by Faith Accompli.
Notes; Characters either property of Rowling, younger bit-players with last names stolen from older students in the books, or very rarely mine. This story was originally written in 2002. Some things may not be hip to canon, y'know? No, I'm not changing Ginny's name. No, Snape is not the root of all evil, and this story is not HBP-compliant. Yes, I did read the books. kthx. Thank you very much to those of you who reviewed, both new readers and those who are back this second time around. And, muted colours - no, I have never written and I have never read Snape&Hermione with tantric sex. Sorry. It was just Ginny being sarky.
Ginny held a knife to his throat, hissing a request to him in his tongue, the tongue of snakes, with her hand shaking ever so slightly as she fought to keep the blade steady, her body branded with his teeth and claimed utterly by him. Her gaze was clear and he didn't doubt for a moment that she wouldn't cut, but... she had a newfound propensity for spilling blood, and she shivered once before forcing herself to stillness.
She had also said "Welcome back."
He nodded, reaching up to unlock the second manacle, stepping back a pace as she retracted the knife and stood on her own two feet, taking her hand to examine her chafed wrist. Catching her as her knees decided they weren't up to standing, halting her fall, he held her close as she quivered against him, her head resting on his chest. "Here," she hissed quietly, holding up the knife. "Take it."
He took the knife without comment, gathering her up into his arms with a rapid indrawing of breath at the heightened sensation of skin on skin, almost as intense as their tryst against the wall had been minutes before.
She didn't protest when he set her on the edge of the rack, her hands on her knees to try and minimise her shaking. She didn't speak. She watched instead, glanced around at the room she could see a little clearer now, two more of the lighting spells sliding back into place, she watched... and wondered.
Gathering up her somewhat damaged robes and spreading them over the bed of the rack, surreptitiously removing her wand to drop it on the floor, it was a simple matter for Tom to guide her into lying back, watching her stretch with a kittenlike mewl and a wince. She closed her eyes a moment, then looking up at him wide-eyed in some unreadable emotion when he tugged her left hand up above her head and wrapped the end of the rope attached to the wheel around her wrist twice, when he checked to make sure the wheel was locked so she couldn't slip free at any moment.
Moving around the other side to fasten her free wrist, his hand closing on empty air, he dragged his mind out of the gutter long enough to glare. Ginny wiggled her fingers at him in a flirtatious little wave as she waited patiently for him to finish tying her up. Snorting in something close to laughter at her acquiescence, he tied her hand back with extra care and went to the end of the rack, tying slender ankles down, one to each corner. Hopping lightly up beside the redhead and admiring his work, the way she lay there, taut, tense under his fingertips as he traced over her ribs, skin starting to flush again but still somewhat pale, Tom lowered his head to nip at the soft exposed skin, grinning inside when she arched up the half-inch she could manage, her body craving his touch almost as much as he desired to feel hers.
Her touch, her scent, her taste...all more real, more intense, than any of the interludes he'd had before being trapped within the diary. All of them, all were paling in comparison to what he shared with Ginny at that moment. There was the high probability that he enjoyed it so because it was in essence his first time again, because it had been so long, but there was a spark between them. A spark that he would be overjoyed to fan into a flame...
Glancing back to check that he had tied her firmly enough, seeing that despite her testing they held fast, he was almost gratified at the sweetly wicked smile she gave him, telling that she wanted more of him for all that her first experience had been a far cry from the average adolescent witch's fantasy.
Young Virginia was anything but average, more evidence to that fact gathering as he claimed her and she gasped, as he hissed gently that he would lead this dance, and she understood, the delicate nuances of Parseltongue translating perfectly in her mind, probably without her even aware that they had been using the language exclusively from the moment he had taken her. Sensation intensified tenfold, a glorious fire that raced through and through his nerves when she shifted her hips beneath him, learning quickly, her eyes tight shut as he kissed her neck, forcing himself not to bite, her rapturous moans giving hushed voice to her pleasure. One hand twitched above her as she smothered the urge to try and snap the ropes binding her, to have something, anything to hold on to. He understood that urge, had felt it when he was reborn, cast into flesh with a thousand new feelings, filled with the desire to have her--and he had given in.
"Think of this as an exercise in control." His words hadn't been intended aloud, but somehow they had come out, she had heard.
Her eyes opened with rich darkness overtaking the usual soft grey-blue to see him watching her, his hands heavy on her shoulders in warm contact as they moved, as he led her, drove her to pleasure with only undertones of agony burning through her, and her voice was rough as she fought to maintain composure and answer, "Controlling--you?"
Too cocky by half, and that was becoming a desirable trait in the pliant redhead beneath him, the girl who would bend but never break. She was warmer by far than she had been when he had first taken her into his arms, her warmth now stoking the fire within him, pushing him on to new heights, the domino effect falling into place and Ginny's responses, murmured words considered sacrilege or very rude in the greater part of the world, all her little movements sending him flying higher than ever before. For a moment he thought she was going to scream, but her eyes flashed and she bit his wrist viciously rather than give in to that, tasting his blood.
