A/N: Happy Birthday, we've gotten to the first of many trigger warnings for this fic. For this chapter: blood, minor gore, discussion of murder and torture, brief mention of SA. It only gets darker from here, I fear. I've written most of this extremely depressed, which has an interesting result of warping dark thematic elements into DARKER thematic elements. This is the SECOND CHAPTER POSTED TODAY. Go back and read OCT 29 if you haven't already.
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December 8, 1997 - The Most Dangerous Person in the Room
The classroom was thick with its tension, the air heavy with the unspoken understanding that today would be worse than most. Defense Against the Dark Arts had never been about defense this year—it had been twisted into something else, something vile. And today, it was a game.
Amycus Carrow leaned lazily against his desk, a cruel smirk playing at his lips as he surveyed the students before him. "We're going to see who's the most dangerous in this room," he announced, his voice sickly sweet. "Who's got the sharpest mind, the best instincts. Who's worth keepin' around, and who's just dead weight."
His eyes flickered over the students, scanning for his first victim.
"You," he barked, pointing at a Ravenclaw near the front. The boy stiffened. "Let's say you've gone and done somethin' nasty. Something the Ministry wouldn't like." He tilted his head. "Someone saw you do it. How do you shut 'em up?"
The Ravenclaw swallowed.
"Come on now," Amycus prodded. "You've got a witness. Can't have that, can we?"
"I—Obliviate them?" the boy offered hesitantly.
Amycus scoffed. "A bit obvious, don't you think? What if they fight back? What if they've already told someone?"
Alecto, lingering near the back of the room like a vulture, let out a hissing chuckle.
The Ravenclaw's fingers twitched. "Kill them," he said finally, voice quieter this time.
Amycus grinned. "Better." He flicked his wand at the board, and a ranking appeared, his name slotted into place. "But not great. We're trying to see who understands what it takes to survive in our world. Your hesitation has you dead. Pathetic git."
He stood, pacing slowly between the desks. "It's simple. I ask, you answer. If you bore me, you drop in the ranks. If you say something stupid, I'll beat the lesson into you myself." His wand twitched in his fingers, and the students knew he meant it.
His gaze flickered, choosing.
"Abbott," he said sharply, pointing at a Hufflepuff girl in the middle row. She flinched. "Let's say you've got a prisoner—Ministry type, Order scum, doesn't matter. You need to make them talk. Quickly. What do you do?"
The girl's hands clenched. "The Cruciatus Curse," she whispered, knowing the right answer, but lacking conviction.
Amycus scoffed. "And if they're trained for that? If they can grit their teeth and wait it out?" He leaned close, voice a conspiratorial whisper. "If they know how to make it hurt less?"
The girl said nothing.
Amycus straightened, unimpressed. "Waste of time. Someone else answer."
Crabbe raised his chin, sneering. "You don't go for pain," he said. "You go for fear. Threaten their family. Make them watch while you start with the youngest. They'll talk within minutes."
Amycus let out a delighted chuckle. "Now that's a proper answer," he crooned, flicking his wand at the board to add the boy's name near the top. "Next question."
His gaze swept the room before locking onto a familiar figure.
"Bulstrode."
Millicent looked up, eyes blank.
Amycus' smirk widened. "Let's say someone's getting ideas about you. Thinks you're less than you are." He took a slow step forward. "Maybe because you're a girl, maybe because they think you're easy to push around. Maybe because they think you're weak."
Millicent did not move. Her hands remained steady on the desk.
"What do you do to remind them who you are?" Amycus asked, but there was a glint in his eye, the twisted pleasure of a man who already had an answer of his own.
Millicent's voice was flat. "Show them why they're wrong. Killing them would be too kind. You make it hurt. You leave an impression."
Amycus chuckled. "That's the Carrow spirit. Though, I'll say—" He reached out, trailing a finger along her jaw, tilting her chin up just enough to make a point. His voice dropped to something almost silky, almost cruel. "If you keep filling out so nicely, your betrothed might actually allow you to be sober for your wedding night."
