Chainless Soul

Chainless Soul

by Cinnamon

Chapter Eight

I left the pub in late afternoon, wandering around Maitland, the small village where the pub was located. There were a few tiny shops and restaurants, though I didn’t go into any. Being outside was soothing to me. With all the empty space, I was sure to see danger coming before it caught me.

In the center of the town there was a small village square. It was really just a small patch of bright green grass with a brass fountain in the middle, though it was not turned on as it was still January, but it drew me to it, because I think even as an animal, the serene environment calmed me. Maybe it was the deeply buried human part of me that was drawn there, but whatever it was, I spent the rest of the day sitting on the side of the fountain, my knees drawn up to my chest and my arms looped around them loosely, listening to the wind whistle mournfully as it played through the hollows and hills of the brass sculpture. It was cold, though I didn’t really feel it, and there was hardly anyone else around. No one spoke to me, and I was glad. Strangers were a threat.

The sun started setting and I left the small town, setting off South towards Harry’s home. I hid in a copse of trees when the moon rose, my body settling into the welcome wolf form easily. For a moment after I changed, I closed my eyes and relished the feeling of the cold wind running through my fur, the strength in my body. I had felt so weak for so long. And then I started to run.

I ran all through the night, a few times becoming distracted by rabbits and such. I’d chase them until I caught them, tearing them to bloody pieces with my teeth, blood running down my throat.

A few times, in the back of my mind, something would whisper, What would Remus say? but I refused to listen. After all, the horror that someone I barely remembered would have felt for the blood that wetted my fur hardly mattered. He didn’t matter. He wasn’t real.

I easily leapt the fence around Harry’s back garden and began looking for a way in as the sky started lightening with the dawn. The kitchen window was open and, with a well-timed leap, I was through it, landing nearly silently on the kitchen floor. I listened carefully, but there were no sounds; everyone was asleep.

I could smell Harry now, which in itself was strange. I shouldn’t have known his scent, but it was easy to tell it from his aunt, uncle and cousin; I could smell the magic on him. As distinct as a piece of chicken on a plate of pork.

I loped up the stairs, again, very quietly, and paused outside his bedroom door, sniffing softly. Then I lay down on the carpet and waited.

A few moments later, I changed back into my human form, and, naked, I slipped silently into his room. He was fast asleep, and I checked the room carefully as I moved over to his dresser, quickly pulling out a huge jumper and some trousers. They were too big but I didn’t care, dressing quietly, and then glancing out the window. The sun was casting Privet Drive in pretty pinks and lavenders, and there was no one about, except a cat, far down the street.

I turned back to Harry, one hand clutching the necklace Tom had given me, my eyes narrowing and my stomach rolling with hate. It had all been Harry’s fault, after all.

I leapt on top of him, grabbing his shoulders and shaking him wildly. I made sure my voice was sharp with panic. “Harry, Harry, wake up!” I cried.

His eyes opened, still dark with sleep, and his hands came up, pushing me away. He was mumbling something I didn’t catch as he reached for his glasses, slipping them on and then running an exhausted hand through his wild hair. Then he looked at me.

His mouth dropped open and his eyes flew wide. “Ginny?” He cried. “Ginny, what- how… Oh my god!” He leapt out of bed, wearing a pair of striped pajamas that were too small and ridiculously childish. He was grinning at me, excitement flashing in his eyes, and I carefully got off the bed and faced him. “This is bloody brilliant, how did you get here? Where have you been? What- what are you doing wearing my clothes? Well, it’s no matter, at least you’re safe, Ron spent hours and hours looking for spells—”

I interrupted. “Harry. Something’s happened.”

His face fell at my solemn tone. “What is it? You’re all right, aren’t you? You’re here at least, so that’s a good sign, Sirius owled me about—”

“Harry!” I cried. “It’s my family! Ron and Percy and George and Fred and Mum and Dad! Tom—Voldemort’s got them!”

