She makes everything a game that she can't lose but can't win- it's an endless cycle.

ginny/harry, ginny/ron, ginny/hermione, ginny/draco, ginny/sirius, slight ginny/tom

{warnings: mentions of anorexia, underage sex and death}

I'm a slow dying flower
Frost killing hour
The sweet turning sour
And untouchable

-Natalie Merchant, My Skin

You need to be cold to be queen.

-Blair Waldorf

When Ginny was young, she liked playing games.

Tom teaches her torture is the only way to beat people. Torture and mind games.

She learns from him, takes notes in the blood and ink that trail down her arms and swirl onto her fingertips.

He tells her the only way to win is to be the best and to take out the enemy and after that, no matter how many memory charms they tried on her, she never could forget those lessons, those words.

Tom teaches her how to play the game but he also teaches her never to lose, because she saw him get defeated and she promises herself she will never make the same mistake.

(Tom is also the one who teaches her never to love, because the sad thing is, she probably did love him- that dark eyed boy, and he got destroyed.

Maybe Ginny lost her heart from the very beginning, though she likes to believe she just never had one.)

Ginny is the prettiest girl at Hogwarts.

She knows it- it is a simple fact, like Harry Potter is the Chosen One, or Hermione is the smartest, or that Weasley's have red hair. She takes pride in her beauty, shows it off, shines in it. If she doesn't have beauty, she doesn't have anything, so sometimes she eats less then she should and sometimes she doesn't eat at all but it's all in the sake of staying beautiful and pretty and thin so that's okay, isn't it?

Hermione eats and eats but stays thin (not fair not fair not fair because Ginny works for her beauty) and Ginny knows she could use a spell to stay skinny but she needs to control it, her weight, her life, her heart-from then on, that is the theme of her life.

Control.

She makes people fear her but love her, crave her but envy her, want her but hate her, she keeps everything a contradiction. Things stay interesting that way.

Ginny makes everything a game that she can't lose but can't win- it's an endless cycle.

(But no one is allowed to beat her- the prize is her heart. And she is the only one who gets to have that.)

Ginny is also the smartest girl at Hogwarts.

Not because of her grades, they're average(not good enough). No, see, Ginny knows exactly how to get what she wants. She manipulates people like crazy, and she enjoys it, too. She likes feeling powerful, feeling (perfectperfectperfect) in control.

It is sick- twisted, terrible. But Ginny revels in it, the feeling she gets when she is in control- there is nothing better to her.

(she is the epitome of everything he hates- her heart is as black as his surname.)

Fred once tells her she would make a good Death Eater- he means it as a joke. She yells at him for it, but he just shrugs and says,

Well, you seem to like controlling.

She laughs and coldly tells him he never knew when to stop joking- but her hands clench and her cheeks burn because she knows that there is some degree of truth to what he says.

Ginny is good at lying, though, and she smiles and shrugs it off, but she never forgives Fred after that- not even when he dies. He broke one of the major rules: don't contradict the queen.

(when you lose the game, you are dead to her- no exceptions.)

She remembers it for years after, though. So when she goes to Fred's funeral, when she watches him get lowered into the ground, all she can hear is, you seem to like controlling.

She never forgives him, but she never forgets him either and every single night the words play over in her head- over and over and over.

Ginny likes being the best(she never had the best when she was younger, used robes, used pets, used books, so she tries to be the best instead). And when she can't be the best, she changes the game. If anyone else can be the best, they're going to have to share the trophy with her.

See, she is never (perfectperfectperfect) the best at anything, so she takes instead, bathes in the glory of others, pretends their medals are her own but something (nothing) is always- stopping, pausing her.

She kisses Harry, he tastes like gold and winning and everything she ever wanted but there is something- no, she won't allow it. There is nothing nothing nothing (something) wrong.

Once, the dog asks the queen,

why do you always need to be the best?

She frowns at him and responds quietly, why shouldn't I?

Neither answers the other's question, but Ginny allows him to stay in the game because she has the feeling he might be a better opponent then anyone else could ever strive to become.

Her brother is the only one who comes even close to understanding her constant need to be the best(she has to admit, she lets Ron in a little more then all the others- they are more similar than everyone else thinks).

Well, he is best friends with the two most perfect people in Hogwarts- if anyone will understand, it's him.

(she knows he is still better then her, though, because everyone is better then her.)

