This is the first of an as-yet unknown number of chapters, and is in fact my first multi-chapter HP fic that isn't a series of drabbles. I'm proud of myself. ;D

This was inspired in part by a comment that lovely Rowan (rowan-greenleaf) made about her penchant for strange and disturbing pairings. That should be warning enough that this will include a strange and perhaps disturbing pairing. You'll find out what in due course.

The title, Ici-bas is French for 'here below' as in, on Earth and not in heaven.

Quand tu m'as accueilli sous ton toit
Tu as pris chacun de mes sourires
Pour les brûler devant moi
Pour en faire un feu de joie
Pour me montrer qu'ici-bas
L'amour peut devenir combat

Pierre Lapointe – Les sentiments humains

When you welcomed me under your roof
You took each one of my smiles
To burn them before me
To make a bonfire out of them
To show me that here below
Love can become a battle

•••

Five months can change the world. In five months, bravery can dissolve into fear; rebellion can fizzle to weak unhappiness. The men who before strode with rigid backs and fiery eyes reduced to jumping at shadows and hesitating before passing through doorways, in five months.

It seemed strange to Ginny Weasley that the prime of the wizarding world could be so easily defeated. It seemed strange, when she had always thought the majority was on her side – the good side – the losing side. It seemed strange, and yet her thoughts were never put to words, though she was certain she was not the only one to think them. How could they have lost? It didn't seem possible, even after five months. It would never seem possible.

The Dark Lord had begun his reign five months ago. The Order had been militant, at first. They fled deep into the heart of quiet Wales, where they amassed their new army and returned to England strong and ready to fight, and where they were struck down once again.

Even love could not save them.

And now Ginny Weasley, no longer young, sat upon the narrow bed in her childhood room. Embroidery made deep marks on her bare legs, but she didn't move. She could see the mirror from where she sat, but the mirror could not see her – all the better, because seeing her face, now gaunt and pallid after five months of pain, would have only reduced her to tears. She looked too much like the family she had lost. Every flicker of red at the corners of her eyes made her heart ache; made the pressure behind her eyes almost unbearable.

"Ginny, lunch is ready." Her mother's voice echoed up the stairs. Tired, weak.

She couldn't bring herself to reply. It seemed to take all her energy to get off the bed and to the mirror. And once there, it took everything within her to keep from crying.

Her last dinner at the Burrow, and she wanted to look presentable.

The familiar pounding in her head. The pressure behind her eyes. The tears she would not let fall.

She pinched her cheeks to give them colour. Ran a brush listlessly through her hair. It crackled like flames, licking at the brush with its dry, needy tendrils. She set it back down with a soft snap, pushing it to the exact position it had been in before she'd picked it up. She wanted the room to look immaculate. A shrine to her past life.

The kitchen was too empty when Ginny got there. Five months could not fill the vacant seats with life.

"I made your favourite, dear," her mother said, pushing a plate of something hot before her. All food tasted the same to her now. Her mother must know that.

Molly Weasley sat down opposite her daughter, taking small bites of whatever food she had prepared, watching her daughter prod at it listlessly with a fork.

"You'll need your energy, dear," she said softly.

Ginny took a sip of lukewarm water instead. Her throat was so dry, she didn't think she could force the food down if she tried. But catching her mother's eye, she took a bite.

She avoided looking at her mother after that. The sadness in her eyes was creating a spark of hatred within her.

She mapped out the grains in the table. Hoping that she would never forget what it looked like.

She had barely eaten half her meal before a knock, loud and demanding, startled the two women out of their reveries.

Ginny's head snapped up, but her mother murmured, "No, I'll get it."

She looked back down at the table, willing back the tears that threatened to fall. It was hopeless. They dropped like tiny salted crystals and shattered on the wooden table.

"Ginevra Weasley." The man's voice was hard, slicing through the thick air and bringing her back to the present.

She wiped her tears away and stood up to face him.

The man was dressed in rich black robes. Dark hair framed a handsome, masculine face. His eyes were granite, his voice a knife. "You're to come with me, Ginevra. Your family is waiting."

Family. He made a mockery of the word.

