I am not writing this because I could not mentally take it but...
Imagine… being an Obscurus and best friends with Barty Crouch Jr.
You were eight years old when you met him.
A Muggle girl, too loud, too wild, too alive- a stark contrast to the quiet, polite boy with a sharp mind and a father that loomed over him like a shadow.
But with you? He wasn’t a Crouch. He was just Barty.
You built forts out of logs, ran barefoot through the pond, and shared a locket- two halves of a whole, a symbol of forever.
Imagine… falling sick the moment he turned eleven.
It started with headaches. Then nosebleeds. Then days where your limbs felt too heavy to move.
Barty didn’t understand. No one did.
One day, you were climbing trees and stealing sweets from the corner shop.
The next, you were shaking, feverish, slipping through his fingers.
And then- he left.
Hogwarts. Magic. A world you couldn’t follow him into.
He promised to write every day.
He did.
But no letter could stop the way your bones ached or the way the shadows in your room whispered.
Imagine… Barty researching Obscurials.
He was fourteen when he figured it out.
When he read about children who grew sick and died because they suppressed their magic.
Except- you weren’t suppressing it.
You never had magic to begin with.
But somehow, it was still killing you.
Imagine… Barty growing more desperate.
He tore through the Hogwarts library like a man possessed.
Potions. Enchantments.
He tried everything. He talked to anyone- everyone. He promised anything for answers. Anything for help.
Ancient texts. Dark rituals. Forbidden spells.
Once- he even tried to give you his own magic. Like a childish fever dream, something to awaken yours. Take yours. Fix yours.
It failed. Of course it did.
But that didn’t stop him from trying again. And again. And again.
Because Barty Crouch Jr. was a lot of things.
A prodigy. A disappointment. A son with too many expectations.
But to you- he was just a boy who couldn’t stand to lose his best friend.
Imagine… your final conversation with him.
You were eighteen, frail and pale, sitting in your childhood bed as Barty paced beside you. He had spent every year of his life loosing himself to try and regain you.
And it was tearing you apart inside.
He told you about his latest discovery, about the ritual he was planning.
He swore he was close.
You smiled. Soft. Knowing. Because he was always close.
And then you said it. So soft. So sweet.
So scratchy.. so quiet..
“Barty, it’s okay.”
And it broke him.
He fell to his knees beside your bed, clutching your frail hands, begging you not to go.
Because who was he without you? What identity did he have if you weren't there? What was all the Outstandings for? The letters? The years he spent learning every nook and cranny of magic- if he couldn't stop it?
Not yet. Not when he still had so much to fix.
“I can’t,” he whispered. “I can’t watch you die.”
And so, you gave him one final gift. Because he had give you so much.
Too much.
“Then don’t,” you whispered. “Close your eyes.”
He did.
“Picture me."
And he did. And when his face twisted in anguish, you tutted. Running your small- much too small hands, through his black locks. “Not like that. Like me.”
And there she was. The vibrant ten-year-old who once dragged him through the streets, laughing like she had all the time in the world. Tugging him into alley ways and sneaking away from his parents.
“Write to me,” you said, voice barely a breath. “Write to that girl. That way… it will be like I never left.”
So he let go of your hand.
And he left.
He left you alone in that bed.
He walked away, fists clenched, locket pressed to his palm.
He didn’t look back. He forced himself through the meadow in your back yard, the bond you used to run in when you were younger, the swings that rocked.
And then- the explosion.
The shockwave knocked him to the ground.
The sky split open behind him.
And as he lay there, gasping, the locket in his hand felt heavier than ever.
You were gone.
Imagine… Barty writing letters to you all the time. From his years in the war, tales of Voldemort and his friends.
Even in Azkaban he made use of the walls and his nails.
Then under his imperious curse it was like a safe haven in his mind.
At first, they were daily.
Then weekly.
Then only when he could remember your face.
One day, he woke up and couldn’t remember if your eyes were green or blue. Brown or black. Purple or red.
Then your hair.
Your smile.
Your laugh.
And then, finally- your name.
He tried to write to you that night.
But the ink wouldn’t flow, because his hands hesitated.
Because for the first time in his life-
He didn’t know who he was writing to.
And that- not Azkaban, not the Dementors, not even the war-
That was the moment Barty Crouch Jr. truly died.
And the cruelest thing; in this form of death; he still wouldn't see you. Not yet.
Dude, i love you and you're my best friend but if you keep bringing an air of indescribable terror and wrongness into the house then you're going to have to leave. You're upsetting the cats.
A domineering woman who wants to control everything, including her daughter's personal life. She disapproves of her daughter's marriage and tries to destroy it using various spells. However, her latest attempts have been unsuccessful, and Doreen plans to use a more powerful means against her son-in-law.
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Okay real talk guys why was Harry Potter not an Obscurial? He fits all of the boxes, he’s
Forced to repress his magic through physical AND psychological abuse (The Dursleys hated magic and wouldn’t talk about it, “THERES NO SUCH THING AS MAGIC”, they punished him by starving, isolating, and/or hurting him when he did any magic
He hurts other people with his accidental magic (setting a boa constrictor on the zoo, blowing up his Aunt). I can’t think of any other magic kid who did that, EXCEPT for Credence Barebone and Ariana Dumbledore, the most well documented Obscurials in the series, and Snape, whose a accidental magic seems like it wasn’t meant to actually kill anyone (he dropped a branch to hit Petunias shoulder), but idk. You really could kill someone by making them blow up or get but by a snake.
A key feature of the development of an Obscurus in a kid is feeling helpless against cruelty. Ariana was helpless when she was attacked by those Muggle boys, which led to the development of her obscurus, and Credence was helpless against his mother and the world to stop hurting him. Harry is helpless in almost every situation he’s in before the age of eleven, with the only exception I can think of being in outsmarting or running Dudley. But still, hes chased by Dudley’s gang so they can beat him up all the time, and that helplessness manifests in him accidentally apparating (seriously difficult magic) onto the roof! The Dursleys are cruel, and by the nature of being a child he’s with them, like, all the time, so he’s constantly helpless against cruelty.
His situation does not involve a kind/sympathetic person to help, not until Hogwarts. Not even Mrs. Figg, who doesn’t appear to talk to him or comfort him in any way even if she is watching over him. Credence and Ariana, on the other hand, both had a kind person. Credence’s was Tina, when she stepped in to help (I don’t know if he developed his Obscurus before or after that, though, so maybe he didn’t have anyone), and Ariana’s was Aberforth and Kendra. Harry doesn’t have anyone, not one person. In that way, he’s even more dangerous than the canon Obscurials.
He isn’t given any sign of what’s going on with him. Credence knows about magic a bit because of him being part of his mother’s witch hunting group— I’m not saying it’s healthy, but he does know about magic. Ariana knows plenty about magic, coming from a magical family in a magical town (Godric’s Hollow) with two older brothers at Hogwarts. Harry’s family won’t even discuss magic in jest, in the little ways that most Muggles do (it was like magic, the ‘magic word’ thing). This adds onto the helplessness, and multiplies the repression thing by like tenfold.
I don’t understand, by all means it seems to me like he should have been an Obscurial. Does anybody have any ideas of why he wasn’t, or if somehow he was this whole time? Am I missing something here? Maybe it’s just You-Know-Who’s worldbuilding holes striking again, but feels like it doesn’t match up.
Something really sad to think about: Is that Ariana probably wouldn't have lived much longer anyway. Most Obscurial never make it to double digits and Ariana was already 14.
Both her brothers spent the rest of their lives living with guilt for a death that was probably on its way to happening anyway....
