A/N: I've been reading too much Poe.
One and Only
She sat in the bathtub, letting the warm water wash all traces of the murder off of her. She would break her wand and buy a new one, and there had been no witnesses-no living witnesses, that is. It was absolutely, magnificently, astonishingly perfect. Perhaps just a bit too perfect…
Two days earlier
The image would forever be burned into her eyelids. The brown-haired vixen in the emerald-green robes, the lack of deliberation given to wandering-perhaps even spying-eyes, the hands traveling dexterously and slickly up the young woman's robes, the piercing glances exchanged between curious blue eyes and tumultuous gray ones… It was enough to make her sick. Tolerance, though, was never something that she had been particularly good at, especially when she was expected to tolerate something such as this. So, of course, her mind traveled from thoughts of exoneration to thoughts of retribution. Revenge is sweet, as they say, and the word was sugarcoated and sticky on her tongue. She began planning fervently; it soon occupied nearly all of her time and, most certainly, all of her thoughts. The idea of it all was so fabulously simple that it sent chills of anticipation up her spine. So she thought and she planned until she had everything entirely perfect and there wasn't even the slightest change of being found out, and then she initiated the plan. The splendidly, brilliantly, startlingly simple plan. The plan that, she knew in a deep crevice of her mind, would one day destroy her life…
"Hello," Pansy Parkinson said, mystification in her deep blue eyes. "If you're looking for Malfoy, he isn't here, you know…"
"Oh," she replied, fabricated repentance dominating the manipulation that dripped from her voice. "Then you wouldn't mind if I came in for a moment, would you? I just want to sit down for a moment…"
"Oh, of course not," Pansy agreed, hands shaking. "Come right in; it's completely fine with me…"
"So, where do you have him?" she asked casually as she sat down, as though she was inquiring about the weather.
"E-excuse me?" Pansy asked, visibly paling.
"I said," Ginny replied, malevolence glinting in her eyes, "the place looks wonderful, Parkinson."
"Oh," Pansy said. "Oh, thank you, Ginny." Ginny, though, could still see the trepidation and uncertainty in Pansy's eyes. She knew that she had won.
Pansy, as it turns out, really was a very weak-willed girl; Ginny slipped a bit of Veritaserum in her glass of wine and she couldn't get Draco's whereabouts out fast enough. But familiarity breeds contempt, and Ginny soon grew awfully tired of the girl. Deciding that disposing of her permanently would be the safest, she Avada Kedavra-ed Pansy quickly and did a sloppy Transfiguration job on the body. The doll that the cadaver was turned into still stared at Ginny with wide, accusing eyes. Ginny turned the doll over and continued on her way to the bedroom.
"What are you doing here?" Draco asked disbelievingly as Ginny walked into the room.
"Oh, I think you know," she replied, sitting down on the bed. "I think the real question is, what are you doing here?" She received no reply.
First and foremost, she loved him, despite what the others chose to think. But, sometimes, love doesn't fit into the bigger plan, which is exactly why, as Ginny sat kissing Draco on the bed, she pulled her wand out of her pocket and pointed it straight at Draco's heart.
"Well, that was unexpected," Draco smirked, his left hand still up Ginny's robes.
"I suppose that it would be," Ginny replied with a matching smirk, wand hand extraordinarily steady. "Any last words, love?"
"Oh, you're serious about this, are you?" Draco mocked, and Ginny almost imagined that she heard a hint of the tone that he used to use with her in this statement. "No, I don't think so; carry on, then." Ginny, still delirious from the feeling of absolute power, shouted, "Avada Kedavra," hand still steady. She very nearly choked on the words.
Looking at the still-smoking corpse a few minutes later, Ginny nearly regretted her decision. After all, where's the satisfaction in killing someone who does not fear death?
One day later
Ginny stepped out of the bathtub, pulling a towel around herself and letting the murder-water drain out of the tub and out of her life. Soon, she knew, she would forget about the entire fiasco. But, for now, she would dwell on it and regret it and try to rid herself of all traces of it. And, she knew, she would always wonder, what if…
(the end)