Harry studied my face in the soft dawn lights for a moment. Then he took my hand, very gently. “Ginny, Sirius told me what Snape saw. You and Voldemort. How ever did you get away?”

I was shaking my head. “That isn’t the point, Harry, I came to tell you that he’s got my family, you’ve got to go rescue them!”

Maybe he knew it was a trick. Maybe he honestly didn’t believe me, I’ll never know. Maybe he could read the madness in my eyes. “Ginny, Ron just owled me yesterday, he’s fine, I promise. I can take you to him if you like, in my car, I learned to drive—”

“He’s not all right,” I said, growing desperate. How was my master going to punish him if he did not believe me?

“He’s got to be,” Harry said, some dark wisdom in his eyes I did not understand. “There’s no way Voldemort could have gotten into The Burrow, Ginny. No way at all, Dumbledore protected it. There’s no way, unless someone else…” He trailed off, looking at me solemnly. “Unless someone who could get past the guards took them.”

My eyes flashed desperately around the room, and finally I blurted, “It was me. I did it. Yes. I did it.”

He didn’t look surprised. In fact, he smiled gently at me, even if his hand was shaking, and moved to stroke my hair. I flinched back, and he sighed. “I know what he must have done to you,” he said softly. “I’ve seen first-hand what he can do. I don’t blame you. It was the Imperius Curse, wasn’t it?”

I looked away uncomfortably, wondering why my eyes were filling with tears at his gentle faith, and memories of laughing brothers dancing in the back of my mind. “Just please go to them,” I whispered.

“Of course. Of course I’ll try to get them out. There’s no time, we have to go at once, do you know the way?”

“We need to get to Maitland, it’s the nearest Floo powder facility. I know the way.”

“All right. I’ll drive us there.” He touched my face gently, and for a reason I didn’t want to identify, I did not pull away. “Don’t worry, Ginny, it’s not your fault. We’ll rescue them, together.”

A feeling I didn’t want to acknowledge started to grow in my belly. I swallowed and smiled carefully. “Hurry,” I said quietly, and Harry nodded.

Twenty minutes later, I sat in the passenger seat of his old, beaten up car as we sped towards Maitland. We didn’t talk much, I was exhausted and slept most of the way, leaning against the window. He didn’t ask questions, which was good because I didn’t want to answer any, and when we got to the pub, he locked his car carefully and followed me in.

“Throw the powder in and say ‘A Thousand Miles From Anywhere’,” I told him. “You go first.”

He did, and after he was gone, I glanced around the pub once before following him.

The hearth I arrived in was not the one in my bedroom that I had left through. It was old, dirty, and dusty, unused, and I stepped out of it to find Harry waiting. It was a huge, old hall that looked eerily familiar, but it wasn’t until I saw the single set of footprints through the dust leading to the door that full realization hit me.

“A thousand miles from anywhere,” I whispered, staring glassily at my footprints from months before in the dust. “Anywhere but here.” That is what I had shouted the day I ran away from home, and this is where it had brought me.

The forgotten memories deep in my mind were trying to slip back into my consciousness, and I restrained them with desperate strength, knowing that if I were to remember, I would be driven even madder than I already was.

I was shaking, and Harry grabbed my arm. “Ginny, are you all right?”

I jerked away and growled, “Don’t touch me.”

He backed off, looking worried.

Tom spoke from the doorway. He was smiling broadly. “Well done, Ginny, I knew I could trust you,” he said, his voice the silkiest I had heard yet.

Harry stiffened, but he didn’t turn to face him. He kept his eyes firmly on me, even as he spoke to Tom. “It’s not real,” he said. “Whatever you’ve used to keep Ginny with you. It’s not real.”

“You knew?” I said softly.

He shrugged. “Of course I knew.”

“Then why did you come with me?”

“How was I to rescue your family if you didn’t show me where you had brought them?”

I narrowed my eyes. “Your bravery is admirable,” I mocked.

“Ginny, you don’t have to do this,” he told me.

