Author's Notes: First off, so sorry that I had to delay posting this a few more days. My parents' computer is ancient and wouldn't install my USB device properly. I don't have another chapter ready, but am hoping to get back tonight after work and get it going. I certainly don't intend to take a year to update again. I'm appalled that it took this long this time and apologise to those of you who have been waiting so patiently for updates.

Second, a huge thank you to those of you who pointed out the few mistakes I managed to make in the last chapter. I'm a fool:p

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Part Five B: The Threads of Mind and Magic

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Severus sighed and glanced at his watch before continuing on his rounds. The first night of the first term of the year was always rather boring. Still excited by the return and the chance to see housemates after a long summer, the students tended not to venture out of bounds. It made giving out detentions and taking points decidedly difficult. It also meant he had too much time to not think about Hermione Granger.

There was something bewitching in her - he almost wanted to roll his eyes at the ridiculous statement, but it was the only word he could think of to describe it. She was, without knowledge, he suspected, reaching out and manipulating the auras around her. It was the only explanation for how lenient he had been about the way she was speaking to him, but he rather hoped he was just coming down with something. Anything would be better than what he knew was in store for him if he had to keep up pretences for the sake of his role as a spy. A nice bout of the plague would have suited him much better than having to spend time more with her than was absolutely necessary. It was all made worse, of course, by the fact that he suspected they might actually get along, if he were to actually choose to converse. Yes, the plague definitely sounded good.

He rounded the last corner near the Great Hall and decided it was pointless to continue. He would return to his rooms and have one last relaxing evening before first year Potions the following morning. Double period. Of course. He really hated his job.

"Professor Snape."

He spun around and glared at the young woman. She was standing tall as if she had every right to be there and it was extremely irritating. "Twenty points from Gryffindor, Miss Weasley, for breaking curfew."

She nodded. "Yes, sir."

He was a little disconcerted that she had not only shown herself to him and accepted the loss of points, but also because she was still standing there. "What is it, Miss Weasley?"

"May I have a moment of your time, sir?"

"You have already had several and therefore I shall grant you some of Mr Filch's precious time tomorrow evening at seven. Follow me."

Severus headed quickly towards his office, he had the feeling that whatever Miss Weasley was about to divulge should not be spoken freely in the hallways. Hermione Granger may see no problem in discussing things in the hallway, but, had he not cast a silencing charm and sent Mister Malfoy to his rooms - he had instantly spotted the Slytherin lurking in wait after the Welcoming Feast – she would have seen the error of her ways. Unfortunately that scenario didn't bode well for him either, so he would have to take it upon himself to advise her against that in the future.

Turning his attentions back to Miss Weasley, a sense of foreboding came over him and he was no longer sure that he wanted to know what she wished to share with him. She followed silently and managed to keep up with his fast pace. He was slightly impressed.

After reaching his office, he walked to the fireplace, turning to look at her as she gently closed the door behind her. She turned to face him and he could see that she as starting to feel nervous. She had never been in his office before; she had never needed to be. She was neither good enough at Potions that she was doing extra credit work nor bad enough that she required detention or extra tutoring, not that he offered that often.

"Well, Miss Weasley, I trust that you are not here to simply waste my time."

"No, Sir." She took a nervous step towards him. "Sir, I need your help."

"I assume this has something to do with your brother, Percy."

She frowned. "A little, but mostly it has something to do with me."

Severus stood up straighter, not quite liking the sinking sensation that was building in his stomach. "What do you mean, Miss Weasley?"

He took a step towards her, but she stood her ground. There was something almost brilliant about her in that moment and he was reminded of why he held her in such high esteem with regards to her future. She could be something great, something brilliant, and he hated to think that she might have already ruined that potential. She took a moment before holding her left arm out towards him and Severus closed his eyes briefly as she lifted the sleeve to reveal the Dark Mark.

Severus felt the world closing in around him. It had happened to so many of them, so many great potentials over too many generations and he had failed to stop them. The logic telling him that there was little he could have done was all too easy to ignore when faced with the sight before him. It seemed so much worse than the mark he bore. So much worse because he could see no reason for it, no reason for her to have turned her back on the life she led. Not for this.

"I-I didn't know where else to go."

The soft timbre of her voice shook him back to the present. He dropped her arm as if it were burning him, not even conscious as to when he had taken hold of it, and stared into her eyes, relentlessly unforgiving. He needed to know why.

"And why, Miss Weasley, would you come to me?"

She took a deep breath. "Because you're the only one who understands and you're the only one I can pass information to without my family finding out."

Severus frowned. "And what makes you think I won't divulge this information?"

