Content Warning: Torture



Rabastan would have been content to cast and recast the Torture Curse over and over again until the boy completely lost his mind. The pain his victim suffered brought him little pleasure, but delighting his fictitious Bellatrix was his purpose here…and the performing of the spell was such a delightful rush. It wasn’t quite the experience one had when placed under the Imperius or dosed with one of his delightful yellow elixirs, but it was quite nice. It was something of a fix for the man who had gone the evening without even the smallest sip of sunshine.

How could he have left his elixirs behind? It was not like him to venture out into the world with only empty vials in his pockets. Rabastan was the type to check and recheck to make sure his euphoria draughts were with him—sneaking little sips before departing the castle. Not that there was anyone to hide his indulgence from…but old habits are easily resumed.

Like torturing relatively innocent animals—this mutt rolling around in the dirt at his feet had done little wrong—outside of being a magic thief, that was. Breaking curfew for a smoke was hardly some severe crime. But it was not about the crime—it was about reminding the piece of shit that he was worthless, that the mudbloods had no power and no rights. They were gifted with each breath they drew. Rabastan was just reminding this bloke of that.

He lifted the curse—only to perform it against, giggling when the boy flopped about much like some rag doll, twitching there in the dirt. The awkward way the boy’s limbs bent was most peculiar and unnatural. The red magic flowing from Rabastan’s hand drew continual screams from his victim—filling the night air with the cries. The sound was losing volume, though—enough so that when another joined them, the Lestrange was able to hear her voice.

His head jerked towards the voice. Eyes flashing with fury, he narrowed a harsh scowl onto his fierce features. This girl dared intercede?! She was obviously another worthless mudblood. His concentration split enough for the intensity of his curse to fade and in time the magic terminated all together. Rabastan growled in annoyance. He stood taller, seeming to tower over Devin as he glowered at the blonde girl. ”How dare you speak to me in such a way, mudblood,” the Lestrange bellowed.

”You will get yours, too, now, bint,” he snapped. The flash of red flew from his hand as he shouted out the incantation for the Torture Curse again. This time, the magic was directed at the young woman. Rabastan barely held her under the curse for any length of time before his focus was disrupted by the boy. The mudblood was tugging on his robes. A swift kick to Devin's torso and head stilled the boy, at least for the moment.

Confident the boy would not be a problem for a good while. Rabastan returned his attention to the pretty blonde. He summoned a rope and it slithered its way around Sasha’s ankle. A jerk pulled her legs out from under her and slammed her body downwards towards the ground, and Rabastan was dragging her through the dirt towards him. An evil glint flashed in his eyes and Bellatrix clapped excitedly in his peripheral. She was so pleased with how this night was going.

CW - Death Eater badness

As a general rule, Sasha didn’t care about other people. She just didn’t. She cared about herself. She cared about Mari--and she cared about her parents, even if they didn’t know who she was anymore. She didn’t know if they did or didn’t, and she didn’t know if they were even alive. But she still cared about them. That was where the list ended. Her parents, Mari, and herself. Apart from that, people were rather disposable to her. Sometimes there were ones at school that she strung along and included, and then there were the rest of her friends, which were mostly just girls that didn’t completely irritate her. Those friendships were superficial, but they worked. She had always been the type of person that people had come to, wanting to be her friend. It had never been hard for her. But she had never cared about them. This situation had changed her. She didn’t want to think that it had, but… it had. Not in any major way. Sasha was still the same person mostly--she was still a bitch, still always had a quick retort that was normally as insulting as possible, sometimes passive aggressive enough for the person to not immediately know that they had even been insulted.

But in some ways, she was different. There were ways that this year had changed her even if she didn’t want to admit it. Sasha had always questioned what had the Hat sorting her into Gryffindor. She had always just assumed it was because she was far more suited for Slytherin, and yet being a Muggleborn meant that she wasn’t going to end up in that particular house. She was smart enough, but hardly intelligent enough to be a Ravenclaw, and if she had been put into Hufflepuff, she thought she would have made her housemates cry every day. Gryffindor was just… the one that was left. That was what she had figured anyhow. She wasn’t particularly loyal--to her parents, to her family, to Mari maybe… but no one else. She didn’t quite think that she had a single trait that Godric Gryffindor would have picked out or would have been all that proud of. She was just a witch that didn’t quite fit in any other house, and that was the only reason that she’d been chucked into Gryffindor. That had been her opinion anyway. She had never done anything reckless or stupid, or heroic. Not ever.

