Life of a Killer

Antonin Dolohov is one of Azkaban's most notorious and dangerous prisoners. A Death Eater by the age of sixteen, Dolohov was eventually captured in 1981 after the fall of the Dark Lord. He was imprisoned in Azkaban Fortress for a wide range of crimes, including multiple counts of Muggle torture and the murders of the Prewitt brothers.

Dolohov escaped during the mass breakout of January 1996, only to be recaptured six months later in an attempted invasion of the Ministry of Magic. Once again, Dolohov escaped Azkaban in 1997 and was at large until the eventual defeat of the Dark Lord in 1998. Since then he has remained imprisoned in the Fortress. Here is his story.

Introduction

Azkaban prison, how I hate this place. More so now than ever. Now the Dementors are gone, and we are guarded by the Aurors and specially trained Hit Wizards, at least until the Ministry finds an alternative. The effect of the Dementors is no longer, but then, they were never such a problem to me. Yes, I felt their presence, but my determination to escape and rejoin the Dark Lord, along with knowing that I had remained loyal to him and my fellow Death Eaters, kept me somewhat sane during my first stretch in Azkaban, while the Dementors were still around. I always had the feeling that Lord Voldemort would rise again, and then it would only be a matter of time before I was free. The Dementors tended to feed on the weak first, as it is easy for them, and I was always relatively strong during their rule of Azkaban.

No longer are my happy memories and hopes sucked from me, but I feel worse now in that I no longer have any hopes at all. The Dark Lord has fallen; we can not rejoin him and as much as I hated the Dementors, with them around there was always a chance of escape. The Fortress is now more heavily guarded by charms and locks than ever before, and there is no hope of the Aurors ever being persuaded to free us as the Dementors were.

So here I am for the rest of my life, locked in this tiny cell.

Chapter One - The Beginning

Considering where and how I grew up, it's probably surprising that I ended up choosing the path in life that I did. My parents were purebloods, but our family wasn't rich like a lot of the pureblood families were, and so I grew up on a Muggle street in a rough area, in the east end of London. We weren't poor to the extent of not being able to afford new robes and such, but we definitely weren't rich. My father had a fondness for Muggles and I was always encouraged to mix with them. I was an only child and every kid needs someone to play with. I didn't know the difference in those days. All I knew was that my mother used to tell me that under no circumstances was I to mention magic or anything magical around my friends.

So most days I would be out in the street, playing with the other kids. I learnt a lot out in those streets. A lot of activity went off there, and I got my first glimpse of the criminal underworld. Fair enough - it was the Muggle underworld, and Muggle crimes, but it gave me a taste for the life. It was the 1960's and organised crime was at its peak; gangsters ran every part of the east end. If nothing else, I learnt the most important rule. It's something I still stick by today: No matter what, you trusted each other, and you didn't grass anyone up. It's known by Muggles as 'honour amongst thieves'. A number of the future Death Eaters could have done with learning this.

Officially, I attended the local Muggle school, because my parents thought it would be good for me. I didn't go regularly though. None of the kids did; we much preferred to hang around the streets causing trouble. There was always something uncouth going off in our street: somebody trying to sell stolen goods, or a fight of some sort, whether between gangs of kids or between the adults. The Muggle police were a common sight as well, always looking for someone or something.

However, by the time I was due to start Hogwarts at the age of eleven, I was becoming tired of the Muggles. I was starting to resent having to keep quiet about the magical world of which I was so looking forward to becoming a part. I was beginning to see how useless and pathetic Muggles were. I didn't want to mix with them any more. I was gradually coming to hate these kids who I had been friends with, and after I started school they came to hate me as well. When I returned home that first Christmas holidays, none of the kids on the street would talk to me -- not that I wanted to have anything to do with them by then anyway. But they had rejected me for going away to school, and this only reinforced my dislike of them.

My first day at Hogwarts was like a dream. I'd grown up with magic of course, but for the first time, I didn't have to hide what I was, as I was surrounded completely by magical people. At least I thought I was, until I overheard a girl saying that her parents were non-magical and the first she had heard of Hogwarts was when she had received her letter. We were standing outside the Great Hall, waiting to go in and be sorted, and what this girl said hit me as wrong. Muggles shouldn't be here; this was the magical world. A place away from Muggles. How could someone who didn't know anything about magic ever be as good as someone who had grown up with it, someone with pure blood?

I was sorted into Slytherin House that day. I soon learned that Slytherin was the purest of the houses, as it was very rare for a student who wasn't pureblood to get in. This pleased me, as I was sick of Muggles by now and didn't want to be with them any more. I was glad that my new house mates were almost definitely all magical.

