I do not own the characters; they belong to the brilliant JK. I’m only taking them for a little spin around the block. I promise not to harm them (ok, maybe I’ll harm them a little bit, but only for drama’s sake!), so please do not send any lawyers after me.
Lie, Lie Again
Pansy entered the hospital wing and was surprised by the bustle of activity there. Mr. and Mrs. Weasley sat on Ginny’s bed, Mrs. Weasley crying on her husband’s shoulder. Professor McGonagall was hovering over them. Madame Pomfrey was at the fireplace, speaking to someone in the fire. Snape sat at Draco’s bedside, talking to him intently.
Pansy looked uncertainly back out into the hallway, tempted to take off, but instead made her way over to Draco. “What’s the kurfluffle?” she asked airily, flopping down onto Draco’s bed.
Draco winced. “Why does everyone see fit to hurt me today?”
“Sorry, Draco dear,” Pansy said, patting his leg. “Here, I brought you something.” She laid a package in his lap. “So what’s all the fuss?”
“Weasley ran off,” Draco informed her, tearing open the box and finding a tin full of chocolates inside. “Mmm, Mum got my note.” He eagerly stuffed one in his mouth.
“You didn’t have anything to do with Miss Weasley’s disappearance, did you, Miss Parkinson?” Snape questioned, giving her his best glare.
“I don’t have anything to do with Weasleys if I can help it, sir,” replied Pansy, meeting his gaze with a wicked grin.
“That doesn’t answer my question,” Snape snapped. “Have you seen her? She could be hiding in the dungeons, or maybe even passing herself off as a Slytherin.”
Pansy burst into laughter. “Weasley, a Slytherin?”
Snape noticed the attention her outburst had drawn. “Keep your voice down,” he hissed.
“Weasley took my robes,” Draco explained through a mouth full of chocolate. “However, as I’ve already told Professor Snape, she’ll never blend in around the common room with that ghastly hair of hers.”
“A glamour charm could fix that, but by the looks of her, she wouldn’t know anything about those,” Pansy sniped. “Maybe whoever or whatever dragged her down to the Chamber of Secrets grabbed her again to finish her off.”
“The Chamber has been destroyed, along with the monster who took Miss Weasley there,” Snape revealed.
“Her family thinks I dragged her off somewhere to torture her,” Draco added, frowning suddenly as the chocolate hit his stomach, and quickly putting the box aside.
“Did you?” asked Pansy excitedly.
Draco sighed. “As amusing as torturing the little bint might be, if I was well enough to do that I would not be lying here right now,” he complained. “I’d be off somewhere where I wouldn’t have to endure being screeched at by Weasels and interrogated by the Headmaster and even my own Head of House for something I couldn’t possibly have done.”
“Perhaps you should have thought of the consequences before you decided to have a bit of fun by reviving that girl and letting her run off,” Snape murmured icily.
It took Draco a second too long to wipe the guilty look off his face as he protested, “Professor, I…”
“It’s done, Draco, and there’s nothing to be done about it,” Snape proclaimed, getting to his feet. “You should hope the girl is found unharmed, though. Your father is not in a position right now to get you out of all the trouble you’ll be in if she isn’t.”
He stalked off before Draco could reply. Pansy rolled her eyes as he slammed out the hospital wing door. “He’s a bit overdramatic today, isn’t he?” She turned her attention back to Draco. “So, are you ready to get out of here?”
“I can’t, Pan,” Draco moaned. “I couldn’t even make it to the door right now, let alone the common room.”
“I’ll help you.”
“I don’t think you can.” He sighed. “I’m so bloody tired. I’ve never been so exhausted in my life, even when Father kept me up for three days straight to learn the entire Malfoy history and recite it for my grandfather.”
“I remember that party,” Pansy recalled. “I thought you were going to fall over before you finished, but you kept going all the way to the end. You found the strength to keep going then, and I know you can find it again now.”
“But I don’t have a chocolate frog to give me energy this time,” said Draco with a smirk.
“You just had chocolate.”
“I don’t think that will be staying around long,” Draco admitted, putting a hand to his stomach.
“You really remember the chocolate frog?” Pansy’s face cracked into a huge smile.
Draco gave her a rare smile in return. “Always looking out for me, aren’t you?”
Pansy nodded. “Someone has to. How about if I get you a strengthening potion? That should help enough for you to get down to the common room, right?”
“As long as you don’t make it,” Draco teased. “Although the way I feel right now, I might not even notice if you poisoned me.”
“I don’t know why I adore you so,” Pansy declared with a shake of her head. “How about if I get Millie to make the potion? Only you and the Mudblood do better than her in Potions, and she won’t ask any questions.”
Draco nodded his ascent. “The bigger problem is going to be sneaking out of here with all this going on.” He waved a hand in the direction of the Weasleys. “They’re certain to be looking after me all day, to see if I’ll lead them to the littlest Weasel.”
“Maybe you should wait until tomorrow…”
“Is there anyone in Slytherin not talking about how I got hurt or how long it might be before I kick off?” Draco wondered.
“Who cares what they think?”
“Father will,” Draco reminded her. “I need to be seen alive and well and back in the common room today. And I need you to find a way to make it happen.”
******************
Fred and George huddled in a shadowy corner near the Grand staircase, both studying intensely the piece of parchment Fred was holding.
“It doesn’t make sense!” George burst out, banging the parchment angrily with his wand. “How could she not turn up on here?
“Maybe she’s left the school grounds,” said Fred hopefully.
“Students can’t just walk out the front gates of this place,” George reminded him. “And she wouldn’t know about any of the tunnels, right?”
“I never told her about them.”
“Neither did I, but this is Ginny we’re talking about,” George reminded him.
