Author's note: Posted this on CaerAzkaban's Yahoo Group thingy earlier today, so if anyone from CaerAzkaban sees this, it's me (cj_jenny2003) so you don't have to try and inform me of plagarism if you weren't aware I was Lucillia. Got the e-mail address about a year before I made up my ffn penname. Now on with the story.

One of them died today. I honestly don't know how to feel about it. Part of me says I should feel guilty, seeing as I pushed him to his death as surely as if I had stood behind him at the edge of a cliff and gave him a nice shove.

My father used to say that there was nothing that could chain a wizard down so firmly as the bonds of obligation.

It was necessary though.

The reason I ended up in Gryffindor was because I value Bravery. Probably because there's so little of it in this world. So few people willing to die for their convictions if that is what it takes. Even Gryffindor itself was filled with those who would bow out in order to save their own skin, like clever little Peter who probably saw through me far better than any of my other friends. Peter who values Bravery because it is something he possesses very little of and desires a great deal more of.

But, I digress.

I've known ever since I was a small child that our society wouldn't change. Our customs, good, bad, and utterly rotten, were too firmly entrenched. Far too many of our kind were all too willing to unthinkingly follow the status quo, not doing anything to rock the boat. Far too few of our kind were willing to stand up for what was right, what needed to be done. Of those few, many of them would only go so far in their fight and no further, telling themselves that they'd "done all that they could" or that "it would be better to change the system from the inside".

The only way our society would ever change would be if it were smashed apart.

Even before the war had "officially" started in the Summer prior to my Fourth Year, I could see that Voldemort and his followers were the hammer that would do the job of smashing the wizarding world or at least the British part of it to smithereens so something completely new could be built. Problem was, back then, the Death Eaters' numbers were too few and the only reason they scored any victories at all was because far too many people were cowards that were too scared to fight despite the fact that they went armed every day.

The answer to bolstering Voldemort's ranks had started off as a hobby. It was all too easy to play the spoiled rich bully as I waited for someone to have the courage to stand up to me and rescue my victim from me and do all they could to stop me because it was the right thing to do. Even Sirius, a brave boy who had been raised with a twisted sense of what fun was, and Remus who was so glad to have "friends" that he didn't dare oppose them, and sometimes Peter who took shelter under Sirius' wing rather than risk becoming his target were taken in by me. Heck, even Lily, whom I love for her courage and her self-sacrificing nature, had even been taken in by my act and never saw through it, believing me to be a toerag when I was in actuality a monster.

I had always picked "acceptable" targets to be the victims of my little "hobby". The ones even the teachers would be hard-pressed to defend for various reasons, such as the fact that old instincts from their school days painted my targets as natural targets for such bullying, or because they came from a suspect family. These were the targets that would tell me whether the person defending the victim was doing it because it was right, or due to some other motive. Those who were defending these poor wretches out of anything other than kindness or a sense of justice never could resist sticking the knife in when they thought that no-one was looking.

It had been quite by accident that the solution of how to bolster Voldemort's ranks without joining his lunacy myself had come to me. Back in my First Year, I had started "pranking" a rather unattractive Slytherin Sixth-Year from a very minor pureblood family who'd had a great deal of difficulty making friends during the course of his years at Hogwarts. About the only people who would ever come to his defense after I had made it clear that I had teeth and that trying to defend my target would make them a target of myself and my pet Black who knew more curses than the sky had stars were the nutters in his house that were planning to join up with the latest Dark Lord to come down the pike when they graduated. By the time the poor bloke I'd later learn had spent his childhood rolling around in the dirt with his muggle neighbors had graduated at the end of my Second Year, he'd been so deeply indebted to Voldemort's wannabe followers for all the help he'd received that he'd had no choice but to join Voldemort's ranks alongside them. He was killed by an Auror two months later.

Like my father said, there's nothing that chains a wizard down so firmly as obligation.

It was almost disgusting how easily the teachers and the cowards that were called my peers at Hogwarts had let me funnel some of the most promising Slytherins in ages into Voldemort's ranks as well as a few Ravenclaws, a small brace of Hufflepuffs, and a smattering of individuals from even my own house. They just kept their hands off, their noses out, and provided a great deal of nervous laughter in the hopes that so long as they gave me what they thought I wanted and didn't try help my targets, they wouldn't become targets of my "pranking" themselves.

