Dead
By: epiphanies
Dark, unexplained, one-shot, shortish.
Ginny Weasley was waiting in the still shadows of the Forbidden Forest. She was motionless. She wasn't even breathing.
Of course, she didn't need to. She hadn't had the mortal necessity of breath for over a week.
She was still getting used to it.
It was a rather exhilarating feeling, standing still. Unmoving. No pulse, no breath, unblinkingly standing in the still shadows of a forest that was more alive than she herself.
She took a breath, just for the fun of it. She slowly let it go, and fluttered her eyelashes. Every movement seemed a wonder to her. A wonder that she had ever taken such things for granted.
Even one week before.
Especially one week before, when she had been running through the Forbidden Forest, trying to find her brother, who had died in it all of seven months previous fighting in the Wizard War.
Ron had been a brave boy. He had been a hero. Even more so than his best friend, the ever-so-famous Harry Potter.
Ginny had had a great "thing" for Harry in her earlier years of schooling. He had the green eyes that haunted her dreams since her birth. She had always known, even when she played house as a child, that her husband would have green eyes. She herself had always wished that she had green eyes. But, no matter how hard she tried to jinx, charm and just plain old beg her eyes to change colour, they never did.
Except a week ago. They did. A week ago.
For when she had been running in the Forbidden Forest, she had come across something rather solid. In fact, she had bodily run into something solid.
She opened her eyes as she heard a rustling noise in the bush. She didn't move.
She could smell it. A small rabbit, nothing more. Even though she had been reborn a mere seven days previous, she had gotten over the tiny-easy-to-catch prey phase. She wanted more. She wanted a chase. She wanted excitement. She wanted a human.
And a human she would have.
In moments. In only a few moments.
For she could feel his form, the form of the boy she had crushed on for four, maybe five years straight padding toward her. He was covered in the Invisibility Cloak, of course. But that didn't matter. She could feel his presence. Smell him. She could smell him.
She had never before come close enough to smell him. But, she could smell him now. A scent that she knew, even without knowing. Cinnamon and burnt toast. The Harry Potter Original.
He could see her, she knew. He could see her, black robes billowing, standing in the darkness, because her eyes were aglow. Green.
He would perhaps tell himself that it was a trick of the light. That the moon was shining on her eyes, with the green of the shrubbery around her glimmering green.
But it was not a trick of the light.
The cinnamon was more potent now. She curved her blood-red lips into a smile.
She waited patiently until he had taken off his cloak, and then said, "Hello, Harry."
He looked at her, looking a mixture between intrigued and confused.
"Lo, Ginny. It's freezing out here, why don't you take my cloak?"
"I am always cold, Harry. Never does it matter whether I am in summer rain or winter snow. I shall always be cold."
Harry's eyebrows went up slightly, "Well, I don't really know what you mean, but er...why did you ask me to come out here?"
Ginny cocked her head, only slightly, so that the fresh scar on her neck was only peaking out from her ebony robes.
"I wanted to give you something, Harry."
"What?"
Ginny's memory returned to the week before, when she had bumped into the man - the beast - who had whispered these same words to her.
"I want to give you life."
Harry's mouth parted in shock, "I don't understand."
She fluttered her long eyelashes, "Harry, I want to give you eternity."
She drew closer, and Harry was looking about her nervously, "Ginny, please, tell me what you're on about...is this about Ron? Ginny, if you need to talk..."
"Ron?" Ginny said, her eyes clouding over, "Ron? Why speak of the dead? They are no longer here to fight their own battles, wage their own opinions and see their own blood spill from their veins. They are what they are. They are dead."
Harry winced, "Ginny, what is the matter-"
"I do not wish to speak of matters of the heart!" Ginny spat, then, regaining her composure, she laid a porcelain white finger on his cheek, "I wish to speak of eternity. Of forever. Of life. Of you and I. Do you wish to die, Harry? Die like your best friend did?"
"I don't wish to die," Harry said, his voice catching, "But if I had to, I would want to go the same way Ron did. He was a true hero."
"Heroism is for books, Harry." Ginny said softly, locking his eyes with hers, not allowing him to break the gaze, "You are not a hero. You will never be a hero. Even if you die, you will never be a hero. But I can make you live. Live so that you will never have to die a coward."
"Ginny, stop talking nonsense! If Ron were here right now, he'd-"
"He would tell you that you were a right hero about everything. That you get all of the attention. That you were a bad friend," she whispered, and seeing the pain on Harry's face, she relished as she whispered into his own mouth, "He would say that you were a stupid, self centred prat, and he only was your friend because of that scar right there."
She raised her lips and brushed them against the scar on his forehead, and feeling liquid on his cheeks, she stared at him again, "I can give you power. I can give you life. I can make you invisible to the world, Harry. I can take every pain away from you."
"Every pain?" he repeated, watching her glowing eyes grow passionate, "You can make me invisible?"
"So that there will be no more Harry Potter, the Boy Who Lived. So that there will be no more press releases, owls from rabid fans, no more having to fight Lord Voldemort and worries about death and dying. I can erase you, Harry," she breathed, parting her lips to show her pointed fangs, " Let me erase you."
Harry's eyes were wide with fright and temptation, "Ginny... I don't want to be like that."
"You have no choice." Ginny licked her lips.
"Kill me, Ginny..."
"Why waste such perfection? I can make you forever, Harry!"
Tears were streaming down his face, "I don't want to be forever!"
"Are you sure?"
"I'm sure." he said, his hands shaking.
Ginny narrowed her eyes at the trembling boy, "Harry..."
And with that final proclamation of his famous name, she could wait no longer. She plunged her canines into the soft skin and tissue of his neck hungrily...and drank. For her creator. For herself. For Ron. For Harry.
For death. For darkness.
