I do not own Harry Potter.

Thanks again to reviewers! Cam, True, and TRF Chan, I love you!

This chapter MAY be bordering R . . . just a warning. This is the worst it gets, though.

No doubt only incensed further by his father's reaction-- the Slytherin spite-- Barty became more intent on the cause. The summer before senior year I spent lightly, consorting with possible matches at parties held at my home. I worked on the occasional essay, feeling scholarly and rational, as Father had hoped. Bellatrix kept in touch, informing me of the Death Eaters' every movement. I could not escape to the meetings until late August, after my 17th birthday, when I learned to Apparate. The Dark Lord understood. Barty, however, had become of age in May, and attended, gloating to me. He, unlike Bellatrix, did not keep so much in touch. I had him over a few times, but our relationship was no longer like that of two teenage boys. We were starting to get old, ready to take our places in society. It was inevitable, according the Barty's father, that he would have to work, and so the weight of a possible job kept resting on Barty's shoulders. His father cared nothing-- or very little-- for encouraging relations with women, either, and I doubted Barty had gotten over Bellatrix yet. That was the nature of his obsession. I, however, could dabble with all the eligible Slytherin girls I wanted, knowing that one would end up with me regardless.

"Do you want any excitement?" Bellatrix asked me at one of her visits. "The Dark Lord feels are you becoming too complacent. He spoke to me at the last meeting. He fears you are losing your passion."

"I am taking the conservative route," I said. "I've written anonymously to the papers, and--"

"Conservative! There is no change without action, Regulus!" she had exploded. "You know this! Your father sits on his backside all day, wallowing in what he has, not caring that it is about to be taken away! He has no thought, no care, about the future of this society!" She had paused, taking in a deep, calculating breath and an idea. "You need some time out," she said. "You need some action."

My birthday, in August under the Regulus constellation, was greatly celebrated. The Black heir was of age. There was a grand party, though it was the most intense I had ever witnessed.

Instead of a majority of females as was common at my courting parties, there were equal numbers, some married inlaws, others simply friends, all with as much access to the ladies as I had. Rabastan Lestrange was still unmarried, and he had ladies flocking to him all night. There was alcohol, and not in the discreet quantities usual at dinner parties. I began to grow appalled by what occurred by glutton of this.

"Regulish . . . " a plump girl with blond ringlets clutched my arm and smiled, forcing her eyes into mine but drawing in her face closer than she probably had intended. "You're sheventeen now. All grown up! So . . . birthday boy . . . you wanna . . . " she faded off into a laugh.

I raised my eyebrows at her. "My parents are here, you realize," I excused myself.

She laughed louder, ending with a snort, which caused her to stop abruptly, cover her nose, and promptly begin giggling again. I pitied her; she clearly did not realize how ridiculous she appeared. "Your house is big, Regulish . . . all our houses are big . . . that's why they're big . . . you have a private bedroom, right?" She swayed a little with her alcohol.

Rabastan came up, drink in hand, and put his arm around the waist of the girl, who jumped and giggled again. He took a swig and then bent down, unabashed, and kissed her.

"Rabastan!" I hissed.

He looked up at me, an odd half-smile plastered on his face. "Don't be so uptight, Regulus. It's your bloody 17th birthday. Grow up a little, come on."

I glared at him. "I don't think you should be indulging in such low behavior. It's my party, after all. This isn't the way our society acts."

"Then you obvioushly haven't been around our shocshiety," the girl sniggered.

I bit my lip. Surely not everyone was covertly corrupted underneath the pure front. I had known about Narcissa-- that was forgiven because she was in grief-- and perhaps Bellatrix had done a couple things, and a few of those bad girls Narcissa talked about-- but not everyone! I certainly didn't, for one thing. I didn't want my family ashamed of me, so I had never done anything to bring shame upon them. Was every other person in the room harboring secrets, locked-up shames? Were they all partaking in the behaviors I knew the Muggle-borns and bloodtraitors were, premarital relationships?

Rabastan scanned over my panic-stricken face and sighed. He put his hand on my shoulder, removing it from the waist of the girl. "Regulus, come on. It's embarrassing you're so damn innocent. Surely you didn't think everybody in Slytherin was pristine?"

"We try to come off that way, don't we?" I snapped. "Arranged marriages, separate girls and boys, all our conservative courting rituals--"

"Yeah, and after the party, we sneak off and do what we want. Everyone knows it; we just don't shout it to the world."

"Well, have we always done it? I believe our cause, Rabastan, is to preserve purity. Also to preserve our sacred way of life-- which includes a more tasteful way of doing things," I sniffed. Mummy had always said that. Formalities were what made character, she said. She had also spent the first seventeen years of my life shooting covert hexes at me across the floors of parties and gatherings to remind me of the proper behavior when I forgot-- and she always knew. In fact, I was half-expecting her to hit my rear with a diluted striking hex or something in the like for even looking as if I was preparing to do something.

Rabastan smirked. "Correction, Regulus. Our cause is to purify wizard blood. We're stamping out the Muggle-borns, and that's it. There's nothing in there about having to be perfect, pristine little angels."