The room was deathly silent.
Millicent did not flinch. She did not react at all.
Amycus let her go with a laugh. "Next!"
His gaze landed on Andrael.
"Cassowary," he said, amusement flickering behind his eyes. "Let's say you've caught yourself a blood traitor." His smile widened. "Someone young. Someone fresh. Maybe a little Gryffindor brat, barely thirteen, all big eyes and shaking hands. What's the best way to make them useful?"
The classroom held its breath.
Andrael let the silence stretch just long enough to suggest thoughtfulness, not defiance. She tilted her head slightly, as if considering, though she already knew the answer. The only answer that kept her safe.
"It depends," she said at last, voice carefully neutral. "Are they to be broken or reshaped?"
Amycus raised an eyebrow. "Explain."
She shouldn't know this. She shouldn't know this so well it came without effort, without stumbling, like reciting a spell she'd practiced for years.
"If you want them broken, you make them suffer," she said smoothly, distantly, like she was discussing potions ingredients rather than people. "Starve them. Lock them in the dark. Cut away the bits that don't matter—fingers, maybe an ear—just enough to show them they're losing pieces of themselves." She let the words hang, feeling the weight of every eye in the room. They were listening. They were measuring her.
She hated herself.
"But if you want them reshaped?" She forced herself to keep going, to meet Amycus's gaze without flinching. "Then you make them love you."
Amycus' grin turned sharp. "Go on."
"You hurt them, but not too much," she said, and her stomach curdled. "You take things away and give them back." She looked at Pansy. "You break them down so they have no self-worth, but then start to build them up again." Millicent. "You make them know that you control their world, their family, but then promise them safety for compliance." Malfoy. "You promise their deepest desires, making impossibility reality." Daphne. You offer them safety." Blaise. "You lure them with power." Theodore. "Reinforce that everything good they have is because of you." Crabbe. "Isolate them. You make them think you're their only hope, their only friend." Goyle. "And when they beg to serve you, you let them."
The silence stretched long and thick.
Andrael felt filthy. Like something had curled under her skin and rotted.
Amycus clapped, slow and mocking. "Now that's thinking," he purred. With a flick of his wand, Andrael's name shot to the top of the board.
They continued to answer in this manner, the answers becoming more and more depraved. Gryffindors and Slytherins alike were shivering, repulsed, but still said the worst, most disgusting things they could think of.
No one wavered.
Especially not after a bloody Michael Corner had been taken to the hospital wing for refusing to answer.
The chalk screeched as Amycus scratched another tally under Crabbe's name, his lip curling in amusement. Andrael's name stood beside it, the two of them locked in a tie at the top of the board.
"Well, well," Amycus drawled, turning back to the class with sick pleasure glinting in his eyes. "Looks like we've got ourselves a deadlock." His grin widened as he flicked his wand, the tally marks glowing in the dim light. "And what kind of lesson would this be if we didn't put a bit of theory into practice?"
Andrael knew what was coming before he even said it.
"You two. Up."
A murmur rippled through the room as Crabbe shoved himself up from his desk, cracking his knuckles. He wasn't clever, but he was brutal, and he knew how to hit hard. Andrael rose more carefully, movements controlled, impassive.
Amycus spread his arms. "Since the both of you clearly understand the principles of power, let's see how well you wield it. No holding back. We wouldn't want to disappoint, would we?" Amycus loved solving conflict with duels.
Andrael flicked her wand into her grip and met Crabbe's eyes across the room.
The moment Amycus dropped his hand, Crabbe struck.
No hesitation, no testing the waters—just raw, unchecked aggression. A jet of sickly yellow light screamed toward Andrael, barely missing her as she wrenched herself sideways. He wasn't thinking, wasn't strategizing—just swinging like a hammer, one curse after another, each one meant to hurt.
Andrael didn't meet him head-on. That was what he wanted. Instead, she moved, fast and fluid, weaving between desks and pillars, forcing Crabbe to turn, to chase. She wasn't as unscrupulous as him, but she was faster, and speed meant control.
