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you literally summoned me back from my hiatus with frog choir reg and barty. i need a four page long essay on their friendship immediately

(also!! hi!! i miss you!!)

HAHAHA WELCOME BACK, I WILL DELIVER, I have MANY thoughts about these two because my current WIP is Barty centric, so I’ve got… a LOT more where this came from. And yes, this was unironically 4 pages… (i missed you too!! how was the break?)

Their whole friendship is based around the fact that they’re both variations of the “☝️🤓 um actually” kid and would annoy anyone else to death.

At first, Regulus is the more unhinged one. But by seventh year, Regulus is looking back at second year Barty like “what did i DO to you???” and the answer to that is introducing him to Bellatrix.

Barty's toad is named something really stupid, like Croaker. Croaker often sits on windowsills. He’s nearly been killed by owls several times.

Regulus named his toad after his favourite aunt (Lucretia), and he insists Lucretia the toad is part of the family. Walburga finds this amusing, although she refuses to put the toad on the family tree, no matter how many times Regulus asks. Sirius threatens Lucretia's life on a weekly basis (He’s joking. Probably).

Regulus has no friends. He tells people that he doesn’t ‘make friends,’ he does networking. In reality, the pureblood kids think he’s full of himself (he is) and he doesn’t have any other friends because he refuses to associate with anyone who can’t trace their family tree back at least three generations of wizards. 

Barty is in Ravenclaw. He's family friends with the Rosier twins, who are in sixth year, so he just follows Pandora and her friends around like a lost puppy all year instead of actually speaking to people in his year group. She doesn’t mind. Pandora's friends are Alice and Emmeline. Alice is in the frog choir!!

Evan is a different story. There was visible relief on Evan’s face when Barty went to Ravenclaw and not in Slytherin. 

Regulus joins the frog choir in first year, Barty doesn’t join until second year, when Alice drags him along because Pandora thinks he needs to make friends in his own year group, no matter how much Barty insists that they’re all idiots.

Barty can sing. Regulus thinks he can sing. 

They definitely went through a phase in second year where they tried to breed their toads for months. It did not work. 

Barty is Flitwick’s favourite choir member because he’s in Ravenclaw and he’s good at charms. Regulus is fuming, because Regulus isn’t even Slughorn’s favourite student.

Regulus has a stupid amount of photographs of them in Frog Choir, because Walburga is the kind of mother who takes hundreds of pictures every time she sees them, so that she can mail them off to every relative and brag about how many extracurriculars her son does. Barty likes Walburga. 

Regulus likes Quidditch and is just as much of a stuck-up intellectual as Barty, so they get along. Barty probably showed up to choir, saw Regulus pull out a sixth-year transfiguration textbook, and decided that was that, he’s just found his new best friend. 

Regulus is honestly just glad that someone finally wants to be around him, because he’s been very lonely (he would rather die than tell anyone this). They’re immediately friends. They follow each other around, they eat all their meals together, they sneak each other into their common rooms, they’re at each other's houses all the time during the holidays. 

If you see them in the library, there’s a 90% chance that Barty is locked in, and a 70% chance that Regulus is working on his ongoing fanfiction, where everyone who has ever annoyed him is put through terrible misfortunes until they finally emerge admitting that Regulus was right all along. “Cissy and the Feral Peacock,” a riveting tale of violent birds and ruined engagements, written after Narcissa told Walburga that Regulus was stealing her expensive peacock quills. “Professor McGonagall and the Fury of Alecto Carrow,” a gripping murder-mystery written after McGonagall docked him ten points for talking in class (Alecto Carrow laughed - the final scene is her reluctantly admitting that Regulus is better at Transfiguration as she’s being dragged screaming out of the Great Hall to a life sentence in Azkaban).

Regulus does dramatic readings of these when he finishes them. Barty is sitting there, eyes glued to the page, popcorn in hand. Their other pastimes include hating on all of their classmates, talking about Quidditch, and studying magical theory, including some… less pleasant magic. 

In the summer holidays immediately after second year, Barty’s toad dies very suddenly, which is devastating for him. I like the idea of them having a poorly planned little burial in Barty’s garden (shameless plug for my own fic here… https://archiveofourown.org/works/66188731) 

Flitwick lets him stay in the choir anyway, but Barty either gets a new toad, or the wonkiest, most scraggly, most broken, bony little owl to ever grace the halls of Hogwarts. It looks ill. Regulus thinks it looks like a heap of scrap metal disguised as a bird. Or potentially a burnt marshmallow. 

Regulus is very organised, very perfectionist. He’s got a really bad resting face because he’s perpetually annoyed at everyone by default, but his thoughts are practically written across his face. Barty is also perfectionist, but he’s generally louder, more emotional, more impulsive. There is absolutely no way to tell what’s going on inside his head from his face.

Regulus would prefer alphabetical order, Barty would prefer the Dewey Decimal System. Regulus’ methods of organising stuff are rigid and immediately clear to everyone, Barty’s methods are less definite and they make sense to him, but without knowing how his brain works, good luck finding anything. 

Regulus holds the biggest grudges, but he doesn’t do anything about them, he just fumes. Someone will give Regulus a weird look in the corridor and he’ll spend the next three hours telling Barty every detail of their parents’ messy divorce, but if they asked to borrow a quill an hour after that, he’d shove one across the table just to be polite. Barty, on the other hand… if he forms a grudge, he’ll be taking vengeance rapidly.

They both take Ancient Runes and Arithmancy. Barty takes every elective because one, he likes learning, two, his father is actually impressed by school results (he would never admit this). Third year isn’t fun for Barty, because his mother is on the brink of death because someone tried to poison his father and got her by mistake. This cements his hatred of his father. There’s a lot of anger going on there, which Voldemort is going to capitalise on!

A teacher will ask a question in class and they’ll practically be clawing each others’ eyes out trying to get their hand in the air first. 

