Author's note: Percy Weasley, though generally unpopular, is, for some reason, my favorite character. Anyway, this is my first attempt at an HP fanfic. Please forgive any inaccuracies. Blah blah blah. I'm not JK Rowling. Obviously.

In a dark basement room, the length and width of a small prison cell, were two wizards, one standing, the other seated on a chair. The cell's door was fashioned from wooden planks, each several inches thick. Great seams of iron held them together. The door was locked and bolted and altogether impenetrable. The standing wizard had placed a spell over it as an additional precautionary measure. The spell rendered it impossible for anyone standing on the other side to force their way in using magic. But no one would dare give that a try. The chambers in the Ministry's basement had one purpose these days. Interrogation of blood traitors and suspected blood traitors took place in them.

On the docket that afternoon was the Assistant to the Minister himself. He was normally a pompous, self-assured young man, usually seen trailing the Minister with his arms full of notes. Now he sat on an old chair, his hands chained behind its high back. His customary smug expression was gone. A look of absolute terror had replaced it. He no longer resembled the toadying civil servant who hours earlier had strutted through the Ministry as though it were any other workday. He looked instead like all the other interrogation subjects, the ones who trooped dutifully to the basement cells and stumbled back up with grey, putty-like faces. And those were the lucky few. There were plenty who went down and did not come out again.

The standing wizard was one of the Dark Lord's most notorious and brutal inquisitors. The Cruciatus Curse was his particular specialty. With the new policies against Mudbloods now in effect, he had had many opportunities to practice it.

He aimed his wand at the Minister's hapless assistant.

"How many times have you felt the sting of my Cruciatus today?" he asked, forcing his victim to wrack his pain-addled brain for the answer.

"N-nine," blubbered Percy Weasley. He was a mess. Ropes of saliva dangled from his chin. He had screamed so much that the corners of his mouth were cracked and bleeding. His eyes were swollen from crying.

"Good boy," said Yaxley softly. "Nine times. And yet you still refuse to tell me what you know. So why don't we make it ten? Crucio!"

Percy screamed as a burst of bright blue light hit him square in the chest. It felt like his flesh was being scraped from his flesh. He struggled against his bonds but succeeded only in tipping the chair on its side. He smashed into the stone floor, a move that broke the lenses of his horn-rimmed glasses and split open his forehead.

Yaxley laughed.

"S-stop!" whimpered Percy, as a pool of blood began to form under his right cheek. "I've told you that I know n-nothing about Potter. It's the truth."

The Death Eater did not bother to return Percy upright but rather let him remain on the floor so as to increase his humiliation. "I don't believe you. Your brother Ronald is Potter's best friend. What do you know about him?"

"I haven't spoken to Ron in ages. We're estranged."

"What about your Mudblood-loving father? Maybe he's let something slip about Potter's whereabouts? He must know. Tell me!"

Percy winced. "No. Nothing. I know absolutely nothing."

"You're lying!" thundered Yaxley. And he hauled Percy up by his red hair. "Crucio!"

Percy shuddered as though he were being electrocuted from the inside out. He screamed more gutturally than before, and coughed up great wads of blood and phlegm.

"Crucio!" Yaxley summoned the curse again without pausing for questioning in between. He liked to see the vermin writhe. This worm was especially disgusting, having personally known Potter. His family's generous attitudes toward Mudbloods made him even more detestable. For too long had the Weasleys tolerated the filth polluting once pure wizarding bloodlines. Their good name had stood tarnished for generations.

"Crucio!"

But Percy could scream no longer. He was exhausted. Indeed he could hardly wheeze out two words: "The wedding."

Yaxley lowered his wand. "What wedding?"

Percy struggled for breath. "My b-brother Bill's. He's marrying Fleur Delacour tomorrow. She was the Beauxbatons competitor in the T-triwizard Tournament. I was a j-judge then."

Yaxley knocked Percy across the cheek with his fist. "I don't care who you were or who your bloody brother is marrying. What's the wedding got to do with Potter?"

"I think he might be there," whispered Percy.

"Where's it happening?"

Percy shut his eyes. He was trembling all over. "The Burrow."

"Your own home?" Yaxley gave a great rasp of laughter. "Now that is interesting. You're not putting me on, are you? Because if you are…" He twirled his wand between his fingers.

"No!" squealed Percy. "I wouldn't dare. It's the truth. Potter should be there."

Yaxley snarled. His upper teeth protruded from his gums like yellow stakes. "We'll see about that. You'd better hope your information proves correct and Potter is captured. Only then will this torture stop. And do you know what else will happen? Your father will be arrested for harboring an Undesirable. Your mother too. Your family's property – what little there is – will be confiscated. But at least you'll still be alive."

Fresh tears slipped down the bridge of Percy's nose. "Please—" he croaked.

But Yaxley cut him off. "There will be no mercy from me! Your family has chosen its side. All blood-traitors must perish!"

"—don't hurt me anymore." Percy broke into heaving sobs. His muscles continued to twitch from the pain of Yaxley's curse.

The Death Eater chuckled meanly. The sound resounded throughout the cell as it bounced off the stone walls. He plucked Percy's glasses from his face and uttered a spell to repair the broken lenses before returning them. Just to be cruel he placed them crookedly, rendering them almost useless. "Why are you crying?" he asked with a condescending coo. Then he sniffed. His nostrils filled with a noxious odor. "So you've soiled your knickers, have you? It's the fear what does it. Not my curse."

Percy flushed. He did not think it possible to sink any lower.

"Poor little Weasley!" said Yaxley. "Shat himself like a baby. But there is something to be said for those who will betray their own families to the Dark Lord."

Percy tensed. He pictured his mother and father, whom he had not seen in many months. He was sick to his stomach over his betrayal of them. But what else could he have done? The only alternative was to end up tortured into madness like Neville Longbottom's parents. When he had first entered the cell and realized that Yaxley meant to interrogate him under torture, he had been more defiant than afraid, and had said things like, "If I had my wand…," and "The minister will hear about this!" But he had underestimated Yaxley's powers. The Death Eater could, if he wished, drive him to insanity, as Bellatrix Lestrange had done the Longbottoms. The same fate that awaited all Undersirables awaited him unless he cooperated. He had had no choice. He had held out as long as he could.

"When my master finally defeats Harry Potter and his supporters," said Yaxley, "he might be merciful to you. He wishes to spill as little pure wizarding blood as possible." He paused. "Your family may prove the exception."

"No!" moaned Percy. But that was as far as his protests went. Yaxley had not even heard him.

"You've been a good boy, Weasley. A very good boy," he said. "After all this, I think I should let you go, don't you?"

Percy did not dare trust a Death Eater. "The Minister is expecting me," he lied. "There is a m-meeting at two o' clock. I must be there."

Yaxley gave Percy a reassuring pat on the head. He felt the young man begin to shake. "I think Thicknesse can do without his assistant for one meeting. You're not quite as important as you think you are, Weasley. I should let you go, but your screams are so sweet to me." He ran a finger through the blood bathing the right side of Percy's face. Then he flicked out his tongue and licked his fingertip clean. "Potter had better be at that wedding," he hissed, pointing his wand at Percy's chest, "or else this won't be the last time you feel…Crucio!"

Bright blue light issued from Yaxley's wand. Percy did as Yaxley wanted and screamed. He screamed until his throat bled. The Death Eater hummed along. How he enjoyed turning blood-traitors into piles of human pulp! Pipes in the walls carried the sounds of Percy's screaming into the offices above them. Wizards and witches pretended not to hear. Keep working! Keep talking! Keep working! Pretend it's not happening. And maybe, just maybe, if you pretend hard enough, your turn will never come.