It is not a Harry/Ginny pairing, nor is it a Harry/Hermione/Luna/Fleur/any other canon characters mentioned.
That aside, I hope you do enjoy this story and feel free to point out mistakes. I have included the challenge at the foot of this prologue, so feel free to skip if you're not interested.
Prologue - Voldemort's weapon of choice.
In the wizarding world, people fell into two categories: The motherfuckers and the motherfucked. The Motherfuckers were the ones who burnt down the foundations of love, stripped away your morality, left you bare to absorb more damage. And like a sponge, that damage was sucked in, never to be disgorged. It left psychological scars a mile long and there was no dead ends for the blood-spewing opening of the scar to fetch up against.
The motherfucked were the ones who tried to fight back, tried to hit you with their best shot. They through everything at you, simply because they had nothing to lose. They were dead inside, dead outside and more importantly, surrounded by the dead.
Harry knew this better than anyone who stood along side him. Sure, Fleur lost Bill, Hestia lost Charlie, Tonks lost Remus... and so on. Harry, though, was a casualty of this war since the day he left the slippery lips of his mother's folds.
"The chosen one," they called him. "The-Boy-Who-Lived," they called him. Uh-
huh, they were all right, down to the last shit-eating politician. They knew it all, didn't they? The ones who slandered him in the "Daily Prophet?
Yep, indeed!
The last members of the Order-of-the-Phoenix crawled to him for help, for shelter. They fought under him, for different reasons... But the cause was the same. Voldemort, the Dark Lord, You-Know-Who.
July 1st, 2003.
Harry left the comfortable sleeping bag, sliding out to gaze at the still-
sleeping forms of his allies around him. He shook the bag off and rose to his feet, wincing at the pain in his knee, from a bone -breaker that had been repaired too late.
"Up... Get up," he said softly.
But they all heard him, the light stage of sleep enabling them to respond accordingly to his command.
Harry summoned a package of beef jerky he had nicked from one of the remaining grocers within 100 KM. He bit off the seal and bit into the stiff stick of meat. His stomach growled and he could feel the acidic burble of the fading pangs of hunger. Ignoring it, he smiled at the alert faces that emerged from the necks of the many sleeping bags.
Flamel Manner was big, but not big enough to house sixty-odd people. The beds had long-since rotted and crumbled into kindling and bits of protruding nail. Mattresses were few and far-between, so they had chosen to use them for other purposes.
"Morning, 'Arry," said his friend, Fleur.
Fleur was a widow. After the death of her husband, Bill, partners had been nonexistent. There was nobody who could fill that void, caress the pain away, for but a minute... No, none.
"Morning, Fleur."
Pleasantries aside, the day had to get started and Harry had a job to do.
OOOOO
December 17th, 1999.
He was almost alone, now. His support pillars were in the ground, being eaten by worms and such. He stood alone in a church with a gothic-looking exterior. Crude graffiti peeped up at him between the spread of his boots, but he ignored it. The work of the Muggle brigands, after the government and all law had decayed into sagging husks within their bonds of justice.
He stood with a jeweled bracelet hanging off a nail in the wall beside his head of hacked, black hair, catching the drain-grid-like filter of light through spider web-snick-snacked windows. Voldemort's horcrux, one of the two remaining.
He prepared the spell, turning his body and head to face the bracelet and walking backward a few paces.
"No one will miss this place," he whispered to himself.
The whisper whooshed around him, encompassing his head and ringing like the wielded bells of infinite uncertainty.
"No," a hissing voice behind him agreed. "No one.
Harry spun with his wand leveled at the hated visage of his fiercest of enemies.
"How did you find me?"
Harry's question was flat and emotionless.
"Oh, Harry," said Voldemort mysteriously, "I have my ways."
Harry shuddered at the implied statement.
"Okay," Harry sighed," Who's the goddamned spy now?"
"Spy?" Voldemort sounded amused. "Harry, my dear Harry, do you think a master puppeteer exposes his strings?"
"Have you come here to kill me?" Harry asked, with no trace of fear.
"Yes."
