Two Old Friends

Chapter 8

"Okay, so I left the Dark Lord because of Rosa. Why'd you?" she asks me.

"Well... It was a low point in my life. I was looking for another job. I had Ministry Officials wandering through Knocturn Alley, which constantly made me incredibly nervous of being caught. I guess I just wanted to make sure I was on the winning side, of sorts. If I spied on Dumbledore for the Dark Lord, I'd be his most prized. If I spied on the Dark Lord for Dumbledore, then Dumbledore would defend me if I ever got into trouble with the Ministry," I try to explain. Though I know that wasn't the only reason why I went to Dumbledore, that was the only reason I can think of and fully explain.

"Convenient, I guess," Adriana says. I can tell that she knows I'm not telling the entire truth.

"And... And it's just that..." This is what Adriana wanted. She wants me to be uncomfortable because then she can squirrel the information out of me that I was never willing to give before. It frustrates me and makes me irritable. "I guess that it's because after seeing you pregnant and then seeing pregnant Muggle women and watching Lucius torture them, that it made me ill. I knew that you'd want a family at some point, and whether it was going to be with me or someone else, it bothered me when Lucius and I tortured Muggle families."

This is very far from the truth, but it satisfies Adriana. It makes her think that she made me change my allegiance. She gives me an appreciative smile and I sigh and sit back. It still makes me ill to remember the night when I considered alternative options.

~*~

The Dark Lord was into the random killing of random Muggles for sport and insisted that I join in the 'fun'. So, I did. We found an apartment complex in downtown London. It was already quite a pathetic scene, it was almost as though we were putting them out of their misery. The apartment complex was rundown and vandalized. An old man was propped up against the building, skin and bones and wearing old rags. He had a heavy beard and I swore I saw a cockroach scurry out of it and back in. He appeared to be so weak that he didn't even notice our arrival in this niche of his as we Apparated right before him. What the Dark Lord found important about this spot, I had no clue, but this was where we started our destruction. Perhaps we started here because we were going to use this place as a testing place for my new explosive potions. This was my test to see if I would replace my father as Potions Master.

Wormtail opened the box in which the potions were held and the Dark Lord ordered him to hand me the first. He handed me a round potion vial in which transparent red liquid simmered. The vial felt warm in my hand. The Dark Lord nodded at me and I threw the potion in the air and it broke through a glass window. A few screams sounded and the potion let off a great boom as violently red flames swallowed the room. Many Death Eaters laughed stupidly. Soon, more potion vials were flying and hitting trash cans in alley ways and landing in unsuspecting Muggles' homes and causing harm that I don't wish to describe. Muggles ran out of their apartment homes and others jumped out the windows.

A child barely eight years old was stumbling out, his pant leg on fire. He was nearly run over by a herd of Muggles trying to get passed him. He screamed in fright. I saw Lucius grin maliciously as he sent a curse at him. The child flew into the air and bounced up and down in the sky and spun in circles. The Death Eaters let out great whoops of joy as their adrenaline started rushing through them as they watched the herds of Muggles trying to get free. I felt righteous myself and a cruel laugh escaped me at this sight. They all started dispersing and added insult to injury by terrorizing individual Muggles. Other Death Eaters went barrelling into other Muggle homes nearby and caused destruction and horror there.

I went with Lucius to a nearby shack of a house. Part of his regimen of keeping an eye on me to make sure I was a respectable Death Eater, and so I would join Lucius in his tasks in case he lost control. This is also known as 'the buddy system,' though not amongst us. He waved his wand and the door blasted off. Through his mask I could see his steely eyes glitter with sadism beyond reason. The people living in this sad excuse for a house froze at the sight of us. This was a visual I found too familiar. They stared at us as if we were mad, yet there was terror written all over their faces, grime and dirt imbedded in their sunken features from poverty.

"Crucio!" Lucius cried, bringing his wand down at the father. The man suddenly screeched in pain and fell off the moth eaten couch and started writhing on the floor. The mother and four children screamed and flew off the couch. Lucius laughed. The mother hauled out what I think is called a gun for defence. She aimed it at us, her hands shaking violently. She pulled something, obviously trying to aim at Lucius, but missed terribly and gave a frightened squeal and dropped it.

"Hamar!" I hissed and the woman fell over with a loud wail of pain. Her forehead was bloodied where she was 'hit'. Lucius lifted the curse from the father. The children screamed and cried, cowering at their mother's still form. She was still breathing.

"Get away from her!" Lucius spat at them. They stayed put. Lucius turned to me.

"Give me that acidic potion you came up with back in June," he demanded. I pulled out a potion from my robes. I held it idly between my fingers.

"Unless you'd like to do the honours," Lucius said, the silkiness coming back to his voice. He smirked at me, I bowed my head courteously. I removed the stopper and with a wave of my wand, it floated in the air and stopped above the boy. Everyone froze and watched it as the vial slowly tipped over and tauntingly dropped droplets of the acid upon the oldest boy. He screamed. Then, as though pleased with its terror, the vial tipped completely over and splashed the rest contents on the boy. The potion sizzled away at the boy's skin and he howled in agony. I watched it, feeling proud of my accomplishment as the child before me sobbed and choked in anguish. Lucius watched the scene with mild amusement.

