Cruel Beauty

Rating: PG-13

Summery: Alternate Universe. When Ginny was six years old her parents died and she was left in the care of her mother's beautiful yet cruel sister. She raises Ginny with misguided views on love, will Ginny be able to love or is she too late to save?

Disclaimer: Anything that you recognize is not mine

A/N Thank God that I can finally update. I had the last chapter done for the longest time before I could post it. Oh well, it's in the past now. I wanted to clear one thing up that I should have done at the end of the last chapter, but I didn't. Voldemort has not returned, as far as everyone in my world is concerned Harry killed him as a baby and he has not been heard from sense.

A/N 2- Okay I just want to warn you that this chapter may be drama filled because I just got back home from taking the ACT's and I am not exactly in a happy-go-lucky kind of mood. Whoever invented the idea of taking a taking a four hour test on a Saturday morning needs to be shot. Anyone got a gun? No? All right, I'll just shut up and write then.

Chapter Twenty-three

Until The End of Time

And in the end drinking henessy made all my enemies envy me
So cold when I flow eliminating easily
Fall to their knees, they plead for their right to breath
While begging me to keep the peace 2pac

"Eavesdropping are we Virginia?"

I glared up at Velena who still had a tight grip on my arm. I saw Lucius out of the corner of my eye twirling his wand and I figured that it was best to feign innocence. "I was just walking through the hall and I tripped."

Lucius walked towards us and released me from Velena's grasp, "and why were you wandering about the Manor at this hour?"

"I couldn't sleep so I was heading towards the library to get something to read; Draco told me that I was always welcome to your books." Lucius and Velena stared at each other as if they were attempting to communicate without having to speak in front of me.

Finally Lucius turned back to me, "very well Virginia. I believe that you should be heading back to your room though, I will escort you back."

I nodded but Velena raised a hand in protest, "if you don't mind Lucius I would like a minute alone with my niece before she goes back to bed."

Lucius looked as though he was about to protest but with one look at Velena he thought better of it. "Then I will retire for the evening, Velena I believe that you know the way out."

He left the room and Velena waited a minute before angrily grabbing my upper arm again and dragging me across the room where she threw me into a chair. I rubbed my sore arm for dramatic affect as she paced in front of the chair. "Hello Virginia," she purred, "I am so happy to see you."

I smiled sadistically, "I bet that you are." I lifted up my sleeve and examined the red marks that had formed in the shapes of her fingers, "do you know if they send people to Azkaban for child abuse these days?"

She ignored my question, "I will give you this opportunity to explain your actions for the past few months; and it had better be good Virginia because your behavior has been simply atrocious."

I gave her a smirk before going back to my arm, "do you know any good healing spells?"

She hissed in anger, "enough about your arm! I am appalled at you Virginia and I want an explanation right now!"

I stood up so that I was eye level with her, "I don't owe you an explanation for anything. I am not the naïve child that you presume that I am and whatever your game is rest assured that I'll figure it out and I will take you down if it's the last thing that I do."

She raised her eyebrows in challenge, "and what can you do to me? You are nothing but an impractical little child with hopes and aspirations that will only lead to your death, just like your mother."

"And you would know wouldn't you, being that you are the one that killed her and all."

She smiled, "I thought that you were just passing through the hall Virginia, how could you know that?"

"I don't need to eavesdrop to see what's standing right in front of me." The smirk returned to my face as I continued, "tell me, Aunt Velena, why did you hate my mother so? Jealousy perhaps?" I rubbed my chin as if I was in deep thought, "but what could you have been jealous of? She was better looking than you? No, you're far too vain to even think that. Maybe your own mother liked her more, maybe she was smarter." I stopped my act and my voice took on a razor sharp edge, "or maybe you couldn't deal with the fact that a certain Malfoy wanted her and not you, so you killed her for it."

She laughed mercilessly, "you silly girl, you honestly believe that I killed Molly over a man? Believe me, your mother was not the saint that you proclaim her to be; she had it coming."

"And you felt that you needed to be the one to give it to her? My God, if you 'got what was coming' to you, you would be dead a hundred times over by now!"