"Ginny," she heard her mother whisper from behind the man's imposing figure. "Ginny." She was crying.

The man seemed to remember she was there. He turned towards her, his voice cutting short any delusions of sympathy. "Your trial is eight o'clock tonight. You won't be able to leave the boundary of your property until then. And I wouldn't try, if I were you." The cold smirk that danced on his lips and in his eyes threatened worse punishment. "Now, say goodbye to your daughter."

Ginny was engulfed in a tight hug, a hug she returned just as tightly, feeling the tears she condemned falling without dignity.

But a moment later, the man said, "Enough of that," and with bruising fingers pulled Ginny away from her mother.

The sudden coldness of the air outside her mother's grasp only made her cry harder. Choked sobs echoed by the woman who must have felt the same thing.

And then the scream. The shrieking, desperate scream. "Ginny! Ginny!" Tearing at her mother's throat, raw, desperate, before she was silenced by a spell that sent her reeling backwards and falling to the floor, unconscious, bleeding.

Ginny tried to tear herself from the man's grasp, shouting "Mum! MUM!" until her throat was raw and burning, her eyes half blinded by tears, but a Silencing spell cut her short, and the tight, choking feeling of Apparation engulfed her before she could protest.

Whether it was the shock of the sudden pressure or a silent spell from her captor that made her lose consciousness, she didn't know. But when she opened her eyes again, she was lying on an ornate bed in a room she didn't recognize.

Her captor was nowhere to be seen.

Tentatively, nervously, she slid off the bed and inspected the room, looking for clues as to whose house she may be in. But beyond the ostentatiously expensive furniture, something she expected to find in any of the Inner Circle's homes, there were no clues as to where she was.

The window was closed by shutters outside the glass, and she could see no way to open them. Instead, she turned to the door. Fighting back weak tears, she moved towards it. She had only half crossed the room when it opened and a man entered, shutting it again with a sharp snap.

Lucius Malfoy, looking almost exactly the same as he had so many years ago.

"You," she said, recoiling, as if his presence were so strong it pushed her back.

He did not grace her with a reply. Instead, he scanned the room leisurely before fixing his cold eyes on her, taking a moment to run them over her critically. She shuddered under his gaze. The gaze that made her shiver, made her feel naked, impure, worthless.

After what felt like years, he spoke. "You look disgusting. I'd have thought you'd get more food once your mother had fewer mouths to feed."

She hurled herself at him, shrieking with wild rage, desperate to cause harm. But with a lazy flick of his wand, she was thrown back, hitting the opposite wall and sliding down, her back aching from the impact. She was half up when another flick immobilized her, and she fell back to the ground.

"Silly girl," he drawled, a half-smirk playing darkly on his lips. With a softly murmured spell, her hands were bound before her, and her frozen limbs were loosened. "Get up," he commanded, gesturing with his wand.

She stayed where she was, her eyes glowing with hatred, daring him to beat her.

He sneered, and with a few quick strides he was standing over her. She glared up at him, bitter fury darkening her gaze, and she spat.

"I hope you die," she hissed. "You and everyone like you, worthless fucking cowards."

He remained impassive, looking down at her coldly, until the butt of his walking stick met her cheek, sending her reeling. She barely had a moment to move back before the stick, hitting her back, forced her down on her stomach.

"Stupid girl." He placed the stick across her neck, preventing her from rising. "Learn to clean up your messes."

A nudge from the stick pushed her forwards so her face was nearly touching his shoes, upon which shone a globule of her spittle.

"Lick it up, stupid girl," he drawled, increasing the pressure on the back of her neck.

"No," she growled. "Never!"

She squirmed and struggled to escape from under his stick, pushing against the ground with her bound hands, writhing below him. In a movement so quick she barely realised it, Lucius removed his walking stick from above her neck. The force of her struggle sent her careening back against the wall. Before she could scrabble up, the stick made contact with her stomach, and she keeled over, winded and aching.

Terror and pain made her vision go dark, blood pulsing wildly behind her eyes. She could barely see the stick that was forcing her to the ground, drawing blood from the side of her head. She struggled as best she could, but overpowered and in pain, she soon stopped, slumping over.