I glanced at Tom, watching this exchange patiently. “But I want to,” I said, walking around Harry and towards Tom, who held out his hand for me. I took his hand, and he smiled gently at me.

Harry watched with a stony expression. “Let them go then,” he said to Voldemort. “Let The Weasleys, including Ginny, go. You’ve got me, your fight is with me. Let them go.”

I tightened my hand around Tom’s, suddenly worried that he would do as Harry was suggesting. Tom smiled reassuringly at me. “I can’t do that,” he said simply to Harry. “I promised Ginny that I’d punish them for her.”

“For what? They didn’t do anything!” Harry cried, for the first time looking at me with anything other than gentle understanding. He looked angry.

Tom didn’t answer him. He turned to me instead. “Go get changed, Ginny. Wear something pretty, then come upstairs to see your family. They’ve been calling for you.” He smiled, stroked my hair affectionately, and then I hurried from the room, Harry’s green eyes glaring into my back until I was out of sight.

There was an awareness inside of me this time, as I hurried through the halls. I was glancing around me with more interest than I had felt since Tom had brought me here. For once, deep inside in some secret place I refused to acknowledge, desires that had nothing to do with safety and survival were stirring, and I was looking for something I could barely remember. There were whisperings in my mind, memories of something so sweet that it terrified me, and I fought against them with every bit of strength I had.

My arms were trembling as I pulled Harry’s huge clothing off and dressed in another of the pretty dresses my master had conjured up for me, brushing my hair quickly and pulling it back out of my face. Then I hurried upstairs to what had once been the Treatment Room when the building had been a hospital.

Wormtail was there, mopping the floor and mumbling to himself. I paused in the doorway, staring at the floor in disgust. It was covered in blood.

Careful not to get the hem of my dress bloody, I stepped into the room, glancing around. There was a table in the center of the room and it reminded me of the low table Lucius had used for his molten silver torture. There were splashes of blood on it, but no one was in the room except Wormtail.

“Whose blood is that?” I asked him, wondering why the sight made me nauseous. I had seen more blood, my own blood, while with Lucius.

He glanced over his shoulder and scowled. “I didn’t ask his name.” He said shortly.

“His?” I asked.

“One of your brothers.”

I couldn’t help it. I winced. The memories trying to come to life in the back of my mind were making me weak, making what was right and what was wrong seem hard to define. “Where are they? My family, I mean.”

“Down the hall.” His voice was curt. “Solitary confinement.”

I walked around the edges of the pool of blood, sliding past the window. I glanced outside as I moved past, and stumbled to a shock. I could feel my face go pale, and I didn’t want to understand why, though the voices in the back of my mind started whispering even louder. Outside, there was a huge, dark forest, stretching into the distance, spotted with snow. Hazy memories of running through those snowy trees made me flinch and squeeze my eyes shut, moving away as quickly as I could. I did not want to remember that.

Solitary confinement was a long row of tiny white rooms with heavy anti-magic iron doors with tiny windows in them. I had to stand on my tiptoes to see in the windows. Ron was in the first tiny room, curled up in the corner with his face buried in his arms. His hair was standing up wildly, and he looked very small. I watched him for a few moments, but he didn’t move, and I went to the next room. My father. He was pacing, flinging his arms around as he ranted and raved, his face bright pink with fury. George was in the next room, and he was staring blankly at a wall. Fred, in the next room, appeared to be sprawled out on the ground, sleeping peacefully, and I couldn’t help but smile a tiny bit; nothing ever got in the way of Fred and sleep, I remembered. And then I nearly screamed with frustration and anger, pushing the memory away forcefully. I did not want to remember.

My mother was in the next room, and for a long moment, I stared in at her. She was sitting on the floor, her shoulders shaking as she sobbed. I touched the tiny glass window with my fingertips and started trembling, my memories screaming now, trying to force me to remember things I had rejected. Every good thing that had ever happened to me. I couldn’t let the memories come back, I couldn’t. That would mean that somewhere inside of me I was still that stupid little girl who had run away from home and brought all this pain on herself. That would mean it was my fault. I already hated myself because I knew there must be something wrong with me if so much wrongness had happened to me, I knew I would not be able to stand knowing that I had caused it all to happen.

