Sirius wasn't sure where exactly the Dark Lord's headquarters were; Bella escorted him to the meeting via side-along apparition. He vaguely recalled she had done the same the night before, though he had gotten too drunk with Rabastan afterward to remember very well. Everyone inside except the Dark Lord himself wore masks, most also remained hooded, and there was a ward on the place that distorted and stripped the resonance from human speech, making individual voices hard to recognize. The headquarters itself was dark and rich, decorated in black and deep greens primarily. All the windows were shuttered. They had apparated into a covered drive and immediately hustled into the main entrance with no chance to examine the exterior. It was altogether a surreal sensory experience.

Being the very most junior member around, Sirius' presence at the meeting was brief and entirely silent. He took the opportunity to study the Dark Lord in more detail than he had the night before. The man was not what he had remembered from ten years ago at Grimmauld before the official start of the war. A decade ago, Lord Voldemort had still been strikingly handsome, with a well-proportioned facial structure and thick, dark hair. Back then, the only evidence of his nature had been his aura of menace, terribly frightening to eight-year-old Sirius. What made him strikingly not handsome now was thinness and pallor. He was easily recognizable as the same person, but he looked sick and starved, and like he hadn't seen the sun in years. And his eyes looked bloody, both whites and irises. They could put a picture of him in introductory Defense textbooks as a cautionary tale: here's what happens to you when you use too much Dark magic, kids. His ill appearance was deceiving though; he moved with grace and deadly precision.

Besides Bella and the Dark Lord, he figured out Lucius was also there pretty quickly, as the subject at hand was the strategy for anti-muggle violence. It must have been Lucius describing the details of both yesterday's venture and those of the previous few weeks. Voldemort was pleased at "our youngest member's affinity for the blasting curse" and said that would have many uses. He was also pleased at someone else's description of the Ministry's reaction to the attack, for the Obliviators still weren't done over twenty-four hours later. Sirius concluded the Death Eater speaking about it actually worked in the Ministry. He observed the man, trying to identify any recognizable features around the mask, but unhappily decided he would remain a mystery unless someone carelessly mentioned his name, which didn't seem likely. The Dark Lord directed Lucius ("my slippery friend") to increase and if possible prolong his attacks to further bog down the Ministry. Sirius ("our young associate") was officially assigned to his team for the time being.

When that meeting was concluded, Bella plunked him down in an outer chamber and told him to stay put until she came for him, then went back into the conference room. He sat by a wall and watched, and listened. For hours. He only heard a single new name. Of the dozens of people passing by, he counted a grand total of ten distinct women, though it was hard to tell everyone's genders behind the masks and mostly nondescript black robes. He did notice that contrary to popular belief, most of the Death Eaters were obviously poor. The silks, satins, and velvets favored by the likes of Bella and Lucius were startlingly rare. He counted only a dozen people who were definitively upper class. No, most robes were unadorned cotton or linen, and though all of them were black, most of them were at least a little faded, and some were positively threadbare. Severus Snape would have blended right in with this crowd, he realized guiltily. He wondered how many people were actually here by choice and how many had been pressed into it, either with blackmail like him or through lack of other prospects, like Snape? Poverty wasn't something Sirius really understood all that well. He had never met a poor person before going to Hogwarts.

Three hours in, he asked someone randomly where to find the bathroom and took the opportunity to snoop around a little. Besides the foyer, main parlor, and large meeting room, he passed a library, a mess hall, a staircase, a closed door that smelled like blood and offal, and a closed door that smelled like it probably led to a potions lab. The bathroom had stalls, so this most likely wasn't a private mansion originally, unless someone had bothered with rather extensive remodeling. Even with magic, plumbing was a pain; one had only to read the section on late nineteenth century renovations in Hogwarts: A History to appreciate that. More likely this building had always been commercial, with charms and quality décor disguising the fact.

Four hours in, he was certain the Death Eaters operated as a series of semi-independent cells, each with some kind of dedicated purpose. Like Lucius' muggle-baiting operation. He really didn't witness much cross-talk between different groups except for a few obviously senior and mostly rather rich members, like Bella. It was a sensible and effective security measure, Sirius thought unhappily. It definitely limited his usefulness as a spy. He would have to get really close to the Dark Lord in order to get a view of the organization as a whole.

