I posted this a few years back and hadn't gotten around to, er, fleshing it out or completing it. Not sure how many chapters it'll be yet. Warning: it's more or less a smutty PWP featuring absolutely unredeemed Death Eaters, which is not my usual forte. There will be lots of naked folks, Voldemort being himself and doing Crucios, and so forth. The timeframe is just at the end of the First Wizarding War (so, 1981). Fancasts: Macnair-Joe Mangianello (as always!), Yaxley - Peter Mullan (as always!), Alecto - I'm in search of a good one, the cover image will do for now.

Without further ado, here is the new and (hopefully) improved version of…

MARKED FOR LIFE

Alecto Carrow had absolutely no intention of being late to her Death Eater initiation, so she Apparated to the side entrance of Malfoy Manor an hour and a half before she was expected. She did not inform her brother of this; she had been attempting to avoid him, which was much easier during the daytime.

The only other early arrival was Walden Macnair, who was seated on the last garden bench at the end of the long line of yew hedges, smoking his pipe. As it was late September, and the sun was beginning to dip below the horizon, the cold was causing the smoke to rise slowly above his head. It looked rather like a funeral pyre. Macnair was tall and muscular, and wore his black hair short, unlike most traditional wizards. He also sported a thin mustache, and, this evening, he was mostly unshaven. He wore a plain black robe and tall black boots, but he was not sporting the axe he sometimes had with him, the symbol of his Ministry job. Alecto was a bit intimidated by the fearsome wizard, as well as finding him attractive, although she would never publicly admit either.

"Good evening, Macnair," she said, and sat down next to him, wishing she had something to fiddle with other than her wand. She, too, was wearing a plain black robe, as she'd been instructed.

He turned, looked at her and smirked. "Hello, lass. Ready for yer initiation?"

"Of course!" she said, a bit too sharply, regretting her tone. She had no wish to insult him.

"Ye're nae ready," he replied, with a chuckle. "Ye probably havenae even considered who ye're gonna choose, have ye?"

She truly loathed being under-informed, but the Dark Lord hadn't given her any sort of details about what exactly the initiation involved, so the only thing she knew for certain was that she would be receiving his Dark Mark, an honour that she'd been craving for several years, ever since she'd left school. She scowled, and after a long while, during which Macnair continued puffing on his pipe, finally asked, "What do you mean, choose?"

Macnair chuckled again. "For yer consorts during the ceremony," he said.

Now she was even more annoyed but saw no purpose behind enraging a wizard who usually chose to use brute force prior to brandishing his wand. "What do you mean, Macnair? Just sodding spit it out, why don't you?"

"Yer brother didna tell ye?"

"He did not," she huffed. Not that I would have asked him, in any case, she thought.

"When witches are Marked, there's a ceremony," Macnair explained. "Ye choose two consorts to fuck during it. Some choose more..." he paused, looking directly at her. "Bellatrix," he added, nodding a bit when he saw her scowl even further.

"Not surprised," she grunted. "Bitch."

"I wasna happy about it," he said, quietly. "Shoulda refused her."

Alecto figured that since they now had commiserated, she might well confide in him further. She could always Obliviate him if necessary, it was one of her specialities. "So who do you think I should choose?" she asked.

"Figured ye'd choose yer brother first," Macnair replied, looking directly at her.

"No," she replied sharply. "He wants that, he's said as much when he drinks, but I'm not interested."

"Hmm," he grunted. "Guess I lost that bet, now." He puffed away on his pipe.

"You bloody bet on whether or not I was sleeping with my sodding brother?" Alecto said, standing up and reaching for her wand.

"Sit down, lassie," Macnair said, smiling a bit. "Roddy started it and the rest of us just joined in. Looks like ye'll prove them wrong tonight, won't ye?"

"I suppose," she said, slowly lowering her arm. "So, who should I choose, then?"

"Me, of course," he said. "I'll make it good for ye. And Yaxley, I've seen him lookin' at ye."

"And if he refuses, who then?"

"Depends on who ye want ta make jealous," Macnair said, winking at her. "Me Galleons are on Dolohov." He tapped his pipe with his wand to put it out and clean it, then sat it down on the bench.

"Stop bloody betting on who I'm fucking or want to fuck!" Alecto hissed, a bit louder than necessary.

Macnair waved his wand and put up a Silencing Spell. "Ye may as well try to get Dumbledore ta take the Mark. Ye're joining up with a bunch of Dark wizards, what did ye expect?"

"I expected to kill Muggles and Mudbloods to keep our world pure," Alecto said, "Not hang round a Quidditch changing room...or…or a Knockturn Alley brothel!" She paused and sat back down on the bench.

He turned toward her then and put one of his large hands under her chin, tipping it up so she was looking right into his bright blue eyes.

"Oh, we'll do that first part, lass, and I'll be happy to have ye do it with me," and he abruptly pulled her close and kissed her, thrusting his tongue immediately into her mouth, devouring her greedily. He tasted like tobacco and whisky, and she barely had time to register how very nice it felt before he pulled away. "But we celebrate after because there are other, more pleasurable ways to keep our world pure."

Infuriatingly, he then moved back to the other side of the bench, picked up his pipe, filled it with tobacco, relit it with the end of his wand, and began puffing away in silence.

Eventually, Alecto huffed, "You still haven't told me who the other wizard should be, in case Yaxley's not interested."

