Outside

"I'm tired of waiting. I want something to happen right now." Ginny crossed her arms and glared at her cauldron.

"I'm sorry. I'll just Floo over to Voldemort's headquarters and ask him to order me to torture you some more, then." Snape measured out cloves into his mortar and began grinding them with his pestle. "I certainly have nothing better to do with my time than provide you with entertainment."

"I--that's not what I meant."

"In that case, from now on I suggest you attempt to think before opening your mouth and letting words pour from it."

Ginny glared harder at her cauldron and bit the inside of her cheek. She was not going to say anything else. She was not going to have this discussion--even though she wanted to. She could say, "Why does Voldemort have to order you?" Or she could say, "What if I want to be tortured?" Or she could even say, "Please touch me." She really wanted to. But she didn't, not at all.

She didn't want him to touch her. She didn't want to think about it, or talk about it. She didn't want to remember it, how it felt. She walked around school in a daze, and she couldn't snap out of it. She hadn't even noticed that McGonagall had taken to watching her during classes, and to poking her head into Gryffindor at odd times of the day and night. One of the Gryffindors had pointed out to her--quite nastily--that her place at dinner and supper was always missing a steak knife, and Sprout never let her handle the dangerous herbs the other seventh years were working with, and even Hagrid was keeping her farther and farther away from the animals.

"It is," remarked the girl, so casually Ginny knew she'd had to have been thinking about this and planning it for at least a few hours, "as though they think you're dangerous. They all watch you like you're going to explode."

The implication was clear.

Ginny paused on her way into the Potions classon, sent the girl a cool glare, and continued on her way.

She wanted to talk about it. But she didn't at the same time. Because who would she talk to? The twits in Gryffindor? The shadow that used to be Hermione? Her parents, who were supposed to have disowned her? Maybe they really had; she didn't know--she only had Dumbledore's word for it, and who ever knew about him?

She would have talked to Severus--Snape--about it, to try to sort through her feelings, since he was the only professor she had who continued to treat her the same as always--but she didn't want to talk to Snape about it because she didn't want to talk to him about anything. It was weird and ironic that the only professor who should be treating her differently was the only one who wasn't.

After one has beaten one's student to orgasm, shouldn't one say more than, "If you cannot slice that thinner, Miss Weasley, the adsensum will be useless, and those wizards who are stupid enough to have splinched themselves will remain splinched"? Ginny was sure there wasn't any etiquette books written on the subject--not even in the Muggle world, although she wasn't positive about that since Muggles really did do some weird things--but surely something should have changed.

Except Ginny didn't want anything to change, except she wanted to stop thinking about all of it--but she couldn't help herself. Who could? Maybe Severus--Snape--wasn't the most attractive man alive, and he was older and mean, but... But he was so smart. But he was practical and sarcastic. But the things he did with his hands and wand. The things she wanted him to do to her--she wasn't sure if half the things she was imagining were anatomically possible.

And it wasn't fair. It wasn't fair that she spent more time thinking about doing naughty things with one of her professors than thinking about the fact that she was destined from birth to be a Dark witch.

It wasn't fair that she was so affected and Snape remained inscrutable, crankily and nastily implacable.

It wasn't fair that she would watch him hungrily, remembering what he wrenched from her, and the feeling of dry, callused fingers running along her jaw, catching droplets of sweat, the deep voice heard through a haze of pleasure-pain.

"She's done, my lord."

Then the raspy reply: "And thoroughly, Severus. An excellent job. I see you haven't lost your touch."

And Lucius Malfoy's nasty laugh.

And Draco Malfoy's smirk.

And the body of Goyle sprawled off to the side, the green mist still hanging about him.

And laying in his bed afterward, the musty, musky scent of his sheets surrounding her, and--

It was a measure of her standing at Hogwarts that when Snape caught her wrapped up in memories during Advanced Potions, it was the Gryffindors who tittered, and the Slytherins who watched her somberly.