Tales from the Death Eaters

Introduction

For several years the forces of darkness have been gathering strength under a terrifying new master calling himself Lord Voldemort. These devoted followers, named the Death Eaters, have nothing left to loose and everything to gain in their war against the Ministry of Magic and the Order of the Phoenix. The following stories recount how seven Death Eaters begin to discover something else moving behind the shadows – something even out of the sight of Lord Voldemort…

The Tale of Regulus Black

I

Grimmauld Place

The first thing that I noticed in my few seconds' intimacy with the water flowing out of the spout was that, after maintaining its normal lukewarm temperature for a short time, it suddenly went freezing cold. I turned off the tap, shaking my hands off in the sink. My fingers were left with a chilled feeling after all the soap had been rinsed from them.

No.

Not a chilled feeling.

A sense of dirtiness, uncleanliness.

The first impulse I had was to wash my hands again. The grimy feeling coating my hands had noting to do with dirt, I knew. I pressed my cold fingers into my eyes in the hopes that I could freeze away the horrible memories if they could not be burned out of existence. Despite it all, I fared better than my friend, someone whom I least expected to have joined me in the journey. He now rested in the lake, twitching among the rest of those horrible abominations that the Dark Lord employed.

Our quarry rested in my pocket. It felt heavy all the way back to the house. Now, as if it could sense that it was back in the presence of faithful pure-bloods, it had lightened. If my mother knew I had it, she would treasure the thing above all others.

It was the last remnant of the good house - the house of Slytherin.

Shaking off the excess water into the sink, I went to dry my hands. I stepped into the doorway, listening for Kreacher. I heard him moving down the stairs, no doubt coming to see who was in the house. Sure enough, he emerged on the steps a few feet away from me.

"Master?" he sounded as though I should not have been standing there. "Master Regulus?"

His large eyes looked me over. He knew about the Cave.

That was where the Dark Lord took him.

I had sent my elf to what should have been his death. Of all the people in our family, I was the only person that Kreacher treated with some measure of respect. And I had sent him to die, a dispensable tool. Since he came back, that respect turned into a cold disposition. I had to do something to turn that elf's mind around so that the Dark Lord would not come here and find out my secret.

"Kreacher, I need to speak with you." I tried to sound as neutral as possible.

He stood on the step and didn't move.

"Come here," I said firmly.

He started to quiver. He was directly disobeying me, and he was fighting the magic in him that made him follow the orders of any member of the Black house.

"Keacher," I ordered and pulled out my wand.

Kreacher yelped and buried his head behind his hands, knowing what the wand meant. "Master, please…no…please…Kreacher is a good elf, never disobeying Master…" He crumpled down on the stairs.

"Kreacher, look at me." I leaned down so that I was closer to the elf. I had to look him in the eyes for this to work.

He moved his hands away from his eyes, still covering his nose and mouth.

"You were my companion tonight. We went to the cave, and only you came back."

I brought my wand out and pointed it at Kreacher. He shook so badly I could feel the vibrations through the stairs. He wanted to get away from me, and I grabbed one of his arms to keep him from escaping me. I continued, despite his struggling:

"You may tell only those false details about tonight to Master Regulus or someone worthy like him. You may not tell anyone – not Master's cousin or her sister, or Master's mother – the truth. In the name of the most ancient House of Black, I bind you to this secret!"

A blue light shot out the end of my wand. Kreacher let out a piercing noise between a scream and a sob.

It was the darkest spell a wizard could cast against his houself, and it was as binding as the Unbreakable Vow. Elf magic was strong, and could do things that wizards could not. However, bound as they were to wizards, we could overpower their magic with the name of the house they served. Many wizard families, like the Lestranges and the Malfoys, were known for commonly subjugating their elves in this manner.

Never before had I used this magic against Kreacher. He knew of it, all elves did, and other members of the family had used it on Kreacher's predecessors. With a nasty feeling in my stomach, I stood up. Kreacher remained huddled on the stair, clutching the banister. I felt the urge to say something to him, to apologize for what I had done, but the words would not come out. Wizards do not apologize to houselves.

"Kreacher…go back to your room," I said softly, trying to convey a sense of remorse in my words. The elf clambered to his feet and scampered off. I remained standing in place for a moment, staring where Kreacher had lain on the stairs.

My forearm tingled. Then it began to burn. I pulled back the sleeve of my left arm to reveal the skull and snake. It turned solid black. As if it knew I was resisting the call, it stung even more fiercely and the flesh around it turned red. Cursing, I felt for the locket on the inside pocket of my robes. The metal was warm to the touch and I knew it was not simply because it was in my pocket and close to my body.

