Ginny made her way down the passage the Room of Requirement had created, her husband's words still burning in her ears.

"At least she sees me!"

"You never loved me. You only ever loved the legend of me."

"You didn't want to be my wife. You just wanted to be Mrs Harry Potter."

Suddenly behind her there was a whooshing sound. Turning, she saw a wide floor-to-ceiling wall of purple flames... and it was advancing. She began to run. She could see the exit ahead. Just a few feet more and she would have made it.

As she reached out for the handle, another line of fire, this one black, erupted into life, and she staggered backward. There was no option.

"Help! I'm stuck in the walls! Help!"

The door eventually opened, and as if fuelled by the new air-flow, the black flames billowed toward her.

"Let me out!"

Ginny could barely see the figure beyond the flames, but the voice was unmistakeable. "Well, well, Mrs Potter. To what do I owe the dubious honour?"

"I wanted to see you," Ginny answered.

"Me?" Snape drawled. "Are you sure you didn't simply intend to remove any valuables that might be lying around? I warned you ten years ago that if you ever encroached on my privacy again that you would get your fingers burned. Catch!"

A vial soared through the flames, and Ginny would have dropped it if it hadn't landed against her breast.

"Drink it all, Mrs Potter."

"You're joking—"

"I do not joke when people intrude upon my privacy. Drink the contents of the vial, Mrs Potter, and then come forward and explain yourself."

For the first time, Ginny's fury faded enough for her to wonder if this was such a good idea. She gulped down the Potion, its chill cooling her ardour as well as her body, and she actually reached back toward the purple flames, thinking to return to the Room of Requirement, from whence she had conjured the passage to Snape's private quarters. The flames sent pinpricks of blazing ice through her fingertips, stabbing toward her heart, and she let out a sob of pain.

"I said forward, Mrs Potter. You have carried your scheme too far to turn back unscathed."

Her heart in her mouth, Ginny composed herself and walked, head high, through the black flames. The sight which greeted her was rather more pleasant than she had expected. The headmaster's bedroom was large and round, the walls panelled in lustrous oak to a height of about five feet, and it was in this panelling that her doorway had appeared. A huge four-poster bed, its hangings already closed for the night, was draped in velvet the purple-indigo of morning's early hours. A fire blazed high in the hearth and Severus Snape rested an elbow on the mantel, but his wand was pointed directly at her. The flames cast flickering light over his bare torso and feet. His trousers had obviously been pulled on hastily, and though they were buttoned far enough to hide the triangle of his pubic hair, Ginny could see the dark line that began just below his navel.

Ginny had never really considered what the body under Snape's teaching robes might be like. She had chosen him, partly because she knew Harry would be repulsed by the idea, and partly because she was sure that Snape would pounce on the opportunity to screw a beautiful redhead whose name, as he had pointed out so frequently over the last few minutes, was Mrs Potter. She licked her already glossy lips.

"Well, I apologise for doubting your motives," he remarked in a silky drawl. "You do seem rather inappropriately dressed for burglary."

To her surprise, Ginny felt her nipples harden under the thin layer of lace that was all that covered them. "I told you I wanted to talk," she answered.

"And, in that, you lied. A woman does not come to a man's bedroom in such a state of undress merely to talk. Either her intent is seduction, or the appearance of it with the later intent to blackmail, and I am not such a fool as to think the likes of Ginevra Potter would be sufficiently attracted to a humble headmaster to risk the prestige she worked so hard to attain, even if he weren't twice her age and generally considered an ugly git. What do you want?"

"Revenge." Her hand went to the bow that secured her underbust corset, and she slowly pulled at an end until the knot unravelled. "Harry claims he's in love with another woman. He says she sees the real Harry."

Severus snorted. "Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned. And you thought of me?"

"Thanks to Minerva's legacy, you're Harry's boss, even though you still hate the very sight of him. Think how much fun you could have screwing his wife, Mrs Potter, taking her in every way possible, ways even he never had me." The corset fell to the floor, leaving Ginny in nothing but a lace shift that did little to conceal her curves. She bent down and gripped the thigh-length hem, pulling it up over her head and dropping the fabric to the floor.

"Any way I want?"

"Look, Snape, whatever floats your boat! Chain me up, tie me down, anal, oral, come in my hair if that's what it takes, the sleazier the better."

Snape set his wand down on the mantelpiece, prowling toward her with feline grace. "A two minute upright against the bedroom door? Is that sordid enough for you?"

He backed Ginny up against the bedroom door proper rather than the entrance she had used and then spun her around, so her cheek pressed against the wood. "I don't want to see your face—" he informed her in a velvety whisper, his breath making the skin below her ear tingle. He grabbed a handful of her hair, tugging her back from the door and using his other hand to open it. "—in my private quarters ever again." He pushed her out onto the stairway, which immediately began to descend to she knew not where. Her shift and corset were thrown in her face almost as an afterthought.

The door slammed with a finality that can only be managed by five inch thick iron-studded wood.

"You could have sent her back the way she came," suggested a lilting voice from behind the bed-hangings.

"No, I couldn't," Severus responded, as he undid the buttons on his trousers. "Doing the walk of shame past all those portraits in the dead of night should be enough to put even her off trying it again." He pushed his trousers down to his hips and then parted the hangings far enough to perch on the edge of the bed while he finished undressing. "She meant you, you know. I've noticed him watching you, the last couple of months. It's not too late for you to trade up."

Two feminine hands grabbed his shoulders and pushed him down into the mattress. A messy curtain of hair tumbled over his chest as the woman leaned over him to press her lips to his. "I see the real Severus, too, and it's him that I love."

It was nearly an hour later, just as Severus was almost falling asleep, that she asked, "If I hadn't been here, would you have said yes?"

Severus pushed her sex-tousled hair away from her face, so he could see her eyes, and more importantly, so that she could see his. "In an instant."

She froze, and then her mouth twisted into a determined pout as she tugged the pillow from under his head and began to pummel him with it until he begged for mercy.

"As if I would want Potter's leavings, when I have you," he answered honestly this time.