"If you're a screamer..." he offered chivalrously when her teeth released him, raising his hand to lick the hot blood that trickled free, capturing her mouth with a swift kiss.
"You first--" Ginny managed between gasps and moans that set a feverish pace for their dance through the flames of lust, proving herself a liar mere seconds later as the fire consumed them, mewling loud enough for echoes to resound throughout the dungeon, wrapping them in gossamer chain and binding them, the sound finally subsiding as he sighed, releasing her shoulders after pulling back a fraction, studying her contented expression with amusement as he considered taking up the knife again. His blood had been sweet, but hers was so much sweeter. Rich metal, like kissing Death's scythe and living on, soul-seared by the moment.
Before, he had entertained thoughts of disposing of her. He couldn't be sure if they had been completely serious, but now... she wanted him, at that moment wanted nothing else, and he loved it... Dangerous games, playing with fire, and burning would be so pleasant--he always had liked the pain.
Ginny froze under his comfortable weight, a shiver running down her spine. No realisation of great magnitude streaked through her mind, no 'dear God, what have I done?', the pleasant sting of light wounds inflicted that she knew would bother her a little come light of day not figuring into her higher mental processes, but instead a thought that went something like '...what's...crawling...on me?' "Tom?"
"Yessss?" he drawled out slowly, trailing a hand down her side thoughtfully.
"What's...holding me down? It feels weird..."
He looked over to her hands, automatic reply dying on his lips, his eyes widening in mild surprise. Craning her head back to see what he saw, Ginny gulped nervously. Snakes. Grey-brown and black, tongues out tasting the air, coiled around her arms.
"Down." Tom ordered them, and they obeyed, slowly freeing themselves from her wrists, from her ankles, slithering away and landing on the floor. "Nice work," he commented lightly to her, laughing when she hauled herself up on one elbow to gaze at him in shock. "You don't think I did that, do you?"
"I don't... my wand, it's not--and I didn't want--" she protested, denying instinctively that she did any such thing while a part of her traitorous mind noted that the ropes had--changed--at the exact moment she had... found relief. Wandless magic was usually the domain of children too young for wands, when their magical powers first surfaced, usually when under great stress or in times of emotion. Sex would just possibly qualify. "I didn't mean to."
"It's not a bad thing, my ophidian enchantress." He was tracing serpentine patterns over her hip now, a far-away look in his eyes. They cleared somewhat and he reached over her, fumbling for something at the side of the rack, drawing up the knife that had sent fear and hunger through her the moment she had seen it, silver and razor sharp, the handle cast all of a piece with the blade in the shape of a serpent, bronze adding a hint of colour to the delicately-defined scales and offsetting the emerald chips that formed eyes. Traced over her skin with it now, not so deep as to score more than a white line. Now he stared at her, mesmerising, and she nodded with a short gulp. Nervous anticipation raced in her blood, almost eager to be spilled again. He could heal any injuries he inflicted with a few simple words, any pain would be fleeting, transcendent and sickly beautiful.
With the first cut she gasped, sinking back with her hands beneath her head, keeping an eye out to follow his progress. The first started on her thigh and twisted up until it reached her hip, a delicate flick curving into a snake's head, the second cut snaking around the first, a double-helix in their bodies almost to the tips of their tails. At the third cut as blade pressed to flesh, she couldn't help squirming, her toes curling as she tried to relax back. The pain was excruciating, a pleasurable thrill following swiftly after, but the feelings--the intense concentration in Tom's eyes, the desire and the longing made her shiver inside. It was beautiful, blood welling up in the serpentine whorls and swoops as the third was added, and she licked her lips unconsciously. He looked to her in question, one eyebrow raised almost quizzically.
"It's...exquisite," she murmured after swallowing, glancing away under his further regard.
He smiled, tracing over the first cut with a fingertip, drawing away blood and holding it to her lips. Half-uncertain, growing rapidly less so, she licked. At her action, Tom smiled, shifting down to lap at the blood starting to streak down the side of her leg and hip, raising after a moment to kiss her. She almost wished Aura and Catherine could see, what with their talk after lights out of what they did with boys, and how they laughed at her behind her back for not having 'gone all the way', but they could never know. Would never know. If they only knew what she did, she thought when Tom returned to slicing delicate patterns in soft skin, as they slumbered peacefully tucked into their beds like good little girls. If only the world could know...she was Witch, she was powerful, in her mind--for a short time, as she had climaxed--she had held the answers to everything. She was blood and spirit, giver of life burned into flesh, party to his dark seduction. And it was their secret.
