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Alright, folks, buckle your seatbelts and hold on tight, because we’re about to take a deep dive into one of the most fascinating and complex characters of the Marauders Era.
He doesn’t get a lot of page time, at least not as himself. In fact, one of the most notable things about Barty is the fact that he spends an entire school year in disguise. Not only that, he’s impersonating a trusted friend of Dumbledore’s and nearly gets away with it. He’s a brilliant actor.
I don’t think his year as Moody is the only time he used that skill with deception. I know a lot of people imagine Barty openly rebelling against his father, as sort of a dark mirror to Sirius, but I would argue that this doesn’t fit with what we’re told in the books:
“When Voldemort disappeared, it looked like only a matter of time until Crouch got the top job. But then something rather unfortunate happened.…” Sirius smiled grimly. “Crouch’s own son was caught with a group of Death Eaters who’d managed to talk their way out of Azkaban.” (GoF chapter 27)
Barty’s involvement with the Death Eaters came as a shocking revelation that destroyed Barty Sr.’s political ambitions. So I think he must have been very clever about disguising his true loyalties and playing the role of the dutiful son. It’s possible his father had some idea he was hanging out with the wrong crowd, but even this I think is unlikely.
“Nasty little shock for old Barty, I’d imagine. Should’ve spent a bit more time at home with his family, shouldn’t he? Ought to have left the office early once in a while… gotten to know his own son.” (GoF chapter 27)
I tend to think Sirius’s assessment of Barty Sr. was accurate. He does come across as the sort of man to prioritize his career over spending time with his family, and given his position in the Ministry and his strong stance against the Death Eaters, there’s no way he would have tolerated his own kid being involved. Whatever was going on in junior’s personal life, senior was too busy with work to be aware of it, or he would undoubtedly have interfered sooner.
The fact that Barty Jr. wasn’t indoctrinated at home makes him unusual among his generation of Death Eaters, most of whom either have Death Eater relatives or come from families that hold similar beliefs. He’s also not listed as a member of the “gang of Slytherins who nearly all turned out to be Death Eaters” (GoF chapter 27), although he’s definitely connected to the Lestranges. My solution to this is to make him friends with Regulus. (Or more than friends. This is a rare pair event, after all – let’s see if I can convince y’all of Bartylus.)
Based on the birth years on the Black Family Tree, Barty couldn’t have met Bellatrix at Hogwarts, but he definitely went to school with her cousins. Regulus, like Barty, was not mentioned as a member of the future Death Eaters’ gang but did go on to join at a young age – and, through his family, he’s closely connected to the very same people Barty ends up caught red-handed with. The two of them being close is, I think, very compatible with canon.
One thing I find really compelling about this dynamic is that they have opposite arcs that overlap in the middle. They start off in very different places, Regulus coming from a Dark Side family with Death Eater connections and Barty as the son of a prominent anti-Death Eater politician. Their stories end in opposite ways, with Regulus dying in his unsuccessful attempt to make Voldemort mortal and Barty losing his soul after successfully bringing him back. But during the time in between, I imagine them to be quite similar, and drawn to each other as sort of kindred spirits. Both had family issues, both liked Quidditch, both had an interest in the Dark Arts, and both were likely very conscious of how others perceived them. It’s incredibly tragic either as a romantic ship or a friendship, not just because they both meet unpleasant ends (which is true for most Marauders Era characters) but because the people they eventually become would both hate what the other one died for.
But before we get to what Barty died lost his soul for, let’s talk about how intelligent he must have been.
He didn’t actually have years of practical experience in Defense Against the Dark Arts. He had what he knew from taking the class in school himself, plus his experience using the Dark Arts, which was certainly helpful but couldn’t possibly have covered every aspect the curriculum. Not to mention, he had spent most of his adult life either in Azkaban or under his father’s Imperius Curse, isolated and without much mental stimulation. But he performs so well that nobody suspects a thing. Even after his true identity and agenda are revealed, his former students still give him credit for being an effective teacher: “Well, he turned out to be a maniac, didn’t he?” said Dean Thomas hotly. “Mind you, we still learned loads –” (OotP chapter 12).
All this to say: fanon Barty is intelligent (often headcanoned as a Ravenclaw) but also tends to be impulsive, erratic, and lacking in common sense. Canon Barty is quite different. He must have been not only incredibly bright but also a brilliant strategist to be able to pull off what he did.
His twelve O.W.L.s are very impressive as well. Only a few other characters are credited with this; I'm pretty sure it's just Bill and Percy Weasley, with Hermione attempting it but dropping to ten after third year. It’s never mentioned whether Barty also used a time turner, and I think you could make a convincing argument either way.
