Year Four, Part Four
She woke up tingling with nervous excitement, energy thrumming through her as soon as she realized what day it was.
After all this time, it was finally here.
She hadn't slept much the night before, the anticipation of the day to come having kept her up until well into the night.
Still, she felt as awake as ever she had.
Dressing hurriedly, she checked and rechecked that she still had the Portkey at least five times before grinning at herself in the mirror and heading down to the Great Hall, barely able to keep from skipping.
Harry wasn't there.
She took her usual seat at the Gryffindor table with anxiety gnawing at her belly, the food dull and tasteless on her tongue.
'It's ok, he doesn't know anything, he can't. He'll meet you at the main entrance just like you planned.'
By the time she had finished eating and made her way to the main entrance, it felt like a bowling ball had been inserted into her stomach.
She scanned the line of students waiting to go into Hogsmeade nervously, her anxiety lessening slightly when she saw that Luna wasn't among them.
'Where is he? He can't know, he can't!'
She was just about to go back up to Gryffindor tower when Harry came walking down the stairs looking wan and exhausted.
"Sorry," he said when he reached her. "Didn't sleep well last night."
She stood on her tiptoes, brushing her lips against a pale cheek.
"Well," she said, "I'm sure Hogsmeade will cheer you up."
Taking his hand, they joined the queue, pausing when they got to the front and Filch marked their names off on his clipboard.
The pair of them drew more than a few glances, with one of the Slytherin girls from her year, Artemis Jones, hissing an insult that was luckily swallowed up by the wind.
The wind grew stronger as they walked, huge black clouds moving in and veiling the sun.
Harry seemed very withdrawn as they strolled along the winding road to the village, barely giving more than one-word responses to anything she said.
In her mind, she kept repeating the plan. How, once they were away from the main area of Hogsmeade and everyone's eyes, she would hug him tight and whisper the phrase.
She kept compulsively tapping the little stone in her pocket, its reassuring weight strengthening her.
They paused at the entrance to Hogsmeade, where Ginny adjusted her scarf and took his gloved hand again.
"Are you sure you're alright?" She asked, forcing concern into her tone. "You seem very distracted."
He gave a hollow laugh and squeezed her hand, smiling at her weakly.
"Yeah. Sorry, just had terrible dreams last night. Lots of them. Kept waking me up."
"Let's see if we can replace those thoughts with something better," she said, tugging him after her.
The streets of Hogsmeade were full of students, laughing as they wandered around, mostly in pairs.
'Just need to keep moving,' she thought with annoyance, as Harry stopped to greet someone else.
"You finally found someone to take you, Weasley," Pansy Parkinson shrieked as she and a group of her giggling friends passed them near Dervish and Bangs. "I'm surprised, I thought he was more interested in your brother!"
She was half-expecting Harry to respond, but he didn't, instead just frowned at the Slytherins until they were gone.
"Let's keep going," she said awkwardly, "shall we?"
Harry shook his head as if to clear it before saying: "Yeah. Want to go see what they're all looking at?"
He was pointing at Dervish and Bangs' glass storefront, where a smallish crowd had congregated and were apparently examining something.
'Just go along. You can move on from there.'
The crowd moved away to let her and Harry approach, revealing a large poster on the wall.
A picture of Bellatrix's face leered out at her from it, flanked on both sides by other Death Eaters.
The writing below the pictures announced a thousand galleon reward for information leading to the capture of any of the convicts.
'I wonder if the reward will be so high for me.' She thought with a shiver.
A peal of thunder tore through the air, making a girl to Ginny's right let out a startled shriek.
"It's going to pour soon," Harry said with a glance at the sky, "We should try and get inside somewhere."
'No. No. No. Need to get further away.'
"Maybe," she whispered, "we could take shelter in that cave. It could be really cool."
"I guess. Don't you want to get something to drink and eat first?"
"Not really…"
'Just listen to me!'
The nervous tension returned, her intestines becoming a swarm of snakes twisting around inside of her.
Something was wrong, she was sure of it. Harry looked even more withdrawn than when they'd first met, and he was staring at the poster of the wanted Death Eaters with a very strange expression.
'He doesn't know,' she told herself sternly, inhaling and forcing her worries to disappear. 'He can't know. I'm sure the Dark Lord was thinking about catching him, he's probably unnerved from the nightmares. He doesn't know. Just get him to go with you.'
