Title: Sometimes Ink is just another word for Blood.
Author: Kim, The Manipulative Little Monster
Rating: R
Disclaimer: I don't own these wonderful characters. I just take them out and make them do naughty things. You all know that it belongs to the Goddess herself JKR. The lyrics cast around here and there are from a song called "The Ghost of You and Me" and it's sung by BB Mak. I don't own them either.
Description: Sorta song fic. "She was having a Tom day. She could always tell when she would suddenly pull out an impossible answer in the middle of potions class, something she knew that she never had studied, it was always a sign that Tom was slowly starting to settle into the prickly corridors of her inner mind."
Author's note: This is my first published, finished HP fic. I started it when back in April and have been waiting to post it until now. Though I have yet to see the movie, I am sure that those aboard the SS Gin n Tonic are going to be getting a whole new group. Thanks to Norma and Rache for making me finish it.
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What am I supposed to do with all these blues?
Haunting me everywhere, No matter what I do
She was having a Tom day. She could always tell when she would suddenly pull out an impossible answer in the middle of potions class, something she knew that she never had studied, it was always a sign that Tom was slowly starting to settle into the prickly corridors of her inner mind. It was at that moment the random shuffling of her feet would slowly pull away from the class and down into the semblance of a memory. Something that caused the misery of this whole episode.
Watching the candle flicker out, In the evening glow
I can't let go when will that night be over?
The chilled mirth would call her, and the slow, careful steps would bring her to the lapping kiss of the lake. The childish motion of removing her shoes and socks would follow, and the shelled tips of her feet would broach the
Surface of the water, the absence of any warmth leeching a startled sigh from her lips. Sacrosanct pain would blossom as the blood rushed to fill the indentations in her skin as they started to fill with water the way the site
and sounds of Tom, her Tom filled the movie inside her head.
I didn't mean to fall in love with you
And baby there's a name for what you put me through.
The touch of flesh against flesh would send the ends of tender nerves shivering, moving in response to the simple human contact that Ginny shunned, that she had been shunning, since the last time that Harry had brushed her with his fingers. Not out of love, but out of necessity. Tom's touch, she told herself, was that of love. Even if it couldn't be readily admitted to anyone but herself.
Thin parchment, much too shaded as always on nights like this, was pressed forward, hiding the slate color of the lake that was reflected and magnified by the forced lie of facade emotions. The cusp of lashes worked against the alabaster of her cheeks, like a chink in fine marble. She leaned back, her hair (not cut since that time) darkening into the tones of drying roses, spreading out behind her. The basic black of the school robes never seemed black enough for her now, and her hand seemed too white as it rested against her chest, rising and falling with the breath that was sending Tom to her with each shudder of her still barely beating heart.
It isn't love, it's robbery,
I'm sleeping with the ghost of you and me
She didn't understand why. Even now, after all that had happened, she wanted to have him alive, alive and thinking. She wanted to ask him why he chose her. But inside she knew that he didn't chose her. It was that bastard Malfoy and a plot against her father. But she loved him, kept his words clasped to her breast, and dreamed about him as she slept.
But then he started to demand things of her, and he would embrace her, touch the breast that was touching him. He would snake into her mind, and speak to her softly when she was alone, and she would look around, wondering if she was slowly losing her mind like the muggles she had read about. He would reassure her, and caress her cheek slowly, using her own fingers as she did now. And she loved it. The little Weasly who was the baby, was finally being touched and petted as she desired. And then she wanted more. And she invited
him deeper inside her head.
Seen a lot of broken hearts go sailing by
Phantom ships, lost at sea,
Things started to happen, she found her robes streaking with paint the color of burning blood, and her fingernails streaked with things she didn't want to remember. Paint charmed with the life force off... no, she couldn't allow herself to think of it. If she did she would surely fly into the abyss of madness. Tom had came to her then, and he started to brush her fingers through her hair, and over her face, and down to a place where she had never
even dreamed she would go. And even now, her hand was chasing over the flatness of her stomach on the outside of the robes, her very cells burning with the awareness of him.
Then with the chicken feathers, he started to come more to life. She could see what he was inside, she could see him. And he was beautiful, not just in the pretty words, and in the manner in which he listened to her and he
Complemented her. He strung her along like a fish on the line, giving her just enough slack to feel as if she was the one in control.