"We're trying to build a perfect society, aren't we?" I retorted.

Rabastan rolled his eyes, but he stiffened when Rodolphus came up behind him and put his hand on his shoulder. "Regulus has higher ideals than you, Rabastan," he said, making clear his eavesdropping. "The Dark Lord is pleased with this desire for perfection."

Rabastan glowered at him, resentful of this correction in front of his very drunk lady friend. "The Dark Lord has never suggested anything of the sort."

Rodolphus raised his eyesbrows and Rabastan turned away, leading the girl by the waist over to get more drinks. I wonder if she would be passed out by the time the night was over.

Rodolphus spoke to me more rationally. "You're allowed to have fun, Regulus. Concentrate on the task at hand. There's no need to deny yourself . . . pleasure . . . because you've been taught it's wrong. There are certain things we as humans cannot do." He smirked. "And don't worry. Not a single girl you will end up marrying will have a problem with it. They will have it done themselves."

"Permissive Muggle-born dominated society, decline of civilization," I muttered automatically.

Rodolphus laughed. "So sorry to disillusion you." Then he shook his head, "To think you're the brother of notorious lady's man Sirius Black. Or Bellatrix, for that matter," he added fairly, half-smiling. "I suppose you've been following your Mum's orders all along? Scared by what happened to Sirius, no doubt?" He patted my shoulder. "You're a good kid. But you don't need to be perfect-- and certainly don't expect everyone else to be that way, either. You're confusing purity of the members of society with purity of the society itself. We're only working for the former."

After he went off to continue socializing, I tried enjoying myself. I flirted more voraciously than I ever had before. I felt the tingling sensation in my lower regions-- one I had previously associated only with erotic dreams-- when one of the girls pressed up close to me when we danced. Rodolphus had been right; every girl I danced with was perfectly willing to go as far as I wanted to take her-- or at least the minimal distance I was comfortable with. WhenI kissed someone-- a gorgeous girl with thick, dark hair, fair skin, and astoundingly red lips, over in a corner enclosed by old wooden shelves, where she allowed me to fervently press her into the wall as her lips travelled passionately over mine, suprising me with the biggest thrill I had ever felt-- Mummy saw and gave me a stern look, cold with raised eyebrows, but she did not cease us nor even give me a warning. I had only blushed and turned back to my business, pleased with what I could argue was her permission.

By the end of the party, thanks to Kreacher's endless service of alcohol, nearly everyone had allowed the previous formalities to fade away. If I had not been told by Rodolphus previously at the party, I would have been appalled, searching for the hex that had been put on our guests to make them behave so badly. Barty and Rabastan both had disappeared with girls I myself had had a turn with, and Bellatrix and Rodolphus-- still bearing some semblance of pure lifestyle-- danced with each other, but in such a wild fashion I thought for sure it could be mistaken for something quite worse. Even Mummy loosened up; she started screaming recklessly for Kreacher to bring out the cake, though it had long been eaten, and kissed the elf passionately when it arrived with a hastily-made substitute.

Only two members of the congregation remained out of the stupor. Father went into his office, rubbing his temples at the noise that apparently evoked a headache, and remained there indefinitely. There was also a girl, whom I had seen dance with no one, who sat pensively alone, occasionally rising to look out the window. I felt guilty for a moment, abandoning what I took as a fellow purist. She was alone in this party of moral decay and uncivilization.

I pointed her out to Rabastan, the nearest person to me, and we approached her, myself trying to hide my now unsteady, drunk condition. My voice still came out louder than I intended, though I tried to be polite. "Are you having a good time?" I asked.

She met me with cold eyes, what was taught to Slytherin girls as the polite way to respond to gentlemen, lest they be too forward. She had obviously not drunken anything.

"No; I can't quite say I enjoy the company."

That felt like a slap. I only spluttered for a moment, but Rabastan tried to play it off. "My dear, this is all the company you will ever have in your lifetime. This is your society; from these men will you pick your future husband. What else do you have?"

She raised one of her eyebrows-- something I had never been able to do. "This is not all there is. You're forgetting all the other children of all the other Houses-- and a world full of Muggles," she added impertinently.

I bit my lip. "Is it our behavior? Is it as appalling as that?" I wished I hadn't given in. "I'm sorry; usually I don't--"

Yet she cut me off with a laugh. "Oh, goodness, this doesn't bother me. I've had fun like this before-- worse than this," she grinned devilishly. "I just choose to have my fun with other people."

Rabastan's face stiffened, expressionless. I spoke warily, "Like who?"

She grinned, still boastful and impertinent. "Ravenclaw boys are so much better kissers than Slytherins. You're too rough and possessive, you know. And Hufflepuffs are so much better to the girls they associate with. And," she tipped her head back and sighed, "Gryffindor boys really know how to . . . " she faded off, moaning slightly with the memory. I thought for sure she was bluffing, teasing us, trying to get a rise out of us. My face grew hot.