“Yeah, she could have followed us without us even knowing it,” Fred realized. “She’s every bit as sneaky as we are.”
“We’ve taught her too well,” George lamented.
“Mum came looking for Gin right after she rabbited off, though, and we checked the map just a few minutes after,” Fred recalled. “She wouldn’t have had time to get off the grounds by then, we would have still seen her in the tunnels.”
“There’s no other explanation for why she wouldn’t come up on the map!” George exclaimed.
“There is one other explanation,” Fred said softly.
“No!” George burst out. “She’s not dead.”
Ron came barrelling down the stairs and spotted the pair. Fred hurriedly stuffed the map into his robes.
“I’ve checked all the towers and asked around at all the girls toilets, but she’s not anywhere,” Ron complained. “I even checked Moaning Myrtle’s bathroom, to see if Ginny might have tried to go back down into the Chamber for some reason, but it’s all sealed up.”
“Maybe she closed it behind her,” George suggested.
Fred shook his head. “Didn’t you say you had to be a Parseltongue to open the Chamber, Ron?” Ron nodded. “So there’s no way she could have gotten back on there without You-Know-Who possessing her again. And we know he can’t do that with the diary gone.”
“Maybe she remembered the words to open it,” George told him. “We should ask Harry to open the chamber again, see…”
“No!” Ron interrupted loudly. “This is family business, not Harry’s business.”
“Harry’s practically family,” Fred protested.
“He’s not blood, and I don’t want him involved in Ginny’s business,” Ron declared. “Besides, I asked Myrtle, and Ginny hasn’t been in that bathroom all day.”
“Then where is she?” George bellowed, kicking at the stairs.
“Maybe she went for a fly,” Ron thought suddenly. “I’m going to go check the Quidditch pitch.”
Fred was about to stop Ron as he charged away, but George put a hand on his arm. “Let him go, it makes him feel better to be doing something.” He plucked the map from inside Fred’s robes, unfolding it with a wave. “And now we don’t have to tell him about this.”
Fred’s brow suddenly furrowed and his lips pursed in obvious concentration. “What?” George asked, knowing his twin’s inspired look all too well.
“When Gin was in the Chamber, she didn’t come up on the map,” Fred recalled.
“But Ron said…”
“I’m not saying she’s down in the Chamber again,” Fred clarified. “But we thought she wasn’t coming on the map because…because she was dead, right?” George nodded somberly. “Well, now we know that wasn’t the reason, she was alive the whole time down there.”
“Just barely.”
“Even so, she was alive, so she should have come up on the map. But what if there are places in the castle that it doesn’t show? Maybe places the Marauders never knew about, so therefore never put on there.”
“Or rooms that are unplottable, which the Chamber probably was.”
“Right, right,” said Fred excitedly. “So Ginny could still be in the castle, but someplace that the map can’t see!”
George quickly folded up the map. “She can’t hide from us forever, though. C’mon, we have some new rooms to discover. And I think we should start in the dungeons.”
“The dungeons?”
“Riddle was a Slytherin,” George reminded him. “So he likely knew plenty of places to hide down there, places even the mapmakers never stumbled upon. Maybe Ginny’s remembered a few…”
“And she’s holed up somewhere waiting for Riddle,” Fred finished with a frown.
“She wouldn’t!” George protested. “She knows he’s gone.”
“She knows what everyone’s told her,” Fred said softly. “What she believes could be something else entirely.” He pushed open the door to the dungeons. “We better hurry.”
He disappeared through the doorway with George close on his heels.
*****************
Snape glided down the corridor to the Potions lab and slipped into the room soundlessly. He glanced around, but the classroom was empty, the only movement coming from smoke rising out of cauldrons on the various desks around the room. Snape circled around the cauldrons, seeing if they might have been tampered with, but all were just the way his seventh years had left them that morning. He gave a wave of his wand at his office door, though, and an orange glow appeared, a telltale sign that someone had tampered with his wards. He quickly checked them and frowned when he found that the wards were still up. Murmuring a quick spell, he took them down and burst into the room, hearing someone scurry away as he did.
“It will do you no good to hide from me,” he murmured. “There is no other way to escape this room, except past me.”
As if in challenge to this statement, the bookcase behind his desk creaked forward, revealing the staircase hidden behind it. Ginny darted out from under Snape’s desk and into the passageway, but Snape caught up with her just before the bookcase closed, grabbing her around the waist and pulling her back into the office. Ginny tried to shake and kick her way free, but Snape pushed her roughly into his chair and held her there. Her wand clattered to the floor.
“Enough,” he growled.
“Go to hell,” grunted Ginny, continuing her kicking.
Snape bellowed “Immobilus!” and pointed at Ginny’s legs, which immediately fell still.
She looked up at Snape, but not with the fear he was expecting. Instead she wore a firmly defiant look on her face, her chin held high and her eyes meeting his steely gaze unflinchingly. “Fine, you caught me,” she said simply.
Snape was thrown by how easily she’d acquiesced and was first to blink. He scowled when Ginny grinned at him.
“Your family is in an uproar over your disappearance, you know,” he told Ginny, pinning her to the chair by the arms as he loomed over her.
“They’re too emotional, a weakness you don’t seem to share,” said Ginny coolly, pushing his hands away with a strength that caught Snape off-guard and made him release his grip. “Most teachers would be screeching all manner of detentions about now.”
“I think we’re beyond that,” Snape murmured, looming over her again with his wand drawn this time. His mouth quirked upward briefly when he saw Ginny swallow hard. Good, she should be scared. “Tell me what you’re doing in my office,” he demanded.
“No.”