All of the sudden I felt the right side of my face grow hot, it stung with pain and it took me a moment to realize what had even happened. I felt my eyes brim with the immediate unwanted reactionary tears as Velena fumed across from me.

"You will not speak to me in such a manner! I still control you Virginia and you will not forget it!" I gingerly touched the spot where her hand had been a few seconds before, in an almost shock of sorts. I certainly hadn't expected that. She gave me one final glare before appartating out of the Malfoy Manor.

On shaky legs I stumbled my way back to Draco's room. I opened the door and saw him anxiously waiting on the bed. I quickly wiped my tears as he jumped off of the bed and ran towards me.

"What's wrong, what happened?"

I shook myself out of my shock and kept my check covered from his view, "nothing."

He removed my hand and took a sharp intake of air. He then took several angry breaths before even attempting to speak. "Who hit you?" He said each word in a threatening manner, each slowly and with much vehemence.

I was getting ready to deny and avoid the question when I realized that I had no reason to protect her. Why should I lie about it? It would be in my favor to run through the streets proclaiming it. "My dear aunt, who else?"

"I'll kill her." As he said the words I knew that he meant them, and that frightened me. Just how deep was our relationship? What is it when your partner wants murder on the person who dares to strike you. Is that love? I wasn't even sure if I knew how to love, and if I'm not sure if I even know how to, then it can't be love; can it?

"Don't, I want that pleasure to myself." He nodded in understanding before lifting me up and carrying me over to his bed. I didn't say a word as he pulled back the sheets and placed me in them. He then walked to the over side of the bed and laid next to me, wrapping me in his arms with protection as if I were an object or something that he could keep from harm. And for the first time that I could remember I had a peaceful night of sleep, in the arms of the person that I…liked a lot.

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I remained at the Malfoy Manor for the rest of the break but Draco made sure that I did not see Lucius, or anyone else for the matter. He took my swollen check way to seriously; he made me stay in bed while he "nursed me back to health." That boy has issues sometimes.

When it came time to return to Hogwarts I was eager to go, it was time for me to start my plan. I knew that I needed to gather materials on everything to do with the Evansole family as well as the Dark Arts. I needed to learn the Evansole secrets. There was something hidden amongst them that Velena did not want me to know.

I knew that she didn't kill my mother over Lucius. That could have been a factor but Velena was not the type to ever gain feelings for anyone, much less a man. My mother knew the Evansole secrets and she said they were bleak and horrible. Her biggest fear was Velena revealing them to Arthur, so they must have been bad. If Velena thought that she was going to tell the ministry then she would have killed her for sure. That must have been her motive. I hoped that was her motive, because that was all that I had.

I didn't know how to search for the deeply hidden secrets of the Evansole family so I started out with something that I could actually gain materials on, the Dark Arts. Most of the beneficial books on the subject are in the restricted section of the library, so I figured that Remus was my best shot at getting a written permission slip.

I walked into the DADA classroom and found Remus sitting at his desk grading papers. "Hey stranger, long time no see," I greeted with a smile.

He looked up at me with a confused expression, "hello Virginia, why are you so cheerful?" It was at this point that I realized that I needed an attitude change. When a girl greets someone with a smile and they act like hell has just frozen over, something needs to be done.

I smiled in response to his question, "do I need a reason to be happy? Maybe I'm just excited to see you."

He gave me a skeptical look, "you want something, don't you? But now the question is, what could you need from me?"

I put a mock hand over my heart, "I am offended that you would think that, I mean I just came in to say hello and ask you about your holidays and here you have to go and accuse me of such atrocious matters."

He shook his head and smiled, "as much as I would love to believe that I'm going to have to go with my instincts; so why don't you just go ahead and ask, I'm sure that you'll get your way."

"All right, if you insist on me asking you for something; how about a pass for the restricted section of the library?"

"And why would you need that?"

"A personal project to challenge my intelligence." He looked conflicted at this. Remus was one of those professors that believed no student should just float through a class, as he knew that I did. So me telling him that I wanted to challenge myself was music to his ears.

