A/N: More disturbingness; you have been warned...
*************************
Her robes fell off her shoulders. She gave a little squeak of alarm. His fingers were undoing the buttons of her blouse, then her front-closing bra, and pushing them both back so that she felt the cool air of the room strike her bare chest.
“We’ve barely begun, Weasley,” he said. Then she heard a rustling sound. More clothing hit the floor. His own.
“Let me go now,” she said. “Please. Please. I won’t tell anyone. I—I swear I won’t. I don’t know who you are anyway.”
“I’m afraid I can’t let you do that.” He moved forward, graceful as a cat. His mouth closed over one of her nipples.
“Oh!” Ginny jumped as if she had been shot through with electricity. He laughed again, a very low, intimate sound. That laughter was familiar. If she could only place it—if she could only remember who—
Her nipples seemed wired to the most traitorous part of her. The pulse between her legs throbbed in time to his erotic suckling, to each movement of his tongue and teeth and lips. A tear rolled down her cheek.
“Liked that, didn’t you?” he asked with a hint of a sneer in his voice. “I know when a girl likes it, Weasley. Don’t think you can fool me.”
“I can’t feel my wrists,” she whispered. She could say nothing else.
He reached up to untie her arms. She shook them, trying to get some of the circulation back, and he seized them again.
“But I’m afraid I can’t let you have your hands free, Weasley,” he said. “No telling what you might do with them.” He leaned forward, trapping her fingers between his, and then pushed her to the floor so that she lay upon her back, his hands holding hers down firmly.
He crawled on top of her as gracefully as a cat. She made one last effort to squirm away from him. It was impossible. He was much taller and stronger than she, and he had the advantage of leverage. She rocked her hips this way and that, her mind trying to block out the knowledge that he was naked, completely naked, and his warm skin was pressing against hers, his slender strong body was pinning her to the floor, and something hard and hot as a brand was jammed against her upper thigh—
Ginny gave a strangled shriek. He covered her mouth with a kiss. His tongue and his lips were hard and demanding; he sucked on her tongue and she opened her mouth further to him, unwillingly; she didn’t know why she was doing it and he covered her completely; no matter how she struggled she had no chance of getting away. The kiss seemed to go on forever and she gasped when he finally moved down to her throat, softly biting at the pulse that leapt in her neck. One of his knees came up between her legs and began to part them.
Ginny was crying. The tears were sticky and wet on her cheeks, and she was wet elsewhere too, treacherously wet, horribly ready. Her own body had turned against her. “Please don’t,” she whispered one last time. “Please don’t.”
He pushed her thighs wide apart, exposing her to him completely. “I have to,” he said almost tenderly. “It’s my last chance. The only chance I’ll ever have. Unless I keep you for myself, after it’s all over. But who knows what will happen before then?”
She gave one last hopeless sob, and then he lowered himself upon her. She was utterly open to him, unable to move so much as a muscle, and yes, she was embarrassingly wet, so well prepared that he slipped into her body the first tiny bit without the slightest resistance. She stared into the scratchy blackness of the blindfold. He reached a hand between their joined bodies and rubbed at her in slow, tantalizing circles, and her hips jerked upwards slightly.
“What do you say now, Weasley?” he whispered.
“You could stop now,” she said. “It’s not too late. You could still stop.” Her words no longer carried any conviction, even to her own ears.
“So that’s what you want?” he asked mockingly.
She did not reply.
“I can’t, anyway,” he said almost gently. Then he began sliding into her body as relentlessly as a boulder rolling down a hill.
Once, when Ginny was a small child, she’d tried to climb the huge old oak tree in the back yard of the Burrow. A large splinter of wood had run into her hand when she grasped a branch, and she had started to cry before it went all the way in, before it even really hurt very much, because she knew what was coming. She stiffened like a board and cried out now at the start of the splintering stab between her legs, her fingernails biting into his palms where he held her hands.