"And Muggles," she said, her eyes lighting up and meeting ours, "you wouldn't believe they don't know how to do magic. Because it sure feels like--"

Rabastan suddenly had her pressed by the throat to the window behind her. Her eyes opened wide and she started choking.

"You don't joke about that, you little whore!" he hissed, glaring deeply at her."You better say it isn't true. You better say you haven't screwed with Muggles!"

She kicked out at him, her legs the only part of her body able to move. Her blows landed feebly on Rabastan's shins. "Jealous, are you?" she choked out, her voice painfully raspy.

Rabastan pulled her back and pressed her against the glass again. "You little whore! Bloodtraitor, Mudblood-screwing, Muggle-screwing whore!"

I stood behind him, feeling myself paling. The girl's face was turning a sickly shade of blue-purple, and she kept hacking, trying rasp out a cry.

Suddenly, without warning, Rabastan pulled her to the ground, flattening her against the carpet. People began to notice-- I felt my companion Death Eaters rush past me on either side; Barty, Rodolphus, Evan . . .

I cut myself off from what was happening, my eyes averted, my ears striving to block out the noise. The party was still going on in a drunken stupor, no one was taking any aversion to the scuffle going on behind the bureau. Yet I, unlike them, could not block out the screams and the tearing of clothing.

In my mind flashed a horrible memory, linked with the shredding of fabric.

"You don't like this? You don't mind filthy Mudbloods doing it to you, though, do you?" came the echo in my head. It had been Mummy's voice, one of the most violent I had ever heard her.

Andromeda had done the same thing. The girl was Andromeda, a pureblood girl in the wrong house who loved the wrong boy. She deserved it, for corrupting what was her most sacred with what was most dirty. Yet . . . Andromeda had been a nice girl. She had been smart, sensitive, sweet, and romantic.

I took in a great, shuddering breath. It was so much easier when the bad blood was just purged. Minds were so much harder to remedy. It would be easier to kill the corrupted minds, too, but we did not have the people to sacrifice. We were a dying race. Yet this "correction" of a pureblooded girl, a bloodtraitor, pure of blood but not in mind, disgusted me. It was brutal, even more brutal than death and torture. Those were cleansing, simple, basic, animal. This was somehow so much more emotional, so much worse.

I didn't want to be in this circle anymore-- not for this. I wasn't meant for this type of cleansing. This seemed darker, somehow-- and though I advocated the dark, this wasn't the pure fight I had always wanted. Death was easy; death was clean. This was shameful. It made me sick.

I turned quickly out the door and went straight to my room, turning onto the stairs just down the corridor, forgetting the guests and the party. Only Bellatrix, unconcerned with the happenings in the corner, saw me go. She undid my lock as soon as I did it and stepped into the room, long green dress robes swishing over her feet.

"What's wrong, Regulus?"

I had already sat down on the bed. I looked up at her sadly, with a sigh, and explained as delicately as I could what had happened, and told her my thoughts that it might have been better to simply have killed her. I told her how I had been enchanted and then disenchanted with sex and romance, all in one night.

She had only laughed. "Take it from a woman, Regulus; there are fates worse than death."

"Andromeda chose her fate over death."

"Andromeda was of corrupted mind and had no honor," she snapped. "And she is living with her punishment."

"Do you think . . . do you think Andromeda . . . was . . . ?"

"Raped?" her words were blunt and casual. "I have no idea. I haven't talked to her in years. Do you think I bothered to ask her?" her gaze was sharp. I averted my eyes apologetically, and she sighed. "That's become the punishment for pureblood girls who allow themselves to stoop to the level of Mudbloods and Muggles. The theory is it's a correction. By having a proper pureblood do it to you, you'll learn the proper way."

I furrowed my eyebrows. "I don't think that's how it's going to work--"

Bellatrix rolled her eyes. "Of course. It's just so you men can get out your excessive urges. At any rate, it shames a girl with any pride at all to the point of no return. Funny, how they can be low enough to give themselves to Muggles, but they get all embarrassed by this."

I could not think of anything to say to that. I looked at my feet, and the patterns on the carpet beneath them, where I used to play on the floor when I was little, Sirius, Andromeda, Bellatrix, Narcissa, and I-- all together. We had played with simple childish toys, the kind everyone had, Muggles and wizards alike. We had our childish spats, but we had always made up. We fell in and out of favor with our parents, but we always bounced back. Yet now two of us were already gone.

Purity. It was such a common word, such a common goal, and yet no one had mastered it completely. Pure blood, pure mind, pure behavior. Had I mastered all three?

Seeping up in the back of my mind came a memory. It was not so violent as Andromeda's. "You don't have to obey everything they say, you know? You have to have some conscience of your own, too."

I looked up at the door. Bellatrix had lost interest in me and gone out through it; it swung open on its own as it had always done. It was there I had stood when Sirius had told me that. The words were still as clear as if it were yesterday.

I had helped corrupt our line. Father had known it all along and tried to stop it, but I had done it anyway. I had broken the Black line, and nothing had been the same ever since.