a/n: Hey Everybody, sorry this took so long! I started boarding school on
the 16th and it's been hard adjusting and homework has barely allowed me
any time to write In Passion, so thanks for all the great reviews, thank
yous below, thanks for all the patience.
Disclaimer- I own nothing of Harry Potter and all related material. No infringement is intended on my part.
"So, this is called what?" Draco asked. Ginny pushed a few strands of cheese into his mouth and wiped some tomato sauce off of his face with her thumb.
"Pizza." She dabbed the tomato sauce onto her tongue. "You don't like?"
"I like very much." He glanced around the tiled pizza parlor. "Italian, you say?"
"Yes, idiot, how many times does she have to say everything that involves Muggles?" Blaise snapped. "Even Crabbe and Goyle have absorbed this and you're just sitting there like a . . ."
"Well, maybe because my family isn't a bunch of blood traitors like yours appear to be!" Draco ripped off another bite of pizza. Ginny rolled her eyes.
"Your family is completely pureblood, if you can call inbreeding pure!" Blaise picked up a slice. Crabbe and Goyle untangled themselves from the booth and went to order another. They were spending the day in Muggle London, having Flooed themselves from Slytherin common room on the Sunday before they headed home for Christmas break on the 16th. They had piles of homework, but it could be done when they returned. Luckily, the entire group except Pansy owned Muggles clothes, so they had slipped fairly easily into a crowd. Since Pansy couldn't come. She was failing, and one had to keep their nose clean to be included in a controversial situation. Tom had been sending her owls, a sort of dark newsletter of sorts. There were a few boring history lessons, but besides those, the decisions being made were interesting. She had abolished the law that forbids women from having premarital relations or marriage rituals before she had slept with the Dark Lord. Tom hadn't been pleased, but who could blame him? He also wanted her to graduate a year early, but that was impossible for her. She wouldn't be ready.
Crabbe plunked the pizza dish on top of the empty one and five hands reached in for another slice. Blaise and Draco bickered at each other and Ginny gazed around, closing her eyes against the guilt of her current situation. She was sitting in a Muggle restaurant, eating Muggle food with Muggle money they had exchanged. Sitting next to her boyfriend, not her king. Even though Voldemort insisted it was a silly infatuation, it was a bit much for a sixteen year old to deal with. She wouldn't trade it for the world, but dating Draco was playing with fire and it made her uncomfortable. And yet, there was something about him.
She was in love with Tom, not Lord Voldemort. She insisted that they make love in his dreams in true form, but she was disgusted by him and knew he didn't know it. His power intoxicated her, but the old man she owled every single week felt like a business partner, not a king or lover.
She yelped a little into her pizza as it burned her teeth and gums. Draco patted her back absentmindedly, still arguing with Blaise, who was shoved in between Crabbe and Goyle on the other side of the booth. They finished the third pizza off quickly, all fit to burst. Heading back to the Leaky Cauldron, Ginny grabbed onto Draco's hand, scraping off dried pizza sauce with her fingernail.
"So you liked pizza? You warming up to Muggles?" She joked, pushing her sunglasses into her hair as they entered the pub.
"Eye-tal-yon pizza." Blaise said.
"Blaise, lay off." Ginny snapped. Blaise swung her lovely head and smiled.
"Sure, principissa." They flooed back to Slytherin commons, thankfully empty save a few first years. One broke off from the gaggle and tugged on her shirt. "Layman." She said slowly and tersely. "If you want my attention, do not pull on my clothes. Ask for my attention."
"Ginny, someone came by for you, from Gryffindor."
"My brother?" She asked, throwing down her purse and flopping down on a couch, putting her feet up on a coffee table.
"Red hair like yours. Asked if I had seen you." She sat up with interest, to see what he had done. Most of the little twerps would have say they hadn't seen Madam Ginny or something stupid like that.
"I asked who you were and why a stinking Gryffindor had the password."
"Very good, and?"
"He said that he had gotten it off a Slytherin, that he was quite good friends with most of them actually."
"Wasn't that clever of my darling brother?" She said to Draco as she pulled him by the hips on to the couch. "And how did you respond?"
"I said, 'begging your pardon then, we don't often have Gryffindors down here. And then I said that I hadn't seen any Ginny around and asked what you looked like."
"And then.?
"He went away."
"Very good, Layman. We may have use for you yet." She brushed a lock out of his eyes and he blushed, shuffling away.
"You're such a tease." Draco joked, picking up a book on the coffee table and flipping through it. "These poor young ones don't know what to do."
"Are you all packed up?" Blaise came and sat on Ginny's outstretched legs. "You're both leaving, right?"
"Yes, some of us are wanted at home." Ginny joked. Blaise wasn't going home for Christmas, because of an attack on Hogsmeade on the day after Christmas. Only a few Slytherins were staying here, partially to maintain a feeling of normality and partially to help out. Ginny and Blaise both were going to stay back, the Dark Lord wanted Ginny to be able to get into the midst of things, though she was a year from initiation, but Ginny's mother felt differently. "No dear, you simply can not stay at Hogwarts this year. We need to talk and besides, we're having the first family Christmas since Ronnie left for Hogwarts." She wasn't looking forward to seeing everyone. But she might get some good information for their side.
"Yeah, we're both going home." Ginny said gloomily. "Mummy said so. I think she would have come through the fire and cursed my ass to September had I not agreed."
"Well, I'll send you a letter with details of the action."
"You're sweet." Ginny said sarcastically. Blaise stood up and pulled Ginny after her, "What are you doing?" She said tiredly. Blaise didn't answer, they kept climbing the stairs. They reached the seventh year girls room and Blaise glanced inside to make sure it was empty before yanking Ginny inside. Ginny flopped down onto Blaise's bed. Blaise looked serious.
