"Later. Right now, we pack. We're going to Hawkspoint. I've got to take over for Dugg."


"Pardon?" Draco sounds like he doesn't believe me. I let go of him, and start getting things together. "We?"


"Yeah."


"Why me?"


"Because I don't know how long I'm going to be gone. I might be there for weeks." I don't want to be that long away from him. "I'd miss you."


"So you're taking me along with you?


"Yeah." But he seems pleased. He gets his things, and within an hour we're standing inside a small stone room, dusting soot off of ourselves.


"Welcome sir!" A black coated man says to me, bowing. Death eaters are bowing to me. This is a Good Thing. Draco's shown to our room-I guess it's a small set of rooms that's right off the main fortress-and I'm taken out to the grounds to meet with Dugg.


"Ron?" He asks. He's an older man, with grey hair and beard, a wide face and an even wider smile. He looks kind of like Santa Claus.


"Crispin?" I try using his first name. He's the same rank as me.


"Good to see you, boy, and very glad. I'd much rather be out fighting then trying to lead a village!"


"Then I'll leave the fighting to you, if you leave the leading to me!" We clasp hands, and share a laugh, and it feels good. We're just two officers meeting in a slow point of war. Soldiers are milling about, and there are some tents set up. I figure I need to find out the exact situation.


"So what do we have here?"


"The village fell yesterday. All of our prisoners are in these tents. The town is warded, so no one but officials can come or go."


"Have you separated the civilian prisoners from the military prisoners?" Dugg looks at me like I've got a hippogriff growing out of my head.


"No..."


"That's your first move. Release the civilian prisoners."


"Release them? We were going to kill them all..."


"No." I shake my head, and there's that little suspicious look. I sigh. "If we start killing civilians, we're going to have a problem." Draco's wandered out by now, and is raising his eyebrow at me. "That's not the sort of message we want to send. We have to let these people know we're here for their sake. This is a military occupation, not a genocide."


"I see." He nods, but I can tell he doesn't. But he lets the civilians go, and I have the military prisoners brought to my office. I have an office. With a desk and a bookcase and some chairs. And I'm told that the Lord will be coming along as well.


"You're in trouble now." Draco tells me, flopping down in a chair. I'm pointedly ignoring the prisoners. They're bound hand and foot, by magic and by rope. And I know a handful of them. Personally, not just as familiar faces. And they're staring daggers at me.


"No I'm not." I sigh. "Look, Hawkspoint is now part of...the Lord's regime. His empire. Whatever the hell you want to call it. These people are now his subjects. What the hell would be the point of killing them?"


Draco looks at me blankly. He gets me, he just doesn't want to admit it. Now I have the military prisoners to deal with. I'm not going to have around and wait for Voldemort. I turn, not acknowledging those that I know.


"I think you all know why you're here." I tell them, clasping my hands behind my back and pacing before them. "You have two choices. You can join the Lord's Empire"-yeah, that's officially what I'm going to call it-"or you can become a prisoner of war. And trust me, being a prisoner of war is not a fun thing. I've been there, I know. You talk to rats and you drink your own piss. Now you don't have to decide immediately, you've got...oh, I'll give you all in hour."


"Sir? Ron?" I hear my name and I jog to the door.


"Yeah?"


"Our lord is here."


"Send him in." I step back, I'm sort of proud. Voldemort comes in, and I can hear a collective growl behind me.


"Crispin tells me you protested the destruction of prisoners?" There's no suspicion, more amusements.


"Civilians, yes."


"May I ask why?"


"Beacause you need them." I shrug. "You can kill everyone, but then where would you be? Ruling over empty fields. You need people to...to plant the crops, and raise the cows, and harvest the food and kill the cows and prepare your food and build the houses and each the children...you need subjects, my lord, in order to *be* a lord." I don't even realize what I've just called him. But he does, and that's when I realize. Aw, fuck.


"You are a very wise young man." He puts his hand on my shoulder and he smiles warmly at me, and I can hear a hiss. I know who it is. "And what of these? Why should they not all be killed?"


"Only the dangerous ones. I've given them a choice. They can join, or they can remain captives. The one's who are a liability, we kill. The ones who may be of use, we keep."


"And they told me I had made a mistake." He squeezes my shoulder, and I realize it makes me feel really good. He thinks I've done good. He's proud of me. This is sort of sick. "I believe, my boy, you are in need of a reward."


"A reward?" Well, this is a good thing.


"Choose one of these prisoners. You need a personal servant."


Oh. My. God. I get a personal servant. And I can pick ay of these men and women bound before me.
Voldemort doesn't realize what he's done.


"Thank you, my lord!" There are those two little words again. Man, do I hate them. But he just smiles, pats my shoulder again, and takes his leave. Telling me e trusts me implicitly, and all that, and no one better say anything against me. Then I turn to the prisoners.


"You heard the man." I grin, and I don't think it's a happy one. I look at one man, sort of down the line. Thick black hair, hateful black eyes, strong features and broad shoulders. He looks like he wants to spit on me, and I don't blame him. But he has to realize this is how I can help them. All of them, including him. But he doesn't see a savior, he only sees a traitor. And he's a man who knows a lot about traitors.


Untying his binds, I crook my finger at Sirius.


"I want you."