She whispers to Ron at night, sometimes.

Do you ever think he might fail?

(there is a pause, freckles bleed into eachother and minutes melt into seconds- it could have been an hour or a year and she would have never known the difference.)

Do you want him to? Ron whispers back.

Ginny would cry if she could do that anymore, but since crying is forbidden, she kisses him instead(because she needs to stop it somehow and to her, this is the only way).

Sometimes, she wonders if she's playing the game the right way, the best way.

But she thinks, she can't doubt it, because she was taught from so early on she can't remember there ever being a different way and she knows her lessons so well they've become a second part of her by now.

(the words thrum and beat and pound against the walls of her chest- she hears them, even when she's not listening, not paying attention, she hears it, the quiet murmur of her most important rules.)

Nobody breaks Ginny's heart but her.

Ginny sometimes wants to hurt Hermione.

Hermione is just so- good. She cares about people, uniting the houses, she even cares about the fucking house elves for Godric's sake.

House elves? There comes a point where it's not cute anymore, it's annoying (she's still better then her- it stings).

There are many things Ginny wants to do to Hermione- wants to push her off a cliff and see if she looks pretty (perfect) splattered across the rocks, wants to humiliate her, but most of all she wants to hurt her (worse then she's ever hurt anyone).

Hermione and Ginny sometimes stay up late, talking in the girl's dormitories. They stay up way way late and drink butterbeer and eat all sorts of candies and giggle about things they've bought at Zonko's.

Hermione always falls asleep first and she looks so very pretty (perfect) sleeping there with her hair spread out and her cheeks flushed.

Ginny also wants to smother her with a pillow, wants to stab her, wants to see if she still looks beautiful with blood pouring out of her.

But instead she leans forward forward forward and then she can feel Hermione's breath fluttering on her face and her lips mold with hers. She lingers for one(blood rushes through her veins can feel it the urge the want to hurt her, to-)second then pulls away.

Hermione's eyes open slowly.

I swear, I just felt something... she yawns.

Ginny shrugs. Probably a dream.

Ginny sometimes wants to hurt Hermione, and sometimes, she comes close.

When Ginny was younger, she used to pretend Hogwarts was a castle. She would make believe a fairy tale, casting her as the princess and Harry as the knight in shining armor. In her fantasy, he would rescue her from the dragon(Hermione or Snape or sometimes Ron) and he would kiss her passionately and he would tell her he loved her.

Six years later:

I love you, he whispers into her hair.

She's supposed to say it back.

(here's what she says instead:)

I know.

Ginny was almost in Slytherin.

(In times like these, she really does think her and Harry might be soul mates- though she knows she doesn't have a soul.)

She never tells anyone this, but it's true. She can still hear the words the Hat whispered to her, still remembers the exact phrasing, still could, if you asked her, point out every pause in the speech, every hitch.

You would be so good, you would fit in so well, the need, the lust for control and they would all love you. You would rule. Don't you want it? The chance to prove yourself, to be the best. You would be queen, Ginerva. I know you want that most of all.

She is tempted by it. For a second(a fragment- everything freezes, she's not breathing and she can see it, she can see her future clear as day) she considers it. Wealth, power, success, fear... perfection. It is almost in her reach, all she has to do is grasp the chance, and she could be one of them, the elite, the best, the perfect.

She clenches her fists so hard she bleeds (red) and she shakes herself out of it- pull yourself together, and whispers, "No. There's only one house."

The Hat sighs, and murmurs and screams out the one place she's wanted to belong to since forever, and she should be happy, ecstatic; and she is. Of course.

She remembers it for the rest of her life- there is only one house. There is only one option, one path, one life.

It becomes her mantra, she repeats it over and over, until it's burned into her brain, etched across her heart.

there is one option.

She's a Weasley. She doesn't get to choose.

She walks through the halls without fear(she's Ginny Weasley- she has nothing to fear) and she smiles and laughs and preens without fear and she kisses and curses and wants without fear- but. But she has no knowing of when to stop, so she doesn't, she just keeps keeps keeps going; like a car with no brakes and she'll never know what exactly she's doing or what she's leaving behind because she doesn't dare look back.

(It is a race, and she's in the lead- or is she? She can sometimes feel someone else's footsteps pounding behind her. It scares her more than anyone ever knows.)