The light was brighter when she opened her eyes, early-morning light, which might mean...
Snapping awake with blinding clarity, sitting bolt-upright with a twinging ache and the arm that had been thrown lightly over her breasts sometime while she slept sliding down to her lap along with three snakes that had crawled over them for warmth, Ginny cursed aloud before shaking Tom gently by the shoulder. "What time is it?"
He answered without so much as opening his eyes, muttering a "Seven twenty," and trying to pull her back down with him, under the fluffy duvet he had transfigured of her robes, into the nest of serpents. Every snake in the castle had probably crawled in somehow, twenty, maybe thirty--the way they coiled could have made her off in her estimate by some number. Most of them had curled about Tom, less about her, although she thought she recognised one completely black individual that fell from her neck as having been an innocent length of rope the night before.
"I gotta go! Slytherins crawl into breakfast starting at eight, and once that starts their common room'll probably have someone in it throughout! If I'm not up there by then I'll be stuck here for the day."
"Abandoning me so soon?"
"Food. Drink. Possibly clothes--all useful things. If you'd rather wait 'til midnight..." she trailed off, rubbing her sore wrist and deliberately ignoring the streaks of dried blood over her hip and stomach before continuing, "...I'd rather not. Ron and Hermione have been watching me too much lately, if I'm not there they might ask questions that are best avoided. This way they see and don't talk."
"Mmm. Yes. Go. Can you get back unseen?" Tom looked up at her, eyes shining in anticipation.
"I think so." She was still mulling over that plan in the back of her mind, but when she prodded it thoughtfully, it snapped back at her with a feeling of optimism. That done, she was about to start moving when Tom's hand ran over her leg, sending a shiver down her spine and making her entertain the idea of lingering until the witching hour next struck. Mere moments later his hand reappeared from under the covers, an adder no more than eight inches long held lightly, which he passed to her. Calmly accepting it with the realisation that the snake had been coiled around her knee, Ginny smiled slightly when he ordered it to ensure she could find her way back and told him "Two hours. Three at most. If I don't return by eleven, send out a search party."
"I will." With those final words Tom drifted back to sleep, leaving her only to brush a light kiss to his forehead and slip away, gathering her clothes and finding very little that was wearable without the application of mending charms which she tried at once. To no avail was her small repertoire, quickly exhausted, and she had no desire to wake Tom again for the purpose of stealing back her duvet-transfigured robes, so that left her standing in her knickers and necklace with a tiny snake curled around her neck.
A tapestry of a serpent and a raven locked in killing embrace caught in her peripheral vision from where it hung on the far wall and she swiped at it quickly after dropping her wand by Tom, shaking it to clear at least seven hundred years' worth of dust from the soft wool. It proved sufficient to cover her from chest to knees, and while she wouldn't make it to Gryffindor without unnecessary notice, Tom had said they were under Slytherin...
"Pst, Em." Emeryth ignored the quiet voice the minute it took for her to realise it wasn't her dorm's token early-riser Lucrezia, because Luc always hit the shower before she considered herself fit for human company, and she hadn't heard the water running. Her voice was far higher, too, this voice sounded like Ginny. That was ridiculous, though, there was no reason or way Ginny could be here that early when she was in the sanctuary of her bed. Not without--well, she knew nothing like that had happened.
She peeked out from under the blankets and winced. It was Weasley, standing there holding her curtains open and letting the dim grey light through from the circle of enchanted ceiling set in stone above the beds. Her early-morning visitor was also not wearing much in the way of clothes, holding up what looked like a dark towel with her hair tumbling down over her shoulders. Not a way anyone would want to be caught in the Slytherin dormitories. Reaching quickly before any of her dorm-mates could notice the lion in the serpents' lair, she yanked Ginny onto her bed and closed the curtains firmly, casting Confuto to obscure noise and Lumos with her wand before she took the time to inquire "What the fuck are you doing here?"
The little yelp that Ginny gave as she hit the bed didn't escape her notice.
Ginny wrapped what turned out to be a tapestry more firmly about herself, seeming hesitant to speak until she managed "Um. I was...I was with someone, but they're asleep now, and my clothes are torn up..."
"With someone." She'd crept down to do a Slytherin, and lost her clothes--and she was lowering the tapestry, shaking her hair back, to reveal an impressive-looking set of teeth marks set in pale skin. "Unholy fuck."
"Three times." Ginny muttered under her breath, tugging the cover back up. "So I came to you. Thought you might loan me something more substantial so I can get back to my dorm."
Putting a hand to her head and falling back into her pillows with a moan, Emeryth nodded and sat up again after a minute or two. "Right. No worries." Getting up and slipping through the bed curtains to leave Ginny there, she searched the wardrobe for something suitable, waving a morning greeting to Julia and Pru as they followed Eithne off to breakfast leaving the room deserted but for her. She added her own green-tinted black weekend robes to the underthings, shirts and long skirts, then settled on semi-formal robes of black with green velvet trim for her Gryffindor friend. They were just a little too long for her as yet, one of those purchases her mother had insisted on getting slightly oversized 'to grow into'. They would pass.