"Look, Ginny. I know you want to be here for the fighting and all, but it's not worth it before you're initiated. We've got time before we have to deal with all this crap, and I'm not excited to be here during the holidays. Look, something you don't understand about this all is that it's not fun killing people and running away from Aurors. The power is intense and intoxicating and it's wonderful. That's what we're all in it for, but the thing is, during those attacks, it gets scary. Death Eaters get hyped up and you see your own parents experiencing blood lust and childhood friends panicking and blasting someone's brain's out before they're sure of anything besides the fact that they're not death eaters. You haven't grown up in this, and it seems to be an advantage for you excepting the fact that you have no experience with this. We saw little things, Muggle tortures, stuff like that. Just little things. It never stopped." Ginny grabbed onto Blaise's hands, because her eyes were haunted. "The politics, the power, it's so glamorous. But the rest of it, the big stuff the stuff that makes us famous, it's cruel and frightening. Wait a little while, keep undercover and watch your ass over break. Go back to Gryffindor common right now, reassure your brother and his friends, come down here to sleep and be ready in the morning to have a wonderful, informative Christmas with your family." Blaise squeezed Ginny's hands back, smiling suddenly. "And never be sorry when you miss an attack. You're not missing much."
"Yeah." Ginny said quietly.
"After my long speech, that's all you can say." Blaise laughed. "I don't want to scare you away, Ginny. But I'm not going to lie to you or make things pretty, because they aren't. Being a death eater is persistent reality."
"Albert Einstein said something similar to that once." Ginny hooked arms with Blaise and started down the stairs.
"Who's Albert Einstein?"
"Oh. He's just the world's coolest Muggle. He's dead now, but he had the sickest hair and the most chill quotes. Worth knowing, by all means. He could have turned Dumbledore, dude." That was a common saying among Voldy- boppers, the children of Death Eaters, expressing the coolness of a person. Blaise nodded.
"There were some pretty awesome Muggles, it's true, but most of them had magical roots, you understand." She said. "Oh, really?" Ginny said sarcastically. She spoke briefly to Draco before heading back up to the Gryffindor common room. Ron looked up as she came in. Harry was studying and Hermione was sleeping on an armchair.
"Where've you been all day?"
"Library. Some little snake was sassing off to me and asked if you had found me. Was he just making fun of us for being poor or were you looking for me?"
"Why would he be making fun of you for being poor by asking you that?"
"I don't know, Slytherins are stupid."
"You really think so?"
"Aren't you tired of this game, Ronald?"
"Do you always answer a question with a question?"
"Shut up, Ronnie." She slid into a chair next to him. "Do you have a lot of homework over the holidays?"
"Nah, not too much compared to what we usually have." She reached forward and started kneading his shoulders and he shifted and leaned against her. "Ginny, I've really been worried about you. I'll do it Bill style and not hit the roof if you want me to, but, honestly, I wish you would just tell me what's going on."
"Have you talked to Mum at all about stuff in the order? Are we going to be there at all over the holidays or what?" They used to do this all the time, when he came home from the holidays or when they were studying together at school and home. She would rub his back and they would talk. People always joked that they were practically like twins and in some ways that was true. In many ways it was not.
"Nice job, changing the subject." Ron said. "I can't believe it hasn't snowed yet. It's been barely cold."
"Nice job." Ginny pulled away and went to stand next to the window, glaring out. "Global warming, you know, it's everywhere in the weather." Ron came beside her and clasped a hand over her shoulder, warm and firm.
"Yeah, everything bad today seems to be."
"What, in the weather?"
"No, everywhere." Ron's hand gave an ominous squeeze and he went to sit back down. Ginny blew her breath against the window and lazily drew the Dark Mark, as her breath pulled back in and slowly dissolved her artwork.
* * *
"That's a beautiful likeness of Blaise."
"Yes, it is." Ginny agreed. Blaise had started showing up a whole lot more in her art. She had two more sketchbooks to shove into her Gringotts vault and was constantly improving on her collection. "I'm going to miss her, worry about her you know."
"Oh, you're just jealous." Draco joked, pinching her cheek.
"No. I don't think I am." Ginny whispered. "I don't think it's that. And I don't think that I'm chickening out either, I'm just at a loss for inspiration."
"Don't wimp out on me." Draco said softly, his lips pressed against her temple. "Please Ginny, our side needs you."
"Draco, don't." She brushed him away impatiently, picking her pencil back up.
"Don't what?" He bristled. "What don't you want me to do, Gin? Touch you?" Ginny stiffened.
"Don't be angry about that, Draco. If you're going to be angry, which it looks like you just might insist on doing."
"Sometimes Ginny, I think you don't want me like I want you."
"I'm in a difficult position, you know that. I want to take things slowly." He was pacing from side to side, his feet slamming into the ground. Ginny stayed seated, talking to her sketch book, though her pencil wasn't moving. "You knew all this when we got into this stupid game. And I'm a little tired of it, Draco. If all you wanted was sex, why don't you enlist the help of someone who can help you with just that?"
"Fuck you, Ginny! You know I care about you."
"Very caring, Draco! Cussing me out, acting like the only thing I am to you is sex! I'm the Dark Queen, not a bright idea."
"Not yet, you aren't, and even then, you shouldn't hold your power over me! I'm not a plaything you can toss aside."
"And I'm not some dumb sex toy raised to cater to your needs!" Draco's lips pursed and his fists clenched. "Well, I guess we both got the wrong impression." She stood slowly, pulled her book bag over her shoulders and tucked her pencil behind her ear. She opened the door and had her head out before she turned around.
"Draco, are you completely loyal? Do you love every single thing about the Dark Lord and the way he runs his fan club? Don't you want things to change? I mean, maybe you don't want women's liberation. And I'm not asking you to burn your bender, but I am asking you to just give this all a try. Please, just give respect where it's due. This is important to me. And if you care as much as you say you do, than you'll follow me on this and acknowledge me as a person, unlike you've been raised." He was silent, still looking down. "Completely loyal. I know you are. Never mind then. Goodbye Draco. It was fun and all, sorry you didn't get laid, see you in detention."
