Crossing Lines

Ginny stumbled down to breakfast late the next day, bleary eyed through lack of sleep. Snape's revelation - and her acceptance of it - had kept her tossing and turning all night, until Demelza Robbins, trying to sleep in the next bed along, threatened to throttle her with her pillow.

She dropped down next to Demelza now and helped herself to a slice of bacon off the other girl's plate. "Where is everyone?" she asked. All the Gryffindor seniors were huddled around this end of the table, which was in itself a bad sign. Normally, they wouldn't be able to fit.

"This is everyone," Mel replied gloomily.

Ginny looked around. "But what about Creevy? Or Dean, or Parvati? Or fucking anyone?"

"Colin Creevy?" Seamus Finnegan asked, overhearing. "Muggleborn, same as his little brother. Dean can't prove he's not Muggleborn, either, and I think Parvati's family's left the country."

Neville nodded. "Same with everyone else, I reckon. I mean, Hogwart's is compulsory now, so it's not like everyone's just decided to go to Beauxbatons for a year."

Ginny snorted into her coffee. "Yeah, well I can't really picture Dean there, anyway." Her insides twinged, despite her flippancy. She'd dated Dean for part of last year, and certainly didn't want anything happening to him.

"Oh look, timetables," Mel said absently as a pile of them appeared next to a plate of kippers. "Wonder if I made it into Transfig this year? I got an E, but I heard McGoogles only takes Os."

"That would be Professor McGonagall, I believe, Ms Robbins?"

Mel just about fell off her seat in fright. Ginny tried not to laugh to obviously. McGonagall had the habit of appearing when least wanted down to an art form.

"Uh, yes Professor," Mel stammered. "Sorry, Professor."

McGonagall just nodded. "Well, if you look at your timetable, you will see that I also accept E students, though only if I am sure they will succeed."

"Thank you, Professor."

McGonagall left to go terrorise some Hufflepuff firsties and Mel dramatically wiped sweat from her forehead. Seamus grinned. "Glad to see that old battleaxe still around."

Ginny nodded and looked down at her own timetable. She'd had pretty good exam results, and was taking Charms, Potions, Transfig, History of Magic - she was possibly the only person who actually enjoyed writing essays about vampires in Liechtenstein - Dark Arts, and...Muggle Studies?

"I did not sign up to do Muggle Studies," Romilda Vane said in a voice like she'd just found a dead rat in her porridge. She was in Ginny's year, but Ginny had never really liked her. Too boy-crazy, by far. Not to mention that the boy she'd been craziest about was Harry. "I have better things to do than learn about stupid Muggles!"

An awkward silence fell at their end of the table. No one was quite sure what to say to that.

Neville was the first person to break the silence. "If that's how you feel, Vane," he said calmly. "Go eat breakfast with the Slytherins. I'm sure they'd like another idiot to keep them company."

"Yeah," agreed Seamus. "Bugger off."

Others nodded in silent agreement. Ginny was about to add her voice when she remembered that she was going to be pretending to be a Death Eater in the near future, and they wouldn't buy her story if she kept sticking up for Muggles. She ducked beneath the table and pretended to fiddle with the buckles on her bag.

"Well, I was just saying," Romilda said, flushing. She looked around the table for support that no one offered. Then she looked sidelong at Seamus through her lashes. "I'm so sorry, Seamus. It was thoughtless of me. With all the propaganda around these days, I really need someone to guide me..." Flutter, flutter, went her eyelashes. Seamus looked vaguely sickened. "Someone older and wiser..."

"C'mon," Neville said loudly, jumping to his feet. "We'd better head to class."

'Yeah," said Seamus in relief, all but running for the door.

"So." Ginny leaned forward and lowered her voice, checking over her shoulders for any unwelcome eavesdroppers. The rest of her end of the table leaned closer to hear her. "Did you hear what that Carrow bloke did to some Hufflepuff?"

* ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ *

Compulsory Muggle studies wasn't the only change in Ginny's timetable. She'd spent the class drawing an elaborate spider web on her textbook as Alecto Carrow told them how dirty, twisted and disgusting Muggles were. It took all of Ginny's patience not to snap at her, but she had to keep sight of the bigger picture. Speaking of which, Snape hadn't given any indication of when her 'training' would start.

