The image forming before Hermione yet had no human shape, no distinction by which to mark it. Nevertheless, Hermione knew it for what, and who, it was. One it was whom she had known she must face ere she and Harry could truly join. Without benefit of face or mouth, the image spoke. In a voice softer than thistledown, yet with a force to topple a mountain, it spoke a single word.
"Don't."
Hermione waited for the face and form she knew must appear. The outlines of what had been the flame of her candle sharpened into a tall, angular form with long nose, firm mouth, and deep, volcanic blue eyes. Those eyes were at once piercing as steel, and pleading.
"Ron," Hermione said softly. She met Ron Weasley's gaze directly, unwinkingly. There was an underlying sadness on the freckled face, warring with a strength and determination.
"Don't do this, Hermione," Ron implored. "Please. Go back. Come back. I don't want to beg, but I will if I have to. Pride be damned. Nothing matters. Nothing...but us."
"Ron," Hermione said with a heavy shake of her head, "there is no 'us.' There never was. There never can be."
Hermione's voice quavered slightly. Her lips pressed together as her eyes grew blurry. Ron reached out with his long arms and took her hands in his. He lifted her hands to his lips and kissed them.
"I've loved you longer than I can remember," he mumbled into her trembling fingers. "When I look back now, I can't think of a day when I didn't. Even in First Year, when I didn't know love from the backside of a hippogriff. I saw it all in retrospect, years later. The insults. The arguments. It was just my way. The only way I knew to let it out.
"My eyes were finally opened by Malfoy, of all people. The first time he called you Mudblood, I felt like I'd been stabbed in the heart. He couldn't have hurt me more had he spat in Ginny's face. When he hurt you, he hurt me. And that's when I knew.
"I can still see you lying in your hospital bed, petrified by the basilisk. I thought I'd never have the chance to tell you. I told myself that, if you ever woke up, I'd change. I'd be a better person, just for you.
"Didn't mean it, of course. Just one of those promises you make when you want something so bad that you'll promise anything to have it, you know? That next Summer was kind of rough on me, actually. Went through a lot of changes I didn't understand. Sort of went inside myself, you might say. I hid the new Ron behind the old one, and everything was back to normal. Besides, Harry was always there, wasn't he? Knew I couldn't compete against him -- even if he didn't really know we were competing, you know? Well, I guess there were a lot of things Harry didn't know then, weren't there?
"But I kept waiting. Looking for, well, some kind of...opening, I guess. You were always so serious, you never seemed the type to be interested in...I dunno...girl stuff. I figured I had all the time in the world to get it together. But Fourth Year was going to be it! I'd work up to it gradually, you know? While Harry was busy with Cho, it would be just you and me.
"And then Krum came along. And suddenly, it was too late. I'd waited too long, and I knew it was over.
"But I couldn't let it be over! Not inside. Even when I saw you kiss Harry at King's Cross at the end of Fourth Year. Even when he pulled his head out of his arse and started to notice you -- and you -- you ---
"I couldn't let go! Merlin help me! I knew I was only poor, stupid Ron Weasley...that I didn't have a chance in Hell...but I couldn't let go! I can't let you go, Hermione! I can't! I love you!
"Let it be me, Hermione! God in Heaven, let it be me!"
Her eyes welling with tears, Hermione disengaged her hands from Ron's grasp and slipped them around his waist.
"I know you care for me, Ron," she mumbled into his chest, her face buried in the folds of his robes. "I love you, too. Sometimes I think there isn't a measuring device in the world that can chart how much. And there were more than a few nights in Fourth Year when I thought there might be a chance for us. But... but...I was hiding inside myself, too, back then. You were hiding the part of you that loved me. And I...I was hiding the part of myself that loved Harry!
"I was so afraid that I would never be good enough for the Hero of the wizarding world! He could've had any witch he wanted. Why in Merlin's name would he ever want plain old me? So I -- I thought -- "
"You thought you'd settle for second-best?" Ron said with a pained laugh. "That's what I was, wasn't I? Still am, come to that."
