The change in the candle flame was subtle, but in Hermione's alert state she perceived it no less distinctly than had it exploded in a clap of thunder.
The flame was no longer yellow, but a soul-chilling white, as of burning ice. She noted the door behind it but absently; it was the flame alone which arrested her fearful gaze.
Hermione jumped back, gasping. The flame was now a face, white as Death, with icy grey eyes that smoldered like ash from the fires of Hell.
"Draco!" Hermione's voice trembled as she spoke the name.
The face of Draco Malfoy was livid.
"You filthy, stinking Mudblood! How dare you attempt to mingle your putrid Muggle blood with that of a wizard!"
"What do you care?" Hermione spat viciously, color flooding her cheeks. "You hate Harry!"
"Hate him?" Draco sneered. "I live for the day when I can spit on his grave! I loathe him!
"But whatever else he may be, he is a blooded wizard! He deserves better than to be joined to a Muggle-born trollop like you!
"Mark me, Mudblood! The Dark Lord is not dead! He is eternal! And when he returns, I will stand at his side, as did my father before me. Together we will rid the world of scum like you! And I -- "
Draco paused, his sneer curling with a hellish malevolence.
"I will personally erase your worthless life from the slate of the New World Order! But I won't dignify your end with something as pure as magic. I will strangle the breath from you with my bare hands! You and all your filthy Muggle babies!"
"You -- you wouldn't!" Hermione whimpered.
Draco laughed, and the sound was like a shriek from the Halls of the Damned.
"I'll Curse your eyelids off and force you to watch as I twist their squalling heads off and crush their skulls under my heel! I'll rip open their milk-white bodies and feed you their still-beating hearts!"
"NO!" Hermione screamed, her eyes flame.
"Go back, Muggle whore! Go back to your Mudblood world and tremble! Hide under your bed and pray to the Dark Lord; if your prayer pleases us, I may persuade him to let you live as my personal serving wench under the Imperius Curse."
"NEVER!" The word was dragged from deep in Hermione's throat, emerging as a snarl like unto that of a she-wolf. "I have nothing to fear from the likes of you! Coward! You hide behind Voldemort's robes and your father's gold. You haven't the manhood to stand alone.
"Every time you call me Mudblood, I can hear the fear and humiliation in your voice! You can't bear the thought that a Muggle-born witch is in every way your superior! It's not me you despise, it's yourself! You're the joke of Slytherin, Draco! With your gold and your name and your vaunted Pure Blood, you still must live with the knowledge that a common, ordinary Mudblood witch is more powerful than you!
"Do your worst! Together, Harry and I defeated your precious Dark Lord! Your father, whose cowardice is so evidently visited upon his son, crawled away like a whipped dog and escaped his just punishment yet again. But his time will come! As will yours!
"Go hide under your hood, you pathetic excuse for a Death Eater! It is you who are the Mudblood! The mud of hatred and the filth of prejudice are sewage in your veins!
"Me hide from you? HA! You run and hide under your father's robes, Malfoy! You pray to your Dark Lord! Pray that you never stand between me and those I love! Because I promise you, if you or your kind ever show your faces anywhere near me or mine, I will rip out your guts and use them to hang you from the highest tree in Britain! Harry and I will be Joined! Our children will live in a world free from you and your perverted notions of racial purity! And together we will drive you back under the rock you crawled from, you -- you --- FILTHY -- STINKING -- MUDBLOOD!"
As Hermione's frenzied scream reverberated from the confines of the Corridor, Draco's glaring face burst like a bubble. The white light evaporated into feeble wisps of smoke which dissipated in the wink of an eye. Clean darkness closed in again, illuminated by the soft golden light of the candle, which reached ahead into the open Corridor.
Hermione stood for a few moments, regulating her breathing. She needed no mirror to tell her her face was redder than a Weasley at full blush.
Hermione had not suspected how deeply ran her fears in this regard. So long as a single spark survived to be fanned to terrible life, the Dark Forces would always be a threat to her through her link to Harry. To her, and to her chidren. Their children.
And she smiled. Yes. Their children. Hers and Harry's. It was a legacy, she realized, unlike any in the wizarding world. How would she bear up under it? She didn't know. She only knew that, with Harry at her side, she would find the strength. She would find it in Harry, in her parents, in her friends, in all those she loved and who loved her.
But mostly, she would find it in herself. She would be worthy of Harry; worthy of his goodness, his selflessness -- his love.
"I will be Hermione Granger Potter," she announced to the open Corridor before her, a determined smile playing across her face. "Do your worst. Do your worst, and the devil take the hindmost."
