(A/N: So here's the next chapter. Please let me know what you think! Always love those comments! After next week I'm on holiday! But anyway, back to the story - going dark once again but don't worry: it's all building up to something. All writing does in the end. Yay! WonderWhiteRabbit hopping off)

In the Head of the Snake

Chapter 13: A Different Class

Ginny was still missing. It was the end of the day and Snape's mind roamed from her red-headed absence, to the presence standing right in front of him.

Harry Potter, sweat dripping down his face, glared at Snape from dark green eyes. Once again Snape saw a hatred in them that reminded him all too clearly of how Lily had once felt for him. Hatred. Disgust. All he was was a worthless slug, crawling under feet for the sole purpose of trying to make them fall. Harry Potter...the more he saw into the boy's mind, the more he felt he had been wrong about the boy. And the more he felt that, the more he hated him. How dare Harry Potter prove him wrong?

It was childish. It was immature. But when he thought that he was wrong about Harry, he wondered if he was wrong about another Potter...whether James was as great as they all said...no!

No, he would not justify anything about James Potter based on his son. He was a worthless, godless son of Merlin's toadstools! He was nothing. He was no one.

He was dead.

And so was Lily.

And so would Harry be if he couldn't get Occlumens down to a T!

"You are not practising! You are not concentrating! You are a lazy, downright idiotic, insolent child! What do you think the Dark Lord is going to do? PLAY WITH YOU?"

Harry panted through grit teeth.

"You're not giving me a chance! It's 'one two three' one second, then 'one two' the next and then you don't even give warning! You just go for it!"

Snape growled.

"You think the Dark Lord will give you time, Potter? You think he will give you warning?"

"We're PRACTISING!" Harry burst out in anger.

"You practice the way you are going to behave in the real world!" snarled Snape. "If this is your performance in the classroom, then how do you think you will perform out there?" he shoved his thumb over his shoulder to indicate the outside castle grounds.

Harry glared hard at Snape, loathing frothing from his clenched body posture in waves of heat.

"Control, Potter. Your father didn't have it either. He would have been proud by the number of times you have snapped under pressure."

"WILL YOU STOP BEING JELOUS OF MY FATHER?"

Snape froze. His eyes blinked twice. His mind was in a slight shock; did Potter know? Did Harry Potter know about the relationship that Snape and James Potter had had? That James had managed to get the girl and that Snape had been left behind, friendless, loveless, powerless?

"I think this lesson is over," Snape whispered, his eyes still large circles but his face emotionless.

"Yes, sir," Harry roughly stuffed his wand into his robe pocket and strode to the door, but turned unexpectedly.

"Sir, was Ginny Weasley in your class today? Because I haven't seen her the whole day."

Once again, Snape blinked. What did Potter know? Why was he asking Snape this when he could be asking any other of Ginny's teachers? And why was Harry noticing Ginny? Harry was head over heels with Cho Chang wasn't he? That was what Harry's mind had been telling him these past few lessons.

"I don't believe she was in my class. I did remove points if that is what you're ensuring?"

"No, no sir that's not what I was looking for at all. It's just...none of her other teachers have seen her either. Ron – her brother – was getting worried. So was Michael – her boyfriend."

Snape's nerves were on edge as he listened to Potter talk. He didn't hear any hint of recognition behind what the boy was actually saying. What the boy said was what he meant – there was no underlying meaning behind the words or behind the boy's body language.

But this meant that she really was gone. And Dumbledore still hadn't returned. And she hadn't told even her boyfriend where she was...

"Is that all?" Snape asked Harry.

"Yes, sir. Good night," and Harry closed the large dungeon door behind him with a loud creak.

Snape stared hard at that door. Ginny had stood there with her hair wet, a determined gleam in her eyes just before she had kissed him. Ginny had also stood right there, before that door, and proclaimed how she hated him and because of her hate she felt sorry for him. Then, she had also helped him through that door and into his private quarters to heal him. That was the last he had seen of her. Something had happened.

Snape thought back to his reasoning; Ginny had gone into the Chamber of Secrets in her first year, the whole year being played by a Dark Force, and had somehow been embedded with a form of Dark Magic. While she was there, she had also experienced Light Magic. Good Magic. A form of magic that many didn't even know of. Love. Harry Potter had been the one to go down and save the girl from the Chamber. Ronald Weasley had also been down there. And then the Dark Force was the third presence...Voldemort. The Dark Lord.

So the Dark Magic must have come from the Dark Lord. And the Good Magic? If it was Love, then surely it came from the brother? From Ronald? But what if it came unknowingly from Harry? What if he is in love with her, but doesn't know it even now? That would explain his subconscious worry of her whereabouts, wouldn't it?

He would have to find out more from Ginny. He needed her to need to know the truth. To need to find it. That would suite his original plan to use the Room of Requirement. And when he found out? What would he do then?

Snape uses all power. He plans how best to utilise it and then puts it into action. So what would he do once he found out how to use Ginny? He already knew how he would use the giant, Grawp. He would have to train it in combat, but that would be easy enough. The difficulty would be in getting the oaf, Hagrid, to allow him to do that. Dumbledore would agree, he was sure of it. He was still working on the centaurs, but it was becoming considerably difficult to reason with them what with Umbridge in the castle.

