A/n : Great news for those that have been noticing my flaws, (and not telling me!) i have received a beta, Thanks Emma!
This means that my tenses will be more consistent!
Also, i have to apologize for my shout out on the last chapter, (it was wrong of me to say i wasn't going to update!)
and i am happy to say that one person actually called me on it! Hurray!
and just as an FYI, i will never ever do that again!
Reviews are welcome, flames appreciated and considered, and my love sent to all my reviewers!
Chapter Ten- Never too Late
This world will never be
What I expected
And if I don't belong
Who would have guessed it
I will not leave alone
Everything that I own
To make you feel like it's not too late
It's never too late
Even if I say
It'll be alright
Still I hear you say
You want to end your life
Now and again we try
To just stay alive
Maybe we'll turn it around
'Cause it's not too late
It's never too late
No one will ever see
This side reflected
And if there's something wrong
Who would have guessed it
And I have left alone
Everything that I own
To make you feel like
It's not too late
It's never too late
Even if I say
It'll be alright
Still I hear you say
You want to end your life
Now and again we try
To just stay alive
Maybe we'll turn it around
'Cause it's not too late
It's never too late
The world we knew
Won't come back
The time we've lost
Can't it get back
The life we had
Won't be ours again
This world will never be
What I expected
And if I don't belong
Even if I say
It'll be alright
Still I hear you say
You want to end your life
Now and again we try
To just stay alive
Maybe we'll turn it around
'Cause it's not too late
It's never too late
Maybe we'll turn it around
'Cause it's not too late
It's never too late (It's never too late)
It's not too late
It's never too late
- - Three Days Grace
The chamber had a feature which Ginny had noticed her first visit as well: there was a window, off to the distance, a window that was much the same as the ones in the ministry. It was through that window that Ginny had been looking when she lost her virginity, it had been through that window that the lightening cast sinister effects on the chamber, and it was doing it again, petrifying Ginny as she stood in front of Salazar's monumental statue, showing her with every crack the lightening made in the sky, the fang that had been left behind in the basilisk's mouth. It now lay on the floor, surrounded by the decomposed remnants of its once deadly owner.
'Remove the person afraid from the world', the articles words resounded in her head, so with out thinking any further she swooped down and snagged the fang up, getting a grasp on plan b.
- -
"But there's another cure, Neville figured it out, it's the narcissus root. He gave her one, a huge one, before she went to track him down…" the blonde girl explained, as Draco turned on his heel and ran full out to the library. The words from the article resounding in his head 'remove the person afraid from the world'.
He knew exactly what he needed, he knew himself to be without the liberty of time to attempt to speak in parseltongue, no less a specific word. But he knew of a book that resided in the library that spoke every language imaginable.
So he ran.
--------- ---------
She had run, yet still Tom had reached her, and her wand had clattered to the ground. His hands held hers above her, pressing her against the wall, forcing her chest out, causing a splitting pain where her rib was surely broken. She was suffering from the things she had not been taught to fix yet, wounds to vital areas such as the head, and didn't know how to mend broken bones with a wand, so she quite simply had to deal with it. Deal with the rib on which he was leaning, deal with the wound to her forehead currently dripping her own crimson lifeline into her chocolate eyes.
"Virginia, I can see your wrists, I know how bad you've been, but you thought I wouldn't notice, even though it was I that told you to cut. It was I that made you realise what a terrible mistake your life has always been." Tom was yelling at her.
It was true, he had told her to cut, she had been told to cut when she was bad, and she had. Every morning she had secretly cut her wrist, and dipped it in the lake right after, she had been mad at Tom that morning, mad for everything she had done; but she had done it, and so she cut, because she had been taught not to blame others.
This year, finally she had stopped. It had taken a lot of determination to leave the blade alone. She liked the release it gave, and so she stopped; she wasn't supposed to like the release, she was supposed to feel pain, and punishment.
Pain was all she felt now, tears and blood trailing down her skin, her broken rib, and the pressure of Tom leaning against her.
---------------
Ginny's chest was rising slowly, her body dead weight against the damp chambers floor. With unseeing eyes she looked around, and then Tom was on her, yanking her hair back, and forcing her eyes to water once again.
Her whole body was bruised, and he had managed to break multiple bones. Breathing and blinking were impossibly painful. She wanted it to end, she wanted to destroy herself. She knew she was not going to die by Tom's hand, she knew she was his lifeline, and he needed her fear for strength, he needed her to live. That's what he had told her she did wrong, making him depend on her, making her life intertwine with his once again. It was her fault was Lucius Malfoy had placed the book in her cauldron, it was her fault that she was afraid of him.
