Total Eclipse of the Heart

Chapter 1

The cigarette lit up brightly as she brought it to her lips. A galaxy of tiny red stars flickered in the darkness of the night, the only indication that not all was soundly asleep. And then, contrasted against the background was the puff of grey smoke that emerged like a genie out of a lamp and was swallowed by the darkness just as promptly.

It had been her last draw, and with a certain amount of distaste she threw the still-smoking butt on the ground and squished it with her foot. Like a god would squash a bug out of existence. But she didn't pause to think about those implications, and the butt extinguished effectively and efficiently, with the perfect amount of noiselessness required for transmitting a message of sheer insignificance. It had been a perfectly executed deed, for not all could put out a fag so smoothly, but she didn't pause to think about that either.

Immediately, another prickle of red points glowed at the end of her new fag, and she exhaled the smoke slowly, allowing it first to soak through her insides and to trigger the endlessly satisfying sensation of light-headed heaviness. The practice of smoking fags in pairs was now a ritual that she no longer took any notice to, not that she had ever paid attention to how many she could smoke in one sitting. All that she sought was the feeling of disconnectedness that came with every puff.

Tonight, she wanted nothing more than to feel disconnected from the world, both in the physical and psychological sense, so as to revel most exclusively in the intensity of her own inner turmoil. It wasn't every day that she allowed herself to unbury and unleash the floodgates of gratuitous self-punishment. It was hence deeply ironic that nature seemed to be uncooperative, almost as if it sensed her desire to float away from reality and drown into the poisons of her own crafting. It was trying to lure her with the silence of the blades of grass shrunken into one another in gracious sleep, and with the illustrious absence of light, all orchestrated by a cloud that simply refused to unveil the moon's playful slivers of silver light. But she was not to be deterred. Even the peaceful quietness that tempted her to savour the deeply mundane facet of the sleeping world couldn't distract her tonight. That very world had lost its right to interfere in her affairs long before, when it tried to regulate her behaviour through a systematic denial of consequence.

However, standing here in the comforting darkness, with the bitter taste of tobacco in her mouth she couldn't help but remember him. Mouthing his name on her lips soundlessly reminded her of the black mass rituals she had read about in Restricted Books. Those were the only rituals where names were dangerous two-edged swords that could bind and be bonded. It was the blackest of magic, transcending blood, and kin pursuing instead the essence of one's soul, consuming it in the name of power.

Saying his name always filled her with an uncanny surge of energy, a deeper, darker form of magic that resided in the dark recesses of her mind. It seemed to tap into a part of her mind that had been closed off and could only be accessed through the vehicle that was his name. On this night, more so than on all others she could acutely feel the effect of her invocation. It wasn't only knowledge, power and skill that flooded through her at his mention, but also the part of him that she carried inside of her.

She could feel his invisible hands tracing her cheeks, her eyes, her mouth, before sliding down her neck and embracing her from behind, fiercely holding her captive in their stronghold, while his invisible face buried itself in her hair and inhaled with tantalizing slowness the scent of her, replacing it with his own. The musky smell of dusty quill washed over her, and his invisible lips felt like fibrous papyrus on hers. She could almost taste the dryness, unsaturated yet by moist ink.

All of it was a fabrication of her mind, she was perfectly aware of that, but the delicious terror that was creeping up the walls of her stomach gripped her nonetheless, and she could only savour the shivers that flickered through her muscles as she stumbled forward into the night looking for any pillar to support her weight and help her regain her balance. She breathed the cool air in deeply, but could not feel its crisp fragrance. She was too lost in the musky smell of old ink, and old words, and old feelings. It was all around her like a sinful disease, his promise for a slow and cankerous death that he had not yet broken, and she found herself unable and un-wanting to do anything to escape it. They both knew that she couldn't, that she was permanently tied to him, body, mind and soul.

And so, tonight was their night. Their black celebration, their perverse ritual where he rekindled his mark of ownership and she willingly accepted his brand. As much as everyone else might have convinced themselves that she had forgotten him, that she had escaped him, it had been six years and she had not managed to set one foot outside his sphere of influence. The desires of freedom that had surged to tempt her will had long wilted before her impassive stare.

He had had her once, and now there was no going back. The light of second cigarette faded as she squashed it into the ground beside its counterpart.

"Well, well, well, look at what we have here," came a hiss to her right, from a distinctly male voice dripping with venom.

She jumped, startled, but did not squeak, rather turned to face the disturbance with cold alacrity. "Malfoy, what do you want?" she asked, matching his tone.

"Tsk tsk, Ginevra Weasley. Out after curfew and smoking a cigarette. That'll have to be at least twenty points from Gryffindork, and another five for being a Prefect and setting a bad example," he sneered in her direction and leaned languidly against the wall of the school, hands in his pockets and smirk pasted perfectly on his face.

