Then tell him that his lonesome nights are over
*A strange, half-haunted cleanliness has overtaken Crouch Sr.'s suburban dwelling, making it perhaps the least comfortable place to accept a dinner invitation this side of the Ministry's interrogation rooms, unfortunately for Frank and Alice Longbottom. It is only lucky for Crouch Sr. that his invitations are nearly impossibly to decline, because were it not for that he would easily remain the only person to set foot in his house again after Bernadette's passing. What had once been a home for a loving wife and a vibrant son has been steam-cleaned and infused with a sort of beige emptiness that exudes a ghostly modern-Amish feel. No shoes sit out in its entryway, a single umbrella sits in a stand, and when one first enters the house there is very little indication that one might find furniture in the rooms beyond, let alone personal possessions. No homely or welcoming gestures have been made in honour of tonight's guests after they pass inside off the well-lit porch and into this shell of a family home.
Crouch Sr. answers the door himself however, despite his stature and the obvious ownership of a house elf. After the depositary of coats and bags has been made into the otherwise barren front closet, during which he remains perfectly blankfaced and unaffected at the lonely clink of empty hangers, the Longbottoms are invited inward to endure an evening of prime rib roast and unusual hospitality.
He doesn't speak again until he has lead his unwilling pair of star Aurors, and some of the few humans he can tolerate at this point, though to the livingroom, where the chairs seem to have been rearranged fairly recently to most comfortably seat three. It's a subtle but unnerving configuration, with couches and armchairs all equal distance apart and surely intended to reduce everyone's need to turn one's head to talk. In any other place but this, it might be convenient and thoughtful, but in here it simply gives off the air of a conversational trap.
Crouch Sr. takes his spot with graceful, robotic ease, and gestures for his guests to do the same, and with eyes on both of them he begins a terrifying attempt at smalltalk as he asks what's on his mind.*
What happens to the baby?
Crouch Sr. answers the door himself however, despite his stature and the obvious ownership of a house elf. After the depositary of coats and bags has been made into the otherwise barren front closet, during which he remains perfectly blankfaced and unaffected at the lonely clink of empty hangers, the Longbottoms are invited inward to endure an evening of prime rib roast and unusual hospitality.
He doesn't speak again until he has lead his unwilling pair of star Aurors, and some of the few humans he can tolerate at this point, though to the livingroom, where the chairs seem to have been rearranged fairly recently to most comfortably seat three. It's a subtle but unnerving configuration, with couches and armchairs all equal distance apart and surely intended to reduce everyone's need to turn one's head to talk. In any other place but this, it might be convenient and thoughtful, but in here it simply gives off the air of a conversational trap.
Crouch Sr. takes his spot with graceful, robotic ease, and gestures for his guests to do the same, and with eyes on both of them he begins a terrifying attempt at smalltalk as he asks what's on his mind.*
What happens to the baby?