Well, this is it! The last chapter. It's been a wonderful project, and it turned out to be a great chance for me to practice my dark!Ginny, who I find infinitely more interesting than her canon counterpart.

Also, I happen to have been cheating the challenge and turned the whole thing into a big Tom/Ginny fic. :3 My selfishness knows no bounds~

If you've been with this since the beginning, or even if you've just jumped on, please be so kind as to drop a review. They are food for my soul.

Pairing: Draco/Ginny

Prompt: Electricity

(Note: Title for this chapter stolen from the fabulous song of the same name by We Are Augustines)

She hates the boy with all her (not)heart.

She does.

Ginny hates his sharp face and his mocking eyes and his twisted preaching of oh-so-holier-than-thou. She hated him from the moment he walked into her life in that bookstore, all snake and sneer. He's a coward and a bully and there's nothing, nothing he's ever said or done that makes her believe different. There's nothing to like about his jagged edges and cruel words.

Too bad she has a nasty habit of falling in love with the people she hates.

If you asked her to trace it back to where it started, she would close her eyes and plant her finger down at a random spot on the timeline, because she'll say she doesn't know where it went from hate to lust so any moment is as good as the next.

(but she's a spectacular liar, always has been. it started in the darkness of a Hogwarts corridor, when she turned a corner and he was there; standing across from each other, lion girl and snake boy, the air between them thawed and they could see that each was here for the same reason of opening their hidden wounds into the night. but that wouldn't have changed a thing, except for the fact he stepped aside and let her pass, recognizing that you are set for destruction and I will not stop you. that is what left her with steel eyes on the mind)

If you asked him, he would scoff and accuse you of idiocy, because there is no way that he, prince of Slytherin, would soil his hands on her, slut of Gryffindor.

(he's not as good at lying as she is, though, because as he said it, his nostrils would flare and his impenetrable gaze would glisten strangely. it started in the bleakness of a sleepless night, when she stepped around the corner and they stopped there, two human pillars separated by family and war and hate, and she lit up the dark, gleaming like the peak of autumn. he saw the fierce hollowness in her black-brown gaze; saw it and recognized its reflection in himself. but she was more broken than he, so he stepped aside, let her pass, saying you are set for destruction and I will not stop you. but all this he might have forgotten, except that as she moved on she half-turned to hold his stare a moment longer, and he read if you will not stop me, I dare you to join me. that is what left him seeing red long after she had gone)

But the truth is that beginnings don't matter much, because in this roiling beast of a war—trapped inside the walls of the place that had once been their only safety—there is no time, only consuming numbness and cruel laughter and empty defiance. Here you mark the days by the fading of the bruises.

So the only important part is that no matter when or how, it began.

They somehow find their way to another corner in the darkness, not so long after that first moment. (the bruises aren't even yellow yet)

Frozen boy and burning girl stand across from each other, his chill and her heat mingling in the distance between them. He frees his tongue from the ice, snapping, "What are you staring at, Weasley?"

She takes in the sleep-circled eyes and the cutting cheekbones. He's all black and white and silver in the shadow-split moonlight. No blood. No color. "You, Malfoy," she says. "You look awful."

His lip curls, but his eyes remain the same. Dead dead eyes. "You're one to talk, Weaslette. All those hideous freckles and that ghastly hair."

Ginny leans against the chilly stone, squinting at him slightly. He is not the intimidating, far-away, non-human he once seemed; he is instead a too-thin, too-scared boy trying oh so hard to cover his weaknesses. So for that reason she does not rise to the bait. "Let's not try to pretend, Malfoy. We're too old for petty insults like that. They have no place in a war." He opens his mouth, but she continues on without heed. "I only meant to point out that you don't seem to be taking very good care of yourself."

He shuts his mouth, swallowing his prepared insult. His jaw twitches and his forehead wrinkles. He cannot understand her, and it infuriates him. "What's it to you?"

She looks out the thin strip of a window, the moonlight slashing her face in half. She waits a moment before answering, playing with him. (oh how she loves this game) "Nothing, I suppose." She languidly turns her gaze back to him. There is the ghost of a flicker in his shut-down gaze. "But if you stop caring about your own well-being, let yourself go…that's dangerous, Malfoy. Why, anything could happen."

"Have you gone mad?" he demands, but she has already straightened up, looking ready to leave.

"Three times will be no coincidence," is all she says. And she moves forward.