None of it mattered now, because for her it was going to end. Her death was going to be her fault, of that much she was certain. She was going to end it.
-----------------
Her hand was finally near her cloak pocket, finally mere inches away. The movement of her hand had been gruelling, tiring, and difficult, she knew she had to keep her movements small and slow, she didn't want Tom to see her consciousness. She didn't know why, she just knew deep within that should he see her movement hell would ensue.
Finally her hand reached the fang in her pocket, the fang that was cold, and heavier then it should naturally be. In her head, she was screaming her good-byes to her friends, as tears coursed down her cheeks, and she twisted her wrist still deeper within her pocket, trying to point the fangs tip towards her vein. Her wrist was fractured; her wrist that was throbbing with her crimson lifeline running wildly through her veins. She felt the sharp tip leaning on her skin. Intent on forcing it through, she screamed inside to Draco.
- -
"Gin!" Draco yelled though the chamber, running full out towards her, ignoring the boy who stood with his back to Draco, towering over her, while penumbras were sent to dance around him from the window to his right.
Draco in that second felt his heart stop, but he ignored it. She wasn't dead, she couldn't be, it was impossible.
He ran towards her body, able to see the bruised discoloration even at the distance. He ignored the dark boy that had turned to look at him, he ignored the sounds of thunder cracking in the background, he just ran towards her, needing to be by her side, needing to hear her breathing, needing to see the flickering fire of life that lived behind her chocolate windows, her chocolate irises.
Then suddenly, he was thrown back, tearing his heart apart as he flew backwards though the air. He didn't care that cracking his head against the floor was inevitable, he didn't care about the pain, all he cared about was getting to her. It was this reckless nonchalance towards his own life that scared Draco, but he couldn't be scared, so he pushed it aside instead. What he needed was to be strong, he needed to protect Ginny.
But then gravity caught up with him, gravity that had been toyed with, gravity that momentarily been forced to let him to go against its rules, against gravity's will, and with a crack everything went black.
- -
When Ginny heard her name, her grip on the fang had instantly slackened, instantly all her reserves had crashed, and though simple it would have been, an escape it would have been, a pain killer it would have been, she couldn't do it, not while Draco was fighting for her, not while she had a breath left in her.
But Tom had other plans for her ravaged body, further tortures for her to endure, and she regretted not taking her life almost instantly.
- -
Draco was struggling, darkness surrounding him, pulling at his sense, he smelt nothing, felt nothing, heard nothing, and tasted nothing, lost in the void all he knew was he needed out. All he knew was giving into the peaceful darkness was not an option, he didn't even romance the thought, he merely screamed, yelling at his muscles to move, his eyes to open, his ears to hear. He needed to get back to her, he needed to get out.
---- ----
Hermione was seated across from Seamus. They were in a separate classroom, separated from Ron and Parkinson. Ron who she had separated from Seamus knowing the anger that his words had caused. "What happened to you?" Hermione asked.
Seamus looked up at her, "What?"
She wasn't surprised by his shock, they had been silent for a long time now. "What happened to you?"
"What do you mean Hermione?" Seamus asked of her.
"Last year you were so sweet, so nice, and then suddenly a few months into school you've been with more then fifty girls!" Hermione asked, shrieking the last bit. Her emotions were impossible around Seamus, uncontrollable, it was something about him that scared her.
At her question he looked away.
"Why do you do this? Why do you insist on taking all these girls!" she continued her shrieking rampage of his ears. "You had always been so nice, so sweet, always meeting me in the library, always talking to me in ancient runes, but now you're so cold, so bitterly cold," Hermione was saying. "I don't get it Seamus, what happened? Why won't you talk to me anymore? Why did you do this to me?" she whispered, tears trailing her cheeks. She had fallen for him, fallen for him, and suddenly he was out of her life just months after school started.
- -
"You seemed pretty content with Ron!" Seamus snapped at her. "You always looked away when I talked to you, you never talked to me on your own accord, you abandoned me Hermione, you left me! I hardly ever saw you for months, you always had to be with Ron," Seamus threw back, then added, faintly "I knew Ron would have killed me if I kept it up."
"Why? Kept what up?" Hermione's voice asked him, faintly, both too tired to continue screaming.
"It's only ever been you, Hermione, not Lavender, not Parvati, not Ginny, not any of the other girls." Seamus' voice was low now, and he was moving towards her, but she was just looking up at him curiously.
Looking at her hands she asked, "What do you mean Seamus?"