Voldemort's statement was a whip-crack-sharp fait d'acompli. It rang with finality and Harry smirked.
"Go ahead, Voldemort. I am going to try my best to stop you, though."
The stone tear that was one down from the one Harry was standing on, began to rise. It licked the lip of Harry's step, before touching the toe of his boot. Harry caught on. Voldemort was trying to restrict his mobility.
Harry blasted the stone step apart in a shower of dust and chips of graffiti-
covered stone, which flew at Voldemort. Voldemort waved his wand to dispel it and Harry threw a lightning-quick blood-boiler, which Voldemort deflected with a wave of his left hand.
Voldemort sent a trio of killing curses his way, but Harry summoned a stack of books to take the brunt of the most deadly of unforgivables. The pile of books that were floating in mid air burst into flames and Harry let them thump to the ground.
Harry leapt up and back to a higher step, so as to have the advantage of height over Voldemort.
Harry rained spell, after hex, after jinx down on Voldemort, but he deflected. Harry realized, with a sudden jolt, that Voldemort was toying with him. So far, this duel was only making use of the seventh-year repertoire of school-yard spells.
Harry pointed his wand downward and sent a jet of fire at Voldemort. Voldemort flicked his wand and the fire turned into a serpent.
"Ignis Flagelli!"
Harry wrapped the whip of fire around the serpent, charring the snake into a pile of ash, which added to the dirt.
"Reducto," Harry thought silently, pointing his wand at the glass dome above Voldemort's head.
That spell, combined with a summoner, caused the resultant hail of glass to descend toward Voldemort, who tried to raise his hand to block it... But he was too late.
The slivers of glass embedded themselves in his scalp, his face and cut lines across the back of his neck. He howled in pain, anger and shock as Harry managed to deal the first blow, managed to draw first blood.
Voldemort summoned all the glass out of his face, neck and the top of his head, and they fell around him, blood-splattered and wicked-looking.
He turned back to Harry and smiled again, apparently ignoring the blood dribbling from his many glass-inflicted cuts.
"I have something to show you, Harry. My greatest project to boot!"
Harry and Voldemort stood in the same pose that they had started the duel in, except Harry was on a higher step.
"Let me guess," said Harry. "Dark-Lord chocolate?"
Voldemort laughed.
"No, Harry. Something more... useful."
Harry felt the cold fingers of dread wrap around his intestines and squeeze viciously.
"Once my worst enemies and your greatest of allies, now my greatest of allies and your worst enemies. Come forth, my greatest and most useful of servants."
They came, then. They stepped from behind pillars to regard him with love and friendship. With caring, respect and adoration.
"No," Harry whispered, his wand trembling in a grip that had suddenly become sweaty. "No, you're dead!"
Then... she came. She didn't shuffle or stumble. Her gait was precise and purposeful. She walked with confidence and determination, as it had always been.
She came up the stairs and he began to shake as she ascended. She lifted her leg high enough to clear the missing step... and then she was below him.
"Harry," she whispered, her voice like honey over peppermint.
Harry stepped back and she stepped up to join him. Her feet were between his and she rubbed herself against him. He could feel the slight protrusion of her lower abdomen as she slid against him, with the accompanying swish of fabric against armor.
"Come to me, Harry."
Her voice was just as he remembered. Sweet and melodious and promising many things behind the closed doors of the Burrow.
"G-Ginny?" Harry's trembling increased. "How...?"
"The Dark Lord," she murmured, simply. "He brought me back for you, Harry. No one but you and always, you."
Harry peered over her shoulder and his lungs filled with the air of shock. Albus Dumbledore stood, wand in hand, robes floating around his sturdy but thin frame, his beard full and neat. He smiled, that familiar twinkle blazing full-force. He met the elder wizard's eyes.
"Sir...?" Harry looked to his old Headmaster for guidance, as he had once done.
"Join us, Harry, it'll be the best thing you have done... for all of us."
Harry looked away and into the face of Hermione Granger. She smiled, her amber eyes holding his and drawing a slight, choking sob from his chapped lips.