"I'd like to," Harry said, "If you don't mind. Didn't make it to breakfast this morning. Maybe we could go to the Three Broomsticks?"
'Just need to get him away from the crowds, then I can make it work.'
"It's always packed there. How about the Hog's Head?"
Her nerves strangled her for a long moment while Harry stood there, looking uncertain.
Finally, he nodded.
"Ok."
By the time they reached the Hog's Head, rain had begun to fall in large, splattering drops.
The road was quite empty, with most of the people around having hidden away from the storm. There still were a few Hogsmeaders and students braving the rain, though. Enough of them that Ginny wanted to move further away.
'It'll just get worse. I have to get him to move forward now, otherwise he'll want to stay in the Hog's Head.'
"How about we just head to the cave now?" She suggested. "And come past the Hog's Head on the way back?"
"I don't think so," he said, shaking his head, his glasses skidding down the bridge of his nose and nearly falling off. "I'm really hungry, Ginny. And this rain is getting stronger."
"I-I know the Contraception Charm…"
He wavered for a minute, desire warring with some unknown emotion in his face.
'He knows. Somehow, he knows, or he suspects. I'll have to do this carefully. Body-Bind, then Locomotor. Nobody will realize unless they're watching closely. And if they are, I've got the Portkey.'
She shrugged, quickly moving in close and hugging him tight, adjusting her body so that it wouldn't be clear to someone behind her exactly what she was doing.
She swiftly drew her wand as she moved and pressed it against him, whispering: "Petrificus Totalus."
His body became stiff as a board against her, his arms going hard and taut.
"Locom-"
Her incantation was cut out by a furious yell from behind her.
Alastor followed Potter and the girl safely under the cover of his invisibility cloak, the Supersensory Charm allowing him to hear every word of the conversation.
Though he looked around, he kept his magical eye focused on the pair, gripping his wand tighter every time the girl tapped her pocket.
Of the few people still on the road, only one of them was coming this way.
He watched the oncoming girl for a minute, just to ensure that she wasn't an unknown partner before dismissing her.
"I-I know the Contraception Charm."
He spun back around to watch the couple, raising his wand and hoping that Potter had more than a lick of sense.
Far too often, Alastor knew, young wizards thought with the wrong head.
But Potter seemed to be doing alright, inasmuch as the desire on his face was clearly visible.
The girl tensed up, barely noticeable even to his magical eye.
'Fuck.'
She hugged Potter, and Alastor began to cast a spell when he saw the boy's body go stiff.
Alarm bells sounded in his mind, and he twisted out of the way of the oncoming presence the Supersensory Charm had warned him of.
The girl who had been coming up the road was running right past him, shouting and waving her wand wildly.
The sudden cry shocked Ginny badly, making her let go of Harry as she instinctively spun to face the source of it.
She realized what she had done almost immediately and grabbed Harry roughly around the waist, holding him up as she finished turning around.
When she did, it was to see Luna standing in the middle of the road, her wand held in front of her like a javelin and tears running furiously down her face.
Utterly speechless, Ginny just stared, the Portkey forgotten in her surprise.
"You lied to me," Luna said in a thick, horrified voice, "you said you weren't coming. I thought it was you there, I hoped I was wrong, but I was right. I was right. And Harry doesn't look very happy to be with you. I was right. You promised, you promised and you lied!"
"Luna, I-"
"Let him go," Luna pleaded, "We can-"
Hot rage flashed through her, her blood boiling in an instant.
Everything seemed to shake around her, red coating her vision.
"HOW DARE YOU!" She shrieked, "I NEED TO DO THIS! THE DARK LORD WANTS-"
"STUPEFY!' Luna cried.
She let go of Harry, barely hearing him drop to the ground as she waved her wand and yelled: "PROTEGO!"
She stared as the red light flashed against her shield, barely noticing how the Stunning Spell flew back past Luna before veering away, not noticing as a figure appeared from thin air a few meters behind Luna.
She could think of nothing but the furious, bitter taste of betrayal, could feel nothing but pained hatred.
"HELP!" Luna shouted, leaping nimbly out of Ginny's Stunner's path. "SOMEBODY, HELP!"
A bright yellow curse came flying over Luna's shoulder, making Ginny, who had tried to move towards Harry, jump backwards, screeching and waving her wand all the while.
