A/N: Thank you to those of you who have story alerted/favourited/reviewed. I'd like to request any constructive criticism you can give me, because I'm trying to up the ante on my actual writing in this story, which is hard to do if I don't know what I'm doing wrong/ could be doing better. So any help with that would be greatly appreciated :)

Enjoy!

THREE

Ginny sighed happily as she leant her forehead against the window of the Hogwart's express. She rocked slightly as the train sped down the tracks, and sunlight flickered red on her closed eyelids as it flashed through the trees outside. Finally. Finally she was away from her mother's constant demands and chores and scolding, finally she was going back to Hogwarts, to some semblance of freedom.

"Ginny!" The girl in question groaned as her brother's voice sailed from down the corridor into her open compartment door. She scrunched her eyes shut a bit more, hoping childishly that if she couldn't see him, then he couldn't see her. Unsurprisingly, life didn't work that way and Ron stopped outside the door, Harry and Hermione in tow.

"There you are, didn't you hear me calling you?" Ginny cracked her eyes open and squinted past where Luna was sitting (with her head stuck in the latest copy of the Quibbler, ignoring them all) to the tall, lanky form of her second least favourite brother in the doorway. It wasn't that she disliked Ron, it was just that she liked her other brothers (bar Percy) much better. She supposed it was because they were further away from her in age, and she hadn't had to suffer through years of their company at Hogwarts. And they were less annoying. There was that, too.

"Hi Ron," she said reluctantly, "What is it?"

"Me and Hermione have to go do rounds. Just checking you'd found a compartment," he answered, and Ginny's heart almost warmed to him until; "And don't go near any of the Slytherins. And don't let them in here. You know they'll be happy to hex you, especially these days." She rolled her eyes.

"Why would a Slytherin bother coming in here?" she asked, but Ron had already gone, stomping off down the corridor with Hermione.

"You don't mind if I sit in here, do you?" Harry asked, left hovering in the doorway with his trunk by the others. Ginny smiled at him warmly, he and her father were the only ones who hadn't gone crazy about this earring thing. Well, and the twins of course, but even they were worried.

"Go for it. Might attract some scary Slytherins though," she joked.

Damn, Pansy cursed inwardly as she spied from her spot in the corridor, disillusioned against the wall, on the compartment that the youngest Weasley was sat in. She had, somewhat foolishly, perhaps, hoped that the girl would be alone or with some of her year mates. Pansy hadn't counted on The Boy Who Lived himself to be sat across from her. There was that freak from Ravenclaw there as well, the one that had gone to the ministry with them at the end of fifth year, but she was no bother; what would Loony do? Throw those radish earrings at her? Not bloody likely.

But Potter, now Potter was a problem. There was no way she was making her proposition in front of the golden boy, but it was equally impossible that he would ever allow Ginny to talk with Pansy alone. She needed to get rid of him, but how?

"Harry?" Pansy's head whipped back to the doorway of their compartment, where a second year Gryffindor boy was now standing nervously. "I was told to give you this." The boy held out a scroll of parchment which Harry accepted before backing out again and sliding the door closed. Pansy watched Ginny look on curiously as Harry read the message. He frowned and said a few words to the red-head before standing, saying good-bye to both the girls in the compartment and leaving. Yes.

She held her breath as Potter walked past her and counted to ten, waiting until he was out of sight down the corridor before taking off the disillusionment charm and striding up to the compartment door. Confidence. Confidence was the key here.

Ginny looked up as the door slid open less than a minute after Harry had left, expecting to see him back, having left his wand or glasses or some other important item. Although not as bad as Neville, Harry did have a tendency to be a bit forgetful at times. Ginny chalked it up to his mind constantly being too busy fretting about Voldemort and other such life-threatening things to worry about the everyday stuff.

But it wasn't Harry. Pansy Parkinson stood in the doorway, her wand in one hand and a slight smile on her lips. She hadn't yet changed into her school robes and was wearing a green silk vest top with a black pencil skirt and heels. Ginny snorted aloud; she looked like a slutty secretary, though the Gryffindor supposed that the older girl had been going for classy. It was the exact opposite of Ginny's own clothes; jeans and an old baggy tee that had once belonged to Bill.

"Hello Pansy," Luna said, startling the older girl slightly before she pulled herself together and sneered down at the blonde.

"Fuck off, Loony," Pansy spat. Ginny narrowed her eyes and reached behind her ear for her wand. She had taken to keeping it tucked behind the ear with the earring; somehow it seemed to calm the strange effects she had been feeling since that day in Diagon Alley.

"You shouldn't keep that there," Pansy said, eyeing Ginny in a way that made her feel strangely vulnerable.

