Prompt One, for the Gin n Tonic Winter Challenge: (Ginny + Any Horcrux)

Title: Ginny Weasley and the Horcruxes

Prompt One: Ginny + Any Horcrux; Week One of The Gin 'n' Tonic Holiday Challenge

Summary: The war leaves Ginny empty, and she looks to find the end from the beginning – Tom Riddle's Horcruxes.

Type: Just a drabble…I think? I don't know if it's long enough to qualify as a one-shot, so…it's whatever you want it to be, haha. Hope everyone enjoys. Oh, and I don't know if Harry kept the Horcruxes after destroying them (most likely not), but in this fic, he did.

Can Also Be Found On: tumblr under essthewriter . tumblr . com (remove the spaces)

After the end, the end of the war, for some reason, Ginny's soul feels empty. Empty like she can't feel, empty like the world stopped spinning, empty like she's just floating by, just plain empty.

Empty as if half of her soul was gone, gone, gone.

She asks Harry if he still has the Horcruxes after destroying them, and when he nods yes, she asks for them on impulse, as if she can't control herself anymore and is just a witness to her actions like a ghost.

"Why?" asks Harry, brows furrowed, as he scans the Daily Prophet.

Ginny looks at him. Her eyes are dark, dark, dark, like the empty pits of his soul.

"You know why. Just…please?" Ginny's voice cracks a bit at the "please", similar to that of a fissure in the Earth.

Harry looks at her, and an unknown emotion passes through his eyes. Ginny is too tired to analyze his emotions, so she doesn't question, doesn't think more on it.

He doesn't answer her question, and goes on to talk about Hermione's not-so-secret relationship with Draco Malfoy, so she takes it as a no.

Later that evening, however, she receives an owl package, with a small note attached to it. Almost like a 6th sense, she can just tell exactly what it is. She eagerly grabs the package from Harry's new snowy owl, Tonredmus, and gives him a spare owl treat, before taking a look at the short note.

Keep this, I have no need for it. Just make sure I never see it again. Take care, Gin. I'll see you at the Burrow ~H.P.

It's written in Harry's familiar scrawl, so familiar that at first it makes Ginny wonder how her 11 year old adoring self would have reacted to this. Instead of throwing it in the rubbish bin, she grabs the nearest book and puts the note neatly inside, as if preserving this little bit of familiarity.

Then, Ginny wonder's what Harry thinks her reasons were for wanting the Horcruxes.

She wonders if she will ever get over Tom Marvolo Riddle. Not Voldemort, but Tom Marvolo Riddle. It's as if his name was etched into her skin, like it was etched onto the diary in gold lettering, always there, always permanent.

She wonders if she can at least expel this feeling of nothing.

She thinks she can definitely try.

When she goes to open the actual brown cardboard box, her hands are shaking. Maybe the rest of her is shaking, too, like her brain can't catch up to what she is doing, but she is still riding on her impulses. She doesn't even know what exactly she's looking for, and she doesn't even know if she will come out from this better … or worse.

She's worried she may start crying, but for what she doesn't know. Definitely not for the cruel being that possessed her. But maybe, just maybe for the innocent boy turned monster, and for the innocent girl turned emotionless shell. Maybe for the loved ones lost in the war, maybe for Fred, maybe for Teddy's parents, maybe for everything that happened since the day Tom Marvolo Riddle was left alone in the cold steps of the Orphanage.

Merlin knows that there are too many things to cry for, too little tears remaining from in her eyes.

So, she doesn't cry, but her eyes do sting a little bit.

She takes out Hufflepuff's cup first, and looks at it, trying to see what was so special about it that is caught his eye, enough to put a piece of his soul in it like he did to Ginny. The color is not as shiny as what Ginny presumed it looked like in its golden age (no pun intended), but the carvings are definitely elegant. But, it doesn't look like much, more like a trophy cup, like the one he won for "special services", or like the one her Aunt has on display at her house, rather than the epitome of evil and all things dark and Tom Marvolo Riddle.

As she holds it, she still feels nothing, not at all. She doesn't know what she expected to feel. Maybe remorse, maybe regret? Maybe even a small joy that he's gone, gone, gone now? She doesn't know, and she doesn't feel.

What else is new?

She goes through all the other Horcruxes, looking and touching every curve and crevice, but still, she feels nothing.

She didn't expect anything from the diary, far from it since it's the reason she got into this whole mess. But when she gets to the diary, it all changes. (For the better, or for the worse, she doesn't know).

Almost like the cell diffusion process Hermione tried to explain to her once, she feels her adoration, her fear, her hopes, her dreams, her innocence, all from her first year, all pouring into her from the diary, and she can feel, feel for the first time in what seems like forever.

(It's like lightning struck her with a bolt of emotion.)

And that's when she cries. She doesn't know when she started crying, but she knows that she is now, and the tears are flowing down her face like an endless river.

She cries for the girl she used to be, she cries for who she is now, and she cries for the future.

Maybe she even cries for Tom Marvolo Riddle, and the man he could've been but the monster he became.

Maybe, just maybe.

Teardrops of salt crystals

Stream down her porcelain face

And leave trails to

The future

On her marble cheeks

AN:

I tried to go with a simplistic writing style, to see how it turns out. I'm not too proud of how it turned out, but I think it's a good first start. Tell me how you think it turned out, and some possible feedback on how to improve, too?

The strikeouts show the unstable state of Ginny's mind/emotional state after the war, something that I think everyone who saw the death and gory scenes would experience for a while after the war. Ginny (and Harry, too) most of all, since she's been in it since she was 11, with the diary.

Wait, never mind, the strikeouts are not showing up here on ffnet. :C, aww, they really added to the message. Oh well, it'll be on tumblr under EssTheWriter, as well, (under essthewriter . tumblr . com = remove spaces). (wait, I don't know if the strikeouts will be on tumblr or not either. oh well, then just ignore this part if so)

I've also decided to include a little poem of sorts at the end of all of my one-shots from now on, if I'm in the poetic mood.

Hope you liked reading this, and here's to the beginning of the Gin 'n' Tonic Holiday Challenge! :D

See y'all next week for a response to Prompt #2.

(lol, I'm so hardcore Dramione that even my Gin 'n' Tonic fics have it, haha, sorry about that)

PS: Kudos to all those who can figure out what Tonredmus stands for. Think about it from Harry's point of view, and remember, this is kind of angsty and tragedy-ish. (If still no clue, just ask me. :D)

Also, my original idea or this turned into a multi-chapter plot, so I might decide to actually post it one day.

Reviews are the warmth in the winter, favorites are the chocolate drops in your cup, and follows are the snowflakes in the sky.