A/N: Finally, the new chapter is up. Thank you to those who reviewed/favourited/subscribed or whatever :) And I hope you enjoy the chapter!

FIVE

"Flint, left," a brown haired boy with a prefect badge pinned to his robes hissed out of the side of his mouth. Flint obeyed without question, edging around a shelf of books, away from the rest of the group. There were five of them altogether, a mix of houses and genders but with one thing in common: the dark mark burned into their skin. The brown-haired prefect was in charge, having bullied his way into the position. I've got her this time, the prefect thought to himself, though he didn't dare speak out loud, you won't escape me now, bitch.

He and Flint were joined on their side of the corridor by a pretty little third year girl who knew some of the most vicious hexes of anyone in the school- including the teachers. Such a shame she was a Hufflepuff, and could only be used at moments like this. At the other end of the corridor were two Ravenclaw sixth years. Twins. Pretty, but not pretty enough to be distracting. It would not do to be distracted right now, however good the prospect of gorgeous, vicious twin sisters sounded. The Dark Lord's mission was far more important than silly teenage hormones.

"Masks," the prefect whispered into his collar. His mother had taught him, during the summer, a useful little spell to charm a button to relay speech to others with matching buttons. It had been one of many little 'lessons', which at first glance seemed harmless but were really intended to get him ready for after school. To get him ready for life with the Death Eaters.

They pulled their masks down over their faces, each of them grinning with anticipation as, after a hand gesture from the prefect, they all edged back into the shadows.

Ginny sighed, head bowed over her Potions homework in the dark of the library at night. She had taken to spending more and more time there lately, rather than her usual haunts of the Gryffindor common room and the empty classroom on the fifth floor that she and Luna Lovegood had commandeered in their third year. It was partly for the peace and quiet, but mostly it was for the feeling of insignificance the place gave her. Shelves upon shelves upon shelves of history and heroic deeds and betrayal and brilliant discoveries and magic. Who was she compared to that? Just some fifth year girl with Thunderbird blood who one person thought could win a war. That was nothing compared to the stories the library contained, and Ginny loved it, finally thinking that she saw what attracted Hermione to spend so much time there.

Of course, it would be the one night that she had some very important Potions homework due the next day that her newfound inheritance decided to play up. It was like a toddler, vying for its mother's attention. She shook her head slightly, trying to clear it of the distant rolls of thunder, but was unsuccessful. It had been the same all evening. It was that same feeling that an impending storm gave her- that same thrill, that same excitement, but unlike natural storms, the ones inside her mind came with an added sense of impending doom. As though she were about to lose her mind.

"Fuck this," Ginny muttered, slamming her book closed. The sound echoed around the library and she stood stock still for a second, listening carefully for any sound of approaching footsteps or meowing cats. Hearing nothing, she breathed a sigh of relief and carried on shovelling her stuff back into her bag, though she was rather quieter about it now. Staying out after curfew had become something of a habit lately, seeming to go hand in hand with spending so much time amongst the shelves of books in the library. She hadn't been caught yet, though she had a few close run-ins with Mrs Norris. Thanks to Fred and George though, her knowledge of the school's secret passageways rivalled Harry's and she had managed to escape easily enough. Still, she shouldn't get cocky, she thought to herself as she crept down the corridors, sticking to the shadows. Her trip was eventless, however, and soon she found herself striding confidently out of the shadows to approach the Fat Lady, who was slumbering in her frame.

Ginny was inches from the portrait when she stopped, clutching her head in agony (or was it pleasure?) as thunder rumbled violently and lightning struck behind her eyes. Her wand was trembling, lodged behind her ear as always and she gasped for breath as she tried to hold on to the tiny amount of self control left in her body. How long she stood there was anybody's guess, but slowly she began to grasp onto those last shreds of control and keep them. Slowly, her mind was becoming her own again. That was when the reason for her thunderbird blood's anger made itself known, in the form of a glass wand stabbed straight into her side, up and under her ribs.

She lost control, and the Thunderbird was given free reign.

Deep in the dungeons, oblivious to her ally's (she refused to call Ginny her master, even if that was what the red head was) problems, Pansy Parkinson sat in Draco Malfoy's lap, trying to ignore the rising feeling of nausea the blonde always caused. They were in a high backed armchair in front of the fire, into which Pansy's bare feet nearly fell, draped over the arm of the chair as they were. Draco was ignorant of this fact, however, more concerned with how many buttons of her shirt he could pop open without her noticing. Of course, the true figure was zero, though the blonde currently thought that his record for the night consisted of five- just enough to show almost all of her breasts without making it completely obvious that he was undressing her in front of the rest of their house.

He really was the least subtle Slytherin in the entire school. Excepting Crabbe and Goyle, of course, and people always do seem to except those two.

"Draco, darling, what are you thinking about?" she simpered, ignoring the hand on her thigh. It was a small price to pay for the information she was after tonight, and Pansy was more than willing to pay that price. Slytherins may not be overtly, riotously brave like Gryffindors were, but that did not mean that they had no courage. It was just a better thought-out sort of courage.

