Discovery

There was no falling on the floor this time for Ginny as she leapt out of the flames and straight at Snape.

“You Bastard!” She screamed, tears of anger falling down her cheeks as she clawed at his face. Snape dropped the robes in his arms and grabbed her wrists, looking shaken but calm.

“Miss Weasley! Calm down and be reasonable. Think about it and you will realise there was no way to avoid it, I tried to make it as bearable as possible for you.”

“BEARABLE! You raped me, you slimy pedophile!” Ginny collapsed into a chair, sobbing, face buried in her hands. Snape sighed and rubbed his temples, his patience obviously wearing thin, and conjured a glass of water.

“Listen...,” his voice was gentle, though obviously only through an enormous amount of effort, “if I gave away my cover, imagine the amount of people who would be in danger. Imagine the Carrows being solely responsible for the school, that kind of thing, only infinitely worse, would happen to every student in this school. Was it so much of a sacrifice to keep them safe?” Ginny shook her head sadly, though she was furious she couldn't get a little time to be a victim. She stared out the window, it was dark when they left but it was early morning now.

“Well, who am I going to talk to then? I need to tell somebody!” Snape rolled his eyes slowly and counted to ten under his breath.

“I am amazed that you are still not understanding, you cannot tell anybody. It is of deathly importance that I remain headmaster of this school.” Ginny glared at him, and until she spoke, had forgotten Luna was even in the room.

“You killed Dumbledore.” She stated matter-of-factly. “Why are you even pretending to still be good?” Ginny was amazed she'd forgotten all about it.

“There are some things beyond either of your understanding. Even if I am a Death Eater, I am an infinitely better choice than the other Death Eaters who could run this school.” They both nodded, grudgingly. “Now, I need to fix you two up, then I suggest you go shower and sleep.” Rage built up inside Ginny again and she grabbed her robe from Snape's feet.

“Fix us up? You traitorous snake, you just raped me! I'm hardly going to let you touch me again.” Snape took a deep breath, and looked at Ginny like she was Neville and had just ruined another cauldron, eventually he calmed down enough to draw his wand.
“Stupefy.”

Ginny woke up groggily, looking up at the high ceiling of a circular room. She blinked a few times and looked around, until her gaze fell on Snape who was kneeling next to Luna, healing cuts on her hips.

“YOU!” Ginny bared her teeth and pushed backwards, falling painfully off the desk. It hurt less than she expected and she realised what had happened. “You stunned me!”

“Yes, you were a much better patient that way, trust me. Hard to dress though.” Ginny flushed angrily and tried to form an insult about him and playing with dolls, but couldn't. Snape stood up and handed Luna her clothes, before sweeping past Ginny to get to his desk. Luna stood up fully dressed, and looking rather cheerful considering.

“Well, I'm quite tired. Let's go, Ginny.” Ginny gaped at her, she recovered so easily, Ginny still wanted to punch, kick and scream.

“Yes, you two have permission to sleep in Miss Lovegood's room for the day. I will not begrudge you company or force you to go to classes, however cruel you believe me to be.” Ginny gave him one last glare before storming out with Luna wandering behind.


“Can you believe it?” Ginny was in the bed next to Luna's, the other occupants had left for lessons.

“What?” Luna's eyelids were only half open and she obviously wanted to sleep, though Ginny knew she wouldn't be able to until she talked about it.

“The whole night. I mean it was the most terrifying experience of my life, we were in the same room as Voldemort!” Ginny trailed off, an unbelieving expression on her face.

“Yeah, I mean it was all scary and odd, but I don't feel particularly worried by it. I mean, Lucius was rough but he didn't really abuse or torture me.” Ginny gaped at her friend.

“You're so calm about it! I feel so... I don't know, it seems so surreal that it feels like it was almost kind of normal, but I know that it wasn't....so I'm just confused” Luna nodded sleepily.

“Well, just don't focus on it too much, at least Snape tried to be good about it. We could've all been killed quite easily, after all.” Luna's head drooped and she fell asleep, though Ginny couldn't get the words out of her head. She lay staring at the ceiling for a while, until finally she seemed to find a certain amount of peace with the whole thing and fell asleep.