A/N: to my knowledge, only about one person is still reading this, so thanks to that one person, and I hope you enjoy the new chapter!:)

NINE

The rolling and crashing of the thunder was being tainted, Ginny decided. The storms in her mind no longer reminded her of her childhood, of the hill near her house and of her brothers fetching her inside. It didn't in remind her of her mother's scolding, of her father's bemusement or the sheer adrenaline rush she always got from standing underneath the clouds as they fought in the heavens. Oh, she still felt a thrill and she was still filled with adrenaline but she was beginning not to notice it as much. It had ceased to be extraordinary because it seemed as though it was all she felt these days. Barely a moment of her day went by without the distant sense of storms far off in the back of her mind, and it only took a misspoken word to cause her anger to flare.

She had not hurt anybody yet, but she was terrified that she soon would. She was scared that Professor Snape was right, greasy, evil git that he was, and she was a danger to her friends. She had not seen what she had done to her attackers all those weeks ago but from what the teachers and ministry officials had said, it hadn't been pretty. To her knowledge, they were still in St. Mungo's, waiting to heal enough that they could stand trial and be shipped off to Azkaban. Where they could then be broken out by the Death Eaters.

She sighed. The Christmas holidays were coming up and there were almost as few students staying at the castle as there had been when the Chamber of Secrets was open. Dumbledore's death had frightened parents- if the headmaster could be killed in the middle of the school, how on earth were their children expected to be safe? Many kids had already been taken out by anxious parents, and Ginny could not blame them. She thought about her own parents often, wondering if they were going to try and take her away from Hogwarts. They had wanted to after her attack, after all, so she would not be at all surprised if they were plotting to get her and Ron back to the Burrow as soon as possible.

"They have to get back to the Burrow as soon as possible!" Molly Weasley said fiercely to her husband, "They aren't safe there, not even Albus was safe there!"

"Molly, I doubt it was a case of Albus's safety. I expect he let Draco kill him, though for what reason I couldn't say. There's no way that Draco Malfoy could beat Albus Dumbledore in a fight if Albus was trying to win. And they will be back for Christmas, and the rest of the boys are safe where they are as well," Arthur said soothingly, trying to calm his wife. Secretly, he agreed with her, though for different reasons. Though he was all for his daughter defending herself when attacked, he did not want the next lot of Death Eaters in training to end up dead. He didn't want blood on his daughter's hands, not at her age.

"Oh, I know, and I know that they can look after themselves, I just want them here, want them with me and out of this ridiculous war," Molly sobbed, sagging into her chair. Arthur immediately felt guilty- he almost preferred the fiercely determined, on-the-warpath Molly to this desolate one. "They're just children, they shouldn't have any part of this!"

"I know, Molly dear, I know," Arthur murmured, wrapping his arms around his wife. He couldn't bring himself to tell her it would be alright though. The last war had taken her brothers from her, and Arthur could give no guarantees that this one would not take any of their children. All at once, Arthur was crying too, letting his silent tears drip onto Molly's shoulders.

Draco was in a muggle shop. He was terrified, if he was honest with himself, but honesty was something he rarely indulged in. Instead, he was calm, confident and not in the slightest bit woozy from the loss of blood from his arm. The trackers seemed to have lost his trail, so he had healed his arm as best he could, transfigured his ragged robes into something more… muggle, cast a few cleaning charms and began to put phase two of his plan into action. Disguise.

He wrinkled his nose at the boxes in front of him. He couldn't go for blonde, even if it was a different shade, no matter how pretty they looked, and he refused to dye his hair black or red. If Potter or Weasley ever saw him like it, he'd never hear the end of it. The mousy browns looked hideous though, and even though he was in hiding, that was no reason to look ugly. At length, he chose a chocolate brown, thinking that it would go terribly with his colouring but that it was the best he could hope for. Not for the first time, he wished that this part of his plan couldn't just involve extensive glamours, but they were too easily spotted by a wizard looking for them.

Furtively, he glanced around the shop, checking that his notice-me-not charms were still working. The girl behind the counter was staring glumly out of the window still, so he assumed they were. He didn't have a single knut with him, let alone any muggle money. Stealing was the only way to go. As if life couldn't get any worse. He walked out of the shop with his hair dye, ignoring the alarms that he set off behind him and apparated away to his 'hotel' room.