"Hermione...?" His logical friend... she would know what was really going on.
"Please, Harry. For us?"
Tears streaked his cheeks and ran down into his collar. Through those streaming eyes, he looked into the blue ones of Ron Weasley.
"Harry, mate," Ron began. "If you can't beat the Dark Lord, join him. You can do smashing things together."
"He is right, Harry," said Luna Lovegood.
"Listen to him, Harry," said James Potter.
"Stand with us, Harry, my son," said Lily Potter.
"It is the right thing to do," said Dumbledore.
"No!" Harry shouted.
A blasting curse left the tip of his wand, streaking over Ginny's head of fiery locks and impacting Dumbledore's face.
All his rage, all his guilt, all his sadness and pent up negative emotions powered the curse. It collided with the face of his old mentor and... His smile remained, unmarked by Harry's curse.
Ginny ground herself against Harry again, and he forgot about Dumbledore as he felt his loins stir.
"If you join us, you can have me, any way you want me!" Ginny promised.
Harry wanted so much to obey, to give in to temptation, to let go of the feeling that told him that all this was wrong. But he couldn't. He had been fighting on the other side for too long to give up that easily.
Harry pushed Ginny away and she tripped, falling backwards and sliding down the stairs on her back.
"Look what you have done!" shouted Hermione, Lily and Luna in unison."
James, Dumbledore's and Ron's pleading expressions had vanished, to be replaced by rage.
"You will pay for that!" spat Ron, venomously.
"This is the price you pay for refusing me, Harry. This is the price you pay for being defiant," Voldemort said in a low, silky hiss.
Harry jumped, for in Harry's moment of distraction, he had not noticed the wizard sneaking up beside him.
Harry leveled his wand, now clutched more firmly, at Voldemort, but it was too late.
"You will die by the hands of your loved ones, Harry. And I will watch, as you are torn, limb from limb. No magic will work against them."
And Voldemort thrust his wand at Harry who flew through the air to land at the feet of his loved ones. Ginny got to her feet, walked over and sank down, straddling him.
"What do you fight for, Harry?" she whispered, leaning down to nibble on his earlobe.
She ground herself against him again, and he could feel the heat of her, through the many layers of clothing separating their bits.
"Am I not worth giving up your fight?"
She was tantalizing, and beautiful. Oh, how beautiful she was... Was! That was it! This abomination was not Ginny... But she was Ginny, down to the flowery scent of her perfume, the apple-scent of her shampoo. The smell of her breath as she breathed into his ear. The smell of her arousal that was so Ginny. Yet, she was supposed to be dead, along with Luna, Ron, Hermione, Mum and dad!
OOOOO
August 2nd, 1997.
"What do you fight for?" Ginny asked.
Harry thought for a moment, twirling a lock of Ginny's red hair between his thumb and forefinger.
"To make the world a better place," he said.
Ginny smiled at him and kissed him, her lips as soft as blooming rose petals. Harry gave into the kiss, and moaned as her hand came up to tangle in his messy, black hair. She wrapped her tongue around his and threw it all into the kiss. She bit down gently on Harry's lip and he felt himself stir within the confines of his trousers.
Ginny pressed closer to him, her legs opening and settling on either side of him. He felt the heat of her sex as it pressed up against his member. She gasped as his erection was trapped between them and pulled back to look at him.
He gazed into those warm, knowing brown eyes, which had darkened with lust.
"Do you want me, Harry?" she asked in a whisper.
"Oh, god yes," Harry gasped out, so close to her face. "I want you so much."
"Good," said Ginny. "Cause I need you... need you, badly."
It was late, so he doubted they'd get caught. But, he locked the door and applied a silencing charm anyway. He turned to face Ginny, who lunged at him, throwing him back onto her bed. The smell of flowers on a beautiful spring day clouded his senses and he could feel himself twitching. Ginny straddled him and rubbed herself against him. Harry was breathing heavily and running his hands all over her. He felt her flanks through her pajama shirt, so warm against the palm of his hands. His hands continued upward, till his thumbs brushed the underside of her breasts. She gasped, and her hands flew up. Harry hastily yanked his hands back, but Ginny simply ripped her shirt off.
