A/N: Very dark, somewhat short Ginny ficlet. Review! I'd like an opinion. Many opinions, if it can be managed. *wink,wink*J
Suggested Listening for this chapter: Linkin Park's "Crawling", "The Shadow of the Past", The Lord of the Rings Soundtrack.
Disclaimer for Dummies: All names, places, and related indicia you recognize are owned by really big companies. I do not own any really big companies, and therefore own none of the names, places, or related indicia. Got it? ( I also claim not the lameness/crappiness/plotlessness of the story, the spelling errors, the lack of a beta, or the fact that I wrote this simply to write something. This blame goes to my high on mint-chocolate and the insanity over the fact that I'm going to have to live on naught but fruits and vegetables for forty days, and complaints may be placed accordingly at my Hotmail Inbox or Owl Post, number 319634. This disclaimer has gotten far too long.;)
Tears In the Dark
Against my will I stand by my own reflection
It's haunting… how I can't seem…
To find myself again
My walls are closing in
(Without a sense of confidence I'm convinced that
there's just too much pressure to take)
I've felt this way before
So insecure
Crawling in my skin
These wounds, they will not heal
Fear is how I fall, confusing what is real…
"Crawling", Linkin Park
Ginny stared blankly at the ornate silver mirror. She was pretty, yes, perhaps even beautiful, but the eyes that stared back at her were vacant. There was no trace in them of the smiling child that once had been content with the world.
As hollow as the eyes of the basilisk, she thought bitterly.
She was wearing her Ball gown; it was the prettiest thing she'd ever owned. She reached down towards the golden goblet and traced the edges with pale, cold fingers, as if having one last debate in her mind over what she was about to do. The cold metal made her shiver. Startlingly, as if triggering the memory, her mind flashed scenes before her unwilling eyes of the very thing that had led her to her present state.
Pallid skin. Charming, eerie grin, whose grotesque intentions were apparent without thought. Eyes that made blood run cold. Hands… strong, strangling hands…
Ginner shuddered, and put her hands to her eyes as if to block out the scenes – but they kept coming. Flashing. Burning.
Dragged on the rocks, down, down – always unceasingly downwards. Whispered words in secret tongues. Time passed, but pain did not. After an eternity of cold dank floor and throbbing ache, he spoke to her.
"Wake, love. The time draws near." His pale, livid, maniacally smiling face swam dizzyingly above her.
She hesitated; it was hard to make anything out clearly in the dim Chamber – for of course, it was indeed the Chamber –and her mind and vision were blurred by pain.
"…Harry?"
He laughed grimly. "Almost," and paused. "Yes…almost." Then silence.
He had a slow, wondering expression on his face, as if pondering something trivial – might it rain tomorrow?
"Ginny," he said slowly, and she shuddered to hear him speak her name, "you're going to die." He stared at her expectantly; she looked away.
A small smile appeared. "You're going to die," he repeated. Ginny still said nothing; she had grown resigned, maybe even welcoming, to this fact in the last agonizing hours. Her twelve year old body would break down completely soon enough, whether at his hands or no.
"Will you not speak to me, love?"
She'd blushed when he first called her that, but now it brought only a clenching disgust. His replies in the Diary always ended with 'Until we speak again, Love, you shall be in the depths of my heart and the focus of my mind. Tom,'…So very romantic, so very simple, so very Tom… and it felt so good to be wanted by somebody…anybody… He had known this, and used it well. Ginny was only very slightly above average magic-wise, but she had a good heart; the easiest to corrupt.
"You aren't filth, you've come of good blood." he mused, pacing. "And you helped me. Even when you suspected me, you continued to help me, more of your own will then you know. Yet…and yet... no. Ginny, would you like a taste of immortality?"
Ginny was revolted, and shook. She wanted nothing from him, the murderer; neither death nor life. In her soul she sensed the horror of his presence and the pale silver light that emanated from his fingertips.In her wildest nightmares, she could not imagine sensing that of deep dark magic coming from herself, and living with it. The disgust pitched as he came closer.
Kneeling down, his face was very close to hers.
"Ginny," he hissed, "I give you the chance to deny death once. Know what it feels like. Stay with me, and we'll deny it forever. Banish it! I alone possess that power. Even your Dumbledore is not capable of that."
