Summary: Ginny Weasley finds out that the dark side is much like dying. You only really know what it's like after you've crossed over.
Disclaimer: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.
Status: WIP
Ships: D/G, R/Hr, LM/NM (so far)
A/N1:Like its writer this story will go through many mood changes because I can't picture anything in life being one-dimensional regardless of which faction you belong to. So if you like angst, you'll get it here and if you like lighter moods you'll find them as well. I'm giving you all fair warning LOL.
A/N2: The idea of each Death Eater having their own individual "talents" was inspired by a Skull Bearer's fanfiction "The Dark Lord's Death Eaters" which can be found at The first line of this fic was also inspired on a Skull Bearer's fiction named "Do you feel brave." I've never read it, though.
A/N3: The title of this story is inspired on the Deftones song "Change In The House Of Flies". This story isn't however a songfic.
Spoilers: I'll pick and choose things from books 1-6 but it starts in the future so whatever AU-ishness you should be made aware of will be explained throughout the fic.
"Do you feel brave now, Ronald?"
The young woman asked sweetly, her bony, delicate hands running lovingly through her victim's heavy red locks.
Ron Weasley's eyes were filled with fear, at the tender display more than anything. There was no way of protecting himself, of keeping his guard up when he didn't know what to expect.
But the part he hated the most wasn't the pain that was about to come, or that he had already betrayed the Order and was about to do even more damage in the near future. Of all his regrets and apprehensions what stung the most was that Malfoy had been right all those years ago. And how fucking damaged was he, that at death's door after, even if unwillingly, selling out his closest friends, his own bloody family, that the one disappointment that he would, quite literally, never die down, was that yet again he'd pass as Harry's inconsequential, stubborn, weak friend?
He'd set his mind to change people's impression of him. Of course no one ever said anything to his face but he knew what went through people's minds. Well, not literally, because that was a skill he hadn't mastered yet. Oh, he knew Occlumency alright; it was one of the requirements to become an Auror-in-training. The Auror Academy's standards were high, even in these times of desperate need. But like that greasy haired git Snape took such delight in pointing out it wasn't in his blood, in his over the top, hardheaded, Weasley genes to be cold and detached enough to turn his mind into a needle-point, sharp enough to go through people's defenses.
It was rumored certain wizards, mostly Death Eaters seeing as all forms of mind control (excluding in times of war) were considered to be illegal, could actually perform Legilimency from great distances, not requiring the usual eye-contact necessary for the average mind-reader who'd mastered the skill.
And his suspicions that all the ethics and higher-road-ish behavior adopted by the "Light" side was what was going to lose them this atrocious war were yet again confirmed when his tormentor laughed from the blacksmith's stove where she was reheating the pair of pliers she'd been using on his freckled skin for the last fifteen minutes.
"What would the Wizarding world's mighty savior think if he could hear you right now, Ronnie?"
The girl's voice tinkled with amusement that could be heard all the way to where he was laying, prostrate, all four limbs bound, and she was lucky she'd bothered to restrain him too instead of just taking away his wand, because his hand had just spasmed to hit her when she used Mione's intimate nickname for him. But he couldn't think of that now, he wouldn't give the bitch more ammunition.
"You might as well reminisce, Ronald. Merlin knows this will be the last chance you'll get to do it."
She said in that friendly tone that never ceased to make his skin crawl. After three dreadful, heart wrenching years of raw open war, with as many casualties as they'd all had to endure and the losses what weighted him down the most were still the betrayals.
"Oh, don't shed any tears for me, Ronnikins."
She pouted walking back to his side and his eyes went reflexively to her hands, the branding to come expected but still dreaded. She gave him a small grin at this obvious display of emotion and he flinched at yet again looking weak, though he guessed in the position he was currently in, that was pretty much a moot point.
Ron started spouting some profanities at that but quickly gave up since with the silencing charm placed on him all he was succeeding in was drooling all over himself.
"Don't overexert yourself, honey. You don't have to speak. Just keep thinking loud and clear the way you've been doing all night and we can keep taking our little "chat" breaks."
She chuckled while making quotation marks in the air and Ron's eyes actually widened a little as it finally dawned on him that it wasn't an act. That if it wasn't for the whole Medieval torture chamber setting and the dry, stale smelling stains of blood on her incongruently white overalls and splattered across her face making her freckled in an eerie way the sun never would, as far as Ginny…scratch that, Ginevra Gaunt was concerned, they might as well be taking Earl Grey with blueberry scones back at the Burrow.
She kept the same sunny disposition, chatty amiability and casualness about her as she usually did back when he, Harry and his brothers would barge in on one of Hermione's "top secret" meetings with her bridesmaids on Godric's Hollow after a pickup game of Quidditch.