“Weasley?” he asked, his voice sounding, for the first time, almost uncertain. “What—“
She drew her knee up in an instinctive effort to protect herself from the deepening pain. He made a startled movement with an elbow, and lost his balance above her. Ginny’s body broke his fall.
She tried to breathe, but could only manage gasping, shuddering sobs. He had invaded her so suddenly, so fully. She was filled with him. Whoever he was, whatever he was, he had become a part of her. Her body and mind ached with the intrusion.
“I didn’t know,” he said, after a long pause. “I didn’t—and I wouldn’t have thought-- But it’s too late now.” He began to move in her then, and the pain lessened, reached its end, and faded away, absorbed within her.
“Ginny,” he whispered harshly in her ear, as if the word had been torn out of him against his will. “Ginny. Ginny. Ginny…”
She did not answer, but her hips moved up to meet every one of his thrusts. Her body no longer seemed to belong to her at all, however, so that did not bother Ginny very much.
He paused, went rigid, thrust painfully hard, and gave a long, deep groan. He sank down onto her body, and she felt the thin layer of sweat that covered his own. Then he lay still on top of her for a long time, his heartbeat fast and erratic in her ears.
She heard him move around the room and pick up his clothing, put on his shoes. Her hands were not bound. She could get up and take off the blindfold around her eyes, Ginny thought. She could chase him down the corridor, tackle him to the floor, scream for help. She could watch her brothers beat him to death, once they knew what he had done to her.
She did none of those things.
She waited until his footsteps died away. She thought later that she might have waited for a very long time after that as well, but she could never be sure. Then she reached up and took off the makeshift blindfold. The room was very dark. “Lumos,” she whispered, and the tip of her wand glowed orange. She carefully gathered up her clothes, pulling her torn robes around her.
Ginny left the room and walked towards Gryffindor Tower, her feet moving mechanically. Her mind seemed to have detached itself from her body. Perhaps it was actually floating somewhere near the ceiling. For an instant, she had the odd feeling that she was looking down upon herself—a small girl with disheveled hair drifting along the corridor, her robes clutched in disarray around her, the aftermath of something unbearable creeping up on her like a monster in the dark. A monster in the dark. Wasn’t that what had just come to her?
Or was it? Perhaps she’d imagined the whole thing.
She walked slowly to her room. It was empty, as was the adjoining shower. She supposed that she must have given the password to the portrait of the fat lady, but somehow she couldn’t quite remember doing it. Perhaps she hadn’t done it all. Perhaps she’d gone back to the common room rather than turning up towards that abandoned set of stairs towards that deserted room, and finding what she found there. Perhaps it had all been some sort of bizarre dream. Mechanically, she stripped off her robes, her skirt, her blouse. She stepped into the shower, wincing. There was a sharp ache between her legs. It hadn’t seemed this bad before, not even when the faceless boy took her… or she thought he did… or she’d imagined the entire thing… or…
She looked down. Her thighs were smeared with blood, and with something else as well. A shivering shock seemed to go all through her. She stood under the needle-sharp spray for so long that her fingers and toes began to shrivel, keeping it as hot as it would go. Clouds of steam rose around her. Then she stepped out, toweled herself dry, and lay down upon her bed, staring sightlessly up at the ceiling. I don’t feel upset. Not the least bit. I don’t feel anything, really… strange, you’d think I’d feel something, but I don’t…
*****
She awoke to find Hermione sitting at her bedside. “What are you doing here?” she asked. Why, my voice sounds perfectly ordinary. That’s funny.
“Ginny.” The older girl’s eyes were warm with concern. “It’s past noon. You’ve missed supper last night, and breakfast, and they’re through serving lunch now—and you haven’t come down for any of your classes. Are you ill? Whatever’s wrong?”