"They- uh. They promised my family that they would get my father out of jail." Ginny paused and turned. "But a year and a half later, he's still in there. No dementors or anything but, my father." Draco shook his head, his hands shaking. "My father was an elegant man."
"I know." She said.
"He was neat and clean and calm and collected. He was never really flustered. Always perfection, as if carved out of stone. My mother, too. We were perfect all of us. Except when I would do things. Childish things." He waited for a long time before speaking again. Ginny slipped quietly onto a seat, clicking the door closed. "We weren't supposed to, because it looked bad and we were still supposed to be ashamed of him and everything. To distance ourselves from investigations and everything. But I visited him. This summer. He looked, different. And he always asks when the Dark Lord will get him out, but he always says that he trusts in the Dark Lord's word. But Voldemort won't ever get him out. I've realized that now."
"Draco." She said, a lump forming in her throat. Draco looked up and then fell to his knees, shuffling up to her.
"My queen. Will you take my father from Azkaban?" He looked into her eyes. Ginny reached out a hand and brushed his chin. He hadn't shaved yet that day and the five o' clock shadow was rough against her hand.
"Yes, I will, Draco."
"We're visiting him. On Wednesday. Mum really wants to. You can come."
"I'll speak to the Dark Lord, Draco. He'll have an idea. Draco, I've been 'in the bathroom' for almost an hour now, I've got to go back with my brother and his friends." She stood again and left. As she was walking down the corridor, Draco stuck his head out the door.
"Ginny." Ginny looked at him, his cloudy soulful eyes. "I love you."
The feelings inside her finally burst and she thought of a million things to say. To run to him and kiss him, or tell him every thing that came into her mind. She was bursting. And she knew that the words were torn from him, that it was extremely difficult for him to say those words that he was probably rebuffed when saying them to his own mother. All this swirling around in her gut she opened her mouth and a single word spilled out with a gush of tears. "Okay."
* * *
"So, Gin." George said slowly, from the front seat.
"So, George." She said sarcastically. "Why aren't Ronnie and Harry riding in this car?" The twins had picked them up at the station, but Ron and Harry had ended up taking a cab while Ginny rode with the twins.
"We told them to."
"Oh, right. I'm going to get a lecture now, aren't I?"
"We've heard tell that you've been hanging out with the Slytherins."
"That's very interesting. Just because I have detention with the most lowly snake of them all, practically a worm, I'm all of a sudden guilty of what, dark witchcraft?"
"You tell us, Gin." Fred said. "We've been hearing nothing but trouble. Coming in late, not sleeping in your own room. Running around the grounds with a certain convict's son."
"We have detention together, one of the activities happens to be running." Ginny said dryly, looking out the window. It was going to be a long two weeks, even with promised owls from Draco, Blaise, and The Dark Lord. She pulled out a piece of parchment and started to outline a report to Voldemort around the issue of Lucius Malfoy. She was learning to tread carefully around things that concerned known Death Eaters, and though Lucius was never mentioned, as his former right-hand man, Ginny knew when she was overstepping the line.
"Look, all I'm saying is that you should be more careful about where you sleep and stuff. These are very important times."
"Just because Ronnie is making up stuff, doesn't mean-"
"Ron?" Fred looked around in his seat. "Who said anything about Ron? We've been corresponding with Snape for the past month."
* * *
Severus Snape was a man of few pleasures. Sitting in his expensive leather seat, the smell of it rising to carefully expanded nostrils, sucking in the sweet odor of a new, brewing potion. Bourbon, biting at his lower lip as it pleasured his tongue and burned down to his stomach, was swirling around in an old beaker, elegant all the same. There was an old rock band playing, when wizard music was more than this crap that flaunted misused Muggle instruments and petty concepts. The students had left that day, Monday, and it was already late at night. He tapped his foot and gave the brew a little twitch, mixing in an ingredient, just enough.
There was a beautiful, subtle art to potion-making. You could create something deadly out of completely benign contents. A person could become something completely different, just by taking a sip of something tinged with a foreign substance.
He could pinpoint the day he had discovered potions. Not the precise date, really, just the moment, the memory of the day. But it had all started from the beginning.
He was born in the village that his great grandfather had formed and stolen the name of, Snape. He had been named Severus, after his grandfather, who had been leader and driven the Muggles out of Snape. By the time his father's time came around, Muggles were creeping back in. By the time his father had died and his time had come around to lead the village of Snape, it was completely Muggle and he hadn't been back to the village since he was allowed to leave. He didn't want it anymore than he had wanted to see his father when the owl arrived announcing that his death was near. At the time, he had had a family of another kind. And though they let him keep his heritage in his name, a mark on his arm told of a new loyalty.
His had been a difficult childhood. His mother and father were enemies at best, staying together only to maintain wizarding conventions of marriage. Devon Snape had been an angry man at the best of times, with a weakness for alcohol and women and a tendency towards violence when he had had either one. From an early age, Snape had begun putting make-up on his mother. When she had to leave the house, even when she didn't. So she didn't catch a glance of herself in a mirror and dissolve into tears, clutching at her dress. They had gone to the stores and picked out heavy Muggle make-up and grabbed lunch at the little café next to the general store.
There were almost a hundred funny little cases in his mother's bathroom. There were the kinds that he swiped onto his mother's face with his little fingers, heavy and oily. The ones that he patted onto her face with a heavy puff, so it didn't shine like old coffee when you switch on the light and realize you've left it there a week. The ones that he rubbed on with a spongy cloth, the genuine smell that make-up smudged behind unlike any other.
If he wanted his mother to look the way she wanted to, he had to combine them. So he swiped and then smudged and then puffed, until she looked like a normal woman. One who didn't spend her evenings being slammed against expensive marble floors, or being dashed to pieces on the slab of her husband's words. Understanding those subtleties in simply applying make- up to his mother's bruised face, was enough to make him fall in love with them.
