Disclaimer: I do not own anything but the plot.

Author's Note: This is just something that I wrote in a few hours. A few notes before you read: this is mostly DH compliant, but Harry never came back to life after he sacrificed himself to Voldemort and Mrs. Weasley never killed Bellatrix. Voldemort won the war, but Neville did not manage to kill Nagini. In addition, the rating is such because of mentions of (non-graphic) rape and gore, and this is a very dark fic. You have been warned! Enjoy!

"An object in possession seldom retains the same charm that it had in pursuit."—Pliny the Younger

Marionette

He was God, the ultimate puppet-master. He held her life, her very existence, in his cold hands, and it was empowering. Despite her fiery disposition, she was as delicate as an orchid during the winter. One tiny twist of his wrist was all it would take, and her elegant neck would snap as easily as a twig. It was all too easy, which was precisely why he did not act upon the impulse; Tom Marvolo Riddle never accomplished anything the "easy way," and that trait had assisted him tremendously during his venture to become the next Dark Lord and eventually to defeat Harry Potter, the so-called "Chosen One". He scoffed at this. The only thing that boy was chosen for was his demise, marked for the ignominy of death from the beginning. Potter had never stood a ghost of a chance against him, Lord Voldemort, the most powerful wizard of all time, despite the fact that Potter had had the infuriating habit of slipping through his clutches. No matter, he had gotten the boy in the end, playing on his positively Gryffindor heroic and self-sacrificing tendencies.

In celebration of his victory, he had captured Potter's little girlfriend, Ginevra Weasley, planning to play with her for a few days and then dispose of her like he did with all of his toys when they no longer held his interest. However, her feisty attitude intrigued him instead of annoying him, and he had found it quite refreshing after all of the subservient souls groveling at his feet and kissing the hem of his robes. As a result, he decided to be the merciful lord that he was and let her live for a little while longer. When her lack of respect for his person started to grate on his nerves after a year, he still refrained from killing her; instead, he decided that taking on the task of breaking her would be his next source of entertainment. At that point, he had long ago accessed her memories in order to use her insecurities and inner fears against her. He had been most amused by the discovery that what she still feared the most was his younger self. Therefore, in his first effort to break her, he had modified the Polyjuice Potion (making a more permanent version, and wearing glamour for Death Eater meetings and such) to suit his needs in order to turn his appearance back to that of young Tom Riddle's. He had relished the expression on Miss Weasley's face when she realized that her worst nightmare had come to life. He had also smirked at the sheer irony that this handsome visage inspired more fear in her than his usual snake-like appearance.

He would never forget the fury and helplessness that she had expressed the first time he had taken her. She had resisted the first few times, pleading for him to stop and hopelessly beating her petite fists against his chest, but she had never cried, which was fine with him. (He could not stand it when his victims, or anyone else for that matter, bawled like mewling infants, for it was the epitome of weakness and vulnerability and it reminded him too much of those torturous years spent in Wool's Orphanage.) She no longer resisted when he violated her, but nor was she a willing partner. Ginevra would lie under him staring blankly at the space, no doubt "thinking of England".

Amazingly, her continuous rape was not what broke her; rather, it was when he tortured and brutally slaughtered the rest of her surviving kin in front of her, even going so far as to put her under the Imperius Curse and force her to slit the throat of one of her brothers. He had expected to feel triumph and a sense of accomplishment when he had succeeded in breaking her—after all, it had been his goal—but he felt strangely hollow. No, he was not remorseful or regretful, but it had been an empty, bittersweet victory, nonetheless.

No longer did her brown eyes sparkle with an inner fire, instead they reflected the lifelessness within. She had stopped eating her meals regularly, and he had had to force-feed her via the Imperius Curse in order to keep her alive. Even her fiery hair had lost its vibrancy and luster. Preferring a state of catatonia, she almost never spoke, no matter how much he hurt or insulted her, and when she did speak, her voice was soft and subdued. Tom Riddle had officially turned Ginevra Weasley into a mere shadow of herself, and he hated her even more for it. He might as well have let loose a dementor and let it have its way with her, for it would have yielded the same result, the same soulless shell of a person. He sometimes wished for the old Ginevra, the one who argued with him and rebelled against him. This thing was not Ginevra, and it disgusted him. She had truly become his puppet, a marionette that he could control with ease, which is something that ordinarily would have delighted him.

He should have known that something was off when she did not arrive at breakfast one morning and did not answer her door. Lord Voldemort, in all of his wisdom, had thought that she was in one of her perpetual states of catatonia and was ignoring the door. "Ginevra! Ginevra, open the door now or suffer the consequences!" he threatened. When that garnered no response, he blasted the door aside. The tidy, modest bedroom was empty, and this only fueled his frustration. Where was she? The door that led to the bathroom was slightly ajar, and it the sight of it filled him with dread, for reasons unknown. He tentatively opened the door further and was greeted with a gruesome sight. She lay spread-eagle on the cold tile, a pool of drying blood around her, matching the crimson hue of her hair. In her hand lay a shard of the broken bathroom mirror, and her wrists had a grotesque medley of deep, sloppily formed lacerations. The rest of the broken mirror lay around her in the blood, forming a halo of destruction. His marionette's strings had been cut.

A fury that he had never known rose up in his chest and threatened to suffocate him. How dare she take her own life? It was his, and only his, to take, not hers. The irrepressible need to kill, to hurt, to maim reared its head. Spotting an owl flying by the bathroom window, he sent a well-aimed Killing Curse at it, and he still felt unsatisfied as the spell hit its target. Only when he had completely demolished Ginevra's quarters and incinerated her body did feel slightly calmer, but his wand hand still itched to torture some poor, unsuspecting soul.

Disgusted, he strode from the room and never looked back. He would find a new pet to entertain him. Yes, that was what he would do. Everyone, except for himself, was expendable. It would be a full two centuries later until he realized that he could never find a replacement for Ginevra Molly Weasley. He also did not know that two floors below him, Bellatrix Lestrange was cleaning blood off her robes, cackling madly as she did so.

Author's Note: Bellatrix is an evil bitch, isn't she? Yes, she murdered Ginny out of jealousy because she wanted Voldemort all to herself. Oh, and Voldemort is immortal, if you did not catch that. Please review, because I would love to know what you guys think. Are there any parts that are not clear or are confusing? By the way, this is my first finished fan fiction. I am so proud of myself for actually managing to finish one! (They are all novel-length and I have a horrible case of writer's block for them.) Anyway, I hope you enjoyed it! Thanks for reading!