Empty and So Beautiful

Oh Vivica, I wish you well, I’ll sit right here, I’ll never tell....

How did she end up like this? Her life slowly slipped away, and she was too weak to stop it. Each day, she fell in deeper, and now, no matter how much she wanted to, she couldn’t turn back.

No tender scar, no twist of fate will save you now...

She remembers when it started. The first sniff she took. How it burned her nostrils and went straight to her brain and it was like nothing she had ever felt before. Things looked different. Felt different. And when the blade pushed into her skin, she began to laugh. Blood had never looked so beautiful.

He’ll never change, it’s just not fair...

He had promised her some good shit, in exchange for a few favors. She followed him into an empty classroom and he unzipped his pants and pushed her head to his groin. She took him in her mouth and made him moan and when it was over she swallowed his fluids and he handed her a syringe.

"This isn’t what I asked for," she said, her frustration mounting.

"You asked for coke, princess. And I guarantee you, that is coke. And it’s about ten times better."

And he was right.

He’ll never say you’re beautiful...

She met him every night. She gave him her body and he gave her a fix. And when she was high, it was like she was floating above everything, and she could pretend he wasn’t someone who made her skin crawl. After all, sometimes a girl has to take what she can get.

Oh Vivica, I wish you well, I really do...I really do...

And then, something so amazing and so terrifying happened. She fell in love. No, not with him. Nothing could ever make her love him. She fell in love with a boy with pale blonde hair and alabaster skin and eyes like ice. Draco. He seemed so strange to her. After six years of saying nothing to her but the occasional insult, one night he pulled her into an empty corridor and pressed his lips to hers before she could protest. She wasn’t sure she would have anyway. She thought she fell in love with him the moment she looked into his eyes, and saw - beneath the layers of grey ice – a brightly burning fire. One that threatened to swallow her and devour her in its flames. She was willing to burn, as long as he was with her.

The apple falls far from the tree, she’s rotten and so beautiful....

One night, he met her outside her common room and grabbed her by the hand. His eyes were sparkling the way they did when he was planning something. She asked him where he was taking her and he told her she would see. He led them to the astronomy tower. It was dark, lit only by moonlight. He kissed her and kissed her until her head was spinning. Their clothes were on the floor and he was trailing his lips over her collarbone and her shoulders and then he saw them. Scars and tracks, running from the tops of her shoulders all the way to her wrists. He drew in a breath and she felt her heart wrench and prepared herself for him to say goodbye. But he didn’t. He moved his lips over them, and she felt like she might cry. They made love that night, and it was nothing like her time with Harry.

"I love you," he whispered, his fingers tracing over her stomach. Her breath caught in her throat and she hesitated a moment before kissing him gently and saying, "I love you, too."

Things were perfect with him here, and she never wanted to leave.

I’d like to keep her here with me, and tell her that she’s beautiful...

But she did. It wasn’t long before the symptoms started. Her hands shook and her legs were weak and she felt like she was dying. She staggered into the empty room she had been in so many times before. He was there, a syringe held in his hand and his green eyes burning holes into her skin.

"Long time, no see," he said.

His voice was so cold and even behind his spectacles his eyes were blazing.

"I’ve been busy," she replied weakly. Her throat was dry and her tongue felt like lead.

"I’ll bet you have." He paused and held out his hand, examining the syringe that lay in his palm before looking up at her again. "Is this what you want?"

She nodded shakily, trying to ignore the rushing sound in her ears.

She takes the pills to fall asleep....

"Hmmm..." He jumped off the tabled on which he had been sitting and started to walk toward her. Suddenly afraid, she took a step back, pressing herself against the wall. She tried not to let her fear show, but she was never very good at hiding her emotions, however much she tried.

In a moment, he was in front of her. He placed one hand on the wall beside her head and leaned his body into hers.

"A little birdie told me something very interesting..." he said, his lips brushing her ear as he spoke. "Do you have any idea what it could be?"

Her heart pounding, she shook her head.

"I think you do." He stepped closer to her. She could feel his erection pressing between her thighs and his hot breath on her cheek. He laughed bitterly. "I knew you were a whore, Gin, but Draco Malfoy? That’s low, even for you."

"I didn’t–"

He pounded his fist against the wall. "Don’t fucking lie to me!"

She realized she was trembling and it had nothing to do with the drugs. She was terrified.

"Whatever you had with him ends now. Or I will rip you both from limb to limb and don’t think I won’t."

She bit the inside of her cheek and fought back tears as he nipped her ear rather roughly and slid the syringe into the front pocket of her jeans.

"Now be a good girl and get on your knees."

And dreams that she’s invisible...

She went to Draco’s room the next morning.

"We have to talk."

He smirked at her. "Ok, come sit down."

She shook her head, feeling slightly sick. "No, I think I should stand."

"...Ok.." he said, looking confused.

"Draco, it’s over."

He blinked. "What?"

"It’s over."

"Ginny, that’s not fucking funny."

"It’s not meant to be. I don’t love you Draco–"

"No, you’re lying," he said over her.

"–I used you. It was a game."

"Shut up! Stop lying!"

"I’m sorry..."

"No, you’re not. Because you’re not really leaving me. Tell me that you’re lying, Ginny."

"I’m sorry, Draco."

His eyes narrowed and he clenched his fists at his sides. He was silent for a moment, before he bursted.

"Get out of my room, you lying, backstabbing whore. I don’t ever want to look at you again."

She obliged to his request. It was the least she could do. When she got back to her room, she barely made it to the bathroom before she retched. He was right in all the things he had called her. But she had done this for him. For the first time, she had been really in love. And he would never know the truth.

When Draco was found dead, she knew it was Harry’s way of making sure secrets stayed secret.

Tormented dreams, she stays awake...

She tried to stop. Really she did. But her body needed it more than oxygen. And he knew it, too. The little bastard knew it and he kept her dry for days and then fucked her when she was too sick to fight. He fucked her hard and fast and then he slid the needle into her arm and she felt life rush back to her as it entered her veins.

"No one can give you what I can, Ginny. You’re with me or you’re dead. Remember that."

Somewhere, deep inside, she knew that he was right.

Recalls when she was capable....

In the end, her path led her here. This noisy, dirty neighborhood, where women like her ended up dead in the bed of a stranger, or at the hands of a jealous dealer. She feared this was to be her fate as well. Perhaps that is what kept her with him, what drove her to keep him satisfied. Maybe it was just that she was too weak to fight the addiction, and had accepted that this was all she deserved.

Either way, she knew she would never escape.

She’s empty and so beautiful, I’ll keep her here with me....