As they pass, shoulder to shoulder, a spark leaps from her to him, him to her, and her spine tingles with the electricity.

(and one, two, the game begins)

The meet a third time in the darkness. It is no coincidence.

She folds her arms over her chest, something like a maybe-smile gracing her features. "Still looking as awful, I see." Her eyes flicker over his form before locking with his. The silver gaze is still as sullen and dead, and it disappoints her. So she baits him further. "So pale and thin. Haven't been sleeping well?" (if she were paying attention, she would realize how terrifyingly familiar this all is, Tom's words becoming her own)

"Still as rude, I see," he sneers back.

She takes a step closer, arms dropping to her sides. Tilting her head, she counters, "But you came, didn't you? You came to see me anyway."

"Proud enough to think the whole bloody world revolves around you, are you?"

But his nostrils flare and his lips keep twitching, so she knows that there is a core of fire inside of steeleyes-winterboy. Ginny takes another step towards him. They are less than a foot apart, and now there is something breaking through the iron curtain in his eyes. She (not)smiles again.

"Does this bother you, Malfoy?" She lets her dark eyes drift to his mouth, pressed into a thin white line. "Am I too close?" she whispers.

"Get the he—"

Except Ginny's ever so impatient, so she doesn't let him finish and instead melts the final frozen distance between them, melding mouth to mouth, ignoring his hands pressing on her shoulders and his sounds of protest. She presses her body closer—blazing, blazing like all the fires of autumn—seizing his face between her hands. And the friction of her touch sends a spark to ignite his sleeping core, because suddenly he's kissing her back with a fierceness rivaling her own, his hands are tangling into her summer-sunset hair, sending shots of pain flashing across her scalp. She gasps at her success; he turns them around and slams her against the wall. Her shoulders throb with the impact and the cold seeps through her thin pajama shirt, raising goose bumps all over her ivory flesh. Pantpantkisskiss and she's clawing at his chest. Kisskisspantpant and he's hitched her legs around his waist. They are not fiery lion girl and cold snake boy—they are flashflood, ice-melt, chimera, unable to tell where one ends and the other begins. She breaks away, gasping for breath, and his mouth travels down her throat, leaving a path of burnt skin. His lips reach the hollow of her collarbone. She threads her fingers through his hair and yanks his head upwards to capture his mouth again. Teethtonguelips and she shoves his face away, staring hard at him. He is a mess: hair disheveled, cheeks ruddy, eyes like supernovas. He is pulsing with blood and color and venom.

"Anything could happen," Ginny repeats, her mockery punctuated by ragged breaths.

His lip curls in a snarl and his mouth crashes back onto hers.

Ginny, more than half-mad with Harry's absence, orients herself to the path of self-destruction.

Draco, more than half-dead from the darkness around him, joins her.

They drag each other down into the abyss and rend the sky with their lightning.

They collide anywhere and everywhere, painting the darkness with crackling radiance from corridor to corridor, bathroom to closet, tower to tower. There are little words spoken in their encounters, only tearing hands and burning mouths. (the feverish imprints of eager fingers are added to their list of bruises) When they do talk, it is of families and of war; of the fast-encroaching darkness. She kisses him with eyes shut tight, because without his pale colors glowing in front of her, it's not so hard to pretend it's a darker, green-eyed boy. (except sometimes the green eyes are so very pale, like forget-me-nots and winter)

Then she forgets all about Harry. (She forgets about Tom.) She forgets names and families and wars; she knows nothing but the pain of his grasping fingers in her hair, the heat of his breathing, and the synchronicity of them, black and white and red and silver in the moonlight.

In the daytime, there is nothing but ice between them; when their eyes meet there is no flash or spark, nothing to betray their electric nights. She knows they are enemies deeply in hate (fabulous liar, remember?), that her hunger for his taste—thunder, blood, poison, unbearable dark—is nothing more than an attempt to fill the crater Harry left behind. It has nothing to do with his sharp face behind her eyelids. (nothing to do with seeking the echo of a darker, more dangerous boy) She knows that he feels the same.

Until—

"You! Weasley!"

She flinches at the harsh call of her name, the way that Alecto Carrow makes it sound like an Unforgiveable. But she hardens her jaw and walks stiffly forward, locking eyes with the Death Eater. She refuses to look at the cowering first year at his side.

"Yes, Professor?" She spits the title. His dark eyes narrow.

