Behind the Closed Doors

Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter or anything related to it. Recognizable characters and parts of Harry Potter storyline belong to J. K. Rowling and Warner Bros. respectively. I don't make any profit by writing this. Thank you.

Warnings: Michael's POV, bad language(?), crack-pairing, OOCness, some non-consensual stuff (nothing major and barely mentioned because I suck at writing smut), Cruciatus, character death, grammatical errors…

A/N: This for THE BINGO BOARD CHALLENGE. This is supposed to be A5 (Affair or secret relationship).

Feels crack, everybody! Actually the idea for this fic came from my brother. We were playing Kimble – he was using the green pieces (Slytherins: Draco, Crabbe, Goyle, Snape) and I had the blue pieces (Ravenclaws: Luna, Michael, Terry, Padma) – and he kept on eating my pieces. It became a ridiculous play of "Here comes Crabbe!" and "Argh! My poor Michael!" and at some point we were just "I totally ship this". And why not? Michael is, even though I still think he's an idiot, one of my favourite characters. And Crabbe is... Crabbe is Crabbe.

Can you imagine thousands of flame hot knives carving your skin and how the blade slowly sinks into the skin and twists around?

Imagine how the heat is far from soothing and all you can do is to scream until your throat is raw, and notice how the screaming doesn't really change the situation. See how the screaming doesn't make the pain lessen, if anything it makes it only worse. Now imagine the pain taking another form – it can be anything. It can feel like a punch to a gut; it takes your breath away and makes you collapse just to be kicked when you're down. It can feel like every single cell of your body wants to explode just to regenerate and explode again, making you want to tear yourself open just to stop it.

Imagine the continuous torture, even if just inside of your head. It leaves you exhausted; you'll be hanging on the edge of the breaking point.

The pain is something you just can't comprehend with reason. The pain takes your consciousness away from the real world. It dulls the senses and leaves only the pain: you can't see, you can't hear, you can only feel the pain that scorches you from the inside.

You just want it to end. Nothing else matters if the pain just would go away. Damn, you probably hope you would rather die than feel the pain anymore.

And you know it's actually way worse than just imagining that.

Because Cruciatus Curse fucking hurts.

Of course I wasn't the only one who had gotten the fair share of punishments after the lunatic and most probably incestual siblings, also known as Amicus and Aleckto Carrow, had started their career at Hogwarts as our DADA and Muggle Studies professors. And not forgetting Snape as our Headmaster… Enough said, don't you think? Things were quite different from the before.

I had rejoined Dumbledore's Army soon after the cruelness of the Carrows came to the public knowledge. It was the step I was willing to take to defy them, and so were many others. After all, the fifth year was nothing compared to what we had to go through now. I had gotten closer with Neville especially, and I took part in the message painting operations with him, Luna, and Ginny. Ginny and I had even re-established our friendship to the point it was before we had started dating. It was all good. We took turns in patrol nights when we strolled through the corridors and checked the common rooms for missing students. The usual thing.

But then we lost Luna during the Christmas holidays and Ginny didn't come back to Hogwarts after the Easter Break. Neville was still there, though, so the DA was still running.

Things didn't really start to go downhill before I had become too reckless.

"Hey, it's okay. It's gonna be okay…" I mumbled to the whimpering Gryffindor first-year as I unlocked the chains. I knew my words were far from soothing in the current situation. I gritted my teeth as the lock was opened. The Carrows were going too far with this. "Listen to me, okay? Go to your common room, find Neville. You'll be alright."

I send him running away. Hopefully he would reach the Gryffindor Tower before the Carrows would notice him gone. I would be long gone as soon as I've painted a message on the wall. I needed to do it. We students aren't just toys for their sadistic games. But we won't go down. Dumbledore's Army won't go down…!

"Well, well, well. Who do we have here?"

I turned around, immediately grimacing. Alecto Carrow's laugh was more like mad cackling than actual laughter. The former members of the Inquisitorial Squad – the despised Slytherins that had continued their old habits – laughed as well.

"'Dumbledore's Army: Still Recruiting'." She smirked at the words I had painted on the wall. "Isn't that getting old already?"

"You think?" I snarled, not holding back my tongue. "I think it's rather catchy."

