Douglas had already walked up to him and looked down at the man who had once been so gifted but had now become a madman.
"Setting an example means-accepting your assignment."
Before he finished speaking, Douglas suddenly reached out.
Fast.
Too fast.
Barty Crouch Jr. did not even have time to react before a hand like an iron clamp locked around his throat.
"Urgh-!"
Every curse and roar was cut off in his throat.
Douglas lifted him with one hand, as though holding a sick chicken awaiting slaughter.
"This lake is very deep, Barty."
Holding him aloft, Douglas walked to the edge of the Island in the Middle of the Lake. Below lay unfathomable black water, now rippling from the boat's passage.
Beneath the water, countless pallid faces could dimly be seen gazing upward.
They were Inferi.
"If you fall in, those friends will be delighted. They haven't tasted fresh... piping-hot flesh in a very long time."
Barty Crouch Jr.'s pupils contracted sharply.
He was not afraid of dying-if he died for Voldemort.
But he feared dying like this.
Being devoured by a pack of mindless corpses, becoming as rotten and foul-smelling as they were, trapped forever at the bottom of this freezing lake, never again able to follow in his master's footsteps.
"No... no... Master... save me..."
He forced broken syllables from his throat, his feet kicking helplessly in the air.
"You're afraid of death, Barty. I know. The crazier you act, the more you fear being forgotten deep down."
Douglas leaned close to his face and said softly:
"Then do your best to stay alive. Leap beyond death? No, what you need to leap across now is this sea of suffering."
With that, Douglas put strength into his arm and hurled Barty Crouch Jr. toward the pitch-black lake