Devils and Dust

Chapter Seven




With her hand clenched tightly around her newly returned wand buried deep within the folds of her robe, Ginny made her way slowly along the corridor toward Gryffindor tower in a type of daze.

It was so odd to be back at Hogwarts, everything here was so sharp and painfully real. She avoided the gazes of the few students she passed, their shocked glances and whispered conversations pricked her skin like needles.

It had taken her over an hour to convince Dumbledore that she didn’t need to go to the hospital wing, but he’d finally relented and allowed her to go to her room. She didn’t want to go to Gryffindor tower but she had no other choice. She couldn’t very well sleep in a disused classroom. She would have to face them eventually and she needed to get back to her life.

As much as she didn’t want to talk to Ron and her former friends she knew she would have to. They wouldn’t leave her alone otherwise. She would just pretend that everything was fine. After all, she’d half convinced Dumbledore, surely her brother would be easier. In her time with Lucius she’d perfected her acting skills and she would have great use for them.

They wouldn’t expect her to be happy and bubbly so at least she could get away with a certain coldness. But there would be no accusations. It would only make them apologize and try harder to get her to forgive them. And she wouldn’t do that. She’d never forgive them.

So her only option was to slowly withdraw from them, and she’d become quite accomplished at that.

It wasn’t until she reached the portrait that she realized that she didn’t know the password. The idea of slipping away into an empty classroom for a few hours was seeming better and better and she’d decided to do just that when she heard her brother’s voice.

“Ginny!”

She turned to find him running down the corridor toward her, Hermione and Harry close behind.

He would hug her, she knew. And she braced herself for the contact. She could handle this, no matter how much she hated the thought of being touched by those who had betrayed her. She’d survived worse after all.


He did indeed crush her in a hug, and it was a mere five seconds in when she realized her plan would never work. She couldn’t bear for him to believe, even falsely, that she had forgiven him. He didn’t deserve to be happy. He deserved to be miserable just like she was.

How dare he? How dare he just act like everything was fine? How dare he expect her not to hate him? He was her brother, and he hadn’t protected her. How dare he be happy to see her when she herself would never be happy again?

She was shaking with anger, and when she pushed him away, it was with such force that he would have fallen had Harry not been there to catch him.

“Don’t touch me, and don’t talk to me, ever again,” she spat, her hands curling into fists.

He looked utterly shocked for a few moments, but the expression soon faded to utter devastation.

And she reveled in it. This is what she wanted. Although she knew she could never hurt him like she’d been hurt, she was going to try with everything in her. The satisfaction that coursed through her was the closest thing she’d felt to contentment in the past few months, and she latched on to it.

“But Ginny I...,” he started to say, but she cut him off sharply.

“You what Ronald? You thought that everything would be fine now that I’m back? Did you expect me to be grateful that you finally sent someone to rescue me?”

She lowered her voice and her tone was as sharp as glass, and she could see how her words cut him. “That’s what you expected isn’t it Ronald? For me to fall at your feet and..and THANK YOU, thank you, for letting me be raped and tortured for months, while you sat here like a useless lump weeping into your pillow?”

She became even more furious as she realized she’d just revealed what she had wanted so badly to keep hidden. But it was worth them knowing to see the pain it caused. He flinched violently as if she’d stabbed him and she hungered to hurt him more.

“I did everything I could.. I swear from the first night they took you I’ve been...”

“Everything,” she interrupted. “You hardly did everything. You should have searched, unceasingly, not resting until you’d found me. I’m your baby sister, and you’re supposed to protect me. Always.”

She saw that shaft hit home. His duty as her brother to protect her had been drummed into him at an early age by their mother. But as devastated as he looked it wasn’t enough, she wanted more.

Harry and Hermione chose this moment to interrupt and she had no trouble venting her anger at them.

“Ginny we really have been trying, ever since you left,” Harry began only to be interrupted by Hermione.

“We really have Ginny,” Hermione rushed to assure her, “we were in the library every night trying to find some kind of locater spell but...”