It wasn't exactly the standard of hotel room that he was used to. The Malfoy families had properties in most countries, but on the rare occasion that they didn't, he and his parents had stayed in the most expensive hotels to be found. He was fairly sure that the 'hotel' he was staying in now was one of the cheapest. He didn't actually know, as he hadn't bothered to ask the price. He had no money to his name, so he knew that there was no way that he could afford it, whatever the price happened to be. Luckily though, it was a muggle place and so he was able to get away with the confundus charm that persuaded the owner that the nice blonde boy had paid up front for several weeks. It wouldn't work for long though- the owner would eventually look at his books and realize that there was money missing. And then it was only a matter of time until Draco was found. He needed money. He needed a job.

He shook his head, disgusted at the thought, and put that problem away for later. First things first, he needed to be able to go out without worrying about lurking Death Eaters searching for Malfoy-blonde hair.

In years to come, Draco Malfoy never found it strange that he found dying his hair more terrifying than being chased by Death Eaters, and his friends were (mostly) all too tactful to make fun of him for it.

Ginny knew somebody was approaching because the thunder had warned her. She was outside, up high in the branches of a tree on the edges of the Forbidden Forest. In truth, she was hiding from Hermione. Ever since their disastrous meeting Hermione had been hounding Ginny, trying to persuade the younger girl to ignore Pansy and allow the Golden trio to join her 'side'. Though she was slowly coming around to the idea the more people took it seriously, Ginny still thought the idea of her having an actual 'side' in this war was faintly ridiculous. She knew she had power- Pansy reminded her of it often enough and she couldn't deny that she felt it too. But to have a side… to be in charge of people, of soldiers in a war. She might be a Thunderbird, an old, primal force of nature, but she was also still just Ginny. Ginny who had fallen for Tom's diary and thought herself in love with Harry Potter. Ginny who liked Quidditch more than anything and hated the library.

She loved the library now, and wished she could be there where the claustrophobic feel of the walls and the shelves and the books dampened the Thunderbird in her soul and allowed her to be more her old self for a while. But Hermione was much too likely to find her there and Ginny didn't know how much longer she could endure the constant begging before her temper gave way and she blasted the other girl into a wall.

These were the thoughts occupying her mind, which was why she did not manage to react in time before the stunning spell hit her in the back. She fought it for a second, holding onto consciousness for long enough to feel the pain of falling to the forest floor and to spit one word at her attacker.

"Coward."

Blaise Zabini looked down at the red headed girl in shock. Had she just… no. It was impossible to resist a stunning spell, it wasn't like the imperius. And yet he had seen what he had seen. There was no way that he had been imagining it- Blaise Zabini did not imagine things. And so he had seen the impossible, meaning that this girl was more important than he had originally thought. And as she had been asked for specifically by the Dark Lord this was saying something. He was not fool enough to be offended by her insult- he had stunned her in the back, after all. He had no illusions that he was not a coward, and indeed saw nothing wrong with being one. In his experience, the cowards tended to live longer.

He cast one more curious glance at the red head, wondering how upset Pansy would be when she found out what had happened, before binding her in ropes. She had fought against the stunning spell, after all, so it couldn't hurt to be cautious. As he walked through the forest with Ginny floating behind him, he couldn't help but be annoyed at the anticlimax of the whole affair. After what had happened to the others when they had attacked this girl (and they had only stabbed her- it was a lot easier to simply stab and run than it was to actually capture a live person) he was expecting more along the lines of an epic battle. Or to be pulverized. But he was not expecting to be able to walk up behind supposedly the most powerful girl in all of Hogwarts and stun her. The Slytherin in him was pleased of course, but that errant bit of Gryffindor that only the Sorting Hat and his mother had ever noticed in him was a little disappointed.

Before long, Blaise found himself in a clearing deep in the forest, full of hooded figures. The sun was beginning to go down but shafts of light still filtered through the trees, illuminating his comrades. His brothers. Not that he had any illusions about the loyalty of these brothers; family turned on each other all the time, after all.