"SHUT UP! SHUT UP! SHUT UP! EXPULSO!"
"MOVE, GIRL!"
Ginny blinked, barely believing her eyes and ears as Mad-Eye Moody came rushing forward, knocking Luna out of the way and bringing his wand down in a slashing motion, sending her curse careening into the ground where a muddy crater erupted.
From the corner of her eye, Ginny saw the door to the Hog's Head fly open and the burly innkeeper come rushing out, brandishing his wand.
"DON'T HURT HER," Luna screamed, jumping back to her feet and grabbing Moody's arm, pulling him off balance for a second. "SHE NEEDS HELP, DON'T HURT HER!"
And suddenly, Ginny understood how it had all gone wrong, why Moody was there.
Flitwick must have questioned Luna again. He must have questioned her, and Luna must have told him about her suspicions.
Whatever it was Luna had said, it must have been enough for Dumbledore to have one of his Order tail Ginny and make sure that she didn't hurt anyone.
Everything had gone wrong, and it was all Luna's fault.
Luna who she had felt comfortable with, who had made her feel safe and happy.
Luna who she had loved.
Everything except her and Luna seemed to momentarily vanish in a wave of pure hatred.
She waved her wand, not even noticing the spell crashing into her and sending a jolting numbness down her left arm.
"AVADA KEDAVRA!"
Luna's eyes widened, the eerie green light of the Killing Curse lighting her face up the instant before it crashed into her chest.
The wind seemed to stop, the rain faltering and Moody and the innkeeper stilling as the light faded from Luna's eyes, leaving them blank and empty.
Just for a moment, nothing existed except the sudden wax-like sheen forming on Luna's face.
Then Luna fell forward, and the fight returned along with a strange hot pain in her left arm.
"FINITE INCANTATEM!"
Moody growled out an incantation, jerking his wand toward her and sending a curse flying right at her.
Her tears were hot against her cheeks as she cast a quick Protego, terror filling her mind when she heard Harry coughing.
'They removed the Body-Bind, I need to get him now!'
Moody's spell crashed straight through her shield, hitting her in the chest and knocking her to the floor just as, from the direction of the pub, a Stunner shot through the space where she had been standing a moment before.
Spots danced before her eyes as she tried to breathe, fighting to take in air.
Dimly, she noticed Harry sitting up.
Summoning reverses of strength she didn't know she had, Ginny launched herself into a dive, oxygen flooding her as her lungs began to work again.
She landed roughly, crushing Harry between her and the ground.
A spell smashed into the earth a few meters away from them, mud splashing all over her face.
Her left arm was screaming in pain with every movement, but she forced it to grip Harry's arm as she waved her wand in Moody's direction and shouted: "AVADA KEDAVRA!"
As soon as the curse had left her wand, she rammed her hand against the stone in her pocket and wheezed: "I have P-"
Something with the force of a locomotive hit her, sending her flying off of Harry and bouncing along the ground until she came to a final stop a good fifty meters down the road, hundreds of small cuts and scrapes appearing as she crashed into the road over and over.
A horrible wetness began to soak into her robes. She glanced down for an instant and saw blood pouring out of a thick, deep gash just above her belly, where one of the cuts was decidedly not minor.
Another Stunner came, missing her by a fraction of an inch.
She jumped to her feet, screeching wordlessly in impotent fury.
Something gave a crack in her right knee as she stood and she almost fell with horrible pain exploding in her leg.
Blood poured into her eyes from a cut on her forehead as everything began to spin furiously around her, making it near impossible for her to see, but what she could see was more than enough.
The innkeeper had made it over to Harry and was helping him to his feet, and Moody was limping forward, his wand flashing in her direction.
She managed to twist out of the way of his curse, but her knee gave in, sending her sprawling onto the ground.
"SURRENDER," Moody yelled, shooting another curse toward her. "IT'S OVER, JUST SURRENDER!"
She couldn't get out of the way, and felt a terrible agony as at least one of her ribs broke.
The blood dripping down her face mingled with frustrated tears as she pushed herself back up, her leg trembling beneath her.
The innkeeper was standing in front of Harry, a spell flying from his wand right toward her.
"AVADA KEDAVRA! EXPULSO! SECTUMSEMPRA!"
Every one of her spells went wild, none of them even coming close to any of her targets.
She could dimly make out other figures running down the road with wands drawn.
