HP: Spirit Talker

— How do you feel, Mr. Crouch?

At the sound of a vaguely familiar voice, Bartemius Crouch jumped and turned his head in the direction of the voice. A few feet away stood a large chair, so deep and massive that the boy sitting in it looked younger than his age. The man squinted and looked into the lilac eyes, trying to catch a glimpse of the person sitting in the chair. With a kind of painful heaviness, the memory unfolded, and Barty recognized who was sitting before him. There was a heavy fog in his head, and only one thought kept Crouch Sr. from going mad: don't give up, fight to the end!

It was as if his entire being had gathered into a single wand that morphed into the image of a glass cube with a dirty dark smoke or fog swirling around it. The man had no clear details of his life at the moment — that memory had been rolled up into a tight ball and hidden somewhere in the depths of his mind. However, there is the memory of being in the cube, and the man definitely remembered the melted shells in the meter-high walls, and in some places it seemed like there was only a little left, and the poisonous acid fog was creeping in.

— I don't know. — Crouch admitted honestly, as he really couldn't make sense of his sensations.

— Hmmmm... — The boy thought for a while and closed his eyes.

For a few seconds Barty just looked at the Japanese and then the place he was in shook, a wave went through the empty gray world with one chair and a chair opposite. Barty suddenly realized that it was somehow easier to think, and the world itself became more... real. As it turned out, it had felt like a dream before, but now there was a sense of reality in comparison.

— How about this? — the boy opened his eyes.

— That's better. — Barty nodded dryly and sat down in his chair; he was still uncomfortable with the place he found himself in, for he'd never seen anything like it before.

— Good. — The Japanese smiled slightly, keeping his hands on the wide leather armrests. — So, the reason I decided to arrange our meeting is because of the Imperius spell.

Barty felt a piece of the memory of falling under Voldemort's command come back with an almost physically tangible crunch. Yes, it had happened unexpectedly, and it seemed as if he had thought it all through and calculated that soon it should be time for his son and heir to be fully healed. But no, now it's all for nothing. Meanwhile, the Japanese moved on.

— The thing is that Imperius is a scalable curse, and this is our main problem, because when you create it, you can invest a minimum of effort and a huge amount of money, which will create a situation like yours. — The guy was silent, silent for a few minutes, studying him with a strange interest; Barty didn't like it very much, and he also realized that there had to be a part of him in this place for the conventions of dialogue to be respected, at least the appearance of it.

— What do you mean? — Crouch asked in as dry a tone as possible, receiving a faint smile in return, expressed by the upturned corners of his lips; his companion rested his head on his hand.

— I understand from my examination of your body and mind that the Imperius was so strong that, along with the will of another, it created a pseudo-personality in your mind that took over your body and memories, mimicking your personality. Amazing, isn't it? — and that was an expression Barty had seen from the Unspeakables when he had direct access to the Secrets Division compound.

— I don't think so — to an outsider listening, it would sound like the words were spoken over a scorched desert.

— This discovery will shake the world of magic..... — The closed eyes and strange dreamy smile seemed to be a copy of the Unspeakable researchers. — ... but you're right, to the point. — the Japanese man suddenly became serious and collected.

— Your problem, Mr. Crouch, is that this kind of subjugation cannot be broken by will alone if the level of magic power is below that of the curse-bearer. Your fight has only given you a reprieve. That's one thing. Secondly, the actual battle of the body and mind against itself is called "autoimmune disease" or "cancer" by Muggles. In both cases, the body is starting to not work the way it should, but in Muggles it only stays on the level of the body, and Muggles are more complicated because of magic — it embodies our wishes and dreams. In your case, magic is trying to fight, but since the pseudo-personality has already become the second "I", magic has started to kill the brain cells that contain the "anchors" of a person's personality: reactions, logic, memory, and so on. Is that clear so far? — The man had to nod, outwardly remaining stern and frowning, but inwardly everything was getting cold from the gradual realization of the meaning of what he had heard; on the other hand, there was a good chance that it was all an illusion, a deception.

— All right, I'll continue. Here, take a look. — The Japanese man waved his hand, and a golden sphere appeared in front of Barty, with shapeless black spots and dots of various sizes scattered about it. — This is your brain, and the spots are the damage.

— If what he saw was true, then it was clear where the frequent confusion, absent-mindedness, and sometimes illogical decisions and actions were coming from; summarizing, there could only be two conclusions: either the long struggle with submission had begun to cause a breakdown in the curse, or the Japanese man's words were true, and he, Barty, was in serious trouble. The guy spoke again.

— As you can see, — the guy waved his brush in a somewhat lazy gesture. — You're already out of time, this kind of damage is extremely dangerous even for mages, especially if your condition doesn't change. So I decided to step in and offer my help.

— Not for free, of course. — Barty did not ask, he claimed, because he would have done the same thing himself, but there are ways.

— What do you think I am, a saint? — The boy even arched an eyebrow, expressing aristocratic surprise, not surprise, but the perverse interest of an insect researcher. — Despite my age, I know that everything has to be paid for. No matter what the fanatics and do-gooders say, — Barty barely contained a smile as he imagined Dumbledore, in the best tradition of Indian yogis, bending over, beating his heels on his chest and smiling benevolently at the audience. — Any accomplishment, any good deed, any donation or charity — everything and always is done first and foremost for oneself, though not everyone realizes that even the feeling of satisfaction comes at a price. But I digress. — The man spoke slowly, as if thinking aloud, and his gaze seemed to be looking somewhere far away.

— You and I are in a strange technique of Shinto monks, known only in Japan, partly in China and Korea. Thanks to this technique, you can be yourself again, think normally. You can feel the difference, right? The further you go, the stronger it gets? — Barty had to agree with Hoshino, because the more time passed, the more he realized. — I'll give you three options. The first. I will reverse the technique and you will return to the state in which my men captured you. You will have no memory of our conversation, and Voldemort in your house will know nothing, but soon you will either die or become a vegetable. — He paused for a moment, then continued.

— The second option. I remove your subordination. As the head of a pure-blood family on the list of the "Sacred Twenty-Eight", you will take a vassal oath to my clan and family. A specialist with your experience, knowledge, authority, and connections will be of great use to me. Option three. I remove your submission, but you fulfill only a few of my requests. We swear oaths to each other. That's it. Your choice?

— What are the conditions of option three? — Barty was uncomfortable with these terms, because as a vassal he would still have to listen to the Suzerain.

— Nothing illegal. — The boy removed his hand from his chin and leaned back in his chair. — The thing is, I'm very angry about the total corruption, and the nepotism, protectionism, cronyism — call it what you will, but it's just outrageous! — and Crouch was looking at a sore spot.

— Take me, for example. When I came to Britain, they tried to control me and rob me, and then they sent a pack of werewolves, and I'm still on the case, even though some of them were captured alive. And the Quidditch championship? I saved so many people, and I didn't even get a simple "thank you," just interrogations. Where's the honesty and gratitude? I'm not even talking about nobility, where would that come from in Britain?

Listening to the Japanese, Barty thanked fate, no — destiny! A rich, rich, pure-blooded boy wants revenge and doesn't think about the consequences, and he also wants fame, which he obviously counted on. He wants to be a hero. That's understandable. It is understandable, and it is also easy to use: such people are very easy to give in to emotions, they are very easy to flatter, they are very easy to control.

Barty Crouch, who habitually suppressed his emotions and any manifestation of them on his face, agreed to help with a petty and insignificant "revenge". All the more, it opens up such a range of possibilities that there is a high probability of regaining former prestige and influence. And a guy with such interesting knowledge can be adapted to the case, the keys are now known ...