Alecto blinked. Perhaps she was just acting surprised, I don't know. But I didn't like her face. She was like a Grim. Seeing her didn't mean any good. She never meant any good. She pouted, faking innocence as she pointed at me with her wand before her lips curled up in merciless smile, very typical to her. "Well, it seems little Michael is in a need of punishment right now. Crucio!"

I panted hard. My throat was raw, and I could taste the blood in my mouth. Had I bitten my tongue during the curse? My whole body aching draw my attention from the bitter taste. I wanted to throw up there and then but I wouldn't want to give that pleasure to them. The cool floor soothed the pain but not nearly enough to make me feel comfortable. My body felt like it weighed a ton. My muscles were sore and I could have barely lifted myself from the floor. Not to mention the dull ache spreading through me in waves.

Alecto clicked her tongue. "Was that enough for 'Dumbledore's Army'?" she cooed.

"…ck you."

Alecto smirked, poking my side with the tip of her shoe. It hurt like hell. I had most like one, maybe two, fractured ribs. It seemed like she hadn't stuck only on the Torture Curse. "Excuse me, what did you say?" she asked, coating her sarcastic tone in fake sweetness.

"I said… fuck you", I repeated. "Did you now hear me now, ma-am?"

The fury in her eyes was animalistic. "Cursed brat!" she shrieked.

I had seen it coming: the first kick landed straight on my aching side, the second following and hitting my head. The taste of blood in my mouth was more evident now; the pain was piercing as my head had hit the floor because of the kick. I knew there was a contusion on my temple: the warm blood oozed from it, trickling down my face. My brain was quite fuzzy because of the bump with the stone floor so I couldn't fully understand everything she had shouted after that but several kicks followed.

I think I lost my consciousness for a moment after she used Crucio for the second time. When I regained it I could barely feel my body. I wanted to cry so hard but I couldn't. I was too tired, too exhausted to cry, and too broken to care that I couldn't. I just hoped the torture was over.

Alecto huffed, a self-satisfied smirk plastered on her face.

"Is there anyone who'd like to gain some extra points?"

I pressed my eyes shut. And the piercing pain came back soon after.

I remember how it hurt to crack my eyes open even for a short while. The corridor was dark even in the light of Lumos but even that small light stung my eyes. I leant against the warm, wide back. Based on the hushed whispering the back had to belong to Neville. I felt sore all over, and though the pain was dull the movement, no matter how slight it was, didn't help at all.

The others were alright. The Carrows hadn't gotten them. Probably that first-year had gotten to his common room without running into any harm, mainly into Amicus Carrow, then. I let the small smile curl my lips. Ha, even that was a slight victory.

Next thing I remembered was waking up and seeing the red walls and a relieved yet tired faces of Seamus Finnigan and my best mate, Terry Boot. Instead of the familiar Ravenclaw Tower I was in the dimly lit Gryffindor common room. It had to be around five or six in the morning; there was no sunlight coming from the windows.

"I'll go tell them he's awake", Seamus said to Terry.

Terry replied with a small nod before turning to me. "You look horrible", he stated with a feeble smile. "Neville is mad at you, you know." He laughed but it sounded forced, not typical to him at all. "You just had to be the hero, didn't you?"

I sat up, flinching visibly, and Terry tried help but I waved it off and gave a faint smirk. "Someone has to." There were bandages on my body. The pain was still there but not as strong as before.

"It doesn't have to be you", Terry said, his brows furrowing slightly. He didn't sound angry but worried, protective even, and I didn't like his tone. No, it didn't need to me: it needs to be all of us. All of us against them. Otherwise they'll just continue stomping us down. But I didn't say any of that to Terry.

"Michael."

I was shocked by the look Neville gave to me. I wasn't going to excuse what I had done. Any of us would have done the same. Any member of Dumbledore's Army would have done it. The only difference was that I had gotten caught.

He made it clear that the rebellion needed to be toned down after what had happened to me approximately eight hours prior. Seamus and Terry, not to mention Padma, Anthony, and the rest of the Army, supported the thought, or at least they weren't openly against it. They were scared. I was, too, but I didn't agree with them.

Alecto Carrow's face was the last thing I had wanted to see but nope, there it was. The first class of the morning, the compulsory Muggle Studies class, was a hell on earth as always. I had learnt to close my ears from her usual speech about Muggles being on the bottom of food chain, and about how vicious and stupid animals they were. Instead I was planning to visit Madam Pomfrey before the Charms, knowing Professor Flitwick wouldn't mind me being late from his class, but that was apparently wishful thinking.

