IMPORTANT PLOT INFORMATION
This is a sequel. If you don't feel like reading the previous part, titled A Gift And A Curse, here are the details you should know.
It played in the first year of Hogwarts, mostly following the canon events (Quirrell, the stone, the trio going out to get it,...)
The main character is Crucio Carina Lestrange, who goes by the name Crucie Black in school to avoid the worst of her death-eater heritage. She lives with her uncle Rabastan (who miraculously escaped the aurors before he could get caught at the Longbottoms' place) in an apartment on Knockturn Alley. She is capable of casting a wandless cruciatus curse at anyone, a "birth defect" from her mother casting too many unforgivables during pregnancy. Crucie loves torture, and she practices often and without mercy. She is also a genuinely nice person, interested in muggle technology and not really all that prejudiced.
Because torture doesn't exactly make one a loved person, she doesn't have many friends at Hogwarts. She tried making friends with Hermione, but a certain event that involved a mountain troll and a lot of cruciating made them drift apart. Her best friend is the large portrait of Salazar Slytherin, located in an abandoned corridor where she often comes to escape the glares of classmates.
Now she is ready for a second year at Hogwarts...
Crucie was back on Knockturn Alley, and the first place she visited was Borgin And Burke's, the shop she had spent a great deal of her younger childhood in. Mr Burke looked like he wanted to hug her tight, but he was much too dignified and dark a wizard for that.
"Crucio, my dear! How was Hogwarts? Tell me, how is your score at the moment?"
"645, Mr Burke. I didn't have a lot of volunteers."
The old wizard patted her on the shoulder.
"Poor dear, you must be aching to let it all out!"
Crucie nodded.
"Kind of…"
"Well, I'm going on a house-visit to discuss the price of this artefact a client is interested in… I have the feeling your assistance might be welcome. If you would like to come…?"
Crucie grinned widely.
"Sure thing! I just have to let my uncle know I won't be cooking dinner."
Caractacus Burke shook his head.
"That man… How did he even survive before he had you?"
"I think he just got himself a girlfriend from time to time to cook and do laundry…"
"Speaking of which, how long has it been since he's brought someone home?"
Crucie thought about that.
"Well, since I cruciated the last one; I don't think he brings them home anymore. I'm kind of happy with that, the walls are thin and I don't need to hear every detail of his love-life."
Burke laughed heartily.
"Ah, poor Rabastan…"
"Poor me, you mean!"
"You've become cheeky there in Hogwarts… Is Professor Binns still as sleep-inducingly boring?"
"You have had classes with him too?"
"Dear, Cuthberth Binns has been a ghost since the late seventeenth century, and even I am not that old. Of course I had classes with him. I don't remember a thing of them."
Crucie chuckled.
"I think that man would be a great diplomat."
"Oh?"
"The boringness of his classes is possibly the only thing you can get aurors and death eaters to agree on."
Again Mr Burke laughed.
"Cheeky you have become indeed! Now, I wanted to show you this artefact I got my hands on, you see it is most…"
While talking he led Crucie to the back of the shop, where they admired and discussed the various dark objects until it was time to leave on the house visit. When Crucie returned from that, she felt completely refreshed, as if she had been revived. She hadn't known how much tension there was inside her until she could let it all go and freely torture someone. It reminded her of Dumbledore's words, how he had doubted that she was even capable of stopping to torture completely. It made her decide that she really had to learn more about her talent…
(Pagebreak)
The summer holiday passed in a haze… Crucie divided her time between Borgin And Burke's and Muggle London. Rabastan watched worriedly how her room started to look more and more like a curiosity cabinet… There were all kinds of muggle machines in different states of disassembly adorning her shelves along with magical ones, her desk had become a workbench and from the ceiling hung all kinds of objects; paper-folded birds, colourful and strangely-shaped glass artefacts, muggle light bulbs, fake flowers, and other bizarre items... She even had an enchanted taxidermy crow sitting on her desk, which would caw and pick at anyone trying to touch her workbench.