Ginevra smiled fondly as they "shared" that memory and he'd never wanted to Avada Kedavra someone as badly in his whole life, not even Malfoy.
"Come on, Ron! Don't be like that! I genuinely liked her."
She sighed after the last part, looking something remotely forlorn for the first time since they'd been holed up on those damp dungeons. Ron just felt like screaming at the insult of Hermione's memory. And he did, lack of sound be damned. Death was a certainty right now, so if letting go of his anger was the way to go, at least he would've done it on his own terms. Of course the damned hag wouldn't allow him even that smallest of respites.
"Now, now, Ron, no suicidal impulses allowed. Not until I'm through with you anyway." Ginevra winked at him.
From the way her face subtly tightened readying for the "impact", Ron could tell she had read the impulse forming in his brain way before his muscles went about acting on it and he secretly commended her on taking it like a man. Then again, aside from Harry and Voldemort themselves, she probably had the biggest balls in the whole mess, if the horror stories and what he'd already endured himself were anything to go by.
Regardless of his misplaced sense of admiration he felt slightly vindicated as the lugie splashed against her left cheek. He knew it was a childish pleasure but at this stage he'd take whatever he could get.
"How very…Muggle of you, Ronald." She replied wiping her face with the back of her sleeve. "But if that's what you need to do to work through your pent up aggression, then I'll allow it." She bowed her head condescendingly as she finally lifted her spell from him.
"How magnanimous on your part." He spat out venomously, less emphatically than he'd have liked as his throat was sore from screaming.
But just being able to talk normally again instead of the constant mind-rape he'd been subjected to up to that moment was worth working through the pain. He knew she's probably still poking around inside his brain but when she didn't go about it in such a standoffish way he didn't notice it as much. Denial was a priceless commodity when you're in a tight spot like the one he's in.
"Uh, a big word. Well, I guess your wife must have left you quite the library."
She conceded sounding aloof however the barb was not missed as she knew it wouldn't. He should feel insulted that she wasn't even trying very hard, that she wasn't even putting her best effort on her general torture of him, but right then he could only feel grateful.
"Is that what your grudge with us is? Is that why you turned? Because you can't understand love?"
The redhead suddenly broke out laughing and he was still distracted by the oddness of that sound amongst the moans of agony he could pick up from the other chambers around theirs so it took Ron a couple of seconds to register that the shouts mingling with her cackling were his own, as she'd once again applied the burning iron to his abused flesh.
"Argh, cunt!"
He finally managed to cough out a couple of minutes later after the metal had been removed and his mind stopped reeling from the shock.
"See Ron, that's the problem with you and the very reason why you never managed to step out of the shadow of the trio."
She explained patiently as if enlightening him as to why a lesser "Hover Charm" was preferable to "Wingardium Leviosa" when it came to lifting lighter objects.
"You're a nice guy, if a little tactless and unrefined, but that goes without saying what with you being a Weasley and a Gryffindor on top of it," He had to strain to hear the last part as it come out muffled with her face inside a cupboard, feeling around for a vial, he guessed.
"But your problem really, is that you just don't get it." She emphasized the three last words with flamboyant gestures with the hand that either held Bubblejuice or Veritaserum. He was inclined to the latter but you never knew with these completely mental dark witches.
"And that's why Potter and Granger, may her soul rest in peace," She added as an afterthought. "Will always top you. Because you're trying so bloody hard to make it look like you're in control and that you know what you're doing and so set in your ways that you've shut yourself to all types of learning and thus to improving."
And she had the gall to say that in the same tone Molly Weasley used to explain to him why he should eat his Brussels sprouts once a week. Like it wasn't more than his due to listen, and worse like it was spoken out of genuine concern. He really, really could bite her jugular right now if he could only get the head leverage necessary. Of course, the evil slag had seen to that, as well.
"Oh, come on, you can't hate me for saying this!" Ginevra smiled as she started enumerating. "You can hate me for offering to be your Secret-Keeper and then finding a way of breaking the spell and giving out the location to a gaggle of Death Eaters who in turn crashed your wedding, caused a fire ultimately resulting in your young bride's demise,"
She finished with a shit-eating "so-there" grin. "But you cannotget mad at me for giving you sound advice."
Ginny wrapped up with an open face and so matter-of-factly that the redheaded man couldn't even retort. Her behavior had again rendered him speechless. She pointed with her head to his general direction while her hands where occupied mixing the (supposedly) Veritaserum with something else in a glass.
"Do you see now what I'm talking about?" She almost squeaked in her disbelief at her brother's actions.
"You're still shocked! How do you manage to withhold that sort of naiveté is beyond me."
