Pretty Darkness

Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter and accept no credit towards it. I am not the wonderful J.K. Rowling or any of her affiliates.

Warning: a few instances of bad language here and there and mentions of murder (nothing too graphic, tho).

The gorgeous cover photo belongs to the wonderful saschali on Pinterest!

VoldemortWins!AU

As always, feedback is much appreciated!

(Lead me into the darkness, green eyed boy)

Darkness is such a pretty word for such a terrible thing. Darkness is what she sees when Harry tumbles the floor and doesn't get back up again and darkness rings in her ears along with the Death Eaters' laughter as she scrambles to his side and feels for a pulse, trying to drag him back into life.

This is what drowning must feel like, she thinks, as her breathing becomes more panicked and her lungs stop working and she's flailing around, dying just like Harry, right next to him and nobody's even trying to save her.

Someone's pulling at her arm behind her and Ginny spins round to see Hermione with tears running down her cheeks, trying to tug her away from Harry's body.

"He's dead." She whispers, her voice hoarse and broken (so, so broken) "Ginny, we have to get out of here."

A killing curse whizzes past them and hits Harry's body and this time he just jerks uncomfortably and his glasses slip off of his nose. Hermione screams and ducks, grabbing Ginny's hand, her brown eyes searching wildly for Ron, mirthless laughter still soaring through the air like a raven-

Ginny tears away from Hermione and raises her wand, shooting to kill as she runs towards the Death Eaters, green light protruding forward into the air.

Green like Harry's eyes.

She hits a Ravenclaw and down he goes but she doesn't care- can't care -anymore and, as her cutting hex blasts straight in Susan Bones, slicing the poor girl right in half, all Ginny feels is a lonely pang of emptiness.

Behind her, Hermione is still screaming.

Ginny dodges curses like she's a tornado, whirling and hurtling towards the enemy, the nemesis, the one who killed her green-eyed boy.

(And this is such an unforgivable sin)

Three Death Eaters go down and does Professor Flitwick but never mind, she can't bring herself to care anymore. Her hex attaches itself to Cho Chang and the girl drops like a stone but Ginny's managed to kill another Death Eater so the score is levelling up. And suddenly someone is on her arm and it's Hermione, blotchy, teary, Hermione who's gripping her arm with stubborn fingers, but she's so close to breaking, so close.

"Don't." Hermione says, ignoring the flurry of spells flying around them. "Please, Ginny. Stop."

Ginny lets out a guttural growl and waves her wand at a flailing Alecto Carrow. The woman gasps and gurgles, clutching at her throat and, when her hands fall limply at her side, blood spurts from her neck in a grisly, graceful skipping rope, flying in an arc around the room. Ginny feels a vindictive pleasure shoot up her veins.

She sees Hermione waver beside her but then Ron's there and he's shaking her, slightly pale, ever so white, but he's determined to make her stop.

"What the hell d'you think you're doing?" He demands, his hands trembling as he latches on to her. "Killing good people- heroes- what are you playing at?"

Wrenching herself from their grip, she shoots them a disgusted look and flicks her wand at her brother. Out of the corner of her eye, she sees Ron crumple and hears Hermione scream but then she's disapparated and darkness is upon her again.

Her brother never understood her much anyway.

There's a war raging outside but Ginny is too preoccupied with the battle being fought inside of her, a constant mantra of lightdarklight. People are dying, dying everyday, but that's life and life goes on so why should Ginny risk herself for them? She grieves for Harry, for the green-eyed boy and his stupid laugh, and she wonders briefly if anyone bothered to put the glasses back on his face.

And sometimes in her truly terrifying moments, she can't tell wether the voices that haunt her belong to Harry or Tom.

She doesn't leave the room for six days.

She's never alone, not that she minds being lonely. Harry's always with her (Harry or Tom?) smiling nonchalantly, messing up his hair, and she tries to touch him but she can't.

"Why can't I hold you again?" She asks simply, childishly, no pain in her voice. Harry looks at her with wide green eyes.

"You haven't avenged me yet, Gin. What do you expect?"

The next day, she brushes her hair, dresses in black mourning robes and leaves without a word, her wand gripped tightly in her hand. She's going to make them pay.

All of them.

It's dark outside. Bodies litter the street, strewn haphazardly in doorways and ruts of roads, their features dead and destroyed and all Ginny can think is that they look like they're sleeping- maybe they are, maybe she can touch them-

A single hand flops and lands at her feet and she flinches.

This is not the world she remembers.

But the green eyed boy squeezes her hand and pushes her forward and out she stumbles, a beautiful demonic butterfly emerging in the midst of a world filled with the sounds of people falling apart.

Screaming, shouting, like a phoenix rising from the ashes, small and pathetic Ginny Weasley who gives people hugs and comfort and second chances dies and the monster within her is unleashed.

