Barty Crouch Senior

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Harry Potter character
Roger Lloyd-Pack as Barty Crouch in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire.
Barty Crouch Sr
Gender	Male
Hair colour	Grey (Formerly Dark)
Eye colour	Dark
Parentage	Pure-blood
Allegiance	Ministry of Magic
Actor	Roger Lloyd-Pack
First appearance	Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

Bartemius "Barty" Crouch, the elder, (d. May 1995) is a fictional character in the Harry Potter series of books. Barty Crouch was played by British actor Roger Lloyd-Pack, in the screen adaptation of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire.

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

When Lord Voldemort first came to power, Crouch headed the Department of Magical Law Enforcement. He became as ruthless as some on the Dark Side, and gave Aurors powers to kill rather than capture suspected Death Eaters who resisted arrest. He sent Sirius Black to the wizard prison Azkaban without a trial. Crouch appeared to be the favourite to become the next Minister for Magic, when his own son, Barty Crouch Jr, was caught with Death Eaters who were trying to bring Lord Voldemort back to power. Crouch gave his son a trial before sending him to Azkaban; however, according to Sirius Black, the trial was a sham, merely a public demonstration of how much he hated the boy.

About a year after the trial, Crouch's terminally ill wife begged for her son's life to be saved, so Crouch gave her Polyjuice Potion that made her take on her son's appearance while their son drank some that caused him to take on his mother's appearance. In this way the younger Barty Crouch escaped Azkaban, leaving his ailing mother to die and be buried while still magically disguised as her son. The elder Crouch held a funeral for his wife, but the casket was empty.

After the supposed death of his son, public sympathy fell on Crouch Jr; the wizarding world placed all the blame on Crouch Sr, accusing him of driving his son to join the Death Eaters because of his neglect of his family. After the scandal, Crouch lost much of his popularity and he was shunted sideways to a post as the head of the Department of International Magical Co-operation.

While secretly held in his father's home, Barty Crouch Jr was nursed back to health by Winky, the family's House-Elf. He hid under an invisibility cloak at all times and was kept under control with the Imperius Curse. Some time later, Bertha Jorkins, Ministry of Magic employee, discovered Crouch Jr; Crouch Sr put a powerful Memory Charm on her to make her forget what she had seen.

Years later, Lord Voldemort broke through the Memory Charm placed on Bertha Jorkins and discovered that Barty Crouch Jr was still alive. Voldemort became determined to rescue and restore his loyal servant.

Voldemort and his servant Wormtail showed up at the Crouch family home and put Barty Crouch under the Imperius Curse, freeing Crouch Jr from the Imperius curse placed on him by his father and thus rejoining Voldemort. Worried that Barty Crouch would fight the Imperius Curse, Voldemort kept him imprisoned within the house and had him communicate exclusively through supervised owl post.

Meanwhile, under Voldemort's orders, Crouch Jr abducted Mad-Eye Moody who had recently secured the position of Defence Against the Dark Arts professor at Hogwarts. At Hogwarts, Crouch Jr kept up the pretence of being Moody by means of polyjuice potion and used it to get close to Harry Potter. In the scene in Crouch Jr/Moody's room, Crouch Sr can be seen briefly appearing in the Foe-Glass on the table. Later Crouch Sr, who had escaped from his home, meets Harry Potter and Viktor Krum in the Forbidden Forest and begs to see Dumbledore. However, Harry, while on his way to inform Dumbledore of the events, unwittingly alerts Crouch Jr in the disguise of Moody to his father's presence. Crouch Jr instantly goes to the Forest, knocks Krum unconscious, and proceeds to kill his own father. Crouch Jr transfigures his father's body into a bone and buries it on the Hogwarts grounds. In the film adaptation Crouch Sr realised that Moody/Crouch Jr was his own son and was killed in the Forbidden Forest by his son. Harry then discovers his body afterwards.

Barty Crouch is quite likely descended (by an unknown but small number of generations) from Charis Black and Caspar Crouch.

[edit] Film depiction

While the Crouch of the book was portrayed as being extremely harsh and unsympathetic, he was depicted as being a mostly reasonable man in the film. There was no mention made of his harsh policies and Dumbledore stated that, due to "overwhelming" evidence, Crouch had no choice but to convict his son. This is in contrast to the book, where there was only circumstantial evidence against Crouch Jr and it was stated that Crouch Sr made no attempt to get his son off. However, the filmic Crouch still publicly tells Crouch Jr that "you are no son of mine," although Crouch was even harsher in the corresponding scene from the book.