"And Mr. Corner can stay after class", she announced, smirking ever so slightly.

Both Terry and Neville shot me with worried glances. It wasn't unusual that sometimes students had to stay after the class when it came to the Carrows – usually they approached only younger students that way, tried to make them turn against the DA and join You-Know-Who – but after the events of the last night I really wanted to have nothing to with Alecto Carrow.

"I've done nothing wrong", I said as soon as the rest of the class was dismissed.

"Did I say you could speak?" Alecto snarled. "And for the record, I'm the one who decides have you done nothing wrong or not." She shuffled her papers. "Detention tonight at eight. For speaking without permission. Better be there or 'Dumbledore's Army' may as well have one member less."

Empty threat, I thought when hurrying to Flitwick's class. They weren't allowed to kill students.

Or at least I hoped so.

The detention that day was held in the classroom in the fourth floor instead of dungeons.

Most students there were from the first to fourth years, getting punished for nothing really. Amicus had just been in a mood to give detention from every little thing he had found to be against his teachings. We weren't allowed to bring our wands to the detention – getting caught of bringing one with you would bring even worse punishment. I was the only member of the Army there that day and I wasn't planning on staying.

Neither of the Carrows was there; instead it seemed that making the students do the dirty work was becoming more of a habit than it was a trend. Did I mention I despise Slytherins? Well, not all of them. Some of them were actually tolerable, Nott and Zabini for example. But then there were those you just can't tolerate. If there were students who actually liked the Carrows and their methods of teaching us, two of them just came to the class.

Gregory Goyle and Vincent Crabbe, everybody.

They weren't, in fact, as dumb as they seemed. Or maybe it was just because of all the praises they got from Amicus had boosted their self-confidence and they had actually grown personalities apart from the mindless gorillas they were. How could I know?

"Line up, rule breakers", Goyle shouted, a hint of pride in his tone. A second-year Ravenclaw girl sniffed and whimpered, scared as she was, but moved along with a Hufflepuff student anyway. Probably this was her first time in detention. Just seeing her there made me so damn angry.

"Not you", Crabbe hissed, grabbing my arm. I shot him with a murderous glare.

"Where're you going?" Goyle asked, sounding what I would call surprised, when Crabbe started dragging me out the class.

"Snape", Crabbe said matter-of-factly. "You can handle those alone, can't you?"

Goyle snorted at that, and Crabbe didn't bother to say more. I found the situation rather odd, or actually, more than just rather odd. I glanced around. It was strange, and became even stranger since we weren't even walking towards the Headmaster's Office. It was in the completely opposite direction.

"You're not even taking me to Snape." I gained no reaction so I continued: "This has nothing to do with him, does this?"

Oh, wrong move, Michael, wrong move. Crabbe came to a halt. The grip he had was tight enough to probably prevent the blood circulating of my arm.

"I'll punish you myself", he retorted.

You may expect than when you have gotten tortured more than once you'll know what the pain will feel like but it's always as unexpectedly hard to endure. It never feels completely same: it depends so much on the fact who is torturing you.

The pain was oppressing; it was alternately the feeling of the rib-cage crushing under a weight or suffocating because water was slowly filling lungs. There is always that time you're tortured when you remember the Cruciatus Curse, no matter how powerful, won't kill you but you wish it would. The pain just leaves you numb and defenceless.

I knew something was going to go wrong somewhere deep in my mind when I first felt the buttons of my shirt being opened. The hot breath on my neck seemed to set my skin on fire and for the record it was one of the worst things I had ever felt. At the moment I would have taken Cruciatus Curse from the Carrows. The tenderness of the caresses made me feel sick in my stomach. I knew where this was going.

I clenched my teeth. I wasn't even pretty as a girl. I had muscles, no curves whatsoever. This wasn't supposed to happen to me.

"You're not getting away with this", I rasped out when he cupped my thighs through the fabric.

"Do you really think so?" he asked. "Think again."

And I didn't cry.

It happened few, more than few, times during the following weeks, usually under the guise of detention. He made sure I screwed up in either Muggle Studies or DADA, just to make sure he was given permission to punish me. At least I didn't need to face the Carrows but that was cold comfort.