Returning to her bed and dumping the armload of clothes on top of it, she quickly sorted them into two piles and pushed one to Ginny, shrugging her pyjama top off and switching it with the plain black shirt, sneaking a sideways glance at the other girl while Ginny grabbed a similar shirt out of the clothes she had been given and dropped the tapestry, displaying fresh-looking cuts and dried blood streaking from knee to navel all over her left side in addition to that over her chest and shoulders from mouth-inflicted injuries. "...saint merde. Abstergo."
A soft whirlwind of cold water droplets swirled around Ginny's skin twice, washing away the blood and setting her shivering, arms crossed over her chest until she looked down at Tom's knifework of earlier that morning, saw the fresh blood seeping up slowly from the unhealed wounds. She'd been too carried away after he'd finished to ask him to heal her, and when she'd awoken it had seemed low on the list of priorities--it should have scabbed over already, but it hadn't--maybe wouldn't, of its own accord. Emeryth was watching her strangely as she ran a thumb pad over one of the cuts, sucking it contemplatively, and she felt sheepish at the other girl's gaze. "It--tastes good. Try it." Emeryth looked uncertain, but bowed her head and licked along another cut, causing her to tense uncertainly. That shouldn't have felt like that, shouldn't have stirred desires in her that Tom had brought to light the night before, but the action ran fire through her nerves again, made her want to do exactly as a random Ravenclaw had told her the other day after the prefects' meeting--get screwed.
"Not bad." Emeryth admitted, sitting back to wriggle out of silk pyjama bottoms and swap them for a long black velvet skirt, indicating to the clothes Ginny now held with little or no motion to put them on. "C'mon, get dressed. I think we should get something to fix your bleeding, it's not exactly discreet."
She nodded quickly, pulling the shirt on and following that with the red-black silk skirt that the Slytherin had no problems with loaning, nor, from Emeryth's flip of the hand, with getting blood on. "I don't want to see Pomfrey, she'll have questions."
"Fine. I'll get a healing potion from Snape."
Ginny stared at Emeryth in wide-eyed horror. "That's not better!"
Snorting sardonically as she pulled her robes on and swatted the bed curtains aside, getting to her feet with a not-uncharacteristic eye roll, she took a few steps to the expanse of bare wall between her wardrobe and Julia Trucido's bed, glancing at both hands before settling on the right, balling it into a fist and slamming it into the wall. A resounding curse of "Fuck!" almost vibrated the stone of the dungeon room, Emeryth drawing her hand back as soon as she could consciously move it back to examine, deciding that the dribbling blood and exposed flesh between grazed skin was sufficient to not require a second hit. "Said--I'd go. Might not give it to you anyway, won't refuse me."
Rising quickly, borrowed robes in place and feet slipped into grey soft-soled shark slippers with bead teeth that lay at the foot of Emeryth's bed, Ginny was about to both protest the actions Emeryth had taken and thank her, when they were interrupted by the bathroom door opening and a blonde girl glancing out.
"'Ryth, what have you d...I'm not even going to ask what she's doing here in your clothes, am I?"
"No." Emeryth answered cheerfully. "Thanks, Luc. Appreciated--we're off now."
"You know you're bleeding, right?" the blonde asked as Emeryth winked and dragged Ginny out into the hall with her unhurt hand, towing her towards the Slytherin common room. "Right."
"One question," Emeryth asked abruptly, her gaze flickering between Ginny and the floor. "Was it worth it?"
Ginny sighed as they wandered purposefully Professor Snape's office beside the main Potions classroom. "Oh, yeah."
"Good. Otherwise I'd have marched you up to Snape and made you tell him yourself--and you walk the walk of the freshly fucked, you couldn't lie about it successfully."
"You wouldn't!" She could only yelp as Emeryth winked and pushed her into hiding in a deep-set doorway to a storage closet, almost wide enough to pass for a proper alcove, carrying on past the two remaining doors it took to reach Snape's office. She heard a brisk knock and the door opening half a minute later, Professor Snape's voice holding while not a warm undertone, at least a cool one instead of the ice prevalent in his classes. "It's early, Zabini, I trust you've a good r...dark gods, what did you do to your hand?" Something akin to concern was audible from the Head of Slytherin now--and wouldn't her brother just die laughing at that? Or possibly he'd just run into another rant about favouritism...
"Tried to hit Nott. He sidestepped too fast. Fist, wall. Wall, fist. Pain, much of it."
"And you opted not to go to Pomfrey because...?"
"She's a nosy bitch?" Emeryth tried after a moment's thought, drawing a chuckle from Snape.
