IMPORTANT: THIS IS A SEQUEL.

YOU DON'T HAVE TO READ THE PREVIOUS PARTS, ALL IMPORTANT INFO IS DOWN BELOW HERE! If you did read the previous stories ("A Gift And A Curse", "An Accursed Gift" and "The Gifted Curse") you can skip this bit.

Main character: Crucio Carina Lestrange, known as Crucie Black in Hogwarts. She is NOT a Mary Sue (or so I've been told multiple times), but she does have the talent to perform a wandless, nonverbal cruciatus curse. She loves to torture people, and her ethics/ideology is a little on the sociopathic side at times, but nevertheless she is fiercely loyal to both her family and friends. She lives with her uncle Rabastan on Knockturn Alley, and often helps out as a shop assistant at Borgin And Burke's. She's friends with Hermione Granger (but not accepted into the Trio, they keep their friendship a secret) and Theodore Nott. She also works on a Muggle Tech project with Hermione, trying to make muggle things function in a magical environment. Her best friend however is the old portrait of Salazar Slytherin.

Events: Mainly follow the canon, and Crucie usually doesn't interrupt or play a large role in them. All canon events up to now have taken place. Important is that the basilisk, however killed by Harry Potter, was later on resurrected as a ghost by Crucie, hence that Hogwarts now has a giant blind snake ghost roam the halls. Because Crucie has performed the spell she can understand the basilisk ghost, and she's been studying/struggling for two years now to learn Parseltongue through their connection. She's not really good at it though ;)

In the previous story, when the dementors attacked she kept them at a distance with the cruciatus curse until Harry could chase them completely with a patronus. This story uses the premise that emotion-based curses and spells affect all amortal creatures in some way.

This story will tell the tale of Crucie's fourth year at Hogwarts. Enjoy!

"Dementors. Hundred dementors."

Rabastan Lestrange was clearly experiencing some trouble wrapping his mind around the fact that his goddaughter had braved a small army of Azkaban's guards without using her wand. Crucie just grinned at him.

"That's what I said, yes."

"Crucie…"

Rabastan pulled the girl in for a hug. He was proud of her, surely, but the mere idea of the girl he had come to love like a daughter being in such danger gave him the chills.

"For one, I am incredibly proud of you."

She smiled happily, a proud blush on her cheeks, and Rabastan sighed. He then took her face in his hands and made her look at him. "But promise me you will stay away from dementors. They are the worst this world has to offer. I would rather see you wrestle acromantulas than fight them, and you know how I think about spiders."

Crucie surely knew. The quest of Rabastan Lestrange to exterminate all the spiders in Great Britain was a lonely and often mocked crusade, and she couldn't help but giggle. Her uncle could torture a man into insanity and had no qualms with tearing apart human beings limb-by-limb if the situation asked for it, but he would Avada Kedavra a spider the size of a pinhead because he was too nervous to crush it under his foot.

"Arachnophobia is not funny!"

"I know; it's just a very unlikely thing to have for a person in your profession."

"Not as unlikely as Mulciber's alleged fear of that muggle weapon, what was it called, umbrallo or something? He was never quite the same after that wench stuck the thing in his eye."

"Right."

They both laughed. The rest of the evening was filled with tales of Crucie's lifes at Hogwarts and Rabastan's adventures on Knockturn Alley. Especially those last ones were extremely hilarious at times, making Crucie bless whatever deity it was that protected her uncle from the Aurors. It had to be a damn devoted deity, counting all the times Rabastan had already escaped the not-quite-long-enough arm of the law…

(Pagebreak)

Crucie had a gleeful grin on her face when she skipped through Diagon Alley. In her purse she had a gift from her pen pal Arthur Weasley, which he had sent her after she had expressed her interest and fascination with muggle vehicles, and she couldn't wait to share it with Hermione. She would show her that she could have fun without torturing people too!

"Hermione!"

She waved happily at the bushy haired girl standing outside of Florean Fortescue's. In turn, Hermione waved back. It was clear that the girl was slightly nervous about this encounter.

"Hi there Crucie, how've you been?"

"Oh, just the usual. Business is booming at Borgin And Burke's, so actually Mr Burke couldn't miss me, but because I managed to get Medea Henderson sell her collection of rare poisons for 5000 galleons less than the intended price I got a day off and a bonus on top of it!"

