Harry Potter and the Lost Soul's Legacy

Chapter One

How Things Came to Be

A/N: Just to warn anyone who's reading this based on liking my other fictions, this is a bit of a departure for me. Totally melodramatic and angst-ridden and mostly just kind of depressing. Plus, I'm not painting a very pretty picture of one of my favourite characters, but sometimes stuff happens that affects the way people act negatively and in a big way…

So, without further ado, here's the first chapter.

"Are you going out again?" asked Harry sadly as he looked as his pretty young wife.

"I thought I might," Ginny said as she added a touch of lip-gloss. "You wouldn't want to come?"

For a moment, Harry thought he saw something in her eyes that was begging him to go with her. So, even though he didn't like the loud clubs and excessive drinking that the eighteen year old girl revealed in most nights, Harry grabbed his jacket and escorted his wife out to find a bit of the wizarding nightlife. Harry was helpless, as ever to deny the pretty redhead anything she wanted, even when he was beginning to wonder about her hard drinking habits.

Not that Harry didn't understand it completely. Ginny had been to hell and back many times, starting with the first time Voldemort had possessed her at age eleven, and cumulating in the last time he had, in a desperate attempt to turn the tide of the finial battle. But that was months before. That was before he and Ginny had gotten back together, and before Harry had purposed and before they had gotten married. Three months had passed since the wedding, and Harry was beginning to see that his wife had a real problem. She had began drinking a little too much shortly after their return to England after their Honeymoon trip to a small chain of islands in the south pacific. Soon after she was dragging Harry to clubs as often as she could. When he had started to beg off, Ginny began to go alone. Harry hoped that if he went with her that night, maybe he could convince her that he was there for her in whatever was troubling her and that she should maybe deal with it rather than try to drink it away.

But when Harry dragged Ginny home at five am the next morning, he admitted to himself that the solution to what was troubling Ginny wouldn't be easily found. Hell, he doubted that his wife would even remember that he had gone with her that night. Maybe they had married too young as so many people had tried to warn him, maybe Ginny wasn't ready to be wife but didn't know how to tell him that. Maybe she was just dealing with the after math of the war differently than Harry was…

And so, like countless other nights, Harry cleaned Ginny up and put her to bed and decided against saying anything to anyone about her wild ways. With a little luck, the tabloids would be sick of reporting about Harry Potter's wife and her wild exploits. If not, he would just pass the stories off as vicious lies like he had done every time one had appeared.

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The first time Ginny Potter didn't come home after a night of partying somewhere that her husband didn't even want to think about, he panicked. He called in all the reinforcements he could find, from former members of the Order of the Phoenix, to every relation he and Ginny possessed. She hadn't been happy when she had finally wandered in at about noon, totally hung-over, to find Hermione in her house and just about everyone who owed Harry a favour out searching for her. That was a long lost, considering he was the saviour of their world. Really, you would have thought one of them would have found her at the sleazy motel she had woken up in with no memory of having got there…

But on second thought, Ginny was just as happy to go along with the story Harry had supplied with a defeated look in his eye to the media. His wife was fine; she had just got stormed stayed with a friend and had been unable to reach him. He, like any new husband might, had panic, instantly picturing her captured by any remaining Death Eaters…

The second time, Harry didn't even owl Ron or Hermione.

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One day Harry was very surprised to come home late from a Quidditch game to see Ginny sitting on the couch, sober, with absolutely no indication that she had been drinking in the past few hours at least. His heart had soared as he imagined how their life would change now that she was giving up alcohol.

Harry was even happier when she told him that she was pregnant. He had thought that it meant the answer to all of their problems. If Ginny had a child, she could hardly go out partying all the time, and she would spend some time at home with him, and realize how much fun it was to simply be with the one you loved more than anything else in life.

Then Harry had heard her tears and sobs that night, as she lay curled beside him in their bed.

His gut sank, and he became resigned that Ginny might not be able to change.

But over the course of her pregnancy, Ginny had seemed more herself. The transformation back to the person she had been was utterly startling to Harry and he couldn't believe that no one else noticed it. That was when he realised that Ginny had been hiding everything bad in her life from her family, and that he had been helping her by making excuses to the press, and even to their loved ones.

But it had hardly seemed to matter, because Ginny seemed so much better…

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Ginny Weasley's daughter was five weeks old when the young mother had been overwhelmed by the voice that had haunted her deepest nightmares for so long.

Poor, pathetic girl…

Can't even take care of her own child properly, the stupid slut, hissed the evil voice that was somehow both Tom Riddle and his later incarnation, Voldemort all at once.

Horrid wretch.

Harry doesn't really love you. How could he? Look at you! Slut! Bitch!

That night she had begged Harry to watch the baby for an hour or so as she went to see Hermione. Harry was so happy to have her back that he didn't even think twice before urging her to go to see their friend. He had kissed her goodbye and settled down to play with the baby on the floor as she hurried out the door.

Ginny had hoped that a walk would clear out the voice that was slowly encroaching on her life once more, but the walk had taken her by a tavern. She thought longingly of taking a long stiff drink, and hoping that Voldemort would be chased out of her mind. The temptation won out.

By the time Ginny reached Hermione's flat, she was well and truly trashed. She threw herself sobbing into Hermione's arms. The older girl was so startled, that they stood in the hallway for a long time before she remembered that Ginny's face had become very recognisable the moment she married Harry. She had pulled Ginny into her living room and the whole sordid tale had poured out. Ginny told Hermione how Voldemort invaded her mind in a constant onslaught, and how she had been attempting to drown him in any alcoholic drink available before she got pregnant.

Then she told Hermione the secret that she was sure would kill Harry, the one that was tearing her apart inside. She didn't know what to do… Ginny didn't think she could go on lying to Harry as she had been; yet she loved him too much to hurt him with her terrible secret.

That night Hermione owled Harry to say that Ginny would be staying the night with her after the redhead had passed out. The older girl wasn't sure if she was trying to protect Harry or Ginny, or herself or maybe the baby, but it didn't matter. Ginny needed a friend, and Harry didn't need to be worried.

The next morning Ginny woke up, hung over and embarrassed, before Hermione did. She quickly left, and for three days endeavoured to avoid Hermione. It was nearly to the point that Hermione felt that she had to talk to Harry about everything when it happened.

Ginny Molly Weasley-Potter died at the age of nineteen.

Officially, it was ruled a tragic accident, but two people would always wonder if Ginny had stepped in front of the muggle car that hit her and ended her life.

One of those people cried and was sad and held Ginny's only legacy, her daughter, even closer every night just before he tucked her into bed.

The other watched sadly from the outside, often agonising over the secret that she now kept and wondering if Harry Potter had the right to know that the little daughter he loved was someone else's child.