"Miss Weasley, what in the name of Merlin do you think you are doing?" His acid drawl jerked her out of her reverie, and she nearly dropped the flask she was holding into her cauldron.

"Adding arma-" she looked at her flask. "Er, swapping this lemon juice for armadillo bile, Professor," she said sheepishly.

"You got an O in your Potions exam," he asked incredulously, "and yet you cannot tell the difference between lemon juice and armadillo bile? Five points from Gryffindor and detention tonight."

"Detention?" yelped Mel, Ginny's Potion's partner. "But she hasn't done anything wrong yet!"

"Make that ten points from Gryffindor."

Mel opened her mouth to reply, but Ginny stomped on her foot as discretely as possible. "Shuddup before we lose more," she hissed. Mel might be outraged about the unfairness of Ginny's detention, but Ginny was pretty sure this was Snape's way of telling her when her training started. Tonight.

She swallowed nervously and picked up the real armadillo bile. She hadn't expected things to happen quite so suddenly.

The bell for lunch clanged, and students began bustling around, gathering up unused ingredients and putting them away, and cleaning up their worktops.

"Your potion should be a shimmering blue," Snape said, his voice cutting through the hubbub. "You will continue with the next stage tomorrow. And Miss Weasley-" Ginny tried not to glare; he knew how much that annoyed her, "report to my office at nine tonight."

"Yes, Professor," she muttered. Swinging her bag onto her shoulder, she turned and followed Mel out of the class.

Mel burst into a tirade against Snape the moment the left the gloomy dungeon, but Ginny wasn't really paying attention. "C'mon," she said to Mel. "I'm starving."

"Aren't you pissed off? That was so unfair!"

"Yeah, but this is Snape we're talking about here. When has he ever been fair?"

* ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ *

Ginny swallowed nervously and wiped her sweaty palms on her robes. She could do this.

"Just come in, Miss Weasley. If you insist on dithering around on the doorstep, you will get caught by one of the Carrows, and I can't imagine you will enjoy that."

Ginny jumped about a foot. The door was closed! How the hell could he know she was there? She sighed. Snape knew everything. And seeing he did know she was there, she might as well go in. She pushed the door open and walked in.

She hadn't really been in a fit state to notice last night, but the headmaster's office hadn't changed a great deal. There were a few less silver things with too many legs, but the portraits were still on the wall, and she could see the tatty old sorting Hat sitting next to what looked like - a big sword. What was a big sword.

Snape was standing next to his mahogany desk, a cage in his hand. "You're late, Miss Weasley."

"Er..." Was she? "Only a couple of minutes, though," she said feebly.

Snape just sneered in reply. The animal in the cage gave a muffled "meow". Ginny stared.

"Professor?" she asked carefully. "Is that Mrs Norris? In that cage?"

"Full marks in observation," Snape said sarcastically. "It is your first task. Take it."

Ginny took the proffered cage and looked it over. "What am I supposed to do with her?"

"Kill it and skin it. Or skin it and then kill it; it doesn't matter much to me. Just don't get blood on the carpet."

She stared. Whatever she'd been expecting, it wasn't that. "Why?" she asked, stalling. She'd always liked cats.

"Just do it. Or are you too scared?"

She glared at him, and set the cage down on the floor. "Do I at least get something to kill it with?"

"Are you a witch or not?"

She flushed and ducked her head. Idiot, she told herself. Taking a deep breath, she pulled out her wand. "Avada kedavra!"

There was a flash of green light and Mrs Norris slumped to the bottom of the cage, lifeless.

Ginny stared in horror. "Fuck." She sat down on the floor rather suddenly as her legs half buckled beneath her, still staring at Mrs Norris. Did I do that? she asked silently. Merlin's hairy arsehole, I just used an unforgivable curse.

Snape was just as surprised as Ginny was, though better at disguising it. Not many had the strength of will to actually kill the first time they used the killing curse. "Now skin it," he said coolly, giving nothing away. He handed her a silver knife resting on his desk.

She took it silently, then stared at Mrs Norris a bit more. This look wasn't stunned shock, though. She'd moved onto calculation.