And then he went to Hogwarts. Where he was always unhappy, but finally realized how much he hated his mother. All her whimpering dejectedness, simply refusing to do anything for herself. The way she made dinner for three every night. Staring at the food across from her, as he quietly picked at his own, guilty for not wanting what his mother desperately yearned for; his father. As it lost steam and grew cold, only to be thrown across the room by his father the same night. Almost as much as he had known that he loathed his father, he knew that his hatred for his mother was sure.
He had done beautifully in all his classes, even though he spent evenings alone in the room, and ate meals on his own side of the table. But he was content in simply doing things his own way and avoiding the Marauders.
And he always did things with the same love and care, always pursuing the subtleties in everything. He did well enough in potions while he was in school, but soon after he graduated, he was lured away, by the friendliness of Lucius Malfoy, and later by the power and belonging he hungered for. And so the years passed, and something was lost to him.
One day, he was wandering through Hogsmeade, soon after an attack, just to be seen and get an alibi, when he caught a view of Hogwarts, and decided to walk the length of the old path and wander inside. He paced the halls for a long time, finally he ended up in the potions classroom. The old potions classroom, eerie, with the dead things suspended in glass jars. There was a bubbling cauldron on the desk and Severus wandered up to it, quietly. His fingers danced across the hot edge of the cauldron and when he looked up, Poppy Pomfrey stood before him.
"You weren't bad at potions." She said, tipping a cauldron onto the table. "Help me out." She pushed a bottle into his hand, and a list of instructions in the other. "I'll be back in a minute. And watch that 'un." His hand shook a little as the door closed. He started a flame underneath the cauldron and then looked at the bottle in his hand. 'Armadillo Bile.' It called for a certain amount. He poured and knew exactly when to pull the bottle up, so not a drop too many went in. His mind wandered a little while his hands worked methodically. He remembered, just as putting on his mother's make-up, what exactly the finer things in life were. By the time the potion was finished and bottled he was already in the Headmaster's office, pouring out his heart, and promising a million things to him. He had never properly thanked Poppy. But it wasn't really her he ought to thank. It was his mother.
And when he became a teacher, he had applied for defense against the dark arts, he still wanted defense, but a part of him still knew where he belonged.
Severus gave the potion another stir and leaved over to wetly inhale, the door burst open and banged against the wall. He looked up, his eyes steely, he was not one to be bothered by boisterous students. His mouth went dry and his face pallid as saw the first figure in the door, knowing there would be a few behind her. "Severus."
"I thought you went home, for- for the attack." He said softly, slipping softly into his seat. He laid his fingers in front of him.
"Surprise! Now, we made a deal. I upheld my end of this little bargain." Ginny moved softly into the room, talking comically bright, an unusual smile on her face.
"I kept up my end of the deal, as well." Ginny picked something up and weighed in her hand, putting it back down again and shaking her head.
"My brothers knew about me. And I managed to convince them that it was Harry having trouble with his scar again. I don't know how good my memory charms are, and I kind of like my brothers. Fred and George, you know, the twins." She grin widened. "That wasn't very sporting, Sev. In fact you hurt my feelings. So I wrote a friend of mine and he gave me a little condolence and a little gift. Goyle!"
Gregory Goyle came out of the shadow of the doorway. "Shall I bring in the others, Ginny?"
"Yes, I'd like them all to see what happens to traitors. To traitors of traitors." Severus moaned as most of the seventh years filed into the room. The only one missing was Draco Malfoy. "Give me your wand, Millie."
"But. but. they'll think it was me."
"No, they won't. Tell them you realized you had forgotten it. You're going to send an owl after this to Dumbledore asking for your wand, you left it in the common room you see. Oops. Then some psychopath," Millicent Bulstrode handed her the wand. "picked it up and did away with the potions professor. It's really a shame. You can't trust anyone these days." Severus sucked in deep breaths. His heart was thudding in his chest and he could barely breathe. This was it. If he reached for his wand, she would kill him, she was that quick. If he summoned Dumbledore, it would be too late. There was however, a small chance. If he knocked over the potion in distraction while simultaneously throwing Floo powder in the fire he might be able to get away. It was worth a chance. The Floo was behind the cauldron, he grabbed a fistful, knocked over the potion with his elbow and dove for the fireplace.
* * *
"My lord?"
"I said you need not worry about the queen. That will be enough for you."
"Indeed, it is my lord. But the people are waiting."
"Wormtail, I grow tired of you. I wish for Lucius or Barty Crouch again, just to be rid of your stupidity."
"Truly sir, I am stupid beyond doubt."
"Without a doubt. I have said, do not worry about the queen. Tell my followers that by the end of two years they will have a queen."
"But my lord, should that not suffice, may I say."
"It will suffice because I have said it, fool. Leave."
"Yes, my lord, yes." Lord Voldemort sat down and composed a brief letter to Ginny Weasley before sitting down for his favorite pastime.
* * *
The fireplace crackled ominously, the green flames still flickering. "Stupid." Ginny said. "That was very stupid." She turned around and walked away, dropping the wand in the doorway, while the body of Severus Snape lay next to the fire, keeping warm until the next morning when they would find him, burned like he had been spending a day at the beach.
Ginny flooed out through the Slytherin common room with brief goodbyes to everyone. Blaise followed her, and was there to hold her hair when she retched let tears mingle. Her throat aching and tears flowing down her face as easily as sweat.
Even after Blaise left, she sat there for a long time, rocking back and forth, staring at her blurry complexion in the water in the toilet, murmuring a lullaby her mother had sang to her when she was very young.
"Howling winds,
Dreadful seas,
Keep my baby close to me.
Rumbling skies
Ruffled wings,
Keep my baby far from thee.
I love the life
The grass ,the trees,
I love my baby on my knee.
Kiss his forehead
Kiss her cheek
Baby's many, baby weak
Kiss her forehead
Nudge the cheek.
