FIC: and the rats lead the piper (peter/ginny, others, r)
Title: and the rats lead the piper
Author: starrysummer
Pairing: Ginny/Peter, some Pansy/Ginny. Also, various amounts of Harry/Ginny, Bellatrix/Ginny, Tom/Ginny and about ten other pairings half-referenced in the madness.
Rating: R, for sex and violent imagery
Summary: She wants to tell him no, for a moment, wants to tell him they shouldn't. That she's saving herself, and not for him. But the red-eyed boy at the end of the tunnel is a pawn who tripped down the staircase and the green-eyed boy's gone blind.
Warnings: Character death, mild necrophilia, very slightly dubious consent, violence, insanity, implied Blackcest, just generally really dark stuff.
Author's Notes: Written for sioniann whose de_smutathon request inspired me to write some Peter/Ginny. Because it is for Snoy, there is also Pansy/Ginny necro, dark!Dumbledore, Fawkes, Ron, insanity, mindfuck, and um other stuff that Snoy likes, including a distinct absence of Stan. Thanks to alittlewhisper for looking this over and telling me there was something to be found within the batshit. I am planning on writing a few fics in this universe, God help us all, the second of which, "purple elixir and blueblood," [albus dumbledore, r] can be found here.
and the rats lead the piper
by starrysummer
Hardly anyone watches the Weasley. Perhaps it's because she knows nothing, because they're sure she'll die if she tries to run away. Or because they saw the way she bent over Pansy's body when Macnair's crucio went amiss, words spilling forth senseless, and hot red skin on cold, dry flesh.
Sometimes she can swear that Bellatrix is looking for her, but she's not sure if it's orders or a game. Either way, a few quick slips, a spell to rustle the leaves twenty feet away, and she's free.
The nettles tug at her skirt and the cold air clenches her to goose flesh, but she can dance beneath the winter sun and swirl into madness.
She always comes back, though - there's nowhere else to go.
Once, maybe, there was a path and a reason. A dark-haired, red-eyed boy who knew where he was going. That boy is gone, now, and the woods eat at them as they eat at the world. If it bothered her at all, she would have thought to wonder why.
But the smell of burning flesh casts away all sorts of doubt, and the flame keeps them warm in wintertime.
And she remembers a boy named Harry, soft kisses and birthday presents. Mornings awake to quiet touches, and a tearful goodbye. The last time she saw him, he'd found that his own master had a diary, and the records of a little orphan taken in in by sour women in 1929.
They follow each other, they claim to follow him, in twists and turns and it's only when she spins up against the bark of the dying dead trees that she feels apart from it.
Some of them move from hatred, some of them seek out power. Some of them see a higher calling, some a worthless life below. But they all dance to the hollow man, and Ginny dances, too, remembering a carefully-threaded before lead by an old man's wrinkled hand.
The rat, he moves from fear. Ginny bites her lip as she watches him, and wonders if she's still pretty. Each step is tentative, his eyes wrinkled crows eyes from flinching in expectation.
Ginny hides behind the trees. She thinks she'll play their game, she'll curse him when he's not looking. She wonders if she'll be able to tell from his screams if it hurts more or less when you stand waiting. But she blinks and he's not a man anymore, and now he's a harder target.
She decides to follow him instead, and as he takes her deeper in the forest, she can hear a nursery rhyme in her mother's voice and wonders if it wasn't the piper that followed the rats into the sea.
Her bare feet are tired on the slippery leaves and the afternoon light is nearly cast out by the branches as they thicken and scratch up at the sky. She wonders how long she's followed, and wonders where exactly he's going. Perhaps he's just being a rat, doing what rats do (kill other rats, she thinks, as a branch snaps at her cheek), and she's wasted all this time following. She wonders if maybe this time someone's following her, too. The prospect of all that wasted time when there's nothing to do anyway but bleed and burn all over again makes her laugh.