Barty is beefing with the puffskeins in Care of Magical Creatures (they keep attaching themselves to his head). Regulus says it’s his fault for picking such a useless subject, but he does quietly lodge a formal complaint to the school board (he would be SUCH a “I want to speak to the manager” Karen).

Barty supports Ravenclaw over Slytherin in Quidditch. Regulus pretends to be mad about this, and will fake more dramatic injuries than usual. A Ravenclaw player brushes the air next to his shoulder? Regulus is falling to the ground clutching his arm, pale in the face, sweaty, screaming, rolling around in extremely real pain. Do not hit a Bludger anywhere near him, you’ll regret giving him actual material to work with. Very occasionally, it helps to get them penalties. Barty finds this hilarious only if Regulus is not playing Ravenclaw.

Regulus is a pureblood fanatic. This transfers onto Barty eventually - Regulus is in the camp of “all purebloods are superior to all muggle-borns, all muggles are stupid and wizards are overall superior.” 

I don’t think Barty would be all that attracted to that part of it, but I do think he’d be VERY into “the Ministry are cowards for restricting Dark Magic, muggles shouldn’t have the world revolve around them when we have this much power,” which combines with the respect and power he can get with the Death Eaters, Voldemort as a person, and the aspect of rebelling against his father’s beliefs to make him more of a fanatic than Regulus by the time they hit sixth/seventh year. 

I think whereas Regulus would’ve joined up and gotten the dark mark basically right away because of his relationship with Bellatrix, Barty has to work for it a little more. Barty’s probably just running errands for the Death Eaters at first. I imagine the Lestranges run some sort of semi-legal market on Dark Magic and Dark artefacts in their basement, and he spends a lot of time around this in the holidays of sixth and seventh year. 

Once, he’s running errands with Evan, Aurors show up, and Barty lies his head off and gets them off without any trouble. After years of treating him like he’s just a snotty child he’s being forced to watch, Evan finally starts treating Barty with respect. Pandora has, by this point, gotten married and quietly eased her way out of pureblood society, so Barty’s entire social circle is just Death Eaters. I also like the idea that Bellatrix immediately treats him like another younger cousin. Combined with Voldemort paying him personal attention, there’s no way Barty is leaving this. 

This definitely starts driving a wedge between them, because Barty is getting more and more obsessed with Death Eater stuff. While Regulus is obsessed with it at first, by the time Bellatrix starts teaching them the Unforgivables and making them practice on live animals, he’s getting a bit squeamish, and he kind of wants it all to stop. Barty is having none of it. He loves dark magic, he loves Voldemort, he’s going all in. 

Barty is supposed to be trying to help the Death Eaters get access to his father so that they can put him under the Imperius. This is not going very well. When Voldemort asks for a house elf, both Barty and Regulus see the opportunity to get into Voldemort’s good graces.

Regulus volunteers first. Barty is ENRAGED because Regulus isn’t in any trouble with Voldemort, he’s completely average, and in Barty’s eyes, he’s just wasted Barty’s chance to buy himself more time. They have their first really massive, serious argument. Everything shifts after that. Barty gets much closer to Evan and Bellatrix, and more distant from Regulus.

Barty betrays Dorcas’ location to the Death Eaters. Voldemort brutally kills her in the street. It’s violent. Regulus feels sick afterwards. He’s still got pureblood ideals, but he doesn’t like that Voldemort is willing to kill so many important, powerful witches and wizards to achieve those goals, and is beginning to think that maybe the Death Eaters just enjoy violence for the sake of violence. He feels like he doesn’t even know who Barty is anymore. 

Dorcas’ death effectively locks Barty into staying with the Death Eaters. He gets the Dark Mark for his contributions to murdering Dorcas. He starts to view Dorcas as a coward who wouldn’t use the influence she had to push against the Ministry, who was “too scared” to make a world where wizards are literally just ruling over muggles, in complete control, complete power, and therefore, she deserved to die.

Regulus finds out what’s been going on with the cave when Kreacher comes back to him. Voldemort has been bragging a lot about immortality to his inner circle, and this just proves that he’s actually gone and made a Horcrux. To Regulus, this is proof that Voldemort’s main aim is ruling as a tyrant forever, not the pureblood ideals that Regulus cared about. Also, the mistreatment of Kreacher, and leaving him for dead, is making him angry. He’s conflicted over what to do with this information, and he’s not even sure he believes in the pureblood cause all that much anymore. He does try to confront Barty with this information, but it backfires terribly and only makes Barty more intense about the Death Eaters. This is Regulus’ final attempt to get Barty out.

Regulus goes off to the cave and dies. It’s probably the first time he’s actually done something with any of his anger, instead of just stewing in it. Outwardly, Barty pretends not to care, because they’re all told that Regulus defected, betrayed the Death Eaters and died in the process. He tries to tell himself that he hates Regulus for being disloyal, that Regulus is a coward who was too squeamish to do what needed to be done. Inwardly, he blames himself for it. But if he buries the guilt, he can control the situation. “Voldemort sees what I’m truly capable of, Voldemort thinks I can do great things.” Any attention is good attention, so he does worse and worse stuff. He eventually starts believing Voldemort actually cares about him (delusional…)

Without Regulus, Barty continues to spiral further down the Death Eater life. 

And on that cheerful note, you’ve reached the end of this post, congratulations!!! if you read all of this, go drink some water (like regulus in the cave)

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reg and barty hanging out with the toads

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What if Regulus joins the frog choir?

(I NEED him to be in the frog choir so bad)

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regulus and barty are friends because they're the most annoying people in their year. no one else likes them. a teacher asks a question, they fight over who gets to answer. barty tells people off for getting mermish grammar wrong. someone tripped and got fertiliser on reg's shoes in herbology and he spent the afternoon writing hate fanfic where they were brutally attacked by a puffskein. they're in the frog choir and obnoxious about it and trying to breed their toads. barty is flitwick's favourite student and he knows it. in quidditch, regulus falls off his broom like a rag doll and fakes injuries to get penalties. do you see the vision.