Baby's mild, baby meek.
Love the tears And yearn not A moment's years Are never forgot. "
Disclaimer- I own nothing of Harry Potter and all related material. No infringement is intended on my part.
"So, this is called what?" Draco asked. Ginny pushed a few strands of cheese into his mouth and wiped some tomato sauce off of his face with her thumb.
"Pizza." She dabbed the tomato sauce onto her tongue. "You don't like?"
"I like very much." He glanced around the tiled pizza parlor. "Italian, you say?"
"Yes, idiot, how many times does she have to say everything that involves Muggles?" Blaise snapped. "Even Crabbe and Goyle have absorbed this and you're just sitting there like a . . ."
"Well, maybe because my family isn't a bunch of blood traitors like yours appear to be!" Draco ripped off another bite of pizza. Ginny rolled her eyes.
"Your family is completely pureblood, if you can call inbreeding pure!" Blaise picked up a slice. Crabbe and Goyle untangled themselves from the booth and went to order another. They were spending the day in Muggle London, having Flooed themselves from Slytherin common room on the Sunday before they headed home for Christmas break on the 16th. They had piles of homework, but it could be done when they returned. Luckily, the entire group except Pansy owned Muggles clothes, so they had slipped fairly easily into a crowd. Since Pansy couldn't come. She was failing, and one had to keep their nose clean to be included in a controversial situation. Tom had been sending her owls, a sort of dark newsletter of sorts. There were a few boring history lessons, but besides those, the decisions being made were interesting. She had abolished the law that forbids women from having premarital relations or marriage rituals before she had slept with the Dark Lord. Tom hadn't been pleased, but who could blame him? He also wanted her to graduate a year early, but that was impossible for her. She wouldn't be ready.
Crabbe plunked the pizza dish on top of the empty one and five hands reached in for another slice. Blaise and Draco bickered at each other and Ginny gazed around, closing her eyes against the guilt of her current situation. She was sitting in a Muggle restaurant, eating Muggle food with Muggle money they had exchanged. Sitting next to her boyfriend, not her king. Even though Voldemort insisted it was a silly infatuation, it was a bit much for a sixteen year old to deal with. She wouldn't trade it for the world, but dating Draco was playing with fire and it made her uncomfortable. And yet, there was something about him.
She was in love with Tom, not Lord Voldemort. She insisted that they make love in his dreams in true form, but she was disgusted by him and knew he didn't know it. His power intoxicated her, but the old man she owled every single week felt like a business partner, not a king or lover.
She yelped a little into her pizza as it burned her teeth and gums. Draco patted her back absentmindedly, still arguing with Blaise, who was shoved in between Crabbe and Goyle on the other side of the booth. They finished the third pizza off quickly, all fit to burst. Heading back to the Leaky Cauldron, Ginny grabbed onto Draco's hand, scraping off dried pizza sauce with her fingernail.
"So you liked pizza? You warming up to Muggles?" She joked, pushing her sunglasses into her hair as they entered the pub.
"Eye-tal-yon pizza." Blaise said.
"Blaise, lay off." Ginny snapped. Blaise swung her lovely head and smiled.
"Sure, principissa." They flooed back to Slytherin commons, thankfully empty save a few first years. One broke off from the gaggle and tugged on her shirt. "Layman." She said slowly and tersely. "If you want my attention, do not pull on my clothes. Ask for my attention."
"Ginny, someone came by for you, from Gryffindor."
"My brother?" She asked, throwing down her purse and flopping down on a couch, putting her feet up on a coffee table.
"Red hair like yours. Asked if I had seen you." She sat up with interest, to see what he had done. Most of the little twerps would have say they hadn't seen Madam Ginny or something stupid like that.
"I asked who you were and why a stinking Gryffindor had the password."
"Very good, and?"
"He said that he had gotten it off a Slytherin, that he was quite good friends with most of them actually."
"Wasn't that clever of my darling brother?" She said to Draco as she pulled him by the hips on to the couch. "And how did you respond?"
"I said, 'begging your pardon then, we don't often have Gryffindors down here. And then I said that I hadn't seen any Ginny around and asked what you looked like."
"And then.?
"He went away."
"Very good, Layman. We may have use for you yet." She brushed a lock out of his eyes and he blushed, shuffling away.
"You're such a tease." Draco joked, picking up a book on the coffee table and flipping through it. "These poor young ones don't know what to do."
"Are you all packed up?" Blaise came and sat on Ginny's outstretched legs. "You're both leaving, right?"
"Yes, some of us are wanted at home." Ginny joked. Blaise wasn't going home for Christmas, because of an attack on Hogsmeade on the day after Christmas. Only a few Slytherins were staying here, partially to maintain a feeling of normality and partially to help out. Ginny and Blaise both were going to stay back, the Dark Lord wanted Ginny to be able to get into the midst of things, though she was a year from initiation, but Ginny's mother felt differently. "No dear, you simply can not stay at Hogwarts this year. We need to talk and besides, we're having the first family Christmas since Ronnie left for Hogwarts." She wasn't looking forward to seeing everyone. But she might get some good information for their side.
"Yeah, we're both going home." Ginny said gloomily. "Mummy said so. I think she would have come through the fire and cursed my ass to September had I not agreed."
"Well, I'll send you a letter with details of the action."
"You're sweet." Ginny said sarcastically. Blaise stood up and pulled Ginny after her, "What are you doing?" She said tiredly. Blaise didn't answer, they kept climbing the stairs. They reached the seventh year girls room and Blaise glanced inside to make sure it was empty before yanking Ginny inside. Ginny flopped down onto Blaise's bed. Blaise looked serious.
