In those early years of the War, Selena Selwyn was kept far from the frontlines, hidden away behind the scenes in laboratories, infirmaries and libraries, never sent out on raids or allowed to participate in battles against the forces of the Order of the Phoenix or the Aurors of the Ministry of Magic. In part this was due to the preference of Pyrrhus, who despite everything had come to care enough for his mistress and minion to desire not to see her harmed in battle, for he knew she had little training in combat. Perhaps more importantly, under the circumstances, the Dark Lord was not confident enough in her loyalty to his cause to risk ordering her to do anything for which she had no personal motives. He was quite aware that Selena's primary loyalty was only to herself, with Pyrrhus as a distant second due to her perceived debts to him. She served Lord Voldemort for her own gains, and out of respect for Pyrrhus's wishes for her to do so, not out of any true loyalty to the wizard or cause she had nominally sworn herself to.
Despite having no role in the active fighting, Selena was well aware that the conflict between the Death Eaters and the rest of the wizarding world was escalating quickly. More Death Eaters returned wounded and defeated from raids, and she and Severus were called in ever more frequently to aid in the infirmary at Headquarters. Having had few positive interactions with the majority of the Death Eater combatants in the past, Selena found it fairly effortless to remain detached and calm in this work, regardless of the severity of the injuries that many of their patients were brought in with. Despite the ready availability of trained and certified healers at St. Mungo's Hospital, no Death Eater returning from an unsuccessful battle would risk being seen with identifiably suspicious injuries that could only come from serious dueling or fights to the death, and it became not uncommon for the makeshift infirmary at the Dark Lord's headquarters to have its fair share of visitors after a planned offensive.
That is not to imply that all injuries were on the part of the Death Eaters, or all the victories on the side of the Light, for such a claim could hardly be further from the truth. The two sides were often evenly matched, and as time went on the followers of the Dark Lord were more and more often on the winning side of their skirmishes. But, as Selena would soon learn quite personally, the price of battle is often steep and deadly, even for those who stood on the winning side. That fateful evening began in the potions laboratory, like many others, with Selena never knowing just what was about to occur. She was aware that a mission was planned for that night, but one in which neither she nor Pyrrhus were intended to take part. There were other fighters, other healers, and even Lord Voldemort at that time did not believe in working his servants to death. It was as the young woman was gathering her things to return to Pyrrhus's manor that she received the summons, the mournful tolling of the bell that served usually to summon her to the infirmary on business, and now, unbeknownst to her, summoned Selena to identify the mangled body of her lover.
Looking back on the moment later, with the unnatural detachment of a forcibly administered calming draught, Selena would find herself surprised at how much it had hurt, how painful it was been to see the man who she would never before have claimed to love, who she had only barely come to think of as truly being a friend, lying so cold and still and covered in blood. She had not allowed herself to cry when her mother died, had been unable to shed a single tear at the death of her Uncle Jack or the funeral pyre of the Old Master, the people who she had known and loved, who had raised her as a child. But somehow, in the inscrutable way that emotion so often seems to work, it was the death of Pyrrhus that broke her. He was the boy who had protected her from the bullies he had placed in her path, the young man who had saved her from the troubles he himself had caused, directly or indirectly, the one who had promised help and guidance, but always at a price, the man she had tied herself to absolutely, and who had now let her down once more, leaving her alone, more alone than ever before. For Pyrrhus, Selena wept.
It was one more loss on top of so many others that had made up her tragic life, but one whose ramifications would echo through the rest of Selena's tale no less than any of the other deaths in her past, and far more than some. Some changes came quickly after Pyrrhus's death, while others would take longer to make themselves known, but each one was a reminder of how fragile a pillar had supported Selena's life, for the promises of a dead man hold little strength, and protection and prestige dissipate quickly when a protector and liege are lost. If the young woman had been taken to introspection in that moment, she might have seen how her history was repeating itself once more, dooming her to play out the same mistakes, the same tragedies, time and time again. But Selena was trapped in her own cycle of despair, unable to break out and break away, and it would be herself who would continue to suffer for her own choices and those made by the masters she would continue to find herself bound to.
For though Pyrrhus was dead, Selena was left not as masterless as she had been upon the death of her teacher in the Alleys, for her oath to Lord Voldemort was still intact. Though she had sworn herself as a Death Eater at Pyrrhus's request, the Dark Lord considered it no less binding than the vows made by any of his other servants. Indeed, though he had not plotted or caused the death of Pyrrhus, Voldemort was not entirely upset that the loss of one of his great fighters had brought with it a silver lining in the form of the undivided loyalty of Selena Selwyn, and the ability to expand her duties as one of his Death Eaters. Though the Dark Lord briefly considered training the young woman as a dueler, a fighter to replace the one he had lost, he ultimately chose to find another use for her. He was more certain of her allegiance now, knowing full well that there was nothing and no one else to whom she could still be connected, and had assumed that she would desire to get back at the ones who had killed her patron. But another task arose that was deemed more suitable for her temperament, and it was to spying that Selena's efforts were soon ordered.
It was to the Lower Alleys that Voldemort was turning his gaze, sending his newest spy back to the rundown streets and narrow twisting ways of her childhood, with orders to keep an eye on the opinions of the masses, and for anyone who might be of use as a recruit or an informant. It was not a job that other Death Eaters could do, coming primarily from higher class pureblood families as they did. In Diagon Alley they were inconspicuous, and many had spent their fair share of time skulking about in Knockturn, but any farther in they would be obvious as outsiders. And if there was anything that the denizens of the Lower Alleys distrusted more than each other, it was outsiders coming down to snoop about and try to get into places where they didn't belong.
But Selena, born and raised in the Alleys, though now having spent several years away from her early home, knew her way around. She knew who belonged, who didn't, who to ask for information and who to avoid at all costs. Years away had built her skills and her confidence well beyond their levels when she had been last dragged out of the Alleys en route to Azkaban Prison. She was no longer the Old Master's little lost apprentice, but an adult witch with a rather more frightening master than the grumpy old man who had peddled magical trinkets and spells, though she never openly spoke of the Dark Lord who she now served. But she listened, and watched, and quietly spread the word of a powerful wizard who aimed to help the downtrodden, common wizards of the Alleys get back on their feet and find their place in the new, better society of the future. Selena believed none of the rhetoric she was relaying, had no reason to expect Voldemort to bring deliverance to the people of the Alleys, but she cared little for them or their fates, these people who had cast her aside and done nothing to help her when she had turned to them for aid. In her view, they more than deserved whatever ill effects might come from them believing the words the Dark Lord had placed in her mouth. None of them mattered, no more than she did.
Author's Note: Apologies for the slightly delayed posting (and for the even more depressing chapter than usual...) As always, thank you for reading, and let me know what you think in the comments! Next chapter will reintroduce Severus Snape into the story, and take us through to the end of the first wizarding war.