreck the Death Eaters when Voldemort waged the First Wizard World.

Yet, at this point, Voldieshorts was not a big name. He was still amassing power and he had been doing so for close to a decade. It would take a few more years for the tension to slowly increase, and I would say that was happening by the time I was old enough to go to Hogwarts.

I didn’t go there unprepared, obviously, as I exploited my ‘pureblood’ position to secure myself a ‘five years-long headstart’. With my upbringing under the Crouch Family opening the door to various books, I made sure to keep any Dark Arts out of sight as I preferred regular spells and didn’t want to incur on my father’s wrath.

Mother was supportive, the wispy-looking witch was a loving woman but also extremely weak-willed towards those she cared about. I had long thought she had been demeaned through the years where she possibly knew of her son’s true self, but I could tell the woman was born just this way- submissive and accepting, yet never to the point of annoyance.

I worked my ass off since I could use a wand- a visit to Ollivander in 1969 had been a tense one as the man definitely knew I was ‘weird’. The visit itself was so cryptic, so mysterious, but I didn’t put any emphasis on panicking.

After all, any guilt-worthy behavior would put me in a bad spot, and it’s easier to mistake innuendos for specific meanings when you are a child. So, I was just labeled a quirky boy with a ‘peculiar’ mind. Nothing crazy, but definitely worthy of ‘praise’ by my mother as she thought it was merely a kind and polite compliment.

I could tell Ollivander wasn’t giving me any of that.

Still, nothing bad came from this. Although Ollivander was a good guy, he wasn’t close to Dumbledore to the point of snitching me to him. I had been rather ‘on the fence’ about Dumbledore himself.

I knew how much of a controversial figure he was in both canon and fandom, and thus I let his own actions draw any judgment I could give him. I merely heard of a single bill he had rejected in the Wizengamot that father had been looking forward to seeing through.

One that would have allowed for some ancient laws preventing Muggleborns from entering the DMLE unless some extreme prerequisites were passed through via their grades in Hogwarts.

When compared to Purebloods who had lesser restriction to claim the position of Aurors, this was quite a ‘good’ reform and one that father wanted because it allowed for the pool of recruits to be expanded and for high-quality Aurors to be fished out.

The reasoning behind Dumbledore’s rejection, which I found on the very paper that father had lamented about with this discovery, was that ‘it was a wrong step to take into the right reformation. The right steps are those in the civilian business’.

Translating from politics, this meant ‘I would say aye to harmless changes in society, but expanding the military makes me nervous’. Which made no sense to me as he knew Voldemort was already recruiting and that the War would be upon us regardless of his peaceful methods.

So, I was willing to say he was manipulative but also senile. Not necessarily a bad person, but he definitely had gotten a whole lot more paranoid and less rational with some of the decisions he took on a political level.

Maybe that’s why he ditched so many relevant positions through the years- he caught up to his own flaws.

Oh well, that was a workable situation. None of those ‘Dark!Dumbledore’ or ‘Evil!Dumbledore’, but rather the classic ‘he is driven by goodwill, but he is also too old and should have retired ages ago because he is prone to fuck up more than usual’ approach used by the original books.

With that in mind, my preparation for Hogwarts left me less nervous on that front… but terribly worried about the Death Eaters situation I may face once in school. I knew that recruitment was firmly entrenched within the school’s Slytherin house, so I will have to be careful with what has to be done there.

As I hit 11 and I went through the traditional trip to Diagon Alley to get all the important material for my first year at Hogwarts, I got the chance to also find some new books on advanced spells. I really devoured those tomes I could find back home, and I felt quite safe with the knowledge of what I could do.

Occlumency was there just… not to the point of me being fine with either Dumbledore or Tommy checking my brain- plus, knowing who I was, I really didn’t like the idea of literally losing my mind to that.

I had some experience with offensive and defensive spells… and I could use the Patronus to a corporeal level. As a Firstie, this was a good enough spot to start my journey into the next seven years of magic school.

As I boarded the train, saluting my mother by the entrance and then finding the closest and ‘nicest’ area in the train, I found an empty one with free seats near the window.

Sitting down, I glanced outside and checked for any newcomers moving within the train. Any familiar faces, anyone that could resonate with my memory of the movies as most of the people here resembled their actors they were represented with.

Yes, I look like a young David Tennant, and I was so giddy about what kind of faces and quotes I could pull if time and  situation allowed me to do those.

I waited for a while, but soon someone checked my place and I turned to see… I don’t know this kid.

“Hello,” He mumbled and I realized his uniform lacked any of the four distinctive houses’ colors.

“Hi.”

He sat right beside me, and I really couldn’t recognize this guy. I mean, the greasy hair screamed of Snape, but I have already seen the young man (older than I was) already taking a seat with other Slytherin students. The hairdo also told me this one was familiar but… where did I-

“My name is Augustus.”

Rookwood. Fuck.

My lips twitched. “CJ.”

Surprise appeared in Augustus’ face as he tried to make sense of what kind of name that was.

“M-Muggleborn?”

“Nah, but I got my dad’s name, and it gets quite easy to mistake the two of us by name alone,” I said, noticing how he had tensed up at the mere idea of sitting beside a ‘mudblood’. “So, Gus, what house do you look forward to being part of?”

Easing down at that avoided ‘disaster’, Gus appeared perplexed. “Gus?”