Lucius took this as a sign of defeat, and for a moment, no more blows rained down on her. Instead, after a brief moment's respite, he wedged his walking stick under her, using it to level her up against the wall.

Bloody, bruised and gasping for breath, Ginny sat against the wall. Lucius watched her for a moment. When she made no move to attack, he moved back half a pace and surveyed her critically.

"So I seem to have knocked some sense into you at last," he said coldly. "Now, Weasley, come here and clean up your mess."

A few drops of blood were splattered on his shoes, intermingled with her spit.

Slowly, she raised her eyes to his. Rage burned behind them and she said, her voice, weak and gravelly, "No."

She was hit so suddenly and so forcefully that she was sent skidding to the side, fresh blood drawn just below her ear.

A sharp step, and the stick once again pushed her up. But this time it came to rest at the base of her throat.

He pushed.

Tears welled in her eyes as her face turned red and she gasped desperately for breath, wheezing in a half-scream.

When he finally let go, her breath was shallow and desperate as she fell once more to the floor, unbidden tears mingling with blood halfway down her face. A final blow to the back of her head sent her into unconsciousness.

•••

"The girl is a disgusting, impertinent thing," Lucius said, idly plucking at a grape and bringing it to his mouth.

His sister in law sneered. "She's a little blood-traitor bitch. What did you think?"

Lucius levelled her with a cold and meaningful glare. "I've been met with impertinence from our kind as well."

"I hope you're not forgetting I pull rank, dear brother," Bellatrix hissed softly, pulling a grape out from between his fingers and impaling it on one of her long, claret red nails.

In a motion that was too terrifying on her to be erotic, she slid the grape into her mouth, red lips slipping over the tiny fruit, it and the tip of her finger disappearing into the depths of her mouth.

Lucius looked away.

The voice of Bellatrix's husband met them as he entered the dining room. "The girl is still unconscious," he said, taking a seat across from his wife. "She looks like hell." There was no compassion in his voice.

Lucius shrugged lazily, taking a drink from his goblet before responding, "She's impertinent."

Bellatrix fixed her eyes on him. "I told you she would make a shit servant," she snapped.

Lucius rose from the table. "Far be it for you to give your opinion on my choices," he said, and turning to Rodolphus added, "Learn to control your wife, Lestrange."

He swept out of the room before either had a chance to respond.

•••

The Gold Room was strictly reserved for what Draco liked to call his 'conquests,' and his uncle should have known that. The horror of entering, his arms entangled around the form of his newest girl, and finding the bruised and bleeding form of a Weasley on the bed was enough to wrench the girl out of her erotic stupor to slap him and shriek obscenities in his ear. She left, of course, after pulling her clothes back on and cursing him wildly.

His disappointment was tempered with his assumption that a girl who shrieked so much out of bed would be too noisy in it. He rather preferred his women silent.

The sight of Ginny Weasley lying half-dead on his bed was more than enough to bring the blood from his cock back to his head. With a sigh, he considered his options. She was either asleep or unconscious, and he didn't want to have to deal with her awake. But he also very much wanted her out of his second room. What his uncle had meant to do by bringing her there was unfathomable to him.

Watching her prone form, he wondered idly how much she had cried when she heard her beloved Potter had died.

He vaguely recalled having heard his father make mention of the fact that he wanted the girl to be taken as a servant. Draco thought this a bad idea – a stupid one, really. With house elves who obeyed without question, there was no need for a girl who would no doubt only disobey whatever orders she could. He had not, of course, told his father this, but he had secretly sided with his aunt when he heard her later saying the girl would be more than useless.

Of course, none of this gave his uncle any reason to have brought the girl to the Gold Room. For now, she was a prisoner, and she should have been kept in the dungeon.

That thought firmly in mind, he decided his best course of action would be to tell his father, and have the girl moved immediately.

His hand was on the doorknob when he heard her give a tiny whimper. He turned back to see her crying in her sleep, her body wracked with silent sobs.

If his uncle had put the girl there, far be it from his place to question him.

He sighed and left the room. There was just enough time for a flight around the grounds before dinner, if he hurried.

Do tell me what you think of this.