It's nearly evening and she's nearly breathless when they stop by the entrance to a cave. The rat turns around, glances side to side. She knows she's been seen, but maybe it doesn't matter, since he turns back into a person anyway. The crinkles by his eyes squint up again as he stares up towards the sun.
Pettigrew, comes a whisper from the darkness, and soon. Something snaps in her, and she knows this, but it's echoed down a dark hall and another world. She's reminded of going sockfoot on polished floors, and bundled up in blankets by the fireplace. It all seems very redundant, and she hides behind a tree.
"Shhh," Ginny hears hissed, and she's not sure, but she might have said it. The rat is a persona is looking at her now. He's standing taller, and his wand's out now, and the crows feet match his smile.
"Ginevra," he says, and she looks at him.
"They never bother to notice," she says, miles away and she doesn't know where.
"Of course not," he says.
She looks at him, stout and silly, and she wonders what dance fear does, if it runs towards the light or cowers away. Peter is always the closest to the hollow man that they call Master, the one who quivers and frowns as he curses his compatriots with the Dark Lord's wrath. He flutters like a moth, she thinks.
And he's the rat and he's taken her away.
"It's because you don't know anything," he says as he steps towards her.
She knows things, she thinks, but they don't know it. She knows that Dumbledore knew about Slytherin's last descendant when his ragged, frail mother died in her bloody bed. She knows which curse Harry used to blind himself and the way his touches felt beneath the blanket (just like Tom's). She knows that Bellatrix mutters her cousin's name - the one that ran - when she's sleeping and how Pansy kisses when she's dead.
Peter's hand is on her shoulder and his voice is in a tone she doesn't remember, but it's soft and soothing. "You don't know anything," he says again and his lips are on her own and she wants to say no, I know everything, but his lips are sealed against hers and his tongue is stopping her.
His hands slide down her robes and she can feel the rough calluses of his fingers on her flesh; she knows now how worn her robes are, how frayed.
He pulls away and he looks at her like he's examining her - like she's Pansy's body laid out on the ground to wonder what went wrong. She clenches her fists just to remind herself that she's still alive, and Peter's shaking a bit. This is the way she's used to him looking.
"Look what they've done to you," he says. "Look what they've done to you."
They didn't do anything, she thinks. She came on her own, because she touched and teased Pansy until she asked her to. Because she found Draco for them, found him and whispered threats and promises in his ear until he lifted her up and brought her with him. The chains were just a ruse, and she's freer than anyone (anyone but Pansy and Harry and Dumbledore), she knows.
"You poor thing," he's saying, and he's touching her. Her robes slip off her shoulders, falling softly, tearing quietly, and she's bare before him. The air is cold on her breasts, and she's prickling. His hands are warm, though, and his tongue on her neck.
She wants to tell him no, for a moment, wants to tell him they shouldn't. That she's saving herself, and not for him. But the red-eyed boy at the end of the tunnel is a pawn who tripped down the staircase and the green-eyed boy's gone blind. Pansy's tongue has gone still and she watched Draco fall. Bella touches her in the nights, but that's nightmare and madness and waiting.
But there's nothing left to wait for, so she kisses Pettigrew back. His hands are rough, but he touches her softly, and it's been so long since touches came soft, slowly speeding, sliding inside her when she's ready. The winter leaves are a featherbed all their own, and as she lies down upon them, she can watch the highest branches tug at the edges of the cloud. She closes her eyes as he slips inside her and imagines the mist falling apart.
White on white and the world's gone dark in his quieting rhythm. He's barely as tall as her, but she doesn't think she minds if she closes her eyes and lets it feel lovely. She wants to feel the world fall apart, but his touches are too gentle. When he screams a low breath and lies down beside her, though, she thinks that she's glad that something feels nice in this world.
"You're a nice girl," he says as he strokes her cheek and stands to pull his trousers back up.
