Light And Dark

Prologue

Ginny knew she could never be of the light. No matter how much it surrounded her, or how much she yearned to have it glow around her, it never would. It would never follow her as it did with the glorious trio that Harry, Ron and Hermione made, still as close as ever in their 7th year together. She would never be known as Hermione was - all brains and kindness; nor be like her brother, downtrodden as he constantly whinged he was - Ron the loyal, the funny clown. And she didn't want to be Harry; she just wanted him, because the light shone from him like a beacon leading the way home. Where she didn't belong either. No, she was just Ginny-the-pathetic, the Girl Who Followed Harry Potter Like A Lovesick Fool, sweet and cute, but ultimately a fool. She had had it up to here with her life. So she did what she read Muggle kids did when they couldn't take it anymore. She ran away with the circus.

But of course Ginny didn't know what a Muggle circus was.

She did the next best thing then - in her mind at least. She wouldn't go back and face the embarrassment of failing even to run away successfully. Ginny was going to start anew. And if in her old life she couldn't have the light, then she would embrace the dark instead. She thought it would suit her. After all, she had already flirted with darkness - she who had spilled her teenage soul to the Dark Lord, had attempted to kill under its influence. Sick of searching for the light that seemed to fill others but shunned her, she settled for darkness with a sigh. It would just mean a change of costume, and adopting a sullen attitude. The first was cheering - black didn't clash with red hair - and the second she had in spades.

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But who among us knows what a fine line we tread between light and dark in our lives? If indeed, such categories can be used to classify all of us. For darkness is the more insidious of the two, it spreads into cracks and fills holes we don't even realise are within us. Darkness is already all around us, and light is within us if we choose. There are some who cannot see the dark because their eyes are trained only on the light, nor can they see the light is within their reach because of the darkness inside; these people, in their blind wandering, they fall to live among the lost in the shadows between...

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Chapter 1: Ginny's Circus

Ginny was not frightened by the height anymore. Confident after sixth months of the same trick, she swung her legs lazily, knowing the repercussions below without looking; as men who couldn't afford it brought more of the funny green notes that Muggles used for money to the surface of the bar to pay for drinks, drinks that prolonged the time they could spend ogling the killer legs of the girl suspended above them.

It got a bit cold up here sometimes, and very empty - all alone on her platform way up high in the tent the hotel bar was situated in - but she enjoyed this time really. Contemplating many things, except maybe her life as she had led it since she had run away. Or it had led her. Ginny sighed, swinging gently to and fro under the big tent - she had found her circus at last, and she had found a job. It did indeed involve a change of costume, as she had foreseen years ago; but it also involved the removal of said costume, which she had definitely not expected. But many things had not occurred to Ginny before she innocently made her way into the world alone, and unfortunately they were things that tended to occur to naive pretty girls with no one to look after them.

As a breeze blew through an unmended hole in the canvas roof - unmended because only she and the other 'dancers', were ever up here and management couldn't care less if they froze for the few minutes they spent on their swing every night - Ginny was jolted from her uncharacteristic lapse into memories of her old life. In a few minutes time her night would begin. And it was no time to be reminded of the past.

The tent was plunged into darkness as Ginny's music started ('Perhaps Perhaps Perhaps' sung by Doris Day, requested by Ginny of the musical director who had a crush on her but could never afford to do anything about it). She took a deep breath, shapely back to the masses below and behind her, then turned her face slightly to gaze coquettishly at her enamoured voyeurs as the bright lights were switched on to highlight the innocent yet knowing smile on her face. Practised and perfect. As it always was.

Fifteen breathless minutes later, she saw the barely perceptible nod from the stern-faced barman Dave, and she knew her fate had been sealed for the night. Reaching for the clasp of her costume top, she undid it in one sure move - over and over again every night in front of crowd of over a hundred lusting males (and several females) - and threw it into her waiting audience gaily, green and silver fluttering past her eyes, her now bare shoulders, into the hungry hands below. The grand finale. Stretching sensually on her perch, she shook out her mane of waist length copper coloured hair, and turned to face the crowd.

A roar of appreciation greeted her, but Ginny ignored it, scanning the room urgently, before tucking her hand demurely around her breasts, shivering slightly as another gust brushed around her. Where was he? She glanced down again, down the dizzying drop to the floor, knowing all that stopped her from certain death was her well-trained balance on a 30cm wide wooden swing seat, and 2 tight metal chains. Sometimes Ginny morbidly wondered that if she fell, would the crowd would watch with the same intensity as they watched her remove every article of clothing each night?

Finally, as her vertigo resolved itself she spotted the balding head of Mr Archer, her 'manager' and the ringmaster of this bar, ushering a slight young man across the darkened room to the stage above which Ginny was standing. This was her lucky customer of the night, the one with the most money, the 'lucky dog' as disappointed bidders muttered and resolved to return tomorrow with more money.

"Ladies and gentlemen -" the cultured soothing tones of Mr Archer reverberated around the tent, "the lovely Miss Virginia has been sold for tonight." Ginny winced, as the reminder of what she truly was now - property, stripper, whore - caught her unawares, and she swayed for a precarious moment on her narrow perch. She lifted one hand from rounded breast to clutch at the steadying chain at her side, and the crowd was momentarily distracted by the sight. Mr Archer ploughed on regardless.

"Sold, to our highest bidder of the night -"

Ginny was no longer listening. She knew all the theatrics her manager would resort to in order to stir the crowd into bidding higher for the next girl, if they were truly desperate; or to bid higher for Ginny the following night. She knew what was going to happen next, what she had to go through night after night. As the winning bidder stood below gazing up at his prize, without looking Ginny would step off her platform and cut through the air. The crowd would gasp in horror, in fear, in somewhat guilty delight, as she plunged to the earth. Even those who saw it every night still tasted blood in their mouth as the gorgeous creature once again fell from the heights. But she was never hurt. Just before her feet touched the ground, hands would materialise and pluck her lightly from the air; and she would be handed to her owner for the night amidst applause and jealous sighs and mutters.

The buyer of her company (often drunk, and always crazy with lust and desire) would be required to take her to the penthouse suite at the top of the hotel, higher even than the tip of the candy striped tent she performed in - "Nothing but the best for our Miss Virginia" - which the poor sod would have paid extra for, on top of what he would have paid for Ginny. And she came at a hefty price. It was probably the one redeeming aspect of the job, apart from the fact it required no other skill but the ability to lie on her back, or front, or however the customer wanted it, and pretend to enjoy herself. All the while muttering Harry's name over and over again in her head, a mantra against this life she had chosen, and all its shortcomings. Green eyes and chocolate dark hair. Green eyes staring into her soul and not at her body, and a few seconds later she would come, and the customer would get soft cooing and plaudits for his performance. No, Ginny wasn't cheap. But she sure felt that way.

She heard the name of her lucky buyer at last, and as she finally registered, her feet stepped forward out of habit, and she dropped through the air, time passing quickly, too quickly as she struggled to place the swirling emotions in her head. Horror - humiliation - shame - guilt all surrounding her as she fell, as the world fell away from her, and she found herself caught expertly, and placed in the slender arms of a boy whose face was familiar as an old memory.