Voice of Darkness

"That's right Ginny; we can't have any of the poultry scaring away my beautiful basilisk," an icy, velvety voice cooed. Somewhere in the back of her head she knew this wasn't right, but that part of her brain seemed shut off, disconnected somehow.

She felt the smooth feathers beneath her small fingers, felt the bones that lay under the feathers and skin break, heard a sharp, desperate clucking and then silence. Her hands were slick and red. She moved gracefully, yet not of her own volition as she snatched up another terrified bird.

"Now that's a good girl," the voice soothed again, "you know what to do." She brought both hands around the struggling chicken's neck. She squeezed and wrenched her hands at the same time. Bones snapped. The chicken dangled, lifeless, from her hands.

Somewhere, she didn't know why she was doing this, she knew this was wrong, but that part was distant, not her. All she knew was the velvety voice in her head telling her to kill the chickens. She wanted to make the disembodied voice happy; she longed to hear its praise for a job well done.

"Ginny..." the voice trailed...

"Ginny, GINNY!"

"Wha?!" She sat up straight in bed, a thin beam of moonlight filtering in and casting a dim light across the foot of her bed.

"Are you ok? You were thrashing around and moaning like something was attacking you," her roommate said, voice full of concern.

"Yeah, I'm ok Lucy," Ginny lied, "It was just a bad dream, you know, the usual." Ever since the incident in the Department of Mysteries last year, Ginny had been having nightmares, not unlike everyone else who had been involved. Or at least, that was what she assumed. "I'll be fine."

"Oh, alright then," Lucy said, not entirely convinced, but too tired to bother fighting about it. Ginny pulled the hangings around her bed closed and laid back down. She wasn't ok. In fact she was terrified. She had never had dreams like this before last year, not even right after her first year.

She had tried to remember what had happened and couldn't. Now, when she wanted nothing more than to forget, the subconscious memories she had never known existed came flooding back to her every time she closed her eyes to sleep. No, it wasn't that she hadn't known, or at least suspected, that the memories of all the times Tom Riddle had possessed were in her head somewhere, she had just never been able to access them. They were a part of her subconscious mind; somewhere she couldn't get to when she was awake, or remember if she dreamed.

Years ago, during and just after her first year at Hogwarts, she would wake up terrified, somehow knowing that she had just dreamt of the times which she was possessed, but never able to remember specifics. In fact, the more she tried, the more quickly the memories slipped away from her. It was like trying to hold water in her hand; the memories just ran through.

Now, however, years after, she remembered, and nothing she did could block out the memories. She saw herself, barely 11 years old, strangling the school chickens. She saw herself uttering words she didn't understand in Moaning Myrtle's bathroom, opening the Chamber of Secrets and releasing the basilisk that petrified, and could have killed, so many people; people who were her friends. She saw herself painting messages in blood on the walls.

What she couldn't understand was why. Why now, after all this time, did she see and remember? She had finally moved past that terror, moving on to things that were much more important. And yet, every night, she was forced to relive her past -a past she desperately wanted to forget.

Ginny shivered, hugging her blankets close around her. She wanted to go back to sleep, but she was afraid she would dream again. Eventually she gave in, letting sleep take her, knowing full well what was awaiting her in her dreams.

"Ginny, Ginny my dear, do not fear me," the icy, velvety voice whispered to her. "Join me, do my bidding, and all will become clear..."