Burning Into Ashes
by biggerstaffbunch
Rated PG-13 for language
SPOILERS FOR OotP!!
::Chapter Two: Dirtied Fairytales::
You will never be strong enough
You will never be good enough
You were never conceived in love
You will not rise above
* * *
"Virginia."
The voice comes soft and hesitant, smugness and delirious laughter coloring it nevertheless.
She stirs in her sleep, restless as always, sheets damp with sweat tangled between her legs. Her hair is as scarlet as blood, spilling over the soft pillow and clutched between five pale fingers as she twists and turns.
"Wake up, Virginia."
Her blanket is lying upon the floor and aside for the sheets, her body is bare of anything except the cool night air caressing her curves. It is summer and all the girls in her dormitory made a habit of sleeping in the nude during the school year, so she thinks she'll just continue the tradition. They are only fourteen, awakening, discovering their bodies, their powers...She sighs as the voice once again slithers through the night, warming her ear. Her arms slice the air and her hands yank back heavy velvet curtains as the world is thrown into vivid, jarring color.
"Fine, stupid girl."
She wants the night back, the dark warmth of sleep, however unsteady and fleeting it may be. But it does not come and she slides her eyes away from the ceiling, dangling long, milky pale arms down the side of her bed. The window to the left of her has opened, transparent curtains the color of dried blood floating against the inky sky, a round white moon hiding behind angry smoky clouds. Twinkling lights blink cheerily. She wants to eat them.
"Ginny..."
Feel the searing heat of the fiery stars burn her stomach, engulf her cool body in a fire that will rival the inferno raging inside her. She wants the whoosh of rolling blue and gold flame, of pain floating and coating her entire body. She begs for the harsh chafe of smoke against her lungs, her throat, the tears stinging her eyelids. She wants to feel mind-numbing, heart-breaking, painful release. She wants...to be touched.
She burns to be touched.
"Wake up."
There is a figure leaning in her window, its shape black as despair and presence as close as death. Save for the bone-white fingers curled around the ledge, the sliver of silver-touched inky hair. She hears the voice and is lost amid her feelings, and almost mindless, she swings her legs over the bed and sits slowly up. The sheets slide intimately against her, and it's only when she hears his voice, hoarse with surprise, that she thinks of covering herself with them.
"Waiting for me?"
The voice, a hazy entanglement of there and not there, drawls in the air. It is lazy and sinister and exciting. It seems rife with hidden meaning. It heats her belly and causes a blush to spread throughout her body. The freckles dotting the sloping valley of her breasts rise up and down as she inhales, and she is fascinated by them, looking down at them through lowered lashes as they dance.
His voice hangs in the air, waiting, a question mark lazily swinging. His knees are white and his fingers are white and his teeth are white as he smiles, gleaming against the black. She can't see his eyes, but she knows they are there, staring at her. She reaches a hand slightly up, startled to see it's trembling, frightened because she almost can't feel anything but her lust right now, but her tumultuous confusion of feelings. It is like a wall of liquid fire has erupted in her body, and she feels her center grow damp as an exquisite ache tightens there. She is horrified that she is feeling this, here, and now.
But she has always felt this. There has always been the uncertain shadow in her dreams, always been the specter at night, and it takes a jolt to make Ginny realize that her fantasies are coming to life. He is at her window and she is almost completely naked. He is smiling at her. He is not averting his eyes. This should evoke shame in her, it should evoke anger, or disgust. He should be disgusting. But he's not. He's a match that's been struck against the walls of her dormitory. He's the catalyst to her inner fire. He's here, he's now.
"Come in," she breathes, and even she is pleased with the amount of calm she is displaying. Racy thoughts, naughty desires, all swimming through her head. There is a lazy, drugged feeling in the air, but through it all, a zip of pure ecklecktricty hums. This will start tonight, their journey. Months, years have led up to this moment. He is leaving, she can taste it, but she will not let him go before her.
He complies and his eyes slide into focus, bright and green, sharp and cold. His mouth slides into a slow smile, his head tilted and black hair wild and tousled. Ginny gives a gasp as he places long fingers to his nose and a pair of black plastic frames suddenly wink into existence. The eyes shift and melt into a brighter, more vivid jade, dancing underneath a high forehead with a pink lightning bolt carved into it. The hair flops down and his smile becomes more tremulous, nervous. The voice deepens, fleshes into existence.
"Hello, Ginny!"
Her feelings swoop and in an instant she is thrown back to three years ago. Her hair is short and bluntly cut, her body boyish and straight with it's lines. Her hands are pudgy and her cheeks round, and her eyes un-jaded and bright. The colors are bright and sparkling and the train is scarlet, with an engine that chugs to life. She is grasping her trolley and smiling, and her cloak is warm, and her diary whispers sweet secrets to her. Harry Potter smiles.
"Alright there, Gin?"
She is so excited to be at school and things are a little hard but she knows she can get through them. She feels so young, though, only 11, and everyone else is so smart and experienced and, oh, Tom, what will happen? The diary just smiles a papery smile, and folds it's old parchment into a small crease. It beckons her and calls her and makes her write her thoughts. Harry Potter talks to her brother but never sees Ginny lurking at the corner. Is she invisible?
