"No! It shouldn't have been like this! He only couldn't cast the Imperius Curse because he was too weak! Yes! That's it!"
Barty Crouch Jr. finally jolted awake. He gasped violently, and only when he felt waves of chill rising from his back did he realize he had returned to the Durmstrang Headmaster's Office and was lying on the cold floor.
He turned his head slightly to look out the window and found that the sky was even darker than he had imagined. Everything around him was deathly still, and even the sound of his own breathing seemed exceptionally loud.
Voldemort was not here. In the vast Headmaster's Office, there was only him, and the cold seeping up from his spine.
Barty Crouch Jr. struggled to his feet. Yet with just a blink, everything he had experienced earlier would uncontrollably surface before his eyes.
At this moment, he truly found it difficult to be certain whether everything he had experienced earlier had been a nightmare brought on by the potion's effects, or... a truth he had once ignored.
He staggered toward the cabinet, pulled open one of the drawers, and took out a Pensieve from inside.
Facing the smoky, dreamlike silver substance inside the Pensieve, he gritted his teeth, raised his Wand, and pressed it against his temple.
He knew what he was doing. He needed to verify whether everything he had just experienced had truly happened.
No!
He did not need to verify it. He had to verify it!
Barty Crouch Jr. took a deep breath. The hand gripping the Wand slowly pulled outward, drawing out a slender silver Memory Thread.
Looking at the silver Memory Thread at the tip of his Wand, his wrist froze. He simply could not flick his wrist and let the silver Memory Thread