All the Young Dudes ( Sirius' Perspective )

Fifth Year : Unforgivable

There weren’t words for it.

The pain burrowed; it burned; it tore; it gnawed; it gnashed; it shattered; it slavered; it writhed; it consumed. His bones had turned to teeth; his body was trying to eat itself.

And then it stopped.

It was so sudden that for a moment—just a split-second—Sirius thought that he’d died. It was impossible, that he should be able to feel his limbs moving, his heart beating, his lungs expanding as he gasped for air, when just a moment before the only thing he’d felt was the wretched, fervid pain.

“Swear your allegiance!”

His mother’s sharp voice pulled him back into his body, and Sirius sucked in a breath. He was fine, he was okay; the curse didn’t actually damage the body, only targeted the mind.

“No,” he gasped, trying to stand—when had he fallen to his knees?

“Crucio!”

He collapsed, only vaguely aware of the way his head cracked against the hardwood floor. It was nothing compared to the agony devouring him; a pinprick when every nerve in his body had been skewered by red-hot knives. He couldn’t hear himself screaming—couldn’t hear anything except his own traitorous heartbeat, pounding against the cage of his chest as it tried to escape his body.

And then it stopped, again, and he was on the floor, gutted like a fish.

“Swear it, Sirius.”

She was standing above him; she was so far away.

“Mum—” he choked out, voice knotted with tears, but it wasn’t his mother who raised her wand this time.

“Crucio!”

His father’s pain was colder, locking his muscles, freezing the marrow in his bones. It howled like a winter storm through his body, ravaging everything in its path.

“It’s time you learned your place, boy!”

“No, please, dad don’t—”

“Crucio!”

They weren’t stopping, it wasn’t ending, they were going to kill him, he was dying, it hurt, it hurt, it hurt.

“Crucio!”

It hurt more than breaking his ankle, more than the animagus potion, more than the cuts on his legs. Sirius had never imagined his own body’s capacity for pain.

“Swear it, Sirius!”

He couldn’t do it—he had to say yes—but he wouldn’t, the ink and the snake—the blood on the outside, the twisting coils, the vipering of it, the poison—

“Swear to him! Make yourself worthy of this family!”

He’d never say yes—he wouldn’t, he wouldn’t. His thoughts spun away from him, disjointed, and Sirius followed them, searching for something—anything—to hold on to.

A memory surfaced: a library book. His research, all those years ago. Accounts of wizards inflicted with lycanthropy liken the pain of transformation to the Cruciatus curse. Remus, screaming, body breaking, body twisting, body taking itself apart until his voice was a howl—and the moon—and they were running—