And with a final, cleansing breath, she plunged forward, the candle preceding her stride for stride.
Harry stood motionless as he watched a form coalesce before him. Slender of form; tall of stature, though not so tall as he. A rich mane of hair fell nearly to her waist; hair the color of burnished copper.
"I've been trying to remember when it was, Harry," Ginny said, her eyes fixed on a point somewhere above Harry's head. "When did a schoolgirl crush turn to love? Real love. The kind that chews at your guts. The kind that won't let you sleep or eat. The kind where you live solely for a glimpse of someone's smile -- and where you die a little every day as you realize that his smile -- and the light in his eyes -- is reserved for someone else. Not for you. Never -- for you."
"Ginny," Harry said, trying to raise his voice above a throaty whisper, but failing. "You know I...I mean...did I...I didn't mean to..."
Harry passed a hand across his face. When he looked up a moment later, he found himself staring directly into Ginny's soft brown eyes.
"I never meant to lead you on," Harry said in a louder voice this time, though far from the volume attempted. "I never...I never had much practice at loving and being loved. I always felt so out of place with people who'd grown up in loving families. You all seemed to know how to show your love, if not with words, then in other ways.
"I've learned a little since those first days. But sometimes I feel like I still have a million miles to go just to catch up with everyone else.
"I guess I always took for granted that you knew how I felt. How I feel. I didn't know how to say it, but I hoped that you all knew how much...how much I loved you. All of you. You accepted me into your family. That may be the greatest gift I ever received. Being a sort of honorary Weasley is worth more to me than a mountain of broomsticks and Invisibility Cloaks. Just because I couldn't say it then didn't mean I didn't feel it. And now that I can say it, nothing's really changed. I love your mum and dad like my own. And Ron. And you.
"Yes, I do love you, Ginny. I can no more deny it than deny the ground under my feet. I think...I think I knew for certain when I held you in my arms in the Chamber of Secrets. I just wanted to hold you forever and make sure that nothing bad ever happened to you again.
"But it was...I mean, it wasn't...Merlin help me! I didn't! I know I didn't! Ginny, you know it's true. I never once implied that the love I felt for you was a...romantic love."
"But you knew how I felt, didn't you?" Ginny returned. "And it made you feel good, didn't it? All those times when you were feeling down and alone, when it felt like the whole world had deserted you. When everyone else turned away, you always knew you could count on good ol' Ginny to stand by you. When Hermione shut you out for weeks at a time to study for her O.W.L.'s or her N.E.W.T.'s...when Ron went ballistic over some silly thing and you didn't talk for days...
"And when you'd have dreams about You-Know-Who killing your parents, or about Cedric dying; or if you just went into one of those depressions that would come over you...when you felt that no one in the world loved you...or ever would love you...who did you run to? Who did you know would always be there for you? Who would never lose faith in you?
"Me, that's who! Your rock. Your court of last resort. Ginny Weasley, the girl who loved you too much ever to run away! Ginny Weasley, the girl you knew would always love you! Would...always...love you..."
Ginny's voice fell to a whisper, her head falling with it.
"And now I'm to stand by meekly and watch as you pledge your love to another? How can you ask me to do that, knowing what you do? How can you not see how much this is hurting me? Am I just a thing to you, without human feelings? It's like I'm some kind of security blanket you needed when you were younger, but which you're casting aside now that you've outgrown it."
Harry was trying vainly to speak, but the words choked in his throat. Was it true? Had he really been so callous, so unfeeling? So...so blind?
"Or have you outgrown me?" Ginny said cryptically. "You believe Hermione is your true love. The one. But is she? Will she love you as completely, as unconditionally, as I? Will she always be there for you? Will she never fail you? Or will the day come when she can't...or won't ...give you what you need? What will you do then, Harry? Will you turn to good ol' Ginny as you did a thousand times before? Will you just turn around and expect to find me there, waiting for you? Loyal, faithful Ginny? And what if I'm not there? What will you do?
"What do you want, Harry?" Ginny sobbed mournfully. "Bloody Hell! What do you really want?"
Harry did not know how long he stood looking at Ginny, whose body shivered as at the prompting of unspeakable anguish. Without thought to guide him, he stepped forward and wrapped his arms around the trembling girl. Her head fell onto his shoulder, and he thought to feel the hotness of tears on his snowy white robes.
"You asked if I believe Hermione is the one," Harry said, his cheek pressed against Ginny's fiery hair. "Yes. I believe that she will be waiting for me in the Soul Chamber -- granting, of course, that I am worthy to reach it myself.
