Ch. 7 - The Relationship
Ginny wasn't sure how they had gotten back to Hogwarts. She managed to keep her composure until they were out of Voldemort's presence, then she burst into tears and couldn't stop crying.
Severus carried her to his rooms (as he didn't know her password, and she was in no condition to give it to him). He sat carefully on his bed with her cradled in his lap. Her felt her tears soaking his shirt.
"Ginny, what's wrong?"
"What wrong? What's wrong?" she wailed. He shifted slightly to cast a silencing charm on the door to his room. "I just killed an innocent and you ask me what's wrong…"
"You didn't kill her. Voldemort did."
"But he killed her for me. I was powerless to do anything… I… I… I'm sick. I'm disgusting. I wanted to help, and I know that I couldn't, but some part of me was fascinated by it… I was wondering what was going to happen; and what he was doing… I wanted to look away, but I couldn't. What the hell is wrong with me?"
"There was powerful dark magic in use tonight. Of course, you were fascinated. There's no reason that you should feel bad about this. You didn't ask him to kill anyone for you."
"But I was rooted in my spot. I didn't even try to help her."
Severus grabbed her chin and forced her to lock eyes with him. "You couldn't have helped her! If you did, you would have exposed yourself… and me, then we would have both died as well."
"Oh, God, and he hurt you, too. I didn't even try to stop him from hurting you. You must hate me," she said new tears filled her eyes.
"Ginny… Ginny… I could never hate you!" he said gently kissing the tears from her cheeks. He pulled her close to him and let her cry. "Just cry, Ginny. Let out your grief. You can't hold it in… it will kill you, or at least make you bitter."
"Is that what happened to you?"
"Yes. I held in my grief. It's hard to let go, and I'm too much of a coward to cry."
"You're the bravest man I know Severus," she said kissing his cheek. He felt her tears roll off his chin and down his neck. He had to fight his own tears as he held her. Damn, Voldemort, he'd destroyed her innocence. He would pay for this.
Severus awoke the next morning early. They had finally fallen asleep in each others arms. His pillows were soaked with tears, and they weren't only Ginny's. He shifted so that he was leaning on his elbow. She was so beautiful, so pure. There was only one thing he could do… he had to get her out of the Death Eaters. She couldn't go on like this. He could take her somewhere safe to hide… but she'd never go for it. She was too brave… damnable Gryffindor quality.
He placed his hand on her cheek and she woke with a start. "Severus," she asked groggily.
"Yes?"
"What time is it?"
"6 am, according to my clock."
"Mmmmm," was her reply. She rolled over to go back to sleep.
"Come on Ginny. You've got to get up. You need to dress in your room for breakfast. Classes start today."
"Do I have to?" she said snuggling into him.
"Come on. Let's get up," he said, sitting up with more resolution than he felt. Ginny reluctantly got up and went to her room to dress, but not before giving Severus a passionate kiss.
"Thank you."
"No. Thank you, Ginny."
Ginny found that she liked teaching, better yet, the kids liked her. She wasn't sure if it was because she was close to their ages or because she was… friendlier than Snape, but for whatever reason the students sought her out for help in class.
Of course, it wasn't just Ginny who struggled with new found popularity. When the rumor hit Hogwarts that Ginny was dating Severus Snape (based purely on the fact that he had smiled at her at the Start of Term Feast), Snape quickly became Hogwarts most pined after professor. After all, what teenage girl can resist a man she can't have? Much to his dismay, the fencing club was now filled with gaggles of giggling girls, and it was a guarantee to find at least one piece of parchment filled with hearts and I love S. S. left in the dungeons. For her part, Ginny thought it was funny and spent a few minutes each day teasing Severus mercilessly about it.
"Who do you think it was today? Perhaps it was Ms. Coleman of Gryffindor?" Severus answers only with a low growl. "No? Then maybe it was one of your lovely Slytherins."
Snape always replied inaudibly, "grumble… grumble… Hufflepuff."
It amazed Ginny how he always knew exactly who the culprit had been.