"You got her!" A few exclaimed, along with the always encouraging "You're not dead!" Blaise smirked, allowing himself to bask in the feeling of accomplishment. He had done the improbable and lived to tell the tale. Not only lived, but come out of it without a single scratch on him.

"Where's Potter?" He asked, glancing around. A couple of people moved aside to reveal the bound and gagged, but fully conscious, Golden Boy behind them. Blaise met those green eyes and almost laughed at the amount of anger he saw in them. Instead, he turned back to the group and took the lead.

"Good. We have a few minutes before the portkey is set to leave, so we should probably tie them together, just in case. Easier to keep an eye on them that way." The others nodded and began to carry out his orders and Blaise grinned. It was fun being in charge.

Ginny slowly came around to the sound of thunder crashing insistently in her mind. She could hear words around her but they were vague and she could only grasp onto bits of the conversation before it swum out of her reach. She thought that she was mentioned, and Harry as well. It was a little while after that when she realized that she was being moved, dragged along the ground. She opened her eyes a little and saw the forest floor, saw the hooded figures surrounding her. And then one of them saw her.

"Her eyes are open!" The girl yelled, "She's fucking awake! Didn't you stun her Blaise?" Ginny snapped into action. Lightning shot along her skin, electrocuting the two figures holding her and throwing them back. There was a hush in the clearing. Ginny climbed to her feet, her back hunched in a stance that wasn't quite human. And then she opened her mouth and screamed.

The forest was silent but for the sounds of fleeing animals; even the insects fell silent. It was a scream of pure fury and even the Death Eaters in training felt fear seep into their bones at the sound.

Slowly, Ginny began to prowl in a circle, waiting for her first victim to step forward but none did and she soon grew impatient.

Cowards.

She didn't say the word out loud, but she didn't need to. It found its way into each of her attacker's brains, worming its way into their thoughts. And then any trace of Ginny Weasley was eradicated as the thunderbird took full control. It screeched again, louder and more terrifying than before and storm clouds began to gather overhead. The clearing was plunged into near darkness as the sun overhead was blotted out.

That was when Ginny began to attack. She flew at the nearest figure, catching him by the throat with one hand and pushing lightning through herself into him until he was nothing but a smoking corpse. The next found herself with fingers plunged through her eye sockets, the next drowned on rainwater. Nobody ever really figured out how that one had happened.

She whirled and plunged and spun and killed, all with an inhuman grace and efficiency that none of her now dead attackers could have ever believed possible. Within minutes the clearing was empty of everything but dead bodies, herself and Harry- still tied up and unconscious.

And that was when everything went black for the second time that night.

Blaise Zabini smirked as he emerged from the tree line with four cloaked and hooded figures flanking him. The smirk did not have quite the same confidence that the one he had sported earlier in the evening had done, but then he had just seen almost twenty of his friends and classmates murdered by one little girl.

He stunned her twice more to be sure that she would stay down this time before casting the strongest incarcerating spells he knew on her. Say what you will about stunning a person in the back- it was damned effective.

The Great Hall was silent after Professor Dumbledore made the announcement, the remaining students shocked out of their capacity for speech. Eighteen students had been found dead in the middle of the Forbidden Forest with another five missing. Almost all of the Slytherin upper years, and a good chunk from the other houses, had been Death Eaters. These people had been their friends, their mentors, had helped them with homework and their love lives, had been brothers and sisters or cousins or lovers. But they had all been on the wrong side of the war and now they were all dead or gone.

For the first years, it was the moment that the reality of being in the midst of a war began to sink in. They had come to this amazing school of magic less than a year ago, and been thrown into a blood bath. Some of the muggleborns from all years began to make silent plans to go home, to escape this nightmare whilst they still could.

From opposite sides of the hall, Pansy and Hermione caught each other's eye. Pansy nodded slightly once, before looking away. Hermione nodded back with grim satisfaction and averted her gaze to the high table, where Professor Snape sat. He stared down his hooked nose at her for a minute but he too offered her the tiniest of nods.

They would get Harry and Ginny back. They would get them back if eighteen more people had to die in order for them to do so.