"Perhaps you have learned your lesson since last time, blood traitor," he hisses, grabbing the collar of the first year. He looks from the eleven-year-old to Ginny. "Perform the Cruciatus on this student." There is no yielding in that voice. It is an order.

Her gaze travels to the terrified, trembling boy, his face pale with fear. She looks up at Carrow.

"No."

"I'll tell you one more time, Weasley," he snarls. "Crucio this boy."

Her hands tighten into fists. "No."

He smiles an ugly smile. "Very well, then." He releases the boy, shoving him back towards the crowd of students. Without breaking her gaze, he calls, "Malfoy! Get up here."

She feels Draco hesitate before he joins them at the front of the classroom. Her heart is racing; she can't explain why.

"Yes," he starts, but his voice is dry and weak. He clears his throat and tries again. "Yes, Professor?"

"Show Miss Weasley how the Cruciatus is done."

Her eyes flicker towards him uncontrollably, she see his nostrils flare and his lips quiver.

"Excuse me…sir?" he says, voice tight.

Carrow sneers and turns towards Draco, spitting in contempt, "Crucio her, you stupid boy." Then he snatches her robes with one bony hand and thrusts her to the ground. She cries out as her elbows crack against the stone. Gulping, she looks up at the pair. Draco stares at the floor. He slowly pulls his wand out from his robes, fingers white and trembling. Time stretches out.

"Do it," Carrow orders.

He raises his head and points his wand at her. Ginny locks eyes with Draco and sees only a too-thin, too-scared boy trying with all his might not to be weak. Her chest heaves as her heart rate soars. Do it, she pleads. Do it. Don't hesitate. There's no reason for you not to hurt me. We hate each other.

His Adam's apple bobs and he licks his lips. He grips his wand tighter, readjusts his stance.

We are nothing.

His brow furrows; his eyes gleam strangely.

We are nothing.

His mouth opens slightly, and she sees him quiver with shaking breaths.

Nothing.

And then she sees the flare of a supernova in his irises and no, no he's lowering his wand and nononono he's shaking his head and NO this isn't right because they are nothing—NO NO NO he does not belong here on the ground beside her, sharing her pain, eyes finding hers amid the writhing agony. Nothing does not belong side by side in the daylight.

But how can they be nothing if this is happening?

(what are they if not nothing?)

She wants anything but to see him again that night. However, it would be more agonizing still to lie in bed and wait for Tom to claim her dreams, so she sets out into the darkness like always. She tries to avoid anywhere they meet, but they have touched every corner, breathed in each classroom. She moves from place to place without stopping, knowing that as she walks the corridors restlessly he does the same.

Inevitably, they collide.

Ginny spots his lean form illuminated against the window as she enters the classroom, and she whirls back towards the door, hoping she can escape before he—

His wand snaps up and the door closes in her face. She rattles the handle desperately, pulse pounding. Whippet-quick, she pulls out her wand, but just as swiftly it's flying out of her grasp and into his. Ginny swallows heavily and leans her forehead against the wood.

"Let me out." A demand.

"No." Just as stubborn.

Slowly, she turns to face him. Her lips tighten as she stares him down. "Unlock this bloody door," she snarls.

He raises one eyebrow stoically and casts a Muffliato before pocketing his wand. "Are you deaf? I said no."

Ginny lets out a shaking breath; her heart is lodged in her throat. "What do you want?" she asks, and her voice trembles. (why is she so scared? why is this different from any other fling?)

"You know bloody well what I want," he spits. She notices the fresh bruise under his left eye, a dark shadow beneath the quicksilver. "Today. We need to talk."

"I don't want to."

Draco sighs in exasperation and runs a hand through his hair. "Don't be a child," he says, weary. "You know it's necessary."

Ginny takes several steps towards him, the stone floor ruthlessly cold under her bare feet. "What is there to talk about, Malfoy?" She forces out his surname. It is a strange shape in her mouth after so many nights of his first name whispered and moaned. "You had a moment of weakness. Of cowardice. I was hurt just the same, even if not by your hand. It doesn't make a difference."

His face tightens with rage. "Cowardice? You think I took that Crucio out of bloody cowardice?" He strides forward, eyes glittering, blazing. "You think I was too scared to curse you?"

"What other reason could there be?" she cries. Her slender fingers curl into fists, the nails biting into her palms.

