notre dame.

prologue.

PROLOGUE.

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The night following the events with her brother in the manor is a night that would be imprinted in Blythe's mind permanently. Whenever people asked her what it was like the night her brother, Barth Crouch Junior, got arrested; she'd always respond the same: "It had been any other day..."

           The brush strokes moved gently across the large canvas on the easel. Blythe Crouch was focused only on the stroke of forest green going onto the canvas, holding the brush as delicately as possible to not ooze paint all over and keep her line as neat as it could be. Her face was scrunched in concentration, and her hair was pulled messily out of it to keep her long curls from getting into the paint as she moved around the room.

A knock echoed against the door, startling Blythe and causing her to shout a curse as her brush smudged across the canvas. Blythe's brown eyes widened at the streak, a cry of anguish passing through her lips, causing chuckles to meet her ears through the door. Blythe spun on her heel, shrieking, "Barty!"

Barty Crouch Junior's chuckles failed to cease, and he took his sister's distress as a sign to enter the room. Barty pushed the door open, leaning in the entryway as she glared at him. Blythe angrily slammed her paint tray and brush down, but Barty was unfazed by his sister's anguish.

"Dinner is ready," he told her, shrugging his shoulders as he tucked his hands into his pockets.

Blythe leveled a glare at her older brother, "You're lucky our mother is here."

"Don't go threatening me now, Blythie," Barty chuckled and walked into the room further, his eyes examining her now ruined painting. He stopped in the middle of the room, tilting his head as he stared at the canvas, "It's not all bad."

"Shut it, Barty," Blythe rolled her eyes and grabbed a rag to clean off her hands. She rubbed them against the denim of her trousers to dry them off then released her curls from the confines of their tie, letting them fall loosely around her shoulders, "Now I need a solution to fix it."

"It'll be fine, just a little snap," he snapped his fingers in the air to emphasize the point, to which his sister only rolled her eyes and put a hand on his chest to push him out of her room backward.

The Crouch siblings could hear their mother talking to Winky as they stood in the hall. Blythe's bedroom door suddenly slammed shut, causing her to let out of soft shriek of surprise as her brother erupted into laughter again. Blythe pinched his side, eliciting a shout as his hand flew over the spot while she turned and walked away. She bounded down the stairs in a hurry, moving her feet as quickly as possible and holding the banister.

As Blythe stepped into the dining room, her mother's tired gaze met her own. Her blonde hair was in a loose braid down her back and her blue eyes looked as glossed over as ever. She was seated in her usual spot at the table, a helping of food already in front of her as she stared at her daughter, "Where's your father?"

Lucinda Crouch had been spending recent months fighting an ailment of sorts, one that even her grown children could not fully understand. Though both were aware that it sometimes made their mother delirious, she had already struggled with keeping her mind intact throughout their childhood.

Blythe did not dare answer her mother. She knew where her father was. He had come by her room before he left, muttering some sort of admiration toward her painting before kissing her messy curls and leaving her room for work. The Ministry often stole her father away, and with the war over it was worse than ever before