Disclaimer: i do not own harry potter. sorry.

Innocent Screams

I can still hear them. All of those screams. All of those innocent people. It was all my fault. Stupid, gullible me. The Dark Lord did tell me the screams of the innocent were the purest. He never told me they were the ones that hurt the most.

I can still remember that day. It burns in my memory at random times. Stupid Snivellus, fresh out of Hogwarts. I had absolutely no clue what I wanted to do with myself. I considered being an Auror, but it was too dangerous of a job.

When I first met him, I was just going to get a butterbeer at the Three Broomsticks, maybe something stronger. All the tables were full but the one in the very back. It was mostly Hogwarts students, so I guess it must have been their last visit before the holidays.

I ran into people that I knew as I made my way to the back table. Not that any of them were my friends. Mostly seventh year snots that I used to tutor in Defense Against the Dark Arts. I also ran into that damn Potter and his crew. I have a feeling that the pub would have gotten a lot more chaotic if that mudblood filth wasn't hanging off his arm.

Finally I reached the 'safety' of the table. Only by then it wasn't empty. There was a black-cloaked figure sitting there, sipping a gilly-weed. As I began to walk away, he began to speak. "Go ahead and sit down, I don't bite." The mere sound of his voice made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up.

"No, I just remembered that I have to meet someone now." I said quickly. Something about him was really starting to freak me out.

"NO you don't. I hate it when people lie to me." I felt myself being pulled to the table as he said this.

This was how I met him. The dark lord. He-who-must-not-be-named. It didn't take long for me to learn to trust him. I had never really had any friends, and here he was, sharing his most secret plans with me. I was in his inner circle.

I can remember the day my big mouth gave him the idea for the Dark Mark. Not the actual symbol, he had been using that for some time now, but for having it tattooed on the arms of his loyal followers.

He overheard me (jokingly) say to Lucious "Wouldn't it make a cool tattoo?" that one little sentence started the wheels in that cunning mind turning. And so he burned that hideous mark into our arms, giving us the 'affectionate' name that was eventually enough to give people nightmares. We became the Death Eaters.

Then the war was at its worst. We would go to random villages and curse the hell out of the inhabitants. Twirling them in the sky, breaking bones, we used both magic and muggle torturing techniques. From hammering pressure points to crucio we made them scream. We spared no one.

Then the grand finale. Mi lord's favorite spell. Avada Kedavra. When twenty of us said it at once, it could wipe out entire towns. But the Dark Lord would normally keep one survivor as witness, though after the torture, their mental health was questionable. Think about the state of the Longbottoms. Then multiply it by ten.

Sorry as I am to admit it, I was having fun. Here I was, not having to work, only having to obey one man.

But one night was different. After the Avada Kedavra, I was rooting through the rubble for something, anything of value, when I turned over a stone and saw Bellatrix Lestrange's face staring up at me, pure agony, mixed with surprise filled it. I blinked once and looked back down, only to see some name-less muggle.

This kept happening, me seeing a different death eater in the place of the poor muggle that was really there. I finally realized the truth. Those people could have been any one of us. If I had been born a muggle, I could easily be buried under my home. I disapparated from that place right then and there, never to return to the dark lord's services again.

Within the next week, I made my way back to Hogwarts to talk to Albus Dumbledor. I broke down and told him everything. He just sat there silently through my story. When it was over, he merely said "I guess you'll be needing a job then." And simple as that a new phase of my life began. I was safe, and I never had to kill again.

But still, the screams haunted me...