This was stupid though. From the second that she’d pushed open the door and made it outside, a part of her already knew it. This was stupid. This was the most idiotic thing that she had ever done because what was the point? She wasn’t going to save Devin. The Death Eater wasn’t going to stop torturing him just because she had asked. Even if his attention was focused on her instead of Devin, it wasn’t as if he could get away. Coming out here would achieve nothing, except for probably getting herself killed right along with him. And how was that a good idea? She didn’t want to die. She wasn’t good at acting like she was subordinate to them already. She tried, to at least act that way, but she didn’t believe it. She had lived her entire life being told that she was better than other people because she was an Augustine. This horrible year hadn’t beaten that out of her entirely. But she had tried to stay out of trouble, she didn’t make idiotic choices and she kept her mouth shut when she could. Her job kept her out of trouble. She wasn’t around people… and something like this… had never happened before.

The moment that she’d spoken, it had felt like a mistake. But she didn’t move. She had made it all the way out here. Turning and running wasn’t going to save her now. Her gaze moved from Rabastan to Devin. He was moving--sort of. Enough for her to know that he was at least still alive, which was something. For now anyway. She didn’t think that either of them were going to come out of this situation all that well--dead or tortured. It was up in the air at this point. She had known what she’d been getting into when she had come out here. She hadn’t even thought about it, she had just acted. And when the Death Eater spoke, she looked back at him in time to see a flash of red before it hit her. Pain was not something that she’d experienced much of in her life--and in this past year, torture had come in other forms, but this was different. The pain even in those split seconds were enough for a scream to be drawn from her lips. She was shaking by the time it was lifted, by the time his focus was momentarily diverted back to Devin.

She knew that she should move, but there was little point. She couldn’t get away--she supposed she could try. Maybe he’d go after her, leave Devin alone and at least one of them would get aware. Merlin. Heroism didn’t suit her. Sasha didn’t know what to expect once Rabastan’s attention was back on her. Devin wasn’t moving, but she thought he was still breathing. The man had only kicked him. Surely, he was still all right and she wasn’t alone already. Movement on the ground caught her eye and she did take a step back when she saw the rope… or she tried to, anyhow. The rope managed its way around her ankle anyhow and then she hit the ground hard. She tried to catch herself even a little with her hands, but it wasn’t enough to stop her head from making impact with the unforgiving ground--that in particular causing her to cry out and it was enough to see white. By the time her vision cleared, she was moving--and as it happened with being pulled, instinct had her fighting against it and trying to get free. Her shoes were lost in the struggle, and as her sweatshirt rode up, the stones of the ground started scraping up her back. Bad. Idea. This had been a bad idea.

Content Warning: He's a bad man doing bad things



Rabastan was struggling to remain completely present in the moment. Bellatrix was growing in clarity, which made reality fade. The exertion of the rapid succession of wandlessly casting the Torture Curse over and over again was felt. He was not exhausted, but he was not immune to the drain the performance of the spell required. Fighting to hold the figment of his imagination there with him without completely losing touch with reality was far more of a struggle and a drawn on his strength and energy. He needed both. It wasn't good enough to have these toys to play with if he lost the audience. He was doing this for her, to feel her near him, to have her with him.

The Bellatrix who his mind had created, if she was just a figment of his imagining, had been growing steadily crosser with him. The time he spent with Athena, which was at minimum one evening each week, he did not think of Bella---he did not fall into Trixie's trap. He was his old self then. He was a charming man filled with intellectual curiosity and love for the finest things in life. That was not the man that stood here on this dusty street. This was the shell of the wizard who had been ripped and torn in Azkaban. This was the man that had barely any grasp on his sanity and saw little need for it. Madness was his safety blanket. It had protected him from the worst of the abuse in prison. It had freed him.

Rabastan chanced a glance over at the figure of the long dead brunette. She nearly caught hold of him entirely. She would have frozen him there in awe of her, if not for the rope in his hands. The mudblood on the other end was flailing about and the momentarily distraction had given her a bit of slack, letting her pull the rope back towards her a little bit. The Lestrange jerked his head back and quickly fixed that minor mistake, tightening his hold and continuing to drag the protesting animal towards him. When Rabastan looked at the mudbloods, he did not see people. There were not human to him. Not really. The mudblood and muggles were, in his eyes, nothing more than mongrels. They were abominations—blights upon this planet. Purging the world of them was just and righteous. The muggles were as bad as bunnies, shagging and screwing and reproducing beyond what this planet could sustain.

It annoyed him that there would be no grand purging championed by his brother. He had hoped to soak the streets with the blood of the unworthy—to grow the number of Death Eaters until there was an army of wizards to champion this cause. But Rodolphus was tempered by his once blood traitor wife. There was a school being built for the animals now…and this camp here—food was provided and housing. Why?! The mudbloods did not deserve these considerations. Sure, it gave him a place to release his frustrations, but to what end? He got to put on a show for Bellatrix, but this really was not better. This was not the change that the world deserved.

