The Puppet Queen

*The Puppet Queen*

~

She's so naïve that I laugh. She simply is the picture of a doll, a china porcelain doll. White skin with freckles dabbed on by an artist's brush, wide brown eyes surrounded by enormous lashes... The first time I saw her I wondered if I took her by her tiny hand and laid her on the ground if her eyes would close like that battered doll at the orphanage.

It had been the favorite toy at the orphanage. It was old, and falling apart, but you could see many people had loved it very well. Curious, for it was the same with my darling Ginevra. Loved by so many, and yet loving none but me. Funny how ironic come things can be.

Once, at midnight, I'd taken the doll, and I'd undressed it and redressed it in a lovely ball gown I'd transfigured and I'd laid her on ground, loving the swishing sound of her dress on the floor, loving her pretty plight of loneliness. Her eyes shut as I leaned her back, those blank glass eyes. The hair was black, and falling out, but those eyes- those were hers. And I loved those eyes.

She is so unassuming- her greatest downfall. She's a danger to those around her for she can be controlled so simply. Just give the girl a book and she'll give you her soul. Not a bad deal I must say- didn't even have to buy her dinner, only give her a piece of my soul and she was mine.

"Oh, Tom- I've missed you!" are words I probably will hear if I ever show myself to her. She thinks she can escape, the poor little dear. She dreams of me still. Sometimes she cries, tear trickling between her lashes, eyes getting red and her nose too, and I just watch... she doesn't tell anyone. She's silent as a stone, silent as a grave- dead, and best of all- I didn't ever have to tell her to be quiet.

I can see her picture of me in a dream. I'm on a horse, a huge white one in... armor of all things. And she's in this flower and silk dress like she was some fragile Hermia, wasting away like unfortunate, mad Ophelia instead of treacherous Lady Macbeth she is.

I remember what she said when I'd taken possession of her those first few times and made her write those messages in chicken's blood... "Help me Tom; I don't know what's happening to me!" Help me, Ginny... I fear I may die of laughing. Such a fool, only eleven.

She's no longer eleven.

When she was eleven I thought she was a fool. She was a fool, but... I cannot help but wonder what she was compared to what she is. What she is is an angel, but one so pityingly helpless you'd think God had abandoned her if there was such thing as God. I suppose the best comparison I can make is that of a cherry. She was a seed at eleven, nothing more then potential, although a very large potential at that.

Her growth was stunted for awhile. I kept her from the sun and brought her into the darkness, my presence was a shade, keeping her from the glare of the light, keeping her cool and untouched. Then when I was gone she started to blossom. She flowered and was ready to bear fruit- fruit of dreams, fulfillment of her dreams.

Of course I took back my doll.

In my dreams of us, I stand in a world divided in half. The sun touches one side of the room; there is darkness on the other. She's in the middle of the floor, sandwiched between Harry Potter and me. My face is covered in a hood; Harry's is flung towards the sunlight. Ginny's is facing towards the wall with half her face in the sun, half in the shade. I disappear.

Her support gone, she sags to the floor, in the dark. Harry Potter toppled after her. When I reappear, he is sprawled fully in the dark, and she is futilely trying to push him back into the light. I grab her hands and she stops trying to push Harry Potter. We dance together, and never once does she look at the pitiful figure left lying on the wooden floor.

Slowly I have drunk her dry, like a hypothetical parasite. I have been eating her emotions and haunting her sleep. I leave her with nothing more then her core, a stone, a cherry pit, just like she used to be. I've reduced her to nothingness, and she is perfect in that, with no cumbersome petals to absorb life.

Cherie, cherry...

She is nothing.

Even now I look back to my favorite picture of us. I was at the height of my power through Ginny. Light flickered- disheartened fighting against the shadows. My doll was on my lap. Her head turned at just the right angle to come under my chin. Hair the same texture of silk was everywhere. I folded her hands to sit in her lap and she sat on my lap with her knees folded. I whispered sweet menace into her ear as she stared, unseeing into the shadows. Her eyes were blank and she was too pale to be healthy. I could imagine thousands in front of us filling the cavern to the brim dancing and pleading. Servants would come up with bloody wine and I could devour crimson cherries one by one. If anyone faltered they could die- blood running through the cave- people laughing, drinking- and me at its head.

I'd signal and dancers would run up, tripping on their translucent clothes. They'd twirl prettily and I'd watch. One would catch the eye of a servant swaying in time to the music behind her. I'd gesture her forward and she'd scream and fall to her knees and then the very man she'd been smiling at would drag her forward to my feet and slice her pale throat. Blood would stain the throne like it was a sacrificial altar and Ginny would watch the fountain.

