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You’re doing it wrong.

(( Cleaned up thread with @retired-death-eater. Minor edits to fix typos or to add clarity. ))

“Is it supposed to hurt?” Calleo’s question came off as more of an incredulous laugh than something said in the aftermath of being surprised with a Cruciatus.

“Yes — yes.. YES IT IS SUPPOSED TO HURT,” Delacroix snarled irritated as he pointed his wand at Calleo. “Are you literally mocking me?” He continued with a hiss.

He was grinding his teeth while he stared down on Calleo. “I did tell you – I would crucio you,” he hissed, making a swipe with his hand in order to strengthened the spell.

“I have been getting increasingly irritated by that bloody thing you sent up to my department. It is ruining the furniture and almost ruined my wand!” Bellowed Delacroix, wide-eyed as he clenched his wand.

“It RUINED my desk – I need a new desk, Calleo. God damn it,” he waved an hand, as he swore something vulgar about Calleo in French. “WHAT AM I SUPPOSED TO DO ABOUT YOU? I don’t even know what you do. Why do I have to suffer being chewed out by the higher ups for God knows why?”

He stopped his ranting and tried to control his breath while staring furiously at Calleo. “…For fuck sake…”

Somehow, by some often not granted grace by the universe, Calleo managed not to laugh when he asked the question. It being said in an utterly deadpan tone probably wasn’t much better, though, considering how Delacroix reacted.

“I’m not mocking you,” Calleo brushed a bit of imaginary dust off of his cardigan and smoothed it back into place, “it’s more that I’ve researched and tested that particular curse extensively and you’re doing it wrong.”

“Well–not wrong, technically, it was mostly correct, but mostly correct doesn’t make it nearly as painful as it’s capable of being. Next time, sharper movements, don’t round your corners, and at least have the courtesy to modify it enough so it does more than cause me to lose my breath for a few seconds.”

Smart. Very smart. Just encourage the already angry man to cast another Cruciatus. That’s always a good idea, no possible way it could backfire for everyone involved. Still, if he hadn’t meant to say that last part out loud, it was far too late to remedy the issue now. It most certainly did hurt, it was, after all, the Cruciatus Curse and even an unmodified one was exceptionally painful.

“Yes, well,” Calleo began as he gathered his hair to loosely tie it back. The gesture in and of itself held no hint of any potential retaliation or preparation for retaliation still, it was a rarity for Calleo to tie it back at the Ministry, “that’s the sort of thing that happens when gentle verbal reminders to not tie up other departments in your own department’s backlog go ignored, isn’t it?”

“Wands can be replaced,” he squinted a bit despite already having his glasses on, “and yours doesn’t look all that chewed anyway. As for the desk, try reparo. It’s not as though someone transfigured it into several hundred thousand spiders, all of which you need to find before you can even begin to put it back together. It’s just a bit gnawed on and maybe a tiny bit burned.”

“As for why?” Calleo smiled in an almost obnoxiously friendly manner, “I don’t like to suffer alone; misery does love company, after all, and if you don’t think I don’t hear about it from those above me–despite the fact that the situation was, in no way, any fault of my own–you’re completely out of your mind.” As opposed to just partially out of his mind, presumably.

“Now,” Calleo folded his hands on the desk in front of him, still smiling like an idiot “care to try again, or were you satisfied with how that first one went? Fair warning, though, if it’s another disappointing one, I’m going to be inclined to show you how to do it properly whether you ask me to or not.”

The corner of Delacroix’s lips twisted even more and he took a deep breath. “I bloody hate you sometimes, Calleo,” he hissed as he turned around before making a sharp move, as if performing a fencing move at Calleo.

“CRUCIO!” his dark eyes stared, making a follow up move that was sharp enough for him to add strength to the spell. “Quiet – just be quiet. By Salazar!” He kept throwing crucio at him in a pure fit of rage before eventually burning himself out.

“My wand has been with me since I started at Hogwarts. I refuse to let some stupid creature of whatever sort, eat it… Of course not. I kicked the beast out of my office.” Delacroix breathed out, leaning up against the table, clearly out of breath from swinging his arm sharply around himself. “I am not out of my mind, Calleo. If you need someone to join in your misery you should have asked rather than forced me into it!” He slammed a fist into the desk, eyebrow twisting a bit as he tried to control his breath.

“Spiders – why the fuck spiders? I would kill whoever did that if it happened.. I don’t care if my desk was burnt into a crisp. I’ll just go reparo it ….,” he rasped hoarsely before he bowed his head, shifting his weight from one foot to another. His wavy black hair hung down his face, blocking his view.

“I was not satisfied with the first, thank you very much. And I would rather not have you show me how to do a proper one,” he rasped, glancing up at Calleo with narrowed eyes that burnt with anger.

Calleo did stay quiet, at least, for the short duration of the second round of curses. If nothing else, a few years of occasionally random visitors hitting him with it only knocked him back into his chair instead of out of it.

And for a few minutes after Delacroix stopped, Calleo was quiet, more to get his breathing back into a regular pattern again than anything else and, when he spoke, it was definitely something stupid that came out of his mouth, “I’ll forward the research paper on to you. Honestly, I don’t have the time to deal with the lecture you know we’d both get if an actual fight broke out.”

“That,” he took a deep breath and leaned forward again, “and I don’t want to have to deal with everything that’d go off in this room if that happened. Most of what’s in here reacts–interestingly–to a lot of hostile magical back and forth anyway.”

“That said, you’re absolutely at least half out of your mind if you lost enough of it to come down here flinging curses that usually get you a life term in Azkaban!” He laughed, as that was evidently funny but, then, after a few repeated hits, one could hardly blame Calleo if his sense of humour went temporarily off balance.