A blasting curse exploded against the stone behind her, showering her in jagged fragments. Another sent a desk skidding across the floor, upending in a shriek of wood and metal. Students pressed against the far wall, panic in their eyes. Crabbe's magic was sloppy, but powerful, each strike wild but devastating, forcing her into tighter and tighter spaces.
She had to break his rhythm.
A flick of her wrist sent a haze of smoke curling through the air, a heartbeat of concealment, just enough to let her vanish from his direct line of sight. She ducked behind the wreckage of an overturned desk, shifting soundlessly. Positioning mattered. Timing mattered.
Crabbe snarled in frustration, sweeping his wand in an arc. The smoke twisted, breaking apart under the force of his magic, revealing her just as she sprang up to strike. But he was already moving—faster than she expected—his wand snapping down.
Pain lanced through her knee.
Her leg buckled, and she hit the ground hard, biting back a curse of her own as fire spread up her thigh. She didn't have time to check the damage—only time to use it.
Crabbe had overcommitted. His attack had landed, but he'd left himself wide open, stepping in for the finishing blow. Too close.
Andrael didn't hesitate.
She moved, forcing through the pain, whipping her wand up as she twisted, channeling all her momentum into a single strike. A sharp, precise movement. Controlled. Measured. Lethal. It was these instincts that all her classmates lacked, the realization in the moment to turn folly into fortune.
Crabbe barely had time to register the spell before it hit.
He went down hard.
A sickening crack echoed through the classroom as he crumpled, landing on his arm strangely, his wand clattering to the floor beside him. Silence fell, thick and heavy.
Andrael stayed where she was, breathing steady despite the fire in her leg, her wand still raised. Crabbe wasn't moving.
Slowly, she lifted her gaze to Amycus.
"Am I the most dangerous person in this room?"
The words hung in the air, heavy, daring. She realised her mistake in being so overtly challenging.
Amycus smirked. "Not yet."
Before she could register it, his wand was already moving. A snap of his wrist, and a lash of magic cracked through the space between them. Andrael barely raised a shield in time, staggering as the force of the spell sent a jolt through her injured leg.
He wasn't like Crabbe. He didn't charge blindly, didn't strike without thought. Amycus fought like a surgeon with a blade—precise, cutting, cruel. He didn't waste energy. Every spell had intent, a serrated edge of malice behind it.
Andrael gritted her teeth. She needed to move.
But her knee screamed, the pain sharp, unrelenting. She twisted away from another strike, barely keeping her balance. She could see how he fought—his defense was garbage, but he didn't need defense. His magic was relentless, a sheer, suffocating onslaught. Most people wouldn't be able to get a spell in edgewise before he was on top of them.
She wasn't most people.
She let him think he had her. Staggered at the right moments. Kept her wand close, her defenses just barely holding. Amycus liked to play with his food, and she could feel him drawing it out, toying with her.
And then—
She dropped. Let her leg buckle entirely, collapsing lower than he expected. His next spell soared over her, leaving him wide open.
Andrael struck.
A precise, wordless movement, sharp and cutting, aimed at his wand hand. The spell hit, twisting his wrist back with a sickening pop. His wand clattered to the floor.
For a second, Amycus just stared.
Andrael didn't move. Her breath was controlled, even as the pain in her knee clawed up her thigh. Waiting.
Amycus exhaled sharply through his nose. His lips curled, more amusement than rage. "Clever little snake," he murmured, flexing his fingers. His wand shot back into his hand.
The class was silent.
Andrael didn't dare lower her wand.
Amycus stared down at his twisted wrist, the skin already mottling with bruises. His face darkened, the sharp amusement bleeding away into something colder, uglier. Without a word, he jerked his wand up and muttered a spell—not a proper healing charm, but something bastardized and crude, meant to force his bones and tendons back into place rather than mend them. The result was a sickening crunch, and his fingers twitched, sluggish and stiff.
Then he turned his wand on her.
Andrael barely had time to brace before pain tore through her.