"Look, Ginny. I know you want to be here for the fighting and all, but it's not worth it before you're initiated. We've got time before we have to deal with all this crap, and I'm not excited to be here during the holidays. Look, something you don't understand about this all is that it's not fun killing people and running away from Aurors. The power is intense and intoxicating and it's wonderful. That's what we're all in it for, but the thing is, during those attacks, it gets scary. Death Eaters get hyped up and you see your own parents experiencing blood lust and childhood friends panicking and blasting someone's brain's out before they're sure of anything besides the fact that they're not death eaters. You haven't grown up in this, and it seems to be an advantage for you excepting the fact that you have no experience with this. We saw little things, Muggle tortures, stuff like that. Just little things. It never stopped." Ginny grabbed onto Blaise's hands, because her eyes were haunted. "The politics, the power, it's so glamorous. But the rest of it, the big stuff the stuff that makes us famous, it's cruel and frightening. Wait a little while, keep undercover and watch your ass over break. Go back to Gryffindor common right now, reassure your brother and his friends, come down here to sleep and be ready in the morning to have a wonderful, informative Christmas with your family." Blaise squeezed Ginny's hands back, smiling suddenly. "And never be sorry when you miss an attack. You're not missing much."
"Yeah." Ginny said quietly.
"After my long speech, that's all you can say." Blaise laughed. "I don't want to scare you away, Ginny. But I'm not going to lie to you or make things pretty, because they aren't. Being a death eater is persistent reality."
"Albert Einstein said something similar to that once." Ginny hooked arms with Blaise and started down the stairs.
"Who's Albert Einstein?"
"Oh. He's just the world's coolest Muggle. He's dead now, but he had the sickest hair and the most chill quotes. Worth knowing, by all means. He could have turned Dumbledore, dude." That was a common saying among Voldy- boppers, the children of Death Eaters, expressing the coolness of a person. Blaise nodded.
"There were some pretty awesome Muggles, it's true, but most of them had magical roots, you understand." She said. "Oh, really?" Ginny said sarcastically. She spoke briefly to Draco before heading back up to the Gryffindor common room. Ron looked up as she came in. Harry was studying and Hermione was sleeping on an armchair.
"Where've you been all day?"
"Library. Some little snake was sassing off to me and asked if you had found me. Was he just making fun of us for being poor or were you looking for me?"
"Why would he be making fun of you for being poor by asking you that?"
"I don't know, Slytherins are stupid."
"You really think so?"
"Aren't you tired of this game, Ronald?"
"Do you always answer a question with a question?"
"Shut up, Ronnie." She slid into a chair next to him. "Do you have a lot of homework over the holidays?"
"Nah, not too much compared to what we usually have." She reached forward and started kneading his shoulders and he shifted and leaned against her. "Ginny, I've really been worried about you. I'll do it Bill style and not hit the roof if you want me to, but, honestly, I wish you would just tell me what's going on."
"Have you talked to Mum at all about stuff in the order? Are we going to be there at all over the holidays or what?" They used to do this all the time, when he came home from the holidays or when they were studying together at school and home. She would rub his back and they would talk. People always joked that they were practically like twins and in some ways that was true. In many ways it was not.
"Nice job, changing the subject." Ron said. "I can't believe it hasn't snowed yet. It's been barely cold."
"Nice job." Ginny pulled away and went to stand next to the window, glaring out. "Global warming, you know, it's everywhere in the weather." Ron came beside her and clasped a hand over her shoulder, warm and firm.
"Yeah, everything bad today seems to be."
"What, in the weather?"
"No, everywhere." Ron's hand gave an ominous squeeze and he went to sit back down. Ginny blew her breath against the window and lazily drew the Dark Mark, as her breath pulled back in and slowly dissolved her artwork.
* * *
"That's a beautiful likeness of Blaise."
"Yes, it is." Ginny agreed. Blaise had started showing up a whole lot more in her art. She had two more sketchbooks to shove into her Gringotts vault and was constantly improving on her collection. "I'm going to miss her, worry about her you know."
"Oh, you're just jealous." Draco joked, pinching her cheek.
"No. I don't think I am." Ginny whispered. "I don't think it's that. And I don't think that I'm chickening out either, I'm just at a loss for inspiration."
"Don't wimp out on me." Draco said softly, his lips pressed against her temple. "Please Ginny, our side needs you."
"Draco, don't." She brushed him away impatiently, picking her pencil back up.
"Don't what?" He bristled. "What don't you want me to do, Gin? Touch you?" Ginny stiffened.
"Don't be angry about that, Draco. If you're going to be angry, which it looks like you just might insist on doing."
"Sometimes Ginny, I think you don't want me like I want you."
"I'm in a difficult position, you know that. I want to take things slowly." He was pacing from side to side, his feet slamming into the ground. Ginny stayed seated, talking to her sketch book, though her pencil wasn't moving. "You knew all this when we got into this stupid game. And I'm a little tired of it, Draco. If all you wanted was sex, why don't you enlist the help of someone who can help you with just that?"
"Fuck you, Ginny! You know I care about you."
"Very caring, Draco! Cussing me out, acting like the only thing I am to you is sex! I'm the Dark Queen, not a bright idea."
"Not yet, you aren't, and even then, you shouldn't hold your power over me! I'm not a plaything you can toss aside."
"And I'm not some dumb sex toy raised to cater to your needs!" Draco's lips pursed and his fists clenched. "Well, I guess we both got the wrong impression." She stood slowly, pulled her book bag over her shoulders and tucked her pencil behind her ear. She opened the door and had her head out before she turned around.
"Draco, are you completely loyal? Do you love every single thing about the Dark Lord and the way he runs his fan club? Don't you want things to change? I mean, maybe you don't want women's liberation. And I'm not asking you to burn your bender, but I am asking you to just give this all a try. Please, just give respect where it's due. This is important to me. And if you care as much as you say you do, than you'll follow me on this and acknowledge me as a person, unlike you've been raised." He was silent, still looking down. "Completely loyal. I know you are. Never mind then. Goodbye Draco. It was fun and all, sorry you didn't get laid, see you in detention."