His mind wandering off on that tangent made him all the more angry at the pair of teens he had on the ground. The boy was clearly trying to intercede, but was doing a pathetic job of it. Rabastan felt no threat from the young man. The girl was putting up much more resistance. He would make her pay for that. He nearly had her to him now. She was covered in filth from the gravel and dirt, but that mattered not to him. She was worm; she deserved to be beneath him, squirming there on the ground. A hiss of Crucio sent the vibrant red magic flowing from his fingertips. His curse caught hold of the girl, sending her into spasms. He had every intention of holding the spell until she passed out, but he was beginning to feel the drain on his energies. This game would have to end too soon if he was greedy. So, after a few seconds—less than a dozen—he let the curse come to an end.

A quick gesture upwards of his hand brought the girl off the ground and hovering there before him. He didn’t give her time to get any stability before backhanding her across the face. His knuckles caught hard on her jaw, crushing her lips into her teeth. He could feel the sharp edges against each ridge of his knuckles. The force of it brought a bit of pain to him. It was somehow satisfying—there was something animalistic about resorting to the mundane muggle violence. He enjoyed, as he always had. One hand grabbed hold of her hair, keeping her upright, half by levitation, half by use of her legs should she be able to find her footing. The other hand crashed into her face again. Time and time again, he abused her this way until his knuckles were coated in her blood. He wiped the crimson on the girl’s shirt and let go of her.

In times past, he would have ripped the clothing off the girl and let her nudity shame her, but he had no desire to see the body of this mongrel. Rabastan had not intentions of resorting to bestiality tonight—which was the term he levied against the purists that took muggles or mudbloods in the Biblical sense. He liked to believe himself superior and different from the mudbloods, but his body was still that of a man…it would react to the sight of a naked body. He would not sully himself that way. Not with Bella watching. She had never approved of such things.

No, it would take his fill of satisfaction in blood and screams. Mental torture would be his delight. Pulling the girl back up to full height, steadying her until she was standing there barefoot before him, Rabastan grinned wickedly, brushing the hair back from the girl’s face. He looked the part of the maniac, his expression twisted into a terrifying mask. His icy eyes sparkled as an idea formed in his mind. ”You wanted me to not hurt him. Very well child—,” he laughed a haughty short chuckle, before adding, in the huskiest of whispers: ”you’ll just have to do it for me, then.”

His hand held her head his thumb pressed against her temple as he sweetly breathed out an incantation: ”Imperio---“ He watched as his magic settled over the little mudblood. He could see the shift in her---the erosion of fear, the rush of euphoria. The delight that came with being subjected to this particular curse was what had drawn him to request Bellatrix perform it on him over and over. Her magic had been as addicting as any drug he had ever known. But he was not seeking to give the mudblood any satisfaction. He was using this as a punishment. She had wanted to save this other worthless thing. Now, she would take part in his destruction.

”Do you worst, little one, do your worst to him,” he urged. His hand still rested on Sasha face, and as he spoke, he guided her chin around and down so that she looking towards Devin. Now to just sit back and enjoy the show. 

Content warning: DE Badness


This had to just be more of the twisted mental fuckery that this curse did to his mind. Sasha could not possibly be out here. The girl was not stupid—and she definitely was not someone he would have thought of as the hero type. There were plenty of those foolish martyrs in their house at Hogwarts. Hell, Devin might have even been one—a little bit, in a very tarnished knight sort of way. He wasn’t anyone’s prince charming or white knight. He was too rough around the edges for that.

He had wanted the pain to stop—been desperate for it to, but not to the end that it would be transferred to her. Devin could not pretend he didn’t care about the witch. Not in this moment—earlier in the night, he had known it, too, but she had reinforced that she did not want that. But had she meant it? Could she mean it if she was actually opening that smart mouth to a Death Eater over him? It did not seem real. This could not be actually happening. He had to have lost touch with reality. That had to be it. The Torture Curse made people crazy—so he was just crazy. That was what this was. He had lost his mind. He was in so much pain, he had spun up this fiction in his mind.

That had to be it. But if that was it, then when was the Death Eater not still torturing him? Had Rabastan just gotten his fill? That didn’t seem likely. Devin tried to wipe at his face to clear some of the dust from the ground from his eyes so that he might actually be able to see what was going on. Tears blurred his vision and the blood streaming from his nose quickly covered his hands. The kick that had sent him reeling had busted his lip and nose, leaving both bleeding heavily. He spat the metallic liquid from his mouth. Still, trying to focus, to see, to get some confirmation of what was real and what was all just in his imagination.

Rabastan was definitely focused on someone else now. Devin caught sight of the blur of rope as the Death Eater pulled a flailing figure towards them. His throat cinched closed as he was able to make out the blonde curls. There was no doubting—that was Sasha. He was overwhelmed with emotion then. Never had anyone done anything like this for him. She had run out to stand up to a Death Eater to try to save him. Beautiful, stupid girl---now they were both headed for this hell…but though Devin was angry that she would be so foolish, he felt a rush of feelings he had never known before. He had never felt so important to anyone—so worthwhile. She had cared enough to do this for him. He had to keep her from the worst of what the Lestrange could do. The young wizard tried to clamor to his feet. He got upright, at least mostly, before his legs gave out beneath him. He tried to fling himself forward, to do something that might give Sasha a chance to rethink this stupidity—to run—to get away.