It was a perfect, all-consuming agony. Like being skinned from the inside out, nerves set alight and flayed open. Her limbs seized, her body locking up as she hit the ground hard, muscles convulsing against her will. She didn't scream, (she wouldn't scream), but her vision swam, black spots eating away at the edges.
She was vaguely aware of the other people in the room among the splinters of desks. The classroom watched, silent. No one moved. No one dared. It was a turning point.
There had been whispers that someone, probably McGonagall, had tried to stop the Carrows' brutality, only to be told the Cruciatus Curse was an acceptable alternative. It left no external harm. But they hadn't ever used an Unforgivable on a student. Until now.
The rumors felt truer than ever as Andrael lived in hell for an eternal moment.
Amycus held the curse for a long, dragging moment before he let it drop. Andrael gasped in air, her body shuddering, the pain ebbing but not gone. It never really left. It just lingered in the bones, coiling deep like something waiting to strike again.
She pressed her forehead against the cold stone floor. What was the point?
She had won. She had outdueled him. And what had it gotten her? Nothing. Less than nothing.
Amycus exhaled sharply, rolling his newly healed wrist. "Detention," he said, voice thick with fury. "All week. You'll be scrubbing the entire second floor without magic." His lip curled. "Let's see how clever you are when you're crawling on your hands and knees like a rat."
Andrael forced herself upright, still trembling. She wouldn't let him see the effect, wouldn't give him the satisfaction. But as she lifted her gaze, she saw it, that look in the others' eyes.
Some were blank, carefully empty. Some held the faintest flicker of pity. Others, worse, held nothing but fear. Fear for the Carrows, but also fear of her.
Andrael swallowed, briefly wondering what was even the best response. This was uncharted territory. This was completely and utterly unexpected.
But she straightened, clawing her way back to standing.
"Yes, sir," she said, the agreement still carrying the hint of defiance.
Slowly, he smiled that slimy smile again.
"Well done. Class dismissed."
Andrael let out a sigh, hearing her classmates all but flee from the room.
"Alecto, will you do me the favor of helping me Crabbe to Pomfrey? He fought… well." But not good enough.
"Why certainly, brother." Even their words to each other disgusted Andrael. She hated them.
The two hoisted Crabbe up by the limbs, using magic to carry him in their cruel twin tandem.
Andrael limped to her bag, covered in splinters, and made a move to follow them.
"Oh, and Cassowary… don't even think about it. You've lost your hospital wing privileges for the next two days." Amycus said with a cruel grin.
Alecto laughed nastily. "And you think you're so smart, huh?"
She was right.
Andrael had fallen into their trap and played their unwinnable game. If it were a fair fight, she would have won. It would have been Amycus on the floor writhing in pain.
But it wasn't fair. It never was with those two.
And hospital wing privileges… What a joke.
Now Andrael needed to figure out what the hell Crabbe hit her with and how to piece the bones in her leg back together.
In the absence of the Carrows, she just sank back down onto the defence floor. Here was as good a place as any. The idea of walking right now made her nauseous. And it was probably unintelligent to try to transform into her animagus form with a random curse having hit her.
Well that beats out all previous instances for worst Defence Class, Slytherin murmured.
Easily. We fought well, but Vincent Crabbe of all people should never have been able to touch us with a spell. Rational was clinical as always, as Andrael began to sketch a small circle of runes around her.
We knocked him out! What if he's not okay? And all the disgusting things we said to even get here…!
Shut up, Morality. Dwelling on that past is unproductive, Rational hissed.
It was us or him, Slytherin said. Don't feel bad.
She exhaled slowly, trying to push the duel out of her mind. Andrael dragged a shaking hand across the flagstones, her fingers tracing hastily drawn runes. The chalk had smudged in places, her work rushed and uneven, but it would hold. It had to.
A simple healing spell wouldn't be enough—not for this. She needed something deeper, something that could force her bones to knit, even if it meant tearing them apart first. What was that stupid spell Lockhart had meant to use? When he removed all the bones from Potter's arm?
Right.
She closed her eyes, steeled herself, and began.