It wasn’t the answer he’d been expecting, and Ginny’s smirk told him she knew it. Snape backed away from the temptation to throttle her, his lip curling, and sat on the edge of his desk in front of her. “Pity,” he drawled. “I do so enjoy the excuses you Weasleys try to make for your appalling behavior. Fortunately, I know what it is you seek.”
“And I thought Trelawney was the only one with the Sight around here,” sassed Ginny.
“I could punish you for your insolence, Miss Weasley,” Snape threatened.
Ginny only sneered at him. “Do you think detention or taking points will affect me? That kind of silly punishment is nothing to what I’ve been through.”
“I know.”
Ginny shifted uncomfortably under his dark, unrelenting gaze. Suddenly, her head snapped back, banging hard against the back of the chair as thoughts of Tom and the Chamber came flooding into her mind.
“Stop,” Ginny pleaded, attempting to push herself out of the chair but unable to get up because of the spell on her legs. “Stop it. Please.”
Snape turned away from her and Ginny’s visions faded.
“What did you do?” she squeaked.
“You do not want to trifle with me, Miss Weasley,” Snape warned. “Now, let’s discuss the potions you stole from the drawer of Draco Malfoy’s nightstand in the hospital ward.”
Ginny started to protest, but Snape put a hand up to stop her. “It will do you no good to deny it; Mr. Malfoy has already sold you out. However, I would like to hear how you broke through the locking spells on that drawer.”
“It was Malfoy, not me,” Ginny insisted.
“Malfoy has not yet developed the skills necessary to open that drawer,” Snape informed her.
“And I have?”
“I would not have thought so, but from what I hear, you have shown a surprising aptitude lately, far more than anyone ever would have suspected from a Weasley,” Snape said, his inky black eyes again boring into hers. Ginny squeezed her eyes shut to block him out. “Although I suspect that all of that magical talent is not entirely your own.”
Ginny’s eyes flew open. “Now I’ve stolen someone’s magic, too?” she scoffed, shifting in the chair so she was sitting up higher. “I’m becoming a regular criminal mastermind.”
“You may not be, but Tom Riddle was.”
Ginny froze as if he had immobilized the rest of her body. Could he know how much Tom is still a part of me? She shook her head. “Tom’s gone,” she whispered.
“The manifestation of him that was in that diary is gone,” declared Snape. “But I suspect that part of Tom Riddle is still lingering in this castle. Perhaps in someone who is especially vulnerable to outside influences because she stole a potion and took it without knowing the possible ramifications.”
“You couldn’t be speaking of me.”
“Oh, but I could,” said Snape smugly. “Yes, the ingredients in that potion will stop dreams. However, the person who combined them was quite fond of tricks, so your worse nightmares are certain to find your way back to you, even in the light of day.”
His previous words suddenly clicked in Ginny’s head. “How do you know about Tom and the diary?” she demanded to know.
“Dumbledore…”
“No!” Ginny screamed, startling Snape so much he nearly fell off the desk in surprise.
“Miss Weasley, calm…”
“He promised he wouldn’t tell anyone what happened, and he’s a man of his word!”
“I’m a teacher…”
“You’re a liar,” Ginny spat. Something in his face caught Ginny’s attention and she studied him carefully, her gaze as unwavering on him as his had been on her just moments before.
Snape's head jerked back suddenly. “How did you learn to do that?” he demanded to know.
“You knew!” Ginny screeched. The emotion running through her was so strong it broke the spell on her legs and she leapt to her feet. “You knew about the diary!”
“I didn’t…”
“Don’t lie!” Ginny bellowed, pushing him. Snape just managed to find his feet as he skittered off the desk. “I know! Somehow I saw it when I looked at you, I saw someone showing it to you!”
“You didn’t read me on purpose?” Snape questioned sharply, grabbing Ginny’s arms and shaking her.
She wrenched herself free immediately, backing away from him. “How could you?” she cried. “How could you let me keep it, knowing what it did?”
“I did not know you were in possession of the diary,” confessed Snape softly. “In fact, I had forgotten about its existence until I heard a nightmare you were having about Riddle and I realized what must have happened.”
“If you knew of the existence of the diary, then you must know who gave it to me,” Ginny realized.
“Potter didn’t tell you?”
“Harry knows?” asked a stunned Ginny.
Snape nodded with a malevolent smile. “I wonder why he would keep such a secret from you.”
“I haven’t talked to Harry much since…I haven’t been up for company,” Ginny said in Harry’s defense. “So it’s up to you to tell me.”
“I want you to try to read my thoughts again to find out,” Snape challenged.
“Try to read…”
“What you saw of someone showing me the diary…” Snape informed her. “You were reading my thoughts, seeing a memory.”
“I read your thoughts?” Ginny murmured, wide-eyed.
“It wasn’t intentional, then?”
Ginny shook her head. “How would I know how to do that?”
“You wouldn’t. Even most older wizards don’t know legilimency,” he explained. “That’s how you were able to access my thoughts, I never expected…”
“Tom would know how to do this legitimate thing?” Ginny interrupted.
“It’s legilimency,” Snape corrected. “And yes, I imagine he would have had the ability, as the Dark Lord is quite skilled at it.” He eyed her carefully. “What other skills of the Dark Lord’s have you picked up, Miss Weasley?”
“None…I don’t mean to…things just happen…” Ginny stammered. “The magic comes out, like before I came to Hogwarts and would accidentally do stuff.”
“You can’t control it?”
“No.”
“Now you’re the one lying,” accused Snape.
“Who gave me that diary?” Ginny demanded to know.
“You tell me.”
“I can’t. I can’t do the things he does,” insisted Ginny. “I won’t. I don’t want to be like him.”