My mother must have felt me watching her. She turned slowly, her face ravaged with tears, and for an eternity it seemed, she stared at me. And then, with a tiny smile, she rose to her feet and walked to the window. I wanted to flinch away, I wanted to close my eyes, but for the life of me, I couldn’t. She pressed her fingers to the glass, right where mine were, and smiled through her tears. “It’s all right, baby,” she mouthed, smiling gently again, eyes glowing with something it took forever for me to recognize. Forgiveness.

I jerked away as if the glass had begun to burn, and only then realized I had been crying.

At the next door, I finally saw the reason for the blood. It was Percy, I knew it was, though I couldn’t recognize him. His face was cut and bruised beyond all recognition, and he lay very still in the middle of the room, his eyes opened and glassy, staring at the ceiling. His body appeared broken, twisted, and there were chunks of his skin missing in places. I was nearly sick just watching him, and my trembling hand flew to the door handle, trying to pull it open so I could go to him, fix him, make it better.

My master’s voice made me freeze. “Ginny! There you are!”

I jumped and let go of the door handle. “He’s… he’s broken,” I said weakly.

Tom smiled. “Yes. But it’s nothing compared to what you went through, is it? Come on, then, I was just about to get started on the youngest.”

“Ron?”

“Yes.”

I swallowed. “He deserves it,” I said, as if trying to remind myself. Somewhere along the way, probably while staring into my mother’s cell, I had lost my conviction.

I returned to the Treatment Room. Wormtail had finished with the blood by now, and it was sparkling clean. Harry was there, his eyes glowing with anger, hatred, and fear. Voldemort had bound him with magical ropes to make him watch. His hair was more disheveled than it had been before and his face was very pale, a small trickle of blood coming from his nose. He had obviously tried to fight Voldemort in the other room. I carefully kept my eyes away from him, going to the window and pulling myself up onto the sill, leaning back against the glass to watch what was going to happen next.

Ron was brought in, his eyes dark with fear, his face very pale, and he was made to stand in the center of the room. Tom did a quick binding spell to keep him there, and I could hear Harry growling under his breath.

“Harry!” Ron cried. “What’s going on? I don’t remember! Ginny came home and then—” His eyes went wide and flew to me, and I struggled not to flinch away from the disbelief and horror in his eyes. “And she stabbed me,” he whispered.

“It’s not her fault,” Harry said calmly, shooting me a look I did not understand. It made me uncomfortable; I hated the feeling, and, as Lucius had intended, that made the need for violence course through my veins.

“You deserve it,” I snarled, glaring at Ron. Tom smiled at me, holding out his hand.

“Come here then, child,” he called. “You can help me punish him.”

I hopped off the windowsill and hurried over to him, murmuring, “Yes, my lord,” and taking his hand.

“Ginny, don’t,” Ron begged.

“Do you know how to cast the Unforgivable Curses, Ginny?” Voldemort asked, ignoring him.

I licked my lips and tore my eyes away from Ron’s frightened face. “No,” I said. “And I don’t have my wand.”

“You can use mine,” he said, pressing it into my hand.

“You don’t have to do it,” Harry said calmly.

“I want to,” I said absently, running my fingers up and down the wand experimentally. It felt so different than I remembered mine feeling. This one almost felt like snakeskin.

“The Imperius Curse first,” he lectured, laying his hand over mine. “You move your wand like this—” he demonstrated—“And say imperio. You try.”

I did as he instructed and he kept his hand on mine, merging my power with his. I felt the dark magic flash through me, fed by him, and channeled through the wand. Ron’s face went slack, his eyes wide and sleepy looking, and Tom smiled proudly. “Now command him,” he said.

