Butterflies

Butterflies

Always, just after sunset, Ginny watched the butterflies dance. Professor Sprout bred them in the greenhouse.

"Pollination," she had squeaked. "Wonderful for the flowers."

It didn't matter if they were good for the flowers or not. Ginny loved them either way.

She would stare up at the glass ceiling of the green house, covered with butterflies, and watch the last rays of light shine through the fluttering paper-thin wings.

There were so many colors. Red, orange, blue, green, pink, white, and she'd get dizzy looking at them all as they landed in her hair, on her arms, on her face.

It was a humid night, balmy and perfect, when a solitary black butterfly landed on her thumb. She looked up in the direction the butterfly had come from, and found him standing just inside the greenhouse, his silver eyes flashing when they met hers. She looked down again at the black butterfly, and caged it lightly in her fingers. Draco was here. Draco. Her enemy, her friend, her heart, her hole, her anger, her soul. Her love.

She opened her fingers and watched the black butterfly, impossibly still, and let out a breath as it crumpled, dead , in her palm. She squeezed her eyes shut as a single tear rolled from her cheek, and she let the butterfly fall from her hand to the ground.

She put the back of her hand to her forehead as she sobbed, tears hopelessly falling to the floor.

She tensed when she felt his hand under her chin, forcing her head up, and she saw that familiar gleam in his eyes - not passion, certainly not compassion, as he leaned down and kissed her hard. And she tasted her own tears in that kiss.

But she pulled away, looking down and shaking her head, biting her bottom lip.

But he still pulled her to him, dragging her face up so he could kiss it; lips on her eyelids, cheeks, neck, forehead, and she whispered his name so softly, but it rang in her ears, and she couldn't seem to find the butterflies in the greenhouse around them. "Draco."

And he slapped her, once, hard, and that sound did ring out and bounced off the glass walls. And there were the butterflies, of course they were there, and she wondered why she couldn't find them before. If they were there, everything was all right, and oh how she loved him.

And she almost smiled when she let him pull off her bra and underwear and push her to the ground. But he didn't like it when she smiled, so she caught herself just in time.

And when she felt him inside of her, she saw the dead black butterfly lying next to her out of the corner of her eyes. It was still alright, though, because when she looked up she saw all those butterflies and all that moonlight shining down on her.

Ginny Weasley was found dead in that same spot the next morning, naked and dead, a bruise on her cheek and a smile on her lips.

Her body was covered in butterflies.

-Fini-