So, so beautiful.

She fights whoever gets in her way, wether that be friend or foe but it doesn't matter that she's killed half of her old schoolmates without so much as blinking an eye because everything's for the greater good in the end, isn't it?

Yes, the green eyes boy's ghost whispers but before he vanishes, she thinks she sees tears glimmer in his eyes.

Blood stains her hands a crimson red but she just smiles sweetly as she disposes of her latest victim and props the body on a bench, his hair startlingly red against the pale sky.

Maybe they were related once.

This doesn't make her care any more.

She's so beautifully broken.

Each time she makes a kill, she goes home (a small cabin concealed by a river) and scratches a single line onto the wall. She has a kill count and it's huge.

Sometimes she wants to stop but she can't.

It takes a few months (but what seems like an age to Ginny) for the Order and the Death Eaters to catch on.

At first, nobody can work out who's killing all these people because the Death Eaters aren't bragging about the death of Neville Longbottom and the Order isn't celebrating the death of Antonin Dolohov and- everybody hates to admit it -people are scared.

It takes them frustratingly long to figure out who the killer is so eventually Ginny leaves a lock of her hair and a bloody knife with her fingerprints on behind at the crime scene.

She wishes she could see Hermione's face when the brunette finds out.

There are posters up demanding her capture. The Order, the Death Eaters, it doesn't matter, both want her bound and tethered at their feet. The Order have specifically asked for her alive- to torture her, Ginny thinks manically, to enact their revenge. The Death Eaters just want her dead.

They're going to have to wait much longer if they want to see her demise.

She's burning, a bright star, the spirit of Gryffindor (Slytherin) pumping through her heart and she's breathtaking, a sight to behold, suspended in mid air, eyes wide with a vengeance to kill and hands red with the souls of all those she's slaughtered.

Her hair is blood and brutality and broken promises and she wears it like a halo, proudly, a wicked grin blessing her features with its presence.

She's murdered hundreds.

And she doesn't plan on stopping.

But, as with all humans, pride comes before a fall and so when she hears the news that Lavender Brown will be visiting the old Weasley house, she thinks it'll be like shooting a sitting duck.

Ginny arrives the night before, nestles herself in the bushes and waits. She hardly spares a glance for the place in which she grew up- with brothers and friends and Harry and green eyes-

She sets her mouth in a firm line.

That life is no longer hers.

Lavender apparates at ten o clock, looking apprehensive and clutching her wand. She barely has time to react before Ginny has pinned her to the ground, a serrated knife drawn against the trembling girl's throat.

"G-Ginny?" Lavender says, gasping like a fish out of water. "Don't, please don't-"

Ginny smiles and pulls out her wand.

"Hello, Lavender. It's been a while, hasn't it?" She lifts her wand higher, preparing to attack, feeling calm and blissful as though she has all the time in the world. "I do wonder how to kill you." She giggles childishly. "It's fun planning out these escapades. It's like being a kid again."

Lavender looks at her with horrified eyes. "You're a monster." She manages to spit out. "They said you were damaged- but- oh, Merlin, Ginny- what happened to you?"

What indeed.

Before Ginny can do anything, Lavender presses something hidden in her clothing and, at once, thirteen Order members appear, shooting red stunning spells at Ginny with so much force that she is blown backwards, rendered unable to even move.

She is apparated to some secret location where she is immediately disarmed and shoved into a room not unlike the cabin she lives in. As she spins, growling like an animal, the faces of her classmates - the ones she has yet to kill - blur together, their angry, hurt, and confused expressions melting to create a tidal wave of despair and, in desperation, Ginny lunges out, cuffing Luna Lovegood round the face and kicking Dean Thomas in the shin, screaming herself hoarse until she thinks that she must be dying- is this what dying feels like, Harry?

And then somebody's latching on to her arm, yelling her name and Ginny turns to see Hermione - brave, stupid Hermione - who has a long scar trailing down her face and a red welt on her shoulder and she's crying, tears running down her face and dripping onto her clothes and Ginny sees with horror that her ex best friend is wearing one of Ron's old jumpers.

"Ginny?" Hermione says shakily. "Hey, it's okay- calm down-"

"Get- the fuck- off of me!" Ginny screeches, thrashing and flailing, her hair whipping like flames. "Get- away!"

"Calm down, calm down, please." Hermione whispers, her voice breaking just a little bit. "Ginny-"

"You're going to kill me!" Ginny shrieks, reaching out to slap Hermione. "You're going to murder me!" Her eyes dart like terrified bullets around the room, searching wildly for the exit but she can't see one- it's been concealed, they're hiding it from her, they're withholding information-

"Let me go!" She screams, her voice rising higher than it should be possible. "Tell me how to get out!"

She takes a step in the direction of a group of Ravenclaws and they flinch automatically and it's only then Ginny realises how many people she's killed in cold blood.