Pain flared, sharp and immediate. A sensation like hot iron threading through marrow, like her own magic carving through muscle with the precision of a scalpel. She clenched her jaw, fists white-knuckled against the floor as she forced herself to endure. Her vision swam, her stomach twisted, and for one terrible moment, she thought she might black out.
But she didn't.
She swallowed back bile, gritted her teeth, and kept going.
The magic pulled at her injury, knitting bone, sealing ruptured flesh, but it wasn't skilled healing, not the careful, measured mending of a trained hand. It was better than Amycus's, but a far cry from the gentle caress of Madam Pomfrey's magic. Something cracked, then set. Not properly. Not right.
Andrael gasped, forehead pressed against her arm, eyes squeezed shut as she waited for the nausea to pass.
When she finally pushed herself upright, the pain was still there—a dull, throbbing ache, deep in the bone—but she could stand. That was enough.
She only had to last two days before the Carrows allowed her back into the hospital wing. Two days before someone could undo the damage.
Until then, she'd manage.
Like she always did.
Andrael dragged herself up the stairs, each step a battle between her fraying nerves and the sharp, relentless ache pulsing through her leg. The corridors were mostly empty, the students long since scattered after classes, unwilling to linger in the places where trouble found you.
Filch had been waiting on the second floor, a gnarled old hand curling around the handle of a battered mop as he shoved it toward her without a word. The bucket sloshed murky water onto the stone at her feet. The smell of it, mildew, old sweat, something acrid she couldn't name, curled in her throat, but she said nothing, just took it and turned away.
His glee in her misery was disgusting.
The floor stretched ahead of her, a long, dull expanse of filth. Blood, boot prints, the sticky residue of whatever foul thing had been tracked in from the dungeons. She lowered the mop and began.
The first few strokes were agonizing. Her knee screamed with every shift of weight, every twist of her body. Her grip was tight enough to whiten her knuckles, her breath coming slow and measured through her nose. Ignore it. Endure.
She caught herself in the reflection of a suit of armor, just a flash of movement in warped silver, and stilled. There was a bruise on her cheek that had darkened, an ugly, swollen bloom of purple and green that stretched from her cheekbone to her jaw.
Her leg was worse. Swollen, angry. The swelling pressed against the leather of her shoes, too tight, too painful. Restricting.
Andrael exhaled and slowly pulled them off.
It was a small thing, hardly a rebellion, but relief came like a breath of cold air against burning skin.
She adjusted her stance, testing the shift of weight. Better. Not much, but enough. She set the mop down again, adjusted her grip, and forced herself to keep going.
Slow, halting. But working.
The stone gargoyle loomed before her, its grotesque features frozen in an eternal sneer. The guardian of the headmaster's office, his office. She knew she would reach it eventually. His perch above it all, watching, waiting, always calculating.
Andrael tightened her grip on the mop handle until the wood bit into her palms. Her jaw ached from how tightly she was clenching it.
"I want to blast you to smithereens," she whispered to the statue.
The words barely carried, swallowed by the empty corridor. It wouldn't do any good. If she tried, the Carrows would have her writhing on the floor before the dust even settled. And what would that accomplish? Nothing. Nothing except more pain.
Her fingers flexed, body taut with the unspent rage coiling inside her ribs. She couldn't destroy it.
So she cleaned it.
Aggressively.
She dunked the rag into the bucket, squeezed it just enough to keep water from running over her fingers, and scrubbed.
She scoured the dirt from its base, digging into the grooves of the stone, forcing the filth from its crevices. Her nails caught on the rough surface, tearing at the edges, but she didn't stop. She worked until her fingers ached, until the sting of raw skin nearly overpowered the throb of her knee, until the rage inside her had no choice but to bleed into obedience.
Do as you're told. Keep your head down. Survive.
The gargoyle's grimace never wavered.
Andrael straightened, rubbing her forearm across her brow, her breath coming sharp and uneven. The stone gleamed beneath the torchlight, the filth of the castle wiped clean.