She wants to say she isn't, but she remembers that he doesn't really know her, that he thinks she's just the Weasley girl that goes through all the motions and only tries to dance to the night. So she nods and wonders idly if they're going back yet.
"You were followed," comes another voice as the cave-shadow moves, as the leaves rustle beneath boot heels.
"I-I'm sorry," says Pettigrew, the words shaking again. "It's just Ginny - you remember Ginny, Longbottom."
Neville slips out of the shadow and smiles that sort of wistful smile years gone by. He's shaking his head and he's speaking. "She's one of them now, Peter," he says and Ginny wants to say that she isn't, that she's better than that, that she remembers when the blood and the fire were real things and not just a game to play while hunting bones.
There's another rustle, another hollow in the darkness and the pale-faded freckles and the secondhand robes and she knows him, but she doesn't want to. "No, no," she screams. "I don't know you, you don't know me, it wasn't like that, wasn’t ever. It was all a lie," she says. All a lie and she tells herself she doesn't even remember the 'R' on his jumper.
There's a bird fluttering beside him, and she remembers that, too, from the red in Harry's eyes when he tore up the records, from the early days when nothing made sense except as a lined-up set of toys or a storybook. He seems to be saying something in the slant of his wings, and Ginny wants to scream when she sees the fire in his eyes.
Ron has his wand out now, and is licking his lips, is shuffling his feet with apprehension. "You know nothing," he says softly and she looks at him, and wonders how well they match - she hasn't seen a mirror in months now and only knows herself by fingertipped-feeling.
"I know everything," she says. "I know about Harry and the hex, about Dumbledore and about the Dark Lord that was and that will be. I know about Pansy and Draco and Bellatrix Lestrange. I know about Pettigrew-I followed the rat here." She's shouting and she's dancing and she's telling and she's looking at him and wondering when she saw him last, if it was before or after she made Draco clasp the chains around her wrists and bring her home, but before she can answer (or stop to wonder what home is), his wand is raised and tipped in green and the whole world goes dark but for the whisper of unheard conspiracies.
Author: starrysummer
Pairing: Ginny/Peter, some Pansy/Ginny. Also, various amounts of Harry/Ginny, Bellatrix/Ginny, Tom/Ginny and about ten other pairings half-referenced in the madness.
Rating: R, for sex and violent imagery
Summary: She wants to tell him no, for a moment, wants to tell him they shouldn't. That she's saving herself, and not for him. But the red-eyed boy at the end of the tunnel is a pawn who tripped down the staircase and the green-eyed boy's gone blind.
Warnings: Character death, mild necrophilia, very slightly dubious consent, violence, insanity, implied Blackcest, just generally really dark stuff.
Author's Notes: Written for sioniann whose de_smutathon request inspired me to write some Peter/Ginny. Because it is for Snoy, there is also Pansy/Ginny necro, dark!Dumbledore, Fawkes, Ron, insanity, mindfuck, and um other stuff that Snoy likes, including a distinct absence of Stan. Thanks to alittlewhisper for looking this over and telling me there was something to be found within the batshit. I am planning on writing a few fics in this universe, God help us all, the second of which, "purple elixir and blueblood," [albus dumbledore, r] can be found here.
and the rats lead the piper
by starrysummer
Hardly anyone watches the Weasley. Perhaps it's because she knows nothing, because they're sure she'll die if she tries to run away. Or because they saw the way she bent over Pansy's body when Macnair's crucio went amiss, words spilling forth senseless, and hot red skin on cold, dry flesh.
Sometimes she can swear that Bellatrix is looking for her, but she's not sure if it's orders or a game. Either way, a few quick slips, a spell to rustle the leaves twenty feet away, and she's free.
The nettles tug at her skirt and the cold air clenches her to goose flesh, but she can dance beneath the winter sun and swirl into madness.
She always comes back, though - there's nowhere else to go.