Setting the knife down on the carpet, she opened the cage and pulled the still warm cat out of it, trying not to gag. Then she transfigured the cage into a wooden board - a chopping board, some sick part of her mind told her -, rolled up her sleeves, and got to work.

"You going to tell me why that was necessary?" she asked some time later. She was bloody to the elbows, and vaguely green around the gills, but dangling from between her finger and thumb was the skin that had formerly belonged to Filch's cat.

"To test you obedience and your ethics. You passed. Now clean it up and we'll work on Occlumency."

Tiredly, she vanished the cat and all the blood she could see. At least, she noticed with some satisfaction, the carpet was still clean.

"Clear your mind," Snape instructed. "Rid yourself of emotion."

Ginny tried frantically to stop thinking as Snape's dark eyes bored into hers. "Legilimens."

"Protego!" Ginny nimbly cast a shield charm around herself, deflecting Snape's spell. "Is that all you're going to tell me? To clear my mind and stay calm?"

"To start with, yes. And though a shield charm may be an effective method of evading me, it would blow your cover immediately. Clear your mind and we will begin again."

"But-"

"Who is the teacher here, Miss Weasley?"

Ginny shut up.

It was several hours before Snape stopped attacking her mind, and she had a blistering headache by the end. On the bright side, she had learned how to clear her mind. The trick was to focus on one thing and one thing only, rather than trying to think about nothing.

Snape looked at her appraisingly. "I've taught worse," he admitted grudgingly. Ginny smiled tiredly. She was guessing this was as close as he ever got to praise.

"When's my next lesson?" she asked. "You can't keep giving me detention, either," she added as an afterthought. "People might get suspicious."

"Tomorrow night at eight. You wish to become a Healer, do you not?'

"Well, actually-"

"You do wish to become a Healer, Miss Weasley. And because of your enthusiasm for the subject, you are taking advanced Potions tutoring with me. Tomorrow night, in the dungeons."

"Oh," Ginny said, understanding.

"Indeed," Snape said dryly. "Now come here; I need to Disillusion you."

"Oh, it's fine," Ginny said, rubbing her aching temples. "I taught myself how to do that a couple of months ago."

Snape didn't believe her until she showed him, but he did look grudgingly impressed for the first time that night.

Ginny trudged back to the Gryffindor common room, then up to her tower and into bed. It would've been past midnight, and she'd done none of her homework, nor would she be doing it that night. She smiled at the thought of McGoogles asking why her homework wasn't complete. "You see, Professor, I had to skin this cat, and it took longer than I thought..." No, somehow she couldn't see the woman buying it.

Then she thought about the fact that she'd just used an Unforgivable Curse, and had to bolt to the bathroom and throw up.

* ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ *

The week moved faster than Ginny thought possible. She'd developed a system for dealing with her homework; she wouldn't even try doing anything after Snape's lesson, but instead would wake up earlier the next morning and do it over breakfast. It wasn't ideal, and her grades were already slipping, but some things were unavoidable, and that was one of them.

Snape's Death Eater lessons were a challenge for her. He was so consistently nasty, and never gave her more than grudging praise, but that just made her try harder to spite him. He'd been teaching her new, hard spells all week. As well as Occlumency, which she was beginning to get the hang of, he'd started teaching her the theory of Apparition, and several nasty hexes and jinxes that she'd never learned in class, or even in the DA.

Her regular lessons were horrible. At least twice as bad as anything Snape dished out. Defence Against Dark Arts was now just Dark Arts, Muggle Studies was just propaganda against Muggles, and the Carrows were dishing out Cruciatus left, right and centre. Neville had already been on the business end of it twice.

More than that, her friends were talking about starting the DA again, to stir up trouble, and they were looking to her for guidance.

"What do I do?" she asked Snape that Friday night. "I don't want to say no, cos Neville will get suspicious, but if I say yes..."

Snape nodded his understanding. "Do it anyway. It might be that you can use some of the information garnered there to convince the Death Eaters of your enthusiasm to the cause."

Ginny bit her lip, but agreed. She just hated the thought of betraying her friends in any way.