Another curse hit her, her legs and arms beginning to jerk uncontrollably as a Disarmer flew right past her head.
'You need to go, get out of here! If they catch you you'll be of no use to him! You failed, but you can make up for it! Go!'
"I have Potter," she wept, the cold acid of failure seeping into her as she expected to feel the Portkey tug at her navel.
But the Portkey did not work.
"I have Potter! I have Potter!"
She managed to twist, flipping onto her stomach with spells flying over her.
'It's not working. It's not working.'
Her limbs were shaking almost too badly to function, but she pushed herself to her feet, waving her wand behind her and shrieking: "AVADA KEDAVRA!"
Then she spun, her legs trying to throw her to the floor, trying as much as she could to focus on the land outside the Dark Lord's house before throwing herself into Apparition.
The last thing she saw before being pulled away was the rain falling onto Luna's corpse.
Her Apparition dropped her roughly onto the ground just in front of where Snape had said the barrier was, every part of body shrieking in protest as she landed.
Pain blocked out everything for a moment, a thick blackness swirling in front of her eyes and a rushing noise sounding in her ears.
Terrible agony shot from her right arm, forcing a scream to erupt from her throat.
She shook the blood and tears from her eyes, looking down at her arm.
A patch of flesh had been neatly torn away, the bone visible for a moment in an empty hole above her forearm before it filled with dark blood.
'I've gone and Splinched myself,' she thought, a bizarre urge to laugh shaking her even as she continued to scream hysterically.
As if from somewhere far away, she heard voices.
It was suddenly too much to keep sitting up. She fell onto her back, her legs and arms still shaking, the sodden leaves a pillow below her head.
Someone was standing above her. She blinked furiously, shaking her head again.
The tall shape of the Dark Lord swam into clarity, his lipless mouth twisted in rage.
Behind him, blurry forms stood, just indistinct bodies in the gloom of her fading sight.
"What happened?" The Dark Lord asked, his voice cracking like a whip.
She began to blubber, spitting out disconnected words along with her tears.
"Luna she was-Moody was there, and Harry- Luna told Flitwick, it must have-Killed her-I-"
"YOU HAVE FAILED ME!" The Dark Lord shrieked, his wand flashing, "CRUCIO!"
She was screaming, the agony consuming her, making all the hurt she had suffered until then nothing but a scratch in comparison.
Her bones were aflame, her every nerve crying out for release.
The curse ended and she rose into the air, slamming back down onto the ground with a horrific click sounding from her back.
The Dark Lord shrieked wordlessly, waving his wand and making her rise and crash down again.
Another Cruciatus hit her, making her roll around on the muddy ground, her tormented screams mingling with half-shouted pleas for it to end, for her to just die and for it to end.
An eternity of agony passed, and as suddenly as it had started, it was finished.
She rose into the air again, this time in a standing position, and flew backwards until she crashed into something solid behind her.
Her head lolled around, unconsciousness trying to claim her while the Dark Lord approached.
He stepped before her with a snarl, his long fingers biting into her skin as he gripped her chin and raised it, forcing her to meet his burning gaze.
Then he dived into her mind, her memories of the entire Hogsmeade trip playing over again.
She was sobbing by the time he released her face.
He waved his wand with a growl, removing whatever force had been holding her up.
Twitching and shaking, she fell to the ground, everything around her fading away.
"Bellatrix," she heard the Dark Lord say, "Take her inside and heal her. The rest of you, leave me."
The darkness swallowed her.
A feeling like a static shock ran through her an instant before an ice-cold blanket forced its way around her, freezing as the Black Lake in midwinter.
She turned over, her eyes still closed, moaning quietly.
"Wake up!"
Another shock came, much stronger than the one before, her arms jerking at it.
Pain suffused her as sleep was torn away, almost every inch of her body blazing in agony.
Her back was the worst, but her arms and legs felt like they had been run over by a train.
"Wake up! The Dark Lord wants to see you!"
She groaned again, slowly opening her eyes.
She was lying on a bed in a room with dark grey walls. A large table was placed below the window, covered in bottles and jars of potions and paste.
Bellatrix stood above her, putting her wand away with an expression somewhere in between a scowl and a proud smile.
The blackness formed at the edges of her vision, trying to pull her under even as memories flooded her.