"Because you're a Slytherin and it's in your best interests not to." He raised his eyebrows at her growing confidence in whatever ridiculous plan she had concocted. "I know your secret and now you know mine. I can't tell them, I can never tell them because they won't understand. If I tell them I didn't mean to and it was all a mistake then they'll forgive me and smother me and treat me like I'm poor innocent little Ginny and that's not true. I'd be lying. I did mean to do this Professor Snape, I meant to do this because I can help the people you can't…and maybe this way…maybe this way it'll stop."

Severus couldn't begin to understand everything she was talking about, but he didn't interrupt. He was going to let her finish before he scared the shit out of her. Stupid, stupid little girl.

"Percy knows."

This surprised him and he didn't even bother hiding his reaction. When she had mentioned his brother on approaching him at Grimmauld Place, he had assumed the situations were reversed as far as the two siblings were concerned and he didn't care if it made him a bastard to admit that he wished that was the truth.

"He knew Tom was pulling me in, he heard me. No one else ever mentioned it, no one talked about it. It was a taboo. I wasn't meant to think about it and I wasn't allowed to remember it. No one would let me remember, but Tom…Tom wouldn't let me forget."

"The diary," Severus muttered and she nodded.

"He took my soul and Harry got it back for me…but some of Tom came too. And then what did my wonderful friend do? He gave the diary back to Lucius Malfoy. He gave it back to Tom. It doesn't matter, Professor Snape, it never matters that I'm not supposed to remember it, because I don't have a choice."

"Of course you had a choice, you stupid girl," he retorted. "There are a horde of people willing to listen to you, you could have-"

"I could have what?" she yelled, surprising him with the vehemence in her voice. "Told the Great, Good Harry Potter that he might have saved me, but he also condemned me to sharing my soul with Tom? It would have broken his heart and then, when he thought about it, he'd eventually come to the conclusion that I'd have to be dealt with as well. Told Dumbledore? So he could patronise me and tell me that I should have told him sooner when he might have actually been able to do something about it? I couldn't tell him what I didn't understand! I was eleven years old and nobody wanted to talk about it! Was I supposed to tell my family? The family I couldn't even tell that I was meant to be a Slytherin? Oh, that's right; you didn't know that, because you never had the chance to know me, because I told the hat 'no'. Harry can try to make me feel better by telling me that the hat wanted him in Slytherin, too, but it's not the same. It's just not. And now? It's all so stupid! Who cares what House I'm in, I'm screwed either way!"

"That's enough!"

Ginny's breathing was laboured, but she closed her mouth with an audible click and awaited his response. Truth to tell, Severus had no idea where to even begin. To know that family prejudice was the only thing that kept him from helping to shape Ginny Weasley's future, to stopping this from happening, well, that angered him. As for Potter, well, he wasn't sure what to think about that. House rivalry, for all the amusement it offered him to take points, had reached a sickening new level over the last hundred years or so. He had suffered under it, just as so many others had.

More pressing, however, was that she admitted to harbouring a part of the Dark Lord's soul. If he could beat Potter about the head with that stupid diary and ask him what the hell he thought he was doing giving it back to Lucius Malfoy, he would.

"Miss Weasley, I am only going to ask you this once. Are you a true follower of the Dark Lord?"

She gazed at him sadly. "Not by choice," she whispered and he let out a breath.

He sighed, not really caring about pretences any more. He sat in the armchair behind him and indicated that she should sit in the one opposite him. "What were you thinking?"

"I wasn't."

"Clearly," he muttered. "Do you think I saved your life last year so that I could deliver you to this? Trust me when I tell you that it would have been preferable I had let you die that let you live the life I do."

"I had no choice. Don't tell me I did, because I didn't. Tom's in my blood, he sings inside me and I follow him. I have to follow him. You can't understand what that's like. I know he has power over the people who follow him, but it's not the same. He's inside me…he's a part of me and I just want him out. I just want it to stop. But it won't, not until one of us is dead and I'd much rather it was him."

"As would a great many people."

"I want to help you."

Snape leaned forward. "You can't."

"Give me one good reason why not."

"I'll show you your reason," he said and, without warning, he plunged into her head. Leglimens was his speciality and he was more than adept at using it to torture; he intended to give Ginevra Weasley enough of a taster to warn her well away. Unfortunately, things didn't go to plan.

Without warning, he was thrown backwards into his chair with such force that it toppled over, throwing him into an undignified roll. He had enough life experience that he instinctively ended up on his feet, facing her, wand in hand. He was beyond speechless.

"I told you," she said, a tear making its way down her cheek. "He's a part of me. He won't let you in."

"Can the Dark Lord see into your mind?" he asked, bluntly. He had lowered his wand and righted the chair with a wave of his hand, but his gaze never left hers.