Once, maybe, there was a path and a reason. A dark-haired, red-eyed boy who knew where he was going. That boy is gone, now, and the woods eat at them as they eat at the world. If it bothered her at all, she would have thought to wonder why.
But the smell of burning flesh casts away all sorts of doubt, and the flame keeps them warm in wintertime.
And she remembers a boy named Harry, soft kisses and birthday presents. Mornings awake to quiet touches, and a tearful goodbye. The last time she saw him, he'd found that his own master had a diary, and the records of a little orphan taken in in by sour women in 1929.
They follow each other, they claim to follow him, in twists and turns and it's only when she spins up against the bark of the dying dead trees that she feels apart from it.
Some of them move from hatred, some of them seek out power. Some of them see a higher calling, some a worthless life below. But they all dance to the hollow man, and Ginny dances, too, remembering a carefully-threaded before lead by an old man's wrinkled hand.
The rat, he moves from fear. Ginny bites her lip as she watches him, and wonders if she's still pretty. Each step is tentative, his eyes wrinkled crows eyes from flinching in expectation.
Ginny hides behind the trees. She thinks she'll play their game, she'll curse him when he's not looking. She wonders if she'll be able to tell from his screams if it hurts more or less when you stand waiting. But she blinks and he's not a man anymore, and now he's a harder target.
She decides to follow him instead, and as he takes her deeper in the forest, she can hear a nursery rhyme in her mother's voice and wonders if it wasn't the piper that followed the rats into the sea.
Her bare feet are tired on the slippery leaves and the afternoon light is nearly cast out by the branches as they thicken and scratch up at the sky. She wonders how long she's followed, and wonders where exactly he's going. Perhaps he's just being a rat, doing what rats do (kill other rats, she thinks, as a branch snaps at her cheek), and she's wasted all this time following. She wonders if maybe this time someone's following her, too. The prospect of all that wasted time when there's nothing to do anyway but bleed and burn all over again makes her laugh.
It's nearly evening and she's nearly breathless when they stop by the entrance to a cave. The rat turns around, glances side to side. She knows she's been seen, but maybe it doesn't matter, since he turns back into a person anyway. The crinkles by his eyes squint up again as he stares up towards the sun.
Pettigrew, comes a whisper from the darkness, and soon. Something snaps in her, and she knows this, but it's echoed down a dark hall and another world. She's reminded of going sockfoot on polished floors, and bundled up in blankets by the fireplace. It all seems very redundant, and she hides behind a tree.
"Shhh," Ginny hears hissed, and she's not sure, but she might have said it. The rat is a persona is looking at her now. He's standing taller, and his wand's out now, and the crows feet match his smile.
"Ginevra," he says, and she looks at him.
"They never bother to notice," she says, miles away and she doesn't know where.
"Of course not," he says.
She looks at him, stout and silly, and she wonders what dance fear does, if it runs towards the light or cowers away. Peter is always the closest to the hollow man that they call Master, the one who quivers and frowns as he curses his compatriots with the Dark Lord's wrath. He flutters like a moth, she thinks.
And he's the rat and he's taken her away.
"It's because you don't know anything," he says as he steps towards her.
She knows things, she thinks, but they don't know it. She knows that Dumbledore knew about Slytherin's last descendant when his ragged, frail mother died in her bloody bed. She knows which curse Harry used to blind himself and the way his touches felt beneath the blanket (just like Tom's). She knows that Bellatrix mutters her cousin's name - the one that ran - when she's sleeping and how Pansy kisses when she's dead.
Peter's hand is on her shoulder and his voice is in a tone she doesn't remember, but it's soft and soothing. "You don't know anything," he says again and his lips are on her own and she wants to say no, I know everything, but his lips are sealed against hers and his tongue is stopping her.
His hands slide down her robes and she can feel the rough calluses of his fingers on her flesh; she knows now how worn her robes are, how frayed.