Her breasts were bare of any bra. Leaning forward again, she offered them to Harry, like a sacrifice. But something opened up inside of him. He lifted Ginny off him and stood her up beside her bed. He stood up to join her and began to take off his clothing. Seeing what he was doing, Ginny mirrored his actions.
Harry looked at her, stripped bare of any stitch of clothing.
"By God, Ginny," he whispered in awe. "You're beautiful!"
The little light that pierced her windows glinted off the posters of the weird sisters, the mirror hanging above her vanity table, but most importantly, the ripe and healthy set of breasts that were inches away from his flushed body.
Slowly, his eyes tracked down from her erect nipples, to the fiery stubble above the glistening lips of her sex.
"Harry!" she said, a note of desperation entering her voice. "I need you... now!"
Harry pushed her back onto the bed and spread her legs. Her smell wafted up towards his nose and his erect member twitched. He paused, not knowing what to do. Ginny grabbed his hands and placed them above her shoulders and on the mattress.
"I'll help you," she gasped out.
She took him in one small, pale hand, and with the other, used the outer edges of her finger and thumb to spread her lips. She guided him in, slowly, and he hissed out a choking gasp as he felt the heat of her.
He slipped inside her and felt her tunnel, slick and slippery with want and lust. Mechanically, he began to move back and forth inside her. She moaned, and it was the best sound he had ever heard, even surpassing that of phoenix song.
Too soon, he felt the tide building, felt the heavy wall keeping him back disintegrate. Too soon, he spilt himself inside her, and too soon, she clenched and he felt the gush of her return fire.
They made love two more times that night, with Harry growing bolder and more confident in his sexual prowess. They learnt from each other, things that nobody could even dream to explain. Their fluids mingled and ran in pools of mingled love and lust, down the sheets.
Harry had been lucky that night. Ginny had not fallen pregnant, and the family had not found out about their late-night, all night tryst.
Just before Harry left her, he said:
"Now, this is what I fight for."
OOOOO
December 17th, 1999.
"Do you remember, Harry, what you said to me all those nights ago?"
Harry panted with want and desire. It had been so long... so long since he had felt a woman wrapped around him. So long since he had heard a woman's cry of "Harry" as she came. Too goddamned long, since he had held a woman, as she whispered her fears and dreams. So long... too long...
Harry bucked up violently, throwing Ginny off him. With a snarl of rage, of betrayal, he leapt to his boots and leveled his wand at her... and stopped. He could not do it. He could not whisper the words that would put her back in the ground.
Suddenly, her expression changed, and an expression of hatred and pure, undiluted rage slid smoothly to take the place of the one of lust and plea.
"You will die tonight, Harry!" Ginny promised. And Harry believed her.
She lunged forward, and gripped Harry by the throat. She squeezed, watching the panic flair in his eyes. He scrabbled at her hands, tearing away chunks of flesh from her delicate hands. He suddenly felt an arm grab his left shoulder and he thrust his wand backward.
He felt the thing in his wand's path give slightly, and he applied more pressure. He heard the person scream, a female scream, as his wand sank deeper. Finally, he felt something burst against the tip, and fluid pored down over his hand and down his arm.
Harry thrust his fist into Ginny's face. It knocked her back and she released her grip. He was angry enough to try a spell, and he tried a fireball.
"Ignis," he thought.
A fireball left the tip of his wand, obscuring Ginny's face for a moment. When the fireball dissolved into smoke, he saw Ginny's face, hole and as beautiful as ever.
Harry sensed someone coming up behind him and turned, his left foot lashing out. Dumbledore stood firm against his foot and tapped Harry's knee with a gnarled finger. Harry felt the bone-breaker hit and shatter his kneecap. Harry went down with a yell of pain, and only then got a good look at what he had poked with his wand.
Lily Potter lay on the ground, her empty socket leering at him. Her burst eyeball lay on her cheek, still dripping with fluid. Lily grinned at him.
"An eye for an eye, Harry.