“Of course it’s only a lingering effect of the enchantment you were under, you don’t really have the abilities you seem to have,” Snape informed her. “How could someone like you be that powerful?”
The color rose up in Ginny’s cheeks. “Someone like me? A Weasley, you mean?”
“A Weasley, a Gryffindor, a silly little fool who let herself become the Dark Lord’s helpless servant,” Snape taunted, leaning in close, so he was eye level with Ginny. His mouth quirked slightly when he saw Ginny’s eyes darken and focus in on his.
It was Lucius Malfoy who gave you the diary. He concentrated on that thought, letting her into his head to see it.
Ginny jumped as the thought hit her. “I’m going to KILL Malfoy!” she burst out, running for the door.
Snape rushed after her with surprising speed and grabbed her by her wand arm, so she couldn’t pull it on him.
Ginny tried to pull free, but Snape held her tightly. “Let me go, or I’ll have every person in this school believing you attacked me,” she threatened, never stopping her struggle to break free.
Snape met her hateful gaze for a long moment but then finally let go slowly. Ginny sprung for the door again, but Snape flicked his wand and it slammed shut just before she reached it. She heard a noise like a lock clicking into place. “You won’t be leaving here until I say so.”
Ginny panicked for a moment, wondering if he might attack her. Snape did nothing to reassure her when he glided up behind her and murmured, “You do have a penchant for getting yourself in trouble, don’t you?’ he taunted. “The perfect prey.”
Ginny whipped around with surprising speed, putting her wand to his throat. “I don’t think so,” she growled.
Snape laughed, such an unexpected reaction that Ginny’s guard slipped just enough for Snape to grab her wand. He spun away from her, taking the wand with him. “I’m not going to hurt you, you stupid bint,” he declared, tossing her wand onto the desk. “My job’s worth far more than the pleasure that would give me.”
Ginny let out an involuntary sigh of relief. “Let me out of here then,” she demanded.
“Not until you get something through that thick head of yours,” he told her.
“What’s that?” she asked warily.
“Draco did nothing to harm you,” Snape declared. “He was not aware of what his father had planned for you, and he did not participate in his plan in any way.”
“How thick do you think I am?”
“You honestly don’t want me to answer that question,” Snape muttered. “I do, however, think you’re smart enough to understand that if you harm Draco in any way you will suffer the consequences.” Ginny snorted in derision. “I am not speaking of detention or points from Gryffindor,” clarified Snape.
“You can’t hurt me,” Ginny declared. “Dumbledore would boot you out of here if you harmed a student.”
“Accidents happen all the time, Miss Weasley,” he warned her, enjoying the flash of fear he saw her trying to hide. “However, the consequences of which I speak are not physical. Well, that’s not entirely true. I suspect you may feel the effects of not taking that potion.”
“Then I best not stop taking it.”
“Pomfrey is not going to give you anymore of that Dreamless Sleep potion, no matter how many tricks you try to pull,” Snape informed her. “Your erratic behavior today has made certain of that.”
“I wouldn’t be so sure of that,” said Ginny coolly.
“Oh, but I am sure,” murmured Snape. “It’s a rare potion, only to be used in extreme circumstances. So she only has a limited number of doses to administer. Three to be exact. Which I believe is the number of doses you’ve already received.”
“She can get more.”
“Yes she can. From the school’s Potions master,” Snape informed her with a malevolent smile. “Of course, that’s only if I agree to make more and release it to her. I could instead choose to keep it here, so that I might monitor its administration. I’m certain Dumbledore would agree that we can’t be too careful with a potion that could cause such troublesome side effects.”
“You want to drive me mad then?” questioned Ginny. “Finish the job your mate Lucius Malfoy started?”
“That potion will be the thing to drive you mad.”
“Not if I only use it occasionally,” Ginny tried to convince him. “A few doses, to get me through the end of term, so my roommates won’t have to endure me screeching like a banshee in the middle of the night. That’s all I need.”
“Perhaps you should speak to someone about those nightmares,” Snape suggested.
“Perhaps you should keep your nose out of my business.”
Snape chose to let that comment go. “What about when term’s over?” he wondered.
“I’ll be fine when I’m home with my family,” Ginny insisted. “They’ll get me through better than any potion ever could.”
“How touching.”
“Please, Professor,” said Ginny softly, trying to keep the pleading edge out of her voice. “I’ll even play nice with Malfoy, if that’s what it takes.”
“You must truly be desperate,” Snape taunted.
Ginny scowled. “I could tell Dumbledore you knew about the diary,” she threatened, the waver in her voice betraying her uncertainty.
“Before you make a threat, you should be certain you can go through with it, Miss Weasley,” Snape murmured. “I would have thought Riddle would have taught you that.”
“I will go through with it,” Ginny declared in a much stronger voice. “I’ll tell him you knew about Tom and the diary and you did nothing to stop it.”
“You’d be lying.”
“Something I do quite well,” Ginny boasted. “It’s the freckles. People think I have an honest face.”
“Dumbledore is quite accomplished at spotting liars.”
“So why hasn’t he caught on to you yet?” wondered Ginny with a smirk.
“I’m better at it than most,” Snape admitted with a shrug.
A stunned Ginny could have sworn he returned her smirk for a brief second, but when she looked again his face was stone once more. “Are you going to give me the potion?” she asked him.
“Are you going to stay away from Draco?”
“I would be thrilled to have nothing to do with Malfoy ever again,” Ginny declared.
“Two doses,” Snape said. “And your brothers need to stay away from Draco, too.”
“Four,” Ginny tried to negotiate. “And I can’t make any guarantees about my brothers.”
“Two, and I don’t tell Dumbledore that you picked up a few tricks from Tom Riddle,” Snape countered.