Hermione didn't ask how that had gone in detail, she already had a dark brown suspicion about Crucie's haggling tactics. In turn she told her about a city trip to Paris her mother was planning, and about helping out the secretary in the dentist's practice of her parents. Crucie laughed, and then asked what exactly a dentist did. When Hermione gave her a detailed description of root canal treatments and wisdom teeth removal, she got an excited gleam in her eyes.

"What an interesting job! And it's legal in the muggle world?"

Hermione couldn't help but feel that Crucie had somehow missed a turn in the explanation. They abandoned the subject when they reached the Leaky Cauldron.

"I thought you were going to show me Knockturn Alley?"

Crucie grinned.

"Oh, but I will, don't worry. We have all day; my uncle said that he wanted the apartment for himself today. I wanted to take you to Muggle London now, because I have something awesome to test out for our muggle project."

"Oh? What is it?"

"Remember my pen pal? He sent me this."

Crucie pulled a book from her bag, and Hermione paled when she read the title.

"Basic License Driver's Handbook"

(Pagebreak)

"We can't do this."

"Sure we can."

"It's illegal!"

"So is torture."

"I don't see your point."

"Come on, live a little! I promise you, I read that book twice! Nothing will happen!"

Hermione and Crucie were standing next to a red Nissan in the middle of London. Crucie was all bouncy with the prospect of driving a muggle vehicle, Hermione… not so much.

"You can't learn how to drive from a book! By the way, how do you intend to open that car, you can't do magic!"

"You can learn magic from a book, I don't see how driving this is any different."

Crucie grinned and took a strangely shaped penknife from her pocket.

"By the way, I borrowed this from my uncle. Can crack any lock, open any door, and break anything open as long as it's not warded too well. And since we're in Muggle London…"

To prove it, she stuck it into the lock of the car, and the car clicked open without a single issue.

"Crucie…"

"Please? I promise you, if we get caught I'll take the blame."

Hermione sighed, and suddenly Ron's words resounded in her head. "Such a bookworm, lives for her books. Never does anything fun." "What's your boggart? Probably a test without the highest grade." "I wouldn't ask Hermione if I were you, she wouldn't break a rule to save her life." In no time she got into the car.

"If we get caught…"

"We won't get caught."

Hermione just wanted to ask how Crucie thought to start the car, when the girl armed with her penknife dove under the dashboard.

"What are you doing?"

"Muggle tech project, remember? I actually happen to know how this thing works. Or, I know what I have to do to make it work. My pen pal explained me."

And indeed, after quite a bit of rambling and cussing from under the dashboard, the car started.

"You're sure you know how to drive, right?"

"Left pedal is the clutch, centre is the brake, right is the gas."

"Err… I think so?"

Crucie threw her friend the book.

"Check if you don't believe me!"

She gave the steering wheel a twist, bumped into the back of the car parked behind them, made Hermione scream, and then they were off.

"And we're driving!"

"You already managed to hit something."

"We're still driving, so it probably wasn't too bad. Any idea what this does?"

Crucie fuddled with a couple buttons, and suddenly music blasted through the car.

Very superstitious, writing's on the wall… Very superstitious, ladders bout' to fall... Thirteen month old baby, broke the lookin' glass, seven years of bad luck, the good things in your past…

"This is one catchy tune! Is that muggle music?"

"Stevie Wonder. Superstition." Hermione said, before she screamed, "Crucie please watch the ROAD INSTEAD OF YOUR FEET!"

"I just keep forgetting the pedals when I don't watch them…"

Crucie decided that the book had made it look easy. How did muggles do this? This vehicle didn't listen to her commands like a broom, and it had far too many things to push, pull and fuddle with for her taste. While Crucie was trying her best to concentrate on the right pedals, and the clutch, and the road, and the traffic, Hermione was having a minor panic attack next to her.

"Oh my god we are so going to get arrested and my parents will kick me out and then I'll never get my O.W.L.S! "

"That you're thinking about that… What does red light mean again?"

"RED MEANS STOP!"

"Oh, right. Sorry. So I turn here right?"

"THAT'S THE WRONG LANE!"

"When you believe in things that you don't understand, then you suffer… Superstition ain't the way, no, no, no!"

