-Voldemort-
"Jack's my name. I was here only because I was looking for you. Believe what I say; if I were not on your side I wouldn't make such a lie as this would be. Why else do you think I'm willing to tell you exclusive details about Albus Dumbledore's life, if not to help you to gain power? I am related to him and I want him dead. Trust me."

My eyes bore into those of the girl's who stood in front of me, keeping them skillfully unreadable. She stared back with the same calm and that irritated me. This girl was young and naive, and knew not the first thing about gaining power and evil! She had no idea of what she was getting herself into by trying to lure me to take her words.

Of course I didn't know if this girl was telling the truth. She wasn't an open book like some of my Death Eaters; like Severus Snape, who was presently spending his time in my dungeons while the rest of the Death Eaters were causing havoc and I was finding more people I could take under my control. I had just stumbled upon this child, who looked no more than twenty years of age, and was standing in my presence among the bodies of her dead family. She had told me that she didn't care that this had happened. Good riddance she had said. She wanted to join me. I only didn't kill her because her talk was more than the usual excessive jabber I hear constantly from cowardly wizards and witches, pleading for their lives or making me promises that the more arrogant and powerful of our kind would never dream of uttering from their lips, no matter how degraded they would become.

This reminded me of that stubborn Auror who had been killed by my Death Eaters recently and was now rotting somewhere at the bottom of a lake some ten miles away from this week's abode of mine. You really can't be too careful, understand.

But this girl who stared at me now, stared without emotion, without thoughts. And she was annoying me greatly.

"Trust, I cannot give you," I replied to her finally. "Not only do you show little to no strength, but, people must have told you before; you look as if you would go back on any word you give."

As I expected, the girl wasn't to be moved. By this time, I imagined a conversation much like this I had had with that difficult man, Severus Snape. Why I keep him is a mystery, but why I made him is the most obvious thing I had ever done. Just the look of determination and dependance-to-die-for-you convinced me that he was willing to give up anything to become a sick, little, murder puppy of a Death Eater. But his power is great, I can give him that. Like he had said, his would never come close to my strength, but he was one of my top men. It did surprise me a little when he pulled that stunt of his that kept him from today's expedition, but what could I have expected from such an egotistical man half-crazed with love for my evil?

"Then you make a mistake," the girl said.

"I make no mistakes," I answered calmly, yet abruptly. "You know I am not a fool."

"I do," she replied. "But what would you rather have? My trust? Or Albus Dumbledore's life? You know that if I ever betrayed you, you could kill me as easy as anything. I hate the bastard for all those summer's I've had to spend with him, but I know things that would lead to his death! You could rule! You could have control over the whole world with him out of the way!" She crossed her arms, an action which made her look even more young and ridiculous.

"Silly child. You understand nothing," I said. But even then, I was considering taking her to the small, abandoned castle I had taken up for my Death Eaters and I to spend a few days in before moving on to the next town.

The girl took one step closer, hardly making a sound in the rubble that used to be her house, and stared up at me with extreme calm, with her large, dark eyes, as if trying to hypnotize me with her unblinking stare.

She said in a hushed tone, "I can give you secrets about Dumbledore that would make you ruler within weeks. I know where he is. I know his weaknesses. I know what he knows, and I am your ONLY link."

I looked back at her with the same adament stare. "If you are lying, you die," I said.

"I am not lying," the girl assured me.

"There is only one way for me to find that out," I replied.

"How is that?" she asked.

"Let out your left arm," I instructed. She did as she was told and I took out my wand.

"What are you going to do?" she asked, not the least bit fearfully.

"Watch," I said sharply, casting my curse and burning into her arm the dark mark; my mark; the mark that not only attracted my servants to me, but enabled me to see into them. Even as the mark was engraving itself, and boiling into the girl's skin, she became open to me. And I knew what she wanted. "Power. Death. Revenge," I uttered as the mark faded slightly. The girl only grimaced and stared at what I had given her.

"Death. Revenge," she repeated softly. "I hate him, Dumbledore." She had no more to say on that subject, and I didn't want to know more. I discouraged ranting and holding grudges. This girl was perhaps weak, but not entirely stupid and useless. She could do me some good.
-Severus Snape-
I was pacing. Not in the dungeons anymore, no; this time Voldemort had left the door unlocked, but I still didn't have my wand back; he didn't trust me enough yet. I was pacing the hallway, waiting for the others to return from, I was guessing, a raid that I had apparently missed out on. I knew they would come back; Voldemort hadn't killed me, and he would have done that rather than left me stranded. So I paced.

I was pacing until somebody appeared, an apparated figure back from the kill. I didn't know who it was until they stepped from the shadows of the looming walls, and they didn't even have to take their mask off first because the hair was a distinct bleached blonde color that nobody else on the team but Lucius Malfoy possessed.

"What are you doing back so early?" I asked him, unable to help a slightly cold tone of voice. I never really liked this man very much.

"Master's orders," he sighed calmly, removing his mask delicately. "You are to be told that there is a new addition."

"And he had to send you to tell me this?" I asked, raising an eyebrow at him.

Malfoy shrugged and began to dig around in his robes, pulling out my wand from the folds. "And he wanted me to give you this back," he said. He tossed it to me indifferently and I grabbed it out of the air impatiently. Malfoy didn't leave, though. He just glared at me with those annoyingly silvery-grey eyes. "Answer me something."

"It depends on what you want me to answer," I shot back.

"Why is it... that he lets you get away with so much...?" Malfoy asked slowly. "You know that if it were any of the rest of us that had done what you did, Voldemort would not have thought twice about shredding our skins... But you seem to be the favorable servant of his. I wonder why that is, don't you?" He shrugged again and pulled his mask back over his face. I didn't have an answer for him, and I don't believe he wanted one. He had apparated away before I could have said anything.

I stared coldly at the spot the Malfoy had apparated from for a few seconds longer, but told myself to think nothing of my master's ways.

I went back to pacing, wondering who the new addition might be.