And one of them is mine
And finally, she knew he was using her. She knew that she was being etched on as clearly as a paint by color and that she had to get rid of him. He wasn't nice to her anymore. When he touched her, he left bruises, sending purple and blue bubbling up from inside her skin. She was scared. After every time he promised he would never do it again. But she fought him and it would. But what scared her even more was that she liked it. It sent shivers through her body that she could not explain.
So she got rid of it. The diary was too scary, it made her think about herself too much. The innocence inside her was slowly seething, sliding away from her in the inky rivulets that her tears made. Tears he had to punish her for, because she was not allowed such weakness. She wanted to be weak, she was only eleven, she wanted to be a child. So she did a very childish thing. Ginny couldn't do it, she couldn't burn his beloved Tom. So instead, she took him into the bathroom and held him in the water, watching as the ink mingled with the toilet water and skated down towards the lake.
That night she waited tormented by strings of guilt. Guilt, longing, and something else. Ginny didn't even want to ponder what that little unknown emotion actually was. No, instead she roamed over her sheets, kicking out at the disembodied voice that chastised her, angry with herself for allowing something so small to effect her so greatly. It was only a diary, it was only a feeling, and those were only her hands that moved over her chest, moved over her legs, pressed against her lips. And yet, somehow, she felt voided.
Raising my glass, I sing a toast to the midnight sky
But the diary wasn't gone. It turned up in the most unlikely hands she could possibly imagine: Harry Potter's. She could almost feel her secrets shift over and upwards in a plume of steam. And she was worried. Not for herself, no, Tom wouldn't hurt her like that. She was worried for Harry. She was worried about the rage, the… misguiding feelings that the diary caused in her. He couldn't be allowed to write it in. Calling on all the guile that Tom taught her, she started to form a plan, a way to steal it back.
I wonder why, The stars don't seem to guide me
It was a good plan. "Always start simple," Tom had taught her. "Always start with the smallest thing before you do something drastic." So, she intended on following his advice. Sneaking into Harry's room seemed to be the best way. And on the night she was going to do it, he came to her. He took her into his arms and kissed her, hard. Lips were pressed to her own, jammed, as if she was punishing her. Fingers tore through her hair, ensnaring it around his knuckles as he pressed her back against the bedclothes. She cried with pain and with pleasure, and fond delight as both as he thrust above her, moaning her name. In the gaslight blue before dawn he left her, looking down at her with a mix of pleasure and disgust. "Now it's more then your own hands, Ginny. It's you, me, and Harry Potter. Don't you forget it."
I didn't mean to fall in love with you
And baby there's a name for what you put me through.
Her breath caught in her throat, and she pressed her fingers too it, trying to leech away the carnal blush that was sited there, trying to stop the rampant beating of her heart. Some part of her knew, it knew that the touch wasn't Harry's. It could only have been Tom's. It scared her. He touched her, he used her, he fucked her. And she didn't care. She was happy about it. And she was jealous too. Wickedly jealous. She didn't want to share Tom with anyone, especially not Harry Potter.
So that night she went to his bed, and pressed her lips too his. Or theirs. Slowly she climbed into Harry's bed and started to undo her nightdress, one button at a time, seeing Tom slide behind Harry's eyes and stare up at her with undeniable lust in his eyes. His fingers were cruel, pulling and pressing. Hard enough to make her moan. Under his guidance, she slowly moved her mouth over him, taking him into her mouth and her succeeding on her virgin try, only gagging slightly. He rewarded her by pulling her under him and holding her wrists over her head as he took her from behind.
The ghost of you and me
When will it set me free?
And Tom didn't notice when she sorely slid out of Harry's bed, nor hear the sound of the trunk opening. Her teeth were pressed to kiss-bruised lips as the diary was pressed under her torn nightgown, against her bruised ribs. But she loved the pain, savored it as she entered the common room and hid it once again. She knew Tom wasn't there yet. He was still moving through Harry's mind, stealing the memory of this night. More the once, it was Harry who cried out Ginny's name as her face was pressed into the pillow, the loosing of breath making her climax even harder.