With Stevie Wonder on the background and Hermione's panicky advice screamed in-between, it was a wonder indeed that they somehow made it back relatively unscathed to the parking lot where they had stolen the car. They had only missed two red lights, broken one speed-regulation, and gotten on the wrong lane twice. Forgetting the parked vehicles and occasional garbage can they had scratched that wasn't too bad at all… For a fourteen-year-old first time driver on the streets of London it was even quite a feat, Crucie thought. She moved the car back into its original spot, this time hitting the car in front of it. Then she leaned back in her seat and grinned at her pale friend.

"Not bad for a first time, huh?"

Hermione looked as if she wanted to protest, but then a grin broke through on the girl's face.

"I can't believe we did this."

Crucie laughed.

"So, fun or not?"

"I am not doing it again, if that's what you're asking!"

(Pagebreak)

A few things were clear from the trip in the muggle vehicle, Crucie thought. One, how muggles steered those 'cars' with only two feet and their eyes constantly on the road was a true mystery to her. Two, if she would ever plan on actually driving a car for longer than a trip around the block, she would need lots of practice. And then Three, muggles made some real nice music.

"So, want to see Knockturn Alley now?"

Hermione was still in a state between exhilaration and shock, so Crucie just pulled her along to the Leaky Cauldron, and from Diagon Alley to the illustrious street. Hermione looked slightly uncertain at the often dusty shop windows. Crucie happily waved at a small, one-eyed man with a particularly ugly face who was just exiting a particularly murky looking shop.

"Good afternoon, Mr. Moribund!"

"Yer uncle must me 10 galleons yet, missy! Tell'em, will ye?"

"Sure, Mr. Moribund! By the way, thank you for the book, it was very instructive!"

"Yer welcome, missy. Now off ye go, dun't want yer pretty friend to faint from me complexion, huh?"

Hermione was indeed looking rather pale. Crucie pulled her with her.

"That was Mr. Moribund. He's really friendly when you get to know him, often lets me borrow his necromancy books."

Hermione really didn't want to know what Crucie might need necromancy books for. She felt very badly at ease. Crucie had clearly no idea of her friend's discomfort, happily babbling away and leading Hermione to another shop already.

"Now, this is The Spiny Serpent. Lucy lets me in sometimes to practice my parseltongue, but the snakes always make fun of me because I apparently have a speech impediment. And my sentences don't always make too much sense. I'll see if she's there then I can show you the Runespoor that she brought in last week. It's really pretty!"

"Err… Crucie… I would rather go to your house now, if that's okay… I'm… I'm not really good with snakes, or… well… you know. Any dark stuff, actually."

"Oh." Crucie bit her lip and blushed embarrassedly when she caught her friend's eyes. "I'm sorry. I'm being unthinking again, no? We'll go to the apartment. My uncle will just have to deal with us, it's not as if he's doing something important anyway."

And so Hermione got to enter the house that harbored the apartment of the Lestranges. It was an old Victorian townhouse, the rooms were magically enlarged on the inside according to Crucie, but the staircase and entrance hall were truly crammed.

"We live on the top floor, but the attic is ours too. The previous owner wanted to get rid of all his old rubbish, so he sold us the apartment and gave us the attic on top if we took everything that was in there. Which made my uncle the proud owner of a true mountain of doxy dung, among some other things."

Despite being shocked and uncomfortable, Hermione had to laugh. When they reached the top floor, music could be heard from behind the door. Music, or more precisely, a loud bass, weird screeching and a raspy voice going on about something unintelligible.

"The Green Flash. My uncle's favorite wizard band. I'm surprised he's not deaf yet at this volume."

Rolling her eyes she opened the door for Hermione, who entered and got treated to an interesting sight. Rabastan Lestrange, caught in the act… of mating. On the carpet.

"UNCLE?! WHAT THE FUCK?!"

Hermione didn't know where to hide her eyes when Crucie screamed out indignantly at her half-naked uncle and the unknown brunette under him. Surprised and confused, Rabastan grabbed his wand from the floor and spelled the music to stop playing. He quickly got up and pulled up his pants, his cheeks tomato red in embarrassment.

"Crucie, why are you here? And who is THAT?"

"I could ask you the same thing!"

"I told you I wanted the apartment for myself!"

The brunette, who had been somewhat forgotten on the carpet, now looked up, wiping her dark brown curls from her face.

