A/n: I haven't had reviews for a while...I daresay they make a pleasant surprise. I'll be happiest when my other regulars return.

Leafs-gurl99- I will at some point update my other stories, like Reprieve, and put up a one-shot (a really long one) but I've been lazy for the past month.

Ben's Little Micky- I think you hit it right on with your ideas on it...you were correct. I'm glad it touched you...it touches many...

Monikka- I really missed you. Yes, my songs are mine and mine alone...heehee...I wrote some I may put up here, can I send them to you first?

I felt myself falling...

I fall so often now, it doesn't seem as though I'd be a Dark Lord, does it? But it's sort of funny how the stronger you get, the more pronounced your weaknesses become. Actually that's not funny. That's sick. But I never said I thought there was a difference. I'm morbid like that.

Ginny catches me when I fall. I wish she wouldn't. It' terribly irritating. I don't like her reaching out and touching my hands. Well, I like the feel of her hands all right- on my back, my shoulders, my chest- but not like some sweet angel. I don't like thinking of her as an angel. A fallen angel, that's more like it. One cast from heaven to lie in my arms in chains. I like that idea. I have always liked it.

She's weak. But that makes her strengths, though subtle, more potent. She doesn't have a damn clue about how strong she is. I like to pretend I have control over her. Cat and mouse games I play with yours truly. Raping her is just a way to reassure myself.

But if she decides she doesn't need me...what then? I'm falling, and she's my safety net. What if she wasn't there?

Fallen angel, valentine

You're on a leash, you're chained, you're mine

Take you, kiss away your tears

You'll confirm my greatest fears

You're one thing I will not lose

But I don't know how to choose

Between what I am and what I need

I need to breathe, I need to bleed

I am the Dark Lord, Flight-from-Death

Yet I need you like my next breath.

I have controlled every aspect of my life carefully. I have controlled countless others. I swore long ago that I would have only one law, one Lord: myself. Then Ginny came through every defense and tore my walls down and ruled over everything, whether she knew it or not.

I'll never forget that time in the Chamber...she sat beside my throne like an attendant and laid her head in my lap. I smirked and danced down at her. Little kitten. If she'd been any other girl...if she hadn't been so young...I might've forced her red head between my legs just to see her shamed.

Innocence knows no shame; it's pathetic. Evil shows no shame...but I have felt shame. I felt shame when I slid my hand up Ginny's leg under her skirt, and heard her confusion when she asked, "Why are you doing this?"

I felt shame when I ignored her protests in the minutes that followed. I shut my eyes against the disgrace when she hooked her arms around my neck and screamed in pain, and bit my lip against it when she cried out her pleasure.

I suppose after that first time I could've not touched her again, if she had never tempted me. But after that, she wanted more. She'd come to me late at night and kiss me, and put herself closer to me, and beg me, "Please, just once more." And always I put myself through another night that makes my senses simply die of ecstasy and makes my mind die of horror in my mental torment. She is so young...who am I to take so much from her?

Some lovers, decent lovers, leave those they love just so that they can watch them live happy, free lives...but I can't bear the thought of her in peace and I in pain, I just burn up with jealousy.

Not long ago she came to me, but she didn't want her body to be my temple for that night, my sacred cathedral to pray in, to dwell in. And I agreed, I felt relief. She sat beside me like a puppy and laid her head in my lap. My thoughts were forced back to that night when I would not take advantage of her like that. She was far too pure...

But no more. Even if I did agree with her, part of my mind tingled as an ugly grin crossed my face and I made her put her head down, and I laughed at her tears as she struggled and objected but I mad her go through with it anyway, and I enjoyed every moment of it, even when I hated it and myself for doing it to her. Afterwards, I let her fall to the ground weeping. How I had used her. How I abused her, made her struggle and lose to me. I kicked her maliciously and said, "Silly girl, all you are to me now is a whore."

I know it hurt her, but at this point I don't much care.

Other times I go to her, shaking inside and lost. It's then that I'm not the Dark Lord, I'm Tom Riddle; poor Tom Riddle. Parentless, abandoned. I need her then. She's startled, but she lets me put my head against her shoulder and cry. Really, I cry. I know how. She hushes me and soothes me, stroking my hair, even when my tears soak her shirt.

She likes it when my tears fall into her cupped hands. We look down at them and I don't understand how it is that she likes them so much.

"They're beautiful," she'll whisper, and kiss the rest of them off my face. I guess that's the way it is; we're desperate for things we find in the other.

For her, it's my shining tears.

For me, it's her pure blood.

I'm starving for blood like that. I'd kill for it. Sell my soul for it. Maybe die, if that's what it takes. I guess I'm just that desperate.