Pain of an Auror
A pain too great for words invaded my body, causing my vision to flicker and fade to blackness. Just when I reached the threshold
of conciousness, the burden of pain was lifted, and my vision returned to normal, revealing the dimly lit cavern that was my
prision. I was chained to the rock wall, my arms now used to the weight of the chains that the Death Eaters had used to hold me.
In front of me stood a pale man, with a shock of white-blond hair. Lucius Malfoy.
"Had enough, Conway? You know, I think I'm getting rather good, at the Cruciatus curse, don't you?" His face burst into a
hideous, evil-looking smirk. "Come on, Be a good boy and tell me what you think." I wasn't going to give him the pleasure. I spat
at him, the globule of saliva landing harmlessly next to his foot. "Oh, you almost hit my new robes. For that you will have to be
punished..." He raised his wand in my direction, and shouted "Crucio!" My head was assaulted with a pain as though I had with
hot pokers shoved between my eyes and twisted around to mash my brain. The last thing I heard before lasping into
unconciousness was Malfoy's maniacal laughter echoing throughout the cavern.
***
"Wake up!" I was brought back into the world of the living by the painful sting of steel smashing against flesh. I opened my eyes,
only to be startled by the sight of a dead man standing before me.
"P... Peter Pettigrew? But... but you're dead! Sirius Black killed you thirteen, no, fourteen years ago..." Pettigrew sneered, an act
usually impossible for a dead man, which proved him to be alive. He ran a cold finger down my nose, when I looked at it, I saw to
my horror not flesh and bone, but cold steel.
"Yes he did, didn't he. Lets just say that that was the high point of my life, seeing him thrown into Azkaban." He laughed, a
hideous cackle bouncing against the rock walls.
"Well, Wormtail. Aren't you going to introduce me to our... guest?" A high pitched, yet powerful voice sprang from nowhere. I
knew that voice. It was the voice that had been present at so many Death Eater raids. I shuddered. I knew now what fate had in
store for me...
"My master, Lord Voldemort." He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named. A tall, pale figure strode out of the shadows. He wore black robes,
His face was cold and sneering, his red eyes, like a cat's, burned into the darkness, conflicting with the colorlessness of the rest
of his face. His nose, flat, with two slits for nostrils, flared with every harsh breath, as he strode forward.
"That will be all, Wormtail." Pettigrew bowed, then scampered out of the dungeon, up a stone stairway, into the light.
He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named turned to me, his red eyes showing no emotion. "Lucius tells me that you resits the Imperius curse.
That you would not co-operate when he was trying to teach his son the Dark Arts. They're definitely making Aurors of sterner stuff
these days. The last person I saw resist the Imperius curse was Harry Potter." As he said that name, I saw him give a small
shudder of rage. "even the great Alastor Moody failed to resist it. I salute you." He brought a spidery hand up to his forehead in a
sickening parody of a salute.
"So, Wormtail tells me your name is Conway. Nigel Conway. That sounds like a Muggle name. Are you Muggle-born?
"Only half. My father was a Muggle."
"Ahh. Just like me. Tell me, do you hate your father as much as I hate mine?"
"No, I never got the chance. He was killed by your Death Eaters while I was still a baby. That's the reason I became an Auror. To
stop that from happening to someone else.
"Oh, I'm so sorry. No, honestly. My Death Eaters do get a little carried away at times" A high pitched laugh erupted from him.
After a moment he was in histerics. "You should be thanking me actually. Those Muggles should be killed off."
"Why should we discriminate against them simply because they can't use magic. What reason do you have for that. They can't
harm you." That seemed to annoy him. One of the thing we had been taught to do at Auror training was to engage our captors in
some... conversation.
"Really? They can't harm me? What would you know? Your father died when you were young. You never knew what ways of
torment the Muggles can use. I should know. I grew up with them. My summer vacations were filled with the torture of a muggle
orphanage."
"Come on, they don't even know you exist. Which is good for them."
"Oh, but they will. Soon the whole world, not just wizards, shall fear the name Voldemort."
"Why? I don't." That was a lie. The man scared me shitless, so to speak, but I wasn't going to let him know that. A smile
appeared.
"Oh, you will. Yes, you definitely will" He turned his back on me, and shouted a word that was becoming all too familiar to me in
the last few days. "Crucio!"
***
"We should get rid of him. He's becoming a liability."
"No Lucius, not yet. We may still be able to gleam some information from him."
"But you havn't been able to break past any memory charms he may have. He knows nothing."
"That's what Wormtail said about Bertha Jorkins. But I was still able to gain some quite... useful information from her. Oh, he
knows something. He may not have a memory charm blocking it. I'll get it. It's just a matter of knowing the right charm. It's just a
matter of time."
***
I awoke to find He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named watching me, seemingly waiting for me to wake. Strange. Why didn't he just wake
me up, perform the Cruciatus curse to break me from sleep. As he noticed me stirring, he bent down close to my face.
"You do know something, don't you." His breath was rancid. "You know something important. Something to do with the Ministry
of Magic's plans to get rid of me. I know that you know something. Tell me."
"Get fucked." I spat in his face. He stood back up, wiping the saliva from his eyes, and kicked me in the face. Blood vessels in
my nose burst with the impact, and blood came pouring over my mouth. The taste of my own blood was disgusting, but it was
strangly refreshing. They hadn't fed me much over the past week.
The Dark Lord pulled something out of his robes. It looked like a very large thumb-tack, with a spike that was about three inches
long. "Do you know what this is? Oh, of course you wouldn't. It's my own invention. I call it a mind spike. Unoriginal name, but I
was never one for making up names anyway. Anything you have stored in that brain of yours is mine once I jab this into it."
He grabbed my head, and slammed the spike into my temple. It should have killed me, but unfortunately it didn't. It was worse
that the Cruciatus curse. He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named placed his wand on the tack, and the pain flared up even further. He sat
there, with his eyes closed, going through my thoughts, for about a minute, and then he stood up in fury.
"You know nothing!" He yanked the spike from my temple, and then shouted up the stairway, to whoever was up there. "This man
is useless! Send our friend down here." He looked at me, fury in his eyes, and then gave a smile as he watched a figure come
down the stairs. Instantly a shiver moved down my spine, and I started to recall the previous week, trapped down here, tortured,
starved. The figure had tattered gray robes, and his face was shrouded in darkness. It was skeletal, and ethereal. I screamed. It
was a Dementor.
"Well, see you, my friend. It's been fun." He-who-must-not-be-named cackled as he climbed the stairs, leaving me alone with the
dementor. The memories go worse as it moved closer. My father's death, more torture, pain, horror. The dementor pulled the robe
away from its face, and kissed me. I felt even more pain and then...
Nothing.
