A young witch lay crumpled, broken, in the center of a circle of masked witches and wizards. The Dark Lord sat in an elevated chair in the front of the room, watching his servants carry out his orders. The current newest purebloods to join his ranks stood in the middle of the circle with the beaten and broken woman, casting spell after spell at the mudblood witch, testing their skills with dark magic, the cement floor smeared with her blood.
The mudblood witch moaned, grabbing at the black robes of one of the Death Eaters in training, Adela LeStrange. The woman sobbed, pleading for her life. Adela kicked her away, laughing at her useless cries for help. "Don't touch me again, you Muggle filth, or I'll cut off your hands and let you slowly bleed to death," she said, a wicked smirk on her face.
The Dark Lord nodded approvingly. Adela hit the witch with another Cruciatus Curse, inciting jeers and laughter from the Death Eaters. The bleeding woman screamed and writhed in agony.
"Enough," the Dark Lord said softly. The room instantly stilled, silence filling the air. The woman on the floor whimpered. "I tire of this mudblood," he continued. "Who shall finish off this Muggle scum for me?"
Adela looked at the other two masked Death Eaters in training in the circle with her. One was a small, shaky boy, barely seventeen years old, who had very little ability with any of the Unforgiveable Curses. The other she easily recognized as her fiancé, just shy of seventeen, but able to circumvent the Trace due to a well-placed family connection within the Ministry of Magic.
She knew she should have allowed her fiancé to take care of killing the mudblood, but the blood lust in the room was so high, she couldn't stop herself. "Avada Kedavra," Adela cried. The witch went limp on the floor, her moans and crying finally ceasing.
She had done it. Adela had made her first kill.
"Well done, LeStrange, my pet," the Dark Lord hissed. "You and Black have more than earned your Dark Marks, and you both shall receive your rewards. One week from tomorrow, you shall be awarded your Dark Marks." Turning to the small, weak boy, the Dark Lord sneered. "With you, however, I am very disappointed. You show no great talent for magic whatsoever. If your blood were not pure, I would kill you this minute. But, seeing as pure blood is rare and too precious to be spilled if it can be avoided. Perhaps some time under the Imperius Curse would strengthen your skills. Dolohov, if you would take care of that immediately. Dismissed, all of you."
After Adela walked out the door of the abandoned mansion, her fiancé, Regulus Black, caught up with her. "You should have let me kill that mudblood filth. I hardly needed your help."
"I hardly thought your needed help, Regulus," Adela replied calmly. "Instinct took over. Perhaps if you didn't make me spend so much time learning to deal with such Muggle scum from your cousin, you wouldn't seem quite so weak to the Dark Lord right now."
Regulus grabbed Adela's arm in a vice-like grip, turning on the spot to disapparate. The two reappeared on the front steps of the ancient castle that was the LeStrange family home. He squeezed her arm hard as he said, "Try to remember that you are my fiancé. A year from now, this place won't be your home anymore. You won't be able to make me angry and run away and hide out here anymore; you'll have to actually face me when you piss me off. You will learn to show me the respect I deserve, one way or another."
Adela stared him down with a haughty glare. "Let go of me, Regulus."
He smirked. "Why, does it hurt?" He tightened his grip on her arm, causing bruises to well up on her skin. She tried to tug her arm from his hand, but that only caused her more pain. Regulus chuckled softly. "Get used to it, because if you don't start showing me more deference in front of the Dark Lord and our fellow Death Eaters, I promise you, you will feel far worse pain than this." Adela nodded quickly. Regulus released her arm and disapparated into the night.
Screams floated through the air. Men, women, and children's screams coming from all directions echoed through the seemingly empty cement room surrounding Adela. She spun around frantically, looking for the source of all the noise, nervous and shaking.
Suddenly, she felt something wet covering her feet. Adela looked down and screamed at what she saw. She was standing ankle deep in an ever-growing pool of blood that seemed to come from nowhere. She backed up quickly, trying to escape from the eerily warm liquid.
Looking back up, Adela found that she was no longer alone. Across the room from her was none other than the mudblood woman she had killed a couple hours earlier. She shook her head and closed her eyes, willing the witch to disappear. "No, no. It's not possible," she muttered.
The mudblood took slow steps toward her. "You did this." The witch spit the words at Adela.
Adela back away, stopping when her back hit the cement wall. "No, this isn't real. This can't be real. I killed you, you dirty Muggle," she cried.
The screaming around her grew even louder. The witch yelled at Adela, "My blood runs red, just like yours, you foolish little girl." She waved her wand at Adela. Adela screamed in pain as the skin on her chest and shoulders was lacerated by the wand. She fell to her knees, the blood now pouring from her wounds mixing with the Muggle blood pooled on the floor. The witch continued, "You bleed, just like me, just like the Muggles you and your friends brutally torture and murder. You feel pain, just like us muggle-borns."
Something unseen sliced open Adela's back. She screamed. "Stop it, please," she begged.
"Why should I?" the witch asked, laughing cruelly. "Don't you see yet that we're both human beings? Yet you and your evil friends showed me no mercy."
Fiery, burning pain shot through Adela's entire body. "I'm sorry," she sobbed out, her tears running down her face and dripping into the pool of blood that was now up to Adela's waist.
A green light shone bright, filling the room.
Adela bolted awake, covered in sweat. She looked around quickly. The cement room filled with the blood of Muggles was gone. She was safe in her bedroom, and everything was the same as ever. She ran her hands slowly over the deep green silk sheets, taking comfort from the familiar touch of the fabric. A sickening feeling had settled in the pit of her stomach that she couldn't shake, even as her fear ebbed away.
