Why did Barty Crouch Jr join Voldemort?

[katherinemaurer at ymail.com]

No: HPFGUIDX 189706

Hi, I'm new here and was hoping to ask some questions and speculate on Harry Potter.

Barty Crouch Jr is my favourite character and as so, I have read a lot of ssk7882's fantastic posts. They did enlighten me on some things, but one main question seemed to be unanswered.

Why did Barty Crouch Jr join Voldemort? Further to that, what was Barty Jr's childhood like, to lead him to that decision?

The most canon says about Barty's childhood was in Padfoot Returns, page 459 Sirius says, "Once the boy had died, people started feeling a bit more sympathetic towards him, and started asking how a nice young lad from a good family had gone so badly astray. The conclusion was that his father never much cared for him."

That conclusion was considered a cop-out in ssk7882's message #47931 "Midnight in the Golden Wood". Then from that, ssk7882 discounts a theory and creates a few of their own to do with that subject. Their theories seemed quite vague, because the question as to why Barty Jr joined Voldemort was probably not primarily what they were trying to answer. But it is what I would like answered.

Could you please help me with this.

-katherinemaurer