"Fair enough. Get in here." The door closed heavily behind Emeryth, leaving Ginny alone with her musings and the young adder now coiled under her robes happily, tongue flicking out to taste her shoulder now and then.
"Sit." Professor Snape led Emeryth to take the chair in front of the desk, glancing at her knuckles before he strode to the wall behind and unlocked a small cupboard with matched snakes entwined on the door, withdrawing a medium-sized capped ampoule with a golden liquid in it. Emeryth looked at it dubiously. Considering the vial for half a moment and deciding it would be the best for the wound, making a mental note to inform Flitwick it was time to read more of the Brothers Grimm works to Fawkes and harvest the bird's tears, Snape moved back to lean on the side of his desk, arms crossed. "If I were to say that I think your injury was related in no way to an interaction with Mr. Nott, and suggest that I might inquire further information of him, what would you say?"
Emeryth froze in her seat, slowly raising her eyes to meet Snape's dark gaze. "I would say that you can question Theo to your heart's content, he will verify my story."
Nott would lie for her, she meant. He knew it, and was quite well aware she wouldn't think it could slip by him. It verged on amusing, the intricate power-plays and unwritten treaties that ran rampant in his house, so complex that even Hufflepuff and Gryffindor teachers--were they to hear of them--would be unable to untangle it to make sense. And it was first-nature to his snakes. The other houses could keep their bravery and loyalty, cunning and the ability to use what little brain one was granted was a far more useful skill.
"One mouthful. Eat afterwards. Drink up." He gave her the vial with no further questioning as to just what had really driven her to fracturing her hand, and she volunteered no more information, looking askance at him before raising it to her lips with a muttered 'thank you', draining a good third of the contents and handing him back the vial without another word, turning and fleeing.
Emeryth bolted through the door that opened easily at a yank, trying simultaneously to neither swallow any more than she already had, or start coughing and gagging, subsequently followed by throwing up or snorting the potion out through her nose. Ginny remained exactly where she'd left her, looking up in alarm before recognition showed in her expression. That look quickly turned to one of shock when Emeryth grabbed Ginny by the front of her robes and hauled the taller girl down the two inches it required for her to reach Ginny's lips, which opened after not even half a moment. The stray thought of 'You little witch!' crossed her mind briefly, and returned in force when the potion had gone, but the tongue had not. Aside from the nauseating taste of diluted phoenix tears mixed with belladonna, aconite, boneset and mandrake--and pennyroyal to prevent the emetic properties of boneset from being truly effective--the sensation was pleasant if a little disturbing, quite enjoyable if one let oneself get carried away and didn't react adversely to Ginny's hands moving to the small of one's back, around one's neck...something was definitely wrong there, even for someone that went both ways. Ginny had just left someone else, one of her own housemates, and was here with her now--
Opening her eyes and pulling back with some hesitation, Emeryth was just stepping free of Ginny's arms in time to see Pansy staggering by on her way to breakfast. Oh, this boded well. And Ginny'd just come from an assignation that morning, which meant that someone at the Slytherin table was going to be thrilled to death with her.
Resting her almost-healed hand on her forehead with a heavy sigh, Emeryth glanced through slitted eyes to see Ginny looking just as confused as she felt, and shook her head. "Ew. Gryffindor-spit. C'mon, let's get to breakfast. Need something to wash the revolting taste out of my mouth."
Ginny's eyes narrowed a second before she realised just what level her friend was on and wrinkled her nose in mock-disgust. "Oh, you think you have problems? I kissed a snake. Bloody revolting, that was. Poison."
"Far worse from this side of the fence, I assure you. Still, you probably won't live through it." They hurried quickly towards the hall, hoping to arrive before or coinciding with Pansy in hopes of stopping the girl from spreading what would be a particularly juicy piece of gossip during this time of dormancy in the so-called 'war' and subsequent lack of interestingly gory outside news owing in no small part to Fudge's prevaricating and Voldemort's willingness to let the minister dig his own grave and half of Europe's besides. "You going to tell me who did you?" Emeryth asked casually, taking Ginny's hand in her own after they had bumped into each other three times and loosely entwining their fingers in a gesture reminiscent of when they would have been made to hold hands with siblings before they could cross the road near school, despite the only traffic liable to be out being the Knight Bus and maybe a handful of wandering winged pigs that had lost the will to fly, having to walk home instead. "C'mon, Weasley, if it was that good you've gotta rave a bit."