He pulls away and he looks at her like he's examining her - like she's Pansy's body laid out on the ground to wonder what went wrong. She clenches her fists just to remind herself that she's still alive, and Peter's shaking a bit. This is the way she's used to him looking.
"Look what they've done to you," he says. "Look what they've done to you."
They didn't do anything, she thinks. She came on her own, because she touched and teased Pansy until she asked her to. Because she found Draco for them, found him and whispered threats and promises in his ear until he lifted her up and brought her with him. The chains were just a ruse, and she's freer than anyone (anyone but Pansy and Harry and Dumbledore), she knows.
"You poor thing," he's saying, and he's touching her. Her robes slip off her shoulders, falling softly, tearing quietly, and she's bare before him. The air is cold on her breasts, and she's prickling. His hands are warm, though, and his tongue on her neck.
She wants to tell him no, for a moment, wants to tell him they shouldn't. That she's saving herself, and not for him. But the red-eyed boy at the end of the tunnel is a pawn who tripped down the staircase and the green-eyed boy's gone blind. Pansy's tongue has gone still and she watched Draco fall. Bella touches her in the nights, but that's nightmare and madness and waiting.
But there's nothing left to wait for, so she kisses Pettigrew back. His hands are rough, but he touches her softly, and it's been so long since touches came soft, slowly speeding, sliding inside her when she's ready. The winter leaves are a featherbed all their own, and as she lies down upon them, she can watch the highest branches tug at the edges of the cloud. She closes her eyes as he slips inside her and imagines the mist falling apart.
White on white and the world's gone dark in his quieting rhythm. He's barely as tall as her, but she doesn't think she minds if she closes her eyes and lets it feel lovely. She wants to feel the world fall apart, but his touches are too gentle. When he screams a low breath and lies down beside her, though, she thinks that she's glad that something feels nice in this world.
"You're a nice girl," he says as he strokes her cheek and stands to pull his trousers back up.
She wants to say she isn't, but she remembers that he doesn't really know her, that he thinks she's just the Weasley girl that goes through all the motions and only tries to dance to the night. So she nods and wonders idly if they're going back yet.
"You were followed," comes another voice as the cave-shadow moves, as the leaves rustle beneath boot heels.
"I-I'm sorry," says Pettigrew, the words shaking again. "It's just Ginny - you remember Ginny, Longbottom."
Neville slips out of the shadow and smiles that sort of wistful smile years gone by. He's shaking his head and he's speaking. "She's one of them now, Peter," he says and Ginny wants to say that she isn't, that she's better than that, that she remembers when the blood and the fire were real things and not just a game to play while hunting bones.
There's another rustle, another hollow in the darkness and the pale-faded freckles and the secondhand robes and she knows him, but she doesn't want to. "No, no," she screams. "I don't know you, you don't know me, it wasn't like that, wasn’t ever. It was all a lie," she says. All a lie and she tells herself she doesn't even remember the 'R' on his jumper.
There's a bird fluttering beside him, and she remembers that, too, from the red in Harry's eyes when he tore up the records, from the early days when nothing made sense except as a lined-up set of toys or a storybook. He seems to be saying something in the slant of his wings, and Ginny wants to scream when she sees the fire in his eyes.
Ron has his wand out now, and is licking his lips, is shuffling his feet with apprehension. "You know nothing," he says softly and she looks at him, and wonders how well they match - she hasn't seen a mirror in months now and only knows herself by fingertipped-feeling.
"I know everything," she says. "I know about Harry and the hex, about Dumbledore and about the Dark Lord that was and that will be. I know about Pansy and Draco and Bellatrix Lestrange. I know about Pettigrew-I followed the rat here." She's shouting and she's dancing and she's telling and she's looking at him and wondering when she saw him last, if it was before or after she made Draco clasp the chains around her wrists and bring her home, but before she can answer (or stop to wonder what home is), his wand is raised and tipped in green and the whole world goes dark but for the whisper of unheard conspiracies.