That was a problem for another time, obviously. It might even be an insurmountable problem, he conceded. For now, he would bide in Lucius' group and try to do as little damage as possible, even though it seemed his blasting curses were likely to feature prominently for the foreseeable future. Maybe forewarned, the Order could do something to get at least some of the muggles out of the area ahead of time and arrive sooner. How Moody and Dumbledore might accomplish that without making it immediately obvious there was a leak, he had no idea, but it wasn't his problem what the Order decided to do with the information he sent them. He was ready to die for the greater good if they decided to sacrifice him.

He did make a mental note to ask Moody's advice on whether there was a different kind of cell he should try to get into, eventually. It was early days, but he knew Bella wanted him to be "happy" in her twisted understanding of the word. If he expressed an interest in something besides muggle-baiting, she might just be willing to arrange a transfer.


May was monotonous. Once or twice per week, he left the house to join Lucius' missions. He caused a fortune in property damage but managed not to kill any muggles that he knew of, instead employing the same petrification and shielding trick over and over when there was no one to look over his shoulder. The rest of the time, he continued his intensive study of the Dark Arts. He practiced dueling with either Bella or Rodolphus most nights. Bella declared he was improving, but still not ready to take on aurors or the Order because he wasn't "fodder." He took that to mean rather a lot of other new recruits were dispensable in her view. Dumbledore's comment that the Dark Lord had duelists aplenty and was looking for something different in him came back to haunt his dreams as his sleeping mind ruminated on what exactly Bella and the Dark Lord were looking for.

May 23rd was a day like any other, until the evening.

"Dolohov got both of them! Can you believe it?! An operation it took weeks for me to plan, and where I was present the whole time, he just ups and turns the Avada Kedavra on both of them!" Sirius heard Bella's furious shouting through the floor. He couldn't hear Rodolphus' more measured response. "No I'm not happy to just count the mission as a success, Dolph! I had the meat torn from my mouth! And no, they wouldn't have got away while I was playing with them. It took all five of us, but we had them both in hand. We could have trussed them up and taken them to the Dark Lord if we wanted... It was too fast, Dolph. I don't like it when it's so fast." She was getting quieter as Rodolphus expertly soothed her temper. Sirius stood up and walked casually out of the room.

He picked up the conversation again as he descended the steps. "Not even a single Crucio. A quick death is too good for blood traitors like that."

"There's more where they came from, Bella. Didn't you tell me that whole family would have to go?"

Bella giggled. He could just glimpse her in the parlor now, sitting on the loveseat and tossing her head. "I did. And it's a big family. You're right about that, I'll get another chance, to do it right." Sirius' shoe scuffed against the tiles in the hall at the most inopportune time as she finished speaking. She craned her neck around to look at him. He kept walking, not too fast, not too slow. He did not want to look like a furtive eavesdropper. Fortunately, she smiled rather than accused him of spying. "Ah, Sirius. There's my sympathetic ear!" She stretched out a hand towards him and gestured for him to take the chair opposite her loveseat, near the empty hearth.

"Good evening, Bella, you're back late."

She pouted. "I would have been back later, if someone hadn't decided to steal my fun."

Sirius raised an eyebrow. "Anyone I know? Do I need to go avenge you?"

Bella cackled delightedly.

Rodolphus snickered and said, "I don't think you're quite ready to take on Antonin Dolohov, lad." Sirius filed the name away.

Sirius grinned and pulled out a cigarette. He had first tried smoking to piss off his parents in Grimmauld place. It hadn't become a habit until he moved in with Bella, though. "I'll hold his arms, and you punch," he offered jokingly.

Surprised at the unusual muggle phrase, both Bella and Rodolphus laughed again. "That's it! That's it exactly. See, Dolph, I knew Sirius would understand."

"What do I understand?" Sirius mumbled whilst lighting up. He couldn't do a full Incendio wandlessly, but he could summon sparks and heat from his fingers. The trick was not taking too long and burning himself.