She'd been in her little schoolgirl uniform at the time. So flawless and faultless. So hurt on the inside now and feeling ever so weak.

That was the night Harry Potter had come. We'd only had an hour or more so, I knew that. I'd inhaled her essence too sharply and she collapsed against me- drained of years for the moment. I'd taken her in my arms and laid her on a bed of cursed flowers, bloody roses every one. What a silly little girl she was.

I paid my worship to my life source, my savior. I'd kissed her lips slowly, but she was gone already, locked into her elegant little mind. I still have her trapped in her dirty little world even now.

She's lusting after Harry Potter, the icon, and in love with me if there ever was such a thing as love. She'd have forgiven me the world in an instant I knew, but I didn't care. Even now when she is steps from being Harry Potter's wife- a status she's dreamed of since she was ten.

Let her.

Let her have what she's always wanted, because I know she'll always be mine. Is innocent little Ginevra Weasley trying to hide for the big bad past?

Can't hide forever dear.

You'll be mine in the end I whisper at the back of your mind.

Kiss me in your dreams love, I'm still here.

Love me.

Hate me.

Curse me.

Want me.

Need me.

Bite me.

Beg me.

Still here love, have you in my arms, hold your heart.

Think you can run, then run. It's your dream my fleeting darling. You can hide anywhere, I won't come looking. I don't need to. I'm there all along...

She's sleeping now; I can feel her wherever she is. She's everything I've hated in myself. Muggle loving, dirty. I feel as if when she dies I could be free, but I could never kill her, break my doll.

If I opened up that pulsing vein in my wrist I could sooner be free.

But why hate yourself when I could hate her? When I could hate what my cherie represented? I could kill Harry Potter's heart with her, break his will. He's holding poison too close to his heart.

Besides, I could always use a puppet queen.

Imagine- I'm on a stage and she is attached to strings. Her head is limp and her feet dangle onto the floor trailing a clean patch in the dusty theater. The faded blue cushions on the chair add dust to the air and when the sodium yellow lights shine down they become blurry.

We're alone.

Slowly she is dragged in a torturous circle, strings pulling her white bejeweled hands into the air. A golden ring winks from her ring finger, all that's left of Harry Potter; he'd died in an attempt to reach her.

Her dress was white, an innocent color. It was slit up her thigh and tied by a rusty iron cord. The bottom was stained red from the blood of her lover and it made the scarlet polish on her dainty fingers burn like the devil's eyes.

The strings twirl her, helpless mignonette. I lazily throw my hand into the air and she is dragged that way. She twirls like a falling bird, descending from the heavens. The thick light pools off her hair and her white skin like a beacon.

Her eyes are closed and she's breathing faintly. Slowly the sinful mouth, painted as blood red as her hair opens and she shrieks. Her arms pinwheel widely and she falls as the strings lose their tautness. She's inches from me with her arms tied into the air and I capture her tainted mouth.

She falls.

On the ground she lays, broken, eyes open and glassy. I can see her pulse in her throat so I know she's not dead, but she is not able to resist me any longer. I pick her up and her head lolls back so I kiss her throat and her shoulders...

And then the image fades out and I'm in agony. It takes effort to breathe. I look and I find the tenuous yet unbreakable connection with Ginny and I can't let her go...She haunts me in my half-conscious state and I know with her I'm going to win.

She'll be my freedom and my savior and then my puppet queen. She'll never need a throne- she can sit in my lap. I can kiss her hair and watch as her friends are brought before her staring, unseeing eyes, and watch as she gives their death orders.......

When she wakes I can let Nagini lick away the tears from her face and tell her it's a dream...

She'll trust me.

She ALWAYS trusts me.

And then I'll make her my wife, always and forever, until I get tired of my most darling plaything... everyone grows out of their toys...

~

Blank eyes staring

Look around

Strings drag your body off the ground

Faded blue cushions

Add dust to air

Black bows imprison your fire-light hair

House lights are gone

Stage lights dim

You twirl about at my every whim

Blood mouth painted,

Movement's sage,

You're the Queen of the Haunted Stage

Dressed like innocence

Bride in white,

Married to me- the phantom of the night

Helpless marionette

Slowly twirl,

You're only a pretty dolly, girl

Open your mouth

Try to scream

Darling, you can't, you're my puppet queen