In her mind, Ginny saw Luna die again. She saw herself running away like a coward while Harry escaped, saw and felt the Dark Lord's fury once more.
She shivered, forcing her eyes to stay open.
"How-"
A coughing fit seized her when she tried to speak, her ribs aching as she bent double.
When it passed, she tried again.
"How long has it been?"
"Only a few hours," Bellatrix replied flippantly, "long enough to make sure that you wouldn't die. Put this on, he'll be here any minute."
Ginny fumbled the plain black robe that Bellatrix threw at her; it fell to the floor, making a thick clump on the carpet.
When Bellatrix made no move to pick it up, Ginny struggled out of the bed.
It was only when she pushed the covers off herself that she realized she was naked.
Looking down at herself, she gasped.
Her chest was a mass of bruises, blue-ish purple and dark red. They looked weeks old, true, but it still was a startling sight. A huge scar ran through them, thick and pale.
"Don't worry," Bellatrix suddenly said, "If he lets you live, we'll have you back to your pretty little self before you know it."
Ginny ignored her, a thread of fear running through her fuzzy mind as she forced her aching body into the robes.
By the time she finished, a sweaty sheen lined her forehead and she fell back into the bed, body trembling with the effort simply getting dressed had taken.
Barely a minute later, the door swung open and the Dark Lord strode in, a huge snake slithering around his feet.
She didn't have time to even say anything before he was standing right next to her, gripping her face and forcing her eyes to meet his.
And again, as had happened after she'd arrived a few hours previously, he viewed her memories.
Unlike the last time, however, he started with her last meeting with Harry before Hogsmeade.
She watched along with him, making no attempt to fight as, in her memory, Harry kissed her cheek before running off to meet with Snape.
Suddenly, the memory paused, with Harry's face filling her mind.
It seemed to grow for an indeterminate amount of time, before she felt a tugging on her thoughts and another memory appeared.
Harry was walking down the stairs to her, looking very out of things.
Again, the memory stopped, and again, Harry's face seemed to grow.
Looking at it closer, she could see what appeared to be nervousness.
The memory carried on.
She didn't know how long she stayed there for, with the Dark Lord carefully going through her recollection. He would stop at certain points, making something she had seen for an instant grow large.
She saw plenty that she hadn't consciously noticed when she had been in the moment, or even when he had used Legilimency on her earlier.
She saw how Harry seemed nervous, how he kept glancing behind him, how his hand often hovered above his wand. She saw how the innkeeper from the Hog's Head had been standing at his window, staring at them as they had walked up the road.
She saw how Moody had appeared from nowhere, and how, just after she'd killed Luna and tried to take Harry again, Kingsley had joined the grizzled old Auror.
And she saw herself screaming out the passcode while the Portkey did not work.
Then, the memories stopped, and the pain from around her body registered as she realized that she was staring at the Dark Lord.
"They knew," he snarled. "They knew."
"I-I thought L-Luna-"
His wand twitched, and the quartz stone which had been a Portkey shot forward, hovering just before him.
His hand moved from her face, moving to the portkey and stroking it.
"This was a Portkey when I gave it to you. I charmed it myself. Those charms were removed. None but Dumbledore could have done this. They knew of the Portkey, and they knew of the plan."
A fury even worse than that he had shown to her after her failure flashed across his face, the snake at his feet raising its head and hissing.
"It appears," he said, his whisper a soft knife, "that you were correct about Severus, Bellatrix."
He turned away from Ginny, robes billowing out behind him.
"It was not entirely your fault," he said. "Rest. Bellatrix, I want her in full health in time for the execution."
'Execution? Snape's a traitor? But-'
"When will that be, my lord?" Bellatrix asked, sounding excited.
'If it was Snape, it can't have been Luna. It wasn't Luna. I killed her, and it wasn't even her who did it. I killed her for nothing.'
"When I have torn every last bit of knowledge he possesses from his worthless, traitorous mind."
With that, he was gone, the snake's hissing echoing down the corridor.
"Well," Bellatrix said, suddenly looking jubilant. "This is lovely."
She walked over to Ginny, grabbing a smoking goblet from the table as she passed it.
"We'll get you all better," she purred. "I'm quite glad that you're not as useless as I worried."
She pushed Ginny down onto the bed, forcing her to lie on her back.
"Drink. When next you wake, everything will be much better."