Ginny stared past her friend’s left shoulder. There was a frightening pattern in the whorls of the wood of the bedstead that she’d never noticed before. It looked almost like a face with cold eyes and a sneering mouth. Tom Riddle’s face, as she remembered it, as she would always remember it, from the Chamber of Secrets, when he came so very close to a fully human form. Now its mouth seemed to be moving… no, that couldn’t be right…
“Unripe fruit, little Ginevra.” The very words he had said in the Chamber, when she lay bound and helpless before him and his almost-solid hand stroked her thigh. “Unripe fruit. But everything ripens, in time.”
And then that memory melded into another. The stranger in the abandoned room, who had grabbed her and bound her school tie around her eyes, so that Ginny couldn’t see him. Then he had bound her wrists together. Then… then…
Hermione hesitated. “I was a bit worried about you anyway. I saw the strangest thing earlier, and I couldn’t understand what—well, maybe you can explain it, I’d feel ever so much better if you did, and I’m sure there’s got to be a rational explanation. You know that staircase nobody ever uses, the one that leads up to the abandoned wing? Just outside the entrance to the common room? Well, I was going down to supper, and I saw someone hurrying down those stairs.”
“Did you see who it was?” asked Ginny.
“No. I didn’t think to ask until later, and all I really saw was the back of their robes. I’m not even sure if it was girl or boy. Then when I came up to try to find where you were, Colin said he’d seen you coming down the same stairs a bit later, looking quite upset—“
Someone was sobbing. Ginny heard the sound as if from a very great distance. Hermione’s voice was growing more and more alarmed, but that, too, did not quite seem to be wherever she herself was.
“Ginny! What’s wrong? Did—did something happen? You’ve got to tell me, or I can’t help—“
And now, she vaguely heard the sobbing turn to screams, high, shrill, and repetitive.
They found her robes and skirt, smeared with blood. She learned that much later. Madam Pomfrey examined her when she was taken to the hospital wing, and she learned that later on as well. There was a standard procedure for rape victims at the school, and they doubtless would have followed it, if the thing hadn’t happened less than an hour after Ginny was moved to the narrow little white bed in the infirmary.
*************************
Her robes fell off her shoulders. She gave a little squeak of alarm. His fingers were undoing the buttons of her blouse, then her front-closing bra, and pushing them both back so that she felt the cool air of the room strike her bare chest.
“We’ve barely begun, Weasley,” he said. Then she heard a rustling sound. More clothing hit the floor. His own.
“Let me go now,” she said. “Please. Please. I won’t tell anyone. I—I swear I won’t. I don’t know who you are anyway.”
“I’m afraid I can’t let you do that.” He moved forward, graceful as a cat. His mouth closed over one of her nipples.
“Oh!” Ginny jumped as if she had been shot through with electricity. He laughed again, a very low, intimate sound. That laughter was familiar. If she could only place it—if she could only remember who—
Her nipples seemed wired to the most traitorous part of her. The pulse between her legs throbbed in time to his erotic suckling, to each movement of his tongue and teeth and lips. A tear rolled down her cheek.
“Liked that, didn’t you?” he asked with a hint of a sneer in his voice. “I know when a girl likes it, Weasley. Don’t think you can fool me.”
“I can’t feel my wrists,” she whispered. She could say nothing else.
He reached up to untie her arms. She shook them, trying to get some of the circulation back, and he seized them again.
“But I’m afraid I can’t let you have your hands free, Weasley,” he said. “No telling what you might do with them.” He leaned forward, trapping her fingers between his, and then pushed her to the floor so that she lay upon her back, his hands holding hers down firmly.
He crawled on top of her as gracefully as a cat. She made one last effort to squirm away from him. It was impossible. He was much taller and stronger than she, and he had the advantage of leverage. She rocked her hips this way and that, her mind trying to block out the knowledge that he was naked, completely naked, and his warm skin was pressing against hers, his slender strong body was pinning her to the floor, and something hard and hot as a brand was jammed against her upper thigh—
Ginny gave a strangled shriek. He covered her mouth with a kiss. His tongue and his lips were hard and demanding; he sucked on her tongue and she opened her mouth further to him, unwillingly; she didn’t know why she was doing it and he covered her completely; no matter how she struggled she had no chance of getting away. The kiss seemed to go on forever and she gasped when he finally moved down to her throat, softly biting at the pulse that leapt in her neck. One of his knees came up between her legs and began to part them.