"They- uh. They promised my family that they would get my father out of jail." Ginny paused and turned. "But a year and a half later, he's still in there. No dementors or anything but, my father." Draco shook his head, his hands shaking. "My father was an elegant man."
"I know." She said.
"He was neat and clean and calm and collected. He was never really flustered. Always perfection, as if carved out of stone. My mother, too. We were perfect all of us. Except when I would do things. Childish things." He waited for a long time before speaking again. Ginny slipped quietly onto a seat, clicking the door closed. "We weren't supposed to, because it looked bad and we were still supposed to be ashamed of him and everything. To distance ourselves from investigations and everything. But I visited him. This summer. He looked, different. And he always asks when the Dark Lord will get him out, but he always says that he trusts in the Dark Lord's word. But Voldemort won't ever get him out. I've realized that now."
"Draco." She said, a lump forming in her throat. Draco looked up and then fell to his knees, shuffling up to her.
"My queen. Will you take my father from Azkaban?" He looked into her eyes. Ginny reached out a hand and brushed his chin. He hadn't shaved yet that day and the five o' clock shadow was rough against her hand.
"Yes, I will, Draco."
"We're visiting him. On Wednesday. Mum really wants to. You can come."
"I'll speak to the Dark Lord, Draco. He'll have an idea. Draco, I've been 'in the bathroom' for almost an hour now, I've got to go back with my brother and his friends." She stood again and left. As she was walking down the corridor, Draco stuck his head out the door.
"Ginny." Ginny looked at him, his cloudy soulful eyes. "I love you."
The feelings inside her finally burst and she thought of a million things to say. To run to him and kiss him, or tell him every thing that came into her mind. She was bursting. And she knew that the words were torn from him, that it was extremely difficult for him to say those words that he was probably rebuffed when saying them to his own mother. All this swirling around in her gut she opened her mouth and a single word spilled out with a gush of tears. "Okay."
* * *
"So, Gin." George said slowly, from the front seat.
"So, George." She said sarcastically. "Why aren't Ronnie and Harry riding in this car?" The twins had picked them up at the station, but Ron and Harry had ended up taking a cab while Ginny rode with the twins.
"We told them to."
"Oh, right. I'm going to get a lecture now, aren't I?"
"We've heard tell that you've been hanging out with the Slytherins."
"That's very interesting. Just because I have detention with the most lowly snake of them all, practically a worm, I'm all of a sudden guilty of what, dark witchcraft?"
"You tell us, Gin." Fred said. "We've been hearing nothing but trouble. Coming in late, not sleeping in your own room. Running around the grounds with a certain convict's son."
"We have detention together, one of the activities happens to be running." Ginny said dryly, looking out the window. It was going to be a long two weeks, even with promised owls from Draco, Blaise, and The Dark Lord. She pulled out a piece of parchment and started to outline a report to Voldemort around the issue of Lucius Malfoy. She was learning to tread carefully around things that concerned known Death Eaters, and though Lucius was never mentioned, as his former right-hand man, Ginny knew when she was overstepping the line.
"Look, all I'm saying is that you should be more careful about where you sleep and stuff. These are very important times."
"Just because Ronnie is making up stuff, doesn't mean-"
"Ron?" Fred looked around in his seat. "Who said anything about Ron? We've been corresponding with Snape for the past month."
* * *
Severus Snape was a man of few pleasures. Sitting in his expensive leather seat, the smell of it rising to carefully expanded nostrils, sucking in the sweet odor of a new, brewing potion. Bourbon, biting at his lower lip as it pleasured his tongue and burned down to his stomach, was swirling around in an old beaker, elegant all the same. There was an old rock band playing, when wizard music was more than this crap that flaunted misused Muggle instruments and petty concepts. The students had left that day, Monday, and it was already late at night. He tapped his foot and gave the brew a little twitch, mixing in an ingredient, just enough.
There was a beautiful, subtle art to potion-making. You could create something deadly out of completely benign contents. A person could become something completely different, just by taking a sip of something tinged with a foreign substance.
He could pinpoint the day he had discovered potions. Not the precise date, really, just the moment, the memory of the day. But it had all started from the beginning.
He was born in the village that his great grandfather had formed and stolen the name of, Snape. He had been named Severus, after his grandfather, who had been leader and driven the Muggles out of Snape. By the time his father's time came around, Muggles were creeping back in. By the time his father had died and his time had come around to lead the village of Snape, it was completely Muggle and he hadn't been back to the village since he was allowed to leave. He didn't want it anymore than he had wanted to see his father when the owl arrived announcing that his death was near. At the time, he had had a family of another kind. And though they let him keep his heritage in his name, a mark on his arm told of a new loyalty.
His had been a difficult childhood. His mother and father were enemies at best, staying together only to maintain wizarding conventions of marriage. Devon Snape had been an angry man at the best of times, with a weakness for alcohol and women and a tendency towards violence when he had had either one. From an early age, Snape had begun putting make-up on his mother. When she had to leave the house, even when she didn't. So she didn't catch a glance of herself in a mirror and dissolve into tears, clutching at her dress. They had gone to the stores and picked out heavy Muggle make-up and grabbed lunch at the little café next to the general store.
There were almost a hundred funny little cases in his mother's bathroom. There were the kinds that he swiped onto his mother's face with his little fingers, heavy and oily. The ones that he patted onto her face with a heavy puff, so it didn't shine like old coffee when you switch on the light and realize you've left it there a week. The ones that he rubbed on with a spongy cloth, the genuine smell that make-up smudged behind unlike any other.
If he wanted his mother to look the way she wanted to, he had to combine them. So he swiped and then smudged and then puffed, until she looked like a normal woman. One who didn't spend her evenings being slammed against expensive marble floors, or being dashed to pieces on the slab of her husband's words. Understanding those subtleties in simply applying make- up to his mother's bruised face, was enough to make him fall in love with them.