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important to note that my mary didn't obliviate herself!!! she entertained the idea for a long time, even going so far as to arrange an entire one-way trip to new york and put her wand up to her temple in the airport bathrooms, but when it came down to it, she just couldn't. she couldn't forget them, everyone she had loved, even if it meant being in pain every day for the rest of her life. she thought of how they would want to be remembered. she knew lily and james's sacrifice would most definitely be written into the textbooks, but what about the others? they had given their lives for the cause, and since mary had been given the gift of being able to walk away alive and they hadn't, she decided that that must mean something. she decided she would live the rest of her life loudly, as they hadn't been able to. she'd drink to their memory and save them seats at her wedding and give her children their names. mary got on her flight to new york shakily, painfully, and frightened, but she stepped foot in america for the first time with a smile, and lived out her life. her wand was kept carefully hidden away in one of many boxes of scrapbooks and memories from hogwarts. she married a muggle man and told him everything, they had muggle children that she adored, with the middle names of her best friends. but she left magic behind, and didn't look back once.

(mostly, anyway. if there were instances when she was alone in the house and wanted some time to herself, when the laundry would fold neatly on its own and the dishes would become miraculously, instantaneously clean, who would know?)

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i love james potter dude. he's just so. arrogant. but roguishly charming??? he'll make mean jokes and jeer at the boys in the quidditch locker room, but he'll also try his hardest to take care of anyone that needs his help??? he falls in love with anyone that can snap back at his remarks and doesn't immediately love him like everyone else, because at his core he loves the chase. he's an adrenaline junkie and constantly puts himself in reckless situations, getting high off of the thrill. he pulls pranks because he's smart and bored. he shows off constantly. he struts through the school likes it's his own personal catwalk, like each hall has been bought and signed in his name. he loves lily for her fire, the way she doesn't let him walk all over her. he'll lay on sirius's bed and bemoan the smallest inconveniences as loudly as possible. he's a spoiled brat that lives life as fast and as full as possible because he thinks he'll never die, yet because he's also increasingly aware of his parents's declining mortality. he'll accidentally bump into you in the hallway and knock your books to the floor, flash a charming grin and be on his way, yelling "sorry!" over his shoulder, then going back to laughing with his friends without even bending down to help. he fiercely defends those he loves. he never learned that there isn't just "good people" and "bad people" until lily slapped some sense into him, literally. he unironically loves poetry and reads it aloud to his friends in comical tones before bed, standing dramatically on peter's bed and reading aloud from remus's copy of a william wordsworth collection while they all laugh. he had a mustache for a few weeks before lily told him it was terrible and he shaved it off immediately. he has the energy of the sports guys who shave their head as a team and rub it and grin, but james would also rather die than buzz his hair off. he wakes up at four am for quidditch practice. he has no idea how to style muggle clothes whatsoever but he knows the lyrics to every bee gees song (rip james potter, you would have loved britpop). he's mixed race (effie is desi and monty is white) but has all the air of a boy raised with white privilege. he's spoiled and he knows it and he doesn't care. his favorite muggle book series is the famous five. he bullied severus simply because he didn't like him. he's the love of my life but if i ever met him i'd punch him in the face and he'd like it, grinning at me with his shiny white teeth and bloody face.

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the hogwarts quidditch cup recipients (in the 1970s)

1971 - gryffindor, captained by stephen gould (chaser), alongside frank longbottom (keeper), galvin gudgeon (seeker), tommy connolly (beater), damocles belby (beater), maria-gabrielle mcgonagall (chaser), and saoirse o'malley (chaser)

fun fact: this is the first year that fourth-year dormmates frank, galvin, and tommy played quidditch together, as galvin had been unsuccessful previously at usurping the longstanding seeker before him, selina sapworthy. the trio are referred to as "the dream team" and remain legends in gryffindor history for their coordination and communication on the field (though stephen remembers them as major pains in his ass)

1972 - ravenclaw, captained by keaton flitney (chaser), alongside gordon horton (keeper), hector lamont (seeker), jordanna bodiment (beater), ethan lima (beater), riya patel (chaser), and michael mckinnon (chaser)

fun fact: ravenclaw was considered an underdog at the start of the season, having poor performances. tragedy befell the team when connor watson, their beater, suffered a spinal injury after a fall, all but dooming the team. however, connor's childhood friend ethan stepped up, despite never having played the sport before, and joined the team, receiving intensive coaching from captain keaton and jordanna for hours every night. ultimately, it was a well-timed blow from ethan that knocked slytherin's seeker, steve laughalot, out of the way for hector to grab the snitch. the afterparty was so raucous that ethan allegedly awoke in hogsmeade the morning after with a unicorn while undressed (or so he tells it)

1973 - hufflepuff, captained by lennox campbell (seeker), alongside lachlan mackenzie (keeper), alison denbright (beater), sturgis podmore (beater), georgia clark-day (chaser), alasdair maddock (chaser), and amos diggory (chaser)

fun fact: this team was plagued by conflict, predominantly between alasdair and lachlan, who were dormmates and rivals. alasdair believed himself better at the sport and resented lennox's obvious mentorship of lachlan, while lachlan disapproved of alasdair's poor attitude. disputes in the air during a match were common between the two, however things got ugly at the hufflepuff afterparty when alasdair confronted lennox about who the captain would be the next year, and punched him after finding out lachlan would be the next quidditch captain. (the pair never resolved their conflict, and it is widely believed that alasdair's refusal to follow lachlan's leadership cost them at least four years of winning the cup)

1974 - ravenclaw, captained by riya patel (chaser), alongside dirk cresswell (keeper), septima vector (seeker), jordanna bodiment (beater), ethan lima (beater), hector lamont (chaser), and emmeline vance (chaser)

fun fact: the final match between gryffindor and ravenclaw was incredibly close, with a final goal being scored in the last seconds of the game by hector. the gryffindors and hufflepuffs rioted, believing the game was stolen from captain frank longbottom, whom the two houses believed deserved to win in his final quidditch game at hogwarts. frank was forced to make a speech before his unsettled house, declaring that they lost fair and square and offering his congratulations to riya and the ravenclaw team. despite this, it is widely believed that four third-years from gryffindor pranked the celebration party, leaving a number of ravenclaw students bald for a full day.

