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Chapter 17

Voldemort begins marking his first followers. Rosier gets the Dark Mark. Mulciber. Two from Ravenclaw. The Slytherin common room shifts — the lines that Bellatrix predicted are now visible and real, and people are choosing. The marked ones look at Bellatrix differently now, waiting for her to follow. Voldemort sends a personal message — not threatening, almost courteous, which is somehow worse. He's patient. He thinks she's coming. This is the chapter where the shadow war stops being theoretical and becomes something they're standing in the middle of. Dark and tense. Balanced by a scene between Mia and Bellatrix that is just the two of them, private, the world pressing in and them choosing each other anyway.