He failed her though. His muscles protested motion too greatly. The Torture Curse seemed to linger in his body—the pain blurred his vision with each attempt to move, to do anything at all. He managed to crawl back towards Rabastan. He was nearly to the man by the time the Death Eater had begun to curse Sasha. Devin squawked out a protest. He tried to get the Lestrange’s attention back onto him. He picked up a rock and feebly threw the thing. Thought it felt as if he was moving a boulder, he had only managed to barely pitch a pebble at the Death Eater. It was not even enough to be noticed.

Soon the glow of red faded away. Devin was so thankful for that. It had been unbearable to be so powerless and worthless while Sasha was experiencing that horrible magic. Thank Merlin, Rabastan had not sustained the Unforgivable on Sasha as long as he had with Devin. It had been full minutes that the boy had endured. His mind would surely have lingering effects from this. It was impossible for him to emerge from such physical, psychological and mental torture unchanged. What had caused Rabastan to stop so soon with Sasha? Devin had posed no threat. He had tried. He had wanted to do something, but he had failed. Perhaps the older man had tired himself or drained his magic. Devin could only hope this was the case, because he did not know how much more he could have actually taken of the curse—and he did not want Sasha to know this pain. Perhaps she already had. He could not be sure.

He managed to look upwards just as Rabastan was guiding Sasha’s face down to look at him. Devin made a pathetic and disgusting sight. His eyes were swollen, rimmed in red. There was no denying or hiding that he had been and was still crying. Tears caked mud and dust to his face—his lip was busted and bleeding. His nose was bloodied and leaking. The boy had clearly taken a beating. His brow knit into an expression of confusion as he took in the exchange between the Death Eater and the girl who’d already done more damage to his heart than he’d ever want to admit. Why did she look happy? The words Rabastan was speaking to her didn’t really make sense to Devin. He heard them. His mind tried its very best to comprehend them….but they just didn’t make sense. He had no clue what was going on. Maybe this was his mind playing tricks on him again—maybe this was all in his imagination. He wasn’t sure what was real and what wasn’t. The Cruciatus did that to a man.

CW: Death Eater badness

Coming outside after she had heard Devin screaming wasn’t something that she had to think all that much about. She had just acted. It had just been an instinct and that alone was odd to her. She wasn’t the person that jumped to other people’s defense. Self-preservation was a trait that she was far fonder of in situations like this one. She wasn’t a person that got in the middle, she didn’t stop other people from getting hurt if it meant putting herself in the line of fire. Sasha had been tortured in the year since she had been registered. Not often, but it had happened. When it had, it had mostly been because she’d said something that a Death Eater or a pureblood whose garden she was tending to, that they deemed to be disrespectful. In those situations, no one came to her defense, so why should she help anyone else? Granted, she had been alone most of those occasions but that was hardly the point. They looked after themselves. They couldn’t all be heroes and she was not a hero. She had seen people be tortured before and she hadn’t done a thing to stop it. That was just common sense to her.

Interfering wasn’t going to make anything better. It wasn’t going to get them to stop, it wasn’t going to do anything but piss them off that she’d even said anything. So she had never bothered. It had never been any problem for her before, to just let it go. People got tortured. Some for a living, and some when they stepped ‘out of line.’ Letting it happen was easier, because it ended eventually. Stepping in made it worse. It made the Death Eater mad, or the pureblood mad, and that only extended the pain not only for the person being tortured, but also whomever had stepped in. Looking after herself had been far easier so that was always what she had done. Up until this point, that had worked for her. She had been tortured on occasion, but she had recovered. Even the last time that she had seriously been hurt, she had managed to make it home. But she had known that she wouldn’t have even made it up to her apartment if it hadn’t been for Devin. Even if she hadn’t wanted to admit it, even if she hadn’t said thank you--because doing so would imply that she thought she’d needed the help, she had still known that she never would have made it up those stairs on her own.

That wasn’t the start of all of this being confusing for her. It had been for months now. Not from the start. The first night that Devin had laid down next to her, he had been so warm that she hadn’t thought to even say anything. But it had just been a way to stay warm at night. She just wasn’t going to push him away when she was freezing every night, if he had no problem being there. But it had steadily grown more complicated, even if she didn’t want to think about it. Sasha was quite fond of telling herself that she didn’t care about him at all. Sleeping with him had made it worse, because then she had been irritated that she was at all at risk of being that girl. Getting clingy after a shag was not something she would allow to happen. It was part of the reason that they had gotten into that stupid fight anyhow. Bringing up Jesse had been… her trying to convince herself that she had no problem shagging him--to prove that she didn’t have any confusing feelings about Devin. Another part of it had been to make him jealous. She had wanted to see if she could get a reaction out of it.