“Three, and neither one of us talks to Dumbledore,” Ginny suggested.
“Agreed.”
Lie, Lie Again
Pansy entered the hospital wing and was surprised by the bustle of activity there. Mr. and Mrs. Weasley sat on Ginny’s bed, Mrs. Weasley crying on her husband’s shoulder. Professor McGonagall was hovering over them. Madame Pomfrey was at the fireplace, speaking to someone in the fire. Snape sat at Draco’s bedside, talking to him intently.
Pansy looked uncertainly back out into the hallway, tempted to take off, but instead made her way over to Draco. “What’s the kurfluffle?” she asked airily, flopping down onto Draco’s bed.
Draco winced. “Why does everyone see fit to hurt me today?”
“Sorry, Draco dear,” Pansy said, patting his leg. “Here, I brought you something.” She laid a package in his lap. “So what’s all the fuss?”
“Weasley ran off,” Draco informed her, tearing open the box and finding a tin full of chocolates inside. “Mmm, Mum got my note.” He eagerly stuffed one in his mouth.
“You didn’t have anything to do with Miss Weasley’s disappearance, did you, Miss Parkinson?” Snape questioned, giving her his best glare.
“I don’t have anything to do with Weasleys if I can help it, sir,” replied Pansy, meeting his gaze with a wicked grin.
“That doesn’t answer my question,” Snape snapped. “Have you seen her? She could be hiding in the dungeons, or maybe even passing herself off as a Slytherin.”
Pansy burst into laughter. “Weasley, a Slytherin?”
Snape noticed the attention her outburst had drawn. “Keep your voice down,” he hissed.
“Weasley took my robes,” Draco explained through a mouth full of chocolate. “However, as I’ve already told Professor Snape, she’ll never blend in around the common room with that ghastly hair of hers.”
“A glamour charm could fix that, but by the looks of her, she wouldn’t know anything about those,” Pansy sniped. “Maybe whoever or whatever dragged her down to the Chamber of Secrets grabbed her again to finish her off.”
“The Chamber has been destroyed, along with the monster who took Miss Weasley there,” Snape revealed.
“Her family thinks I dragged her off somewhere to torture her,” Draco added, frowning suddenly as the chocolate hit his stomach, and quickly putting the box aside.
“Did you?” asked Pansy excitedly.
Draco sighed. “As amusing as torturing the little bint might be, if I was well enough to do that I would not be lying here right now,” he complained. “I’d be off somewhere where I wouldn’t have to endure being screeched at by Weasels and interrogated by the Headmaster and even my own Head of House for something I couldn’t possibly have done.”
“Perhaps you should have thought of the consequences before you decided to have a bit of fun by reviving that girl and letting her run off,” Snape murmured icily.
It took Draco a second too long to wipe the guilty look off his face as he protested, “Professor, I…”
“It’s done, Draco, and there’s nothing to be done about it,” Snape proclaimed, getting to his feet. “You should hope the girl is found unharmed, though. Your father is not in a position right now to get you out of all the trouble you’ll be in if she isn’t.”
He stalked off before Draco could reply. Pansy rolled her eyes as he slammed out the hospital wing door. “He’s a bit overdramatic today, isn’t he?” She turned her attention back to Draco. “So, are you ready to get out of here?”
“I can’t, Pan,” Draco moaned. “I couldn’t even make it to the door right now, let alone the common room.”
“I’ll help you.”
“I don’t think you can.” He sighed. “I’m so bloody tired. I’ve never been so exhausted in my life, even when Father kept me up for three days straight to learn the entire Malfoy history and recite it for my grandfather.”
“I remember that party,” Pansy recalled. “I thought you were going to fall over before you finished, but you kept going all the way to the end. You found the strength to keep going then, and I know you can find it again now.”
“But I don’t have a chocolate frog to give me energy this time,” said Draco with a smirk.
“You just had chocolate.”
“I don’t think that will be staying around long,” Draco admitted, putting a hand to his stomach.
“You really remember the chocolate frog?” Pansy’s face cracked into a huge smile.
Draco gave her a rare smile in return. “Always looking out for me, aren’t you?”
Pansy nodded. “Someone has to. How about if I get you a strengthening potion? That should help enough for you to get down to the common room, right?”
“As long as you don’t make it,” Draco teased. “Although the way I feel right now, I might not even notice if you poisoned me.”
“I don’t know why I adore you so,” Pansy declared with a shake of her head. “How about if I get Millie to make the potion? Only you and the Mudblood do better than her in Potions, and she won’t ask any questions.”
Draco nodded his ascent. “The bigger problem is going to be sneaking out of here with all this going on.” He waved a hand in the direction of the Weasleys. “They’re certain to be looking after me all day, to see if I’ll lead them to the littlest Weasel.”
“Maybe you should wait until tomorrow…”
“Is there anyone in Slytherin not talking about how I got hurt or how long it might be before I kick off?” Draco wondered.
“Who cares what they think?”
“Father will,” Draco reminded her. “I need to be seen alive and well and back in the common room today. And I need you to find a way to make it happen.”
******************
Fred and George huddled in a shadowy corner near the Grand staircase, both studying intensely the piece of parchment Fred was holding.
“It doesn’t make sense!” George burst out, banging the parchment angrily with his wand. “How could she not turn up on here?
“Maybe she’s left the school grounds,” said Fred hopefully.
“Students can’t just walk out the front gates of this place,” George reminded him. “And she wouldn’t know about any of the tunnels, right?”
“I never told her about them.”
“Neither did I, but this is Ginny we’re talking about,” George reminded him.
“Yeah, she could have followed us without us even knowing it,” Fred realized. “She’s every bit as sneaky as we are.”
