She gazed at the raised wand, her eyes widening as, "Crucio!" was snarled in a menacing voice, she caught a glimpsed of bared teeth before everything was silent other than Mary's silent screams as the pain from the curse vibrated through her whole body. She thrashed against the stone cold floor until the curse was cut off for a few seconds before starting again. The pain was so unbearable that she almost couldn't mouth, "Stop."
Cora Parker, Erik's friend that he had mentioned would help, had decided to come visit Mary without the watchful eye of her husband-to-be and to test how strong this girl really was. She cut off the curse when Mary tried to walk. "What was that mudblood? Are you trying to speak to me?"
"Please… Stop…" She mouths again, unable to make a sound.
She grabs ahold of the half-blood's blonde matted hair and pulls her to her feet forcibly, unsilencing her. Cora gets as close to her face as possible and sneers, "Try again."
Mary tried not to flinch away from the Slytherin as she repeats herself, her voice quiet. "Please… Stop…"
Cora smirks contently, pulls the light back to her wand, and leaves the Gryffindor to collapse back to the ground.
Erik sat in the Great Hall early morning in December. He was absentmindedly pushing his eggs around his plate with a fork. He glances over at the Gryffindor table and finds Potter, Black, and Lupin discussing something in whispers. It was nearly a month since he had kidnapped Mary and could clearly guess that he was a suspect on their list by now.
"I visited your friend yesterday." Cora stated after sitting across from him and stole a bacon strip. "Whatever you have been doing seems to be working."
"You speak too soon, Parker," he replied dryly, standing to his feet as James and Sirius make their way over – Remus was following but looked like he was trying to stop his friends.
"What did you do with her, twat?" Sirius starts, his hands balled at his sides.
"Oh! Name calling. A five year old in trying to pick a fight with you, love," Cora says to Erik with a smirk and pops a grape into her mouth.
Erik just ignored her and kept his eyes fixed on Sirius. "No idea what you are talking about…" He paused with a smug smirk. "Oh and if you punch me, Potter here will have to use his Head Boy powers to give you detention because I have a room full of witnesses to say you started a fight."
Sirius vaguely hears Remus say something, but he wasn't listening as his fist came into contact with Mulciber's jaw. "Listen you pure-blood supremacy prat! Mary is my friend. I found her last year and I will find her again this year. If you have done something to her I will hurt you more than you hurt her. That is my promise to you."