Those who know me, or at least think they do, would be surprised to learn that I hold no actual animosity towards Snape. Truth is, I pity the poor bastard whose true hardships are yet to come. I'd initially lost interest in him after I'd realized that he hadn't really meant ill by his not-so-brilliant remark on the train and was more of an anti-social loner with only one friend than a potential bully despite his obsession with Dark curses. Unfortunately, Snape turned out to be all too perfect for my plans. He was brilliant enough that he might rise high in Voldemort's ranks despite his blood, close enough to a muggleborn that he might come to hate all that Voldemort stood for considering it meant her death, and had a vindictive streak a mile wide that could easily be teased out of him if you but knew how.

People forget the long lull between our first fight and our second one, because what had happened after was years of all-out war. At least for Snape and my friends it was. Their memories tend to gloss over that long stretch of peace as they remember my initial dislike of Snape who'd seemed something of a berk on first meeting due to his upbringing and his social ineptness, and the later pattern we fell into with me and my friends attacking four on one, Snape, Lily, and sometimes Snape's wannabe Death Eater "friends" giving us as good as we gave, and me asking Lily out both because I knew it infuriated Snape and because I truly admired Lily.

For me, it wasn't war the way it was for the others, it was a herding act. A damned difficult one that was almost worse than herding cats. One wrong move, and the man I'm sure will destroy Voldemort if I'm not there to do so myself would be out of place and out of play. Snape's conversion had to be real, but that old resentment of Voldemort and the ilk who followed him that should blossom into an acid hate needed to remain lurking under the surface as well. As with far too many, the half-blooded Snape had proven in the end that he had indeed been wizard enough to be ensnared by bonds of obligation as I had hoped he'd be despite his rather muggle upbringing.

Thanks to my help herding talented individuals like Snape into his ranks, Voldemort has all of the forces he needs to win this war and take over this society that is full of cowards who are either too scared to fight or don't fight because they "don't want to get involved".

That is but phase one of my plan.

When Voldemort wins, all of those cowards who had stayed out of the fight will learn what it is to have the boot of Voldemort and his Death Eaters on their necks. They will know fear, they will know pain, they will know that they have only two options left: Rise up and fight, or Die.

That's when the fighting will truly begin. All of those cowards who holed themselves up and hid, all those cowards who remained "neutral" in hopes of surviving this latest mess will have no choice but to fight.

When the real fight begins, the second reason I've been funneling men to Voldemort will come into play. It is obligation and fear that hold a great many of Voldemort's followers to his side rather than any actual belief in his cause. As that muggle movie says however, Fear turns to Anger, Anger turns to Hate, Hatred leads to Suffering.

Something tells me that when these non-believers who are held by obligation finally reach their breaking point, all of the suffering will be Voldemort's.

Considering how far up on Voldemort's shit-list I am, there's good odds I won't see the day when my plans come to fruition. I'm not afraid though. I have always been willing to die for my cause and only hope that my death won't be wasted.

Snape will be my ace in the hole should I fall. Though he likes to play his cards very close to his vest, the bastard's predictable as hell as far as I'm concerned. He has a vindictive streak a mile wide that's nowhere near as well-hidden as it used to be, and unabashedly hates without reservation when he finds something to focus his hatred on. It's only a matter of time before Voldemort does something to fan that spark of hatred for him that is lurking within Snape into a raging inferno. Seeing as Snape almost always knows exactly where to stick the knife in to cause the most damage thanks to the years of training he'd underwent with the Marauders and I - not that he or my friends knew it was training - that hatred won't be an impotent one in the least.

Snape isn't a leader in the strictest sense. But, after causing a massive amount of destruction in the shadows, Snape would be sure to lead the charge against Voldemort in order to get a piece of him before anyone else can take their pound of flesh.

Once the fight is done and dusted, society will be in pieces like a vase shattered on the floor and there will be too few of our kind left to make a copy of it. Things will have to change. People will have to change along with them.

After seeing so much darkness in their lives, seeing how the old system nearly led to their complete destruction, and how the purebloods who had taken and held the reins of society for so long had proven to be a degenerate and murderous lot, the desire to see and do what is right should be strong in those who manage to survive the horror the way it had been in those poor sods who survived that Holocaust thing Lily told me about. People would vow that nothing like Voldemort would happen ever again, and take measures to prevent a war like the one we are only in the first part of from happening in future.

Part of me tells me I should feel guilty about what I've done, how I've led so many to their deaths, about how I turned a somewhat unpleasant boy who could've possibly reformed if given a half-decent chance into a weapon, but I'm not.

Not in the least.

Father said that nothing can chain a wizard down quite like obligation, and I'm obligated to see this through even if it means my death.