The sad thing was that she knew how insane she truly was. She knew she was evil, she knew she enjoyed their pain maybe a little too much. She knew, but she didn’t care.

Her husband asked the man another question. She wasn’t paying enough attention to know what the inquiry was, but she did notice the way the man shook his head defiantly. She smiled. And her smile grew as his screams reverberated off the walls, piercing her eardrums eerily. Music.

The young woman screamed along with her husband now, even though they had not touched her. How weird, she thought, how weird to feel pain for another. Her brow puckered for a moment as she stared at the woman’s tortured expression. Weird, she thought again as she sent a cruciatus curse at the woman. Hers and her husbands screams intensified.

A minute passed, and she didn’t lift the curse. Love was a foreign thing to her. Sure she loved power, she loved pain, but was that real love? She had heard about real love, and she laughed at the thought. Such a ridiculous thing, love. It was a weakness, a flaw in every human being who experienced it. Her lips curled as she thought more about it, such a waste of emotion.

Two minutes passed, and she still didn’t lift the curse. Her husband glanced at her, but she shook her head. There would be no stopping now, these people would pay.

Three minutes, four minutes, five minutes passed. Their screams were becoming softer, hoarse. Why was she doing this again? Why was she torturing them? To find information…? Information about her master…? Ah, yes, her master was dead. She frowned and her curse stuttered for a brief moment. Deep, deep in her mind was the rational side of her. And the rational side knew that torturing these people would do nothing, it would not bring him back.

But then again, she wasn’t all there, so to speak. And she knew she wasn’t sane, and she embraced it with open arms. As the couples screams started to come to a close she wondered idly if she had always been this way. Surely there had been a time in her life when this would not have been so enjoyable. She tilted her head slightly as she examined their near dead victims. Surely there had been a time when she would have preferred to do something other than kill.

Her husband stepped forward and kicked the other man viciously in the face. She laughed as she watched the blood drip down his face. Or maybe, she had always been this way, perhaps she had always been insane. The man didn’t seem to notice any pain anymore. And the woman had stopped her crying and didn’t look at her loved one anymore. Both their gazes were vacant. Both were gone. She laughed again. The sound was almost as eerie as their screams.

She knelt down beside the woman and brushed a hand from her temple to the end of her jaw line. The woman did not flinch at her touch. Her fingers paused on her face, and she stared at her. So young, she thought, younger than even she was. She dug her fingers into the woman’s face and watched the warm blood ooze down her hand, and she stared as the woman did nothing to stop her. She laughed loudly, and her husband joined in. But his laughing was cut short, by a booming crash that made them sway on the spot. She stood and raised her wand in front of her.

There were a lot of them though. As her eyes swept the room full of the wizards she had been fighting against for years, she knew that they would not win. Her wand flew out her hand, she didn’t even see it coming. She frowned, she was losing her edge. Her husband was putting up a better fight. Perhaps he had something to live for. All she had was her master, and now he was lost. Her husband was shot across the chest by a stunning curse and he crumpled to the ground. She looked away from him, ashamed at his weakness.

They grabbed her by the arms. Their grips were very tight, it was painful. She knew why they were so weary around her, why so many of them had trained their wands at her as they led her away. She was insane after all. Almost as evil as the Dark Lord himself.

She laughed again, it was the loudest she had ever laughed. She laughed at her husband for being weak, she laughed at the couple who were in love and now were as good as dead, she laughed at all those who were scared of her, she laughed at her mastered for ever being beaten, she laughed at herself for getting caught. She laughed in obvious mirth as the other wizards looked at her in alarm. And she kept laughing, even as the tears formed in her eyes and glided down her cheeks, she choked out her laughter.

She was insane after all.