"Well done, Severus. Very well done. One of your best inventions," Lucius complimented me.

"Why thank you, Lucius," I said courteously. I watched this penniless family come to an end that only gave my reservation in Hell deeper significance with mirth. Lucius approached the girl. She was only a few years younger than I.

"Come here, my dear. Away from the disgusting filth that is your family," he said in a would be consoling manner. She stumbled back. He grabbed her by her dirty blonde hair and pulled her to the middle of the living room on the stained carpet. He exchanged a look with me and I nodded.

"Imperio," I muttered. "Sit on your couch and do not take your eyes off this man and your daughter." They obliged. "Petrificus Totalus." The Imperius was lifted and they were all frozen in their seats. They were forced to watch in horror as Lucius raped their daughter. I turned away.

Lucius stopped his deed and tucked himself back in. The girl kicked and hit him and tried to scurry away. He waved his wand before the girl could get away. The curse he cast on her was one of immense torture. It was centred around the girl's uterus, ovaries, and other features that made her a female. It caused such shock on these characteristics that they dissolved and brought the girl to an agonizing death. The remaining family, now two children short (the oldest boy was still on the floor as his skin was eating itself away), watched in utter horror.

Lucius summoned the baby. He cast a spell on it so it would bounce off the ground and hit the ceiling and continue this as I aimed curses at it.

"Come now, Severus, it is cruel to let the child to bounce like this. You have better aim than this. Show mercy on the family," he said loftily. I laughed cruelly. The mother was revived and shrieking and the father was watching in stony silence, the boy was quivering in fear, all of them still on the couch but placed under the Imperius to watch the baby bounce. The paralysing spell was lifted, but one could never tell considering how still (with exception of the last child who was shaking) they were. I finally finished the baby off with a merciful Avada Kedavra. The baby stopped bouncing and fell to the ground, its little body limp. The mother vomited.

Lucius approached the last child. He froze in fright. He plunged a hand into his robes and pulled out a vial of a potion I recognized from only eight years ago. The liquid was completely clear except for the thin electricity bolts that danced in the liquid. Lucius shook it threateningly. He forced the child to open his mouth.

"PLEASE! Stop! Have mercy!" the mother cried, finally finding her voice. "He is only four! Don't do this! Please! Please! Please!"

"Yes, please! Stop! The police will be coming any time now! We won't tell what you did to the others if you show the tiniest bit of mercy!" the father said. His voice was hoarse from the stress he had on his throat. Lucius laughed.

"The Dark Lord does not know mercy, Muggles," he hissed. The mother tried to throw herself against Lucius, but she could not. Before she could do anything, Lucius nodded her head at her.

"Avada Kedavra," I uttered. The woman died. The father let out a feeble whimper.

"Now shut up," I growled at the father. "Get on with it, Lucius. I really would like to get home at some point tonight."

"Patience, patience, Severus." He emptied the vial in the child's mouth. The child whimpered and his hair stood on end. A horrible stench filled the room.

"Ugh! Lucius! Did you have to feed him the Draught of Thurleah?" I questioned. "Surely you have more fragrant ways of torturing a child?" Lucius gave a chuckle.

"Fickle Severus," he called me. He cast a last Crutacious on the Father and then left it on him, letting the pain kill him and we strode out of the house. "Would you like to cast the Mark, or will you let me?"

"Now, I did let you play most of the night," I said with fake thoughtfulness. "But, if you absolutely must, you may."

"Why thank you. Next time you may, old friend," he said with a sadistic grin alight in his eyes. He waved his wand cried out "MORSMORDE!" and the glimmering Dark Mark formed itself above the house.

This was the first time I had seen Lucius since I had taken Adriana to the Leaky Cauldron.

The entire neighbourhood was utterly destroyed. Every house had the Dark Mark hovering above them. The only thing that I noticed was still alive before I Disapparated was the old man with the cockroach living in his beard and then a green light flew to him and he slumped over. The cockroach scurried out of his beard.

The sight of the old man's dead body was the first time I felt a shred of guilt for my decided fate.

Distracted by a sudden hand on my shoulder. I turned to see it and it was Bellatrix Lestrange. She complimented me on my potion work and then she Disapparated. When Bellatrix's eyes poisoned with a sick malicious lust she only got after causing mass murders such as this I felt a turmoil of mixed emotions. Before Lucius could meet me and take me out for a celebratory drink, I Disapparated to my home.

Panting slightly, I looked up in the mirror in the lavatory of my bedroom and the old man's face stared back. I was confused, furious, exhausted, and disgusted with myself. Why was I so effected by this man's death? He was nothing. He was a Muggle. He was a rotting Muggle in the ghetto of London wasting away.

I collapsed in my bed after leaving the lavatory. I pummelled my pillow and tried desperately to sleep, but I was given no such mercy. I mulled over the night and my school friends. The people I called my friends were nothing but sadistic sheep. The people I called my enemies were nothing but masochistic sheep. But who was who?

Sleep was not peaceful for the old man's surprised face when death had suddenly hit him haunted my subconscious mind as he did my conscious.

This was the first time I had ever felt guilt.