"The plan, what else do I think of these days?" Draco smirked at his words, but the slight bitter chuckle gave him away. Pansy pretended that she hadn't heard it.

"You are so lucky, to have been chosen by the Dark Lord himself. I would give anything to have been awarded the honour..." Pansy trailed off, seeing the slight frown Draco now wore and wondering if she had pushed him too far. Going over her words in her head though, she knew that she had not said anything out of the ordinary. It was something else that had annoyed him. And if he was annoyed, then she wouldn't be getting anything out of him.

"Yes," Draco said in a clipped tone, "I am honoured indeed." Pansy smiled, shifting in his lap so that she was facing him properly. A side effect of this move was that her shirt stretched open just a little bit more, showing off her more than ample cleavage. Her smile widened as she saw Draco's eyes drift downwards.

"I'm getting rather tired, walk me to my dorm room?" she asked, stifling a laugh when his eyes lit up. Perhaps she would be getting that information after all.

"Mine's closer," he smirked, gray eyes darkening slightly with lust. She allowed a slight giggle this time as she took her time removing herself from his lap. Whispering started up as they left the common room together, mostly from girls jealous of Pansy's good luck, though some also came from boys laughing at Malfoy's good fortune. Pansy ignored them, holding her head high even as Draco came up behind her, placing one hand possessively on her hip, holding her to his side.

She had work to do, after all, and they wouldn't be laughing so much when Ginny won the war.

Ginny woke up in the hospital wing the next morning. She opened her eyes blearily, only to snap them closed again as the early morning sunlight reflected from the white walls of the infirmary and threatened to blind her. As she lay there, eyes screwed shut and covers pulled up around her head, she took stock of her body. Two arms still and two legs as well, which meant that she probably still had a torso to hold them together. And the fact that the sunlight was still able to try and destroy her eyes proved that they were still intact. In fact, if it weren't for the fact that her entire body ached and she was in the hospital wing, she would be inclined to believe that she had imagined being attacked and stabbed the night before. Unfortunately, these two observations made it impossible to ignore.

She had been stabbed. Fuck.

"Ah, Miss Weasley, you're awake," Madam Pomfrey said happily, bustling over to Ginny's bed. Ginny groaned a protest, but allowed the covers to be taken off of her head and opened her eyes. Madam Pomfrey was, like Ginny's mother, one of those people who was much easier to deal with if you just go along with whatever she says. Don't complain, don't argue back, and you'd be out of there in no time. Ginny had never shared this bit of wisdom with Harry, of course. It was too much fun watching him suffer.

"What happened?" Ginny asked. Or at least, she tried to- it came out more as a croak and then a rasp. Which wasn't exactly what she had been attempting to communicate.

"Here," Madam Pomfrey said, pushing a bottle of potion into the red-head's hand. "Drink this. You'll have to keep taking one of these every morning for the next week or two." Ginny nodded obligingly, chugging down the potion before the smell had time to make her gag. She followed it with a gulp or two of water that Madam Pomfrey helpfully passed along. See, if you're nice to her, she's nice back. Easy.

"Thank you," Ginny managed, this time with only a slight croak to her voice, "What happened?"

"That, Miss Weasley, was something that we were rather hoping that you could answer," Professor Snape all but snarled as he strode into the room. He was followed by the headmaster, who threw a disapproving look at Snape's back. Ginny giggled before she could stop herself, which unfortunately only served to make the Potions master more irate. Madam Pomfrey bustled off to her office, leaving Ginny to their mercy. "This is not a laughing matter, Miss Weasley. Four students are in St. Mungo's and another two are missing altogether. I will ask you once, and I will ask you once only. What. Did. You. Do. To. Them?"

"I didn't do anything!" Ginny exclaimed indignantly before memories of the night before began to slot back into place and she backpedalled a little, "Okay, so I might have done something but I didn't mean to, and it was self-defence! They stabbed me, for Merlin's sake!"

"And so you saw fit to throw three of them into walls and electrocute a third?" The headmaster's tone was mild, but Ginny could tell that she was in big trouble.

"I... I... I don't know," she finally admitted, "I don't remember much after they stabbed me."

"Yes, of course," Dumbledore nodded, eyeing her contemplatively. Ginny had a nasty feeling that she had just confirmed his suspicions about something. "The stabbing. Do you have any idea why they would do this, Miss Weasley? Why they would make you a target?"

Ginny thought, for a second, of telling him the truth. Of telling him about the old lady in the shop, the earring, the thunder and lightning constantly crashing around in her head, Pansy, everything. But then thunder rumbled warningly in her mind and she kept her mouth closed, shaking her head dumbly in answer. She was learning to trust her instincts, these days.

"I see," Dumbledore answered, his blue eyes showing that he knew more than he was letting on. He always knew more than he let on. "Well, we shall let you recover, Miss Weasley. You have a few friends waiting outside to visit you, and somebody from the auror department will be coming by soon to take your statement, and I'm sure your parents will pop by at some point this afternoon." With that, Dumbledore swept out of the room, and with a swirl of his robes and a glare in Ginny's direction, Snape followed him.

