Watching the final skaters was not a torture Johnny put himself through. He remained safely in the locker room waiting to find out the result. When Evan opened the door and beckoned to him, he didn't think anything of actually going over.

It didn't occur to him to wonder why Evan would want to speak to him. What he really didn't expect was for Evan to not be waiting on the other side of the door. When he stuck his head out, Evan was further down the corridor at another door and beckoned to him again.

"Lysacek," he said, not interested in playing games.

Evan just glared at him and beckoned. He really wasn't sure what made him move, but somehow Evan had always been able to make him do things for no good reason. Making an idiot of himself in the press had happened a couple of times and he followed as Evan disappeared. It was only as he walked into another room and he heard someone whisper something that he realised all was not well. Evan was just standing there and the door behind him banged shut.

The light in the room suddenly became brighter and that was when he saw the man he had seen attack Adam. Parkinson seemed even taller now and imposing; his mask showing under the dark hood. Parkinson was holding some sort of stick and something about it screamed danger.

Fear raced up Johnny's spine and he couldn't help looking at Evan. He had seen a lot of blank expressions on Evan's face before, but nothing like the nothingness he looked into at that moment. It was completely obvious that something had happened to Evan, something bad.

The door wasn't that far away, and Johnny couldn't stop his eyes from betraying his plans.

"If you run, I will kill him," the masked man said and pointed the stick at Evan.

Johnny froze.

He was terrified; this guy was a certified crazy and Johnny seemed to have all his attention. Something insane was going on. Johnny couldn't explain it and he couldn't get away. A stick should not be dangerous; a stick should be just a stick, but the stick seemed to be able to do things. Something tickled at the back of Johnny's mind; something that said, 'you have seen this before'. It made him believe.

"I had the perfect spectacle planned," the lunatic told him, waving the stick in his direction. "It would have been magnificent, but you had to go and ruin it."

Johnny had nothing to say; he had no idea how to talk himself out of this one.

"I..." he tried.

"Shut up," said the very English voice.

He snapped his mouth shut so fast his teeth clicked together.

"Potter won't get here in time now, though," the masked man said and laughed. "This time you pay."

Then the man said something that sounded like 'cruise control' and a flash of light came straight at Johnny. When it hit, he couldn't help himself; he screamed.

His body was wrenched from his control and it felt as if every nerve was registering pain. He'd broken bones before, and it felt as if each bone in his body was being broken and reset over and over again. His skin felt as if it was being flayed off of him, and his heart and lungs seemed to be being ripped from his body and shredded at the same time. Nothing in the world could have prepared him for the agony. It seemed to go on and on and on, forever.

When it stopped, he found himself face down on the floor, arms and legs twisted at unnatural angles where he had fallen. All he could do was sob in relief that the pain was gone.

"People go mad in minutes." He whimpered as the masked man spoke to him, "let's see how long you last."

Then there was that terrible word again and he screamed some more. It was like the worst nightmare come to life and there was nothing he could do to stop it. Whenever he had been in pain before there was something else to distract him, something to keep him going until help took it away, but there was nothing else. Only the agony existed. It filled him and consumed him and made him wish to die. His body didn't even seem to be capable of shutting down to save him.

Time was measured in waves of pain.

He could not hide from it, even as his mind tried to shy away. It was the most terrible experience he had ever known. He knew why people went mad. He felt as if his mind was breaking as the agony consumed him.

This time when it finally stopped it did not completely die. It left him there gasping for breath on the floor, but his nerves still jangled with it. He could not move as his muscles twitched with the remembered agony. In that moment he would have done absolutely anything to make it not come back.

When someone touched him, he cried out and his voice was hoarse and his throat raw from screaming. He would have pulled away, but his mind and body seemed to be very badly connected. He was helpless.

"Johnny?" he heard Harry's anxious voice. "Johnny can you hear me?"

He could, but anything above instinctive reactions were beyond him. He felt himself being turned over carefully by two pairs of hands, but it was too much. Without something holding him to consciousness, moving took him beyond his endurance. Everything went black.