1975 - slytherin, captained by emma vanity (chaser), alongside arnold peasegood (keeper), regulus black (seeker), dorcas meadowes (beater), lucinda talkalot (beater), greta catchlove (chaser), and catriona mcclintock (chaser)

fun fact: slytherin returned to the win following a nearly ten year rut, during which time the leaderships of steve laughalot and stuart craggy were deeply unpopular among the students due to their lax styles. emma became known as a drill sergeant, recruiting three new players and running intensive practices. while her friendship and mentorship of players from other houses attracted scrutiny, the team dominated the season and secured a victory. of note during the final match was the dogged pursuit of sirius black, the beater for gryffindor, who seemed more intent on chasing his younger brother regulus than hitting bludgers, which ultimately cost gryffindor the game

1976 - slytherin, captained by emma vanity (chaser), alongside denison frisby (keeper), regulus black (seeker), bernie pillsworth (beater), lucinda talkalot (beater), greta catchlove (chaser), and sloan travers (chaser)

fun fact: emma's time as captain was not without controversy, as her outspoken hatred of blood purist views was known. during her first two years as captain, she faced pushback from those such as aled travers, rabastian lestrange, and andrew selwyn, whom she believed sabotaged their efforts at winning the house cup in order to oust her as captain. her long-standing conflict with bernie pillsworth was also well-known, with emma removing him from the team the year prior but he returned due to a lack of other options. bernie later claimed to his friends that he had imperioed emma and thus had led the team himself. a day later he was found injured in the corridors by juliette wilkes, who very kindly brought him to the hospital wing and was never suspected of any wrongdoing

1977 - hufflepuff, captained by amos diggory (chaser), alongside eleanor gibbs (keeper), hestia jones (seeker), ludo bagman (beater), diana lavery boot (beater), clara jones (chaser), and rosalind bungs (chaser)

fun fact: this tight-knit group rode the wave of renewed hufflepuff support all the way to the house cup. amos, long expected to sign a contract with the tutshill tornados after graduation, had been rumoured to have turned down their offer due to his girlfriend, former gryffindor seeker edith kent, falling pregnant. amos' popularity and reputation as a genuine, affable man, as well as his skill at the sport, led to gryffindor and ravenclaws' full support of hufflepuff against the slytherins during the final match, with amos scoring the winning goal. edith was in the audience despite having previously graduated, and ran out onto the pitch to congratulate amos, at which point he proposed. younger hufflepuffs often cite this moment as an inspiration

1978 - gryffindor, captained by james potter (chaser), alongside ashley sanders (keeper), richard carter (seeker), darren floyd (beater), marlene mckinnon (beater), dahlia fleur-peri (chaser), and sirius black (chaser)

fun fact: the 1977-78 season was marked by crisis on all sides: regulus black left the slytherin team, and a lack of available options forced a trained beater, mabel dashalot, to step in as seeker. hestia jones stepped down as captain of the hufflepuff team partway through the season but remained as a seeker, leading to ludo bagman taking over captainship. seeker for the ravenclaw team, jade prewitt, was suspected to have been poisoned and was replaced by gilderoy lockhart until the end of the season. finally, gryffindor chaser zadie blumberg collapsed on the pitch during the second to last match, forcing former beater sirius black to join the team for the final match against hufflepuff, where they ultimately won.

1979 - gryffindor, captained by ashley sanders (keeper), alongside richard carter (seeker), darren floyd (beater), tamsin hillicker (beater), jude vance (chaser), dahlia fleur-peri (chaser), and zola morgan (chaser)

fun fact: ashley is the daughter of previous gryffindor captain and current coach of the wigtown wanderers, natalie holkham. a soft-spoken and gentle woman, ashley invested hours of her time into personally training the three youngest and most inexperienced members of her team, that being jude, tamsin, and zola, much as her mother had mentored her as a child. she is considered one of if not the best captain in gryffindor quidditch history, and joins the golden era of gryffindor captains alongside stephen gould, frank longbottom, and james potter.

1980 - season cancelled after the death of jude vance in february of 1980

fun fact: none.

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an official request to yap about mrs crouch or any of the original ootp <333

YESSSS THANK YOU, I HAVE SO MUCH ON MRS CROUCH. I’m incapable of typing out my headcanons for any character without it becoming a several page biography detailing their entire existence, so this is going to be LONG, but here it is! quick tw for infertility, smoking and depression. BUT here we go.

Esther Fawley is born in 1934. She’s technically a half-blood, her mother’s muggle-born.

She loves muggle stuff for most of her early life, will dress in it, will combine it with wizarding robes. 

She grows up with a lot of cousins and five siblings. Birth order’s something like brother, sister, brother, sister, Essie, brother. It’s a very loud, warm household. 

She gets compared to all of them, but she’s not considered particularly intelligent or particularly pretty or particularly anything. She’s not troublesome and she’s not good. No one pays much attention to her. She’s a little bit insecure. 

Hector Fawley, a Minister for Magic in 1925–1939 is about the right age to be her uncle. He’s kind of Fudge-coded in the Grindelwald era, kind of just ignoring it all.

Her eldest brother, who’s an Auror overseas, dies fighting Grindelwald when Essie’s about nine. 

She’s a very fierce optimist, prone to being quite emotional, which is mainly excitement and anger when she’s younger.

She’s also a very good actor. Barely anyone can actually see through this.

Essie gets through Hogwarts in a fairly linear fashion, and gets sorted into Hufflepuff like most of her family. She’s well-liked by a lot of people, but she isn’t friends with many of them.

She also develops a smoking habit that isn’t going to be good for her later.