"You bloody idiot!" They are practically nose to nose, the air sizzling between them. "Ginny, I—"

Something within her breaks.

"Don't!" she yells, scrambling backwards, away from him and his silver eyes and the way he said her name. Her hands slam over her ears. "Don't you dare!" Her shoulders heave. She is brilliant with her anger. "You can't call me that! I can't be Ginny, you can't be Draco, there can't be a reason you didn't curse me!" She brings her head up to his gaze, eyes dark as a midnight storm. She flings her arms down. "We are nothing!" she screams. (because if they are not nothing, that will have meant she lost control, and losing control is dangerous; it kills)

But Draco does not take no for an answer; he is just as proud as she is, so he barrels through the boiling distance and solders their lips together. She writhes, she protests, she beats against him, but he holds her to him fast, clutching her far too tightly. He bites her lip. She tastes blood. Maybe that's the catalyst, because before she can stop herself she is pulling him closer instead of pushing him away, biting him back, feeling every line of his body against hers, and they are lightning, lightning, lightning.

(they made an unspoken promise to destroy each other, and that will not be broken)

Harry returns, the battle rages, the war ends, and suddenly the world is so much more complicated, full of brokenness and brilliance all at once. She travels through her grief and departs into the life she always (once) dreamed of. He begins the brutal road to redemption. She expects to forget him. She tries to forget him.

But he has left an imprint, a glowing afterimage against the insides of her eyelids. There is a greedy spark inside of her, left gnawing and unsatisfied despite her dream career and her dream boyfriend. She misses the sharpness of his face and the burning desperation of his mouth. Harry is warm and safe. (and good, isn't that enough?) There is no danger in the loving green eyes. (stupid little girl, she's always wanted what she can't have)

She doesn't know how (and neither does he), but they find each other, two damaged people searching for the one thing that held them together in hard times. The war may have passed but the darkness within them has not, and they need their self-made lightning to chase the shadows away. A chance meeting, a scrap of paper with a discreet address slipped from hand to hand, a crackle of static as fingers brush, and three, four, the game goes on.

Months flow by and she attempts to heal herself stitch by stitch. (Harry for the pain, Draco for the hunger.) Eventually, the time comes when the ink seeps out of her dreams and the whispers fade from her ears. She thinks for the briefest of moments she might be free.

Ginny wakes up amid water and stone and rippling light. She sits up and puts her head in her hands, fingers threading through the red locks. (you stupid little girl, you'll never be free)

"How dare you," Tom intones, and she snaps up to look at him, her blood freezing at the tone of his voice. This is not velvet mockery or silk charm. This rage, raw and cold.

"You thought you could rid yourself of me?" he seethes, striding forward. His eyes burn. His face is sharp and white. She trembles against the wet floor, heart pounding. Tom reaches down a vice-like hand and wrenches her to her feet. She is too full of terror to even cry out in pain as delicate blue bruises bloom underneath his fingers. His radiant face blazes a mere foot away from hers.

Tom's lip wrinkles in utter scorn, and a lock of dark hair falls over his marble forehead. Spitting each word, he continues, "You thought that through empty lust and hero worship that you could wash me from your veins?"

There is a wand in his other hand, suddenly, and he hisses an incantation; a line of fire springs to life across her palm. Ginny gasps, flinching, and looks down at her hand, instinctively balled into a fist. She opens it slowly and watches the darkness seep from the fresh cut, something much blacker than blood staining her fingers. Bringing her eyes back up to his triumphant sneer, she feels something building within her chest, sharp and hard and angry. She opens her mouth and doesn't know what's going to come out.

Her laughter fills the Chamber, echoing harshly against the curved ceiling.

Tom's eyes flicker uncertainly. His smirk falters. She relishes having the upper hand and shines on him a vicious grin. Ginny laughs again, and his grip on her arm tightens further. She glances down at his hand briefly, smiling, and then brings her gaze to his.

"Jealous, Tom?"

There is an inhuman roar, and abruptly she finds herself braced against the stone, the left side of her face hot with agony. Laughing still, she staggers to her feet and turns to face him. His body is taut with anger, spots of color painting his dead cheeks.

"I did not realize even you were capabale of such impudence," he spat.

Ginny only chuckles and shakes her head. (it's quite possible she's going insane, but that wouldn't be anything new, would it?) "Poor Tom," she mocks, and she loves the way his eyes spring to life with his fury. "Are you going to throw a tantrum because someone's stolen your favorite toy?"