"Ah, Yax is interested, I'm pretty certain o'that. But it doesna have ta be a wizard, just a Marked Death Eater-ye could always choose Bellatrix, ye doona have ta like her to do what ye need ta do."

"Not bloody likely."

"Well, damn," he said. "Woulda been nice to watch. Well, next best thing is Lucius, then, I'd say," and he released a great puff of smoke from his pipe.

"Malfoy? Are you crazy? He'll definitely refuse me." She thought about the sullen Potions prodigy who'd left Hogwarts a year after her. "What about Snape?"

"Nay. I doona want to be any closer to that greasy bastard's todger than I have ta. Lucius knows all sorts o' pleasure spells, more than I do," Macnair said. "And Bellatrix didn't choose him."

"Why not?"

"Well, as I said, the wizards can refuse," he said. "She didna want to be humiliated in case he did that."

"Maybe I should choose Roddy, then," Alecto mused.

"If ye want to watch yer back at every meetin'," Macnair said. "Best choose with an eye to future alliances," he added.

"Well, who did you choose, then?" she asked.

"Didna have ta-just got me Mark, it's different for wizards."

"That's hardly..." she started to say "fair", but realized she would sound like a Hufflepuff, so she finished with..."er...well, I suppose it's the Master's choice."

"Aye," he said, as he tapped his pipe against the stone bench to empty its contents, then stowed it in his robe pocket, after which he withdrew his pocketwatch and consulted it. "We've still got an hour-we can go behind that hedge and I'll warm ye up a bit. Besides, me prick's hard and I need it sucked."

"I've-er...I've never..." Alecto blanched. She hadn't been expecting things to start so abruptly.

"Ye've never what? Ye've never sucked a prick? Or do ye mean ye've never been fucked?" Macnair looked incredulous.

"I wasn't interested in anyone at school, nor am I interested in my brother, as I just told you, thank you very much! So it's...just never happened," she said, looking down at her feet. She was more than a little mortified. Her parents had died early, too early to begin to broker a marriage contract for her, and she was rapidly approaching the age at which spinsters began carving out places for themselves on the proverbial shelf.

"Nae time like the present," he said, as he stood up. "I'll take care o' that little problem for ye." He extended his hand to her, and she took it; it was very warm. He pulled her toward a break in the hedge, and just as he started to wave his wand, most likely to put up a privacy barrier or somesuch, the pair heard the crunching sound of shoes on gravel, rapidly approaching. They both turned, wands in their hands. While the wards around Malfoy Manor were quite restrictive, one couldn't be too careful, especially these days with Aurors around every corner.

"What's going on there, Walden, were ye planning ta duel me?" Yaxley shouted, with a slight hint of amusement in his voice, as he dashed toward them, wand aloft. He stopped just before he reached the pair; his eyebrows rose just a bit, and then he bowed, reached for Alecto's hand, lifted it up, turned it over, and kissed her palm.

"Miss Carrow," he rumbled. "I hope ye weren't planning ta duel me either; there are better things we could all be doing."

Alecto could do nothing but blush bright red and mutter, "Wasn't planning to duel you, Mr. Yaxley." She glanced quickly at his face—he was mostly expressionless, as he usually was when she'd seen him in Knockturn Alley making visits to the various establishments, ostensibly as part of his Ministry position in the Improper Use of Magic Department. Considering his relative respectability, she'd been somewhat surprised when she discovered he was a Death Eater. As always, his greying blonde hair was pulled back in a braided queue. She realized that he was looking her over quite thoroughly, so, continuing to blush, she lowered her eyes down to his plain black robe, his pinstriped trousers, and the shiny tops of his shoes.

"That's good," he replied, as he slipped his wand back into its holster. "So," he turned to Macnair. "Have you asked her yet? Or did I perhaps interrupt ye pulling her back behind the hedgerow?" He raised his eyebrows again.

"I did, Corban, and I was doin' just that," Macnair replied with a short nod. "But ye know it's her choice, and she's not had any experience, if ye get me meaning…and we doona have much time out here."

"O'course," Yaxley replied. "So, Miss Carrow—or if I may be permitted to call ye Alecto, as I'm expectin' we'll be quite well acquainted very soon—what of it? It's better if ye choose us now, so ye won't be embarrassed in front of the Dark Lord. He doesna relish waiting much, ye see."

"Er," Alecto began. "Yes."

"A lass of few words," Yaxley replied. "There are times when I like that," he added. "Especially now." His wand was suddenly in his hand…how had he done that? Alecto thought. I must ask later. Still expressionless, he slowly trailed his wand down the front of her robe and muttered, "Sensus Incredibilis," a spell which she'd never previously heard, after which he repeated the action on himself. Meanwhile, Macnair had strode through the opening in the hedges and was beckoning them toward him. He'd conjured a blanket and put it on the ground, put up privacy and warming spells, and was shrugging out of his outer robe. Underneath it, he was wearing a linen shirt and a kilt.

Abruptly, the very air around them seemed to be pressing in on Alecto, but it didn't feel stifling; everything seemed more alive, the night sounds, albeit muffled by Macnair's spell, were somehow louder, and everything smelled good…the hedge, the grass, the lingering aroma of Macnair's pipe smoke, and some sort of heady aroma that she thought might be Yaxley's cologne.

AUTHOR's NOTES:
If you've read my other fics you will recognize Sensus Incredibilis, Accretio Voluptas, and Devestire as spells of my own creation. In the cid62-niverse, they are from The Slytherin Kama Sutra (wink-wink, nudge-nudge)