She staggered back as she heard the mechanical whirring of the staircase. The gargoyle sprang aside right into a spot she hadn't gotten to, dust sticking to the damp metal. Andrael exhaled harshly, cursing under her breath.
The doorway opened to reveal none other than Severus Snape.
He looked at her, taking in her horrid form. Andrael swallowed, trying to calm herself.
For one moment, she was furious at him. All of this was his problem, and McGonagall's, and stupid Dumbledore's. Not hers.
But he didn't do this to you, Rational whispered. Stay present and occlude.
Andrael thought about nothing, simply observing. She couldn't afford to give anything away.
"Up," he said simply, pointing to the staircase behind him.
With no other choice, Andrael limped after him.
The headmaster's office was colder than Andrael remembered. The grand circular room, once a place of light, now felt watchful, suffocating. The portraits of past headmasters lined the walls, their gilded frames catching the dim light from the candelabra above. Some figures pretended to sleep, others turned away in silent disapproval. Only two seemed truly attentive—Phineas Nigellus Black, his sharp eyes flicking between them with thinly veiled amusement, and Dumbledore, whose gaze remained fixed on Snape, a quiet judgment in the set of his features.
Andrael did not look at Dumbledore's portrait. She kept her chin high as she stood before the vast, claw-footed desk, resisting the urge to shift her weight off her injured leg.
Snape sat in the high-backed chair once occupied by Dumbledore himself, his long fingers steepled beneath his chin. The fire in the grate crackled softly, casting flickering shadows across the dark wood of the bookshelves and the cluttered expanse of the desk—ink bottles, quills, and an untouched silver dish of sherbet lemons, its presence almost mocking.
He let the silence stretch, a tactic as familiar as the walls of this office. When he finally spoke, his voice was silk over iron.
"You are reckless."
Andrael did not react.
"You think yourself clever," he continued, eyes sharp. "You are not the first student who has mistaken nerve for invincibility, nor will you be the last to suffer for it." He exhaled, slow and controlled. "I will ask you once—what exactly did you hope to achieve?"
Her hands curled into fists. "I won."
Snape's expression darkened. "And what did that victory earn you, besides a broken leg and a demonstration of the Cruciatus Curse before your peers?" His voice was low, dangerous. "You are playing a game where the stakes are your life, and you are playing it poorly."
She bristled. Like he was playing any better. "Should I have let him win?"
"You should have known when to stop." He leaned forward, the firelight casting deep shadows across his face. "The Carrows are not fools, despite what you may think. Do you believe they haven't noticed you? Do you think this performance of obedience fools me? You have shown them all that you are powerful. Powerful people only get two choices in this regime. And you are intelligent enough to know this."
Andrael forced herself to keep her breathing even. Join or die.
Snape's lip curled. "You enjoy toeing the line, testing the limits of what you can get away with. But let me be clear—there will come a day when you miscalculate." His voice dropped into something softer, more dangerous. "And when that day comes, who do you expect to save you?"
She did not answer.
Snape leaned back, watching her, waiting for some indication that she understood. When she offered none, he inhaled sharply through his nose and straightened the papers on his desk.
"Do not let me see you again for something so avoidable. You will keep your head down. You will do as you are told. And you will survive."
"Is that an order?" She couldn't resist. "Survive? What do you think I'm trying to do?"
"You overestimate your position, Cassowary. You forget what you are." His black eyes gleamed, catching the firelight as he leaned forward. "You are a half-blood. There is no future where they let you walk away unscathed."
Andrael stiffened.
"They will break you if you give them a reason. They will enjoy it. And when that day comes, you will find that your skill, your cleverness—" He spat the word like it disgusted him. "—will mean nothing."
His eyes flicked to the door. The dismissal was clear.
She forced herself to bury the indignation, choosing instead to watch the impassive portrait of Dumbledore. This is your fault, she thought.
To Snape, Andrael simply inclined her head, turned, and left.
"Oh… and don't even think of blasting my gargoyle to smithereens…" he called out mockingly.
Andrael gritted her teeth, retreating. Her leg ached with every step.