Author's Note: When inspiration hits you, you submit. When it slams into you repeatedly, you hit back. This, this piece of shite, is my rejoinder. Take that, inspiration, you little bastard! Please do read and enjoy; a little reading to make up for lack of the other crap that is Dancing Life.

Disclaimer: Not mine unless it is.

The First to Last

"Oy! Get up you! You lazy cow, get up!"

The girl hissed as the guard's polished black boot slammed into her ribcage, forcing the breath from her battered lungs. She reluctantly opened her eyes, staring down at the mildew-slicked stone floor mere inches away from her broken nose.

Dried spots of reddish-brown blood met her gaze, raising memories of hours of painful torture and abuse at the hands of her captors. She let her eyelids slide over tired eyes as she grimaced and rolled over onto her side, trying to avoid the spots that were bruised or broken.

"I said get up!" he bellowed, pulling his foot back for another blow.

She didn't move, her eyes closed lightly as if in sleep, waiting the blow that would bring her under the frightfully welcome lull of agony. It never came, and her body screamed in protest, aching for the ending beat on her broken body. She was already just so tired.

"Stop!" an authoritatively harsh voice commanded. She didn't even bother to open her eyes, willing her body to simply shut down, close, end. She did hear the click of the guard's metal heels on the stone floor as he pulled his foot back.

"Of course sir. I was just following orders; this prisoner has been issued a questioning." That guard's rough burly voice explained and she could almost hear the yearning tone that belayed his impatience to hit her; once on good principle, again for potentially getting him in trouble with his superiors, and endless strikes for the sick enjoyment of it.

"I know. Get back to the others; I can handle this one." A twisted snigger was accompanied quickly by the dull guard's booming laugh. She readjusted her shackled hands out from under her back, where the manacles were digging into her skin.

If only they'd get on with it. She thought, licking cracked and blood-dried lips. "Of course sir." The guard said complacently, knowing his time was up with his prisoner. She heard the ominous click-click-click as he left the room, expensive footwear beating a tattoo on the floor that echoed through her very body, building up a tension with each beat, surmounting her composure and begging death to be close at hand.

The door to her secluded chamber swung shut. They were alone now. Her and her cloaked captor, the leader of this renegade Death Eater band. She had been here for three months already- three months of torture and anger and pain and hatred- and she had not once been left alone with him.

She winced as she rolled onto her broken wrist, clenching her non-broken fist as pain lanced up her arm in a severe shot, piercing flesh and muscle and bone and soul and consciousness. She wanted out; her body was a pathway for pain and she had had enough of it.

She dragged her head, heavy with the compacted blows of many hands, up from the ground, struggling with every force that pulled her back down into silence consent.

"Hello Draco."

She allowed her split lips to curve up into the best smile she could manage, if twisted. Her eyes managed to slit open, though the right one was limp with what she knew to be a disfiguring black eye. She heard a sharp intake of breath and before she knew it, he was down on his knees beside her.

"Oh gods, Ginny." She felt his breath on the tender skin of her neck as he pulled her into his arms, clutching her gently yet possessively. "I heard they brought a new prisoner in just yesterday, but I never in my wildest dreams thought it could be you…I didn't even recognize you…how long have you been in this hell-hole?" he breathed, stroking her dirty, blood-caked hair tenderly.

Ginny's body was tense and screaming in protesting pain as she forced herself to sit up straight and strong in his arms, though it would be so much easier to let her body slump into his arms. She wouldn't let herself, though.

"Three months." Ginny said, her voice cracking with the strain of producing words she hadn't uttered in the three months she'd been there. No matter how many beatings she took, she never said a word, never voiced a complaint, never let out a cry of pain or outrage.

He was trembling as his long, pale fingers unlocked her manacles. She couldn't feel her wrists as he removed them limply from their bindings. She knew one was broken, yet even the pain seemed to be fading into the oblivion she felt herself sliding slowly into. Not fast enough.

"Oh gods…I can't believe…" he ran a finger over her face, his voice and hands now trembling. "Why didn't you stay away?" he asked hoarsely. Ginny managed to force a huff of air that he interpreted as a scoff from her swollen throat. "And keep out of the fun?" she asked wryly, wincing.

"I don't understand…how did they find you? I told you where they'd be…I told you where to hide…I did everything to assure they couldn't get ahold of you…" he trailed off as Ginny began to convulse, her rail-thin, deprived body shaking. It took him a moment to realize she was laughing.

"And they never would have…" she paused to wet her lips, feeling drained. Not long now, but he deserved to hear from her. "…I walked into their camp." She finished breathlessly.

Draco stared down at the once-beautiful girl, now starved and battered and brutalized in his arms. "You stupid, stupid twat…" he choked, voice breaking as he felt his throat close, constricting his breathing. "Why would you do that?" he asked.