She loves history and languages. She can and does speak Mermish, as well as a lot of other non-human magical creature languages. 

Essie’s the fifth child, so her parents don’t really mind what she does with her future. She works at a wizarding museum right out of Hogwarts in 1952. She does a lot of her research on the history of wizards interacting with magical non-humans and Muggles. 

She’s not getting very far, because the woman who’s meant to be supervising her research is never showing up. Enter Dorcas Meadowes, the aforementioned supervisor.

Dorcas was born in 1877, and long-story short, following the war with Grindelwald, became extremely disillusioned with the magical world. She doesn’t come into work much, she doesn’t talk to her coworkers, she mostly stays locked in her house all day. She’s also been beefing with the Blacks for decades for related reasons, although she does still interact with a select few of them, like Dorea and Charis.

Esther rolls up her sleeves, tracks down the address and knocks on Dorcas’ door until she opens it. Who would win, years of cynicism or one (1) enthusiastic history nerd who REALLY wants to talk about your research paper? 

It’s the history nerd. Dorcas slowly but surely comes back to work. Esther thinks she’s brilliant, Dorcas teaches her how to be a little stronger, how to slow down her emotions and work through things practically and carefully. 

They convince the Ministry to allocate them funding for a project looking into how the wizarding world has interacted with muggles in the past, because after Grindelwald, that information seems quite necessary.

Esther is very enthusiastic about the work they’re doing and it’s making Dorcas feel like she can actually do something to change how the wizarding world responds.

By the time 1955 rolls around, they’ve finished that project, the Ministry is celebrating wizarding history research at a social function. The museum is sending Esther and she’s dragging Dorcas with her. 

Charis Crouch is attending. She’s shocked to see Dorcas at the MINISTRY of all places, but more importantly for the trajectory of Esther’s life, she’s brought her eldest son, who’s working in some very junior personal assistant position. Dorcas realises he’s good with languages and thinks, hey, we have some undeciphered stuff at the museum, would you like to take a look at that? 

Pause for the mandatory Bartemius backstory: he’s got two significantly younger sisters (Phaedra - 7 years younger and Cece - 9 years younger), his father’s garbage at business and keeps having to be bailed out of debt by Charis’ wealthier relatives, which wasn’t a stable financial situation for the family. 

He’s got some kind of hereditary magical ability that makes him pick up languages really fast, he was in Ravenclaw.

Charis Crouch is obsessed with public image and will refuse to cut her spending, as long as everyone looks wealthy enough when they step out the door. She’ll keep jewellery and buy fashionable robes for herself but the house is a wreck, the furniture is falling apart, and Bartemius has been fighting a never ending war against the doxies living in his sister’s curtains.

Bartemius’ youngest sister is named Charis Crouch, after their mother, but she goes by Cece. This is like the only thing I’ve made up about her, but it felt like it had to be said. 

A few weeks later, Bartemius rocks up to the museum. Esther discovers he is also a complete language nerd and can speak Mermish, they’re absolutely yapping at each other into the early hours of morning, they’re freaking out over documents at two am.

I’m rubbish at romance, but Esther likes that he’s a hard worker, he genuinely cares about the research they’re doing as opposed to just pretending to be interested for her sake. He’s a lot more organised than she is.

Also, he’s one of the few people who can actually see through her when she’s hiding her emotions, which is a new experience.

Haven’t quite figured out their whole dynamic but yeah. 

Bartemius is being very stubborn about not starting anything with her, because he really doesn’t want to end up in the same kind of situation his family is currently in with money. Plus, his sisters are still going through Hogwarts and he’s got to make sure he’s got enough to get them both new textbooks, good robes, etc. because Charis Crouch certainly isn’t going to do that. 

What starts as a necessary step to getting enough money to provide for people turns into genuine ambition because he feels like his job is the one thing he actually has control over.

If Esther’s honest, she’s a little relieved. She likes him, and if he wasn’t at the ministry she’d probably have no hesitations, but she’s not entirely sure she’d be able to do what’s expected for the social circles Bartemius exists in. She doesn’t want to spend the rest of her life attending functions and lunches and morning teas and walking around an empty house. 

Bartemius gets promoted in 1957 to a more stable, more well-paying position than personal assistant (glorified servant). He’s still not doing anything, because he still feels as if he doesn’t make enough money to support the kind of standards she’d be used to. 

Esther is beginning to wonder if she’s been delusional this whole time and he’d never really been interested in her. 

Dorcas knocks some sense into him because she’s sick of them alternating moping around her office about the other. 

They get married in 1960. It’s raining heavily on the day, which is irritating Charis Crouch, but neither of them mind. I like having them be happy and in love because it’s more emotionally damaging to me when it falls apart. 

When Esther’s just found out she’s pregnant, Barty Senior is offered to be moved from International Relations into being an Auror. Esther is quite upset that he would even consider taking this position because she’s convinced he’s going to get himself killed like her eldest brother did. 

She convinces him not to, he listens, and he ends up on the more administrative side of the department of magical law enforcement.

Barty Jr is born in January 1962. 

Esther loves this child so much, he’s going to be spoiled (fatal error). 

But his birth has complications, which basically end up meaning she can’t have any more kids. She’d kind of wanted to have several, being raised around her massive extended family, she’d like Barty Jr to have that kind of family too. 

She feels really insecure about this, like she’s somehow failed as a mother already, she feels inadequate. She’s got some level of postpartum depression going on. 

Dorcas is Barty Jr’s godmother. She’s coming around a lot to help out around the house and provide emotional support, along with Esther’s siblings. 

Charis Crouch visits and is not very helpful. She sees that Esther’s having trouble after Barty Jr’s born and has the bright idea of “oh, I’ll give you two a house elf!” which enrages Esther.

Barty Sr’s father dies a few months later, and it turns out he had even more hidden debts going on. Barty Sr’s developing workaholic tendencies because having a son and losing his father sent him into a bit of a spiral, and burying himself in work allows him to feel like he’s in control of the situation! 