"Right, and I could say the same considering you're the Head Boy and thus setting a bad example for the entire student body," she parried.

"You can't take points off the Head Boy."

"And why not?"

"Because," he remarked, "I'll put them right back where they belong. Really, it's a futile attempt that will only cause you to lose more points."

She scoffed, dropping the argument in favour of lighting a third cigarette and puffing out of it slowly as she took his example and leaned against the wall. The memories had taken a lot out of her and she wasn't quite sure that she could walk without embarrassing herself in front of Slytherin's Most Magnificent Bastard.

It really was a most unfortunate occurrence that she had been caught, and by him of all people. In all the years that Ginny had been sneaking out after curfew nobody else had taken any notice to her absences. It was only deserving then, that the year when he would be Head Boy her luck would decide to run short. It made sense when you pondered it, that she, Gryffindor's wolf in sheep's clothing would be caught by Slytherin's most irascible vermin. He would undoubtedly make the remainder of the year rise to a yet unprecedented dimension of hell. Ginny wondered, not for the first time, which god she had angered to deserve such deft punishment.

"Well aren't you going to share, or am I going to have to confiscate your little stash?" he asked, once again interrupting her enjoyable silence.

It occurred to her briefly that he was an insufferable, spoilt git with an attitude so large it raised dubious questions about what he was trying to compensate for, and that she should just simply stalk off and leave him there on his own. But then again, the prospects of smoking a fag with Draco Malfoy, resident pest-that-refused-to-be-killed-by-insecticide who had ruined the private celebration of her anniversary seemed intriguing. Not to mention that she wasn't looking forward to the badgering that would later ensue if she pulled her little stunt. Vaguely, Ginny remembered hexing him in fourth year, a time when she still believed in the insistence of the world that claimed She Was Fine and that He Had No Power Over Her and was busy embracing the stigma of normality that came with being a fourteen year old girl. Now, two years later, that period of her life seemed so distant it felt like an alternate lifetime. He had conclusively proven to her the price of denial. She knew better than to try it again.

"Help yourself," Ginny beckoned, returning her attention to the current situation, and threw in his direction the nearly-empty pack without further preambles.

Malfoy's hand darted out immediately and caught it from flight without the smallest blink of surprise. She couldn't help but notice that his seeker instincts were as sharp as ever and wondered vaguely what would have happened if she had remained on the team and continued her pretended charade. Somehow, she doubted she would have been here today. That room at St. Mungos practically had her name inscribed on it until she had, in a fit of desperation taken to smoking the strongest cigarettes she could get her hands on. For a while it had helped. And now, she had found her true vocation and things were better. The nights of screaming behind the curtains of her bed had morphed into mellow insomnia and the hallucinations had eventually stopped.

"I need the lighter too," he spoke again as he threw her back the pack, and her own hand darted out to catch it in mid-flight. Some things once learned could never be forgotten. Muscles often worked without cranial input.

"You're a wizard Malfoy, use your wand," she scoffed at him.

"The whole point of engaging in a Muggle habit, peasant, is that you do it the Muggle way," he sneered back. "I'm sure that no-good father of yours explained to you what a Muggle lighter does."

Were it any other day, perhaps she would have jumped up to defend her sire, Arthur Weasley. Or perhaps not, Ginny reflected musingly, as her connection with her family presently extended as far as mundane conversation and packages and occasional cohabitation. But considering that this was Malfoy, and she was a Weasley, he serpent and she lion maybe she would have taken the bait in the name of continuing a tradition that benefited nobody. Tonight, however, she was both weary of and disconnected from everything that was the Weasley family. Having no intention of being drawn back into the reality she had sought to flee, Ginny held her tongue against the insult. 'A rose by any other name would smell just as sweet', Shakespeare had said, and in accordance to that saying, had she not bared the name of Weasley, she would have still been his, prey to the same string of inky words that had bonded her heart, her soul, her magic into everything and anything that was he.

"Happy now?" she questioned as she threw in his direction the yellow lighter, a sarcastically jovial colour when contrasted with the thoughts that plagued her.

"Quite," he replied, drawing in and then expelling a puff of grey smoke as he propped his right foot against the wall, and rocked slowly back and forth.

Ginny didn't grace him with a reply, lost again in her own thoughts and reflections that did not concern him or the mundane world that he represented through his presence. And he too fell silent as they smoked together, in the dark, each doing exactly what they had come to do, flee an all too superfluous reality. Amongst the greying smoke and silent breaths, rivalry was forgotten for the duration of the moment.

"Well, that felt good," Malfoy observed while he stomped his butt into the ground. "Nothing like a little cancer-stick to brighten up one's day," he added, in an obvious attempt to display his knowledge of Muggle diseases.