"He doesn't know how. Not yet. I show him what I want and he thinks it's what he finds. Harry told me what it was like when you did it to him…I just made it up as I went along."

"And if you had failed?"

"Nothing could be worse than this."

"Miss Weasley, forgive me for not understanding your particular point of view, but believe me when I say that not only is it possible for things to get monumentally worse, but it is an inevitability. You will regret this decision."

"I need to help them. I need to help him and I can do that from the inside, I can help get them out. I'm not the next Hermione Granger, I don't have a special destiny, but I can do this. Please, let me do this."

"You can help who, Miss Weasley?" he asked, curiously, but she shook her head.

"I can't tell you."

"Can't or won't."

"Won't."

Severus appreciated her honesty and admired her bravery, even if her answer made him want to shake her until she told him what he wanted to know. There were few people who would stand their ground with him, it was a trait that he admired and it was the one thing that each of the three people he trusted possessed. The youngest Weasley may have done something utterly stupid, but he was hardly one to talk. She, at least, had a plan. Even if it was rather vague and, likely, implausible. She seemed to be under the impression that she would take out the Death Eaters single-handedly.

"I have been working to this goal for a long time, Miss Weasley. Tell me, why should I allow you to ruin everything I have worked for in the infantile hope that a teenage girl can do what I have yet to?"

She shook her head. "That's not it, Sir, that's not it at all. I don't think my presence will make much of a difference either way, not in the grand scheme of it all, but I'm not thinking about the final outcome, not on those scales anyway. I want to help people. Two in particular. I want to get them out…and I want to come out of this alive. That's all I want. But even if I die, at least I died trying. And maybe, just maybe, I'll be free of him right at the end. Even if I got to be just me for just one minute, it'd be worth it.

"I can't save the world, Professor Snape, that's Harry's job. It's Hermione's job, it's Ron's job, it's your job; it's the Order's job. I can't help you there, it's not my place. But maybe I can help some people along the way."

"How very noble of you."

"This isn't about being noble. Are you trying to make this harder on me, Sir?" she asked, a slight edge of hysteria about her and Severus really hoped she wasn't about to cry. "I can't change what I've done and, as hard as it's going to be, I'm not sure I'd want to. I can't escape him without facing him."

Now that was something Severus could understand. His circumstances may have been completely different and, in his case, it was about facing his own mistakes rather than being forced to due to circumstances thrust upon him, but still he understood it. Besides, there was little he could do to alter her course now and to try would not only mean her death, but likely his as well and, despite all evidence to the contrary, he was still rather attached to the mortal existence.

"All right, Miss Weasley," he said slowly. "I will guide your path, but make no mistake about it; I will do what is necessary to ensure both your survival and my own, even if you dislike my methods. Are we clear?"

She nodded and exhaled, relieved that he had agreed.

"Do not get comfortable, the worst is yet to come. And it will keep on coming and it will continue to get worse with each passing moment. This is no secret club you've joined, no game amongst your peers and, should you fail to please, your life will be the price."

"I understand that."

"I don't think you do. You must make the Death Eaters believe you are one of them and they will not choose to do so simply because the Dark Lord wishes them to. There will be those who will try to trip you up at every turn, who will make you fail again and again until you are disgraced. Or worse, you will be seen as nothing but a toy; a silly little girl who has no will other than that of the master who pulls her strings.

"You will need to be ruthless, you will need to do as they say, and you will need to show that you are willing to go one step further. Are you willing to kill, Miss Weasley? To torture? To destroy lives? Think carefully, before you answer, for there is no way to take it back when the time comes. The magic will eat at you from the inside. The Killing Curse may have the desired effect on those you cast it upon, but it will tear you apart. You will feel that moment when their life ceases and you will remember it for the rest of your life…and that's only if you're lucky. If you're not, you will hollow out and the soul inside you will begin to rot as assuredly as that final breath leaving your victims."

There was silence in the room. Severus felt he had revealed both too much and too little; there really was no way to adequately describe the effects the Killing Curse had on its caster. He hoped she understood and he hoped she was one of the lucky ones.

"I know exactly what that's like, Professor, I've seen it and felt it every day since I was sucked into that diary. I've lived with it, breathed it, and dreamt it. I know more than you will ever understand."

"But those were not your deeds. Could you truly live with yourself when those people die by your will? When you witness it with your own eyes?"

Her answer was soft, but sure and, even though it would save her life, Severus knew that it would also destroy her.

"If I have to."

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End of Chapter Five

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I'm sorry that the balance is so out on this one, but my Hermione muse just wouldn't stop talking and Snape, well, my Snape muse said everything that needed to be said and then refused to write any more. On the up side, the Hermione part was really long, so let's hope it's enough to appease you all!

Thoughts and comments are appreciated.