"He's not at breakfast if that's what's troubling you," Ginny responded briefly as they entered the hall on the precise angle that could only have brought them there had they both been in the dungeons immediately prior to breakfast. Realisation of that fact hit her a split-second later as she glanced about and saw the back of her brother's head where he sat at the Gryffindor table, saw Neville's eyes meet hers, and she continued after Emeryth to the Slytherin table, where Em, and to a lesser extent she, received a number of curious or dirty looks of the had the wearer asking for photos just two minutes after they found out. "...lie for me?" she asked in a hushed undertone moments later, uncertain just what Emeryth would be lying about, uncertain what she would be lying about other than to conceal her abrupt appearance amongst the snakes, but Hermione had just looked in her direction, which meant Ron was going to look any minute, which sunk her prospects of slinking away down to mine-shaft level. She could almost feel his prickly concern, his worry, and it annoyed her.
"Did Ginny come down early?" Ron frowned, turning to Hermione. "Y'were in the common room half an hour before I came down, did you see her?"
Hermione shook her head, indicating the negative. "She wasn't there when I arrived." Glancing around the table, her eyes lit on Sulven MacCready after a moment's search. "Sulven! Ginny--what time did she get up? Or is her lazy bum still in bed?"
Sulven, a blonde fifth-year with grey-green eyes and a perpetually startled smile, looked up from her cereal to answer chirpily, "Nope. She was gone when we got up at seven, didn't see her at all. Bed was slept in, though."
Hermione thanked her and turned back to Ron. "No idea where she could be. Maybe just early flying?"
"Maybe." Ron spooned up more cereal and crunched noisily for a minute. "I don't like it. I'm worried..."
"D'you think she's in trouble?"
"I dunno. I just have a feeling. Not trouble, but--something's up."
"She's been a bit odd for the last month or two, Ron. It's all of a sudden now that she's really got problems?" Harry leaned over the table from where he sat beside a concerned-looking Neville. "Don't worry, she's probably in the library again like a little Hermione, you know how her marks've gone up with the way almost every professor here's been asking you why can't you be more like your sister and apply yourself."
"Ah, shut up," Ron threatened his friend with a croissant unenthusiastically before ripping half of it off in one bite.
"We can go and check when we've done eating if you want," Harry suggested nonchalantly, taking another piece of toast and slathering jam on it.
Ron nodded, patting Hermione's hand under the table consolingly to soothe her rude muttering at the comparison. "Sounds good to me."
Only a few minutes had passed when Neville assumed the most curious expression. Hermione was looking up to ask Harry if he would pass the marmalade, turned to see what made Neville go so blank, and followed his line of sight. Ginny was entering the hall, robes of black with dark green velvet trim that were definitely not her own adorning her instead of her usual weekend attire of Muggle jeans and a sweater, one hand clasping that of the younger Zabini girl. "Ginny's here," she managed to say after a moment, Ron looking around just in time to spot his sister on the far side of the Slytherin table, where she was responding to comments with two-fingered salutes, naughty words, and the occasional smirk.
Malfoy nodded at his sister with a look that their mum would've poked his eyes out for, but Ginny waved a hand for him to take it away, and at another comment, this time from Parkinson, tucked an arm around the little Zabini girl's waist to pull her close and make what was definitely a rude remark to Pansy Pug-Face. Pansy took no offence, shrugging with a little smile of her own and jerking a thumb towards Malfoy, casually sitting on his lap with one eyebrow raised inquisitively.
That was enough, he was getting up, going over and--
Hermione's hand was on his knee, gentle pressure enough to keep him sitting unless he'd prefer to risk hurting her in an attempt to get over to Ginny. "She'll be here in a minute, interrogate quietly. House pride, Ron."
Ginny didn't look as if she was in any trouble other than that of consorting with Slytherins, but Hermione was wrong about her being there in a minute. Draco had waved a hand at the table, inviting Ginny to sit with them, only one sly glance over letting him know that Draco was well aware he watched, and Ginny had shaken her head. Gazed over aimlessly, her eyes seeing right through them without the faintest flicker of recognition, turned back to Zabini and whispered something.
The Slytherin nodded, taking a seat and flinging out her hand in a grand gesture for Ginny to catch and bow low over, exactly what she did then obscured from Ron's vision by her hair and the human mountain range of Crabbe and Goyle sitting in his line of sight, straightening and tousling Zabini's shorter hair with a laugh before she walked swiftly, self-consciously, out of the hall again towards the stairs.
He rose quickly, brushing Hermione's hand off gently and heading after when he was cut off, delayed the moment it took for Ginny to disappear by Zabini's older sister marching across from the Ravenclaw table to Slytherin's, intercepting him and the both of them doing the 'I'll go this way--oh, you'll go this way--no, I will--stop moving!' dance before Blaise snarled something and pushed past, reaching her sister and dragging her up by the scruff of her robes.
"I don't even want to know what you were doing with Weasley that Pans would catch you snogging in the corridors, but you're coming with me now and we're washing that filthy mouth out with wound-cleaning potion," the elder Zabini's voice carried far enough for all who had heard the rumours--everyone as far as Ravenclaw, the next table by Slytherin--to hear as she towed her sister toward the main doors and outside.