And she was more then quite sure that Harry had loved the little serpent shake of evil that twisted over his spine at the act. She would catch him looking at her in later times, as if he was staring at her through the cliched response of someone else's eyes. And he enjoyed it.
And Ginny enjoyed it too. She liked the feeling the way Parselmouth dribbled over her tongue, and the feeling of the snakes coils caressing her, almost living her with Tom's aura on her. A cloak she could pull on, one that scared the hell out of her, and yet… it was sullying her with every breath.
I hear the voices call
Following footsteps down the hall
And then… Herminone. She flew herself into a panic. She couldn't believe that she had done it. Ginny hyperventilated was sick. She had killed one of the few people who was nice to her. Tom told her that she wasn't dead, not yet. But… she was having trouble breathing. And Tom was becoming too demanding. Every night her breath was stolen as she waited for him to come to her. She didn't want to say yes, but she didn't want to say no.
He touched her face, simply feeling her tears with her own fingers, slowly taking up more space, more residence inside herself. Watching now and then from her inside. He loved it when she cried, he loved to touch the bruises under her eyes and make her wince. He laughed at the slow intake of breath that she made, the shudder that raced down their joined spines. He loved to make her skin flinch when she was around places, loved to make her eyes fill with feigned tears. To let them spill scalding, down her cheeks.
And then he was gone.
Trying to save what's left of my heart and soul
Watching the candle flicker out in the evening glow…
Ginny didn't know what to do. She went into Myrtle's bathroom, and settled in there, hearing the line of the snake that shifted through the pipes. It was almost sure that her friend had known what it was. She would trace her fingers through the water wear the ink had leeched out, and cry, silently. A part of her wondered if she now would become the specter, another victim of Tom Riddle's abandoned to despair.
A victim… somehow that almost didn't seem right to her, and she scratched in on random pieces of parchment, leaving it around the common room, hoping someone would pick it up and notice the difference in writing from her own. Compare the penmanship to the stains on the wall that couldn't be scrubbed away. Like the dirt coating her couldn't be scrubbed away. And no one noticed other then the twins who tended to treat it as a wonderful joke.
After all, Ginny couldn't have done it.
I can't let go…
When will this night be over?
Finally she would think she was free of him, that he was actually gone from the corner's of her mind, and that she was actually herself again. The tears she cried were her own, and she thought she could tell Ron and Harry. She was free. Somehow, freedom made her equally miserable. Lost and feeling totally alone for the first time in her life. Yes, she had been lonely… but not this desperate feeling of different, of having no one to turn to.
No hope.
Everyone told her that it was warm, and balmy, but she could only feel the cold mirth of the chamber. And then Tom came back to her. Back for her. He took over her mind quite cleanly, forcing her into a corner where she was a spectator in her own thoughts. Crying silent tears as her fingers worked over the wall, telling them that she was gone, and that she would lie in the chamber forever.
That she was live bait. It bothered her that it didn't bother her.
I didn't mean to fall in love with you
And baby there's a name for what you put me through
The chamber was as it was remembered, and she was sure that it wasn't her memory that did it. But she nodded as if she found satisfaction in the fact that it had gone unmolested. Her hand reached inside the pocket of her robes, and the journal was pulled out, looking better then it had when she received it. As she touched it, she felt a pull, and screamed, sinking to her knees.
It felt as though her soul was being torn from her body. But it wasn't hers.
Tom's form hovered before her, and the diary fell to the floor, the pages flicking through as if rippled by some ghostly hand, and Ginny watched as the familiar words of her Tom came forth, kind and friendly, hovering almost on the edges of her memory before the words shifted. Ink broke through the pages, liquid and coppery, running in driblets over her fingers. She pulled her hands away with a sob, watching as the blood turned black against her hands.
Tears strained over her face, kissing over her cheeks with a dangerous intensity, as if someone was pulling them from her. Wringing her out. Tom angled Ginny over the diary, allowing her tears to fall into it. The paper slurped, lapping up her pain, savoring it as Tim stopped being like a shadow, and more real.
It isn't love, it's robbery
I'm sleeping with the ghost of you and me
She didn't remember what happened, not really. She had been told that Tom was Voldemort, and that he had tried to kill Harry. The snake and the slime were real; not figments of her imagination. She had been "hoodwinked" by the dark lord, and that wasn't her fault. But it still felt like it was, it felt like there was a smear of tar that settled over her soul.
