"No need to trouble yourself, Kreacher."
Douglas smiled and waved a hand, taking an exquisite little pastry wrapped in waxed paper from his coat pocket-a slice of Chestnut Cake that gave off an enticingly sweet aroma.
"This is for you. I've noticed how hard you've been working lately."
Kreacher accepted the cake with trembling hands, tears instantly welling in his eyes.
"Oh... Professor... you are so kind... unlike that... that..."
Kreacher suddenly turned and glared fiercely toward the living quarters, his grateful expression instantly twisting into disgust.
"Unlike that member of the Crouch family being kept here! Even if he's as old as a piece of moldy bark, he still can't change his nauseating bureaucratic ways!"
"Oh! Kreacher isn't saying bureaucrats are bad, only that bureaucrats aren't the great Black family..."
Kreacher angrily waved the filthy rag that wasn't actually in his hand.
"And the things he writes... oh, so strange! All Fourteenth Amendments and standardized recommendations on cauldron thickness... and he still finds fault! Finds fault with the Onion Soup cooked by the Black family's Kreacher, saying the onions aren't soft enough!"
"He's an ungrateful wretch! He's forgotten that Kreacher belongs to the noble Black family!"
Douglas couldn't help raising his eyebrows.
It seemed these two roommates weren't getting along very well.
"All right, Kreacher."
Douglas soothed him.
"He's atoning. Everyone atones differently. Some pray, and some write official documents."
Just then, the stone door to the living quarters gave a dull rumble and slowly opened.
Barty Crouch Sr. walked out.
By now, he had long since lost the meticulous, even somewhat neurotic air of authority he had possessed at the Ministry of Magic.
He wore a coarse gray robe, his graying hair somewhat disheveled. Deep wrinkles covered his face, marks carved by time and regret.
But his eyes