"They were a glamour, just something that anyone that came into the room would see, originally Lavender needed me, she needed gossip to complete a dare for a friend. A glamour, that's all, it wasn't real, I just told her to tell them I was good, and she did, happily, and we both left the room virgins. I then discovered you looking at me differently the day before holidays, and I just kept up the charade, motivated by your look. Suddenly I was alive to you, I didn't care that you hated me, I didn't care that it was with disgust that you looked at me.
He knew his eyes were pleading, "Don't you see, Hermione, it was simply that you looked at me again, you caught my eyes again, and I needed it. I needed your visual slap, it was the only thing that told me I was alive still, don't you get it, Hermione, without you I was unable to tell time, my days had mashed together, I was just simply wandering through life. Then you looked at me, the day on the train, before Christmas break, and I knew why, I knew what had changed."
Seamus had moved towards her. His face was centimetres from hers, so close that he could feel her breath on his face, see the slight dusting of freckles under her eyes, he could see the rise of blush in her cheeks.
"What had changed, Seamus?" she asked, looking directly into his eyes.
"I fell in love with you." Seamus replied, capturing her pink lips with his as his words finally processed in her mind.
- -
"You trust him with your girlfriend after what he just said?" Pansy's voice rang through the silence that had filled Ron's ears.
"She's not my girlfriend," Ron replied.
"What happened to you and the mudblood?"
Ron rolled his eyes in response to her comment on Hermione's blood, he felt calm around Parkinson for some reason. "Nothing, we didn't work out was all," he responded to her question.
"Why not?" he heard her ask.
"Because even though we both hate fighting, it was all we ever did, that and she was always trying to control me..." Ron responded.
"Oh."
"Surely you don't like fighting either, Parkinson," Ron questioned.
"Of course not, I hate fighting more then anyone," she replied.
"I highly doubt that," Ron scoffed.
A few moments passed in silence, then she asked, "Why? Why do you hate it?"
"My family is big, so when we fight silence is impossible to find..." Ron explained, trailing off.
"My family is impossibly small, but all my parents ever do is fight," Pansy replied, then thunder rumbled and she added, "when I was younger, I loved this weather, because it could tune them out, and for a while I could pretend they weren't fighting, for a while I could believe that I hadn't killed their love, for a while, I could pretend that I didn't exist." When she finished, the lightening flashed, bathing them both in light, enabling Ron to see the tear on her cheek.
Ron, who stood beside her, pushed the tear away with his thumb; "in my family, I had to press my hands to my ears while under my covers to get silence, to be able to think…" Ron added in a whisper and as he trailed off as another crack of thunder resounded in the background.
"In my house the fighting is always raging on, making love impossible to find, making storms and dreams the only means of escape," she added, and Ron was looking down at her as she looked up, and another crack of lightening flashed in the distance, enabling them to both see the longing clearly displayed in both sets of eyes.
-- --
Finally red swirled into the mixture, finally Draco smelt his own sweat and blood, he heard his own heart, and he felt the vibration of his own muscles.
He heard her scream.
She was alive, and fighting, screaming in agony and refusal. She was using her arms, bruised and bloody as they were, to ward him off, he who had her striped to her bra and knickers, he who had brought her to tears since her first night in the chamber.
And he was doing it all again. The boy Draco saw then proceeded to punch Ginny, forcing her head to crack against the pavement. Draco heard him yell, "you need this, you fucking bitch, you need this!"
Suddenly Draco launched himself, ignoring gravity's pull on his body, his wand having snapped when he fell was ignored in his pocket, but he wasn't at a loss, since Tom had lost his wand at some point as well.
Then gravity caught up, and both boys collided with each other, Draco burrowing his hand into the raven haired boy's face.
He felt the skin of his hand breaking in a split second, felt the bone cracking, the nose buckling to the force, and then the raven haired boy fell to the ground, his head smacking against the concrete, then as if unfazed he attacked Draco.
Draco was crouched down then as a feline he stood, his grace unmatchable, and he fought. Though more trained in muggle battle than Tom they were matched.
Draco's body was weakened from his cracked skull, weakened from the hell his body had been put through while he had been unconscious, but he still fought, using strength that did not exist, strength that wasn't in his grasp, he fought on.
-- --
Pansy was kissing him as if her life depended on having his tongue touch her and want to, and Ron had responded to every motion she had played out to him. They had moved around the room from him pressing her against the wall, and kissing her along the collarbone, to her moaning under his lips and scratching four long lines up his back.