Esther and Barty Senior have a massive argument over Winky, because Charis Crouch has lent her out to them. Barty Senior thinks Winky might help Esther because Esther is clearly becoming very overwhelmed by everything, doesn’t see much of a problem with the house elves, and also doesn’t want to fight with his recently widowed and very intense mother. Esther is fuming over the house elf slavery, and doesn’t want to admit that she needs help. 

This lasts months. Esther is cold-shouldering Barty Senior, Barty Senior is being very stubborn and very black and white, and Charis Crouch is insistent. Esther is not happy about it. Winky doesn’t particularly like Esther.

Eventually Esther and Barty Senior actually talk about their disagreement. It makes the situation slightly better. He agrees to work slightly less so that he can be around the house more. She agrees to attend some of the social events that the Ministry staff keep holding. 

At first, I think she enjoyed these social events, but the people are judgemental and not very pleasant. She’s got no idea how to navigate it. Especially when people bring up her Muggle research and her job. Barty Senior is quite happy to tell people how essential her work is, but the general attitude of people is making her feel like having a job means she’s failing as a mother, even though she’s only part-time and she’s got heaps of relatives to take care of Barty Jr. 

Esther goes back to work for a little while after having Barty, definitely brings toddler Barty into the museum a few times, but in about 1964, she just quits because everything seems so much easier that way. Barty Senior is not very happy about this, but she insists she’s fine and he drops it. She also starts dressing in less Muggle clothing. 

She puts most of her time and energy into raising Barty Jr, who’s inherited her tendency to be emotional (he throws the worst tantrums). 

He’s also inherited the knack for languages, and can probably speak about three fluently by the time he’s Hogwarts age. 

There’s also a lot of Ministry connections coming around for meals. Esther doesn’t feel that she’s the best at hosting these, but she’s trying. And Barty Senior is rising through the Ministry ranks (not that Esther particularly cares). 

Notable Ministry connections here are the Rosiers, who are around at the Crouches’ quite a lot. They’ve got two kids who are five years older than Barty Junior, and he follows them around like a lost puppy. Evan hates this because he’s eleven and the last thing he wants to do is hang around with a six-year-old. Pandora is happier to do this. Esther suspects that Barty Jr is not very good at making friends.

Esther is trying to make the house they’re living in feel more like she belongs there. She’s knitting an insane amount of throw blankets and her mother’s coming over to bake, she’s getting photographs on the walls, Dorcas is bringing over history books and souvenirs from her retirement trip around Europe. 

I imagine they visit her other relatives a lot, spends a lot of time around the extended family. Barty Senior’s sisters (now 22 and 20) are also spending a lot of time around the house. 

She spends a lot of time with Barty Jr. They probably do the newspaper crossword puzzles together, they cook together, she teaches him languages, makes a single attempt to teach him knitting and gives up. 

In 1970, everything blows up. The First Wizarding War erupts. Workload is skyrocketing for Barty Senior, stress is skyrocketing for everyone else.  

After a few months, Barty Senior is suddenly bumped up to a fairly high up position in the Department. He sees a lot of the destruction caused by the war firsthand, and he is not very okay with this. There’s a very sudden spike in his career ambition, and suddenly he’s never home, literally falls asleep at the Ministry some days.

Suddenly Esther is also stuck in the house because going outside alone when war against dark wizards has just erupted and you’ve written several papers on how wizards and Muggles should just get along with each other is a really bad idea. This is not good for her, and she’s really alone again. Barty Senior being constantly gone makes her feel like a failure of a wife, and she feels like she has no idea how to be a mother either. 

She starts smoking again. Muggle cigarettes because she’s a bit sick of the magical world and they remind her of the muggle world. The house feels all wrong and too cold, and Barty Senior’s sisters are getting married and her siblings are having children, and she’s just feeling bitter and unhappy.

They have a few fights over the amount of time he’s spending at work, and another fight when he finds out she’s smoking again. There’s a really massive fight in 1972, when Barty Senior is working late for several days in a row, doesn’t keep track of the date, and accidentally misses the entirety of Barty Jr’s tenth birthday.

She’s (justifiably) extremely angry.

They have an ugly screaming match at two am. She’s accusing him of having an affair (not true), he’s accusing her of not caring about the war (also not true), she’s telling him he’s going to work himself to death, he’s telling her she’s going to kill herself with those cigarettes. 

Winky is trying to stop Barty Jr from coming downstairs, and is the only one who’s thought to cast a Muffling charm around them. 

They continue having a lot of fights, which makes Esther quite tired and bitter.

In September 1973 they actually take Barty Jr to the train station together (Barty Crouch Senior leaving his office??). Esther definitely cries. 

I’m imagining every relative is extremely invested in this kid’s Sorting. Dorcas is rooting for a Slytherin outcome, Esther’s relatives are team Hufflepuff, but nope, he’s off to Ravenclaw. Barty Jr has not made a single friend by the time he’s halfway through his first year. 

But y’know what, at least by second year, Barty Jr has now managed to make one singular friend. Enter Regulus Black and his pureblood political ideology which I’m sure will cause NO problems for this family at all. It’s important to me that they meet at Frog Choir.

By 1975, Barty Senior’s not quite the head of DLE, but he is advocating for really harsh Death Eater treatment. This makes him a lot of enemies. 

Someone tries to poison him at some social event (it’s probably the older Rosier, but no one’s going to know that). They get the wrong glass and poison Esther instead. It doesn’t hit until they get home, at which point Barty Senior is frantically owling Dorcas (retired curse breaker, she knows some stuff) and rushing to St Mungo’s. 

Esther survives, but now she’s got to drink about fifteen potions every day, some of which Dorcas invented on the spot. She suddenly has very little energy and she’s getting quite depressed. 

Barty Senior has to go and pull Barty Jr out of Hogwarts for a week. Barty Jr definitely blames Senior for this whole situation, and is very bitter about it. 