Bella leaned forwards. "I had two - two mind you - Order members cornered tonight. They were trapped, wandless, blind, and bleeding, under four stacked anti-apparition wards and a Petrificus. They was no way for them to escape, and they knew it. They were mine. And then Dolohov just... killed them. No fanfare. No artistry. No nothing. Just," she snapped her fingers, "gone." She pulled a face at him. "I wasn't asking for much. We were all tired. I wasn't going to make everybody sit through a Transmogrifian." She giggled again, eyeing him knowingly. "But don't you think there was time for one little Cruciatus?"

"You mean one each," Sirius commented without thinking.

Bella whooped. Apparently, that had been a brilliant thing to say. "Oh, Siri, I wish I had you on my team already."

"Yeah?"

"You'd love it. I know you would. And maybe I could finally get rid of Dolohov as my muscle man on high-risk targets."

Sirius shrugged, feigning disinterest. "I'm pretty happy with Lucius so far."

"Boom!" Rodolphus interjected, helpfully. Sirius blew a smoke ring at him.

Bella scoffed. "Random muggles. Meaningless! Come on, Siri, tell me why was Snape the one you kept going after at Hogwarts?"

"Because he's a slimy git."

"Because you know him, and hate him, and he gave as good as he got," she corrected. "And that made it more fun. Trust me, Sirius, it's much, much more fun when you're going after someone who really deserves it, not just ignorant, terrified muggles who can't fight back."

Sirius offered a well-practiced smile. "I did like it when he fought back."

"Which was every time," Rodolphus pointed out idly.

"Yeah."

"Like I said, you'd have fun with me," Bella said.

"Do you only go after Order members?" Sirius asked curiously.

"No, no. That was just today. My prey is blood traitors." Her lips twisted. "The hypocrites are worse than the half-bloods they spawn."

"You think so?"

"Of course! Giving away their bloodlines for nothing, to nothing, risking squib children." She shuddered. "I think I'd cut out my womb. There are decent half-bloods who know their place and wouldn't dare even look at one of the Sacred Twenty-Eight without permission. They marry amongst themselves for at least three generations before trying to move up and are willing to work to better themselves and make up for their impurity, rather than drag the rest of us down to their level." She grinned slyly and said brightly, "Like Snape!" Sirius mock-glared at her. "You're too easy to needle," she told him.

"Not true. If I were, we'd be dueling right now, and every time you brought him up. Also, you're sadly mistaken if you think Snivelly humbly averted his eyes every time I hexed him." Sirius stretched in the chair and yawned.

"Hmm. Getting late for little school boys. Bella and Dolph should send you off to bed, eh?" He flicked a wandless stinging hex at her nose. She yelped, then grinned. "Aw, Dolph, look how our boy's growing up."

"Does a fellow proud," Rodolphus agreed. He wasn't looking at Sirius though. He leaned over to kiss Bella's reddening nose, one hand slipping around her waist.

"Ah! Hands! Naughty thing!" Bella told him playfully.

Sirius mimed retching. "Right. I'm going to bed." He stubbed the cigarette into the silver ashtray the house elf had recently placed on the side table in this room and strolled out of the room.

"...be your Dark Lord tonight?" he heard Rodolphus murmuring as he walked down the hall.

"Mm... show me the glamour... oh, those eyes are exquisite work, Dolph. They're his!"

Merlin, Sirius might actually vomit now. He walked faster. When he got back to his room, he opened the watch. He frowned. Moody was gone. He set the watch down and started getting ready for bed. He took a long time in the shower; he felt the need to be extra clean after that conversation. When he returned to the bedroom, Moody was back. He brought the watch close to his face. "Were you here earlier?" he whispered. The little Moody shook his head. He continued his report. "Bella was out late. She and four other Death Eaters killed two Order members. Dolohov cast the killing curses. Bella called them blood traitors and said all the people she targets are blood traitors. Also, I think she and possibly Rodolphus are sexually attracted to the Dark Lord. I need to double-soundproof my room and wash my brain."


Sirius brandished his wand, and five whole houses blasted apart. Debris pelted against the Death Eaters' shields briefly.

"Nice one, Sirius!" Goyle called to him from across the street.