'I failed. Everyone knows, and I killed Luna, and it was all for nothing.'
She hadn't even finished the potion before sleep claimed her once more.
She woke up gently, her mind slowly beginning to work.
"Open your eyes," a voice said, "It will hurt at first, but you must do it."
That voice stirred something, a fraction of an ounce of recognition swirling within her.
'Where am I? What-'
She heard a sigh, followed by a muttered: "I loathe healing," before someone walked over to her and put their hand on her shoulder.
"Come on," the voice said, now tinged with impatience.
'That's Bellatrix,' her mind whispered. 'I'm in our headquarters.'
Everything came back to her, tears prickling against her closed eyelids when she remembered what she had done, how she had killed Luna for nothing.
How she had failed.
A loud, agonized scream was heard, something that sounded more like a hamstrung horse than a human.
Ginny's eyes shot open, the sudden light burning against them and making her instinctively close them again.
"No, no. Open them, you'll get used to it."
She cracked her eyelids an inch as another scream sounded.
Drop by drop, the harsh brightness vanished, leaving only a few spots dancing before her.
Bellatrix was standing right next to her, smiling beatifically and nodding encouragingly.
"That's it. Keep them open."
She was lying in the same bed as when last she awoke. The sun shone through a window, bathing the room in a golden glow.
Under the covers, she was naked again, but her body seemed pain-free.
Ginny tried to speak but her voice came out in a soft croak.
"Here," Bellatrix said, passing her a goblet. "Drink."
The older woman chuckled at the sound of another scream when Ginny was half-way through the water, her smile growing.
"Was that Snape?" Ginny asked, her voice still hoarse, but audible.
"Oh, yes. He's been screaming like that for the past few days. Our Lord's not very happy with him, not at all."
She laughed again, clearly mirthful.
"I don't think I've ever seen him so furious," she confided, pushing Ginny slightly and sitting on the bed. "Maybe when Regulus vanished, but not since then."
"Snape-he told Dumbledore, then?"
Bellatrix nodded, jet-black eyes focusing intently on Ginny.
"When he came in, he was still trying to pretend that it was all a coincidence. Dumbledore had arranged Moody to come without telling him, he said. He kept it up for a while, too. But even for an Occlumens like him, there are ways to bring out the truth."
She adopted a sing-song tone and continued. "Bones can split and skin will tear, faces ripped and organs bare. Little Krup, little Krup, let me in."
"How long has it been?" Ginny asked, sitting up against the wall, heedless of the covers falling and revealing her naked chest.
She could feel no need for modesty or shame in front of this woman, this woman who had been there when the Dark Lord had tortured her and had apparently nursed her back to health.
She did almost regret her decision when Bellatrix glanced at her breasts, her eyebrows rising and her smile growing even more, looking like it would tear her face in two.
"Five days. Does anything hurt?"
Ginny concentrated for a minute, checking herself, before shaking her head.
"Good. I'm not a healer. I just know how the body works better than anyone else here. Except for our lord, of course. You'll still have a scar on your belly, it must have been a curse. But you don't mind scars, do you?"
Bellatrix's eyes glinted with shrewd amusement as she moved forward, her hand stretched out.
Ginny shivered as those fingers ran along the scars on her tits, just for an instant, before coming to rest on the scars on her arm.
"You like hurting yourself?" Bellatrix asked, sounding nothing but curious.
"I-I needed it."
"Did you really? Why?"
Ginny just shook her head, her heart pounding. She couldn't explain what it was like, not to this woman whose family had supported her when she joined the Dark Lord.
"Your mother was a Prewett, wasn't she? Molly?"
Ginny nodded, her stomach clenching up at the thought of her family.
"You look like she did, back when we were in Hogwarts." Bellatrix said, patting Ginny's hand, "Loathsome, prudish bitch that she was. How did her child end up with us?"
Ginny opened her mouth to say that it was a very long story and that she was tired, but instead, she found herself telling Bellatrix about the diary.
The words tumbled out, something in Bellatrix's eyes just letting her speak, letting her speak and feel comfortable.
She marvelled at what she was doing but did not stop.
Those beautiful eyes widened as Ginny went on, the serious expression that formed on Bellatrix's face broken by flashes of smiles when Snape's screams interrupted Ginny.
When Ginny told her, her voice choked, about Higgs, Bellatrix hugged her tightly.
