Muggle Studies passed by in a blur.
Oleandra scarcely paid attention to the Carrows' supremacist ramblings, more preoccupied with how an entire day could have possibly slipped away from right under her. Where in Merlin's woollen briefs had her Sunday gone? Was she time-skipping again? That couldn't be right, everyone she'd spoken to remembered seeing her, talking to her even— so why couldn't she remember a thing?
"Before we begin, I would like to say a word," Amycus Carrow said. "It has recently come to my attention that students have taken to breaking school rules and duelling in the halls between classes."
"A more accurate term would be ambush," Alecto corrected her brother. "Cowardly, underhand attempts to harm and humiliate Slytherin students."
Startled, Oleandra looked up. Without realising it, she had followed the flow of students out of the Muggle Studies classroom and into her next class, Defence Against the Dark Arts. She glanced at Loki, who was sitting a few seats to her left. Was he responsible for these lapses of attention, or was this just her natural absent-minded nature at work?
Probably the latter.
"I trust you all remember our headmaster's words at the beginning of the school year?" Amycus said, grinning evilly. "Any infraction, no matter how small, will be punished severely."
A collective shiver of dread rippled across the classroom.
"Michael Corner, Oleandra Greengrass," Alecto called out. "Please come forward."
With a sigh, Oleandra pushed herself from her desk and made her way to the front of the class. Michael joined her moments later, throwing her a look of resolute defiance.
"Mr Corner here, a half-blood, fancied himself very brave when he ambushed Miss Greengrass, a pure-blood, as she wandered the castle, minding her own business," Alecto went on, sighing in mock disappointment. "Regrettable though it is, he must be made to learn a lesson about knowing his place and respecting his betters."
"A lesson in the Unforgivable Curses is in order," Amycus concluded. "Miss Greengrass, you will subject your classmate to the Cruciatus Curse until I instruct you to stop."
The Carrows had explained how dark magic worked quite plainly in their previous lesson. When it came to the Unforgivables, you really had to mean them, with all your heart. Negative emotions was really all that was required to perform the Dark Arts, a shortcut to power, which anyone could use. But as Oleandra knew, everything came with a price, especially dark magic. Power gained without effort exacted a toll, corrupting the mind, body and soul.
Oleandra raised her wand, and Michael flinched.
"You are not to resist, Michael," Alecto said, licking her lips in anticipation. "Or we will be the ones who deal out your punishment."
Of the two Carrow siblings, Alecto was perhaps the crueller of the two… though not by much.
"Crucio," Oleandra said.
Red lightning sprang from the tip of her wand, arcs of flickering magic licking at Michael's body and penetrating his flesh like spears wherever it touched him, sending phantom pain screaming down his nerves. He gritted his teeth, then smiled. "Is that all you've got, Greengrass?" he spat. "I could do this all day."
"You have to really mean it," Alecto said encouragingly. "He ambushed you. He tried to harm you. Don't you think he deserves to be punished?"
But Oleandra didn't hate Michael, and neither did she want to. She cut off the flow of magic and looked at the Carrows in turn.
"Why should I hate someone so much weaker than myself? There's no world in which Corner could possibly harm me," she said, frowning. "If anything, I ought to pity him."
Michael's face flushed crimson with anger. He'd thought himself remarkable for enduring that agony, only to learn his tormentor hadn't even been trying. Even the Carrows were taken aback by Oleandra's words; they'd never encountered anyone who refused to take an eye for an eye. Still, they couldn't very well force hatred upon a student, that was something they had to learn by themselves.
"Very well, I suppose it cannot be helped," Amycus said, frowning. "In that case, your sister may do the honours. Miss Greengrass, if you would demonstrate your talents?"
Daphne looked up.
She'd been idly stroking the snake coiled in her palm instead of paying the slightest attention to the lesson. Without even bothering to leave her seat, she lazily stretched out her arm and pointed her wand at Michael.
"Crucio."
Michael's eyes bulged as he crumpled to his knees, a guttural howl tearing from his throat. The agony that seized him now made Oleandra's earlier curse feel almost merciful, infinitely worse than the worst pain he had ever experienced. He screamed, all thoughts obliterated from his mind by pain beyond description. His screams rasped into silence as his voice failed him— yet the torment only deepened even as he adapted to it.
"DAPHNE, STOP!" Oleandra screamed.
With a flick of her wrist, Daphne holstered her wand.
"Kill me kill me kill me," Michael mumbled incoherently. "Make it stop stop stop stop."
Oleandra turned to her sister in dismay. Michael's reaction to her spell had been a thousand times worse than Neville's under the Carrows' torture. What sort of hatred was burning inside her, that she could provoke such agony in someone she scarcely cared about?
Even though they had set the whole thing in motion, even the Carrows couldn't escape the same cold fear that now gripped their students. Such was the power of the Dark Lady— the one chosen by the Dark Lord to stand at his side until the very end.
"That's enough of that for today," Amycus finally said, his voice trembling slightly. "Miss Greengrass, you may return to your seat… Alecto?"
"I'll take the boy to the Hospital Wing," said his sister, her arousal overpowering her fear. "Go on without me, Amycus."
She raised her wand, lifting Michael's twitching body into the air and guiding it from the classroom before closing the door behind her.