Even as Lily said this, he could already see the eye regrowing. She reached out her hand, a long-nailed finger extended, and sliced through his eyelid and cornea.
Harry felt the irruption as his right eye was destroyed. His eye was dead, and through the haze of pain, he saw Lily grinning maniacally at him.
Harry had to leave. He was too weak to continue this physically, never mind magically. They were immune to magic, so he'd have to regroup.
And that's when he got the idea. Harry focused on the ground and forced the transfiguration to happen. Slowly, the ground began to warp and twist. The pews sank out of sight, before the other wizards and witches in the room realized what was happening.
Quick sand was engulfing them alive, and they could counter it eventually, but it would buy him time.
Raising himself on one elbow, he summoned the horcrux from the nail on the wall. It tinkled into his left palm and he tapped it with his wand.
"Portus," he murmured.
"Noooo!" shouted Voldemort.
His cutter just nicked Harry's left eyeball, as Harry vanished in a spinning swirl.
OOOOO
July 1st, 2003.
Harry's face was reflected back at him in the polished mirror above the fireplace in the study of Flamel Manner. Black, clumsily hacked hair; face ridged with scar-tissue; One green eye, a line of white film streaking across it slightly and One electric blue eye, commandeered from mad-eye, after his death at the hands of Bellatrix Lestrange.
He was clean-shaven, with two parallel scars running the length of his chin. All-in-all, he wasn't about to win any beauty contest any time soon.
Harry turned away from his reflection dispassionately, and began to assemble his gear that he would need for this journey.
When the Flamel's had died, they had left Flamel Manner to Albus Dumbledore, who was, at that time, the leader of the light. Since they had no family, Albus was the only one they had in mind to receive such a thing.
In Dumbledore's will, he had left the house to the-Order-of-the-Phoenix, so that they could have headquarters to convene at when shite went pear-shaped.
And Dumbledore had predicted right. Things had spiraled out of control at a dizzying rate. People had fallen, governments and families had toppled.
Now, Harry sat in the comfortable desk chair, leafing through a book again.
For four years now, Harry had been seeking a solution to the problem of the resurrected war heroes, but had so far drawn a blank. They had murdered their own families, and not one wand had even chipped a flake out of their skin.
Sure, they could be harmed physically, but they always regenerated their limbs, eyes, ears, teeth, jaws, etc. They were a serious problem, one that needed dealing with, and quickly.
In Flamel's potion's store, Harry had found a mortar, filled with a powdery substance. Upon closer inspection and magically-conducted tests by himself and Horace Slughorn, to verify his hypothesis, it was discovered that it was, in fact, the last remnants of the philosopher's stone. Apparently, though, whomever had been grinding the stone into powder, had not done a proper job. All-in-all, Harry found seven shards of the broken stone, and had stored them safely in a pouch he kept around his neck.
He now fingered the pouch in anticipation for the events that were about to happen. He had to do this. It was necessary. He had to harness evil to destroy evil.
OOOOO
"I'll be gone for a few days," he told them.
"What's new," asked Chris Johnson, brother to Angelina Johnson.
Chris was a squib, who had remained exiled from the immediate family, after his status was confirmed. Over in Newcastle, where he had stayed with his grandparents, there had been a death eater attack, killing his grandmother and grandfather.
He had come to Harry, or more specifically, to his sister, who had approached Harry, for sanctuary.
Chris had his vast wealth of intelligence and common sense to contribute, so it was an easy decision to welcome him aboard.
"What's new," said Harry, "is that I'm not sure when I'll be back."
"Where will you be going?" asked Morag MacDougal.
"I can't say," he said, "top secret."
Several voices were raised in protest, but Fleur raised her own higher above the din.
"Do not push 'eem. When 'e says top secret, 'e means eet."
Fleur laid her accent on thick, like liver spread, so as to drive it home more brutally.
"Now," continued Harry. "I'm leaving Fleur and Victor in charge. Questions?"
"What should we do if an attack comes?" asked Hestia Jones, her speech slurred by a prosthetic tongue and jaw.