"Rabbit, who is that?"

Crucie's mouth fell open, not so much at the hilarious nickname but at the face of the woman her uncle had been ravishing.

"Andrea Perkins? Madam Malkin's assistant?"

"Yeah, who's asking?"

Crucie didn't answer the girl; instead she sent a dangerously red-eyed glare at Rabastan. It was clear the girl could barely control herself. She pulled Hermione forward and said,

"This is my best friend, Hermione Granger. She's just like Andrea so if you dare say anything about it you're the biggest hypocrite alive!"

"Crucie…"

Crucie stormed to her room, pulling Hermione with her and leaving Rabastan alone to let his girlfriend out, and probably erase her memory of the events. Inside her room, she plopped on her bed, looking tormented at her still rather shell-shocked friend.

"That. Was. SO. Embarrassing. I'm terribly sorry you had to see that. Really. I love my family, but… sometimes I HATE them! How could he do that to me?!"

"What did you mean, I am just like that woman?"

"Muggleborn."

"Oh."

It took them both some time to process. Hermione tried to order her thoughts, and while she did so she looked at Crucie's room. It could easily pass for a Knockturn Alley shop display, with all the bizarre items she had on shelves and the arcane looking diagrams that hung on the wall next to blueprints of cars and batteries and a stray shopping list.

"So… you mean the fierce death eater Rabastan Lestrange allows a muggleborn woman to call him Rabbit?"

"Apparently."

Crucie sighed, looking downright miserable.

"You probably never want to talk to me again now… Gosh, I hate my uncle sometimes… I should have cruciated him for that…"

"I'll admit, the sight of your uncle having sex was not exactly something I wanted to see, ever, but… to see the positive side of it, you have proven me indisputably that he is as human as we all are. Plus, I can hardly be terrified of someone nicknamed Rabbit."

Crucie looked up, somewhat disbelieving.

"So you… you don't mind?"

Hermione shrugged. She had been engaged in car theft and driving without a license, been pulled through Knockturn Alley, and invited into the home of a wanted man and known death eater… She supposed there were worse things than finding said death eater with his pants down. It was better than being held at wandpoint by him, in any case.

"I suppose I don't… I mean… it's not the worst thing that could have happened."

"No?" A number of increasingly disgusting scenarios passed before Crucie's mental eye, before she sighed and nodded. "I guess it's not the worst thing. Still scores pretty high though."

Hermione looked at Crucie's bookcase, slightly in awe.

"Wow… have you read all these?"

"Not yet, I've read most but there are some that I don't understand a single word of."

"Where did you get them?"

"Oh, most are gifts. From Mr. Burke, from uncle Lucius, from uncle Rabastan… they know I like books, so it's an easy gift. Only, unless I specifically ask for something, Uncle Lucius doesn't really pay attention to what book he grabs from his library. That's how I got the ones I don't understand. I even have a Swedish arithmancy textbook! Apparently there's a bunch of Malfoys living in Scandinavia."

Soon, Hermione and Crucie were discussing books and their project again, and the issue with Crucie's uncle was all forgotten. Rabastan hadn't forgotten at all. Instead he was worrying about how he would make it up to his goddaughter and explain her his… "encounter" with Andrea Perkins. He felt disgusted with himself. Any true reason he could come up with involved secrets being uncovered, and he just didn't feel like that. Not yet. Sighing, he sat behind his desk and let his hand wander to the drawer where he kept his photographs. It hurt to look at them, but he felt he deserved a little pain after probably mentally scarring his goddaughter for life…

(Author's Notes)

New story! This was one of my favorite chapter to write...

Driving lessons: very needed if you want to learn how to drive. You can't learn it from a book. Absolutely not. Also, Hermione's first small steps on the path of darkness! (Car theft, nice to start with, no?)

And then poor Rabastan... *sigh* By now I think it is clear who he is pining after... Yeah, I think he's not really as much of a bigot as some people make him (and all other death eaters too) seem. Sure, he's a dark wizard, and one without too much of a conscience too, but his "hatred of muggleborns" is rooted in something else than prejudice alone.

Also, he has a mild case of arachnophobia. And a love of Chocolate Fudge Pie. And he is nicknames Rabbit. Can you blame me for thinking him my favorite character?

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