“As for asking? We don’t have that kind of relationship and I’d venture to guess we never will. I don’t think you’d care for it anyway; I’m kind of insufferable if you haven’t already noticed that.”

“I don’t know why spiders,” now, Calleo pointed to an area of the desk that seemed to be missing random small pieces, “David used to do that; it’s why he’s in Azkaban–not for doing it to my desk, for doing it to a Muggle then hitting it with a shoe.”

And as quickly as he mentioned that, he moved on, “Well, now, is that fair? You repeatedly demonstrated it semi-competently on me, don’t you think you deserve at least a second or two of what it’s capable of in proper hands, just so you have a frame of reference the next time you decide to use it on someone?” That set of questions was rhetorical. Almost before he’d finished the last word, Calleo had his wand out and the curse cast. He was, if nothing else, true to his word of ‘a second or two’, though it likely felt as though it lasted significantly longer than the exact count of two before Calleo ripped it away rather than simply stopping the cast. Calleo then stood to peek over his desk just to make certain Delacroix was still, in fact, breathing, “All right?”

Delacroix barely got to respond to anything before he fell to the floor with a stiff face, all stretched out. He could not even blink, move or say anything. When Calleo finaly forced himself to roll around onto his stomach. “… Merde,” was the only thing he could say. He curled together onto the floor, grinding his teeth as he did so.

He laid there breathing for a while before trying to stretch out his limbs, but recoiled. “Well done…,” he rasped, still curled together, one hand stretched out. “I …. think I need to see a healer. And if I was your boss, I would fire you at the spot,” he coughed before rolling around onto his back.

“I need a priest.. I think I’m literally dying….,” he continued, eyes squeezed shut. “Big time — can you tell my family I died not so much in pain as I actually am?” He popped open an eye, looking at Calleo.

“I need go to the hospital… Not the muggle one, though… ,” he tried to move an hand, but gave up. “Merrrrrrrrrrde,” he groaned clearly distressed before he forced his hands up to his eyes. “This is worse than what I experienced during the war…. I feel like I am on the edge of passing over ….”

He took a sharp inhale before breathing out in a wheezed gasp before he slowly closed his eyes. “…. I fucking hate you… Be that my last word if I die in your office… I will fucking haunt you for the rest of your life. In hell if I get there…,” Delacroix curled together again onto the floor in a fetal position.

“And if I were your boss, I’d have sacked you and had you hauled off to Azkaban for casting it repeatedly; you probably wouldn’t even get a trial on account of that thing on your arm, so perhaps we ought to just call it even, hm?”

Calleo pushed his chair back and moved around to the other side of the desk, casually sitting next to Delacroix on the floor, “You’re being a little dramatic, and you’re not dying,” now, however, his tone was different.

A bit calmer and more even and certainly not antagonising any longer. and, as he spoke, he casually reached back and untied his hair, stuffing the tie itself back into a pocket.

“You’ll be mostly fine in about twenty minutes or so, though I wouldn’t recommend trying to move much for another five or ten. Best just to focus on keeping your breathing regular for that time span. If you like, I can switch the metronome on at a slow pace so you can keep track.”

Calleo leaned back on his hands, looking now much more like an overgrown student chatting away about a homework assignment than someone who had just done what he had knowingly done, “Four minutes and–I think it was forty-five seconds.”

“Not for you, that was exactly two seconds, but for the testing I did a few years back; I’d wanted to see how long it would take before it might actually kill me. The one doing the testing stopped at around that mark as they weren’t able to control it to the point to keep me breathing–and it was only their movements with it that let me keep breathing. Any movements made under that modification are being made by the caster, not the victim, it shuts everything down by overloading everything, including involuntary sound and movement.”

He was, now, oddly conversational, “After the first couple of minutes you go numb yet somehow still feel everything, which makes no sense but it’s about the only way I can describe it.”

Calleo grinned up at the ceiling, “Couple of weeks before I could walk again, and nearly a year before I could reliably do so without use of a cane. Couldn’t feel my fingers for almost two months and, for some reason, my left side took more damage than the right. For the longest time, that leg would just stop working without warning, or the arm would shake so badly I couldn’t do a thing with it. It’s all mostly fixed now but getting that repaired was almost worse than having it done in the first place!” Why he laughed at that was anyone’s guess.

“Some of the damage is permanent. My whole left side is still a little funny.”

“Oh! That does remind me!” Calleo stopped looking at the ceiling and looked back down at the man on the floor, “You might have a slight pins-and-needles sensation in your extremities for a few days–or a few weeks, it varies from person to person, but it shouldn’t cause any lasting damage with that quick of a hit unless it went over existing damage, in which case it might make it temporarily worse. Any numbness should clear up within a couple of hours.”

“Anything else–essential tremor, unsteadiness, headache, fatigue, those sorts of things–should clear up within a couple of days or least, at most, a week or two. You could go to St. Mungo’s if you like but, they won’t be able to do much for you apart from maybe knock you out for a couple of days–and even if you told them what it was, we both know that I would absolutely claim self-defence after you cast it at me first.”

“If you ever very quickly want to disarm and subdue anyone though–that’ll do it every time. Pity it’s not technically allowed, it’d save a lot of drawn out fights when you lot go to arrest someone who doesn’t want to go quietly.”

He smiled broadly at the declaration of hatred and intent to haunt, “See, now, that’s how I know you’re not dying; if you were dying, you wouldn’t threatening me with any of that, you’d just kind of be laying there. The fact that you can talk at all tells me you’re fine. In general. Mostly.”

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