Ginny looked from one man to the other and felt a grumble deep in her mind about how this was unfair. She wished she could blame that thought on Tom but she knew it was all hers. This was just unfair. She came from nothing. She'd fought her way into Slytherin despite her poverty, she'd cultivated Narcissa Malfoy. She had a boyfriend who'd marry her as soon as they were of age and she and Tom would be elevated to the highest levels of society and she'd done all of that starting from nothing and all she had to do to make it work out was get rid of Voldemort. And now, with horcruxes found and destroyed, these men had cornered her.

"You're the ones in league with him," she said. Better, always, to go on the offensive. "You're the ones with Marks on your arms. Not me."

Regulus Black cocked his brows up and looked at Snape. Snape shrugged. "She is in our House," he said. "You surely didn't expect her to just roll over."

"I admit I expected a slightly more nuanced attack," Regulus said. "I'm a bit disappointed."

"She does come from a family of Gryffindors," Snape said. "Some things you can't shake off in just a few years."

"I suppose not," Regulus admitted.

As they kept their banter going Ginny got angrier and angrier. It was the kind of out-of-control fury that led people to throw things and she had to bite down on her tongue to keep from screaming at them. How dare they suggest she was still just like her family with their heedless nobility that didn't plan and didn't research and just fought whatever pretty lights got flashed in their eyes. She wasn't like that. Percy wasn't like that.

Calm down, Tom said. You'll prove their point.

As he talked, the snake on Regulus Black's arm opened one eye and looked at her and she fell back a step.

"Interesting," Regulus said.

"Not as interesting as the ring on Dumbledore's finger," Ginny snapped.

Probably just as interesting, Tom said. Do you think I whisper to him, too?

The snake lifted its head.

Would you shut up and go away? Ginny demanded but it was too late. Only a fool would have missed that their Marks sometimes responded to her. Draco noticed, but he'd never associated it with her. His Mark was still too new. His experience with what made it twitch and writhe almost nonexistent. The two men in front of her, however, knew that the Marks were keyed to the Dark Lord.

And, as they hadn't failed to see, her.

Well, Tom, but they didn't know that.

"Headmaster Dumbledore," Snape said, with emphasis on the man's title, "is not your concern."

"He is if he has a horcrux on his hand," she said. She knew it was a challenge. She knew it admitted things. She just didn't know what to do other than forge ahead with as much bravado as she could muster. There was no escape. "He's in league with Lord Vol -."

"Don't say it," Regulus said. The sudden harshness contrasted with his earlier mockery. "Let's not push our luck any further."

"You think the Headmaster of this school is in league with the Dark Lord?" Snape asked. He sounded at first incredulous and then disbelieving. "You think Dumbledore would -." He turned away from her as though her idiocy was too much to be borne and Ginny felt something like hope creep up along her spine. "I can assure you," Snape said after a moment, "he is not." His utter contempt for her, for that idea, even for Voldemort leeched out through his tone.

"Then why does he have that ring on?" Ginny demanded.

"Because he is a fool," Snape said. He sounded tired now. "Because he was greedy."

"If I might interject." Regulus was back to playing the upper-class dandy. The disaffected tone made her more nervous than his brief descent into obvious caution had. "How, Miss Weasley, do you know what it is?"

"I read a lot," she tried.

Especially diaries.

The snake on Regulus Black's arm moved, and he smiled. "I think not," he said. "They aren't the sort of thing you find in Witch Weekly or The Daily Prophet."

"Not even in the Restricted Section," Snape said.

Wrong. Where does he think I read about them?

Ginny's head pounded and she sank down onto the hard, wooden seat of one of the desks, heedless of the rule of courtesy that demanded she stand for this sort of interrogation. In a normal post-class scolding, Professor Snape would have berated her without mercy for daring to sit without invitation. That he merely watched her made her sag even lower. Two Death Eaters hovering over her and a horcrux twisting in her head. It was too much. She didn't even realize she had started to cry until a hot tear fell onto her hand, then another, then a third.

Snape took a step back. He'd made his share of students cry in his days, but this made him uncomfortable. It was Regulus Black who squatted down and pulled a handkerchief from some inner robe pocket. "The question," he said softly, "is whose side are you on?"

The tears came faster at that and her nose began to run, and she took the linen square and mopped at her face.

"Tell me how it started," he said. "Maybe I can help."

She lifted her face and looked at him. "I was young and stupid once too," he said. "You aren't Marked yet, child. Let us help you."

She wanted to laugh. They thought she was flirting with the idea of joining the Death Eaters. They thought she wanted to be like them, to be like Draco's aunt. How dare he? Tom's thoughts were filled with righteous anger. We are not followers. We don't join little groups.

"Ginevra?" Regulus Black asked.

She took a deep breath. "You're wrong," she said. "I'm not interested in being a… a Death Eater."

"That's good," he said. "The benefits are a bit dodgy."

"I own all of you," Tom said. The snake on Regulus Black's arm seemed to leap with joy at hearing his master's voice and Regulus himself stopped moving.

"I beg your pardon?" he asked.

"Oh, great," Ginny said. "Now you've gone and done it."

Within her head Tom just shrugged.

. . . . . . . . . .

A/N – Thank you to moonlightmasquerade for beta reading. She is wonderful.