Shagging Jesse wasn’t something that she had wanted to do, and the fight that had followed was stupid. It had been stupid. It had gotten far too close to being… just too real for her, and walking away had been the only option that she’d had. She’d had no plans of sleeping with him that night, so she hadn’t gone back over to where their blankets were. She had decided that she could sleep in another corner and that would prove her point just fine. Sasha hadn’t thought that he would do this. She hadn’t thought that he would leave the apartment and be an absolute moron because of this dumb fight. It was part of the reason why she had gone after him to begin with. He wasn’t going to be a moron because of her--she wasn’t going to feel guilty and confused if he got hurt because of her. She hadn’t thought that he would actually be in danger. She thought that she’d open the front door and see him smoking on the stoop, and she could snap at him for being stupid and reckless. She hadn’t expected this. And stepping in was not like her. She was not the hero. She was the princess that got people to protect her--she was the selfish one that took care of herself. She was not this person.

But it was a little too late to think about what she was, and what she wasn’t. She had run out here regardless. She had drawn attention to herself, hoping that he would leave Devin alone. Now they were both more than likely going to die, and there was nothing that she could do about that. She couldn’t get away when the rope was tight around her ankle, pulling her closer and closer to him. Sasha knew that it would only get worse once she made it to him. Even the brief moments of the torture curse moments before was enough for her to know she didn’t want to experience it again. But it was what he’d been subjecting Devin to… if it was a curse that the man preferred, she didn’t think she would get lucky enough to avoid it. Even as she hoped for anything else, she heard the incantation, and the pain was immediate. She was screaming again. It was nothing like she had ever experienced before, no pain could feel worse, nothing could be worse. She couldn’t control the spasms as the pain ripped through her. It was in every inch of her body. It felt like it was never going to end…

And then it did. The spell ended, even if the effects didn’t leave her immediately. Before she could even react, he had brought her to her feet, and his hand crashed against her face. The force of the blow was dizzying for someone who had experienced no physical violence before. She cried out at his hand moved to grip her hair, and then he hit her again… and again… and there was little point in trying to pull away. This, at least, was preferable to the torture curse… even if her cheek was throbbing, even if lip was bleeding, even if her nose was bleeding… it was better than the all-encompassing pain of the Cruciatus. She didn’t know why he had stopped. She only hoped that he was done with that particular curse. Surely there couldn’t be worse than that. But then he spoke. For a moment, she hadn’t known what he had meant. It was only moments later, when his thumb pressed to her temple that she realized, and she tried to shake her head--barely, anyway. As unused to violence as she was, the effects of what he had already done was dizzying. But she had no way of stopping what came next.

The fear faded… even the pain did, just a little. Her gaze cleared as she stared at the Death Eater. When he spoke again, her focus was drawn down to Devin. The rush of the curse was making the pain easier to ignore when all she was thinking about was doing what the Death Eater had asked. But her worst had always been words. She had never lifted a hand to someone in her life, so it was really no surprise that her mind didn’t take ‘do your worst’ in any sort of violent way. Instead, she dropped to her knees next to him. Her hand moved to his cheek, her thumb wiping away the tears. “Devin…” Her voice was quiet, but it was the expression on her face that wouldn’t make sense to him. The blankness of the curse, the spark of euphoria. It was unmistakably in her eyes, even if her thoughts were on mind games and how to hurt him the most. Exploiting weaknesses had always been a strength of hers, something she’d excelled at with people she didn’t like at Hogwarts--it had been a while. But she thought she knew just what to do to make this hurt.

Content Warning: DE Badness



The alarm that flashed in the blonde’s eyes at her recognition of what he was about to do delighted Rabastan. He fed on that fear. It was a rush of beautiful dominion and dominance. He savored that moment—watching intently as her terror shifted to perfect acceptance. The transition was so graceful. Pain was replaced by pleasure. Fear lost hold as it was overcome by peace. The girl had been shaking moments ago under the effects of the magic he had subjected her to, but now, she had transformed—she almost glowed…Or at least, that was how Rab saw it.

He let his hand fall away from the mudblood as he took a step backwards. The wizard wanted to be able to take in the show about to be put on for him. The boy’s attempts to intercede, feeble as they might have been, had not been lost on the Death Eater. Rabastan believed that Devin would make no move against Sasha. The young man after becoming intimately acquainted with Rabastan’s torturous capabilities had still sought more of the Death Eater’s attention—anything to take the focus from this little heroine. So, what would the boy do now that Sasha’s will had been perverted to match the purist’s? It was a delightful little social experiment unfolding at his whim.