And then he went to Hogwarts. Where he was always unhappy, but finally realized how much he hated his mother. All her whimpering dejectedness, simply refusing to do anything for herself. The way she made dinner for three every night. Staring at the food across from her, as he quietly picked at his own, guilty for not wanting what his mother desperately yearned for; his father. As it lost steam and grew cold, only to be thrown across the room by his father the same night. Almost as much as he had known that he loathed his father, he knew that his hatred for his mother was sure.
He had done beautifully in all his classes, even though he spent evenings alone in the room, and ate meals on his own side of the table. But he was content in simply doing things his own way and avoiding the Marauders.
And he always did things with the same love and care, always pursuing the subtleties in everything. He did well enough in potions while he was in school, but soon after he graduated, he was lured away, by the friendliness of Lucius Malfoy, and later by the power and belonging he hungered for. And so the years passed, and something was lost to him.
One day, he was wandering through Hogsmeade, soon after an attack, just to be seen and get an alibi, when he caught a view of Hogwarts, and decided to walk the length of the old path and wander inside. He paced the halls for a long time, finally he ended up in the potions classroom. The old potions classroom, eerie, with the dead things suspended in glass jars. There was a bubbling cauldron on the desk and Severus wandered up to it, quietly. His fingers danced across the hot edge of the cauldron and when he looked up, Poppy Pomfrey stood before him.
"You weren't bad at potions." She said, tipping a cauldron onto the table. "Help me out." She pushed a bottle into his hand, and a list of instructions in the other. "I'll be back in a minute. And watch that 'un." His hand shook a little as the door closed. He started a flame underneath the cauldron and then looked at the bottle in his hand. 'Armadillo Bile.' It called for a certain amount. He poured and knew exactly when to pull the bottle up, so not a drop too many went in. His mind wandered a little while his hands worked methodically. He remembered, just as putting on his mother's make-up, what exactly the finer things in life were. By the time the potion was finished and bottled he was already in the Headmaster's office, pouring out his heart, and promising a million things to him. He had never properly thanked Poppy. But it wasn't really her he ought to thank. It was his mother.
And when he became a teacher, he had applied for defense against the dark arts, he still wanted defense, but a part of him still knew where he belonged.
Severus gave the potion another stir and leaved over to wetly inhale, the door burst open and banged against the wall. He looked up, his eyes steely, he was not one to be bothered by boisterous students. His mouth went dry and his face pallid as saw the first figure in the door, knowing there would be a few behind her. "Severus."
"I thought you went home, for- for the attack." He said softly, slipping softly into his seat. He laid his fingers in front of him.
"Surprise! Now, we made a deal. I upheld my end of this little bargain." Ginny moved softly into the room, talking comically bright, an unusual smile on her face.
"I kept up my end of the deal, as well." Ginny picked something up and weighed in her hand, putting it back down again and shaking her head.
"My brothers knew about me. And I managed to convince them that it was Harry having trouble with his scar again. I don't know how good my memory charms are, and I kind of like my brothers. Fred and George, you know, the twins." She grin widened. "That wasn't very sporting, Sev. In fact you hurt my feelings. So I wrote a friend of mine and he gave me a little condolence and a little gift. Goyle!"
Gregory Goyle came out of the shadow of the doorway. "Shall I bring in the others, Ginny?"
"Yes, I'd like them all to see what happens to traitors. To traitors of traitors." Severus moaned as most of the seventh years filed into the room. The only one missing was Draco Malfoy. "Give me your wand, Millie."
"But. but. they'll think it was me."
"No, they won't. Tell them you realized you had forgotten it. You're going to send an owl after this to Dumbledore asking for your wand, you left it in the common room you see. Oops. Then some psychopath," Millicent Bulstrode handed her the wand. "picked it up and did away with the potions professor. It's really a shame. You can't trust anyone these days." Severus sucked in deep breaths. His heart was thudding in his chest and he could barely breathe. This was it. If he reached for his wand, she would kill him, she was that quick. If he summoned Dumbledore, it would be too late. There was however, a small chance. If he knocked over the potion in distraction while simultaneously throwing Floo powder in the fire he might be able to get away. It was worth a chance. The Floo was behind the cauldron, he grabbed a fistful, knocked over the potion with his elbow and dove for the fireplace.
* * *
"My lord?"
"I said you need not worry about the queen. That will be enough for you."
"Indeed, it is my lord. But the people are waiting."
"Wormtail, I grow tired of you. I wish for Lucius or Barty Crouch again, just to be rid of your stupidity."
"Truly sir, I am stupid beyond doubt."
"Without a doubt. I have said, do not worry about the queen. Tell my followers that by the end of two years they will have a queen."
"But my lord, should that not suffice, may I say."
"It will suffice because I have said it, fool. Leave."
"Yes, my lord, yes." Lord Voldemort sat down and composed a brief letter to Ginny Weasley before sitting down for his favorite pastime.
* * *
The fireplace crackled ominously, the green flames still flickering. "Stupid." Ginny said. "That was very stupid." She turned around and walked away, dropping the wand in the doorway, while the body of Severus Snape lay next to the fire, keeping warm until the next morning when they would find him, burned like he had been spending a day at the beach.
Ginny flooed out through the Slytherin common room with brief goodbyes to everyone. Blaise followed her, and was there to hold her hair when she retched let tears mingle. Her throat aching and tears flowing down her face as easily as sweat.
Even after Blaise left, she sat there for a long time, rocking back and forth, staring at her blurry complexion in the water in the toilet, murmuring a lullaby her mother had sang to her when she was very young.
"Howling winds,
Dreadful seas,
Keep my baby close to me.
Rumbling skies
Ruffled wings,
Keep my baby far from thee.
I love the life
The grass ,the trees,
I love my baby on my knee.
Kiss his forehead
Kiss her cheek
Baby's many, baby weak
Kiss her forehead
Nudge the cheek.
Baby's mild, baby meek.
Love the tears And yearn not A moment's years Are never forgot. "