I soon became friends with the other boys in my dorm: Cade Travers, Evan Rosier, and my soon to be best friend, Rodolphus Lestrange. Evan and Cade were with me the day I got captured. Unfortunately, Evan never made it to Azkaban - he went down fighting, got killed by one of the Aurors. Cade was taken into Azkaban along with me. Rodolphus, like I said, was my best friend. We were inseparable and the trouble makers of our group. Partners in crime, some would say. We were always concocting some plan or other, always getting into trouble and dragging the others down with us most of the time as well.

We made friends with some of the older students as well. Lucius Malfoy was the unofficial leader of our little group, mainly because he was two years older than the rest of us, apart from Rabastan. Lucius was kind of like an older brother to me really, looked out for us all. Stan was Rod's brother. He was the sensible one and got us out of trouble most of the time. He had this way of convincing the professors; he was trustworthy. Between them, Malfoy and Stan took charge of us. It was some kind of unspoken rule that anything we planned had to be authorised by one of them first.

So there was the six of us, for the most part, and we eventually became very interested in the Dark Arts, especially once rumours of the Dark Lord started circulating. The Dark Arts took our interest far more than any of our lessons ever did. Once our interest in this was known around the Slytherin common room, we soon recruited more members to our gang, Severus Snape being one of them. He knew more about the Dark Arts when he started at Hogwarts than the rest of us put together, even though he was two years younger than me. We were very keen to get him with us; he excelled at Potions, which provided very useful to us.

The Black sisters were ever present in our lives. Whether this was because of the appeal of the Dark Arts or the appeal of certain members of our group, I'm not sure. I suspect the former for Bellatrix and the latter for Narcissa. Lucius and Narcissa were together from the age of fifteen - their fifth year at Hogwarts, my third. I imagine there was always something between them. The Malfoys and the Blacks were family friends, and like most of the noble pureblood families, the children were expected to marry into one of the other noble pureblood families. I never really had much to do with her, really. I tolerated her because of her relationship with Lucius, but that was all. She always seemed to look down on the rest of us like we weren't good enough - me especially, as I didn't have the rich upbringing that she did.

Bellatrix, however, was different from her sister. She was a tall, pretty girl, a year younger than us. She had long dark hair and stunning eyes that could mesmerize you from the other side of the room. I think every one of us had a thing for Bella at some point; you couldn't help but find her attractive. Well, maybe not so much Lucius, but the rest of us definitely did. Rodolphus ended up marrying Bella, an arrangement that had been planned by both of their parents since they were small children.

For the first few years of school, our hatred of the non-pure students was nothing more than taunting and teasing in the corridors around Hogwarts, an occasional hex here and there on students we especially disliked. However, by my third year, things were starting to change. Severus, then a first year, had a particular dislike of two certain Gryffindor students who would often be the cause of most disputes. James Potter and Sirius Black . . . how Snape hated them. I never had a particular problem with them, myself. They were both purebloods, and although they were both obviously against the Dark Arts, I preferred to target my dislike towards the Mudbloods and half bloods. I never worked out the full story of why Snape hated Potter and Black so much, except that it got worse as the years went on. Bella was Sirius's cousin, and she shared Snape's hate of him as well. Sirius hadn't fitted in with the rest of the Black family, and eventually he left the Black house and never spoke to Bella, Narcissa or his brother Regulus again. The Blacks were well known for being true purebloods. They were all for the purification of the wizarding race, and Bella's dear cousin objected to this and showed it. He was a complete blood traitor, and people actually thought he was Voldemort's most loyal servant. When I first heard that, I took it as an insult to the rest of us.

Our initial interest in the Dark Arts stemmed largely from Evan. His brother was about six years older than us, and in his final year at Hogwarts the year we started. He joined the Dark Lord not long after he left school and was soon sending Evan regular owls about what he was doing. We were all interested to hear what was going on. When a letter arrived we would all meet in our dorm to listen to what he had to say. We all agreed that we wanted to join as soon as we could.

Lucius and Stan left school and were soon joining up with the Dark Lord. Rod and I could hardly wait until we left school and could join ourselves. In the mean time, we took over the running of the group of Slytherins who were interested in the cause. We were gradually increasing in number now, as more and more people were becoming aware of what the Dark Lord was doing. The ones who stand out in my mind are Regulus Black, Bella's younger cousin, and his friend, Barty Crouch. I always got the impression that Reg only became involved with the cause to impress Bella and the rest of his family. Reg always tried to live up to his family's expectations, though he ultimately failed. Barty Crouch was an unlikely member of the group but probably one of the most enthusiastic. His father worked for the Ministry in the Department of Magical Law Enforcement. It was his job to capture the Dark Lord's followers, which only made Barty keener to become one. He hated his father, and this was one way of showing it.

Every member of our group eventually joined the Dark Lord in some way. Some with more success than others. The lucky ones ended up here in Azkaban, the less fortunate ended up dead. All for Lord Voldemort's cause, all for the purity of the wizarding race that we all so strongly believed in.