This story is part of a trilogy of sorts. I plan to make two more stories with two other of my favorite HP couples(Harry/Hermione and Ron/Pansy) about what happens during the horcrux hunt for each group and then merge them together on another story.
This part focuses on what goes on at Hogwarts between Ginny and Draco while Snape is Headmaster and the Carrow siblings terrorize the students.
It was five minutes to 8 o'clock and Ginny ran through the corridor on her way to the Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom to serve detention with the Carrows yet again. This was the third time this week and she was getting really tired of being punished for defending Harry and the Order. School had started three weeks ago and Ginny had already served 9 detentions with those horrible professors. Only Neville had served more than she having been in detention 12 times. He was more outspoken this year and defended the younger students from the Carrows, but these were sure ways to land him in detention.
In the past, detention was often thought of as a weak form of punishment by many students, unless of course, you had detention on the day of an important Quidditch match. However, now that Snape was Headmaster, he put the Carrow siblings, Amycus an Alecto, in charge of overseeing all detentions and those two had cruel ideas as to how detention should be served.
Ginny made it just on time and she noticed that Neville, Luna and many others of the older Gryffindor, Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw students were there as well. This meant that today's punishment would be a group punishment. Group punishments were the worst kind of punishment in Ginny's opinion as they tended to be spell practice for the Slytherins and usually involved the Unforgivable curses.
Amycus ordered the Slytherins to practice the Cruciatus curse and said that at the end of their lesson, he would give a proper demonstration of the curse on a special guest. Soon they were paired off and Ginny was stuck with Crabbe. He surprisingly excelled at dark spells, so anyone stuck with him delivering their punishment was sure to feel the full effects of the curse.
"Still haven't learned your lesson, Weasley?" Crabbe taunted before casting the first Cruciatus that made Ginny fall to her knees.
"It still surprises me that someone as dumb as you managed to learn that spell so quickly, Crabbe." Ginny jeered back trying to throw him off in attempts to receive milder curses. "It really is amazing that you work so well with dark magic if you can't even pass the easiest subject. I heard you got a T on your charms O.W.L."
Sure enough, the next spell was slightly milder. Crabbe tended let insults affect his spell work. Ginny learned this fact about the Slytherin from Neville. She and Neville tried to gather as much information on what each Slytherin's weakness was in order to help out the younger students who landed in detention and had to suffer through rounds of spell practice. So far they knew that insults, taunts or feigning indifference to the spells would lower the Slytherin's ability and they would not have to endure such hard punishment.
After an hour of detention, Amycus called the room to order. The Gryffindor, Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw students were tired and many sporting bruises. They, along with the Slytherins circled around the Carrows waiting for the next demonstration.
"If you all think that defying the Dark Lord's rule will not bring about any consequences, you are wrong," Amycus began while Alecto brought in a student from her brother's office, "You may still just be students here at Hogwarts but you must still follow his orders. Mr. Malfoy disobeyed the Dark Lord's direct orders last June and now you all get to see what happens to those who do not obey."
The Carrows took turns torturing Draco using all kinds of dark magic as well as the Cruciatus curse. They were ruthless and unrelenting until Draco finally begged them to stop.
"The Dark Lord wishes for all of you students to respect the rules of your new Headmaster. Let this be a lesson to any student who keeps disregarding school rules and keeps causing trouble," Alecto warned. "Now, go back to your dormitories."
Ginny lingered for a moment and noticed the look on Malfoy's face. His eyes showed the absolute pain he was in and Ginny didn't doubt that he was being punished this way on a regular basis. She held his gaze for a moment before looking away and exiting the room.
Neville and Luna were waiting for her outside. They waited until they were away from the DADA classroom before voicing their thoughts on tonight's events.
"Well, that was different. I guess even the mighty Slytherin isn't immune to punishment by the Carrows," Neville commented as the three made their way up the staircase towards their common rooms.
"It is cruel of them to punish him like that though. He could barely stand after all of their curses. Do you think it has anything to do with what happened at the Astronomy tower?" Luna wondered.
"Beats me. What do you think Gin?" Neville asked a distracted Ginny. She had barely been listening to the others conversation.
"Sorry, I wasn't paying attention. Listen, I'm really tired. Crabbe did a really good job with his wand work tonight. I'm going to go to bed early. Talk to you guys later." And with that she headed off to Gryffindor tower alone.
Later, as she was getting ready for bed, Ginny let her mind wander off to Malfoy again. She could not get the look on Malfoy's eyes out of her thoughts. Ginny did not know the full story of Malfoy's involvement in what happened at the Astronomy tower the night Dumbledore. Harry had said that he was supposed to have killed Dumbledore but Snape had taken care of that job himself. If the task was taken care of, she could not imagine why Malfoy was still being punished for this now. Her last thought before she drifted off to sleep was the look of fear and pain on Malfoy's eyes.