The Lestrange was curious just what his puppet would do. He had not given her firm direction. What would the little mudblood believe was the worst she was capable of? Would she resort to mundane violence? Perhaps claw out the boy’s eyes? That would be a sight to see. Or maybe something more boring like attacking the genitals with a swift kick. It was well known among all that men were particularly vulnerable between the legs. Rabastan rather hoped the girl would not go for that assault. He wanted something more creative. He enjoyed the twisting of the mind—that was why the Imperio had always been his favorite of the Unforgivables. He loved stripped another of their free will. It was more demeaning than to have taken their life away. It was more invasive than to simply subject them to torture. The curse made them not themselves.

He found the magic utterly beautiful.

With Sasha playing the abuser now, Rabastan could allow more of himself to be lost into catatonia. He could still see the pair of mudbloods there on the ground, but his body stiffened. He let Bella have more power, her form growing ever more corporeal to his perception. He could practically feel her touch now and clearly hear a purr of delight from the woman. Oh how he longed for her—how he longed to bring her back to this world properly. It wasn't right to be living and breathing free of prison without the woman. There was a horrible void. One that was amplified in the moments when Rabastan was left alone with himself. 

He only barely perceived the subtle affection his puppet performed. His focus was slowly slipping from what was before him towards what he longed for. But the part of him that did see found no fault in the groundwork the girl was undertaking. He knew the workings of the mind. He knew the vulnerabilities of the psyche and believed with all that he was that the mental and psychological wounds were far longer lasting and more damaging than any physical affliction. 

Content Warning: DE Badness
 

Devin hated himself for having left the flat. How could he have done something so foolish? He never dreamed that Sasha would follow him. The thought had not even registered in his mind as a possibility. She did not care about him. He was just a warm body to her. That was literally exactly what he was. He kept her from shivering all night. He provided a pillow. He didn’t really matter…Not to Sasha—and honestly, not to anyone. That was what he truly believed. That was how it had been his entire life.

He was fighting to get control over his body—over his emotions. His mind was still so twisted up by the images that Rabastan’s curse had unearthed. Every fear, every abuse, every bad thing that had ever happened to him was now fighting for attention—all pressed into the forefront of his mind. It was overwhelming…and still, somehow, he was able to focus on her. Devin was terrified about what was going to happen to Sasha. His mind, in its very bad state, was putting forward all sorts of horrible possibilities. Devin had caught glimpses of the sorts of things rival gangs did to the women of their opponents. Rape seemed like a kind word for the levels of abuse and indecency those hang abouts had been subjected to.

Dev did not think a Death Eater would do those sorts of things to a mudblood, though. Purists would not want to defile themselves that way. So, what would Rabastan do? Would the lunatic kill them both? It seemed plausible. Hell, Devin had even wished for his own life to end minutes before. Now, he would do anything he could to keep Sasha alive, so he really hoped murder was not on the Death Eater’s mind tonight. Because, really, what could Devin do to stop him? He hadn’t tried to talk his way out of the trouble before, but now would he even be able to? His slick speech might have worked on professors and the like, but he didn’t think it would get him far with Rabastan Lestrange.

Possibilities for what the immediate future held for him and Sasha seemed to range from really bloody bad to way beyond horrendous. But she didn’t look scared. It bewildered him. His eyes focused on the witch as she dropped down onto the ground next to him. How could she be so calm? She had just been under the Torture Curse. Hadn’t she? Had that all been in his mind? Was he that detached from reality that he had just imagined that? Devin didn’t know.

Was the person he saw standing there with Rabastan even real?

She was coming closer, kneeling next to him. A gentle gust of the wind brought the familiar scent of her washing over him. It was undoubtedly Sasha. He couldn’t have made all of this up. Not now that he could feel her touch on his face---she had never been so tender with him. He could not resist leaning into the contact. His eyes watered again. He’d managed to stop crying, but was on the verge of losing control again. Something about this felt all wrong. ”I’m so sorry,” he promised. His voice was little more than a whisper—hoarse and scratchy from all the screaming. He closed his eyes for the briefest moment before opening them to look at her again. Every part of him had meant the words. This was all his fault. Everything bad that had happened and was still to come for the pair of them was all his fault. His stupid pride had gotten wounded. He’d been so sure that space and the little sliver of freedom that he could get by coming outside would appease that wound. It hadn’t…

And now this maniac had them both. They were too young to die—but Devin had delivered them up like an offering to the executioner’s wand.

Coming out here had been an instinct. She hadn’t thought about it, she had just acted. It wasn’t something that she would have done for anyone else--anyone but Mari, really. If it had been her best friend out there, she didn’t think she would have hesitated either. But Devin… she shouldn’t have gone outside for Devin Wright. The her from a year ago would have been appalled that she had put herself at risk for someone like him. But it had happened. That instinct had made way for fear once she had really taken in what she was getting herself into. Sasha hadn’t been able to entirely avoid being tortured in the near year that she had been registered. It wasn’t something that she was subject to all that often, but she was went to purebloods’ houses every day. Sometimes they had something to say about how she was doing, and sometimes her responses back were not all that respectful. She couldn’t help it. So torture was something that she had experienced before, on a small scale.