"And if she isn't...if she isn't, I'll still beg her to marry me, by wizard cleric or Muggle Justice of the Peace. Because I love her. Sometimes I think I would quite literally die without her."
Harry huffed a short sigh.
"Dumbledore said that a marriage under those conditions would be a flawed one. Who knows what would happen? But I can promise you one thing that will not happen."
Harry tightened his hold on Ginny.
"I will not turn around and expect you to be waiting for me. For me to expect that of you would shame both you and me."
Harry released Ginny and tilted his head so that he could look into her eyes, which, though deep with thoughts he dared not fathom, were yet clear and sharp.
"If I ever treated you as you say I did -- if I took you for granted, used you as some kind of emotional crutch -- please believe it wasn't through malice or heartlessness. It was pure, bloody stupidity! I used to wonder sometimes how I ever came to be sorted into Gryffindor. Gryffindors are supposed to be brave, but most of the time I was scared out of my mind! So many strange, new things happening to me, making my stomach feel like it was full of Cornish pixies. And it wasn't ghosts and trolls and basilisks that scared me the most. Turns out it was my own feelings. I came to realize that I knew about as much about love as Hagrid does about how to crochet lace doilies.
"And you're right. I must have known, on some level, how you felt about me beneath the superficiality of a simple schoolgirl crush. You may have stopped putting your elbow in the butter dish, but there were other signs that anyone with the I.Q. of a flobberworm should have seen straight off. So what if I had enough insecurities to fill the Great Hall to the rafters? That's no excuse. I should have seen. I should have felt. I bloody well should have known!"
Harry looked into Ginny's eyes for some sign. He thought the hardness he'd glimpsed before was lessened, if not completely abated.
"In all my time at Hogwarts, I've done a lot of things I regret. But I regret nothing so much as any hurt I may have caused you. I'm taking with me a lot of good memories of Hogwarts, and some of the best are of you. I don't think there's a single accomplishment of yours that didn't make me just as happy and proud as it did Ron. I cherish you, Ginny. If I hadn't got to you in time in the Chamber of Secrets, I can't imagine how I'd have filled that empty place that would've been left inside me. I wouldn't be who I am today if not for you. Growing up isn't easy under the best of conditions. As for me, I needed all the help I could get. You were a big part of that.
"Now, here I am, trying to prove to myself and to the world that I'm not a boy any more; that I'm a man who is ready to take a man's place in the world. But that doesn't mean I'm not still unsure of myself sometimes. One thing I am sure of is that I can't do it alone. I'll need all the help I can get -- from every quarter. God willing, I'll soon have a wife to help me along, see that I don't make a total arse of myself...most of the time, anyway."
Harry dared the merest suggestion of a smile, and his heart leaped when Ginny returned it, if in a strained fashion.
"You are truly beautiful, Ginny. You and Hermione are so much alike in so many ways. Both of you have a beauty of the spirit that transcends the material. Maybe...maybe that love that sparked in the Chamber of Secrets...helped me to realize that I could love someone. If that's true, then every happiness I share with Hermione from this day on is down to you. If that's so, I owe you a debt I can never repay.
"I want you in my life, Ginny. In our life -- mine and Hermione's. We both love you. If it's not the kind of love you hoped for...I'm sorry. But it is real. I love you, Ginny. Today, tomorrow, and forever. For your sake, I wish it could be more. But what I can give, I give without qualification or condition. Pure love, 100 per cent. Because I could never, ever give you anything less."
Harry's hands were resting on Ginny's shoulders. She placed her own hands on his arms where the sleeves of his robe had slipped back.
"I do love you so much, Harry," she said, a true smile growing slowly on her face like the moon phasing from crescent to quarter, struggling valiantly toward fullness. "Do you know how much?"
Unable to respond, Harry merely pursed his lips contritely and lowered his eyes submissively.
"Enough to give you up. Enough to wish you -- you and Hermione -- a lifetime of happiness. I believe you deserve all the good things the world can give you, Harry. And the greatest of these is love. If Hermione is the one...then she's the luckiest woman in the world. And I don't mind...coming in second..."
"Love isn't a contest like the Triwizard Tournament," Harry said. "No one comes in second. Maybe the trophies are different...but they all have the same inscription: First place. When love is genuine, and from the heart...everybody wins.
"I love you, Ginny. For ever and always."
"Ever and always," Ginny echoed.
Harry bent, eyes closed, to kiss Ginny's cheek. His lips brushed her smooth, peachy skin for a moment.
When Harry stood up, his arms were empty.
But his heart was full beyond measuring.
"Bless you, Ginny," Harry said, and set off down the now open Corridor as if borne on wings.