“We’ve taught her too well,” George lamented.
“Mum came looking for Gin right after she rabbited off, though, and we checked the map just a few minutes after,” Fred recalled. “She wouldn’t have had time to get off the grounds by then, we would have still seen her in the tunnels.”
“There’s no other explanation for why she wouldn’t come up on the map!” George exclaimed.
“There is one other explanation,” Fred said softly.
“No!” George burst out. “She’s not dead.”
Ron came barrelling down the stairs and spotted the pair. Fred hurriedly stuffed the map into his robes.
“I’ve checked all the towers and asked around at all the girls toilets, but she’s not anywhere,” Ron complained. “I even checked Moaning Myrtle’s bathroom, to see if Ginny might have tried to go back down into the Chamber for some reason, but it’s all sealed up.”
“Maybe she closed it behind her,” George suggested.
Fred shook his head. “Didn’t you say you had to be a Parseltongue to open the Chamber, Ron?” Ron nodded. “So there’s no way she could have gotten back on there without You-Know-Who possessing her again. And we know he can’t do that with the diary gone.”
“Maybe she remembered the words to open it,” George told him. “We should ask Harry to open the chamber again, see…”
“No!” Ron interrupted loudly. “This is family business, not Harry’s business.”
“Harry’s practically family,” Fred protested.
“He’s not blood, and I don’t want him involved in Ginny’s business,” Ron declared. “Besides, I asked Myrtle, and Ginny hasn’t been in that bathroom all day.”
“Then where is she?” George bellowed, kicking at the stairs.
“Maybe she went for a fly,” Ron thought suddenly. “I’m going to go check the Quidditch pitch.”
Fred was about to stop Ron as he charged away, but George put a hand on his arm. “Let him go, it makes him feel better to be doing something.” He plucked the map from inside Fred’s robes, unfolding it with a wave. “And now we don’t have to tell him about this.”
Fred’s brow suddenly furrowed and his lips pursed in obvious concentration. “What?” George asked, knowing his twin’s inspired look all too well.
“When Gin was in the Chamber, she didn’t come up on the map,” Fred recalled.
“But Ron said…”
“I’m not saying she’s down in the Chamber again,” Fred clarified. “But we thought she wasn’t coming on the map because…because she was dead, right?” George nodded somberly. “Well, now we know that wasn’t the reason, she was alive the whole time down there.”
“Just barely.”
“Even so, she was alive, so she should have come up on the map. But what if there are places in the castle that it doesn’t show? Maybe places the Marauders never knew about, so therefore never put on there.”
“Or rooms that are unplottable, which the Chamber probably was.”
“Right, right,” said Fred excitedly. “So Ginny could still be in the castle, but someplace that the map can’t see!”
George quickly folded up the map. “She can’t hide from us forever, though. C’mon, we have some new rooms to discover. And I think we should start in the dungeons.”
“The dungeons?”
“Riddle was a Slytherin,” George reminded him. “So he likely knew plenty of places to hide down there, places even the mapmakers never stumbled upon. Maybe Ginny’s remembered a few…”
“And she’s holed up somewhere waiting for Riddle,” Fred finished with a frown.
“She wouldn’t!” George protested. “She knows he’s gone.”
“She knows what everyone’s told her,” Fred said softly. “What she believes could be something else entirely.” He pushed open the door to the dungeons. “We better hurry.”
He disappeared through the doorway with George close on his heels.
*****************
Snape glided down the corridor to the Potions lab and slipped into the room soundlessly. He glanced around, but the classroom was empty, the only movement coming from smoke rising out of cauldrons on the various desks around the room. Snape circled around the cauldrons, seeing if they might have been tampered with, but all were just the way his seventh years had left them that morning. He gave a wave of his wand at his office door, though, and an orange glow appeared, a telltale sign that someone had tampered with his wards. He quickly checked them and frowned when he found that the wards were still up. Murmuring a quick spell, he took them down and burst into the room, hearing someone scurry away as he did.
“It will do you no good to hide from me,” he murmured. “There is no other way to escape this room, except past me.”
As if in challenge to this statement, the bookcase behind his desk creaked forward, revealing the staircase hidden behind it. Ginny darted out from under Snape’s desk and into the passageway, but Snape caught up with her just before the bookcase closed, grabbing her around the waist and pulling her back into the office. Ginny tried to shake and kick her way free, but Snape pushed her roughly into his chair and held her there. Her wand clattered to the floor.
“Enough,” he growled.
“Go to hell,” grunted Ginny, continuing her kicking.
Snape bellowed “Immobilus!” and pointed at Ginny’s legs, which immediately fell still.
She looked up at Snape, but not with the fear he was expecting. Instead she wore a firmly defiant look on her face, her chin held high and her eyes meeting his steely gaze unflinchingly. “Fine, you caught me,” she said simply.
Snape was thrown by how easily she’d acquiesced and was first to blink. He scowled when Ginny grinned at him.
“Your family is in an uproar over your disappearance, you know,” he told Ginny, pinning her to the chair by the arms as he loomed over her.
“They’re too emotional, a weakness you don’t seem to share,” said Ginny coolly, pushing his hands away with a strength that caught Snape off-guard and made him release his grip. “Most teachers would be screeching all manner of detentions about now.”
“I think we’re beyond that,” Snape murmured, looming over her again with his wand drawn this time. His mouth quirked upward briefly when he saw Ginny swallow hard. Good, she should be scared. “Tell me what you’re doing in my office,” he demanded.
“No.”
It wasn’t the answer he’d been expecting, and Ginny’s smirk told him she knew it. Snape backed away from the temptation to throttle her, his lip curling, and sat on the edge of his desk in front of her. “Pity,” he drawled. “I do so enjoy the excuses you Weasleys try to make for your appalling behavior. Fortunately, I know what it is you seek.”