"Viridian's Vicious?" Emeryth could be heard to ask by those students at the far ends of the tables.
"You think you're getting vodka after that? Dream on."
Casting an evil look over the entirety of House Slytherin with another glare in the direction the Zabini siblings had departed for, Ron navigated his way through a quartet of Hufflepuffs and sprinted up the stairs after his own wayward sister.
Twenty minutes later he remained completely unable to set eyes on her, the Gryffindor common room empty of all but cats and the singed and sooty pair of first-years Timothy Spinnet and Charlotte Johnson playing Exploding Snap who had claimed to see Ginny enter a little earlier, but that she might have left again while they were engrossed in playing. Charlotte had gone into the girls' dormitories to check if Ginny were there, reporting back that there was no such beast inhabiting the dorms, and he had left at a reasonably fast pace, closing the portrait firmly behind him and stopping to think as a breeze rippled past him.
Zabini, she'd know. She was too friendly with his sister, especially in light of what had gone whispered around the hall that day, had been far too friendly ever since Ginny's second year, and Ginny--shy, lonely, not part of any small group of her own peers in Gryffindor, a little afraid after her experiences of her first year--she hadn't possessed the sense to tell the Slytherin where to get off. He hadn't paid as much attention to his sister as he could have; Percy was still there to be Brother Know It All, Ron was just the youngest brother, he and Hermione had been caught up in the worry about Harry's now-cleared godfather coming back to finish Harry off, and now he regretted not paying enough attention to Ginny so as to be able to veto her choice of friends. She'd always been close to him, always listened to him.
Zabini had been dragged outside, he remembered as he reached ground floor, pushing his way out through the doors and seeing Zabini the elder coming up the snow-covered stairs from around the castle on his right side. She passed him without comment, shaking her head and muttering imprecations that he didn't want to hear well enough to understand, and he carried on in the direction she had come from. A heavy scent of noxious smoke reached him before he got to a tangle of briars, narrowly avoiding the malicious swipes of all but one spray of thorns and green leaves, he let out a triumphant "Ah-ha!" at the sight of his secondary quarry sitting peacefully on a stone bench, no signs of the chillier winter weather in evidence as Emeryth sat smoking whatever was giving off the scent that made him feel almost queasy, a pint-bottle of green glass uncapped and half-empty beside her.
"Ah-ha, Weasel?" Emeryth prompted, exhaling a cloud of white smoke with a curious gleam in her eyes.
"You. What have you done with my sister?"
"Would've thought it was perfectly obvious." Taking a swig from the bottle and giving him a bitterly cheerful smile, the Slytherin tilted her head and answered his question, "Your sister and I have a torrid, kinky sexual relationship which we consummated last night. And this morning. Over and over again."
Ron could feel his cheeks burning as he searched for words, something that didn't sound quite so insipid or laughable as 'Leave my sister alone, you snaky whore!', settling for a string of dire imprecations that would have had his mother washing his mouth out with wound-cleaning potion, the real stuff, along with words to the effect of Zabini being a lying bitch.
"Fuck, but you Gryffindors are gullible." The redhead girl shook her head, assuming a look of innocence. "We were working on the Commoneo potion assignment...memory, you know? It's somewhat volatile before the Murtlap slime goes in, it exploded over us, your sister needed something to wear that wasn't going to turn her purple and make her hallucinate, so she borrowed some of my clothes 'til she could change. She's probably in the library now going over where we screwed up."
Ron nodded and turned on his heel to walk away.
"And I swear, we only kissed the once or twice!" Emeryth called after him, laughing quietly at how swiftly his spine straightened and he twitched, fighting the urge to respond before he left. "Pissant."
At least she had some self-control.
It had taken Ginny only a few minutes to run upstairs to the dormitory aided by the energising effects of the healing potion once the nausea had been pushed aside, the moving staircases not buggerising about and moving the wrong way while she was in flight. Entering the common room, she breezed past Timothy and Charlotte engrossed in Exploding Snap, taking the stairs to the sixth-year boys' dormitory two and three at a time, brushing the door open and entering without worry of being caught by the occupants. Dean and Seamus had been talking with Dean's sister further down the Gryffindor table, Ron, Harry and Neville had all been sitting together, and despite Ron's look she when she had been conversing with Slytherins, she thought she had at least five minutes to find what she came for.
"If I were an invisibility cloak, where would I be?" she thought aloud before answering herself sarcastically, "Invisible, you fool."
The first logical place to look was in Harry's trunk, so she bypassed that in favour of the wardrobe. It was so obviously the place to keep a cloak irregardless of the type that almost anyone looking would skip it. The only problem she found, as she started fumbling around the clothes hanging up, was that it was indeed invisible. If she had an invisibility cloak, she'd pin a little note on it along the lines of 'here, moron!' for when it wasn't in use, and stash it properly. Under the stone floor wasn't a possibility, it could only be in the room unless Harry was carrying it with him, and it hadn't looked like it at breakfast, the cloak always made rather an obtrusive bulge no matter where one stuffed it.