But walking into something like this was not something that had ever happened to her before. Making sure that he had stopped hurting Devin had been the only thing on her mind. It wasn’t until she was actually outside that she realized how foolish that had been. He wasn’t going to listen to her. It was only going to piss him off more, which wasn’t going to help either of them. All she had done was ensure that she was going to die along with Sasha and she did not want to die. But the Death Eater’s attention was on her now, and not Devin and for a moment she thought that she could see that as some kind of victory. Except for the part where she was the one being tortured, and she was not a girl that had dealt with very much physical pain before. Apart from the handful of times someone had turned a wand on her this year, the most pain she’d ever felt had been when she’d gotten her bellybutton pierced. She didn’t have a tolerance for the torture curse, she had never been struck before.

It was enough for her to be shaking, to be terrified, and then the Imperius Curse had hit her, and it had all faded away. The fear was a forgotten memory and the pain was easy for her to ignore when the euphoric feeling of the mind control curse took hold. All she was thinking about was what he had asked of her. He had told her to do her worst. Her worst had never been violence. She had never raised a hand to anybody before, not really. She could try, she knew that she could try, but she thought that the attempts would be feeble compared to the physical pain he had already been through. Sasha didn’t think that anything she did would really measure up to that, certainly not enough to be considered her worst. No, there was little point in her trying to do that. Not when there were so many other ways to cause someone pain, ways that didn’t involve physical pain at all. That was always something that she had been good at. Sasha knew people’s weak points, and she knew how to use that weakness against them.

It was something that she had never thought of with Devin before. He was someone that she tried to ignore during the day, and someone that she wanted near her at night. She hadn’t thought much about his weaknesses, she hadn’t thought about how she could hurt him. The jabs that he had gotten in the past were mild compared to the worst that she could do. He thought that she could be a bitch and maybe he had heard the stories, but he hadn’t experienced it firsthand. But now he could. The fact that he was already crying and broken down would honestly make it even easier. Kicking someone while they were down was a little petty, maybe, but she needed that vulnerability. He was normally strong. Sure of himself. There were insults she could throw at him at any other time that he would probably brush off. But she didn’t think that he would be able to brush off much of anything right now. Not when he was acting like this--acting in a way that she had never seen before… she didn’t like it. Seeing him like this was a strange sensation, but that wasn’t something that she could focus on. Not when her mind was only focused on hurting him.

His voice was quiet, but the words were simple enough to understand. He was apologizing. That was a start. It was something that she could work with. Sasha’s thumb trailed across his cheek again, and she leaned closer to him… and closer still. She stopped only when her lips were mere centimeter from his own. Maybe he really thought that she was going to kiss him. She hoped that he did. “You should be…” She kept her voice at a whisper too, but loud enough for him to hear her words. “This is your fault.” Sasha didn’t move away from him. Better to keep her lips close to his, a small little reminder of the one time he’d actually been able to kiss her. “You’re going to die out here… crying, and pathetic.” It was only then that she put distance between them. “And you thought that I could ever care about someone like you? You are nothing. To me, or to anyone. I bet there’s not a person in the world that will even notice you're gone.” A part of her thought that she could be done now--she really, truly could stop now, but she had to keep going. “You were too weak to protect yourself--too weak to protect me. But only one of us is going to die crying…”

The light he had conjured cast a cool light over the pair of mudbloods--though it radiated in all directions, he shifted it slightly so it was more like a spot light onto his puppet and prey. This was a stage set out before him--he being the eager audience. He knew nothing of the girl he had imperio'd, but he expected little from her in the violence department. Her having rushed out to the defense of the boy made Rabastan believed that the pair were romantically involved--or perhaps family, though he saw no resemblance between the pair. Either way, the girl would know the other mudblood's weaknesses and vulnerabilities far more than he could. She would know the ways to inflict the deepest wounds.

Bellatrix was coming to realize that the mudblood girl was not capable of performing any magical torture on the boy and likely had no weapon with which to cause him injury. This did not please her. She had never shared Rabastan's fascination with psychology. She understood and fixated on pain. It was clear. It was easy--It was capable of breaking the strongest of men. Rabastan knew well how the woman had obsessed over achieving dominion over men. She had never been happy with the gender roles assigned to women in purist society. Bellatrix had never been the homemaker, mothering type. She was a warrior.

That was a point of divergence for Rabastan and his late love. He enjoyed dissecting his prey's mind--his actions were figurative, while she was more likely to slice them up literally. This little mudblood girl seemed more akin to the Lestrange than the eldest of Cygnus Black's girls. Watching her toy with the young man exhilarated Rabastan, the gentle affections were a perfect prelude to her biting words. Had the girl not been a mudblood, he might have believed she would have bright future in front of her. But from with her heritage, he could think nothing truly positive about her.