“It’s a nice thing to abbreviate names when they are quite a mouthful. I am sure we can agree on that.”

Her frowned. “Can we?”

“Aren’t we friends?” My smile widened slightly as Gus frowned more.

“Are we?”

I chuckled and he mellowed enough to smile. “Now, I know this is a bit abrupt, but it’s really my first time making this sort of interaction. With a fellow boy of my age.”

Surprise flashed on Augustus’ face.

“Your family kept you locked away?”

“Daddy dearest did, mom’s a bit of a yes-woman to that man but she also wants to ‘protect me’ the best possible,” I answered readily. “You?”

“Dad wants me to be out of the house to prove my worth. I… My mother is no longer around.”

“Apologies for bringing up that topic,” I commented with genuine sadness. “Still, I hope we can both land on our favorable houses.”

“Slytherin.”

I nodded at his swift response. “Ah yes, the ‘dark house’ of… politics!”

“But how do you think it’s going to-”

“Magic hat,” I interrupted, rolling my eyes. “It’s not you, but a lot of parents just try to make it seems like muggle parents do with their kids around Christmas day by saying that Santa is not real.”

“In… In what sense?”

“In not telling their kids how Hogwarts does the sorting for new students. They have been there when they were our ages and the method has been the same for centuries.”

“I wasn’t aware of this,” Gus mumbled. “And how did you discover it?”

“Dad just told me when I asked. He is a no-nonsense kind of man.”

“Respectable.” Augustus nodded in agreement and the rest of the conversation didn’t go through any major topics.

Knowledge on spells, expectation on what to find in Slytherin, the teachers and other stuff that  waited at us in Hogwarts. The hours-long train trip to Scotland culminated with us arriving at our destination by early evening and boarding the boats leading to the castle as the sky darkened.

It was already getting to dinnertime, so everyone was feeling quite cranky as other students had already left for the Grand Hall. Those that were left behind were the firsties that had yet to be sorted. And we were soon following after Professor McGonagall as she gave us the very spiel that Harry got when they arrived in school.

The large doors leading to the Grand Hall were opened and the beautiful scenery was now in full display as the lengthy list of students was soon used for a roll call to the sorting hat.

Knowing my name, I was the first of the duo to go.

“Bartemius Crouch Junior.”

Rookwood appeared shocked to learn what my name was, but I smiled and shrugged as I made my stroll up to the chair where the hat was sitting. McGonagall lifted it as I took seat and then placed it on my head when-

A time-traveler? No… A dimensional hopper.

Ding Ding Ding! We have a winner!

Not a willing one but… one that has awareness of this world.

Yup.

You are not surprised that I can read my mind and… you don’t care that I can see your plans?

Do you plan to snitch?

No, but… It’s surprising. And I will be honest, you are going to make a mess if you don’t keep track of what you know and act rapidly with it.

I will not hesitate. But thanks for the pep-talk.

Urgh, troublesome but ambitious mind… “SLYTHERIN!”

I grinned happily as I walked to the pretty green place with my new green friends. I saw a specific group making some space for me, but I didn’t feel like joining the SS’s youth club just yet. Not when I didn’t need to do a similar-enough redo of what could happen to me if I ever so decided to draw a snake near my wrist.

Plus, clumsiness could be used as a reason for this ‘rejection’ rather than outright planning. So I didn’t exactly put an effort to look towards them as I found the nearest ‘open spot’ where I could give a seat to Gus.

He appeared several students later, and he was still flabbergasted at learning who my father was. He sat down beside me, eyes wide open and a squeak away from making me roll my eyes.

“Your father is Auror Bartemius Crouch.”

“Yep.”

“THE Bartemius Crouch.”

I felt my shoulders sag and my smile growing more forced. “That’s right.”

“And… you are not happy with that?”

“Depends on what side of my father we are talking about.”

Gus looked ready to pester me some more, but now that the sorting was over, Dumbledore started a speech about this year about ‘knowing the friends one has to pick and to be wary of those that speak of grand ideals.’

“What’s all that about?” Gus quietly asked.

“Someone is trying to beat Grindelwald in ruining the world,” I mumbled flatly, glancing at him. “A Dark Lord situation.”

His eyes widened astronomically. “Seriously?”

“Yup.”

“And? What does he offer?”

“The same things that Adolf Hitler promised his people before we British people bombed his ass off in the Second World War.”

…

“What?”

“I’ll bring a book, but let’s just say that the newest anti-muggle Dark Lord is taking inspiration from a rather hideous muggle.”

“...No way.”

“There’s books and I will show you the pamphlet behind this guy’s speeches.”

Gus merely nodded, baffled by numerous things at once. At least the food was good enough to fill up his mouth and guts to keep him from being a nagging entity for the duration of the first day.

I knew I would have to prepare for a long first week at Hogwarts.

Especially since I had to make an impression on several students at once.

—------d-d-d-d—---

AN

Aw shit, here we go again! -Bartemius ‘CJ’ Crouch Junior going after another Dark Lord-related bullshit.

In regard to the Xover tag: it’s mostly about people or items. I don’t intend to bring forth whole ass dimensions to crash into the HP World. In fact, I would say that would just bloat things too much. I have some characters in my name, and you will forgive me if only you know who is getting CJ’s bacon. She’s headpattable despite her age being the same as CJ’s age, she is deserving of the headpatting and looding, and she will be essential to CJ’s plans.

Hint? Nyah!