Ginny let her eyes close over her blood-streaked brown eyes; eyes now dull and dead, her life, her will to live and love sucked from her with every strike that showed her the violent reality of life. For a moment, Draco thought she had lost consciousness, until a light smile formed on her lips.

"I freed my brother." She whispered, her smile an echoing ghost of the one he'd seen in the happy months before the war had broken out. Draco shook his head, refusing to believe she would do something like that. But she would…it was one of the many reasons he'd fallen in love with her.

"You didn't…you nearly got yourself killed so you could let that little prat get out?" Ginny's eyes flashed open, and for a moment, she seemed half-alive. Then she dulled. "Yes. Fred had so much more to live for…a wife…a child…George…it was an easy choice to make. The war's nearly over…when it is, they'll live happily ever after like they should…I love them all so much. This was my last chance to give them something…something they'll never forget. Something they will always remember me for…"

She let her eyes close again. Draco sighed and wrapped his arms around her again. This was tearing him up; the fact that she had gone through so much pain just because she was on the other side…well…he'd found her now…he could take her away from this horrid place; a place stained with blood and hatred and death and evil…she should never have had to enter a world like this and he was getting her away from it as fast as possible.

"Draco…" she whispered, her voice little more than a laboured breath of a weak woman. "Yes?" he asked, holding her face in his hand. With more effort and strength than she had left, she leaned up and pressed thin, broken lips to his. Draco nearly cried as he kissed her; she had never felt so weak and fragile in his arms.

She didn't so much break away as fell back, pained. "Draco…I just have to tell you…I never said it, but…I-I love you. Gods help me, I do." She leaned forward, wrapping limp arms as tight as she could around his waist. He held her closer, his heart swelling. She loved him. She loved him! He felt like taking her up in his arms and spinning her around. She loved him!

Draco was concentrating on holding her tightly against him so much that he didn't feel the tug on the back of his robes. Ginny tilted her emaciated head up to grin wryly at him, face drawn and pale. "I love you…don't fight the light side…and… I'll miss you." Draco's eyes widened in horror as she pulled the rest of his wand from his back pocket and pointed the tip at her heart. With a quick smile, she uttered two heartfelt words…

"Avada Kedavra."

The flash of green light was like the end of the world for Draco. All he could do was to watch on as it happened, his heart and body seized up with infinite dismay as she slumped back in his arms.

"Oh gods…" he breathed hoarsely as his wand clattered to the floor from her dead hand. "Oh no…" his breathing picked up its pace until it matched the frantic pounding of his heart in his head, beating against the inside of his skull with an urgency that had been stilled with the two fatal words.

"Oh Ginny, no…" he cried, voice cracking. He laid her down on her back, her head tilting back as it slid to the floor, red hair splaying around her angelic face, battered and bruised. Her lips were slightly parted in an unexpectedly peaceful smile, the soft curve of her lacerated mouth the remnants of her final, blessed release.

Her brow was smooth, save for the early lines her imprisonment had brought on. Her sharp eyes were shut, relaxed for the first time since her years at Hogwarts and with him. Draco stared down at her empty body uncomprehendingly.

"No." he said, touching her neck, sensitized fingertips unable to detect even the slightest trace of the vibrant life that had pulsed from her heart and from somewhere deep inside her.

"You can't leave me." He whispered pleadingly. Who would encourage him to find the good in him? To turn over to the light side? To defy his father and leave his abusive childhood home?

"What about what you have to live for, eh?" he nearly shouted, grabbing her lifeless shoulders and shaking her gently. Her head lolled on her shoulders like some sick cloth puppet. "To hell with your brothers, what about you!" he really did scream.

A single tear slipped from his eye, rolling down his cheek and dropping soothingly onto Ginny's pale lips. For the first time he could remember since his childhood life, he cried. Just as for the first time ever, he'd loved. He'd loved Ginny. Honestly and truly, with more sincerity than he'd ever done anything.

And then a thought blasted him off his feet. He'd never told her he loved her.

And now he never would.

"I never told you…I never got the chance…I love you, Ginevra Weasley." He cried, pulling her lifeless body into his arms, wishing he'd done so when she was alive.

Snape watched the scene from the doorway, his eyes old and tired, much as Ginny's had been. He felt his heart go out to the young boy who had had a fleeting chance at happiness…which had died with the young girl in his arms. He sighed regretfully…he was too old and had seen too much to wish that these young kids would be able to turn away from this dark, twisted path he'd taken as an adolescent. But for a while, he had hoped…

With another sigh, he stepped into the small dungeon, eyeing the dried blood on the walls and floor. He walked over to Draco and placed a comforting hand on his shoulder. Draco was shaking under his touch.

"She knew, Draco." He said softly as Draco began to cry.

She knew.