red and Ginny experienced a pang of remorse. "It's Constance." She pushed a well-used metal box across her little desk. "You know the drill from last time, Miss. All magical items to be deposited here for the duration of your visit. You'll be seeing him in his cell?"
"Interrogation room, please. I need him to sign a few documents." Ginny was already removing her coat. She undid the top buttons of her cardigan, pulling out the weather predicting raindrop locket that Bill had given her.
As she had done on every visit previously, she dropped the locket and chain into the metal box. Next came a spellchecking quill, a pad of Everlasting Parchment, and a genuine mood ring (which, she realized belatedly, was glowing a bright scarlet). All were minor magical items. Novelty or sentimental pieces, really. But rules were rules, Minister's daughter or not.
"Is that all, Miss?" Constance asked, more as gap-filler in the conversation than anything else.
Not quite. You really should run a Detector over me to check for hidden items, but you won't because you didn't the last time and you'd be too embarrassed to ask to do it now.
Ginny's smile could have set in concrete. "Yes, that's it. I just hope I have enough regular paper. I ran out, last time."
She waited a nerve wracking twenty minutes while the girl summoned additional guards to escort Snape into a free interrogation cell. When it was done, Ginny was taken to the room and told that two guards would remain outside should she require any assistance.
Her visits to Snape were nothing new and so everyone involved went through the motions, her client included.
To say that Snape was difficult, was understating the matter. He was, in a word, completely resigned to being locked up for the rest of his life.
And this time, Dumbledore's support had not been enough. Ginny was used to this and had long ago learned not to take it personally whenever he insisted on reading throughout the duration of their meetings. He had books aplenty for this task and was monosyllabic at the best of times when not reading.
He wasn't reading today seeing as they were away from his cell. Ginny often wondered how he managed to keep his prison-issue tunic and trousers so immaculate. They still retained their creases from whenever the last laundry day was. A slovenly Potions Master wasn't a very good Potions Master, she reasoned.
And Snape had been the very best.
"A bit late in the day for business, is it not?" he asked, with a raised eyebrow. He was sitting ramrod straight across from her, his elbows resting on the metal tabletop with his hands clasped.
He had managed to procure a strip of leather to tie his hair back. It was still coal black.
"I thought you would have taken away enough from your last visit to start that farce of an appeal?"
Ginny sighed. It was to have been her first unsupervised appeal. Snape was her first big case. She prayed he wasn't going to be her last.
"An appeal isn't going to work."
"Oh? You have finally taken my advice regarding the futility of your efforts, as appreciated as they are," he added. His politeness still had an icy edge.
She got to the point. "A certain, elusive friend of yours saw fit to approach me in the middle of the lingerie department at Harrods last week."
The look on Snape's face was priceless. It was the first real emotion she had seen from him in a very long time. "A friend, you say? You are sure it was...him?"
Ginny folded her arms. "Professor, I don't know how many people have tried to kill you in your long and eventful life, but I sure as hell do not forget someone once they've tried to do me in, indirectly or otherwise."
Snape's eyes widened fractionally. "Point taken." Then he glared at her. "Foolish girl. That was very dangerous. I gather you have not reported this?"
"You gather correctly."
"Why?"
"Because then I wouldn't be able to give you this." Glancing at the door to make sure it was well and truly shut; she quickly shoved her hand down the top of her cardigan and pulled out the golden key she was wearing on a long, thin chain.
Snape's reaction to seeing the key was not what she expected.
At first he just stared at it, and then he tilted his head back and laughed. It wasn't the disturbing, maniacal cackle you sometimes heard from Azkaban prisoners who had been there a little too long. This was