A/N: I realize that this chapter is….eh…extremely short. I was not in the mood for writing, as you can probably tell. Next chappie will be longer.

CHAPTER FOUR: DEATH

"I am going to use my current arrangement to find a way into his inner circle," He tried to say something, but once again Hermione cut him off. "After all, all of the best information comes to those in his inner circle right?"

He didn't like that she was bouncing his own words back at him like a true follower of Voldemort would. Dumbledore never liked being proven wrong.

She'd been doing that a lot lately, however—and not just to him.

Amazingly enough, Vincent did have a brain. Not much of one, but he still liked to cradle the cute idea that he could only be the imperial master of his woman as was supposed in pureblood society. Hermione was his woman, he was a pureblood man, but he still did not understand that perhaps she could be more intelligent than him. And he might have to accept that someday.

At least this is what Hermione deduced.

But then she might be wrong.

It seemed like everything in her life lately was based on doubt. Perhaps that was what brought Voldemort so many followers in the first place. Doubt in many, many things. Doubt in themselves and those that they trust (or don't trust, whichever). Doubt in their own reasons and if, in the end, they will have been doing the right or wrong thing all along.

Hermione mostly feared this.

Perhaps she'd been wrong all this time. Dumbledore could be just as manipulating as Voldemort himself. They were two of a kind, with the same goals, only different ways to reach those goals. So which path was the right one?

It made her head spin.

So much, actually, that she shook her head physically when she came back to Dumbledore's office thirty seconds later in the middle of an obviously practiced little speech of faith from the man himself.

He stopped talking. Probably for the best. He was starting to irritate Hermione.

"What's wrong, Hermione?"

My name's—

She didn't answer him.

"Fine." He muttered. "I can see that you are preoccupied. You are dismissed, just be careful, Hermione. Dear."

She lifted a confused eyebrow at him before standing up and leaving the office.

x-x-

Four months later her previous notions were nowhere in sight. At least not at that current moment.

Mostly this was because her tense mind didn't have any room for doubts in front of Jake Beeblebrock's home in downtown London. As Lucius had informed their little group, Jake was a highly acclaimed Ministry man in his late fourties. He had a family that he barely ever visited—he'd sent them off to live in a cute, country American home years ago, sufficiently getting rid of both their person and any bothers he could acquire from the lot. His career as the head of some pompous ministry branch that Hermione didn't much care about was more important to him than his family. That almost upset Hermione, seeing as she could relate, in a way. Her parents, in her later school years, had adopted the same attitude.

His "home" was nothing more than a Muggle-blocked tenant building some ump-teens levels tall. It was gray. At night, like now, it was black.

Hermione was feeling more depressed by the minute.

The group entered the building like a shadow. Over the last few years Voldemort's followers had risen from the retired jokes that they were in the beginning to completely efficient assassins. They were silent as they moved up to where they'd seen Jake Beeblebrock go after a long, difficult day of ordering underdogs around.

As they stepped over the threshold, hugging the walls with graceful ease, Hermione remembered the last time she'd been here. A different group had been there, excluding Lucius and Draco. Last time their intrusion had been halfway friendly. This time they were coming here to kill the man who had turned down the Dark Lord.

Voldemort had wanted him, but not enough to force him to join the Death Eaters' ranks. Much easier to just have the stupid man killed.

Ha. Stupid. Years ago Hermione would've denied Lord Voldemort faster than Jake Beeblebrock did. Yet still, she couldn't bring herself to think herself stupid as this man was. She had been foolish, yes, but not stupid.

Jake Beeblebrock's eyes spoke terror when he saw them. His home was neat and mature. Underneath that, however, Hermione could feel dank disuse of the place. She could see his want of comfort as they zeroed in on him. She wondered vaguely if he wanted his family now.

When people died, Hermione could see the visible loss of life. To her, the spell felt like it not only took its mark's life, but part of hers as well. To wield such power, one had to be willing to give something up. To wield a spell over life itself, one had to be willing to give part of their own life.

Perhaps Dark magic was only named so because it was the only magic where one had to give some form of payment to work it. She could see why Voldemort was so cold. What soul had been in his shell before was long gone with the payment of dark magic. Payment of one's heart and soul would seem so trivial in the light of power and glory.

Jake's eyes were empty now. The color was still there, but dimmed somehow. Hermione had done that to him. She felt self-loathing just looking at him. It was the first time she'd killed someone. She was the thief of souls.

x-x-

Vincent's home was not too large or too rich. It felt cold, like the air-conditioned aura that one would get in the middle of a large bank. It did not feel welcome, but at least Hermione didn't feel like running away every time she entered the place.

Vincent was off somewhere. He'd said that he would be with Goyle. Hermione didn't know or care what he was doing in his spare time. It gave her time alone.

It was official. She was in the inner circle. She was in the same position that Snape had been in, before he'd been killed. She could only hope that she wouldn't end up with the same fate tied to her wrist.

Voldemort had told her that Jake's death had been the last death. He wanted his inner circle to be tough. Apparently the ability to kill without flinching was proof enough.

Hermione smiled to herself as she entered the library. If the ability to kill proved toughness, then Harry was a kitten.

At least he had been last time Hermione saw him.

She wondered how he was doing.

Thinking about him, she quietly trudged over to the bookcases in the small library. They were neat and orderly. Hermione had been the one to set them up. Vincent hated to read. Hermione smiled again as she feathered small fingers over the spines.

She stopped and looked at those fingers. They weren't hers. She choked back a noise of despair when she realized that she couldn't remember what her own fingers looked like.