Staring blankly up into Voldemort's face, Viktor could only hope that this mad and desperate plan would be enough to save her. He didn't know why he'd said it. He didn't know why they'd brought him here. This was going to blow his cover wide open. He was supposed to be undercover, pretending alliance with the Dark Lord, feigning a life as a Death Eater. He'd even used his very relationship with the witch sobbing and broken on the floor at his feet as his reasoning for joining the Death Eaters. He'd claimed a broken heart and vengeance craved upon the muggleborn witch who'd supposedly cheated on him with the likes of Harry Potter.
And now she was here, and his cover was in danger of being blasted to smithereens and if he didn't do something to save her, Voldemort was going to feed her to Greyback - but probably not until after every horrible prick calling himself Death Eater brutalized her beyond imagining.
"Please, my Lord," Viktor choked out when Voldemort paused in his infliction of the Cruciatus upon poor Hermione. "Please let me have her? The things I would do to her. The vengeance I could finally enact..."
He affected a mad glint he'd seen Dolohov display upon occasion.
"Viktor," Hermione begged brokenly, choking out his name through the ravaged remains of her throat after all her screaming. "Viktor, please. Forgive me."
She'd caught on. Thank Merlin she was so very bright.
"After all you have done?" he scoffed, scowling down at her with all the hatred he could dredge up, all the pain he could affect for her sake, trying desperately to keep her alive and get her out of the clutches of these terrible criminals.
"Please," she whispered, sobbing harder and Viktor didn't know if she was selling it for their audience, or if her mind was already gone beneath the torture.
"Please, my Lord," Viktor appealed again.
Voldemort pondered it carefully, his vicious magic diving into Viktor's mind, searching for deceit, for lies, for some harebrained plan to spirit the witch away to safety. But Snape had taught him well before Viktor had been sent in undercover. His Occulumency shield was solid steel and the Dark Lord could see only what Viktor allowed; nothing more.
"Very well," Voldemort conceded finally. "Give them a little taste of the vengeance you swear you must take since you plan to rob them of their fun."
He nodded toward the gathered Death Eaters, all of them hungry for a piece of Hermione Granger's innocence. Viktor nodded sharply, turning his eyes back to Hermione where she'd managed to drag her battered body across the floor to clutch desperately at his ankle. He hoped she would forgive him. He had to play his role. Soon, they would escape, but not yet. Not without undoing all he had achieved so far.
Turning his wand on the witch at his feet, Viktor reached for the darkest parts of his magic, and though it felt as though it would split his very soul, he uttered the spells that would torment the poor witch beyond comprehension, yearning all the while to scoop her up and take her away from all this.
"Crucio," he spat hatefully when he was certain the spell would not fail.
The sound of Hermione Granger screaming for her life would haunt him for the rest of his days.