As if in answer to his dark thoughts, his arm burned along the dark skull and snake tattoo.

Now? He was being summoned now?

With a sigh that released some of his pent up frustration, Snape grabbed his cloak and headed for the door. He strode confidently through the doors of Hogwarts and quickly out of the grounds. Once a few meters outside the boar-guarded gates, he turned on the spot, his mind set on the Malfoy Manor as his destination.

But something happened in mid-squeeze. His body was hurtled off course, a force pulling and pushing him harder and harder towards an unknown place. At first instinct, Snape forced his mind harder in the direction he was planning on going, but then he recognised the burn in his arm and the unhidden presence of the Dark Lord around him. His destination was not the Malfoy Manor.

With a pop that brought breathe back into him, Snape opened his eyes to see a large garden. But this garden was slightly different to those that muggle's would expect. He was standing in the midst of the Garden of Freedom – where all magical plants could be found growing as they normally would in the wild, closely monitored by Magical Botanists.

"I did not expect to be here," Snape said to the apparently empty garden. A plant slithered its scaly vines across the ground to lick softly with pink tendrils at his feet. A large bumblebee-like bug trailing glitter flew down to rest on the vine. The vine reacted immediately and curled tightly around the bug, withdrawing its prey back towards the purple-flower-covered bush that it came from.

"I needed some place secluded to talk to you, Severus," there was a swish of a cloak and there stood Avery, his face still sporting long gashes from his recent interaction with the Dark Lord. Snape shivered inwardly at those markings. Avery had misinformed Voldemort – he had said that if they planted an imperius curse on one of the Unspeakables, then they would be able to get the item out of the Department of Mysteries. But that hadn't worked. Bode had worked hard to fight the imperius curse, but had still followed the orders that Lucius Malfoy had given him, and tried to steal the object. He had wound up in St Mungo's.

"This is where I got the Devil's Snare," Avery explained as he indicated the large garden. The garden needs more attention in other parts right now – a bulbous gas filled plant somehow caught fire."

"I can't imagine how that happened," Snape said dryly, his eyes lazily moving from the man to the wild garden around them, but his hand ready to reach for his wand any second. "Why are we here, Avery. I felt the Dark Lord lead me here. I expected to see him."

"N-no," Avery stuttered. "Th-the Dark Lord isn't here," he cleared his throat. "He does not want to see me for a while."

"Understandably," sneered Snape.

"You can't say that to me! You and I are the same! We're in the same class as far as the Dark Lord goes!"

"We are not!" snapped Snape. "I would never dare give my preference the wrong information! That information could cause all sorts of danger for my allies!"

"You are right," Avery sighed. "You and I are not in the same class at all. You speak of our Lord as a...well, as more than just a Lord. As a friend, perhaps?"

"No, Avery," Snape shook his head, genuine sadness seeping through his tight face, "I don't believe I am the Dark Lord's friend."

"But you have good leverage with him, right?" Avery's tall body began to shake a bit, his hands clenched and unclenched at his sides, beads of sweat trickled down his brow and fell off of his recently mended nose. Voldemort had obviously put a lot of effort into torturing Avery slowly, breaking bones – not only was his nose red from a fresh healing but so were his flexing fingers – and causing pain in a more humiliating way than just by using the Cruciatus curse. Avery could withstand that curse well by now; it had been used on him many times in the first war, and then again for the first time in many years when all the remaining capable death eaters gathered in that dark graveyard to welcome back the Dark Lord. Snape had not been there for that event, but Macnair had laughed about it later on, out of earshot of Voldemort.

"What is this about, Avery?" asked Snape, his hand reaching slowly into his pocket to rest lightly on his wand.

"I...Severus, I need your help," Avery said heavily, forcing the words out through a tight throat.

"How do you expect me to help? And with what?" Snape said slowly. Avery had apparently cracked under the pressure.

"So you will help me?" Avery asked excitedly, stepping forward, his hands finally uncurling from each other and reaching out to Severus.

"What do you expect me to do, Avery?" Snape stood dead still.

"Just to speak to him, that's all! Just to get my name back into hearing distance. That's all! It's not much!"

"Not much?" spat Snape. "A reputation with the Dark Lord is everything! If he knows that he can trust you, then he had better be able to trust you! If you break that trust...then you are worth nothing!"

"B-b-but Severus! You know that I am worth more than the other death eaters! You know how good I have been to the Dark Lord!"

"I know that you abandoned him. I know that you made a mistake. I know that you were scared, and that is the only reason why you have returned to him. As far as the downright trodden are concerned, you are truly in a class of your own," Avery, his strength finally giving in, fell to the ground and looked up at Severus from his knees.

"So I have no hope, then? No chance at all..." he breathed out, his mind recognising his words as he said them.