The mutilated piece of soul felt the call of the Dark Lord and wanted to be joined with him again. For a second, I imagined that I felt it pulsing, like a heart, but forced myself to dismiss it. Now was not the time to allow my fears to run rampant.

Letting the locket settle to the bottom of my pocket, my hand checked that my wand was still secure in the sleeve of my robes. In the heightening danger, I had charmed a little slip of fabric to hold my wand in place right near my hand. Whenever the fingers of my wand hand touched it, it instantly came loose and was available for use.

I pushed the sleeve down over my arm, having tucked away the wand again. My heart quickened; time was running short. I had to find a place to hide the locket before answering the call of the Dark Lord. As my eyes darted up and down the hallway, scanning it for our houself, I wished that my brother were here.

I did not even know where he lived nowadays. Years ago, while he was still in school, he left and moved in with the Potters. He did not even slam the door behind him when he walked out for the final time—that was how I knew he was intent on never returning. When Sirius was pushed past angry, something I had witnessed just two or three times in my life, he fell silent.

Nothing fuels anger more than fire, except for ice, he always said. Fire provokes your enemy to react with more fire. Ice stalls them, freezing them.

Not until they start to think again and figure out a better way to get at you, I always thought in response in my head.

Since I could not destroy the locket, it would have to stay hidden here in the house. Amongst all the questionable objects my family had accumulated over the decades, a search of the house would prove fruitless. Especially since very few people knew that Slytherin's last remaining possession had been a locket. At the very least, I could disguise the outside so that it no longer bore the mark of Slytherin. Not even Kreacher could be allowed to know of its existence. Otherwise he would hand it over to our cousin, where it would fall back into the hands of the Dark Lord.

Ah, my cousin.

Dear Bellatrix.

It was only a matter of time before she knew of my treachery, unless the Dark Lord did not find out before she did. It was something that I could not entirely rule out –it was something I should count on.

Kreacher scuffled then dropped something above me. I knew he was the only other living being in the house capable of sentient thought tonight. I darted down the hallway and clattered down the stairs. There I turned the corner to the main sitting room. The glass cabinets, with all my mother's trinkets, rested next to the mantelpiece.

I stepped over to them. Leaving the locket where its false twin had rested seemed like the perfect idea. I opened one of the cabinets. Inside were a bunch of random objects. A silver snuffbox. The ring with the family crest. My great-great grandmother's music box that would lull a hapless listener into a deep sleep, even into death. The thought that I could barter all of these things and that the shopkeeper at Borgin and Burkes would surely love me, passed through my mind. I took out the locket from my pocket.

The silver finish sparkled up at me. Flexing my fingers, I reached for my wand. It fell to my hand perfectly. I stared down at the small object, realizing that I had no idea what kind of protective spells might be upon it. I tried a couple of the simple charms, to no avail. Unsurprised, I searched my memory for a few stronger spells. Urgency rose within me, the Dark Mark burning all the more ferociously in my forearm as I stalled.

"Altero sigma!"

The spell should have erased all marks from the outside of the locket. Instead it bounced off the surface and nearly hit me in the face. It hit the curtains, bleaching out the pattern of the hideous fabric.

I took a deep breath. There had to be a way to disguise this thing, part of me knew. The other part of me wanted to stick my burning arm in a bucket of ice.

Alter it...make it look like the one I stole from here, make it look like the one I stole…

All the while I racked my brain, wishing that somehow I could remember a spell to transform the locket. The Dark Lord had taken too many precautions for his precious trinket.

The locket burned in my hand. I dropped it, wanting now to plunge my hand into that imaginary bucket of ice more than my arm. A blister in the exact shape of the locket was raised on my palm, as if I had wrapped my hand around it when it first came out of the smelter's oven. However, were the engraving of the curved "S" should have been, there was nothing. I glanced again at the locket. Its silver surface was now so tarnished that it could be mistaken for gold. No engraving marked it or made it discernable.

It was an exact copy of the one that I had removed from my mother's possession.

The only notable difference was that something weighed it down, almost as if the Dark Lord's mark on it had been driven inside – only visible to someone that could pry it open.

Not thinking about how I managed to accomplish this without the outright use of a spell, I tossed the locket into the cabinet. I threw the door shut and hurried out of the room. As if sensing my intent, the mark on my arm began to cool.

Now it was time to answer the call of the Dark Lord.

With a pop I Disapparated.