A Pile of Wet Curls

Ginny gave an involuntary shudder. She had wet hair. Of course she had wet hair; she had just gotten out of a steamy shower. Her entire body was still bright pink and burning from a mishap with the shower dials. She shook the towel that was wrapped around her head off and stared, horrified at the image that stared back at her.

Wet, red curls streamed down her pink naked body. Clear drops of water dripped off the ends and splattered onto the floor all around her. She was wet, sopping wet like a dog. Ginny shook her head back and forth violently, spraying water drops over the mirror, the toilet, the shower curtain, the walls.

Ginny grabbed a wood comb from the sink and knelt down onto the cold stone, staring at her belly button. The touch of the icy stones soothed her burning legs while the frigid air around her chilled her still-wet body and caused goosebumps all over her body. She frantically flipped her head down, hair piling on the floor in front of her, and began to yank the brush through it, tearing the knots out. And what she could not tear, she violently pulled, yanking strand upon strand out of her head. She flinched as she felt the hair leave its root. Tom didn´t like wet hair. She didn´t know why, but she knew what would happen. She shuddered.

More hair was pulled from their roots. Her hair was now very fine, thinned by repeated abuse. Ginny curled herself in a fetal position, letting the damp curls fall over her shoulders, hiding herself from an invisible enemy. She quivered slightly in fear at remembrance of the memories that raced through her head.

Tom was holding a handful of slippery, curly red hair angrily in his hand. She was crying, pleading with him to stop, it hurt her. The chamber where they were was dark and completely empty, the hallway behind them was just as dark and deserted as the chamber; no one could hear her pleads for help, for mercy. He was yelling. The wet hair, just the sight of it, had bothered him. He threw her down, her red hair mingling with the salty tears from her eyes. He kicked Ginny in the side, and she huddled together.

Tom was a drug that was killing her that she couldn´t get enough of. He was eating her, dining on her soul. Even when he went away, she could feel his presence inside her. He hurt her sometimes, but Ginny kept seeing him, determined to bring out the good that she knew she had seen the moment she had met him. The care in his eyes, the pleasantness in his voice, the way that he listened and cared about what had gone wrong in her classes, and the patience he had when he helped her with her homework. It was there, Ginny knew it was.

Now in her seventh year, Tom made her do things that she wouldn´t normally do, things like what she was doing with her hair and the abuse she put her body through. She would cry in the middle of her classes without reason or logic, and then be totally unable to explain why. To the younger student, she was insane; to her classmates, she was possessed, a laughing stock. To Ginny, when she was Ginny, she was alone.

Ginny cried as she glanced up at herself. Her head looked so big when it had little hair at the top. The hair was wet, not enough that it stuck to her head, but enough that she could feel it against her back as the curls trailed down it. Tom would never want her like this. Her free-falling tears stained her clothes, a sweater and some pants. She threw an old black robe over her clothes and stumbled out of the empty common room to the equally empty hallway.

Her head throbbed, her body burned and froze. The tears stung her eyes and every gasp she took hurt her lungs. Every thought she took pained her to think it, and every move she attempted made her body ache. She was in living hell. She would die in living hell. `But,´ she thought ruefully, `After I fall, it´ll be all over. And I can rot in peace and let the rodents eat my body.´

She walked blindly to the tower, running into walls and stubbing her bare toes. They curled as the pain shot through her spine. Ginny´s vision was blurred, her senses dulled, her looks were damaged and abused. When she opened the door, the cold night air hit her face and she wiped her eyes. There was a figure, tall and handsome, the bright stars as his background. He was smiling at her in the dim torchlight. She walked to him, ignoring the freezing balcony stone.

"Tom?" she croaked in disbelief. `What?´ her mind exclaimed in opposition. `Tom went away, idiot! This isn´t Tom! Don´t go there; he´ll eat you like a parasite! He´ll feed off you until you are at the point of suicide, like you are now, you moron!´

The man smiled. "Ginny," he said.

Tom Malavo Riddle stood in front of her. He smiled again, showing a row of pearly white teeth. He appraised her with his eyes, and his smile faltered when he looked at her head. Moreover, her hair.

"Tom," Ginny said, running to him, ignoring the uneven and raised stone as she continually rammed her toes into stone and heel into corner. "I´m so sorry that I couldn´t get my hair to dry before I could see you, but..." she trailed off as she ran and threw her arms around him. She could hear him `umph´ and shift his weight. He took a step back. For the first time in years, she smiled a real smile; for the first time in almost a decade, she felt genuinely happy. It was so good to be back with him, even if her hair was a little wet. She was sure he wouldn´t care.

"Ginny, Ginny, Ginny, it´s ok. I´m so happy to see you," he whispered seductively into her neck, shifting his weight some more as he groped for something in his robe pocket. Ginny leaned back and her eyes shone as he looked into Tom´s black ones. "It´s so good to see you. I missed..." she stopped suddenly, her body making a sudden, violent convulsion forward. Her dull brown eyes glazed over, and closed for the last time. Her head fell forward limply, the damp hair falling around her head.

Voldemolt pulled the knife out of her back and examined it with satisfaction. His father´s old knife was now covered in red blood and fragment of bone from where he had broken the bone of the spine. Virginia Weasley was so easy; he had her wrapped around his finger.

He let go of the dead girl that he held in his arms and watched with malicious delight as she fell back, landed on the stone, and bounced back up a little, fresh blood spraying everywhere. Even though she was on her back, the liquid still sprouted out like a fountain.

He laughed as he watched blood from the gash in her back coat the red strands that lay around her head. "Ginny," he said in Tom´s pubescent voice, "It´s great to see you one last time, even if you did have a pile of wet curls," he said, bending down and plucking some red, blood covered strands out of dead Ginny´s head.