“And I thought Trelawney was the only one with the Sight around here,” sassed Ginny.
“I could punish you for your insolence, Miss Weasley,” Snape threatened.
Ginny only sneered at him. “Do you think detention or taking points will affect me? That kind of silly punishment is nothing to what I’ve been through.”
“I know.”
Ginny shifted uncomfortably under his dark, unrelenting gaze. Suddenly, her head snapped back, banging hard against the back of the chair as thoughts of Tom and the Chamber came flooding into her mind.
“Stop,” Ginny pleaded, attempting to push herself out of the chair but unable to get up because of the spell on her legs. “Stop it. Please.”
Snape turned away from her and Ginny’s visions faded.
“What did you do?” she squeaked.
“You do not want to trifle with me, Miss Weasley,” Snape warned. “Now, let’s discuss the potions you stole from the drawer of Draco Malfoy’s nightstand in the hospital ward.”
Ginny started to protest, but Snape put a hand up to stop her. “It will do you no good to deny it; Mr. Malfoy has already sold you out. However, I would like to hear how you broke through the locking spells on that drawer.”
“It was Malfoy, not me,” Ginny insisted.
“Malfoy has not yet developed the skills necessary to open that drawer,” Snape informed her.
“And I have?”
“I would not have thought so, but from what I hear, you have shown a surprising aptitude lately, far more than anyone ever would have suspected from a Weasley,” Snape said, his inky black eyes again boring into hers. Ginny squeezed her eyes shut to block him out. “Although I suspect that all of that magical talent is not entirely your own.”
Ginny’s eyes flew open. “Now I’ve stolen someone’s magic, too?” she scoffed, shifting in the chair so she was sitting up higher. “I’m becoming a regular criminal mastermind.”
“You may not be, but Tom Riddle was.”
Ginny froze as if he had immobilized the rest of her body. Could he know how much Tom is still a part of me? She shook her head. “Tom’s gone,” she whispered.
“The manifestation of him that was in that diary is gone,” declared Snape. “But I suspect that part of Tom Riddle is still lingering in this castle. Perhaps in someone who is especially vulnerable to outside influences because she stole a potion and took it without knowing the possible ramifications.”
“You couldn’t be speaking of me.”
“Oh, but I could,” said Snape smugly. “Yes, the ingredients in that potion will stop dreams. However, the person who combined them was quite fond of tricks, so your worse nightmares are certain to find your way back to you, even in the light of day.”
His previous words suddenly clicked in Ginny’s head. “How do you know about Tom and the diary?” she demanded to know.
“Dumbledore…”
“No!” Ginny screamed, startling Snape so much he nearly fell off the desk in surprise.
“Miss Weasley, calm…”
“He promised he wouldn’t tell anyone what happened, and he’s a man of his word!”
“I’m a teacher…”
“You’re a liar,” Ginny spat. Something in his face caught Ginny’s attention and she studied him carefully, her gaze as unwavering on him as his had been on her just moments before.
Snape's head jerked back suddenly. “How did you learn to do that?” he demanded to know.
“You knew!” Ginny screeched. The emotion running through her was so strong it broke the spell on her legs and she leapt to her feet. “You knew about the diary!”
“I didn’t…”
“Don’t lie!” Ginny bellowed, pushing him. Snape just managed to find his feet as he skittered off the desk. “I know! Somehow I saw it when I looked at you, I saw someone showing it to you!”
“You didn’t read me on purpose?” Snape questioned sharply, grabbing Ginny’s arms and shaking her.
She wrenched herself free immediately, backing away from him. “How could you?” she cried. “How could you let me keep it, knowing what it did?”
“I did not know you were in possession of the diary,” confessed Snape softly. “In fact, I had forgotten about its existence until I heard a nightmare you were having about Riddle and I realized what must have happened.”
“If you knew of the existence of the diary, then you must know who gave it to me,” Ginny realized.
“Potter didn’t tell you?”
“Harry knows?” asked a stunned Ginny.
Snape nodded with a malevolent smile. “I wonder why he would keep such a secret from you.”
“I haven’t talked to Harry much since…I haven’t been up for company,” Ginny said in Harry’s defense. “So it’s up to you to tell me.”
“I want you to try to read my thoughts again to find out,” Snape challenged.
“Try to read…”
“What you saw of someone showing me the diary…” Snape informed her. “You were reading my thoughts, seeing a memory.”
“I read your thoughts?” Ginny murmured, wide-eyed.
“It wasn’t intentional, then?”
Ginny shook her head. “How would I know how to do that?”
“You wouldn’t. Even most older wizards don’t know legilimency,” he explained. “That’s how you were able to access my thoughts, I never expected…”
“Tom would know how to do this legitimate thing?” Ginny interrupted.
“It’s legilimency,” Snape corrected. “And yes, I imagine he would have had the ability, as the Dark Lord is quite skilled at it.” He eyed her carefully. “What other skills of the Dark Lord’s have you picked up, Miss Weasley?”
“None…I don’t mean to…things just happen…” Ginny stammered. “The magic comes out, like before I came to Hogwarts and would accidentally do stuff.”
“You can’t control it?”
“No.”
“Now you’re the one lying,” accused Snape.
“Who gave me that diary?” Ginny demanded to know.
“You tell me.”
“I can’t. I can’t do the things he does,” insisted Ginny. “I won’t. I don’t want to be like him.”
“Of course it’s only a lingering effect of the enchantment you were under, you don’t really have the abilities you seem to have,” Snape informed her. “How could someone like you be that powerful?”