Rabastan put the blame on Mr Burke, who had passed his love of collecting all things interesting to Crucie. It wasn't uncommon to hear loud noises, cursing and angry hissing coming from her room, as she spent a lot of time experimenting with the combination of technology and magic, a combination that blew up more often than not. The death eater had decided to let her; the Lestranges weren't like the Blacks in their policy of disowning all people who showed the slightest interest in muggle things, and it wasn't that Crucie was in any way becoming a light witch. That he saw proved when she got home from Knockturn alley with the widest grin on her face and presented him with a Chocolate Fudge Pie.
"Oh wow! I must have done something really well today! Care to tell me what?"
"I reached 750 tonight!"
When he realized what she meant, Rabastan clapped his hands.
"Well done Crucie! Who was the last one?"
"Some random muggle woman… One of Mr Burke's clients was 749 and I didn't want to have to wait another day…"
"Your average is a lot higher these days than before…"
Crucie's smile fell a bit.
"I know… but I have to get my fill before the start of next term. You see, I've decided on an experiment. I'm not going to torture anyone in Hogwarts for as long as I can hold it. I want to see if I can stop myself."
Rabastan doubted that was a particularly good idea, but didn't express his doubts. He wasn't one to spoil anyone's fun, especially not if it had to do with torture.
Later that evening, after they had almost eaten themselves an indigestion on the pie, Crucie went to her room and opened a book to do her administration. In neat handwriting the first page read, "Torture Registry of Crucio Carina Lestrange. Read without permission and you WILL be cruciated." Further on there were a lot of columns, in which Crucie faithfully wrote her data. Name, date, time of exposure, effect. Proudly she marked "Bathsheba Direland" and "Unknown Muggle, Female" as 749 and 750 in the list. To herself she muttered.
"Voila… 250 more and I give a party."
(Pagebreak)
Crucie was rather proud on her projects. She had managed to enchant various muggle objects to function normally, along which were an analogue wristwatch and a larger clock, but those were all based on clockwork. Once you figured out how the parts had to move with respect to each other the spells were rather simple, and although funny it wasn't at all revolutionary. Crucie was fascinated with the batteries Hermione had showed her and she had studied the muggle phenomenon of electricity quite extensively… There had to be a way to provide simple objects with a small, easily handled source of magical power that didn't require one to enchant every single part of the object… She wished she knew someone who was interested in the same things as her to discuss it all with… One of the last days of the summer holiday she decided to find someone. She found herself absolutely ridiculous for doing so, but she still had a personal ad placed in the Daily Prophet, stating:
"Wanted, witch/wizard interested in the functioning and enchantment of muggle artefacts, as pen-pall. Owl addressed to CL, The Anonymous Owlery, box 1547."
She didn't expect anyone to actually answer, but it was simply fun to imagine the possibilities. The Anonymous Owlery was a relatively new shop on Knockturn Alley, but it already had a wide range of customers, mostly among those people that had something to hide. It offered post-boxes as well as owls, enabling people to send and receive letters without having to give their address to others. You could pick up your mail yourself, or have a TAO owl deliver it to you, complete confidence assured. The back-to-school craze hit however, and Crucie forgot about her ad and her mail, excited to go to Hogwarts again yet sad to leave her friends and family…
(Pagebreak)
The story was being told all over Hogwarts, and Crucie was both intrigued and awfully jealous. Harry Potter and Ron Weasley had arrived in a flying muggle vehicle. An enchanted flying muggle vehicle, because it was one of those vehicles that doesn't fly in its normal state. Sure, they had almost gotten expelled over it and hadn't been allowed to attend the Start-Of-Term Feast, but then… It still was a flying muggle vehicle and she would have died to take a good look at it.
"A Disssssgrace, that'ssss what it issss!"
"It was pretty awesome though. I wonder who did the enchanting. Can't have been easy…"
"Tsssss…"
Salazar Slytherin did not agree with her on the subject of flying muggle vehicles. As he had once explained to Crucie, he could take peace with enchanted muggle artefacts, as long as they served a proper use. A flying mechanical monstrosity didn't serve much use in his eyes. Crucie couldn't really disagree, but still.