Suddenly as if her aggression had peeked him, he looked up at her, and she saw the desire in his eyes, as if he needed her, staring down at her with a pleading expression on his face as he breathed heavy. She knew her eyes screamed the same thing, knew she wanted him, and so she pulled his tie forward and was kissing him again, her butt leaning against table, until his hand squeezed it roughly, and then moved down to cup it, and she felt him set her down on the table.
Not letting the kiss stop, she continued pulling on his tie, pulling him down to her, until he was directly above her, holding himself up with his palms resting above her shoulders, his knees helping, with one between her legs.
He was looking down at her, with a goofy expression on his face, and then he recaptured her lips. When he stopped she heard his voice, as he was breathing in air he asked, "will." Then her lips were captured again, until too quickly he pulled away, "you." He continued, then proceeded to recaptured her lips, "go," he asked after pulling up, then went down for more, "out." His voice box vibrated beside her cheek, his warm breath tickling her skin, he recaptured her lip, the pulled back, and said, "with," and he kissed her on the nose and moved to the lips, kissing her until she could not help but moan, then he dipped his head to her ear, and finished "me."
She didn't voice a response, it seemed too pointless, she just grabbed his red locks, and pulled him down for more, allowing her hands to roam his body the way she had always wanted to be able to with Draco when she had thought she loved him.
-- --
The two boys were nearing the center of the chamber, away from Ginny's form, fighting with vigour and strength that neither boy had left. They were fighting the muggle way, fighting the way that Voldemort consistently announced to be weak, the exact way Draco had been told countless times by his father was vulgar; the way Draco had taught himself to fight when he had been forced to the isolation of his room during the years after he had discovered his mother's secret.
Both were fighting with strength, rage and determination, Draco himself with a certain grace that was still present even in his tortured state. Both were fighting, and then suddenly, just as he punched the raven boy, the boy collapsed; falling back with the added force of the punch that threw him back beside Ginny's form.
Draco body was sore all over, and yet he moved. Collapsing to his knees he crawled to her. The journey was slow, and he was fighting with his muscles which screamed with every motion, but his vision was filled with red hair and aside from the salty metallic blood, he smelt the honey, sweet coral, and lilies floating from Ginny.
His arm was broken, and sticking out at an odd angle, he knew that were he to look over he would see his bone protruding from the skin, but still he moved, crawling on his three bruised, bleeding, but otherwise working limbs to Ginny.
He knew she was alive, how she had lived through torture for that much longer then him he couldn't tell, but she was alive. He could see her shaking, the slow weak rise of her chest, and the tears still crawling down her cheek.
Still on his knees he was crawling past the raven haired boy's head, his eyes closed, but then Draco saw from the corner of his peripheral vision something that cause him horror.
They opened, the eyes opened, and as the boy breathed in a heavy gasp Draco noticed the emerald hue.
"Thank you," the boy wheezed, suddenly sounding like the Harry Potter he had heard about countless of times from Blaise.
"Are you thanking me for punching you?" Draco asked, almost amused while trying to regain his breathing intent to continue his crawl.
In response the raven head shook, saying in every language at once, 'no,' and then he added, 'he's not gone yet-" and then suddenly Draco's ears split as screaming came from the other boy, the boy who appeared as though his soul was splitting.
Draco ignored the ache, the pain, everything as he moved, going instantly to Ginny's cloak by the statue. Once there he shoved his hand inside her pocket.
In a rush he dug his hand in, in a rush he pulled the root from her pocket, in his rush he did not pay any mind to the pain on his hand as if the skin was being sliced open, ignoring it, he turned to the green eyed boy behind him.
He turned to Harry's body, that was shaking and still screaming, and snapped off a piece of the root, and shoved it in the boy's mouth roughly, just as the screaming stopped and green turned to black.
Draco wondered if he was too late, but his body was too weak to question it. Ignoring the pain would no longer help, Draco knew that, so he gave in, letting his back fall down, and extending his good hand to Ginny, the one that had taken the root from her pocket in the first place, the one that did not connect to the broken arm, the one that was searing in unimaginable pain, as if inflamed as the blood coursed past the point that had felt as if it had sliced open in Ginny's pocket.
-- --
Blaise opened the door to what was naturally a vacant classroom, and found himself surprised, staring at Pansy and Red's brother going at it on a table. They were sweating, and Ron was no longer wearing his shirt, which was still in Pansy's grip as if she had just taken it off.
Then Blaise started to clear his throat loudly as Ron seemed intent to do the same to her, but it seemed he didn't need to clear his throat, because suddenly the table beneath them collapsed, which eventually provided Blaise with Ron's eye. Ron had turned his head from Pansy only after she had, as if nothing was important enough to bother him while she was pressed beneath him.