She kisses Draco Malfoy because she can, because she's not scared of anything, because she knows(knows) he wants her and so she does it and so it is done(she feels nothing).

She has sex with Draco Malfoy for other reasons- though the truth is she doesn't even know(does she?) but the words I love you never escape from his mouth and that's good enough for her, so she kisses him back.

It is sweet, refreshing when she hides in the dark with him, it's like jumping into the water, everything is cold and soft and slow(and tainted green- green green green it bleeds into her vision, she breathes green sleeps green tastes green) and it is silent. No love is exchanged, nothing is there- but she wonders (no she doesn't) sometimes, because everyone taught her to love and it's taken her a lifetime to erase it, the words and tales and tongues of love.

She has sex with Draco Malfoy because it numbs her- she's burning burning burning and when she's with him she just

(stops.)

-her head spins when she pulls up for air, and all she can see is (green) nothing.

When she's fifteen, four people tell her they love her(she doesn't count one on purpose). She is insane, she fears some days, because this is all she's ever wanted(right?) to be loved, to be craved like this, and yet she can't stop controlling (perfect perfect perfect) and manipulating. She is the the puppet master but it feels like they are disobeying her and she just needs to rule- so let me, she wants to scream. Just fucking let me and it will all be fine!

Ginny never tries and yet she tries harder then ever that year, fighting clawing forcing-

one iloveyou comes at night in the dark in shadow- "I love you," Ron whispers to her. "Shut up," she grins back(clenches her teeth, she's stronger then this and she won't let him ruin her). "Shut up."

One iloveyou comes in the middle of the day in a sea of people. She's lifted up and spun around around (Ginny hated when her dad would spin her as a kid, she hates it now even more- colors spin past- she swears she catches a glimpse of black and silver) and Harry yells, "I love you, Ginny!" She (of course) says nothing, smiles and laughs and kisses him back. Look, look, at the king and queen of Hogwarts, don't you wish you were them? Of course you do. They're perfect.

Of course, if you really knew Ginny- but no one really knows Ginny.

One iloveyou comes in the morning when the sun shines white against the snow(it blinds her momentarily, she loses control for a second and almost falls- she doesn't eat anything that day to make up for it). "I love you." Hermione says to her, "You're like my sister, Ginny."

Ginny sighs and murmurs a simple, "Oh, Hermione." She hugs her then, buries her face in bushy curls and lets her lips brush against a pale neck.

(later, Hermione says, why aren't you eating? Ginny lies and says she's not hungry- did you know Hermione's eyes look like cinnamon and her mouth like raspberries? She is so very hungry- no she's- no.)

One iloveyou comes at dawn (so very early it is like a dreamland, she floats in and out of drifting clouds and wings and angels- this dream was tainted green). "I love you," Malfoy says, right after they finish and she is about to leave. He doesn't say anything after that (waits for an answer that will never come- he should have known this, saying I love you is against the rules and Ginny plays to win). She flashes him a quick smirk, and slams the door behind her.

(that is the last time she talks to him- ever. He is banished from her thoughts. You lost, her eyes say when she passes him in the halls. And he knows- he lost more than the game.)

The fifth I love you, she never speaks of, never thinks of, barely even acknowledges.

(It haunts her, though, in the dead of the night- she hears the words over and over and over until it's just a mixed up dream of hearts cracking and replaying iloveyouiloveyouiloveyou. She hates it.)

"I love you." the black haired silver eyed man says into her ear, "I think I love you."

(sixty seconds pass- Ginny counts them out with a sick delight, she taps them out to the beat of his heart)

"Well," She smiles. "Everybody loves me."

At fifteen, Ginny loses her heart.

(Black, silver, pale flesh. She hopes- but Ginny Weasley doesn't hope.)

She never regains it.

(Ginny can tell you the exact day and the exact hour and the exact minute and the exact second that she lost the game.)

There's a flash of light, and Harry's screaming and Lupin is holding him back and Ginny stands amidst it all and says nothing.

Feels nothing.

Ginny starts eating less and flirting more and all the sudden control isn't the most important thing in her life, it's the only thing.

But that's okay, because she was never built for love anyway- you can't love if you don't have a heart and she lost hers the second he fell through a curtain and never came back.

"I love you." Four (five) different people tell her this.

Nothing- her answer is always nothing.

(The prize was her heart.)

She played the game wrong.