Regulus had come for dinner at the Lestrange house. Their lord had given them leave as he had no need for them that evening so the couple invited Regulus to dinner. The dinner had gone much as dinners with the three of them usually did. Bella talked animatedly about a recent campaign, though leaving out names of specific Death Eaters which took part. She was a firm believer in the Dark Lord's policy of leaving everyone in the dark about exactly who everyone else was. Then again Bella was a firm believer in everything the Dark Lord said. Regulus thought he had been too.
As of late things were becoming very difficult for Regulus. At the onset he had felt excited and invigorated at joining the cause. He was going to help make the Wizarding world pure. He was doing what was right. However, the euphoria of the new endeavor soon wore away and all Regulus could see was blood.
It was true that he did not like Muggles or Muggle-born. He had been brought up to know that he was better than they were as a Pure-blood. Yet the more he was with the Death Eaters the more death and cruelty he saw. He hadn't realized how visceral his reaction to it would be.
The first time Regulus was out on a mission he watched a muggle couple tortured for three hours, just for fun. The object of the mission had been to kill Squib who was informing for the other side, the Muggles had just been a game. The two anonymous Death Eaters he was with just laughed and laughed challenging each other to come up with different ways to torture the two. They had started out with the cruciatus curse then moved on to hexes which left cuts all over the Muggles bodies, ripped out their hair, pulled out their teeth, tore organs out of their bodies through their mouths. They had asked Regulus to join in, laughing at their fun as the Muggles on the floor cried and cried and then grew too weak to even scream. Regulus went to another room and threw up in a corner for ten minutes.
Regulus wanted the wizarding world to be pure, those that were better in control but not like that. After that first time he saw such things again. He heard the laughter and saw the torture. He didn't know what to do. He was a Death Eater now. He could not contradict the Dark Lord or question his policies. Yet when Regulus was forced to kill he felt as though a part of him died too, every time.
Now, Regulus and Bella were sitting in the informal parlor enjoying the fire after dessert. Rodolphus had left the cousins alone to go complete some business upstairs.
"Bellatrix?" Regulus said.
She looked up from her book. "Yes?"
"Do you…" Regulus wasn't sure how to ask Bella what he wanted to ask. She was such a staunch Death Eater and he was afraid she'd just bite his head off. "Do you like killing?"
She blinked at him. "What do you mean 'like'?"
"I mean, having to kill and torture people."
"If you are referring to the Muggles and Mudbloods which we dispose of I would hardly call them people. Yes, I do enjoy killing them. If there is one less Muggle or Mudblood in this world that I get rid of then so much the better. The world is a better place."
Regulus bit his lower lip and was about to try and rephrase his worries but Bella spoke again.
"However," she put her book down as she spoke now, folding her hands in her lap. "If you are referring to real witches and wizards like you and I, Pure-bloods, then I must admit sometimes I do feel a bit of remorse."
"Really?" Regulus didn't know Bella ever had any regrets about the work she did as a Death Eater.
"I'm not sorry." She lifted her chin up. "Nothing like that. It they were against us then they deserved to die. However, sometimes I do regret that they could not have seen the right, learned a proper way of thinking."
"You mean you wish you could rehabilitate them?"
Regulus felt something of a glimmer of hope. Maybe Bella did question the Dark Lord if even a little and maybe then she could understand how he felt. Perhaps she didn't like the cruelty either even if she was for the killing.
"No." Regulus' face fell. "No, they are blood traitors and they don't deserve our mercy. It is not our job to take time to reeducate them to what they should have already learned. I simply mean that I regret that they did not know it from the start. I regret that they allowed themselves to become weak like the Mudbloods. I regret that our good breed of Pure-bloods should have fallen, in some respects, to behave like that."
"Oh," Regulus replied.
Bella had spoken so decidedly, as though there was no other way to think. Was it really wrong to want to give some mercy? Regulus knew it was necessary to kill some, to get rid of those in the way, but did they have to torture, to kill muggles for fun? There had to be another way to restore the power of the Pure-bloods. Wasn't that what they were working towards, not annihilation of all others? Maybe he was wrong.
"Why are you asking me this, Regulus?" Bellatrix asked him, picking up her book again and looking at him inquisitively.
He shook his head and breathed in slowly. "No reason, just curious I suppose."
Bella looked at him for a long moment then turned back to her book. Regulus watched her calmly reading her book again after she had been so strongly talking about killing. For a moment he could not believe this was his cousin sitting in front of him. He suddenly felt nauseous again like he had on that first mission. What was he going to do?