An Illustrated guide to Cast the Cruciatus Curse

By Niche Eenhoorn

Introduction

The Cruciatus Curse, thought and created by Lord Voldemort during his previous period of power, has caused immense terror among Muggles as well as Wizards.
This Curse consists mainly of causing pain, better said, excruciating pain, hence, the name of the curse. To excruciate means 'to inflict intense pain on someone (torture), and also to make someone subject to intense mental distress.'

What this Curse does is basically combining different methods of what is known as 'muggle torture', all into one simple flick of the wand. It is quite easy, handy, convenient, practical and saves a lot of time, since in muggle torture one usually has to strap someone on a chair, or hang them from their ankles, activities that take unnecessary effort and time.

Contrary to popular belief, the Curse does not cast pain in the same places all the time. That means that there are different ways to cast the Cruciatus Curse on someone, getting a different effect every time. For example, swishing the wand in a certain way will cause severe muscular pain, while other movements might cause mental distress.

These article will deal with some of the possibilities that the Cruciatus Curse has to offer. But, before we go further into the subject, a warning. This article contains gory, ugly, distasteful and rather cheap-looking images of Muggles being tortured. Nonetheless, they are helpful and will aid you in your way to casting this Curse.

The Cruciatus Curse.

First things first. The incantation. The word you have to chant is Crucio (pronounced KROO-see-oh). As you already know, chanting the word alone will not work with the Unforgivables. You need INTENSE concentration, and perhaps the most tricky part of this curse is to make your magical energy flow into the wand in ONE go. The feeling is difficult to describe, but more or less, to put it in words, it feels like when you drop down on your broom fast and unexpectedly, giving you the sensation that you left your wallet, keys, stomach, intestines and other important vital organs up there. If you don't feel that, then you didn't cast the spell properly. Keep trying, practice makes perfect! The key is concentration. Once you get the hang of it, it becomes easier and easier to cast it; you will not have to wait three and a half hours before something happens. (Yes, be patient, your first attempts will take that long, if not longer. That is why in the begining we recommend practicing with something else other than Muggles.)

Different kinds of Crucio

Let us say you have practiced enough already and you are finally able to perform the Cruciatus Curse on a Muggle. The following information then will prove to be useful, so study it carefully.

Muscle pain: This variety of Crucio concentrates on excerting pain in the muscles and tendons. The curse overstretches the muscles to unimaginable points, while twisting the tendons in complicated rasta-like braids.
To cast it, you can use the "Swish-and-stab-mercilessly" technique with your wand (although "Swish-and-flick" works sometimes, but doesn't provide the best results.) The point is that if you cast the Curse with this particular wand movement, you're directing the pain into the muscles. Every "stab" you do with your wand makes a muscle overstretch. With practice, you can learn which movement is controlling what part of the body.
This variety of the Cruciatus Curse seems to be the most popular among the Death Eaters, and they often hold contests on who can come up with the most amusing position, stretching muscles here and there.
Following next, you will see some images of the most common and effective positions you can force your Muggle into. Feel free to be creative and try out your own ideas!

Exhibit A

Bone pain: This kind of Crucio targets the osseous system. Instead of directly overstretching the muscles, it bends the bones in painful ways, stretching the muscles a bit along the way. This combination is quite unbearable for the Muggles, so we recommend that you don't use this kind of Crucio too often on them. They might snap in two, literally, and pass away all of a sudden. We know, of course, that if the Muggle is dead, it can't feel any pain and then the fun is over. Thus, plan your timing carefully and pay attention to the signs the Muggle displays. If it can't scream anymore, it might mean that it is probably in shock; it is time stop and let it recover. (Keep in mind that after much screaming, the Muggle tends to lose its voice a bit.) If the Muggle stops breathing, then that means that you overdid your spell a bit. Find a new one and try again.
The wand technique to be used here is "Shake-and-poke". Shake your wand in a zig-zag motion and then SLIGHTLY poke the air with the wand. If you poke too hard, it is possible that the muggle will die within a second or two.
Following next, you can see some of the most common positions you can achieve by targeting the bones with the Cruciatus Curse. Once again, these are not the only ones, but the most recommended, for they assure your Muggle will last longer.