He rushes forward like a blizzard, one hand grips the back of her neck, and the last thing she sees is an endless winter sky before his mouth seals itself over hers. Her heart explodes and she is undone, all of the fight fleeing her system under his touch; a hard cold arm braces against the small of her back as her knees crumble. His furious mouth parts her lips with no resistance, and the taste of him (bloodwineinkvenomdeathdark) winds a smoldering, sinuous path over her tongue and down her throat—curls and nestles somewhere in the core of her, floods her with such delectable poison from each trembling fingertip to every crackling hair. Her mind pulses in a kaleidoscopic whirl of black, blue, white, red, the colors that are him and her and them, and she cannot stop herself from tilting her mouth into his any more than she can command herself to stop breathing. His hand moves roughly from her neck to the back of her skull, strong, slender fingers breaching the bright spill of her hair in white crests. The other hand yanks up her shirt to feel the smooth skin of her waist. She bends into him, hungry, losing herself. His teeth graze her lip. Her hands tighten against his chest. He pulls her loose cotton top to expose one white shoulder. She shivers and fumbles at his collar, unbuttoning, desperate, wanting—

Tom laughs a dark, breathless laugh as he pulls away, the cruelest of smiles curving his flushed lips. She reaches out for his shirt, still drunk on him. His fingers close around her chin in a brutal grip, and her hand stops mid-journey. She drags her fevered gaze from his mouth to his eyes. The pale blue irises are as cold as ever, lit only by contempt and conquest. His thumb rubs a slow circle against the place where her neck meets her shoulder, and he watches her shatter beneath his fingers.

"You are mine, Ginevra," Tom whispers. He lets his face drift towards hers until she can feel his breath on her cheeks. She wants to weep and scream and die and run as far from him as her legs will carry her. She does. (liar, liar, heart on fire)

"Never forget it."

She wakes, turns, and sobs over the edge of the bed, her fingers curling into claws against the sheets. It takes an hour and a half for the jerking howls and hard breaths to fade, leaving her only with red eyes and a raw throat. (and the memory of blue, and stained linen where her palm touched it)

Later, she tells Harry the bandage on her hand is from Quidditch.

Draco doesn't ask about the bruises.

Ten years have passed, and she has a husband and a child, he a wife and new beginning. By all rights, they should be happy, or something close. Instead, he reserves a room, and she Apparates there under the ever-reliable cover of darkness. Ginny squints a moment as the unsettling sensation fades; he watches impassively from where he sits in the armchair. She turns to face him, saying, "It's been a while, Draco." Her head tilts towards her left shoulder. "You look tired."

He runs a hand through his pale hair, grey gaze glinting above dark half-moons of skin. "It's the middle of the ruddy night," he replies, mocking. "What do you expect?"

She cocks an eyebrow as she shucks her coat, tossing it on the table and walking towards him. "That's your own fault, really. No one forces you to come."

Draco—older, softer, sadder, but somehow not so different than ten years ago—looks at her a long moment before standing up to meet her. Something that might have been a smile on any other face in any other circumstance curves his lips. "But what would you do with yourself then, Ginny?" He takes a step closer; she feels the electricity leap and sizzle between them.

"Well," she says lightly, gaze drifting to his mouth, "I'd rather not find out."

"Then here I am. And here you are."

She sizzles and he melts, they bend and they break, they crack and burn and tumble over the tingling expanse of the other, and clothes are just one more barrier that will not keep them apart.

Ginny lays on her side amid the cotton sheets, cool with drying sweat, one guilty finger tracing a circle on the pillow. She feels a breath expand Draco's chest against her back, muscle on muscle and skin on skin. His lean arm is warm, draped over her midriff. She tries awfully hard not to let herself think too much in their encounters, but now the thoughts rise through her like bubbles towards the surface. They break, gently, into the front of her mind, and her pale brow creases. Hooking her foot around his ankle, she says, "I'm sorry, Draco." She doesn't need to say why; the meaning is as clear as if written in the air: For this. For me. For you.

His soft chuckle reverberates through her. "Like hell."

He's right, of course.

She's not.

(it doesn't matter, in the end, that she never stopped running. we all fall down.)

let's say we were better than our bodies were found
and I saw her but, there she goes, and there she goes
her bright face, black smile, we can't change that

(A Story for Supper—Lydia)