With my head held high, I walked away slowly, each footstep kicking up dirt. I would not be swayed.

I could hear Labella behind me, her shouts of my name mingled with sobs. They were not just for me. Both of us knew what would happen to her now that I hadn’t agreed. She was my best friend. We had known each other since we were three years old. And now I was sentencing her to death.

Still, I walked away.

I did not turn around. I knew what I would see. Labella, her long dark hair hanging down her back, one sleeve still rolled up to reveal a skull with a snake coming out of the mouth. Tears would be streaming out of her dark green eyes, her freckles standing out from her pale skin like ink. They always did, when she cried. I had never been the cause of it before, just the comforter, the shoulder that she cried on.

I had entered the forest now, and could no longer hear the sobs. My robes were splattered with dirt, and it only grew worse as I collapsed onto the ground and wrapped my arms around my legs. They wouldn’t start looking for me for a day or so. Not until Labella told them I had not accepted their offer. But they would look for me. I knew too much.

I could recall the offer perfectly. Labella and I were at her estate in the country, stopping by to check on the place after work ended. At twenty-four years old we were the youngest employees in the Department of Magical Catastrophes, and it had been a long day. I was expecting to have a Firewhisky and then Apparate back to my apartment in London. But that wasn’t the case.

Labella hadn’t gotten the Firewhisky. She hadn’t even gone to the cabinet where she kept it. She had just taken me to the library and sat me down across from her in a stiff wooden chair that I couldn’t get comfortable in.

“Maria,” she had said, leaning forward and looking right at me. Her black hair hung closely at the sides of her face. “You like this place, don’t you? You think it’s nice?” Was it just me, or did she look slightly crazed? I tossed the thought aside. We were both overworked, after all. She was just… tired.

“Sure,” I had replied, fidgeting a bit to find a place where ornamental pieces of wood weren’t poking into my back. My reddish-brown hair kept falling in front of my eyes, and I would have to push it back. “It’s great. You know I like to come.” I did, too. I used to spend the summer out there, when Labella and I were in school.

“You know I have it because I’m a Pureblood,” she said, her voice becoming higher, and I was surprised. Labella came from a rich Pureblood family, but she never brought it up. Was she acting nervous? She looked fragile, hunched over in her chair. Portraits of her ancestors lined the walls. They seemed to be staring at me.

“Yeah,” I said, a little uncomfortable. I was technically a half-blood- one of my grandparents had been Muggleborn. I could have gotten away with calling myself Pureblood, if I wanted to, but I never felt the need to lie about my heritage.

“Well what if I told you that you could have an estate just like this, you and your whole family?” She was watching me intently now, like a hawk watching its prey. I can’t say that I hated the idea. It just sounded too good to be true.

“It would be nice, I guess. But why? Is the Ministry having a ‘Win Your Own Estate’ contest?” I tried to be funny, but it went unnoticed. Labella just went on staring at me with her large green eyes. I wriggled in my seat, as much from her gaze as the chair itself.

“No,” she said, “you can have all this and more if you follow the Dark Lord.” And I swear, for the moment when she said his name her eyes glazed over, blank and glossy. She was like a sheep, without an intelligent thought. I leapt from the uncomfortable chair.

“You want me to become a Death Eater?” I was shocked. You-Know-Who had been the terror of the wizarding world for years now. He had killed everybody who had gotten in his way. Just this morning I had read about the Prewett family murder. And Labella wanted to join?

“Yes,” she had said, smiling at me.

“Why do you want to join those people?” Labella had always been caring and kind. How could she do this? “Remember the Prewetts? We went to school with some of them! Didn’t you read the paper? He did that!”

“I’ve already joined, Maria.” Labella’s voice was soft as she rolled up one sleeve to reveal a mark that I had only seen in photographs- most recently over the house of the Prewett family. My gasp was caught in my throat, choking me. “A man at work recruited me. He told me wonderful things! How the world would belong to witches and wizards, and nobody would stand in our way!” Her face had lit up as if by some otherworldly glow. “We are all-powerful. The Prewett family did not see this. I watched them as they were killed. The world is better without them, Maria.” How could she even say that? But they were not her words. They couldn’t be. Labella had rarely spoken anything she hadn’t heard from somebody else. Usually it was me she heard the words from.

“This is my first task, to recruit another member. You would be wonderful! So strong minded, so gifted in magic… You could go further than I ever could.” Of the two of us I had always been ahead, with Labella tagging along beside me. “You could do great things, Maria!”

The room seemed to be suffocating me, growing smaller and smaller until I was having trouble breathing. This couldn’t be happening, not to Labella, and definitely not to me. I had to get out of here. Maybe I was delusional. It couldn’t be real. It just couldn’t. Was it a joke? No, Labella had a terrible sense of humor. It was real; it was much too real…

I left the library and walked out of the house, going into the back where the forest was. Labella followed, and I turned to face her.

“No, Labella! No!” I stomped my foot for emphasis, and Labella’s face crumbled, her eyes beginning to leak tears.

“But Maria… if I fail…”

And that was when I turned and left, walking into the woods where I sat now.

Could I even consider becoming a Death Eater? Having the Dark Mark branded on my forearm and killing Muggles? Killing other wizards, people like me? The mere thought of it made me shudder.

But then… what about Labella? She was the follower, the girl who would tag along with me to the ends of the earth. Normally she wouldn’t have become a Death Eater without asking me, making sure I approved. If I wouldn’t do it, then she would have refused as well. Maybe she had found someone new to follow. Lately, I had been encouraging her to find her own way, to not always copy me. Was He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named her new leader? If so, then I knew from experience that she would never abandon him. She’d never abandoned me, after all. Even now she was inviting me to join her. And I had never let her be abandoned. I had always kept her close to me.

We’d been friends for so long. You-Know-Who would kill her if she reported failure. I glanced upwards, half-expecting to see the Dark Mark appear above the house. What would happen to Labella’s parents? Her little sister? They would be killed, of course. I had heard the stories of You-Know-Who’s cruelty to those who failed to do his bidding. And even if they weren’t dead, what would Labella’s death do to them? They would be shattered. Labella was their pride and joy, the light of their lives. Her little sister adored her and aimed to be like her in every way possible. And why wouldn’t she? Labella had always been a good person. But she was as impressionable as melted wax. She would believe anything. If the Death Eaters had really convinced her they were right, she would never turn back.

My vision was clouded by faces. The Prewetts swam before me, along with the hundreds of faceless victims of Death Eaters. They were replaced by Labella’s face, her eyes filled with tears. She seemed to be pleading with me. We had never done anything separately before. Even when we graduated Hogwarts we got a job at the same place. I knew she would have thrown herself in the face of Avada Kedavra to protect me.

Maybe in a war you couldn’t think of the big people. Maybe you just fought for what was yours, and what you knew. Maybe I had to stop thinking about the right side and not abandon my best friend, like she had never abandoned me. Maybe I had to protect what was mine.

I stood up and closed my eyes for a long moment, allowing the faces to clear from my vision. Then I turned and walked back towards Labella’s house, knowing what I had to do.