Narrowing my eyes, I commanded, “Stick out your tongue.” Ron did. I grinned. “Sing a song.” Ron started singing.

“Ginny,” Harry called. “You don’t have to do this.”

I ignored him. Tom ended that curse and then continued his lesson. “A much more fun curse is the Cruciatus Curse.” He demonstrated again, his hand on mine, and this time the dark magic itched as it poured through me, and I flinched when Ron started to scream, twitching. His shrieks were rough with agony, and tears ran down his face. He would have fallen to his knees if it weren’t for the binding spell keeping his feet in place. As it was, he only jerked around like a puppet whose strings were being pulled randomly.

I dropped Voldemort’s wand and took a shaky step back, closing my eyes. “Make it stop!” Harry cried

Tom stroked my hair. “Remember when Draco raped you on the dungeon floor?” He said lightly, his hand tight around my arm. I wondered dully how he had found out about that, but didn’t ask. “Ron caused that.”

Rage snapped my eyes open and I clenched my hands into fists, snarling what seemed to have become my mantra. “He deserves it.”

Tom seemed to accept that I did not wish to have anything to do, directly, anyway, with the punishment of my family, and I returned to my windowsill, watching as he made Ron just as bloodied and broken as Percy had been.

Harry spoke to me softly under the sounds of Ron’s screams so that my master could not hear him. I only heard him because my hearing was so much better, since becoming a werewolf.

“Ginny,” he began, so gently that it hurt. “Did Draco hurt you?” I realized then that he had heard what Tom had said to me.

I looked at him out of the corner of my eye, wishing that I could feel violence towards him for having asked. I couldn’t however; he wasn’t hurting me. If anything, he was treating me more gently even than my master had done. “Yes,” I replied finally, reluctantly.

I suppose Harry wanted to ask a thousand questions about what had happened and why, but he didn’t. Instead, he asked, “Why do you think Ron caused that?”

I could feel my eyes filling with tears and I flinched away, pulling my knees up to my chest. “He didn’t love me enough to save me,” I whispered. “They all loved you better than me. All of them. And Draco hurt me. And Lucius made me a monster. They didn’t love me.” I was whimpering like a hurt animal.

“Ginny… Ginny, we searched for you,” Harry whispered. “We did. Ron spent months trying out so many spells to find you, he cried over you nearly every night. George and Fred wouldn’t leave home incase you found your way back, and your mother made herself sick with worry. Charlie quit his job with the dragons to look for you, and Bill went with him. Percy got the ministry to help, and your father spent every last bit of money your family had trying to find you. They would have done anything to find you, Ginny. They tried.”

I looked away but didn’t say anything, something like guilt deep inside my stomach making me sick.

Harry was silent for a short while, and Ron’s screams got louder. Harry started speaking desperately. “Do you remember your first year at Hogwarts, Ginny? That valentine you got me?”

My eyes narrowed as that particular memory came whispering back. My hands were shaking the tiniest bit, and I prayed Harry wouldn’t continue, but lacked the strength to make him stop.

“Do you remember? Well, remember when you went into the Chamber of Secrets? When Tom nearly killed you? He told you he loved you then, didn’t he? Didn’t he hurt you, Ginny?”

He had, I remembered. He had hurt me. I started breathing heavily, flinching every time Ron screamed.

“You should have seen Ron when he found out you were gone, Ginny. He was panicking. You were his baby sister, after all. He loved you. And he thought you were dead. And your poor mother, she cried. She loves you very much, Ginny. Don’t you remember all the jumpers she made you for Christmas? And all the sweets she used to send? Why, there are lots of people who love you! Your family, and me, and Hermione, and all the professors at Hogwarts! When Snape told us that you were with Voldemort, everyone was panicking! Lupin went crazy, Sirius had to—”

I jumped off the windowsill, panting for breath now, and shaking so badly that I could barely stand. I was fighting tears, the mad memories locked in my mind fighting so hard to break free that it was all I could do not to crack in half and go mad. I whimpered, squeezing my eyes shut as hazy memories of Remus started blossoming in my mind. “Sirius had to what?” I whispered. Ron shrieked and I flinched, crying out and covering my mouth with my hand. Feelings I had tried to deny were reawakening painfully inside me.