She continued while sprinkling something inside the tall glass that looked distinctly like Bulbadox powder, but he wasn't sure. Either way, if he was the one having to drink the concoction he was just glad he'd always been rubbish at Potions.
"I'm not asking you to be all "The Dark Lord's spirit trapped in a diary took me over and pushed me to murder at the tender age of eleven" savvy or anything!"
She said as a weary professor trying to teach "Alohomora" to an especially thick first year seemingly oblivious to Ron's sudden lividness at the veiled mention of his sister. The version he had considered family, anyways.
"But you, dear brother, you'd do well to wise up." She said walking towards him, still stirring her potion. "Not that it's gonna do you much good at this point but I feel like I'd be doing you a disservice by letting you die without understanding this."
At this point Ginny got right up on his face, her silky long locks framing her familiar features and blocking his view from the rest of the room, the sudden darkness making him jumpy but the forceful fingers pressing against his jaw, forcing it open were what disturbed him the most. One thing was knowing you'd have to swallow a mixture of truth potion and boil provoking herb; it was a completely different concept actually being force-fed the blasted thing.
"Ron, be a sport about it!" She moaned scarily resembling her ten-year-old version while asking him to borrow his broom. "I could Imperio you or dislocate your jaw or stab a pen on your throat and use it as a straw…actually now that I'm thinking about it…"
The twinkle in her eye at the prospect did him in.
"Alright…alright, I'll drink the bloody thing!"
Ron agreed hastily without putting up much of a fight. Whatever they had kidnapped him to find out had already been disclosed to her via her special mental version of the Salem Trials. His Occlumency had held up for some good ninety minutes and he was damn proud of it. Word had it that Shacklebolt had cracked after mere fifty minutes under her expert hands. And in his current realm of possibilities some purulent aching sores beat getting his pharynges punctured any time. Still, he couldn't help making a face at the horrible aftertaste, as the slimy liquid went down his throat.
"Don't be like that; I even threw a couple of cinnamon sticks in it."
He gave her a doubtful look but she just shrugged while using "Evanesco" to get rid of the glass. And Ron had to hand it to her again. He'd been over the moon the day he'd managed his first Unforgivable without needing to speak aloud and here she was making things vanish into thin air without even needing to use a wand.
That display, more than anything she'd put him through so far, made him wish he'd been handed to someone else. Other followers had captured him, Ginevra having been assigned as the Dark Lord's personal bodyguard and not leaving his "bunker" for raids or flash-attacks anymore.
It wasn't like Ron could be picky with his options ranging from being raped by a zombie controlled by Walden Macnair or being Crucio-ed by the Death Eater specialist, and he'd have had to be fucking amazing at his craft to be considered a specialist on torture amidst this bunch, Antonin Dolohov, but as twisted as it may sound, those guys would've given him hope. Hope that a gathering of mentally deranged, power hungry, egocentrical loose canons would invariably self-destruct and that the dissentions and the turning in on each other to save their own hide would prove to be more lethal and detrimental to Voldemort's aspirations than any attack the "light" side could launch.
But wandless magic? That was a whole different game; actually it wasn't even in the same ballpark. Ron didn't mislead himself into believing he knew everything, even as inside the inner-circle as he was there were secrets that Harry and even Hermione had never shared, and now reflecting on his current position he thought they'd been wise.
However, he knew enough to realize that even without all the aid the Dark Lord had managed to gather, since as far back as the days when Umbridge and Sectumsempra seemed the most horrifying things in the world, that the Order of the Phoenix and all its allies' futures looked dim if wizards of Ginevra's caliber were what they'd have to go up against.
Because he trusted Harry and his abilities; trusted his courage and his heart to help him rise above any challenge. But Harry was only one twenty-three year old man. And even Harry had to at least mumble his intent before making it come true. And Ron didn't care if he died for a cause, his and his dead wife's and his struggling family's cause. The cause that had already brought about so much grief and pain. But a cause that he'd had, up until minutes ago, not realized was doomed.
And at that moment, Ron felt a despair of the likes he'd never experienced, even when the mediwizard had come into the waiting room to deliver news that Hermione's burns had been too severe and that her body had slipped into a coma due to shock and that even if she eventually woke up, it was possible that the infections would kill her. But nothing he'd felt before could measure up to the distress he started to feel, because before there'd been hope, hope that their effort was worth something, that their sacrifice wasn't in vain. But right now…there wasn't anything left.
Ginevra could feel the last strain of resistance in her brother's mind give under her magic's plowing force. After five hours of torturing her own blood the time she'd been holding out for had finally come. She was finally free to go in and reap her ultimate prize.
Ronald Bilius Weasley was ready to die.