"Hope? Probably not. But chance...that could be rearranged. Perhaps you could be moved from information to action – you have a good wand arm on you. Speak to Malfoy and ask him to move you from your current position. You could probably build a different name for yourself in that manner."

A light flickered in Avery's eyes.

"You're right!" he said eventually. "Thank you, Severus! The Dark Lord should be happy to have someone as loyal as you on his side!"

Avery got to his feet, a plan forming in his mind as a crooked smile spread across his face. He stepped on a large stone and turned once more to Severus.

"Thank you," he said again before twisting on the spot and vanishing in thin air.

Severus thought that that was the last of it and he proceeded to the same stone, intending to sleep well tonight. But his assumption was wrong.

With a small pop, another figure appeared on the stone before him, his wand already out and scanning the area.

"All clear?" asked the man, slowly removing his cloak.

"Yes, Rookwood," Snape shut his eyes tight and rubbed his temples as his head gave an unhappy throb; tonight would be a long one it seemed. "What are you doing here?"

"The Dark Lord just sent me. You have spoken to Avery?" Rookwood ignored Snape's presence and walked around the clearing in the wild garden, putting up defensive charms and repellent wards. Snape had already felt the unmistakable aura of magic surrounding him – probably precautions put up already by Avery before he had arrived – so he thought it was a bit of a waste of time. Although this did give Rookwood an excuse not to look at Snape. Snape, however, was forced to watch Rookwood's progress as he walked in a large circle.

"Yes. I spoke to him. The Dark Lord is still not happy with him, I take it?"

"No," Rookwood wasn't one for small talk. "He and I were gathering information together about the Item. Once again, Avery failed to collect the right data. Luckily I was there to rectify his mistake."

"Yes," drawled Snape. "Luckily."

"The Dark Lord, seeing how useless Avery is, has given me a new partner. You."

"Me? But how can I help in terms of the Department? You were the one who worked there once."

"Yes, I did work in the Department of Mysteries. But they may have changed things since last I was there. I know that the...er...funcionalities, shall we say, of the department may have changed however. And I'm not as good as you are in terms of problem solving," finally Rookwood finished his large circular walk and turned to face Snape, his wand held lazily in his hand. Snape frowned at that.

"Whose wand is that?" he asked. "Because the Dark Lord gave me all eleven wands that belong to the death eaters who we freed from Azkaban."

"Oh, so it's you who has my wand," Rookwood raised his eyebrows slightly in surprise. "I stole this one off of some bloke at a bar. Guy was too drunk to even notice me take it out of his hand. It works alright, but not like my wand. Feels...heavy, you know?"

"No, I don't know," Snape said without emotion. He would have to work with Rookwood? To figure out what? But despite the growing bile in his throat at the thought of working with Rookwood, there was something else that Snape was feeling...Something that really made him excited.

You see, Snape didn't know what the Item in the Department of Mysteries was. He knew that there was an Item in there somewhere, and he knew that the Order was trying desperately to keep the Dark Lord from attaining it, but he didn't know what it was. The Dark Lord hadn't told him, and as such, neither had Dumbledore. Snape was finally going to be let out of the dark.

Did this mean that the Dark Lord trusted him more than Dumbledore did?

"You ever gonna give me back my wand?" asked Rookwood, fingering his stolen wand distastefully.

"Only when the Dark Lord allows me to. Bellatrix is also still waiting."

"Hmm," Rookwood grunted. "Well then, tomorrow night we meet here again, come prepared with some Polyjuice Potion, alright? We've got a one hour gap tomorrow night when we can sneak into the Department and map out the way to the Item. But listen, you gotta remember everything. Every little detail. The Dark Lord said that only you could do it and that it was very important."

"As if I don't remember everything," Snape said, again resuming his bored tone.

"Well, just don't," Rookwood stepped back onto the stone, and with a nod at Snape, disapparated.

So, thought Snape as he finally stepped onto the stone, Avery was begging him for help. Rookwood was going to get his help. The Dark Lord expected him to do things that others couldn't. And Snape was feeling excited about something the Dark Lord had asked him to do.

He turned and disapparated, appearing once more outside the Hogwart's gates. Walking wearily through them, Severus wondered about the label that he had been given. The class that he had been put into. There were different classes in the wizarding world, that was unquestionable. There was "pure blood" and "mud blood" and "mixed breed" and "half blood." There was also "blood traitor". But what about the other classes that had appeared in the wizarding community? "Ally", "friend", and "enemy". And then there was him. "Spy".

Was he really a good person?

As if in answer to his thoughts, he felt his pocket vibrate.

Snape had not been thinking about Ginny Weasley, but now, his hand dipped into his pocket and withdrew the vibrating writing implement. He placed it instantly on his arm and watched as it wrote out two words that made his heart disagree on whether to pump faster or to stop all together.

"I'm sorry"

At the same time, a silver phoenix erupted in the air, Dumbledore's voice ringing out in front of the startled Severus.

"Welcome back," the shining patronus announced before continuing, "My office, if you please Severus. Now."

(A/N: So there it is! Once more, your beautiful comments are awesome and appreciated and much wanted! WonderWhiteRabbit hopping off)