"No!" Hermione gasped, catching her breath with an effort. "It's not about first or second! You don't compare people like...like potions assignments or O.W.L. scores! It was never about being best or worst. It's not about loving someone more and another less. It's...it's..."
"It's something you can't put into words," Ron said with a wisdom that would have startled any who knew only the schoolboy prankster of the Hogwarts class of '98.
"Please be happy for me, Ron," Hermione implored softly. "How can I...I can't...I need you there, Ron...I need to know that you're there for me...that you'll always be there..."
"I will," Ron said in a deep, throaty affirmation. "I could never let you down, Hermione. I'd die before I'd do that. But...it's hard...letting go. Never thought it would...hurt so much. I want to hold you like this forever."
But even as Ron's words sounded in her ears, Hermione felt his arms slowly relax and withdraw.
Without thinking, Hermione wiped her eyes on Ron's robes, and he emitted a short laugh.
"You are the one, aren't you? Bloke pours his heart out to you, and you wipe your eyes on his bloody robes!" He laughed again, with genuine humor, and Hermione buried her face in her hands with a sob. Ron gently pulled her hands away and lifted her head so that she could look up into his eyes, which were lightly glazed with wetness.
"Harry's the luckiest sod on this Earth. If I were in his place today, I wouldn't swap for all the gold in Gringotts. With a love like yours in his pocket, he's the richest wizard in the world!"
Ron bent from his impressive height and placed a kiss on Hermione's cheek, tasting her tears, his lips just brushing the corner of her mouth.
"Love you," he murmured into her cream-colored skin, bringing a tinge of rose to her face.
Hermione no longer felt Ron's hands upon her. Opening her eyes, she saw only an empty passageway beckoning her onward.
"Love you, too," she breathed, staring ahead into the candlelit darkness. Her eyes fixed on the steady golden flame burning brightly before her, Hermione resumed her journey to the Soul Chamber. And Harry.
Harry felt cold darkness gathering around him. The cold seeped into his joints, penetrating to his very marrow. The candle flame seemed to be laboring, straining feebly against the oppressive gloom. Harry felt the instinctive urge to draw his wand, though whether for illumination or defense, he could not say. But, he reasoned, neither purpose would be served. He knew by now that everything he experienced in this enchanted Corridor was the product of his own mind. And this thought brought a different kind of chill. From where in his young mind did such oppressive blackness spring?
There could be only one answer.
"Harry Potter!"
Harry immediately identified that chilling voice, though he'd hoped ever to hear it again. Hissing, sibilant, inhuman --
"Voldemort!"
The Dark Lord materialized from the blackness, his eyes red, glowing coals. Harry stepped back involuntarily, his hand seeking the reassuring touch of his wand without benefit of conscious thought.
"Foolish boy," Voldemort taunted in a slow, smooth voice like as a snake slithering through tall grass. "You think me truly gone? How many times have I been destroyed, only to return, stronger, more powerful than ever? Will you never realize that Lord Voldemort cannot be destroyed? I depart only for a time. And what is time? A year? A millennium? Or a single tick of the clock. All is illusion. Time is eternal. As is Lord Voldemort!"
"What do you want?" Harry said without thinking. He told himself that all was, even as "Voldemort" had said, illusion. It was not real. Yet, for that, his nerves still hummed like piano wire.
Voldemort's serpentine face split in an evil smile.
"Vengeance, Harry," he purred. "When I departed this veil, I left behind...unsettled accounts, shall we say. When I return, it will be to sate my vengeance. A debt beyond measuring has been accrued...and that debt will be paid!"
"I fought you before," Harry said hoarsely, his fingers closing on the reassuring smoothness of his wand, though not drawing it as yet. "I destroyed you once. I'll do it again!"