Ginny was crying. The tears were sticky and wet on her cheeks, and she was wet elsewhere too, treacherously wet, horribly ready. Her own body had turned against her. “Please don’t,” she whispered one last time. “Please don’t.”
He pushed her thighs wide apart, exposing her to him completely. “I have to,” he said almost tenderly. “It’s my last chance. The only chance I’ll ever have. Unless I keep you for myself, after it’s all over. But who knows what will happen before then?”
She gave one last hopeless sob, and then he lowered himself upon her. She was utterly open to him, unable to move so much as a muscle, and yes, she was embarrassingly wet, so well prepared that he slipped into her body the first tiny bit without the slightest resistance. She stared into the scratchy blackness of the blindfold. He reached a hand between their joined bodies and rubbed at her in slow, tantalizing circles, and her hips jerked upwards slightly.
“What do you say now, Weasley?” he whispered.
“You could stop now,” she said. “It’s not too late. You could still stop.” Her words no longer carried any conviction, even to her own ears.
“So that’s what you want?” he asked mockingly.
She did not reply.
“I can’t, anyway,” he said almost gently. Then he began sliding into her body as relentlessly as a boulder rolling down a hill.
Once, when Ginny was a small child, she’d tried to climb the huge old oak tree in the back yard of the Burrow. A large splinter of wood had run into her hand when she grasped a branch, and she had started to cry before it went all the way in, before it even really hurt very much, because she knew what was coming. She stiffened like a board and cried out now at the start of the splintering stab between her legs, her fingernails biting into his palms where he held her hands.
“Weasley?” he asked, his voice sounding, for the first time, almost uncertain. “What—“
She drew her knee up in an instinctive effort to protect herself from the deepening pain. He made a startled movement with an elbow, and lost his balance above her. Ginny’s body broke his fall.
She tried to breathe, but could only manage gasping, shuddering sobs. He had invaded her so suddenly, so fully. She was filled with him. Whoever he was, whatever he was, he had become a part of her. Her body and mind ached with the intrusion.
“I didn’t know,” he said, after a long pause. “I didn’t—and I wouldn’t have thought-- But it’s too late now.” He began to move in her then, and the pain lessened, reached its end, and faded away, absorbed within her.
“Ginny,” he whispered harshly in her ear, as if the word had been torn out of him against his will. “Ginny. Ginny. Ginny…”
She did not answer, but her hips moved up to meet every one of his thrusts. Her body no longer seemed to belong to her at all, however, so that did not bother Ginny very much.
He paused, went rigid, thrust painfully hard, and gave a long, deep groan. He sank down onto her body, and she felt the thin layer of sweat that covered his own. Then he lay still on top of her for a long time, his heartbeat fast and erratic in her ears.
She heard him move around the room and pick up his clothing, put on his shoes. Her hands were not bound. She could get up and take off the blindfold around her eyes, Ginny thought. She could chase him down the corridor, tackle him to the floor, scream for help. She could watch her brothers beat him to death, once they knew what he had done to her.
She did none of those things.
She waited until his footsteps died away. She thought later that she might have waited for a very long time after that as well, but she could never be sure. Then she reached up and took off the makeshift blindfold. The room was very dark. “Lumos,” she whispered, and the tip of her wand glowed orange. She carefully gathered up her clothes, pulling her torn robes around her.
Ginny left the room and walked towards Gryffindor Tower, her feet moving mechanically. Her mind seemed to have detached itself from her body. Perhaps it was actually floating somewhere near the ceiling. For an instant, she had the odd feeling that she was looking down upon herself—a small girl with disheveled hair drifting along the corridor, her robes clutched in disarray around her, the aftermath of something unbearable creeping up on her like a monster in the dark. A monster in the dark. Wasn’t that what had just come to her?