"Isn't being interesting a form of being useful as well?"
The portrait appeared to be thinking about that.
"No."
His definite answer, delivered with a haughty smirk, did Crucie giggle. The founder just rolled his eyes.
"Ssssooo… Any other newssss?"
"I made progress in my research after magical batteries… Oh, and something else…" She purposefully waited a bit before revealing, "I broke my daily torture average this summer!"
"Congratulationsssss, Missss Lestrange!"
Crucie grinned delighted. For a moment she didn't want to think of the long, torture-less months in front of her, instead concentrating on her achievements.
"I look forward to using my wand for it… According to Mr Burke a wand acts as an amplifier for magic, he believes I might not even need to pronounce the curse to have incredibly strong effects…"
Salazar nodded quietly.
"Thissss talent of yoursssss… Isssss it hereditary?"
"Professor Dumbledore said it might."
"Then it isssss like parsssseltongue… You will passsss on greatnessss to your descendantssss…"
That was somewhat the best compliment you could receive from the likes of Salazar Slytherin, and Crucie glowed with pride. It completely made her forget her initial disdain about the flying muggle vehicle…
(Pagebreak)
The Defence Against The Dark Arts professor was ridiculous. As in, absolutely ridiculous. Crucie threw one look at him, his glitzy mauve suit, his curly hair, and his flashy smile… and knew enough. That man was a living caricature, and when he opened his mouth she saw her suspicions confirmed. He seemed incapable of talking about anything but himself. The worst was that all the girls, both Gryffindor and Slytherin, hung on his lips practically begging him for more useless details. Even Hermione, it was just plain distasteful. Funny detail was though that he was rather obsessed with Harry Potter and constantly drew the attention of the class to him. Potter's uncomfortable look made having to sit out the completely useless lesson worthwhile…
Crucie spent most the lesson imagining all the ways in which she could make this Gilderoy Lockhart scream and plead, his body contorting in most painful and unnatural ways. She didn't realize a huge and slightly disturbed grin was plastered all over her face until the moment Lockhart looked her way.
"A sickle for the thoughts of that lovely lady on the second row!" He winked. "A galleon if they're about me!"
Crucio looked up and mindlessly answered.
"Just imagining how you might look under torture."
It was out before she realized what she had said, and the classroom had gone completely silent. Much to her pleasure though Gilderoy Lockhart's smile had become a little more forced too.
"I may hope my dashing good looks don't suffer under this procedure, Miss…?"
"Black. Crucio Black."
Crucie threw him her loveliest smile, and for a moment the professor calmed down, fooled by her façade. Immediately he became his cocky self again.
"Well, Miss Black, I have gone through quite a lot in my life and I have encountered things so horrifying your pretty head couldn't imagine them… so I can honestly say I don't fear torture."
The conceitedness of the man made Crucie want to hurl. Her eyes narrowed a bit, and she could feel the magic inside her hum with eagerness to come out full force. It cost her all her self-control to stop herself… The whole class was waiting for what she would do, and it was clear that Lockhart was slightly apprehensive too now, seeing her reaction.
"Everybody fears torture, Professor Lockhart. The nature of the torture is completely determined by the victim, in such manner that it always is what the victim fears."
"Y-you seem very knowledgeable in the subject, Miss Black… I hope you realize torture is considered a criminal offence and not something to be gone over lightly!"
Crucie smiled again.
"I never go lightly over torture, Professor Lockhart."
(Author's Notes)
So... I already put a lot of plot info on top, yet I still hope some of you will want to read the prequel...
PLEASE REVIEW! PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE! I give cookies to all of you!
Also, all kinds of comments, critics, compliments are welcome! I appreciate it when you point out my mistakes because it's the only way I can get better... and seriously, WARN ME if Crucie turns into a Mary Sue. I hate Mary Sue's with a passion, writing one if my biggest fear.