"What do you want, Parkinson?" The older girl raised one perfectly plucked eyebrow and took the seat opposite Ginny.

"I want to defect. I want to join the winning side of this war. I want to join your side."

"Severusss, I trust you have completed your task by now?" The hiss came from a hooded figure, slouched in a large, gilded chair at the head of the room. Severus himself was knelt in front of his master, legilimancy shields at full power as he tried to hide his disgust for the creature before him.

"My lord, it is done," he said subserviently, extracting a vial from his robes, "I have brought a sample for my lord's inspection, and can retrieve the rest whenever my lord wishes." The hooded figure snapped his long, pale fingers once and Peter Pettigrew scurried forwards from where he had been hiding at the edge of the room, took the vial from Severus' hand and gave it to his master.

Voldemort held it between his forefinger and his thumb and peered at it, his eyes glowing red from beneath his hood.

"Very good, Severuss," he hissed, waving Pettigrew away, "Now return to Hogwarts. You wouldn't want to miss the sorting feast now, would you?"

Ginny's friends were slightly concerned. She had barely spoken a word to them yet, simply sitting and walking and eating automatically while a small frown sat on her forehead and ideas and concerns whirred around in her brain. She had glanced up briefly when Harry Potter had walked into the hall covered in blood, but even that was not enough to completely lift her out of her own thoughts.

For a girl who was usually bright and bubbly and happy, if a little shy, this was odd and yes, slightly concerning. Her friends knew not to bother her though, knew not to ask what was wrong, and knew that if they did they would likely be on the receiving end of a bat bogey hex. And so it remained that Luna was the only one, other than Pansy of course, who had the slightest clue what was going through the red-head's mind at that moment. And Luna wasn't talking.

So Ginny was left in peace with her thoughts. And what strange and exciting thoughts they were. The trade Pansy Parkinson had offered her was very tempting indeed, and she was not sure that she could say no to it. She was not sure if she should say no to it. Information for a place on the winning side. No, not the winning side; Ginny's side. Up until that moment, Ginny Weasley had been unaware that she even had a side in the war. Let alone one that was so promising that even one of the most cunning Slytherin girls would wish a place on it. Was it worth taking on that responsibility just to get information about her... condition? If it even was a condition, or if indeed her condition was any different to before the earring ceased being merely an earring in a shop and began whispering to her blood.

Lost as she was in her thoughts, she failed to notice the figure in front of her until she had walked straight into it.

"Miss Weasley, if you do not want to lose points before lessons even begin, I would suggest you watch where you walk in future," a familiar voice sneered at her. She looked up to see the scowling face of the potions master glaring down at her, his empty black eyes boring holes in her head. Then the eyes flickered sideways and widened in shock. Ginny's frown deepened, and she reflectively brought up a hand to her ear, tucking her earring, the evidence of her change, away in the folds of her hair. But it was too late and Snape had already seen it. He reached out one long-fingered hand before she could move and grabbed her chin, forcing her face round to look at him. His deep, black eyes stared into hers.

"Legilimens," he whispered, and she felt a strange push in her mind. It was only for a second, however, and then the flashes of lightning began, accompanied by booming rumbles of thunder. She forgot about Snape, about the fingers clutching her chin and the interrogation she was facing and threw herself head first into the storm in her mind, laughing gleefully as rain dashed across her skin and thunder and lightning destroyed the use of her senses. It was one thing to stand underneath a storm, but quite another to fling oneself straight into the centre of one.

Too soon, however, the rain began to wane, and the storm retreated, depositing Ginny back into her body on its way out. She opened her eyes to find her professor staring at her in shock, his face paler than usual. Slightly hysterical laughter was echoing around the corridor and it took Ginny a minute to realise that the sound was coming from her own mouth. She hastily shut it, watching Snape warily, wondering whether he was about to give her detention for a few months (or possibly something worse, but she didn't want to think of being on the receiving end of some of her professor's hexes). She needn't have worried however, as he turned and swept away from her without another word. On a normal day, this would have been a cause of joy for the youngest Weasley, but she found herself panicking instead, her breath coming in irregular pants and her hands beginning to shake slightly; this was just one thing too far for Ginny. She needed to know what was happening to her, and she needed to know now.

Pansy Parkinson smiled down at the note in her hand as she idly petted the owl that had brought it to her. She had hoped the Weasley girl would accept, hoped that nobody else had bothered telling her what was happening to her. If anyone else even knew, that was.