Or was it? Perhaps she’d imagined the whole thing.
She walked slowly to her room. It was empty, as was the adjoining shower. She supposed that she must have given the password to the portrait of the fat lady, but somehow she couldn’t quite remember doing it. Perhaps she hadn’t done it all. Perhaps she’d gone back to the common room rather than turning up towards that abandoned set of stairs towards that deserted room, and finding what she found there. Perhaps it had all been some sort of bizarre dream. Mechanically, she stripped off her robes, her skirt, her blouse. She stepped into the shower, wincing. There was a sharp ache between her legs. It hadn’t seemed this bad before, not even when the faceless boy took her… or she thought he did… or she’d imagined the entire thing… or…
She looked down. Her thighs were smeared with blood, and with something else as well. A shivering shock seemed to go all through her. She stood under the needle-sharp spray for so long that her fingers and toes began to shrivel, keeping it as hot as it would go. Clouds of steam rose around her. Then she stepped out, toweled herself dry, and lay down upon her bed, staring sightlessly up at the ceiling. I don’t feel upset. Not the least bit. I don’t feel anything, really… strange, you’d think I’d feel something, but I don’t…
*****
She awoke to find Hermione sitting at her bedside. “What are you doing here?” she asked. Why, my voice sounds perfectly ordinary. That’s funny.
“Ginny.” The older girl’s eyes were warm with concern. “It’s past noon. You’ve missed supper last night, and breakfast, and they’re through serving lunch now—and you haven’t come down for any of your classes. Are you ill? Whatever’s wrong?”
Ginny stared past her friend’s left shoulder. There was a frightening pattern in the whorls of the wood of the bedstead that she’d never noticed before. It looked almost like a face with cold eyes and a sneering mouth. Tom Riddle’s face, as she remembered it, as she would always remember it, from the Chamber of Secrets, when he came so very close to a fully human form. Now its mouth seemed to be moving… no, that couldn’t be right…
“Unripe fruit, little Ginevra.” The very words he had said in the Chamber, when she lay bound and helpless before him and his almost-solid hand stroked her thigh. “Unripe fruit. But everything ripens, in time.”
And then that memory melded into another. The stranger in the abandoned room, who had grabbed her and bound her school tie around her eyes, so that Ginny couldn’t see him. Then he had bound her wrists together. Then… then…
Hermione hesitated. “I was a bit worried about you anyway. I saw the strangest thing earlier, and I couldn’t understand what—well, maybe you can explain it, I’d feel ever so much better if you did, and I’m sure there’s got to be a rational explanation. You know that staircase nobody ever uses, the one that leads up to the abandoned wing? Just outside the entrance to the common room? Well, I was going down to supper, and I saw someone hurrying down those stairs.”
“Did you see who it was?” asked Ginny.
“No. I didn’t think to ask until later, and all I really saw was the back of their robes. I’m not even sure if it was girl or boy. Then when I came up to try to find where you were, Colin said he’d seen you coming down the same stairs a bit later, looking quite upset—“
Someone was sobbing. Ginny heard the sound as if from a very great distance. Hermione’s voice was growing more and more alarmed, but that, too, did not quite seem to be wherever she herself was.
“Ginny! What’s wrong? Did—did something happen? You’ve got to tell me, or I can’t help—“
And now, she vaguely heard the sobbing turn to screams, high, shrill, and repetitive.
They found her robes and skirt, smeared with blood. She learned that much later. Madam Pomfrey examined her when she was taken to the hospital wing, and she learned that later on as well. There was a standard procedure for rape victims at the school, and they doubtless would have followed it, if the thing hadn’t happened less than an hour after Ginny was moved to the narrow little white bed in the infirmary.
Leave a Review