She failed to be impressed, and, not without a heavy touch of sarcasm noted, "It's night Malfoy."

"For a Slytherin, the night is the day, Weaselette," he explained, drawing up one exquisitely manicured finger in a gesture she had often seen in Professor Snape's Potions classroom. It was uncanny how all Slytherins seemed to display the same common set of pretentious mannerisms. Maybe there was something in the food that they ate.

Ginny scoffed back in a semblance of nonchalance, yet she was unable to stop the flood of memory that raced through her because of his observation. She shivered, acknowledging the truth of his words not because she believed he was right but because experience reminded her of the fact. Under his guile, the night had been her day and she had rejoiced in this inversion that allowed her to be one with him. The night had always been their ally. Mysterious and silent, it always kept her secrets as her bloodstained fingers wrote his wishes unto walls, summoned the darkest creatures and continued the mission which he had awaited to complete for decades. Even after he had left her, Ginny had continued to revel in the night, blooming under the darkness, a rose with petals made of onyx.

"Touché, Malfoy," she conceded and deeming tonight's celebration over, moved past him to make her way inside and to her bed where hopefully the nightmares would not visit.

It was as she was leaving that he moved from his place and came to stand in front of her, blocking her path with his taller body. "Where do you think you're going?" he questioned, grey eyes starring coldly down at her from a face framed by long and wispy pale-blonde locks.

He could have almost passed for a female, Ginny observed, were it not for the firm setting of his jaw and the straightness of his nose from where he examined her with a shrewdly hawkish expression fitted for a king. His mouth, however, betrayed the severity that he forced into his features, for his bottom lip was lush and full and red, almost as if it had been kissed too many times with ardent eagerness. It would have been a sensuous and generous mouth, were it not for the poison that it spearheaded daily into its victims, and not even the perfection of his gently-sloping lips could hide the forked serpent's tongue that hid within. His body too, was distinctly masculine, disciplined by years of flying and Quiddich practice. His shoulders were strong, as were undoubtedly his legs and his chest taut and lean. A body shaped by the aerodynamics of flying, meant to give him an absolute advantage when he mounted his broom. She could help but relish the irony that despite his perfectly sculpted build he still had not managed to beat Harry at Quiddich. She supposed it was again the workings of fate, the great balancer of one's good and bad deeds.

Too late Ginny realised that she was starring at him. Numerous seconds had elapsed in silence between the moment when he had stepped into her path and she had begun to stare at him. And yet, she could not find it in herself to be embarrassed for she felt not the pangs of hormonal attraction that usual girls acquired when starring at Draco Malfoy. Quite on the contrary, Ginny could justify her starring to the simple curiosity that one feels towards petulant, attention-seeking children. And in her mind there was no doubt that her attention was what Malfoy wanted. He always seemed to thrive in the spotlight.

"What, am I not allowed to make my way towards my own dormitory, Malfoy?" she challenged sarcastically, raising one perfectly-shaped red eyebrow at him.

"Not when you haven't told me why you were out here after curfew, Weasley," he snarled back, matching her expression with ease.

"In case your sense of observation failed to notice, I was smoking a fag."

"At one in the morning?"

He was trying to rile her so that she would explode at him and say something that he could get her into more trouble for. However, what Malfoy did not know was that she was not Ron, and therefore had supremely advanced control of the famous Weasley temper. Not that there was much of it coursing through her veins anymore. "Yes Malfoy, at one in the morning. What exactly is so strange about that?" she asked, sarcasm dripping from her voice.

"All good little Gryffindorks should be sleeping at this hour of the night. This is not a time for the weak of heart to be prancing about."

"Then what are you doing here Malfoy? Shouldn't you be hiding from the boogieman underneath your covers?" she challenged, her lips twisting in a smirk.

"Weaselette, if I told you what I was doing out here at this hour, I'd have to kill you afterwards." The grin that twisted his lips into a snarl warned of danger.

"Then I suggest you be a good little snake and crawl underneath the same rock from whence you came forth, unless you want both your fangs and your tongue pulled out," she informed him, maliciously. He wasn't the only one that knew how to make effective threats.

"You're so noble you probably don't even know how to hurt a fly," he sneered.

This time, however, Ginny couldn't suppress the laughter that bubbled to her lips. "Malfoy, you wouldn't even be able to dream of the ways in which I could torture you. Now I believe I have wasted enough of my time indulging in the games of one petulant, spoiled git. Goodnight." With a flick of her wand, executed more for show than for need, she Disapparated with the ever-familiar pop.

"That's Magnificent Petulant Spoiled Git to you, Weaselette," Malfoy muttered, but by that time she was already long gone.