Outside of Hogwarts, things had become… strange to say the least. Voldemort had been showering her with gifts – expensive dress robes, gaudy jewelry – but had never mentioned a single plan to her, nor tried anything other than kissing her. In an effort, to keep their "relationship" secret, Voldemort had insisted that she meet him alone, but of course, somehow the news of Voldemort's new queen had slipped out. She'd never forget the Order meeting where the information was revealed.
They all sat at the kitchen table at 12 Grimmauld Place; Snape was to her left, her mother to her right. Dumbledore looked at Ginny as he spoke, "Tonks would you like to share the conversation you overheard with us?"
"Right. I was staking out the Malfoy estate for the next Ministry raid, when I overheard the elder Mr. Malfoy say something to young Mr. Malfoy about 'Lady Voldemort'. At first, I though I had heard wrong, but Draco replied something about why he would pick that person to be his queen."
"So, does anyone have any idea who this 'Lady Voldemort' is? This new revelation could be quite dangerous, depending on who the title has been bestowed upon. Think about it, if she is someone just as evil as Voldemort, we could have an even worse war on our hands."
Ginny locked eyes with Severus. The others began throwing names around.
"Bellatrix Lestrange? Oh no, that can't be right it, would have to be someone the Malfoy's didn't like…" said Hermione.
"Pansy Parkinson," offered Ron, curling his nose up in disgust. "That would certainly warrant Draco's reaction…"
"Blaise Zabini," said Harry as everyone turned to stare at him. "What? Draco said 'pick that person to be his queen'; I think that under the circumstances Zabini would certainly be a queen. Don't you?"
"It's me!" Ginny finally shouted.
All eyes turned to her. Ron's mouth dropped. "But, but, I thought you were dating Snape."
"Mr. Weasley, I assure you that your sister and I are not dating, but even if we were, we wouldn't tell you, because as you may have noted, your sister is an adult, who exists as an entirely separate person from yourself. Thus, her private life is exactly that…. Private!"
Her mother turned pale and her father raged, "Are you telling me that you wouldn't even mention the fact that you were dating my daughter?"
"Arthur, be reasonable, man. I wouldn't tell you, in order to keep us alive. Can you imagine what would happen if rumors of us having a… er… relationship reached Voldemort? Besides, as you are her family, I would leave it up to her whether or not she wished to disclose such personal information to you. Now, I am sure that the Order has much more important business to discuss than who happens to be snogging Ginerva! If we could move on!"
She blushed four shades of red as the meeting continued, but relaxed quite a bit when Severus took her hand under the table and gave it a quick squeeze before resting his hand on her thigh.
It was Halloween Day. Classes had been in swing for almost a full two months, and Severus was becoming more sarcastic (or is that sadistic?) as time went on. How could his students be such idiots? Then there was Ginny, hovering over the students like a mother hen, swooping in to save them, when something went wrong. Didn't she understand that they needed to make mistakes in order to learn? It would be a miracle if the first years didn't all fail their first test.
Severus strolled around the room of the cauldrons. The sixth year Slytherin and Gryffindor students were attempting to brew a Befuddlement Draught. While most of the cauldrons had a dark crimson liquid simmering in them, one cauldron, belonging to none other than Dennis Creevey had turned an acrid green. This was a sign of adding too much scurvy-grass after having not brewed the sneezewort long enough. Unfortunately, there was no saving his potion. Snape turned up the aisle in the middle and began walking toward his desk. He had just opened his mouth to speak when he heard a loud explosion behind him. He turned to see much of the back row taken out. Parchment was everywhere and several cauldrons had busted spilling their contents onto the floor.
"Unfortunate for you Mr. Creevey. Until you caused your potion to explode, you were simply going to receive a zero for the day. Now, however, you have a detention and have lost 10 points from Gryffindor for your incompetence."
"But, Professor…"
"Do you want to make it 15 points then?" Silence filled the room.
"Professor Snape…"
"What Ms. Weasley?"
"You know there is no way that it was Mr. Creevey's cauldron that exploded. The mistake he made rendered the ingredients inactive, thereby making it impossible for his cauldron to explode."
"Are you questioning my judgment, Ms. Weasley?" he said, emphasizing her name in the most sarcastic way possible.