Dorcas is also breaking into Barty Senior’s office and demanding he get his act together, and there are very few things scarier than an angry 90+ year old Dorcas Meadowes telling you your work habits are going to kill your wife.

Barty Senior stops working so many weekends and keeps her company in the house, which Esther appreciates. They’re gardening, they’re actually talking about languages again, they’re actually spending time with each other. Even if Esther’s still at the stage where she’s quite weak physically and can’t really stand up for too long and she’s still not that happy, it’s a bit better.

Alas, after about a year, in which he’s becoming even more angry at the Death Eaters, the war flares up pretty badly, and when the current head of DLE gets sacked for not being severe enough, Barty Senior gets the position in 1976. Workaholic tendencies are returning rapidly. 

Being angry is tiring, so she’s bitter. She complains a lot about this to Barty Jr, probably not an appropriate level for a fourteen year old, which is making him hate his father more.

She spends a lot of time with Winky, who’s the one mostly taking care of her now. Winky is quite a practical person and kind of fierce in her own way. But she’s also very insistent that she’s very happy doing all this, she thinks the Crouches are the best family ever, and Winky’s family has been with them for generations, so she will be too (she has been… mildly brainwashed to say the least… also has a very strong loyalty to the Crouch family specifically…) (the house-elf plotline confuses me because why did it do a complete 180 from chamber of secrets to goblet of fire…). They’re bonding to an extent.

Esther is low-key wishing she could brainwash herself into being happy with this too. She feels like she was supposed to have died in 1975, and now she’s just walking around the house waiting to drop dead properly. She’s a bit depressed.

Her family is worried about her, so they’re visiting, but it’s not really helping. Dorcas is also trying. This is working a little more. She’s telling Esther about her dropping out of wizarding society for years, that she understands the hopelessness and despair feeling. She’s forcing open the blinds to actually get sunlight in. She’s bringing up cool stories from her travelling years to try and get her to laugh. 

Esther starts to “forget” to take all her potions. Maybe she’s half thinking that Barty Senior only seems to care when she’s on her deathbed. This is not an effective strategy.

When Barty Jr is home from school, she’s not that healthy. He’s telling her he’d like to be an Unspeakable but the Ministry’s hopeless with experimental magic. He’s also building up a bit of resentment because it seems like she’s not trying to get better, she’s not taking her potions, she’s smoking, she’s not talking much.

When he’s about 16, he’s telling her that Regulus’s cousin’s husband is offering him a “summer job” in this field. Esther’s too tired to dig into that too much, and she misses the bits about it that sound a bit off. 

What’s really going on is that the Lestranges have a very large basement, the Death Eaters like to invent nasty spells and potions (Snape invents the potion from the cave here), and Barty’s running errands for them.  

Dorcas is busy with the Order, Barty Senior is busy with work, Esther is on her deathbed every other week. No one else is paying close attention to Barty Jr, unless they’re talking about how proud they are of his twelve O.W.L.s. Not even when Regulus goes missing about halfway through 1979. No one’s entirely sure what happened to him, although there are rumours. 

Later in 1979, Dorcas Meadowes is brutally murdered by Voldemort. 

No one is coping very well with this. This death shakes Esther because Dorcas has always been such a strong person, and it doesn’t help her improve her health at all. 

Barty Senior is enraged by Dorcas’ death and cracks down on Death Eaters even harder. 

Barty Jr goes very quiet, because he’s the one who lured Dorcas into the trap that killed her. This gets Barty Jr the Dark Mark, now being in the inner circle and not just being a Death Eater in general. 

In 1981, Voldemort falls. Esther is celebrating with everyone else, it’s a very brief happy moment for the Crouches, Barty Senior rushes home from work looking delighted. Of course, he’s back into the office again the next day, but Esther is hopeful for once. 

Then Barty Jr gets caught with the Lestranges. Barty Senior is LIVID. 

Esther is trying very hard to believe that Barty Jr is innocent because she doesn’t think she could accept the other option. She knows he was working with the Lestranges, so she’s hoping he just walked in at the wrong time, but inside, she kind of knows. She also decides that she’s still his mother, whatever happened. This is the opposite of Barty Senior. She doesn’t speak to him for almost the entirety of the year that Barty Jr is in Azkaban. 

She is also dying. The poison combined with the ill-effects of smoking for years and the general grief she’s experiencing are combining. She makes a plan, because it’s the only thing she feels like she can do. It’s kind of a last-ditch attempt to give her son another chance, because she’s always felt like a terrible wife and a terrible mother, so maybe this will make up for it. 

Barty Senior refuses to accept that she’s dying at first. But by the time she comes up with the plan, it’s obvious enough that even he can’t be in denial. He’s experiencing a lot of guilt surrounding this, and she’s not going to change her mind, so he agrees to her plan. 

Then they break Barty Jr out of Azkaban. With the state of her health, Azkaban finishes her off in a few days. This sacrifice does absolutely nothing to help anyone, because Barty Senior, upon discovering that Barty Jr absolutely hates him, is terrified of consequences and Imperiuses him. Essie would be disappointed in this outcome.  

WOO that’s all the Mrs Crouch I currently have, I'm obsessed with her. If you’re still reading this I hope you enjoyed it!!

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hestia jones, emmeline vance and dedalus diggle

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can we talk more about dedalus diggle. bcs. i love him but theres so little fanon of him :(

i love him and his little stars and hufflepuff behaviour. i want sm more of him pls

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i'm so obsessed with mary and her tooth gap and her huge afro that she spends hours detangling with a sparkly hot pink brush and her collection of lipglosses and lipsticks that she associates with each relationship she's ever had and the little charms she has on her friendship bracelets and the big silver hoops her mum gave her for her 14th birthday and all of her scrapbooks that she keeps in a hand painted shoebox under her bed and the way she flicks her wrist when she's talking to someone she likes and her inability to stop laughing when she starts and how her laugh snorts are so contagious that everyone giggles too and how she tears up so easily but she sniffles and brushes it off as "making her eyelashes longer" and how she's so good at dancing that everyone stops and stares and she's just so loveable and lively

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making the mrs crouch content i crave because i’m obsessed with her

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in my head Barty is the Rosiers' younger family friend, like 5+ year age gap. He asks Evan five million irritating questions per day, he stole Pandora’s favourite stuffed owl, he tried to climb a tree with them, fell out, broke his wrist and got them both yelled at by their mother. He follows Pandora’s older group of friends around the entirety of first year. Evan resents him, would probably hex him on sight, Pandora likes him (their attitudes reverse when he joins the Death Eaters).