And when Ginny told her how she had killed him, Bellatrix laughed and clapped.
Her voice grew stronger as she described how Barty had discovered her, a reverent note entering as she told of her first meeting with the Dark Lord.
She spoke for hours with no pause beside Snape's screams, talking about her training with Barty and how she had loved Luna, how she decided to serve the Dark Lord whatever it took, even though it forced her to use the knife, even though it made her sometimes feel like the internal struggle was going to rip her in two.
After describing how Barty had his soul eaten, her voice grew hoarse again, and Bellatrix wordlessly refilled the water.
She cried, talking about how it had been with Luna, how she had felt almost normal.
The sun was just beginning to set when she finally finished, tears dripping from her chin and soaking into the top of her covers.
Bellatrix laughed softly, hugging her again.
"Brilliant, beautiful baby," she whispered, "You're home now. This is where you're meant to be. Here, with us."
Her head dropped onto Bellatrix's shoulder, still sobbing.
"She tried to stop you doing what you had to," Bellatrix said soothingly, patting her back gently, "It was her own fault. You did the right thing."
"It was for nothing," she wept, "I didn't even get him! It was for nothing!"
"Nonsense. She tried to stop you! You would have been sent to Azkaban, and you would have stayed there until you died!"
A shiver ran through Bellatrix, a terrified scowl twisting her face.
"You were protecting yourself, and you did the right thing!"
Ginny shook her head.
"Everyone knows. Everyone knows, for nothing. I failed."
"From what you said," Bellatrix said, "You know Potter as well as anyone. Think of something to give to the Dark Lord, something that we can use against him."
The terrible feeling still stayed, a voice in the back of her mind whispering that she was a useless failure.
Gently, Bellatrix began to stroke her scalp as she shook with her sobs, murmuring compassionately.
How long she stayed like that, Ginny didn't know. All that she was certain of was that when the tears had dried, full night had fallen outside.
Strangely enough, she felt good, even with hiccupping tears still bursting from her. She felt, in fact, better than she had since she had killed Higgs, maybe even since Harry had killed Tom and ruined everything.
It was almost as if a poison had been drawn from her, like she had cried away all of her pain.
She yawned, suddenly exhausted.
"Sleep," Bellatrix said as she stood, "And think about what I said. I'll be back tomorrow."
She followed Bellatrix into the largest sitting room the house had to offer, still marvelling over the beauty of it.
Over the past three days, her energy and health had slowly returned. Her legs still felt slightly weak when she walked, but it was a far cry from the first time she had tried, two days previously.
Most of that time had been spent in her bed, either sleeping, talking with Bellatrix, reading the newspapers and books she had been given, or thinking about what she could offer the Dark Lord with regards to Harry Potter.
The rest of her waking hours were spent walking, trying to force her body to just function.
It was definitely improving in leaps and bounds. The healing had done most of it, but all that was left was giving her body time to adjust.
For now, there were more important things to worry about.
A few of the Death Eaters in the room gave her curious glances as she entered just behind Bellatrix, but their attentions were quickly claimed by the spectacle just in front of the fireplace.
The Dark Lord was standing there, his snake curled around his feet. Hanging upside down in mid-air just in front of him was the mangled form of Severus Snape.
Snape was swinging around lazily as if he were a balloon in the wind; as Ginny stood near the entranced, he came to face her for an instant and she gasped.
His face had been brutally savaged, with barely an inch of it left untouched. His left eye was gone, looking like it had been scooped out of the socket, which, she noticed, had been burned.
The other eye looked oddly deflated.
The rest of his face was covered in bruises, cuts, and burns, with patches of skin simply missing.
His lips looked like they had been torn off, and half of his nose had been sliced away.
The rest of his body had fared no better, with the exception of the tattoo on his left arm.
There, the skin and flesh was untouched.
For a while, no-one said a word, as Snape spun through the air.
Then the Dark Lord waved his wand, and a spotlight seemed to shine on Snape, throwing him into sharp relief.
With the new light on him, Ginny could see how his limbs were twisted into strange shapes, his fingers and toes lying in odd, uncomfortable looking positions.
"Mark well the price of betrayal," the Dark Lord suddenly said, "Not content with merely leaving our fellowship, a fellowship for life, Severus deemed it appropriate to act as a spy for Dumbledore as his ilk. It is due to his actions, and his alone, that our newest sister did not succeed in bringing me Harry Potter."