It’s possible that there are fewer students at Hogwarts in the lightning era. There seem to be a lot of unused classrooms, and there are extracanonical references to more than one teacher per subject in the past. For example, Professor McGonagall was initially hired for “a job in the Transfiguration department, under Head of Department, Albus Dumbledore” (source). It would make sense that many of the Marauders’ generation and those who were slightly older either died childless or put off having children due to the war.
So, in the Marauders Era, it may be that there were many more students and therefore more scheduling options. However, there are still only so many hours in a day, so it’s possible some elective classes would always have to be scheduled at the same time regardless. Either way, twelve O.W.L.s would be roughly the same workload Hermione had in third year, becoming more intense with each year that followed and culminating, of course, in twelve exams to study for when most students would only be taking nine or ten.
Passing all twelve indicates a wide range of competence. Some Hogwarts school subjects require magical power and ability to cast difficult spells (e.g., Transfiguration), while others involve practical skills outside of spell casting (e.g., Potions, Herbology). Some also appear to be more theoretical or academic in nature (e.g., History of Magic). Barty, apparently, excelled or at least performed satisfactorily across all these different disciplines.
There are two in particular that I want to draw your attention to at this point: Divination and Muggle Studies.
There’s no indication that Barty had the Sight, but he apparently earned at least an Acceptable on his Divination O.W.L. I tend to think he was simply much better at bluffing than Harry and Ron, since it would be very difficult to actually prove whether someone’s predictions were accurate. Barty definitely shows the skill for deception that would enable him to fool an examiner into thinking he’s seeing the future.
Muggle Studies is the one that really caught me off guard when I realized. Unless the curriculum changed, he must have taken it in order to earn twelve O.W.L.s. I wonder if this means that his father expected him to take Muggle Studies, that he had a genuine interest in it, or perhaps simply that he was a completionist and wanted all twelve regardless of the details. I do see it as potential evidence, though, that he wasn’t really all that concerned with the Death Eaters’ anti-Muggle agenda. And there’s plenty of evidence for this. Unlike most of them, he never actually talks about blood purity when he discusses the cause he has dedicated himself to.
Don’t get me wrong, he would have been aware of the agenda and, at least, didn’t see it as a problem. But the way that he talks about Voldemort and the Death Eaters, it’s obvious blood status is not his priority:
“They were free to seek him, but they did not. They were merely making sport of Muggles. The sound of their voices awoke me. My mind was clearer than it had been in years. I was angry.… I wanted to show those Death Eaters what loyalty to the Dark Lord meant, and to punish them for their lack of it.” (GoF chapter 35)
So attacking Muggles is something he’s actually disdainful of, because he finds it a poor substitute for trying to bring back Voldemort. His first loyalty is to the man, not the ideology. Later on, he goes on to describe his first interactions with Voldemort after they were reunited: “He asked me whether I was ready to risk everything for him. I was ready. It was my dream, my greatest ambition, to serve him, to prove myself to him.” (GoF chapter 35).
Barty is nearly unique in this. There are others who went to Azkaban at the end of the first war, but the only other Death Eater who displays this level of overwhelming personal loyalty is Bellatrix. They’re similar in other ways as well: both believe themselves to be his most faithful follower, both aspire to be his right-hand man (or woman), and both are highly intelligent and competent despite many years of experiences that should have destroyed their sanity.
It's interesting, then, that Barty and Bellatrix are contrasted so harshly in the trial flashbacks. While she’s proud and defiant, eager to go to Azkaban for Voldemort, he begs for mercy and claims to be innocent throughout: “Father, I didn’t!” shrieked the boy in chains below. “I didn’t, I swear it, Father, don’t send me back to the dementors –” (GoF chapter 30). It’s very questionable, upon a first read-through, whether or not he was actually guilty – right up until the plot twist, at which point it becomes obvious. Barty Crouch Sr. was wrong about Sirius and wrong in how he handled the trials overall, but Barty Jr. absolutely did what he was accused of and likely much more.
One thing I wonder is whether his mother believed he was innocent. I don’t really have an answer to this, but I think it’s very interesting that, like Lily, she died in place of her son. Self-sacrifice and motherly love are portrayed as the ultimate forces for good in HP, so it’s fascinating to see, in Barty’s backstory, those same things inadvertently leading to so much death and destruction.
The fact that he behaved the way he did at the trial is ironic, though, when he starts saying things like this:
“I asked you,” said Moody quietly, “whether he forgave the scum who never even went to look for him. Those treacherous cowards who wouldn’t even brave Azkaban for him.” (GoF chapter 35, emphasis mine).
This could simply be a case of sour grapes, but I think it’s more than that. Rather than truly being so upset that some Death Eaters succeeded at avoiding prison, I suspect he's more concerned with what they did with their freedom. It’s the willingness to let Voldemort stay dead that he can’t forgive.