Exhibit B

Mental Distress: This is when you target the nervous system of the Muggle. Every little nerve in their body feels as if it were on fire, and it also causes the Muggles to start having major hallucinations that lead them to act in quite peculiar ways, from trying to choke themselves with their own hands, to start singing a random song -quite out of tune. With this particular kind of crucio, the Muggle doesn't scream as much, although it is possible to make it insane faster than with the other two kinds of Crucio. There are other mental spells to tease Muggles with, but this is perhaps the one that produces the strangest results. I have never seen a muggle singing while under the influence of the other mind spells. (The songs I have heard the most are "My Heart will go on", performed by some Muggle woman called Celine Dion, and "Go away Little Girl", by a Muggle band called The Osmonds -- both terrible, I daresay. No need to research why the Muggles burst out singing this while being tortured.) If you cast this variety of the Curse correctly, then your Muggle might look something like this:

Exhibit C

There is always the possibility that your Curse fails. Either you were not concentrating enough, or you didn't manage to use the energy properly, or your wand movement wasn't appropriate... The thing is that you have to know when this occurs, in order to avoid being humiliated by a Muggle laughing at your face. At this point, it is pretty unlikely that you can cast any other Unforgivable on the Muggle, unless you have learned how to control your anger and frustration and direct them properly into your wand (which is perhaps more difficult than casting the three Unforgivables together, and only a few reknown Death Eaters can do it. It requires lots of power and practice.)
Watch closely if your Muggle is displaying any of the signs illustrated following next. These signs usually mean that the Muggle was definitely not impressed, and that it is time to disapparate and either keep on practicing with spiders or find another Muggle to try out.

Exhibit D

Some important things to remember!
1) Let us not forget that the main objective of this Curse is NOT to kill the Muggle, you have the Killing Curse for that. Keep in mind that the longer your Muggle lasts, the better you are casting this curse. If it dies too fast, you will be the subject of the other Death Eaters' mock, and it will also leave in you a sense of total frustration. Besides, when under this curse, the Muggle literally wishes to be dead and let it all end. It's up to you to please it or not!

2) It has been proved that Muggle women endure MUCH more pain than Muggle men. In 99% of the cases, women have outlasted men, and the remaining 1% of the women that didn't last long was cause they were women under 5 years old. Older than that, Muggle females last way much longer, but beware of their piercing screaming.

3) Choose a spot far away from prying ears. The loud screaming will in most cases attracts a crowd, and it is quite annoying to have to stop your task every 2 minutes to go scare the curious ones away.

4) It is perfectly normal if your Muggle's ears or nose start to bleed. Don't worry about that one.

5) Remember to study the muggle's face closely so you can determine when to stop. Following next are a few images that can help you with this, but keep in mind that each Muggle is slightly different from the rest of his species and so they won't all react to pain the same way. But this is the most common pattern they will follow:

6) The hands of the muggle are also good indicators for when you are overdoing the spell:

7) Last, but not least, be always ready to disapparate. If your Curse fails, the Muggle will make fun of you and most likely call its pack-mates, and a mob of angry Muggles is worse than you think. This is a gory picture of a wizard that did not disapparate on time, and whose energy was not high enough to avada the whole lot:

I hope this short guide was useful for you. For further information you can ask me, or the Dark Lord directly. (Though I strongly recommend you come first to me. His Lordship is overenthusiastic of demonstrating his curse and more often than not he will provide you with a real demonstration... on yourself. Trust me on this one. I ought to know. I wrote this article. I had to ask Him a few questions. I'll never do so again. Alas, I digress.)

Good luck!

Lord Voldemort will Provide *coughPAINcough*!

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