“Just stop,” Ginny interrupted, unable to bear there pitiful excuses any longer. “Every year you all seem to get into some kind of danger of epic proportions and yet you always survive. You always save each other. But where were you, Harry? Where was the Saviour of the Wizarding World when I needed saving?”

She saw him flinch and step back and she turned her attention to Hermione.

“And what about you, the cleverest little witch in all the land, the brainy part of the trio? The one that makes all the plans and always finds the answers? Obviously where I was wasn’t an important enough question for you to bother with. To busy studying for the O.W.L.’s and shagging my brother I’d bet, to bother with such a trifling matter as the whereabouts of his irritating little sister.”

She saw the way Hermione’s face flushed when she mentioned shagging her brother and she felt even more rage fill her

“ But I bet none of you even bothered to leave your precious Hogwarts grounds. No, whatever you may have finally done after months of sitting and doing your homework while I was being raped..and tortured..it was both too little and much..much too late.”

They stood there silently staring at her, obviously to upset to speak, and for a few moments she stood silently too, relishing the looks of devastation on their faces.

But before she could add more bricks to the pile she had already heaped on them, she saw Neville walking down the corridor toward them. The site of him snapped her out her rage driven tangent and suddenly she wanted nothing more than to be alone.

When Neville raised his gaze from studying his book and saw her his eyes lit with happiness. But before he could express his joy at seeing her, she quickly asked him for the password.

Confused by her harsh tone he gave it to her and she was already through the portrait before he had a chance to gather his wits.

He was once again struck speechless as he took in the devastated faces of the three standing before him. Ginny was back, they should be ecstatic. He was utterly confused by what was going on, but he could not summon up the courage to ask.

The three, Ron especially, looked like the wrong word would tip them over the edge. And he was famous for always saying the wrong things. So he averted his eyes and walked swiftly past them, muttering the password and hurrying to his room.




While her brother and his friends stood in shock still outside of the common room, Ginny paced restlessly back and forth across her room. She’d placed every kind of locking charm she could think of on her door but Hermione and Harry were no ordinary students and she had no doubt that they could break through them if they wanted.

In her talk with Dumbledore she’d convinced him to let her resume classes the next day and she’d never been so glad that her brother and she were in different years. Classes took up most of her day, so that left only mealtimes and the few hours at the end of the night that she would have to avoid them.

She couldn’t very well hide in her room, and they were sure to track her down if she went to the library or pretty much anywhere in the castle thanks to a certain annoying map.

She needed someplace that they wouldn’t be able to follow her to.

The solution hit her so suddenly that she gasped aloud.

Of course! She’d missed several months of class and she would need to catch up. She had been far ahead last year in most of her classes so she couldn’t really pretend to need to study them.

But there was one class in which she always just barely scraped by. She was sure that she could guilt him into tutoring her and he was the only Professor that the trio truly feared. It was too perfect. And he had the added bonus of being the only Professor that wouldn’t bother her with useless consolations. In fact he probably wouldn’t speak to her at all except to criticize her work.

Potions required several hours to make on the average, and that would be just the right amount of time. If she were lucky she might never have to see them at all.

Feeling like she’d finally set her foot fully on firm ground she flung open the door.

Completely ignoring her brother and his friends who had predictably made their way up to haunt her door; she marched down the stairs and out of the portrait door, making her way towards the dungeons.


Severus Snape was bent over a cauldron , his back to the door, when he heard the telltale creak of it opening. If it were a fellow Professor he knew they would have announced themselves immediately. The hesitant silence told him that it was a student.

Classes were over for the day and his attitude discouraged most students from attempting to see him outside of class, so he was somewhat curious as to who would be brave enough, and foolish enough, to bother him while he was clearly working on a potion.

Nevertheless he didn’t turn to satisfy his curiosity. The potion was what was important, not some idiotic student who didn’t know better than to interupt him.

“I should hope,” he began softly, a razor sharp edge of irritation lacing his tone, “since you felt it nessasary to interrupt me while I am obviously busy with important matters that something dire has happened, because I assure you, nothing short of the Giant Squid attacking the school or the dark lord himself tearing down the walls is going to save you from a severe loss of house points.”