"Of course not, Professor Snape," she replied using the same tone. "Excellent job cleaning up Mr. Creevey 15 points to Gryffindor."
Snape raged, how dare she reverse the 10 points he took from Gryffindor and give them five more? "Mr. Creevey, did you just trip? 20 points from Gryffindor for your clumsiness."
All eyes in the room traveled from Snape and Ginny who were glowering at each other in front of his desk to Dennis Creevey who seemed to be turning as dark red as their potions were. Dennis silently continued to clean up the mess and casted a lebes repairo spell to fix the busted cauldron; he wished they had picked another victim for this.
"Excellent spell casting Mr. Creevey, 25 points to Gryffindor." The bell to end class rang somewhere in the castle.
"Class dismissed!" Snape shouted. The students quickly filed out of the class, the door slammed shut behind them. "How dare you challenge my authority like that? It is after all my classroom!"
"How dare you single out a poor innocent Gryffindor, for something you know he couldn't have done? It had to be one of your Slytherins who added something else to their potion in order to cause that explosion, and you know it."
"I know nothing of the sort, Ms. Weasley. I will kindly remind you to take into consideration who is the Potions Master and who is the apprentice!"
During their argument they had come closer and closer, now they were nearly nose to nose. "Yes, of course, Master."
Severus let out a low growl of frustration as he leaned in to kiss her. He was pissed, but damn she was beautiful when she was angry. He grabbed her by the waist and pulled her forcefully to him. His kiss was forceful and insistent. He pushed her lips open with his tongue and claimed her mouth completely. She moaned softly as his hands traveled to her ass and gave a quick squeeze. He felt her grin evilly underneath his lips as she reached around to squeeze his ass.
He growled in response and in one swift motion, without even breaking their kiss her lifted her onto the edge of his desk. She squealed in delight and wrapped her legs around his waist. She broke their lip lock and ran her tongue up his neck where she nibbled gently on his ear. A shiver went down his spine and a soft moan escaped his lips as the sensations overcame him. The feel of her tongue and the heat of her legs wrapped around his waist was going to drive him insane.
Their eyes locked and the room around them felt as if it were filled with electricity from all of the sexual tension. He was shocked to see her brown eyes filled with the flame of desire. Could she, could anyone, really want him that badly? He began to kiss her exposed neck, lower and lower he went…
Neither one of them heard the door open. "I forgot my quill!" they heard a nervous Dennis Creevey squeak.
Shit!, thought Severus loud enough that Ginny heard him in her head. "25 points from Gryffindor for bursting in like that!"
"Yes, sir," he said softly as he picked up his quill.
"Dennis, 30 points to Gryffindor if you tell no one what you saw," Ginny said quickly.
"Of course, Ginny," he said quickly. "I would never tell anyone. I mean you are a friend and all," he was backing out of the room as quickly as possible.
"Creevey, 50 points from Gryffindor if you utter a word…"
"Right, sir. Well… ummmm…. I'll let you get back to sir, she's quite a catch," he said before backing out of the room and slamming the door shut.
"Colloportus," Snape said with a flick of his wand. "Right… now where were we?" he asked with an evil grin.
A/N: HAPPY TWO YEAR WEDDING ANNIVERSARY TO ME! OK, well I wasn't really intending for this chapter to go this way, but I had a horrible bought of writer's block over the weekend and I really wasn't in the mood to write anything about Voldemort on my wedding anniversary. Thank you to all of my wonderful reviewers, and I promise to get back to the plot in the next chapter!
Vitugglan – I'll be sure to make a note about how I like the job. Thank you for your wonderful comment about the Parseltongue spell.
Snape's Opera Rose – Thank you for your enthusiasm. I hope you like this chapter as much as you liked the last.
cher237 hotmail. com – I'm glad you liked the spell as well. I was also excited they kissed. As you can see Snape and Ginny are moving right along…
P.S. For those of you wondering the final scene is somewhat based on real life. My husband and I met at our job; there was an office in the back room, and well, some one walked in on a passionate make-out session! I suppose this was my way of creatively reminiscing!