The light the Dark Lord had conjured up shone in her, making everyone turn and stare.
In the silence, Ginny distinctly heard someone whisper: "That's a Weasley!"
"Indeed, Yaxley," the Dark Lord replied, cold amusement in his voice. "Clearly, you do not read the Daily Prophet. Dear Ginny has a price on her head almost as high as our newly-released family, and is suspected of being in contact with them, perhaps even with that notorious criminal Sirius Black."
Jeering laughter filled the room for a moment, silence falling the instant the Dark Lord spoke again and all eyes returned to him.
"Ginny is one of us, and will be Marked so as soon as she has proven her worth. She would have already been Marked, were it not for Severus' sabotage."
The laughter vanished from his tone at Snape's name, a sibilant hiss entering in its place.
"Tell us, Severus. Why did you betray me?"
Snape slowly revolved until he was facing the crowd before his spinning stopped.
"Tell us, Severus. Now."
Snape opened his mouth, and Ginny saw that his teeth had been shattered, the gums themselves sliced open.
A strange, hacking noise left him, and Ginny realized with a shock that he was laughing.
'It must have driven him mad.'
"You killed her," Snape said, his voice mushy but understandable. "You killed her."
"See the results of Dumbledore's so-called most powerful magic," the Dark Lord cried, stretching his arms wide. "See the results of his famous love, the love of a half-blood for a Mudblood!"
He turned back to Snape.
"I killed a Mudblood who detested you, who chose another man in your stead. I killed an intruder in our world, one who at least had the good sense to find you disgusting. You could have been great, Severus. But look at you. You are pathetic."
The Dark Lord's wand flashed, and the tattoo on Snape's arm began to writhe.
After a moment, the flesh beneath it tore off his arm in a bloody torrent. It hovered in the air for an instant before flying into the fireplace, where the flames rose to greet it.
"You do not deserve to die as one of us," the Dark Lord whispered, before slashing his wand again.
A jet of emerald light shot from it, hitting Snape in the chest and releasing whatever spell had been holding him up, causing him to drop to the floor with a crash.
As if it had been a pre-arranged signal, the great snake at the Dark Lord's feet rose, its jaws distending before it dived forward.
"Thus will end all traitors. Ensure that you are not among them."
She was still kneeling, her hair making a red veil in front of her face.
Somewhere behind her, Bellatrix was standing. She'd told Bellatrix her idea before coming to propose it to the Dark Lord, and the woman had been enthralled.
"If-if Lucius Malfoy, or someone else in the Ministry gets word to Umbridge about Potter's defence group," she said, "She can catch them. Even if it doesn't get him expelled, that was the only thing he really liked about Hogwarts now."
"Continue."
"And He-I told you, my lord, he is afraid that people will die because of him. He already blames himself for Diggory's death. If-if the people close to him are killed-"
"Who would you suggest?" The Dark Lord asked.
'It's their own fault. They chose the wrong side, it's their own fault.'
"His friends. The Mudblood and-and-and my brother. Ron. Sirius Black and Remus Lupin. If he knows that they're dying because of him, he'll do anything to make it stop. Anything. Even-he'd probably even surrender himself."
"Your brother and the Mudblood are at Hogwarts. Black is behind the Fidelius, and Lupin is usually with him."
"I-I know, my lord. But if-if the families of his friends were targeted-"
"Your family is on the highest guard, waiting for you to strike. Severus knew that much. The Mudblood's parents, perhaps."
The Dark Lord stroked his chin, looking thoughtful.
She forced herself to speak, willed the tears away.
"My brother P-Percy. He isn't living at home. He's not in touch with the rest of the family. He disowned them, he believes the Ministry. And my brother Ch-Charlie. He lived in Romania. My mother, she said that he's doing work for the Order there, trying to recruit foreigners. We could-we could k-kill them easily, my lord."
She shook, images of Percy and Charlie flashing through her mind.
'It's their own fault. It's their own fault, and I need to do this.'
"Yes. That will work well. You will do it."
He smiled, rising from his throne and beckoning for her to stand as well.
Trembling, she did, nerves and worry twisting her belly.
"The ageing potion will be complete in another two days, and I shall remove the Trace from you then. And then you will begin your task. And once your brothers and the Mudblood's parents are dead, I will Mark you as one of us."