There was no mention of the times she would suddenly feel his presence around her, no mention of the things that were randomly thought. She never told of the times she had set her quill to paper only to have two words be spewed out in the handwriting that wasn't hers. But it wasn't his either. Just a shattered memory of words written in blood and sealed into a wall. Ginny only crumbled the parchment up and would set fire to it with her wand, wondering if somehow he was still there.
I didn't mean to fall in love with you
And baby there's a name for what you put me through
All summer she tossed and turned with the nightmares of what Tom had done. What she had done. Part of her wondered if there was still a line between the two. At times she found herself speaking to the little snakes that traced through the garden. She would shake her head and cry, trying to figure out how to stop it. But she couldn't; all she could do was try to block it from her head until the next time that it would happen.
Ginny arrived back at Hogwarts and the first thing she did, the first thing she wanted to go was go back and visit that bathroom. Go back and stare at the serpents on the handle of the faucet and see if she could work it without Tom. She hissed at them and they opened, and she slid down the tunnel, remembering the half dragged manner of her last visit down. Her eyes closed against that memory as she came to the rock wall that Ron and that idiot professor had caused.
Then she stepped into the chamber itself, and walked over to sit at Salazar's feet. She stared into space as she remembered, shivering slightly as she thought she heard the echoes of voices around her. A part of Ginny was frightened as she thought of someone coming down and finding her like this. But she part of her was praying that this would finally alley the nightmares that claimed her every night.
And another part of her knew that it wouldn't.
Finally, she could sit still no longer and reached into the pocket of her jeans for her pair of dragon's hide gloves and a small vial that she had brought in Diagon Alley. It was beautiful, silver etched glass on a long chain. She looked at it and almost sighed before she walked over to the part of the floor where Harry had stabbed the diary. Ginny knelt before it and almost touched the clear speckled blackness that had been the ink from the diary. Her ink and Tom's ink. She closed her eyes as tears started to fall from her eyes, and as they had once helped Tom come back to life, they mingled with what essence was left within these walls.
A sigh was made as she slid the gloves on and opened the vial. She drudged it through the slickness of the fluids, making sure it was full before she pushed the cap on it. After she rubbed the outside clean, she picked up her wand and muttered a spell that would seal it until she chose to open it. Ginny picked up the chain slowly, and placed it around her neck as softly and somberly as any bride.
It isn't love, it's robbery
I'm sleeping with the ghost of you and me.
She came back from herself then, tired of being lost in the memories that seemed to haunt her. Ginny's hand hurt and she picked it up, seeing the carvings of the bottle etched into it. It had been held so tight that it seemed like the cuts would fill with blood at any moment. Sitting up, she sighed a little more and pulled her legs against her chest. She was so tired. She couldn't recall the last time she had been so tired. Tired of pretending to be happy, tired of fighting to even attempt to focus her mind.
She missed him, missed even the sputtered memory that was him, the flame that burned just beyond the edge of her psyche. And that was the rub of it. For all of the things that he had done, all the pain that he had caused her, she still loved him. Part of her felt that they belonged together, and that they always had. She was his Ginny. A little smile was made at that before she pulled out her wand and held it to the vial..
For a moment she just twisted it back and forth in the light, watching as the clear moved in the sea of black. She could feel Tom closer to her now. Slowly she muttered the words that released the seal on the glass and metal. She looked at in her hand for a moment before pressing it to her lips. Forever and a day Tom had been drinking in the essence, the very soul of Ginny.
And now it was her turn.
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It was later in the day when they had found her, laying in a patch of sunlight before the lake. Her hair was spread out before her as she looked into the sky. Ginny appeared to have the barest breath of a smile on her face, the edge of her lip traced with a single drop of blackness. For three years Ginny had lived with the last drop of her soul that Tom had left in her. And now she returned the favor, she didn't swallow the last drop of him.
But clenched in her hand, on a small, worn piece of parchment was eight words, in the same writing that had announced the chamber before. "Her skeleton will lie in the chamber forever." And in many ways it had. And always would.