There were several moments of silence and he thought for sure that the student was scared speechless and probably on the verge of making a run for it. But the sound of a familiar voice that he was sure he would never hear again, caused him to turn abruptly, his cauldron forgotten.


“Unfortunately neither has happened, and no disrespect meant,”and here her voice took on an edge of it’s own,“but such trifling considerations as house points haven’t been a concern to me for sometime.”


It took him several moments to wipe the look of shock off of his face, and had she still the capacity within her, she might have found it amusing.

Having finally composed himself, Snape straightened and his tone held the faintest edge of sympathy when he spoke. “No I don’t suppose they have.”

“I wasn’t aware that you...had returned to the school,” he began hesitantly, having trouble knowing what to say to the girl. Most captives were killed within the first week and he had some idea of the magnitude of things that could happen to a young girl in a death eater camp for almost two months.

“Yes, just a few hours ago in fact. Draco...rescued me.”

Confusion and shock returned to his face. He’d had no idea Draco had even left the school, and he couldn’t imagine why Draco would return to the world he had finally escaped from to rescue a girl that Snape was certain he had no more than a nodding acquaintance with.

“And how, if I may enquire, did he manage that?”

She debated a moment if she should answer truthfully or at all, but decided that it would do her no harm for him to know. She was sure he had killed many people in his days as a death eater.

“Well, after I killed Lucius, Draco apparated us back to the forbidden forest. I was somewhat surprised that he was able to apparate as it isn’t taught here until seventh year. But knowing Lucius as I do,” at this her flat tone was momentarily fused with emotion, but she quickly regained control of herself after a small pause, “I’m sure that he taught Draco when he was quite young to do all manner of things.”

“After you killed Lucius? How could you manage to kill a wizard three times your age and power?” he questioned, his voice full of disbelief.

“Lucius taught me many things in my time with him, and it proved to be his own undoing. He taught me to be ruthless with your enemies, and he taught me that no witch or wizard is more powerful than hatred and sharp cold steel.”


“You..you stabbed him?” he asked, clearly taken aback. It shocked him to think that such a powerful wizard could be killed so easily and in such a muggilish way.

She had a brief flash of the arc of blood that had sprayed from his neck as she’d drawn the knife across it and her hand twitched.

“I slit his throat, actually. But I would prefer not to talk about it. That’s not the reason that I came here.”

“And why, exactly did you come here?” It had been puzzling him since he’d turned and seen her. He had never had much contact with her before, she had just been another irritating student. He couldn’t fathom why she could possibly want to talk to him.

“I need a favor.” She hesitated before continuing. If he told her no than she was out of options. There was no other place in the castle that she could escape her brother and his friends.

“I was wondering if you would allow me to work on my potions after dinner for a few hours everyday. I was never the best of students and...missing so many classes has surely put me even further behind my classmates.”

“You’re worried about grades? Surely considering the circumstances, allowances can be made.”

Her gaze narrowed and she said sharply, “I do not wish to be coddled. I wish to have no kind of special treatment beyond the use of this room for a few hours a day. Just give me a book and a cauldron and you won’t even have to bother with me.”

“It is not that you would be a bother Miss Weasley,” he began gently, “and I assure you that my tutoring you to help you catch up is not special treatment. I have done the same with others who were out of class for long periods of time. I assure you that it would be no trouble on my part, and I am pleased that you are taking the initiative in wanting to learn.”

He smiled slightly, and she supposed if Snape of all people was smiling at her that it was her duty to smile back. After all that is what one normally did.

She forced her facial muscles into the faintest of smiles. It seemed that even with the emotional challenged Snape she would have to playact. It seemed that there was no one who didn’t require her to put on some kind of facade and she wanted nothing more than to go to her room and hide.

Hide from all the pain and discomfort that these fake interactions with other people were causing. But she knew what awaited her back in her dormitory and Snape was by far less painful to be around than them.

“Then, Professor, if you wouldn’t mind, I would like to start immediately.”


AN:Sorry for the long wait, but I haven't been able to access this site in some time. So if anyone is still reading I will be sure to update more frequently. Zookyyook