“He had to forcefully keep him from running straight to Voldemort’s lair and trying to break you out. He went mad, kept going on about how this was all his fault. Sirius said he… he cried.”

“Harry,” I whimpered, reaching out a hand towards him as I fought the pressure growing in my head as all those barriers I had built to keep the memories away started to crack. “Harry, make it stop.”

Behind me, over the dark forest where I could now clearly remember running and playing and howling with Remus, the sun was setting. I didn’t even realize it as I started falling apart, cracking and breaking into a thousand pieces. I was going mad; the setting sun hardly mattered.

I started screaming as I fell apart, clapping my hands to my temples and falling to my knees, my shrill screams dancing with my brother’s, until his abruptly stopped, and Tom was kneeling beside me, holding my shoulders and asking over and over what was wrong.

“You hurt me,” I shrieked at him, so mad now that I thought I was back in the Chamber of Secrets. “You used me! You sucked my soul out and used it for yourself! You lied to me!”

“Ginny!” He tried to calm me, tried to pat my head like the lapdog I had pretended to be. I wasn’t a lapdog any longer, I was something far more feral, wild. A wolf. I lunged at his face with a scream that tore up my throat, droplets of blood gargling up into my mouth as I raked my nails down his face, shrieking wordlessly now and crying. My mind shattered, crumbled into dust, and all I knew was that this hurt a thousand times worse than what any Malfoy had ever done to me and that somehow, it was my master’s fault. Somehow it was Tom Riddle’s fault, for daring to claim my soul, for daring to manipulate me into hating and blaming my family because it was easier than blaming myself. It was Tom’s fault for making me worship him when he had gone on to become a monster; more of a monster than I could ever be.

My nails dug into his cheek only once before he pushed me away, cursing under his breath. He lifted his wand, probably to kill me or use the full-body bind curse. He never got the chance. I was snarling, crouched down on all fours, blood under my nails from the scratches on his face. Before he could mumble the curse words, I rose to my feet, still growling, and threw myself out the window.

The glass shattered around me, slashing into my skin and leaving me bloodied and cut beyond imagining. Tiny, glittering shards blossomed around me like a crystal wave as I fell, my hair whipping around me, my arms spread like wings. I don’t remember hitting the ground. The sun had set and the moon came out of the clouds. I changed to a wolf half way to the ground and hit it on all four paws. I bounded away into the forest before Voldemort could curse me from the window.

My memories of that are hazy. That night has become the one I visit the most in my nightmares. It was my first night as a wolf without Wolfsbane Potion, and if anything has taught me what a true animal I am, that night would be it.

I woke up lying in the snow the next morning, shivering and nearly frozen. My face was sticky and I cautiously licked my lips, the strange, coppery taste running down my throat, and for a moment, I did not know what it was. And then I recognized it, and distant, hazy memories came back, all seen through the thoughtless, wild eyes of a wolf.

The memories are distant, cloudy, and I recall only parts of them. Parts like when I caught small animals and tore them apart. Parts when I became aware of another creature, like me, tailing me, following me. Parts when I spun around quickly and launched myself at him, snapping my jaws around his neck and tearing at it until his blood coated my face and slid warmly down my throat. I attacked the other creature viciously, tearing him apart. He was weak, I remember thinking. He didn’t try to attack me. I thought it was because of weakness. I know better now; It was love.

Lucius had trained me to fight other werewolves, to destroy them until nothing is left except bloody scraps and pieces, and that is what I did. All I remember is the hot fire in my blood, the desire to destroy, and the victory when he went still beneath my jaws. Only when he did not move any longer did I leave him, laying broken in a circle of his own blood. That is my last memory, as hazy as it is, of that night.

The blood on my face was Remus’. I had torn him apart.