Real

There is No Such Thing

"Isn't it ironic that that live is evil backwards?"

~ Ironic Files

Ginny carefully followed the robed figure that had come to fetch her this morning, down a narrow hallway. It was damp and closed in tightly so only one body could fit through at a time, lit by torches in brackets high up on the walls. The eeriness and evil portrayed around her only grew as they approached...well, wherever they were going. Ginny hadn't noticed, until after stepping out from her cell, that her robes had been taken from her. Walking now she shivered in her jeans and embarrassingly big top that she had thrown on; one of those that used to be her brother's. Although Ginny doesn't remember much about what happened yesterday...or a week ago...or, whenever it was, she must've not been going anywhere where she would have to worry about what was beneath her robes.

The guard glanced back at her not slowing his steps. Feeling his icy glare she unconsciously brought her hands up and rubbed them together, continuing for long after he turned around. Cautiously, she took a hand to the wall and skimmed it along the cold, damp stone for a few moments. It oddly reminded her of another point in her life she didn't remember; when Tom controlled her. Ginny remembered watching the death of the chickens and the writing on the walls as though in a dream. Snatching her hand back from the wall she told herself what she had often had to tell herself throughout the years; it wasn't you, just your body.

Just your inner desires.

Jumping automatically at the sound Ginny looked up from her reverie to realize they had stopped at a large black oak door. Swallowing a lump in her throat she also realized the guard had left her alone.

Come in, my dear Ginerva.

She tensed and squeezed her eyes trying to block out the haunting voice. Taking a deep breath, that she noticed was shaky, she opened back up her eyes and grasped the handle on the door. Somehow, although she couldn't possible imagine what lay beyond, she knew she would never see this corridor, that cell, this view of this door, ever again. Ginny took one last glance down the dark hallway and the flickering torches realizing that not only was she leaving this behind, she was probably leaving behind every part of her life that she had ever lived for.

She didn't even register when it happened, but it did. The heavy door swung open from her hand and she was glancing into an eerily torch lit room. Stepping across the threshold she became automatically composed and she turned and the closed the door behind her.

"I was hoping you'd find your way in," the eerily voice called through the thick silence; the voice that she fell asleep to at night. "Come and sit down, Ginny," he said in his sweetly demanding voice that it seemed he reserved for her. As far back as the chamber incident goes that voice goes with it. That same sweetly demanding voice that he would talk to little Ginny with. That voice that, surprisingly, had made her feel welcome.

Ginny could see his robed arm resting on the left chair facing the fire. As steady as she could she walked toward the right chair and sat down, looking at the fire, not yet at him. Sensing his eyes on her she acknowledged her urge to look up, bracing herself for the sight she had witnessed earlier.

And sure enough, when she glanced at the thing in front of her, her breath caught in her throat. Ginny straightened herself and looked straight into the eyes of the face in front of her. Ginny knew how to handle pure evil; after all, she had fallen in love with it.