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@romantic-exposure AWWWWW I WILL GIVE YOU ANOTHER FLOWERRR

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barty crouch jr’s mother is my new obsession

~~

She'll die in the armchair in the sitting room, she thinks. Like an old cat, and the thought makes her grin, all wry and sour. She’ll return, pale and ghostly, in her wedding dress with wine spilled down the front, burgundy stains on creamy lace, and wail with wonderful fury.

No one decides when this vigil ends except her.

https://archiveofourown.org/works/65612341

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VIOLETTTT do you have bellatrix headcanons, i must know

CLIPPPP you know me so well, yes i absolutely do <333 bella was actually tiny child me's favorite character back in the day, which i think says a lot about me 😂 

her full name is bellatrix morgana black!! she's named after their supposed ancestor, morgana le fay. bellatrix tried her best to live up to her names as she grew up, and she succeeded-she was the epitome of a warrior, the perfect soldier. it was no wonder that tom made her his lieutenant. 

her family calls her bella, but the only one who ever called her trixie was rita.

her favorite colour was dark blue, like the sea, or the night sky. bella was always particularly inclined to wearing dark blue dresses to the pure-blood formals she attended with her family. 

bella was the fashion girlie of the three sisters. andy was concerningly obsessed with shoes, cissa had a love for expensive jewelry and makeup that gave cygnus early grey hairs, but bella was the one constantly critiquing others' choice in robes. she was always dressed like royalty: draped sleeves, robes enchanted to match the night sky, dresses perfectly tailored to fit her exactly. 

bellatrix 100% believed that anyone who was not a pure-blood was a stain on the world. this isn't why she joined the death eaters, but i'm sick of people trying to say she was forced into it. she genuinely hated them and wanted them dead, especially after ted "stole" andromeda from her. 

bella always had extremely powerful magic. it was uncontrollable like a tempest when she was emotional or in a rage, but when she had herself under control, it was calculated, precise, deadly. it smelled like a thunderstorm, too. 

bella's favorite fruit are black cherries <333 (she also loves pomegranates, but they're andy's favorite fruit, so she never touches them again after she leaves)

bella wasn't particularly close with either of her parents. everyone, including herself, thought she was, but she kept herself so guarded that very few ever actually got close. while andy was close with cygnus, and cissa was doted on by druella, bella subconsciously resented both her parents. 

she was closer with cygnus because of their shared ruthlessness and enigmatic ability to manipulate others into doing their bidding. cygnus loved his daughters, he let them get away with far more than his family would ever generally approve of, but the fact that they were born daughters and not sons always irked him. especially because he had seen the potential in bellatrix as heir from the very beginning, and was all for changing tradition, but was unfortunately powerless to do anything about it. 

druella always thought that bellatrix was too much of a black, and not enough of a rosier, so she raised her eldest daughter with mild distaste. in reality, unknown even to herself, druella was intimidated by bellatrix's strength. she kept her distance from her wild, independent daughter, and spent more time with her sweet, malleable, controllable cissa, who looked every inch a perfect mixture of black disdain and rosier elegance. this caused a divide between druella and bella, no matter how much they tried to pretend it wasn't there. it also didn't help that, as the years went on, bella began to almost... replace druella. she became more powerful, more talented, searching for respect and status among her family. that often meant overshadowing her mother, or sneaking mocking glances about druella to cygnus, who would scoff silently with a tiny smile. suddenly bella was the one helping dress cissa, advising andromeda, hanging off of cygnus' arm at pure-blood functions. seemingly without warning, introductions of "this is bellatrix, druella's daughter" became "this is druella, bellatrix's mother." and druella was shoved off to the side. she drowned this insecurity and anger in alcohol, only furthering the divide between her and bella. 

also you have to admire the dedication bella has. it's not easy being insane and gorgeous and extremely powerful 24/7. but she still delivers every time. what a queen

her patronus is a black mamba because I said so

i'm a firm believer that bella's curls weren't as wild as they were after azkaban when she was younger. andy was always the best at curl maintenance, (she also didn't have curls as tight as bella's, but i digress). bella took fairly good care of hers. no one was quite sure where her tight coils originated from; certainly not the rosiers, but cygnus didn't have extremely curly hair, and neither did his parents. walburga and andy were the only ones with hair similar to bella's, but even then, theirs were looser. 

bella and andy were both very talented duelers. cissa was less inclined to "getting her hands dirty" and would frown on their enjoyment of the sport, but it was a favorite pastime of theirs and it wasn't uncommon to find the two older sisters discussing different methods or spell combinations in corridors during passing periods. 

i think bella regarded alcohol with disdain. she just strikes me as the type to always want a level head, and therefore a slight advantage over her "opponents" (peers, family, anyone really). coupled with the black family tradition of encouraging underage drinking, the abundance of alcohol in hogwarts (it's a boarding school guys, bsfr) and druella slowly losing herself in drinking- bella thinks of it as beneath her, and barely ever touches a drop. she'll sip at parties, but that's it.

i'm running out of ideas for now but if i have any more i'll post dw <3

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propaganda i'm spreading

beloved daddy's girl andromeda

gryffindor bones twins

mary wasn't obliviated

no charity or aurora in snape's gang

bellatrix, regulus, evan, barty, etc all being ecstatic at joining voldemort

feminine marlene