Magic? || Years 5-7

Crucio: Captured

Warnings: Canon-typical violence, blood

If Amisty's bravado faded when she met Voldemort's snake-like gaze head-on, no one was the wiser. If an icy finger trailed down her spine as Voldemort tipped his head back and laughed, a high, dangerous thing, no one noticed. If her heart stopped and started back again in a rapid-fire thump against her ribs, well, no one could hear it.

No one except for the fair-haired boy standing off to the side, blood slowly draining from his face as an imperceptible shiver cut through Amisty's body, the cold of Manor seeping into her skin and raising the hair on her arms. The boy who could feel, viscerally, just how terrified she really was.

"I believe," Voldemort said, robes swirling around his ankles despite how little he moved, "I asked for both Potter and the girl, Rabastan."

Rabastan Lestrange. The man who slaughtered Everton. The man who murdered her mother.

"Potter and his friends got away," Lestrange rumbled, scowling as Amisty's grin turned vicious. "It won't take long to find him again, my Lord."

"Good." Voldemort held Amisty's wands in his long, pale fingers, toying with the hilt as he regarded her. "Kneel."

It took a moment for the words to set in. Bone-deep resentment roared its head, gnashed its teeth as Amisty's eyes narrowed. "Never."

"How dare you—"

Bellatrix Lestrange raised her wand high, a curse on the tip of her tongue, only stopped by Voldemort's raised hand.

"Not yet, Bellatrix," he said quietly, now holding Amisty's wand by either end, tracing the curved edge. "There will be plenty of time for that later."

And with one, sharp crack, he snapped Amisty's wand in two.

She felt vaguely ill, vision swaying as she watched the shattered birch wood clatter to the floor, the unicorn hair just barely holding it together. Splinters tinier than a fingernail falling at her feet. Broken. Her wand, oh Merlin, her wand. Breaths coming fast and painful, Amisty struggled to keep her expression blank, even as something broke in her chest.

That was the first thing she got when she found out she was a witch. With Harry. The first thing that tied her to the Wizarding world. The only thing to prove that maybe her life had turned around after all.

A silent spell lashed out with a lazy flick of Voldemort's wand. Black tendrils wrenched her arms behind her back, binding her wrists together. Lestrange shoved her forward and she stumbled, landing hard on her knees. Tears swam in her eyes, pain fire hot as it rushed up her legs, but she still lifted her chin, glared as hard as she could muster without letting any tears fall.

"Break her," Voldemort said with a thin little smile that didn't quite fit on his face. "She serves no purpose to me still fighting."

"I'd like to see you try," Amisty bit back, feral-eyed and snarling. The ache in her chest a persistent reminder of what this man has done. "I will never bow to such a pathetic excuse of a man like—"

But her furious tirade was cut short by a gut-wrenching scream. Amisty had never borne witness to the pain of the Cruciatus Curse.

Now, she was wishing she never had to again.

Amisty was screaming, so loudly, so guttural, her throat aching in sparse seconds as she writhed on the stone floor. Sobbing as knives and needles and fire slashed across her skin and through her body, more pain than she'd ever felt before.

"Please!" she begged, unsure what for, curling inward as lightning blazed down her spine. "PLEASE!"

It was overwhelming pain, stealing the breath from her lungs and replacing it with poison, and it hurt and hurt and hurt—