"Do what you always do. Fight! And if you're outnumbered, run like fuck!"
Harry wasn't one for overly-long and heartfelt speeches, so he settled for wishing them a happy... well... however long he'd be gone, and a brief chat with Fleur about the defenses protecting the manner.
"I'm sorry I have to leave you, Fleur," said Harry sincerely. but..."
"It's important, I know."
She laid a comforting hand on Harry's shoulder.
"You will be safe, yes?"
"Always," Harry smiled.
He felt alone, all the sudden, without his friends, Ron and Hermione to tackle this adventure together.
Fleur, sensing his mood, hugged him and kissed him on both cheeks.
"Till we meet again, Harry."
She left him there, just outside the fifteenth perimeter ward of Flamel manner.
"So long, Fleur, all of you," he muttered aloud, looking with regret at his retreat, his haven from danger. And on that day, he set out on the journey that'd end the rain of terror, caused by the resurrected and powerful people that Harry had loved with all his heart.
A/N:
Challenge, as promised.
Seven Queens in Darkness, Seven Ladies of Light An R/NC-17 Challenge Voldemort has done the unthinkable.
Albus Dumbledore, aged leader of the light. Ronald Weasley, strategist extraordinaire. Hermione Granger, Brightest witch of her Generation. Luna Lovegood, Seer without peer. Ginevra Weasley, Harry Potter's lover. Lily and James Potter, Harry Potter's beloved parents.
War heroes one and all.
And dead. Worse than dead.
Harry was once told that the dead could not be raised. That was the truth for those who would walk the path of light. But Voldemort wandered shadowed halls where the rules were more mutable. He performed the darkest of ritual spells and brought these heroes to a twisted half-life. He turned them against the order of the phoenix and the rest of the Wizarding world. On the defensive and mad with grief, Harry sought out magic equal to the task of defeating the greatest of war heroes.
He found seven shards of the Philosophers Stone instead.
Seven shards and a dark ritual of his own.
He sought out the darkest of Black Queens, dark ladies one and all. Women of ancient and terrible power that date back to before the time of Hogwarts, before the time of Merlin. Women who go back through the misty ash heap of history to Atlantis and the Hyborean Age. Women who he raised from the dead with the fragments of stone and bound to himself with magic. They whispered their secrets of forgotten spells into his ear. They took him into their bed and made him in their own image. Bound to his slavery, they worked their wiles to turn him into a dark lord like which the world has never seen.
He will defeat Voldemort. But will it be only to take his place...
Or did he seek out seven ladies of light? The mightiest white witches of forgotten ages and fairy kingdoms. Queens of green glens and golden forests. They once ruled empires, but now bow at the feet of a pained boy wizard. Keen of mind and as mighty as they are beautiful, they take Harry Potter into their beds to soothe his hurts and grant him their powers of old. They will do their best to see that their new slave master will become the greatest of light side beings.
He can defeat Voldemort. But can he save what is left of his friends or will the mercy of the grave be the only gift he can grant them...
Or was it some mixture of the two. Did he seek out the fallen Battle Queen of Stygia and wise Lady of dreams? Does he have a Drow arachnomancer at his feet alongside the Star Dancer of Nocturnia? Who will win the tug of war for Harry's soul, dark or light?
Challenge requirements:
No bashing of Dumbledore and Ron or any other of Voldemort's enslaved. They are light side heroes and it is a tragedy that Voldemort has corrupted them so.
The seven that Harry raises must all be women and not any canon characters. They can be famous witches and goddesses from history or they can be totally original characters. They can be nonhuman like Veela, Elves, or Drow, or half blooded members of those races.
Each one should specialize in a different aspect of magic, whether that is healing magic, necromancy, or something more obscure. None of them should be all powerful, but they should each be on par with Dumbledore. Remember, they were killed at some point so making them impossible to kill is silly.
Does Harry go dark? Is there a way to keep his friends alive without killing them? Does the resurrection ritual have any side effects? Are they at full strength or is their magic weakened while their knowledge remains? So many questions, so many possibilities...
Goes without saying but smut would be nice ;)