But when he had looked up, Blaise saw the blush deepen from the blush of excitement and adrenaline, to the blush of embarrassment.
They both looked up at him, Weasley with his hands trailing up the back of her shirt, and Pansy with hers going back to feel the now naked chest above her.
When they both looked up at him, Blaise began to laugh. Turning on his heel, he walked from the room, locking the door behind him, and then continued to laugh down the hall, trying to imagine telling Draco what had finally gotten rid of Parkinson.
-- --
The three teenagers lay on the floor of a chamber, unconscious, an odd and horrifying sight.
The boy with raven hair was the farthest from the other two, closer to the entrance, his nose was a mess and his eyes laced with bruising, looking the way one would expect their eyes to look after trying to look into their own head. Bruises covered his arms, as if he had been in a brutal fist fight, and his lips appeared to be fading the reddened hue brought on by kissing, and were quirked up in what appeared to be the beginning of a content smile, as if he felt free.
Next to him lay a boy whose natural features were strict in contrast, with his pale white completion, high cheekbones and silken strands of white gold. This boy also looked a sight, with crimson blood trickling down from his hand, head, and arm, his blood appearing unhealthily darker beside his skin. One arm was also set at an unnatural angle, and his bone seemed to have broken through the skin, tearing through the lean muscles that had originally covered it. Aside from that his other arm, the one that lay the farthest away from the ink-black haired boy, had its hand extended as if trying to reach the girl beyond its bloody knuckled grip, and also had a nasty gash, a gash that lay on the inside his palm and appeared to have a liquid other then blood mixed in, it was a golden liquid of sorts that was bubbling and glittering in the light.
The only female of the three was dressed scantily in a black bra, knickers and her crimson hair. Her whole body was laced in bruises, but the worst of all was on her stomach. Her breathing seemed short, even in her unconscious state and her head was bleeding. One of her ankles had swollen appearing as though it had snapped, tears were cascading down her cheeks, and small bruises covered the area around her bra, as if many pairs of greedy hands had been grabbing at the breasts the small black clothing covered. Her knickers had both sides bunched up and rippled where uneducated hands had tried to pull them down. Her legs were still clenched together, her will so strong it ignored her unconscious state.
All three teenagers lay on the floor of the chamber, unconscious, and unaware of the rain that had begun to fall, taking away the deviancy of the dry thunder.
A/N: Reviewers shout out!
Eve Granger: my first Reviewer! Thanks! and you got your wish! Glad you like both titles and hope you liked Never Too Late! also I hope the outcome for Harry didn't bother you too much! Thanks again! (first three reveiws! wow!)
Avery Malfoy: Firstly, i loved Mistake to pieces, (i read it twice!) and secondly, i hope what happened to harry was enough, (mindcontrol, trashed body, dealing with conscience over torturing Gin, and so forth) was enough angst and that you forgive me for giving him the tall, dark and handsome shadow that is Blaise!
YourMidnightCinderella: hope i was quick enough! and your wish is my command! no Luna for Harry! (hehe)
Yuki Asao: i hope you still love it, and the slash doesn't piss you off! thank you so much for that comment on my writing, i couldn't help myself but smile when i read that! (hurray for reveiwers!)
WishfulWhispers: Happy to hear it!
Anzu Saotome: Hurray to my first Flame! im so proud! this was when i realized that my spaces where not showing up on the site! Flames are good! Glad you still liked it!
scubarang: '...yummy Blaise...' Hope i haven't scarred you too much, and yes, a yummy blaise was my intention!
Beastie: not what you had in mind im sure, but hope you still liked it!
GoodGirlzDead: Glad you don't mind yaoi! and thank you for setting me straight! i'm sorry you had to! hangs head in shame
a.sam: Hopefully the wait was worth it! sorry i took so bloody long! (i kept doubting myself!)
LittleGreyCloud: Bow-chika-bow-wow Back to you sweets! glad you loved it! hope this didn't make your head spin too much! (and that the reduction of yaoi didnt bother you too significantly!) Also, I'd like to the ' lips appeared to be fading the reddened hue brought on by kissing," i hope you got that one, that scene was aggressive, and had lasting effects! Mauhaha!
Of course from now on, any reveiwers shout out's necessary will go into the chapter directly proceeding it! and if anyone wants their penname pulled, or anything, i will happily do so!
sorry if you hate me now, but this song, (as well as pain) are the two songs that have been the most awaited! so i was fretting and kicking myself!
Chapter 11 will be called 'Waking Up' and from Tom to Ginny, and Lucius to Narcissus, (don't worry, there will be approximately 17 chapters in total, so there is a lot more!)