"I suppose that I could give you approval for that," he said with a look of delight. "But I would like to see this project of yours when it's finished. You know, perhaps you could do this as a project for my class and when you're done I could grade it and that could be your final marks for the year."

I forced the smile to remain on my face, "that sounds…great. Positively inspired, so if you could just write that then I can get started right away." Remus just continued to grin at me as he wrote the permission slip and handed it to me.

I read it over once before thanking him and heading to the library. Damn, now I was actually going to have to do something. And I knew that Remus would expect something that required effort on my part. Oh well, I could worry about that later, I had more important things to do now.

I gave the parchment to the librarian and she gave me clearance to the entire library, something that I had been longing for since I was a first year. I soon became absorbed in the dark corners of the library surrounded by books that should have been outlawed from school and society in general years ago.

I discovered some of the more interesting curses and spells that had been invented, but nothing really helped me. I didn't just want to kill Velena; death was too good for her. I wanted her to suffer, I wanted her to endure the pains and hardships that she had evoked on so many others. I may have been changing my attitude towards life and other people, but that didn't mean that I didn't still have the same ruthlessness and thirst for revenge that had always been inside of me.

I stayed in the library until it closed for the night. I put the materials that I had been looking at back, I wouldn't dare take them out with me; no one needed to know that I was studying up on dark curses.

I returned to the Slytherin rooms and made my way up to the fifth year girl's dormitories. I rolled my eyes as I opened the door and was greeted with the snores of my roommates. I found my bed through the darkness and laid down. When my head hit the pillow I felt something between my head and the soft material. I picked it up and found that a piece of parchment had been placed there. With confusion I took the paper down to the common room so I could see what it said.

The fire held enough light to make out words so I bent down next to it. The message on the parchment only brought more confusion; it simply read Soon the time will come for us to be together. If the words weren't weird enough, it was written in blood.

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I grew to dread the night as more of the strange letters kept appearing on my bed. I didn't tell anyone of them, not even Draco. I knew that he would only get angry and worried and I didn't need that right now. I had no clue as to who could be giving them to me. I thought that it might have been some sort of joke, but it was going to far to be that. No one cared enough about pranks to use their blood every night to send me a message.

My trips to the library continued, my research was too important to let this interfere with it. I was leaving the library one night when I ran into Hermione, literally. My belongings, as well as hers, went flying through the air.

"Oops, sorry Virginia, I didn't even see you coming."

"It's alright," I mumbled as we began to pick up our respective things. Hermione spotted a piece of paper and raised it up with interest. She read the words and her eyes grew wide as she looked at me.

"Is this yours?" She asked with fear evident in her voice. I snatched the paper away from her and read it for myself, it was one of my notes, I forgot that I had even had it with me; I had been searching for tracing spells to see who had sent it.

"No." I snapped at her. It was none of her business and I hoped for her sake that she made sure that it remained that way.

She gasped as her hand flew to her mouth in disbelief, "It is yours, isn't it! That's why you've been looking so angry and paranoid lately, isn't it? You've received more than one of these I bet."

"Stay out of it Hermione, it doesn't involve you."

"Stay out of it?" She asked the question as if it was the most ridiculous thing that she had ever heard. "You have to tell someone, Dumbledore, McGonagall, Snape, anyone!"

"No. I don't have to tell anyone, it's not a big deal. This is merely one of my housemates idea of a joke; you just don't understand Slytherin humor." So what if that was a lame excuse, I didn't have time to think of a good one. I didn't give her time to contradict me on it as I stood up and left her sitting on the floor lost in her thoughts.

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A/N Kind of short again, but I promised a really quick update and this was all that I had time to write. I'll update again probably sometime in the middle of the week and that will be long because something big happens next chapter and a lot of things will start to come together for those of you who are confused. Which is probably a lot because I haven't really explained anything yet, lol. My reviews seem to finally be working as well as everything else of ff.net. Please review and let me know your thoughts about what's going on, I really want to know what people are thinking about all of this. Oh yeah, sorry for the whole slap thing but once I start writing Velena I seem to go a little overboard. What can I say, she's a bitch, and I don't think that it's out of character for her to do that if she got really angry.