The targets of her words were slightly predictable. Undermining a man's masculinity was the verbal equivalent of a kick to the junk. It might have been predictable, but it was a solid beginning. Rabastan watched and waiting, seeing how far the mudblood might take her little verbal lashing. He knew she was truly trying her best to do her very worst to the boy. There was no way for her to resist his Imperius. He had been renowned at performing that Unforgivable in the First Wizarding War. His casting of the spell resulted in the longest lasting and most deeply embedded magic among those marked and masked. It had been he who cursed the majority of the political officials the Death Eaters drew under their power.

"You can do better than that, little one," he encouraged. His voice went on prodding at her: "This mongrel has failed you. He's scum. Remind him." Hushed whispers formed on his lips as he deposited little ideas into her head- He encouraged the girl to tell Devin exactly what she--at least in this manipulated state--thought of him.

Devin did not understand what was going on. The torture had seemed to stop, but his body ached. Every muscle protested movement and every nerve still sent echoes of alarm to his brain. He was not under the curse anymore, but the pain lingered. It was not as intense, but it was miserable all the same. He felt so much shame, embarrassment and regret. Why had he come out here? Why had he been so bloody stupid? And now--Sasha was in this, too. The entire situation was unthinkably bad. He was no genius, but he was street smart---he had common sense...but he was not able to come up with any plan to get the pair of them free of this maniac. They were stuck until Rabastan Lestrange grew tired of them---or killed them.

It was so easy to accept the affection from Sasha. Devin should have known better. She would never behave this way towards him. She would never cup his cheek. She would never lean down so close to him. He had barely kissed her even the one time they shagged. Those had not been gestures of affection--they had been rough, aggressive expressions of lust. But the closer she leaned towards him, the more he believed that she was going to kiss him now.

His watery eyes shown with regret and affection as he gazed up at her. The closer she drew the more difficult it became to breathe--not because of the pain, but because of her. It was too easy to get caught up in her. His defenses were down. All his walls that protected his heart were destroyed. All the memories that Rabastan's torture had unearthed left the boy raw and absolutely vulnerable. He was broken--and she was like some angel.

It broke his heart to see the blood on her face--to know that Rabastan had struck her. It stoked a fire in him, an anger that nearly gave him the strength (and stupidity) to rise up from the ground and charge at the Death Eater. But he was too captivated by her to do that right now--not if she was about to kiss him. Then, her voice broke the silence between them.

Her harsh words were met with the slightest of nods. She was right. He should be sorry. He was. He hated that he had been stupid enough to bring this on the pair of them. It still was unbelievable to him that the beauty was here. Why was she here? Sasha bit out that this whole mess was his fault and his head jerked forward again.

"Yes-"

Devin breathed out the single syllable, trying his best to keep his emotions in check. He was doing a very poor job. The boy could have handled the physical pain Rabastan subjected him to easily---but the mental shit, the twisted horrible thoughts the torture curse had drawn up into his mind from when Rabastan had held him under it for so long. That had really fucked him up.

Nothing could prepare him for what she said next. But he was grateful for the distance when she pulled away. It let him wipe at his face, feebly attempting to remove the signs of his earlier tears. His eyes were watery now, threatening to overflow, but he was determined not to cry. Devin did not understand how that tonight had come to this. Why was the Death Eater just standing there watching the two of them? Why didn't Sasha look scared? Why did she look almost happy? It didn't make sense, but he did not even consider the possibility that the witch was not acting of her own free will. Everything she was saying made perfect sense.

This must have been some twisted game for the purist. Devin choked back any response. He didn't trust himself to speak. Sasha's words were cutting him deep--no matter what he would have ever said, he cared what she thought--and he wanted her to see value in him. But she never would. Not even in this new world... She was better than him, just like everybody else. He was trash. He had always been. He would not refute that.

Maybe her words were supposed to incite some reaction in him--maybe the Death Eater had hoped Devin would attack the girl, or lash out at her. But he didn't. He wouldn't do that. Plus, there was no disputing what she had to say. He just kept telling himself that this was better than flailing around under the crimson magic the Death Eater had performed on him earlier.

It felt fitting that this would be the prelude to his death. He had lived a life being demeaned and insulted. Sasha was right. There was no one who would give a shit about him drawing his last breath. Maybe death would be better, because life had pretty much sucked. Every day had been a struggle. He had never been given any sort of hand out or hand up. If there was some kind of afterlife, then maybe he would be dealt a better hand. It wasn't like he could be dealt a worse one--or not that he could fathom.

Even as the girl lashed out at him, Devin wished he could save her---wished that he had not drawn her into this mess. Not that he understood how he was actually responsible for her being outside, other than being outside himself. Why she had come still made no sense. He was not able to think clearly enough to consider that now. He was afraid. It felt as if he was facing death--and even as part of him accepted this fate, trying to believe it might be better that life, Devin still wanted to live--and he didn't want to be responsible for anyone's death, especially not Sasha's.