"He doesn't need it!" she spat hoarsely.
His eerie smile grew into a wicked grin.
"…We shall see... But come! Look death in the face! It will not be your last time."
With his wand, because he could not yet use his translucent flesh, he gripped her neck, and it felt like gripping hands. They pulled her painfully into a sitting position.
Riddle gave a hiss.
At first, there was no answer. And then, very slowly, there came the low, dull, dragging sound of tons of flesh scraping over stone. Then grip on her neck did not loosen.
The thing came closer, poisonous green and grotesque.
The grip of the hands broke, but now Riddle himself was in their place. The ethereal fingers snaked up her neck and were placed on either side of her face, and it felt like having cold, clammy snakes pressing and slithering on her skin . She felt a rush of chill energy, like a shadow creeping through her blood. Riddle was not "real" yet, but he still had power. He was either channeling it from what little she had, or putting some of his own into her; perhaps both.
"Look up, darling. Face Death, and conquer it. Know what you are capable of, with me by your side."
Had Ginny been in a better position for that sort of thing, she would have vaguely wondered about his obsession with death.
But now, her mind was trying to ignore the command, to rebel, but her failing body obeyed. Inch by inch, she raised her throbbing head, tracing with her eyes coils of putrid green, knowing what they would meet at the top. She took a shallow breath, and raised her eyes.
FLASH.
Her body convulsed: the eyes were burning with an evil scarlet glow, and they pierced and burned into the skin as much as they did the mind. It was like nails being driven into her eyes; all dissolved from view but the consuming, torture- hungry stare, boring into her to the core. She could almost actually sense herself giving in to their vacuum, but something counteracted the pull: the cold, untouchable, lifeless hands holding her down. She would have screamed with all her being if she had the voice. Whether it was hours or seconds, Ginny would never be able to tell, the agony was all-consuming. She prayed death to come with mercy… let whatever forces pulling from below or above rip at her without fighting…let her head drop, and fate carry her soul where it would.
Hisss…
The feeling was gone, but so was Ginny, and she had been Marked.
With a gasp, Ginny fell forward, grasping at the vanity for support. When her mind stopped reeling, she let her breath come normally. She felt tears in her eyes once again. That had been almost three years ago, but the memory was always unnaturally fresh in her mind. Deep down, she felt cheated: weren't people supposed to recall the best moments of their lives before death, not the most horrific? She shrugged mentally. All Dark things were fresh in her mind since that fateful year: she had been marked by evil, and its prints never left her.
That, in essence, was what brought her here now. Evil. Voldemort had risen, and it was all around her. His every movement invaded her thoughts, and his wicked musings plagued her dreams. Even now she could sense him somewhere, slowly preparing his new reign.
She'd often mused that this must be what it was like being Harry: horribly aware of the darkness all around, never able to speak to anyone, knowing they could never understand. And yet, he managed to be so joyful at times, so inspiring…
But then, she thought resentfully, I'm not Harry. I'm not strong like that. I was not made for any great destiny. She couldn't live, knowing in the back of her mind that people were being murdered at that very moment. She couldn't stand being connected in such a way to this demonic creature that she knew how this person was dying…where he would strike next…if it were an old Wizarding couple for 'treason' or a small, defenseless Muggle child, simply for sick sport. It was more than she could take.
And she would take no more.
Ginny raised the goblet to her lips, knowing that this would be last sense of cold metal, or anything else, that she would ever have. She tipped it slowly, feeling the chill, metallic taste of oblivion rushing towards her lips.
BAM.
She started, and only tasted a small dose of sweet death on her tongue. The cup fell to the floor with a clatter.
Ginny sat up with a start, breathing heavily, blinking back tears of terror in the pale red light of moonlight soaking through the curtains surrounding her four-poster. Peering shakily and slowly through the curtains, she saw the object that had startled her out of the all too familiar nightmare: a package, dropped through the open window.
~~~
A/N:Review! We'd like to know what you all thought.
And, as you can see, we also dearly enjoy making the ickle people suffer. *cackles maniacally*
…Ahem. Right. You know the drill.
Next Chapter: Ginny spends some time in the real world, we see the state of it, something funny goes on with The Package, we possibly pick of a faint scent of a plot, and I torture a few more characters. Fun, yes? It'll be longer, too.
Now review! XD