Ginny barely had time to breathe a sigh of relief before the doors opened again and her friends spilled into the room. Harry, Ron and Hermione were there, of course, as was Neville Longbottom. Colin Creevey followed them, with Luna Lovegood next to him. And then, behind everyone else, wearing another of her 'slutty secretary' outfits and a sneer on her face, came Pansy. The others were throwing odd looks back at her, some hostile, some merely curious.

"Ginny! Are you alright?"

"What happened?"

"We heard you got stabbed!"

"I heard you killed seven Slytherins!"

The questions came quick and thick and Ginny was still half asleep. And so she latched onto the most ridiculous question of the lot.

"Don't be ridiculous," she smiled, "They weren't even all Slytherins." This, predictably, set off another round of questions.

"What? You killed people?"

"Why did you kill them?"

"Are you going to Azkaban?"

Ginny rolled her eyes at her friends before turning to Pansy. The Slytherin was currently sitting imperiously in the only seat by Ginny's bed, her legs crossed and her chin resting on her interlaced fingers. She raised an eyebrow at the red head and flicked her eyes towards the mob on the other side of the bed. Ginny smiled and was about to answer when Ron cut in, having seen the gesture.

"What are you even doing here, Parkinson?" he snapped, "This has nothing to do with you."

"Au contraire, Mr Weasley, this has everything to do with me. More so, I would say, than it has to do with you. And so, if you would be so kind as to leave, I would be very grateful," Pansy purred. Ginny had to contain a snort of laughter when she saw Ron's eyes flick downwards from Pansy's face to her chest for a second before he caught himself. So much for Ron being gay for Harry then, Ginny mused, which was a shame really because they would have been a really cute couple.

"Me leave? I'm her brother! How do you even know her?" Ron face was going bright red, the universal sign for all Weasley's that they were going to need at least an hour or so to calm down after this fight. It wasn't a good sign. Pansy raised one perfect eyebrow at Ron before breaking eye contact and beginning to examine her nails. Ron went, if possible, even redder.

"I did not say this girl could have visitors!" Madam Pomfrey exclaimed, bustling back into the room. "She needs rest! She almost died last night, she does not need you all fighting around her. Out! Come on, out!" Ron scowled and opened his mouth to object but shut it again after a pointed look from Harry.

"See you later, Gin," Colin called as he traipsed out of the room along with the others. Ginny smiled. Colin might not be the coolest or most intelligent of friends, but he wasn't half sweet.

"And you, young lady," Madam Pomfrey snapped. Pansy hadn't moved from her seat, though she had changed her expression to one of concern.

"I promise I won't stop her from resting, Madam Pomfrey, I just think she could do with somebody to keep her company right now. After all, if I was attacked when I was alone, I wouldn't want to be left alone afterwards." It was the complete opposite of how Pansy had spoken to Ron, even of how she spoke to Ginny, and she was reminded again that the older girl was a Slytherin. Sneaky bitch.

The mediwitch's expression softened and she nodded her agreement.

"So long as you don't cause her any excitement," she scolded lightly. Ginny stifled a snigger, and could tell from the way Pansy's eyes lit up that she was struggling to contain her laughter as well.

"Oh, no, Madam, I won't excite her. I understand that she needs rest, not... strenuous activities." Madam Pomfrey smiled and nodded, going back into her office with a satisfied expression on her face.

Ginny giggled, and Pansy joined in for a second before turning serious again.

"The two who went missing," she began without preamble, "They were Slytherins. They came back to the common room last night, covered in blood and pretty beaten up. One of them was holding a sort of hollow glass wand, filled with blood. They called a meeting. I wasn't invited, of course. They see me as an air-headed bimbo- not worthy to serve their lord. They all holed themselves up in one of the dorm rooms for a while and then they came down and left, taking Draco and Goyle and Nott with them. About an hour later, Draco, Goyle and Nott came back, but the others didn't. I know what it was all about. They all had this mission, to get some of your and Potter's blood. That was why they attacked you. But now they have a new mission. He wants you, Ginny. He wants the Thunderbird, though I'm pretty sure he doesn't realise that that's what you are yet. He just wants the power you have. They're going to kidnap you."

"They're going to kidnap you."

Harry had to slap his hand over Ron's mouth to stop him from giving away their position. He had only just stopped himself from making a noise of anger himself, but he was well aware of what Ginny would do to them if she found them eavesdropping. Keeping the hand over Ron's mouth, he dragged him backwards out of the Hospital Wing and down a few corridors. When they were a decent distance away, he dropped his hand and pulled the invisibility cloak off them. They both stood staring at each other for a minute or two, minds reeling with what they had just overheard. Pansy was some sort of spy. Malfoy was a death eater. Ginny was a target, an important one. And-

"What the bloody hell is a Thunderbird?"