I never talked about it to anyone – not even to Terry or Anthony, though sometimes they broached the subject when they noticed the increasing amount of bruises in my arms. I told them excuses, some more believable than others. I even knew telling the Professors wouldn't have done any good; they couldn't have done anything anyway.

When this affair, as I now call it, had started I was usually too tired to care because of the preceding torture so I just let him have his wicked way with me. Later when he stopped using the curse, I just went along with it. It wasn't like it was worse without than it was with the Cruciatus anyway. It was just much more humiliating. Still, I sort of accepted it.

The rebellion seemed to be slowly fading away. Neville had stopped attending the classes and not even his classmates knew where he was. Some even believed the Carrows had actually caught him. It wasn't until Neville had revealed himself to Seamus and told him he had been hiding in the seventh floor, in the Room of Requirement. And one after another the members Dumbledore's Army, following Neville's example, moved there to hide from the Carrows.

That was the week when I attended my last detention.

"I'm not someone you can vent your sexual frustrations on", I remarked firmly, glaring at Crabbe. I wouldn't let him touch me this time. I had a place to escape now. There would be no more Carrows and no more Crabbe. No more torture. No more lying on the floor and feeling disgusted of myself. This was over.

He frowned, drawing his wand. "I don't think you get it–"

That was it. I mentally thanked Potter for the lessons he gave during the fifth year when a simple Expelliarmus gave me the upper hand of the situation.

"You're the one not getting it!" I shouted and kicked his wand to the other side of the room. It should buy me enough time. "I hate you." He looked like I had just slapped him. I should have hexed him then but I didn't. "And you are the one who's going to get yourself killed."

It didn't matter in what kind of situation we were then, I just hadn't sunken that low.

I moved to the Room of Requirement that night.

Harry Potter was back.

Barely two weeks had passed since the whole DA had decided to stay in the Room of Requirement, now the group of people were coming back to Hogwarts to fight. I was agreeing to hold back the Death Eaters so Harry could go find the Lost Diadem of Ravenclaw. I couldn't believe Luna had even suggested that.

After the Battle started the things happened too fast.

Most of the time it was Terry, Anthony, and I; the three of us fighting side by side but after Anthony got hit by a nasty curse Terry had to retreat with him deeper into the castle where the battle hadn't yet spread like a wildfire.

When the armistice was announced I, too, had taken hit few times. The bodies of the casualties, as well as the wounded, had been moved to the Great Hall. I hoped from the bottom of my heart I wouldn't find any of my friends from there. But I wasn't so lucky. Anthony was there, not among the casualties, thank Merlin for that. Terry was alright, and so was Cho. I didn't find Padma and it made me unnaturally uneasy.

But this hour of false security we were given hold only one purpose:

The Dark Lord wanted us to give him Harry Potter.

The Battle was over. Harry wasn't dead. We had won.

The remaining Death Eaters were stripped of their wands and they were guarded by Aurors. They would be sent to wait their trials and following imprisonment. I needed to go there. I needed to know for sure. Goyle stood there, alone. Crabbe wasn't anywhere to be seen.

"Where is he?" I snarled. Goyle looked genuinely confused of me suddenly approaching him.

"Huh? Who?"

I grabbed him from his collar which was an achievement in itself since I was shorter than him. "You know who I'm talking about", I retorted. I was grateful of Aurors not interrupting my actions. They were too busy with more dangerous Dark Wizards.

Goyle's eyes widened and he shook his head. "I… He… I haven't seen Crabbe after what happened in the Room of Requirement…"

"What happened in the Room of Requirement then?!" I hissed. My patience was running low.

"The Fiendfyre got out of control", Goyle explained quickly. "The whole place was on fire… I don't think he–"

I let go of Goyle's collar. "So he's dead."

It was a statement, not a question. Goyle was about to say something but I couldn't care less. Instead I walked away. I just walked away. So he had gotten himself killed. The laughter got stuck in my throat. I really should have killed him myself when I had a chance. I refused to acknowledge the tears streaming down my cheeks.

"What an idiot…"

I guess I really didn't want him dead.

Well, it was too late already.

A/N: When I started writing this I had no idea how hard it would be to actually write about Crabbe. Michael was easier, the reluctant hero as he is my eyes. And I surprised how much I enjoyed writing the Cruciatus Curse… Anyways, this is one of my longest one-shots, holy fuck!

Expect more Bingo Board fics from me in the future.

Hoddie out.