Snape seemed to know what she was thinking. "Stop wallowing, Ginevra," he sneered. "Tonight, we will be working on the Cruciatus curse. Stand up."

Ginny got to her feet, wand in her hand.

"Crucio!"

Her eyes rolled back in her and she collapsed to the floor. The pain - the pain - it was everywhere, it was killing her. She could feel her bones splintering and fracturing and her guts boiling and - oh, the pain -

She screamed, unable to stop it. If she didn't scream, if she didn't sob, the pain would devour her, there would be nothing left but pain -

"Had enough, Miss Weasley? Ready to ask for mercy yet?"

Even through the agony, she could hear Snape's mocking voice. That bastard, that sick bastard - her thought train broke off. She couldn't concentrate on anything but her body tearing itself apart. "No," she sobbed, not even sure what she was saying. "No!"

Just make it stop, make it go away. She couldn't cope, she was being ripped apart, she was dying. "Stop! Stop!"

Snape's voice was as calm as ever. "Not until you beg for it. Beg, Ginevra. Beg!"

She couldn't see, couldn't breath. The pain rolled over her in waves, in tsunamis. There was nothing left of Ginny Weasley, there was only pain. "Please," she choked out. "Please! Mercy!"

It stopped as suddenly as it had come, and Ginny came to rest as a sobbing heap crumpled on the hard dungeon floor. She felt like she'd been through a meat grinder; like she'd been chewed up and spat up by a giant. She wasn't sure if her bones would hold her. They felt liquid, like they'd been smashed beyond all recognition.

She felt a shadow fall over her as Snape crouched down beside her. "Are you all right?" he asked in a tone more gentle than she'd ever heard him use. Though really, that wasn't saying a great deal.

Ginny wasn't sure she could talk. It felt like she'd lost a couple of teeth during the curse, but running her tongue over their backs, she couldn't feel anything missing. "No," she croaked at length. "No, I'm not." The sound of her thin voice fed a red-hot stream of anger through her. "You just - you -"

Assured that she wasn't completely broken, Snape stood up again, hiding the sympathy in his gaze. "I what, Miss Weasley? I told you we would be covering the Cruciatus curse. What did you think I meant?"

His goading tone went straight through Ginny, making her gasp in outrage. "You bastard! You don't even c-care!" The end of her sentence was muffled by a sob of pain, but she was too angry to care. That bastard. That selfish, unfeeling prick! "Let's see if you like it, then!" she spat.

She grabbed her wand and pulled herself into a sitting position. "Crucio!"

Snape was blown off his feet by the force of her curse. She felt it; she felt the pain she was causing, and for a moment, she felt powerful, in control. Then he let out a choked scream and she realised what she was doing.

"No!" she yelped, and broke the curse. "Oh my God, Professor, I'm so sorry. Oh my God, are you all right?" She moved as quickly as she could over to his prostrate form. "Oh God, oh God."

"Miss Weasley," he said coldly, looking up at her in contempt. "Cease your histrionics immediately."

She shut up and backed up a few paces, nervous.

"Not bad for a first attempt," he added, "but I should have known you wouldn't have the stomach to follow through with it."

She gritted her teeth, determined not to show her outrage. "Don't have the stomach?" she asked, trying to mimic his icy tones. "You mean I still have a sense of compassion?"

"Yes. Now, are you going to learn this, or are you going to back out? Real Death Eaters aren't afraid to use Cruciatus curse, and you will never pass as one of us unless you can use it to."

"Us?"

Snape roughly pulled his sleeve over his elbow. "Us," he spat, showing her the black skull and snake tattooed on his forearm. "When you take the Dark Mark, you become a Death Eater. No matter what your motivations are. You are one of the wizarding supremacists who murder and torture at will. There's no getting round it, Ginevra. No room for half-measures. You will have to kill, and hurt, and a thousand other things you've never imagined. Can you handle it? Can you live with yourself?"

Ginny looked at him, at the livid tattoo on his sallow skin. She would become a Death Eater. She wouldn't just be pretending, she would actually be a Death Eater. Not something she'd really considered, honestly.

He was still holding his arm out, staring at her with his piercing black eyes. In a way, it was the most human she'd ever seen him. And she knew his question only had one real answer.

"Crucio."