"We're not to going to hurt you." Hermione says firmly, looking her ex best friend dead in the eyes. "Please, Ginny, listen- we want to help-"

"No, you don't!" Ginny howls, tears blurring her vision as she sinks to the floor, enveloped by a curtain of fiery red flames. "None of you do- you all deserve to die- you killed Harry!"

At the mention of her best friend, Hermione starts and covers her mouth with her hand, biting her lip.

"We didn't." She says softly. "You-Know-Who killed Harry-"

"Say his name!" Ginny caterwauls and breaks down sobbing. "Say- his- name. It's what Harry would've done."

"She's gone mental." A voice whispers behind her but before Ginny can react, Hermione holds her hand up.

"Alright. Voldemort." She says and there are gasps around the room and hands latch onto wands automatically.

But nothing happens and nobody makes another sound so Ginny's heavy sobs puncture the atmosphere, breaking down the memories of long ago when their lives were lived in turrets and dormitories and midnight feasts and late night chats-

But everything's changed now because she's no longer Ginny Weasley, Gryffindor darling and Quidditch champion, she's redheaded Ginny, protector of the green-eyed boy and slaughterer of the guilty (innocent).

"I'm saving Harry." She manages to murmur and she looks up to see Hermione biting back tears.

"You killed Ron." The brunette whispers and wraps the jumper tighter around herself as if she's about to break into pieces (perhaps she is). "You murdered my greatest love and I spent months hating you- but, Ginny, you're like a sister to me- we grew up together-" Hermione can barely speak now, combing the ends of Ginny's hair like a mother should and Ginny can't stop crying and neither can Hermione and through the haze of darkness and green-eyed boys, she sees her redheaded brother fall lifeless to the ground. "I think- I can-forgive you now." Hermione says softly, choking quietly on her tears, the scar shining silver on her face. "I think I can forgive you."

Ginny doesn't want Hermione's forgiveness; all she wants is to forget everything and be with Harry again- oh, God, she's killed so many people-

"I'm sorry." She mumbles, delirious from delusions of green-eyed boys and bloody handprints. "I thought- I was- avenging Harry-"

"Harry wouldn't have wanted this." Hermione says quietly. "He wouldn't have wanted his best friends to die."

And Ginny remembers that Hermione knew Harry for longer, was with him more, was practically his other half (him, her, Ron, together) and this should make her jealous but it doesn't.

"I want to die." Ginny says, softly at first and then she shouts it for the whole world to know because she wants the universe to understand that she can't do this anymore. "I want it to end!"

Behind her, Luna is crying.

"Get rid of me, Hermione." Ginny babbles, she's gone insane and it's too late to revive her. "Before I kill someone else- go on do it. Say the magic words - the same ones that killed Harry and the same ones I used to kill my brother- please, Hermione-"

"I can't." Hermione is shaking her head desperately, her eyes widening. "I don't hate you enough, Ginny, to want you dead. I can't kill you-"

"Well, hate me harder then." Ginny whispers and smiles. "I've killed your friends, your love, the only family you've ever truly known- do you loathe me yet?"

Hermione can't speak.

"It doesn't take any courage to kill someone, Hermione." Ginny whispers. "Believe me, I know. Just say those words and it'll all be over- I'll be gone- out of reach where I can't harm anyone anymore-"

"You're ill, Ginny." Hermione speaks so softly that Ginny can barely hear her. "You've got a mental condition- you're-"

"Barking mad." Ginny finishes in a hushed voice and laughs. "I'm broken and dying and insane- remember me how I used to be, Hermione, promise? Remember me as the girl who fought for the light rather then for the dark."

"I don't think that's possible." Hermione says, tears rolling down her face as she raises her wand. "But you'll always be here, Ginny, a part of you- the good part, the brave part, the Gryffindor girl- I'll make it quick, close your eyes-"

"I'm not brave." Ginny mumbles and her eyelids flutter shut obediently. "And I don't deserve to be in Gryffindor."

"The old you did." Hermione manages to choke out as she reaches down and kisses Ginny's forehead, lifting her wand with trembling hands and whispering "Avada Kedavra."

And suddenly Ginny's falling, tumbling backwards into a sea of black and she doesn't know what will happen (or if anything will) when she wakes but she hopes that it's sunny and she hopes that it's beautiful.

Firstly, I would like to clarify that I am, in fact, a huge Ginny fan (book Ginny is absolutely amazing) and a huge Hinny shipper but this headcannon has always been so clear in my mind and I think that if Ginny had been a bit less mentally stable and Harry had died, something along these lines could've potentially happened.

That being said, I will now go cry into my pillow because I've just ruined one of my favourites ships and some of my favourite characters.

Anyway, thank you for reading and please feel free to leave me a review and lemme know what you thought.

Have a wonderful day/night!

Xx