Sirius grinned lazily at him and mock bowed. "You too...Gaius. Very colorful." Goyle was currently engaged in arson; the house in front of him was burning black, silver, and green. Sirius just couldn't shake the habit of thinking of this group by their last names and kept tripping over their given names, except for Lucius who he knew rather better. They were all men who had been sixth and seventh years when he started at Hogwarts. Before Hogwarts, he knew each of them as "Heir to the House of X."

Sirius' smile slipped slightly as he noticed a horrible choking and gagging sound. He shouldn't have noticed such a small noise in the general cacophony of roaring fires and occasional explosions around him, except that his ears were primed for this, the sound he least wanted to hear. He looked around and spotted a muggle lying in the street in a growing pool of blood, just beyond the furthest house Sirius had blasted. Several fragments of wood and metal were poking out of her body... product of Sirius' blasting curse without a doubt.

Sirius couldn't ignore it. He couldn't. He forced his face to remain neutral and his gait to remain slow and calm as he walked towards the woman. He looked down at her quivering body. The blood was mostly coming from a gaping slash in the side of her neck. She looked up at him with no comprehension. There was terror, but it was not for him. He slowly crouched down next to her. He looked into her eyes, but then decided he really didn't want to know her thoughts. "Imperio. Tell me your name."

"Marcia Edgewood," she said effortfully, then coughed. A spray of her blood stained his robes and hands.

"Why do you care?" Lucius asked curiously from beside him. Sirius had not noticed his approach.

He shrugged. "I like to know their names." He glanced up. Lucius had temporarily vanished his mask in order to talk unencumbered. He was watching Marcia twitch with a look of disgust, until he turned his steely eyes towards Sirius. Sirius grinned reflexively. "The ones I know I killed," he clarified.

Lucius raised his eyebrows. "Do you keep a list?"

Sirius started rattling off muggle names. "Ivan Butler, Louis Leonard, Merle Kim, Wilma Kim, Yvette Adams, Ernest Smith, Doreen Smith, Christie Smith, Chase Smith, Jimmy Houston, Faith Arnold..." Lucius kept staring with ever-widening eyes, and he trailed off. He realized Lucius' question had been facetious. He also realized he'd have to remember all the names he'd just made up in case anyone else asked. He suddenly wished he had access to a muggle newspaper, for studying the death notices and obituaries. His cover could unravel so fast if Lucius ever looked into it.

"Why?"

Sirius smiled again, stalling while trying to come up with an explanation. By the time he answered, his smile must surely have changed from friendly to creepy simply based on duration. "Because it's different from other animals. Other animals can't tell me their names, and I... want them, I guess."

The lingering vague disgust in Lucius' expression briefly intensified, and then abruptly vanished. Sirius was relieved. That probably meant Lucius found the whole thing disturbing rather than suspicious but decided not to betray his reaction on his face. Sirius did not look down at Marcia again. He climbed to his feet, turned towards the next intact house, and smashed it to smithereens, praying no more muggles would get hit with debris today, hoping he looked just as insane as Bella at the moment.

He was exceedingly drunk again when he confessed the murder of Marcia Edgewood to Moody's portrait late that evening. Hers was the only new name, at least.


It came as a shock to Sirius the day Richard Avery joined the group at Malfoy Manor, ready to head out to another muggle town. It shouldn't have. The Hogwarts term had concluded over a week ago. James, Remus, Peter, Lily, Marlene... they were all graduates now. Somehow, the event had slipped right by him. But now, here was Avery, all done with his regular N.E.W.T.s and ready to commence his final, unofficial examination, followed by induction into the Death Eaters.

Avery stood with him awkwardly in Lucius' formal parlor. Lucius himself and the other older men were distracted with some gossip about Amycus' sister Alecto, which neither Sirius nor Avery was particularly interested in. Alecto was ten years older than them, and she wasn't pretty. Sirius was bored, but he could think of nothing to say to Avery. He had always disliked the Slytherin boy on principle, but had never really known much about him apart from being one of many generic, snotty, rude, Snape's friends that he occasionally hexed. Or Snape's acquaintance rather. He doubted that friendship would be lasting, with Snape still barred from joining the Death Eaters. "You... look good," Avery ventured.