"Please be alive...oh, wake up!"
The chamber is cold and dank, and Ginny is sure that she has killed everyone. She is blubbering and yelling and hollering but no one is coming and Tom is staring at her with a very peculiar expression. She shivers and tries to cover herself, but her uniform is torn and her cloak is wet, and clinging to her body. Breasts have started to sprout up, and they are in the form of small apples. They used to fascinate Ginny, and Tom, too, for he used her own eyes to stare at her body in the mirror. Sometimes she would awaken in front of her large mirror, sitting on the bed, her cloak rumpled and skirt up around her waist. And now he's there, his body tall and lanky, and he is crouching beside her, touching her with fingers of lacy filigree, his kisses nothing but phantom breath. Ginny is only eleven and she doesn't know what's happening and oh- that...that feels so good...Tom...don't leave...what happened....
Harry Potter is down in the chamber now, and Tom is gone, and he is kneeling beside Ginny. The pleasure and pain she felt earlier is gone, now all she feels is fear. Childish, stupid hysteria, but also that little blush whenever Harry touches her arm. This is what love should be. The snake comes. It's big. Harry kills it, and then he and Tom battle and Tom sticks that long, dirtied finger out at Harry and then- he dies. he is sucked into a diary and Ginny wonders if phantoms can really do the things she thinks Tom did to her. Then Harry Potter takes her hand and gives her a shy smile and Ginny reminds herself that this is what love is. This is what love should be.
"Next time, choose someone better, okay?"
Harry sits on the train forlornly, and Ginny wants to help him. That desperate, eleven year old girl wants to give him flowers and tiny kisses and chastely hold his hand. She wants it to be clumsy and sweet. But Harry is touched by death and sometimes Ginny is too. Harry does not lie awake at night, his fingers wandering, desperate for that release, desperate to be dirtied and over with, so she can be innocent and sweet and good little Ginny again. "Good little Ginny, so brave," they say. She wants to tell Harry Potter everything, but she wonders if she can, because if she does, what if he can't save her? He's only a boy, after all, and he...he isn't.
There's the Ginny of everyday, spunky and cute and good at many things, and getting over Harry. The girl that tells herself that life isn't a fairytale and love will come on its own. Then there's the other Ginny, the one that dreams of nights like tonight, where Tom Riddle mingles with Harry Potter and shows her just how hollow she is without his touch. This Ginny remembers a time where she knew the touch of a man for the first time, where the darkness didn't hurt her, but excited, filled her. This Ginny hates waking up in a world of fairytales and sparkling princess hats and Harry Potter and knowing she can't have that. Because even if the fairy-tale Ginny were to wake up, who would have her? She's dirtied...
The flames roar for a moment, and then with a burst of bitter, chalky smoke, they peter out and are replaced by ice-cold fear. She tilts her head back and rears her body nearer to her headboard. Her wand...where is her wand....no, her wand cannot help her now...
The boy comes closer, rippling and melting into a smaller, skinnier version of the specter that once was there. He is dressed in a maroon jumper, his glasses askew and hands gloved. He reaches out his fingers, stepping closer. Her insides twist and turn and fear is radiating off her body and the lust is just a reminder, coming back to her in sickening waves. She brings her fingers up to her face, shielding herself from the swirling mass of color- the hologram as it were, that is walking towards her.
"YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT IT'S LIKE!!! TO FACE HIM!! DO YOU?"
The voice strengthens and reverberates through her head. Ginny cringes and shudders as the shape comes closer. His mouth has not moved. he is reaching for her, a curious half-smirk, half-sheepish grin gracing the face of a fifteen year old boy mingled with an age old evil. He is rippling again, his mouth in a half-smirk, half-sheepish grin. One hands holds a glittering hazy sword, the other has long, spindly fingers. One arm is clothed in a maroon sleeve, the other in long black sleeves. They switch back and forth, rapidly like the shutter on Colin's camera. Ginny feels the dizziness take over as she breathes heavily, reaching for her wand wildly.
No...no...nononono....please.....nonononononononononononno!!!!!!!
"YES!" she screams, her voice high and scared. "I face him EVERY NIGHT!!!"
And then the world deadens as Ginny falls into a deep, deep slumber.
It is morning when she awakens, her window tightly locked and her clothes warm and soft against her skin. She opens an eyes and sobs as she thinks of the demons inside her, the demons that claim her every thought. They are demons that can't be exorcised- memories of a time that happened, of a girl who should've been. If not for Harry Potter. Ginny feels a surge of anger towards Harry for saving her. He condemned her to a lifetime of last night's, forced her to replay the events of the undoing of her childhood, time and time again. She cannot escape her nightmares; they're a part of her.
Fairytale Ginny sighs in relief as morning brings respite. She easily slips into her happy-go-lucky facade, ignoring the ache inside her as the sobs build, the hopelessness consumes her.
The other Ginny smiles politely and waits patiently. She knows that night will come soon.
It always does.
* * *
They'll never see
I'll never be
I'll struggle on and on to feed this hunger
Burning deep inside of me