A / N : Yup, Barty invaded my head again. This is probably going to be a twoshot. It just squirmed into my head and demanded to be written.

Disclaimer - Obviously, I am not JKR, nor do I own the song.

Always stays the same,

Nothing ever changes,

English summer rain,

Seems to last for ages.

English Summer Rain, Placebo.

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It was another English summer, and it was raining. Grey rain fell from grey skies onto grey rooftops and grey pavements and grey people. Ten year old Barty Crouch watched it fall with a dispassionate eye, watching the water wash against the windowpane and gurgle in the gutter. He closed his eyes and leaned forward, pressing his forehead against the cool glass. Standing like this, he could almost feel the raindrops, beating against his brain with a rhythm that was almost like a pulse. Wet wet wet. Grey grey grey.

"Barty?"

He opened his eyes. His mother was standing across from him, watching him. She was trying to sound calm, but her eyes were a little too bright, her cheeks a little too pink. She was worried. Barty sighed inwardly. His mother worried a lot. Mostly about him. He didn't understand why.

"What?"

She flashed him a tentative smile. "Nothing, darling," she said. The anxiety she was trying to cover up had seeped into her voice anyway. "It's just that . . . . well, aren't you bored, darling? Why don't you play? You must be bored."

Barty smothered a smile. He didn't think his mother would approve of his games, somehow. She was smiling expectantly at him now, waiting for a response. He dropped his gaze to the newspaper in her hands. It was The Daily Prophet, and on the front was a picture of a man, a man with a pale, twisted face, and dark, glinting eyes.

"Who's that?"

His mother jumped. "Who, darling?"

"The man in the picture," Barty said impatiently.

His mother frowned, her forehead creasing as she realized who he meant. "Oh . . . . does it really matter, my love? It's not important."

Barty scowled, annoyed. "I want to know," he demanded.

His mother sighed. "Of all the things to ask . . . . He's . . . a bad man. His name is Antonin Dolohov."

"Why is he a bad man?"

His mother shivered. "He killed people, darling. Lots of people. On the orders of a very bad man, and I certainly won't talk about him."

"Oh."

Barty fell silent.

His mother frowned, unable to find a reason for the sudden change in her son's expression, the narrowing of his eyes that told her he was thinking intently.

"Barty? What's wrong?"

Her son was spared the trouble of answering by the sudden appearance of his father, who entered the room in a tearing hurry and proceeded to try and adjust his tie and pack his briefcase at the same time.

"Excellent news, Theresa," he barked, pulling a sheaf of papers from the desk. There was a desk in every room in the Crouch household, except the bathroom – and Barty suspected the only reason for that was because there wasn't room for one. "Comb your hair, boy," his father snapped, momentarily sidetracked. Barty scowled and ran a hand through his hair with a sour expression, rumpling it even further. His father, busy stuffing his pockets with extra quills, did not notice. "I have been promoted."

His wife's mouth fell open. "Really? Oh, that's . . . . wonderful."

"Yes, quite. I'm telling you Theresa, if I play my cards right, I could be head of department by the end of the year, and from there . . . . who knows? One thing I do know, though – I'd stamp this "Death Eater" nonsense out in a heartbeat, if I were running the ship at the Ministry . . . They're being altogether too soft, these criminals need tough justice. It's the only way they'll understand. Didn't I tell you to comb your hair, boy?"

Barty shrugged, fingering something in his pocket. It wasn't a comb. It was a pack of cards.

"I have a card trick," he said. "Do you want me to show you?"

His mother smiled. "Of course, darling," she said encouragingly. "I'd love to see it."

Barty didn't scowl, but he didn't smile either. His face stayed blank as he shuffled the cards, and held them out to his mother. "Pick a card," he ordered.

Still smiling, she obeyed. "Oh, look darling. It's the Queen of Hearts."

Barty did not so much as glance at it. "I know," he said. "Pick another."

Humouring him, she drew another. "Yes, it's . . . the Queen of Hearts. And . . . .the Queen of Hearts." In fact, every card, it transpired, was the Queen of Hearts. She frowned. "That's . . . very clever, darling. Bartemius, come here. Look at Barty's card trick. It's ever so strange."

"Theresa, I don't have time for this nonsense. Stop indulging the child."

Barty scowled, his face like thunder. "Fine," he muttered, as his father stepped into the fireplace and disappeared. "I'll draw yours for you." He scooped the cards back into his arms and shuffled them again. Then he pulled a card from the deck, glanced at it, and let it fall to the floor. He repeated the action, over and over, his mouth twisting into a grim line. Theresa watched her son, alarmed. His face looked whiter than usual, and he seemed to have forgotten she was there, wrenching the cards from the pack with force enough to bend the edges. His breathing was shallow and fevered sounding, and his gaze burned with a strange intensity. Quietly, moving very slowly, she bent down and picked up a handful of the cards. Staring at them, she felt her blood run cold.

The picture on each card seemed, at first glance, to be the joker of the pack. The fool. But no joker she had ever seen looked like this. The dancing stick man wore robes that were not his usual harlequin pattern of red and green. They were a solid, uncompromising black, and the joker himself was different too. Skeletally thin, he wore a macabre grin – the mocking smile of a skeleton. Death.

"Barty!"

She seized him by the shoulders, knocking the cards from his hands.

"What?"

He stared at her, jolted out of his trance. She swallowed, squeezing his arms as hard as she could, to stop her hands from shaking. "Go outside and play."

"But it's raining." Her son stated the obvious.

"Then play in your treehouse." She pressed the point, insistant for once. "Go on. The fresh air will do you good."

He shrugged and crossed to the back door. And that was it. He left the room without another word, without giving her the chance to say anything else. His mother watched him go. Then she folded her arms across her waist, trying to swallow the odd, hiccupping sobs that were forcing their way up her throat. She wanted to call after her son, to fold his thin frame in her arms and kiss his pale cheek, smoothing away the troubled frown line on his forehead with a mother's loving caress. But Barty wouldn't respond to it. He never did. Sometimes, if she was lucky, if it was a very good day, he would tolerate her emotional displays. He would stand stiff as a little doll while she embraced him, as if he didn't know how to hug her back, as if the idea would never occur to him. Most days, of course, he simply wriggled out of her grasp, retreating into his own little bubble of loneliness. She crossed to the window, watching her son. She could just see him, through the slanting rain. He was standing on the swing now,his arms wrapped around the ropes, swaying slowly back and forth. A lonely, melancholic sight. And . . . . she couldn't be sure, but it looked like he was talking to himself. His mouth was moving anyway, although she couldn't think who in the world he could be talking to. She sighed, turning away.

"Oh Barty . . ."