Disclaimer: I wish.

(A/N) This story drove me insane. For Aleisha.

Last night I watched my sister kill a muggleborn Auror and his ten-year-old half-blood daughter, with a type of learned impassiveness, pretending it did scathe her was much crueler than it would have been if it actually had no affect.

Bella, the same sister that I had played dolls with, braided her beautiful dark hair. In fact, nobody would expect such a radiant, lithe, woman capable of murder. Looks are severely misleading.

But beyond the walls of my rich manor, there were those out there that believed what we are doing is wrong just as much as we believed it right.

And the simple fact was that we want it just as much as the others want it to stop.

Anything we could throw at the other side they could meet, though they said they would never lower themselves to our level, wouldn't kill. But ultimately it mattered what Slytherin need kicked in first: The greediness for our own lives, or the need for gratification and achieving our ends.

If only I had been like my bold sister, Andromeda, and severed family lines long ago. Maybe if I had been sorted into Gryffindor, like Sirius, instead of Slytherin like the rest of her family. But I know I would've never risked being an outlier.

That was really why I had married Lucius. Lucius was a good, loyal, man but a stern one that would stop at nothing to be needed, especially by those at higher ranks. Making his dearness to the Dark Lord, his love of his money, his boasting of his pureblood, and his longing to deter muggleblood understandable.

And poor Draco, having to grow up in a place abundant with dark magic. Even I had had a sheltered childhood, my parents didn't want us to be exposed to the brutality until we were older.

I can vaguely remember the time when I had first seen it in the Daily Prophet, the memorandums of the people that had been killed by my side. By my people, the people I had grown up around.

I wept.

Why had they killed these people?

I went to my parents, who up until that point had been wonderfully supportive and enthusiastic, and asked them what had happened. They smiled wryly and told me that I was too young to understand. I was fourteen.

From then on I have been afraid. Too afraid to pull out of the Dark Lord's ranks, too afraid to stay in them avidly.

Lucius, however, supplied his work ardently, not because he was brave or loyal, like the ones from the other side, but because he was passionate about being in the lead. Glad that the fact that he was a pureblood could efficiently protect him.

And now they expect me to kill.