She slipped out of bed and pulled on the black cashmere sweater laying on the chair in the corner of the room. Adela opened and closed her door softly, then crept down the hallway to her brother's room. She knocked softly at the door and peeked inside. "Rabastan?" she whispered.
The slim, dark haired man laying in the bed across the room looked up at her from the Quidditch magazine he was reading. "Adela? What are you doing here?"
Adela stepped inside and closed the door behind her. "I had a nightmare and just didn't want to be alone, if that's ok with you."
Her older brother patted the bed beside him as he scooted over to make room for her. "Sure, come on, sit down. I was just reading about the Quidditch World Cup next month if you're still interested in the latest on that."
Adela smiled slightly as she crossed the room and crawled into the bed with her favorite brother. "Of course I'm still interested! What teams are playing this year again?"
Rabastan replied, "Brazil and France look to be the ones to make it to the finals, but they still have to beat out the Irish and the Germans before anything's truly final."
"Oh ok, cool," Adela said quietly. She wrapped her arms around his right arm and settled down. She sat with him, quietly reading over his shoulder for a while before breaking the silence again. "Rabastan, have you ever felt guilty for what we do, to the Muggles and mudbloods?"
He laughed. "Of course not, you silly little girl. They're beneath us; they deserve it. Don't tell me you do?" Adela shrugged. Rabastan suddenly became very serious, any trace of jest gone from his face. "Don't you ever dare let anyone else know that. You're lucky that I see that this is simply the result of the foolishness of a freshly graduated seventeen year old girl. Anyone else would have immediately branded you a blood traitor. If the Dark Lord ever found out that you were wavering like this, you would be severely punished, if not sentenced to death."
Adela turned toward him. "I know that, but something just doesn't feel right."
Rabastan suddenly slapped her hard across the face. "Shut up. Adela. Just shut up. Don't ever say anything like that again. Do you understand me? You're a pureblood and about to become a Death Eater and damn proud of it. And as Death Eaters and purebloods you and I are completely in the right to torture and kill those beneath us and those who stand in our way of making this world pure. Don't you ever forget that again, you got that?"
Adela blinked away the tears welling up in her eyes from the force of the hit. Her right eye and cheek stung from the blow. "Yes, I understand," she whispered.
"Good." Rabastan grumbled, "Now go back to bed. Get some sleep; forget all of that nonsense."
Adela nodded, quickly getting up and exiting his room.
Six days passed by too quickly. Adela had barely slept the entire time. Every time she fell asleep, she had more nightmares like the one from the night she had killed the mudblood. Every night the dreams worsened, and every day the guilt weighed more heavily on her mind. She didn't bother going to Rabastan with it anymore; he wouldn't hear any of it. The siblings had barely spoken since the night he'd slapped her. It wasn't the first time one of Adela's brothers had hurt her, so Adela knew better than to bring up the subject with Rabastan again.
The Dark Lord had commanded one more test of his newest recruits' loyalties. Adela and Regulus, along with certain Death Eaters, were to attack a Muggle coffee shop in the middle of Muggle London called the Golden Egg. It was a simple plan: create chaos within the café, torture and kidnap for future torture any Muggles they chose, and burn the place to the ground. There were two full fledged Death Eaters to accompany Adela and Regulus. Rodolphus LeStrange and Bellatrix, Rodolphus's wife and Regulus's cousin, had been trusted to ensure that things went according to plan.
Things didn't go according to plan. As soon as the four Slytherins walked into the Golden Egg, masked and in black robes, Bellatrix dropped the worker behind the counter with a Killing Curse. Immediately an unforeseen detail presented itself. Three men at a table in the corner of the café pulled out wands and began throwing curses back at the four Death Eaters. Adela immediately recognized one of the wizards as Alastor Moody, the auror. Spells flew back and forth from both sides of the Golden Egg, some hitting Muggles as they ran for the door.
Adela watched as a Muggle was caught clean across the throat by the Sectumsempra curse thrown from Regulus's wand. Nausea gripped Adela as she watched the bright red blood pour from the man's throat as he grasped at his own throat, trying to stop the fast flow of blood even as he collapsed, first to his knees, then to the floor, dead.
Even as Adela cast a spell to lock the door of the Golden Egg to prevent any more Muggles from escaping, she thought to herself just how sick all of this truly was. Suddenly she felt something wet grab her foot. Spinning she saw a Muggle woman grabbing her foot with her bloody hand, blood spilling from her arms and chest. "Help me, please," the woman begged softly.
Adela, startled and frightened, kicked the woman away from her, quickly running over to where Bellatrix and Regulus had taken cover behind a toppled over table. Bellatrix noticed her and instructed, "Adela, get as close as you can to that auror Moody. Use Fiendfyre to kill him and set this place on fire. As soon as the flames take root we'll disapparate back to the Black house. I expect you to meet us there. Understand?"
Adela nodded, tossing a Cruciatus Curse the tall wizard with shaggy dark hair a few feet in front of her. The curse hit him square in the chest and dropped him to his knees, giving her a chance to run across the room safely toward Moody. Standing two feet away from the auror, his wand suddenly aimed at her and a fierce look of determination in his eyes, Adela suddenly became keenly aware that if she didn't attack him in under a second, she would be dropped to the floor with a Stunning Spell, only to be set fire to along with the Muggles that filled the room, unable to disapparate and save herself. Adela wasn't entirely sure why she made the choice she did, but at the last second she changed her aim from at the auror to four feet to his left. "Fiendfyre," she cried, and serpent made of fire slithered from the end of her wand onto an abandoned table, setting it on fire. She saw Moody forming the Stunning Spell, and instead of dodging it, she grabbed on to his wand arm, knowing that a second after she was unconscious he would disapparate, accidentally taking her along with him.
A second later, everything went dark.