Curare

To cast the Cruciatus curse you have to mean it. This is really the worst part about the spell. When you are writhing in pain, you hurt for two reasons. (1) The spell and (2) The caster really hates you that much. When the caster is a loved one the curse hurts even more. You just keep wondering-- why does this person hate me this much? Some people can grow so cold and hateful that they can cast the spell without the slightest effort.

My mother was such a person. Everyone tells me otherwise, but I do have a few memories of her, the worst come forth whenever a Dementer is near. I remember her standing completely still and I remember my father screaming. I also know what my relatives don't tell me-- I spent several months each year until I was about three or four in a special ward at St. Mungo's for muscle spasms, an irregular heartbeat, and badly healed bones.

How does a person who appears to be jovial and lively become so depraved? I don't know. I have no proofs why my mother and father so changed. I have only fragments of memories (despite my trying so hard to forget everything) and photographs from before I was even born. Smoky photos filled with erratic lights and twisting limbs and inaudible screams. My mother and my father partaking in an underworld of pain. I do not know why they went. I think the first time may have been for an Auror mission. They became addicted though.

This is why dark curses are dark; they cause addictions. People become addicted to casting and to feeling and sometimes if you cast enough and feel enough you become numb and then you can do anything. Everyone copes with war and the loss of control that brings in a different way. My parents kept returning to the place in the photographs.

Few people have seen true terror. Some claim that nightmares haunt them or some other childish excuses to feel a thrill. Few people actually understand that terror isn't about a thrill or a shiver; it's a will-shattering emotion that can paralyze, destroy, or change. True terror can turn saints into demons and devils into gods.

I am surprised that no one has ever wondered why my parents are the only victims of the Cruciatus Curse in St. Mungo's. All the other victims died or weren't tortured enough. My parents are the only exception.

I imagine it was like this: Bellatrix Lestrange tortured them, but did not receive the normal response. My parents were already indoctrinated to that sort of pain and were used to a stronger flavor because of their additional love for each other. Bellatrix's power increased with her frustration and she kept my parents under far too long. Their bodies were used to the pain and survived, but eventually their minds gave out.

Sometimes, when I dream, I can still hear their horrifying mixture of laughter and screams. How can anyone sound so wretched and exultant at the same time?

I want to block out what I know. I want to forget everything, but these memories are the only ones that persist, even when I forget everything else. I don't know if anyone can ever understand how it feels every time I pick up my wand. I am afraid that I am like my parents, that I'll change too. I may seem weak or klutzy, but it's only because every time I sense magic I stiffen and begin to shake. Magic brings memories of my earliest childhood. Magic reminds me of my deepest fears.

And now, with Hogwarts threatening to close, You-Know-Who striking out, and Scrimgeour scrambling for even more power, I feel so tempted to see if pain really does help. I may not be able to cast the Cruciatus, but I know so many minor poisons and corrosive plants. It would be so easy.

Every year I visit my parents at St. Mungo's. My mother gives me bubblegum wrappers and I tell both my parents how much I wish they were better. I do love my parents, at least, I love what I've been told of them. And, I do want them to get better so that we can be a family again. Really. However, what if they still need the pain and the control of pain? What if, once they are better, I have to return to that special ward? I love my parents, but they also terrify me. Sometimes I wish they would just die and remove all uncertainty.

St. Mungo's would never let that happen, though. The healers are too attentive, too good. My parents will only die of old age or an outside force. Like a poison, a simple, untraceable, quick-acting, herbal poison.

I know just the thing.