Eclipse- Sorry for the cliffhanger last chapter, I'll try and refrain from doing to you again, lol. I gave you an update the very next day though, so you can't be angry. Thank you for saying that you love my character portrayal, that means a lot to me. And if you hated Velena before, you must really hate her now, lol! Thanks for reviewing!

Darcel- Thanks for reviewing and I hope that you liked this chapter!

Icefaery- You're right things are heating up. This plot just keeps getting thicker, I'm starting to confuse myself, so I hope that all of my readers are doing okay, lol! Thank you for reviewing and also for the compliment. It's really nice to know that you look forward to reading this, it makes me want to update faster, lol!

Frananddragon- Yeah, I know what you mean about people rushing you to get off the computer. I am always in the middle of typing up my next chapter and some other person in my house yells at me to get off the computer, it makes me mad. You can drink when you're 18? Where do you live because I have to wait until I'm 21, maybe I should move to wherever you are, lol! Thanks for reviewing and I'm glad that you think Lucius is cool, I agree!

BlackMage- Ah, take that death glare off of me, I updated, lol! Just kidding, I'm dumb so pay no attention to the weird things that I say, lol! I kind of agree with you on Hermione, but I have reasoning for her accepting Virginia quickly. Okay, one is in the first book Ron is mean to her, he openly makes fun of her and all that; but she is quick to forgive and forget with him so I thought that maybe that is just her nature. And second, I'm too lazy to write this long transition, lol! Thank you for reviewing and for the tip, I appreciate it.

Ace of Spades- Yes, it is very nice to be out of school. Although I find that now I am extremely bored since I don't have a million papers to write. Lol, I'm one of those people who has to constantly be busy so I'll probably be writing or working all of the time. Sorry that you lost your foothold on the story, but I put some things in the last chapter that made it seem as though things were heading one way, but they aren't. If that makes any sense, what I was trying to say is maybe you aren't as far off on things as you think. I agree with you on Lucius and I'll try and give her some form of protection, lol! Thanks for reviewing!

Malkavian Kirie Croiff- Thank you so much for complimenting my story! I hope that this update was quick enough for you, lol! And I appreciate your offer to translate things for me into Spanish, I'll probably end up taking you up on that! It's nice that someone around here knows Spanish, lol! Thanks for reviewing!

Marchione- Wow, you still have another week of school left? That sucks, I hope that this update can help you through the pain and suffering that is school, lol! I'm glad that you liked the ending to the last chapter even though it was a cliffhanger! Thanks for reviewing!

Bordellos- Thank you so much for all of the compliments! Especially though for saying that it's fun to read, I try to put in a lot of twist and turns to keep the reader entertained so I really appreciate that! I try to update fast but sometimes I end up getting busy and it takes me a week. But since it's summer, there shouldn't be anymore of those times. Thanks for reviewing!

JerseyPike- You know, you are the only person to hate what the Weasley's are turning her into to, and I have to say that I love you for it! I love Ginny as an evil character and I see that coming the in books too! But for my story to work I can't have her be a death eater or completely evil, but she won't be all goody-goody, so hopefully that's good enough. Thanks for reviewing!

Cactuskitty- Yeah, ff.net has been messing up for me really badly too lately, but it seems to be better now. No problem on the interpretation, I should have did it sooner, but I had kind of forgotten about it, lol! You're right about it being hard to battle family members, but come one, it wouldn't really be that hard on the conscience to go after Velena, lol! Thanks for reviewing!

K00lgirl1808- Thank you for reviewing as well as for saying that you think that this story is good, I really appreciate it!

Kryptonite- Okay, so there wasn't that much Remus but for the big part I have to go into a lot of other things and I didn't really feel like having a super long chapter, lol! But don't worry the next chapter is going to set things into play and we will be seeing our favorite werewolf! Thank you for reviewing and also thanks for that site name, I'll be sure to check it out!