After another moment of flailing into the emptiness, her fingers brushed over something that felt like velvet, and she caught it after two attempts, carefully pulling it free from the unobtrusive nail it was hung from at the top of the wardrobe. Swirling it around to catch a glimpse of the dusty-hued lining and tug it on, pulling the hood up to obscure her face and shaking out the folds until it swept to the ground, covering her completely, she then closed the wardrobe doors and glanced around the room. Tom needed clothes, and she'd have to steal some from either Ron or Dean, the only two sufficiently tall that their trousers would be long enough. Dean or Ron, Dean or Ron... Ron's taste was haphazard at best. Dean had nice clothes, his mother bought them instead of letting him have free choice in the matter, his height advantage of an inch on Ron would work out better for Tom. And he probably wouldn't miss anything for a day or so--
Dean's bed would be... West Ham. The unmoving West Ham football poster between one of the identical four-poster beds and wardrobes was as good an indicator as the flashing neon light-spells used around accidents and murder-scenes, and she crossed to his wardrobe in two easy steps, opening a drawer and swiping a white shirt, grey trousers and, one quick check as to the cleanliness of Dean's underpants later, a pair of those as well.
That taken care of and the bundle of clothes tucked under an arm beneath the invisibility cloak, she returned downstairs to the common room, making her way up to the girls' dormitories with Spinnet and Johnson still oblivious and finding clothes of her own to wear so she could return Emeryth's. Em was a good friend, she decided to herself as she found her own underthings and a shirt, followed by jeans, shoes and socks. She'd been thoughtful enough to clothe her, heal her, and not deny the rumours that were spreading further and further around the castle as the seconds ticked by; being thought of as the crazy Gryffindor dyke out after Slytherins was far preferable for the moment to being known as the girl that brought Tom Riddle back, even if most of the students hadn't a clue about the anagram his name could be made into. Gossip would spread nonetheless, the teachers would find out, and they'd be screwed. They'd rather keep the screwing between themselves for the time being.
Charlotte pushed open the door just as she was about to pull it open herself, making her draw back quickly and dart past the first-year, waiting at the bottom of the stairs for Charlotte to wander back down after verifying her absence, slipping through the door before it could close. Ron's face greeted her with unseeing eyes, completely oblivious to her presence as she'd had the mind to pull the cloak's hood over her face completely, reducing her vision somewhat but rendering her completely invisible, and flitting out past him through the portal when he left with a little rush of danger racing through her as she came a hair's breadth to touching him. Idiot brother, trying to find her; if she didn't want to be found, he'd never clap eyes on her again! She mentally thanked Emeryth for soft-soled slippers--real shoes and she would have had to go slower to remain quiet, as it was now she only had the one stop left, through the corridor to the fruit-painting, taking off the cloak and hiding the clothes under it in a small bundle against the wall where she could find it again, tickling the pear to enter the kitchens and be greeted by a flurry of house-elves. They were all too pleased to load a basket of breakfast and lunch food and drinks, and wave her on her way, Winky promising not to tell anyone a word of her brief visit and the other house elves sans an absent Dobby agreeing.
From there she pulled the cloak on again, slipping the basket over one arm and dropping the clothes atop the food, taking exactly ten steps before she stopped short, Ron having found her somehow, Ron actually seeing her because she hadn't finished dragging the hood down the whole way.
"Ginny! What's going on? You--that Slytherin--you pinched Harry's cloak--" Ron stammered, taken aback by the clues in her behaviour that had started clicking into place within his mind.
His words had an oddly numbing effect on her, letting her hand slip down and pull the hood with it so her face was completely visible, her thoughts drawing back in a flash of panic before something spiked within her mind, a surge of power newly awakened in the early hours of that morning, the memory that she could work magic by birthright, she had the words and the will. Raising a hand slowly to wave in front of him with the soft incantation of "Alieno meus praesentia," words she hadn't truly known until that point, had come unbidden to her tongue from something older than she, and her blood had danced at the realisation that Ron's eyes were glazing over, giving him a terribly confused expression. It worked.
"I'm fine. We talked before. You're happy if I'm happy, you're hungry and you're going to raid the kitchens," Ginny suggested cheerfully, nodding in farewell as Ron headed straight for the fruit portrait, leaving her free to pull the hood back up and run a hand over the cool, smooth scales of the snake that curled around her neck. "I think we're all set now, don't you? We'll drop Emeryth's clothes off in her room and go back to Tom."
A tiny tongue flickered out again, touching her collarbone with an electric thrill as it answered, and she understood. "Yesssss."