The color rose up in Ginny’s cheeks. “Someone like me? A Weasley, you mean?”
“A Weasley, a Gryffindor, a silly little fool who let herself become the Dark Lord’s helpless servant,” Snape taunted, leaning in close, so he was eye level with Ginny. His mouth quirked slightly when he saw Ginny’s eyes darken and focus in on his.
It was Lucius Malfoy who gave you the diary. He concentrated on that thought, letting her into his head to see it.
Ginny jumped as the thought hit her. “I’m going to KILL Malfoy!” she burst out, running for the door.
Snape rushed after her with surprising speed and grabbed her by her wand arm, so she couldn’t pull it on him.
Ginny tried to pull free, but Snape held her tightly. “Let me go, or I’ll have every person in this school believing you attacked me,” she threatened, never stopping her struggle to break free.
Snape met her hateful gaze for a long moment but then finally let go slowly. Ginny sprung for the door again, but Snape flicked his wand and it slammed shut just before she reached it. She heard a noise like a lock clicking into place. “You won’t be leaving here until I say so.”
Ginny panicked for a moment, wondering if he might attack her. Snape did nothing to reassure her when he glided up behind her and murmured, “You do have a penchant for getting yourself in trouble, don’t you?’ he taunted. “The perfect prey.”
Ginny whipped around with surprising speed, putting her wand to his throat. “I don’t think so,” she growled.
Snape laughed, such an unexpected reaction that Ginny’s guard slipped just enough for Snape to grab her wand. He spun away from her, taking the wand with him. “I’m not going to hurt you, you stupid bint,” he declared, tossing her wand onto the desk. “My job’s worth far more than the pleasure that would give me.”
Ginny let out an involuntary sigh of relief. “Let me out of here then,” she demanded.
“Not until you get something through that thick head of yours,” he told her.
“What’s that?” she asked warily.
“Draco did nothing to harm you,” Snape declared. “He was not aware of what his father had planned for you, and he did not participate in his plan in any way.”
“How thick do you think I am?”
“You honestly don’t want me to answer that question,” Snape muttered. “I do, however, think you’re smart enough to understand that if you harm Draco in any way you will suffer the consequences.” Ginny snorted in derision. “I am not speaking of detention or points from Gryffindor,” clarified Snape.
“You can’t hurt me,” Ginny declared. “Dumbledore would boot you out of here if you harmed a student.”
“Accidents happen all the time, Miss Weasley,” he warned her, enjoying the flash of fear he saw her trying to hide. “However, the consequences of which I speak are not physical. Well, that’s not entirely true. I suspect you may feel the effects of not taking that potion.”
“Then I best not stop taking it.”
“Pomfrey is not going to give you anymore of that Dreamless Sleep potion, no matter how many tricks you try to pull,” Snape informed her. “Your erratic behavior today has made certain of that.”
“I wouldn’t be so sure of that,” said Ginny coolly.
“Oh, but I am sure,” murmured Snape. “It’s a rare potion, only to be used in extreme circumstances. So she only has a limited number of doses to administer. Three to be exact. Which I believe is the number of doses you’ve already received.”
“She can get more.”
“Yes she can. From the school’s Potions master,” Snape informed her with a malevolent smile. “Of course, that’s only if I agree to make more and release it to her. I could instead choose to keep it here, so that I might monitor its administration. I’m certain Dumbledore would agree that we can’t be too careful with a potion that could cause such troublesome side effects.”
“You want to drive me mad then?” questioned Ginny. “Finish the job your mate Lucius Malfoy started?”
“That potion will be the thing to drive you mad.”
“Not if I only use it occasionally,” Ginny tried to convince him. “A few doses, to get me through the end of term, so my roommates won’t have to endure me screeching like a banshee in the middle of the night. That’s all I need.”
“Perhaps you should speak to someone about those nightmares,” Snape suggested.
“Perhaps you should keep your nose out of my business.”
Snape chose to let that comment go. “What about when term’s over?” he wondered.
“I’ll be fine when I’m home with my family,” Ginny insisted. “They’ll get me through better than any potion ever could.”
“How touching.”
“Please, Professor,” said Ginny softly, trying to keep the pleading edge out of her voice. “I’ll even play nice with Malfoy, if that’s what it takes.”
“You must truly be desperate,” Snape taunted.
Ginny scowled. “I could tell Dumbledore you knew about the diary,” she threatened, the waver in her voice betraying her uncertainty.
“Before you make a threat, you should be certain you can go through with it, Miss Weasley,” Snape murmured. “I would have thought Riddle would have taught you that.”
“I will go through with it,” Ginny declared in a much stronger voice. “I’ll tell him you knew about Tom and the diary and you did nothing to stop it.”
“You’d be lying.”
“Something I do quite well,” Ginny boasted. “It’s the freckles. People think I have an honest face.”
“Dumbledore is quite accomplished at spotting liars.”
“So why hasn’t he caught on to you yet?” wondered Ginny with a smirk.
“I’m better at it than most,” Snape admitted with a shrug.
A stunned Ginny could have sworn he returned her smirk for a brief second, but when she looked again his face was stone once more. “Are you going to give me the potion?” she asked him.
“Are you going to stay away from Draco?”
“I would be thrilled to have nothing to do with Malfoy ever again,” Ginny declared.
“Two doses,” Snape said. “And your brothers need to stay away from Draco, too.”
“Four,” Ginny tried to negotiate. “And I can’t make any guarantees about my brothers.”
“Two, and I don’t tell Dumbledore that you picked up a few tricks from Tom Riddle,” Snape countered.
“Three, and neither one of us talks to Dumbledore,” Ginny suggested.
“Agreed.”
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