Alecto Carrow had absolutely no intention of being late to her Death Eater initiation, so she Apparated to the side entrance of Malfoy Manor a full hour before she was expected. She did not inform her brother of this.

The only other early arrival was Walden Macnair, who was seated on the last garden bench at the end of the long line of yew hedges, smoking his pipe. Alecto was a bit intimidated by the fearsome wizard, although she would never publicly admit that.

"Good evening, Macnair," she said, and sat down next to him, wishing she had something to fiddle with other than her wand.

He turned, looked at her and smirked. "Hello, lass. Ready for yer initiation?"

"Of course!" she said, a bit too sharply.

"Ye're nae ready," he replied, with a chuckle. "Ye probably havenae even thought who ye're gonna choose, have ye?"

She truly loathed being under-informed, but the Dark Lord hadn't given her any sort of details about what exactly the initiation involved, so the only thing she knew for certain was that she would be receiving his Dark Mark, an honour that she'd been craving for several years. She scowled, and after a long while, finally asked, "What do you mean, choose?"

Macnair chuckled again. "For yer consorts during the ceremony," he said.

Now she was even more furious, but saw no purpose behind enraging a wizard who usually chose to use brute force prior to brandishing his wand. "What do you mean, Macnair? Just sodding spit it out, why don't you?"

"Yer brother didna tell ye?"

"He did not," she huffed.

"When witches are Marked, there's a ceremony," Macnair explained. "Ye choose three consorts to fuck during it. Some choose more..." he paused, looking directly at her. "Bellatrix," he added, nodding a bit when he saw her scowl even further.

"Not surprised," she grunted. "Bitch."

"I wasna happy about it," he said, quietly.

Alecto figured that since they now had commiserated, she might well confide in him further. She could always Obliviate him if necessary, it was one of her specialities. "So who should I choose?" Alecto asked.

"Figured ye'd choose yer brother first," Macnair said.

"No," she replied sharply. "He wants that, he's said as much when he drinks, but I'm not interested."

"Hmm," he grunted. "Guess I lost that bet, now." He puffed away on his pipe.

"You bloody bet on whether or not I was sleeping with my sodding brother?" Alecto said, standing up and reaching for her wand.

"Sit down, lassie," Macnair said, smiling a bit. "Roddy started it and the rest of us just joined in. Looks like ye'll prove them wrong tonight, won't ye?"

"I suppose," she said, slowly lowering her arm. "So who should I choose, then?"

"Choose me," he said. "I'll make it good for ye. And Yaxley, I've seen him lookin' at ye."

"And who else?"

"Depends on who ye want ta make jealous," Macnair said, winking at her. "Me Galleons are on Dolohov." He sat his pipe down on the ground near his boots.

"Stop bloody betting on who I'm fucking or want to fuck!" Alecto hissed, a bit louder than was necessary.

Macnair waved his wand and put up a Silencing Spell. "Ye may as well try to get Dumbledore ta take the Mark. Ye're joining up with a bunch of Dark wizards, what did ye expect?"

"I expected to kill Muggles and Mudbloods to keep our world pure," Alecto said, "Not hang round a Quidditch changing room!" She paused, and sat back down on the bench.

He turned toward her then and put one of his large hands under her chin, tipping it up so she was looking right into his bright blue eyes.

"Oh, we'll do that first part, lass, and I'll be happy to have ye do it with me," and he abruptly pulled her close and kissed her, thrusting his tongue immediately into her mouth, devouring her greedily. He tasted like tobacco and whisky, and she barely had time to register how very nice it felt before he pulled away. "But we celebrate after because there are other ways to keep our world pure."

Infuriatingly, he then moved back to the other side of the bench, picked up his pipe, filled it with tobacco, relit it with the end of his wand, and began puffing away in silence.

Eventually, Alecto huffed, "You still haven't told me who the third wizard should be."

"Doesna have ta be a wizard, just a Marked Death Eater-ye could always choose Bellatrix."

"Not bloody likely."

"Well, damn," he said. "Woulda been nice to watch. Well, next best thing is Lucius, then, I'd say," and he released a great puff of smoke from his pipe.

"Malfoy? Are you crazy? What about Snape?"

"Nay. I doona want to be any closer to that greasy bastard's todger than I have ta. Lucius knows all sorts o' pleasure spells, more than I do," Macnair said. "And Bellatrix didn't choose him."

"Why not?"

"Well, the wizards can refuse," he said. "She didna want to be humiliated in case he did that."

"Maybe I should choose Roddy, then," Alecto mused.

"If ye want to watch yer back at every meetin'," Macnair said. "Best choose with an eye to future alliances," he added.

"Well, who did you choose, then?" she asked.

"Didna have ta-just got me Mark, it's different for wizards."

"That's hardly..." she started to say "fair", but realized she would sound like a Hufflepuff, so she finished with..."er...well, I suppose it's the Master's choice."

"Aye," he said, as he tapped his pipe against the stone bench and then put it in his robe pocket, and then withdrew his pocketwatch and consulted it. "We've still got forty-five minutes-we can go behind that hedge and I'll warm ye up a bit. Besides, me prick's hard and I need it sucked."

"I've-er...I've never..."

"Ye've never what? Ye've never sucked a prick? Or do ye mean ye've never been fucked?" Macnair looked incredulous.

"I wasn't interested in anyone at school, nor am I interested in my brother, thank you very much! And it's...just never happened," she said, looking down at her feet.

"Nae time like the present," he said, as he stood up. "I'll take care o' that little problem for ye."