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I: Bartemius Crouch Junior

Notes:

Small premise: this is the first time that I am going to write an AU soulmate, I don't even know why, but this idea struck me and I haven't had rest since that moment, I wanted too much to see it realized.
I don't even know whether to call it classic Soulmate because it's not about tattoos, or seeing the world in color, or names that appear on the wrist etc, etc ... so I don't know, I've just tried.

Disclaimer: the characters belong only to JK Rowling, the BBC and the two protagonists definitely to David Tennant, I just enjoy borrowing them and playing with them a little puppet style 'Now, kiss!'

Chapter I: Bartemius Crouch Junior

Ollivender's craft shop was still ablaze as Bartemius Crouch Junior, more commonly known as Barty, walked down the avenue, in the dark of night, with a satisfied expression.

After all, that shopkeeper had been looking for it: he had not paid the protection money, he had not accepted the protection offered by those who had commanded since the beginning of the century, he had refused to obey their rules.

Barty had only made sure to remind him of what subversives risk acting like that.

And with all the wooden objects there, the fire had spread even faster.

The gasoline and the lighters yes, they amused him enough, the explosives always gave him a certain adrenaline, but Barty had a real predilection for guns and rifles, he called them his magic wands, because with them he really knew how to do magic.

He was the fastest and most formidable gunslinger in the whole London.

The flagship of the Death Eaters, the powerful group of gangsters who have been dominating the capital for almost thirty years.

However, things hadn't always been this way for Barty.
From a Sheriff's son, people would have expected a whole different path in life.

Not that young Bartemius hadn't tried: he was the best student not only in his class, but in the whole school. That was until his senior year at Hogwarts, before the arrival of Hermione Granger, a first year student who in a few months had amazed everyone with her excellent grades, which had ended up equaling those of young Crouch.

"Can I meet the author of this ex aequo?" Barty had approached her, while all the students looked at the results for the first school term.

"It's 'èx aequo', not 'ex aequoo'!" were the first words she had spoken to him. "And it won't last anyway, next time I'll beat you." she had declared, stubborn.

"We'll see, you little know-it-all witch!" he had growled before leaving.

She was very beautiful, with the long, indomitable curls between brown and blond, the lively expression and the proud bearing, with that uniform that enhanced her forms, even if still immature, if only she had not been so unbearable.

The worst thing is that with the next school term her predictions had become true and Barty had nothing left but taking the blow.

The rivalry soon resulted in a mutual liking that a passionate kiss shortly later transformed into what had become a love story, albeit a troubled one.

Troubled by the interference of Bartemius Crouch Senior, who if when his son got the best grades had never said anything to him, as soon as he knew that Barty had lost the primacy, he had attributed it to the boy's love interests.
The Sheriff had tried to divide the two lovers, but he hadn't succeeded.

Barty had struggled to prove to him that he could do both, love and study, and the fact that he had graduated with honors without splitting with Hermione was the ultimate proof.

But it had also been the definitive crack in their relationships that had never been idyllic: from a father who was always absent but in the front row when it came to punishing or denigrating his son, what could be expected?
Elly Crouch, the sheriff's wife, knew that sooner or later their paths would part.
She was a psychic.

"Barty, my darling, never let anyone walk all over you," she had pampered him, at the end of the last quarrel between him and his father, the most terrible, the one that ended with an oath of mutual denial.

"I'll never let him, for sure!" the young man had growled, even though in reality he suffered from that abandonment. "Anyway, I'm fine, mother, I have you, I have Hermione ..."