Sirius looked at him and raised his eyebrows.

Avery flushed. He appeared nervous. "You look, um, confident."

Sirius smirked. "You don't."

Avery straightened slightly and frowned. "Yes, well, unlike some, I had to wait until after Hogwarts to start killing people."

His bravado would fool no one. He sounded positively terrified. Sirius lowered his voice. "Is today your first time?" he asked.

"Screw you, Black," he whispered furiously.

"Oy, same team now. And I didn't even manage to kill your mate Snivelly. I'm not asking to mess with you." Why the bloody hell was he asking, then? Avery didn't answer back, but he found himself talking again, still quietly. "It's different from animals." They know their names. "It's different from just fighting. It's nothing like the duels we got into at school."

Avery was growing paler. "If it's so different, how'd you transition so seamlessly? You were a Gryff four months ago, but Mum said you've got your tattoo, back in April."

"I may not have gotten the training you Snakes do over the holidays, but I worked with Cousin Bella a lot, as soon as Dumbledore kicked me out. She's... amazing." Avery shivered. Amazing wasn't the word most people chose to describe Bella, but when it came to the Dark Arts and psychopathy, it was dead accurate. "The first person I killed wasn't on a raid or anything. It was a muggle Bella brought back for me to practice on."

"Wish I had that. I'm almost pissing myself here, Black."

Sirius actually felt sorry for him. Avery was even younger than him, hadn't even turned eighteen yet. "Did you tell Lucius that?"

"Hell no!"

"Maybe you should." He didn't know what kind of a relationship Avery had with Lucius, but it couldn't be that bad. They were quasi-cousins, like most purebloods. Lucius would have been his prefect back in first year. Lucius wasn't actually a sadist, unlike Bella. And even Bella knew better than to make a seventeen-year-old murder someone on day one.

"No, I can't do that. I'm supposed to- to prove myself today."

"No, you're supposed to get some experience and have fun," Sirius said, echoing Bella's instructions to him on his first mission. Then he bit his tongue. Had he seriously just told a nervous Avery to "have fun" murdering muggles? What was wrong with him? He was getting way too deep into his cover.

Didn't work anyway. If anything, Avery looked even more spooked. "You're so... nonchalant."

"Good, confident, and now nonchalant. Your compliments are going downhill." He shrugged. "Honestly, you might not even end up killing someone today. That's not really the point. The point is to make a mess for the Obliviators."

"Oh. Good. I mean, good to know..." He really did look relieved to hear that.

It made Sirius angry, and unspeakably sad to realize that all the students at Hogwarts who blustered about joining the war... most likely none of them really wanted to, on either side. They were all being pulled in, by their families, by a sense of duty, or anger, or simply drafted for their potential. It wasn't right, or fair, and there was no way out. Merlin, he hoped James and the others had come to their senses since he was expelled and didn't try to join either the Ministry forces or the Order of the Phoenix. He even hoped Snape got out. Really, no one deserved to be forced into this.

A burst of laughter announced the end of the Alecto anecdote, finally. Lucius ushered them all into the lunch room and walked through his usual spiel in slightly more detail for Avery's benefit. Sirius tuned it out, concentrating on his food, until a sudden thought occurred to him. Audacious, yes, but good. Marauders good, in fact. When Lucius got to the part of where they would actually be going today, he piped up, "Hey, can I throw the dart this time?"

Lucius chuckled, as did Crabbe and Goyle (Sirius still couldn't bring himself to call them by their first names, not in his head). "Sure, if it makes you happy." He passed the dart across the table, and Sirius stood to take aim at the map on the wall. He'd only thrown darts twice before, when he and James had snuck out to a muggle pub. They were both terrible at it. He hefted the dart, carefully feeling its weight so he could remember it later, then threw it without really caring where it landed. Not today.

Amycus leaned over to read the place name. "Looks like we're going to Ripley."

Author's note: there's not a lot of information on most of the Death Eaters' actual ages, or a lot of their first names. I did find a continuity error from a prior chapter having to do with the B-tier Death Eaters, which is now corrected. Avery is definitely Snape-vintage, and a little spineless from what we know in the books. I'm going to try to continue with Saturday updates for now.