"Letters at this time of night?" Draco drawled from his seat by the fire, "What's so important that it couldn't wait until morning?" Pansy smiled, sickle sweet and simpering as she let the owl out the window and walked over to where Draco sat, surrounded by a group of admirers. She perched herself on the arm of his chair and ran a hand through his hair. She giggled when he wound an arm around her waist, his fingers expertly finding the gap between her shirt and her skirt and working their way up under her top to rest on her ribs.

"It's a surprise, Draco," she said, leaning down to plant a kiss on the side of his mouth before hopping up and grabbing her bag. She was halfway to the exit before he called to her.

"Wait, where are you going? It's after curfew." Pansy smiled coyly, not stopping, but turning her head back to speak to him.

"I told you, Drakey, it's a surprise," she shot a wink at him and left the common room, the smile melting off of her face as soon as she was out of sight. Soon, soon she wouldn't have to deal with idiots like him, idiots who thought that having good family and breeding and a lot of money was the same as having power. For Slytherins, they could all be rather dense at times. They wouldn't see true power if it hit them in the arse, despite being raised surrounded by it, just as she had been. The amount of cunning they possessed between them wouldn't fill a tea cup, and yet she was forced to play nice, to act the pure blood daughter and pretend that she was no threat to them.

It was always the worst on the first week of school; she had had an entire summer away from them all, in her own home where she could excel and plan and plot all she liked, without having to worry about who could see her, about who would get suspicious about her behaviour.

Draco would be getting a surprise alright, when the war came proper and she wasn't by his side.

It was 10 o'clock and Ginny stood in the shadows by the entrance of the library, clutching a worn out piece of parchment in front of her. She had 'borrowed' the Marauder's map from Harry for this excursion, and a quick check of it a minute before had confirmed that Pansy was already in the library, exactly where Ginny had told her to be.

But now that she was here, Ginny was having second thoughts. What if Pansy's offer of information had been a lie? What if this was some ploy to get a spy into the light side? What if it was an ambush? And so she hesitated, undecided, by the entrance, staring at Pansy's dot on the map.

"Logically," she whispered to herself, "Think about it logically. If it was an ambush, they'd need more people, and there's nobody else around. And she never said she wanted to join the light side, just that she wanted to join my side. And my side has no information because nobody tells me anything. And if the offer was a lie, then I'll just have to find out the information for myself." She nodded, Gryffindor courage regained, before letting out a tiny giggle. If she wasn't crazy before, then talking to herself was a sure sign that she was going that way.

Quickly, she pushed the now folded Marauder's map into her bra (usually, she despised girl's who kept things in their bra, but if, however unlikely it seemed, this was an ambush, her bra was probably the last place Pansy would look) and slipped silently into the library, working her way past the shelves to the very back, where she found the older Slytherin girl, but not as she was expecting to.

She had expected Pansy to be sat, straight backed and rigid, in full school robes at one of the tables, a glare on her face as she waited for Ginny. But the sight she got instead was something entirely different. The contents of her bag were strewn across a table, but Pansy herself was browsing the nearby bookshelves, occasionally pulling something out when it caught her eye. She was clad only in her Slytherin skirt and an untucked shirt, no tie, no robe and no shoes.

There was something strangely intimate about watching Pansy pad around barefoot, something that had Ginny yearning for the comfort of The Burrow and her family. She shuddered as she realised what she was thinking; it unnerved Ginny more than her newly acquired accessory, the encounter with Snape and the threat of Voldemort combined; to consider Pansy Parkinson and the comfort of home was strange and terrifying and she did her very best to cast it out of her mind at once. It would not do to go into a meeting with a Slytherin already unnerved and out of sorts, no more than she already was, anyway. She would be eaten alive if she did.

"Are you planning on lurking all night, or are you waiting for the Death Eaters I have hiding behind the shelves to come out and attack you?" Ginny jumped slightly at the words, immediately cursing herself for allowing Pansy to get the upper hand in the meeting already.

"You don't have Death Eaters behind the shelves. The only other people out of their common rooms or offices are Filch and Snape. And Filch is in the Astronomy tower, and Snape is in Dumbledore's office." Ginny smirked as Pansy turned around to look at her as she sat down at the table.

"And how, exactly, are you so certain? Thunderbirds don't have any instinctive knowledge of other people's whereabouts that I know of."

"That, Parkinson, would be telling." Pansy raised her eyebrows but let it go, padding across the library floor to sit down opposite Ginny.

"You know, honey," the older girl began, a mocking smile on her face, "If you're here, as I think you are, to agree to my deal, then you really should start calling me by my first name. Unless you want to come with an idiotic name for your followers like The Lightning Bugs or something." Ginny pursed her lips and frowned.

"I'm not here for you to take the piss. I'm here for you to tell me what you know. So get talking, Pansy. What is a Thunderbird?"