"Will you, indeed?" Voldemort's glassy eyes shone with mockery. "You amuse me, Harry. You say you will fight me? Ah, but will I fight you? It would give you great satisfaction to oppose me again, would it not? Shall I give you that boon? Or are there other ways -- more delectable ways -- to exact toll?"
Harry felt as though a stream of ice water were coursing down his spine.
"On the day I first set eyes upon you, Harry," Voldemort said with a casualness that stung Harry, "I took your parents from you. The only people in the world who loved you completely and without reservation. I took their lives from them as easily as I would extinguish a candle flame -- and, I daresay, with as little regard. By that simple act, I have caused you to suffer much, Harry. Torment, humiliation, degradation. Ten years, Harry. Without so much as laying a finger upon you, I have made you suffer unspeakably.
"And -- I shall do so again."
Harry drew his wand in a single fluid motion and pointed it at Voldemort's breast. He felt foolish doing so. like a marionette dancing to the tug of invisible strings; yet this reproachment did not serve to lower his wand by so much as a millimeter.
"How easily I have hurt you, Harry," Voldemort fairly exuberated. "With such little effort have I made your life a living Curse. And how easily shall I do so again!
"I took from you those whom you loved, Harry. I left you alone. But, enterprising young man that you are, you have found others to love, have you not? Thus does it fall to me again to deprive you of that love. And so I shall."
"No," Harry rasped, his wand hand trembling as he took aim at Voldemort's inhuman heart.
"But yes!" Voldemort sang, his ruby eyes a-glitter with malevolence. "You have found yourself a prospective wife to give you the love you so desperately need, the love James and Lily could not give you from the coldness of their graves. Surely you must know that I cannot permit this? I cannot allow you to deprive me of the fruits of my triumph. If your suffering is to continue, per my irrevocable decree, then I must deprive you of that which you most love. When I return -- as return I shall! -- my first action must be to punish you! To make you suffer! If, therefore, you take this...Mudblood...to wife, it follows that I must of necessity take her from you."
"NEVER!" Harry shouted. "You'll never take Hermione from me!"
Voldemort's laughter was terrifying.
"You cannot prevent it! Can you watch over her every minute of every day? Can you alone protect her from my legions of loyal Death Eaters, to whom my word is absolute law?
"Not alone!" Harry hissed. "Never alone! I have friends and allies --"
"Useless!" Voldemort shrieked, his eyes red flame. "The prophecy must be fulfilled! I must destroy you, totally, utterly -- therefore, I must destroy any who are part and parcel of you!
"Can you bear to watch her die, Harry? For you shall. You will watch her die, will feel her tremble in your arms as her life flees her body. And afterwards will come the dreams. Oh, yes, Harry! My vengeance would not be complete without the dreams!
"Do you still dream about your parents, Harry? Do you still hear them crying out, begging for mercy -- for themselves -- and for you? Do you still wake up screaming, Harry, your vision clouded by the faces of James and Lily crying out from beyond the grave? Soon there will be three faces in that vision, Harry! Three faces of death! But -- with a difference...
"For this third death will have been wholly unnecessary. You could do nothing to prevent my killing James and Lily. But you can save the Mudblood's life by a simple expedient...
"TURN BACK, HARRY! Turn back now! For I promise you, if you join yourself to this Muggle-born witch, you thus make her party to your suffering! I shall return, Harry! I will be avenged! If you love this -- this -- harlot -- save her! Save her from her fate! Save her from -- yourself!"
Harry's hand was shaking as with a palsy. Then, abruptly, the tenseness flowed from his muscles like potion from a bottomless cup. In a smooth, unhurried motion he replaced his wand and surveyed Voldemort with eyes hard as polished emeralds.
"I won't deny that I fear you, Voldemort. Only a fool knows no fear. But I'll not be slave to that fear. Perhaps you are too evil to die. I may spend a lifetime warring against you and all that you stand for. But I will not order my life to suit your perverted agenda.
"You were right about one thing. I couldn't prevent your killing my parents. I was an infant then. Now, I'm a man. A man who will do whatever I must to protect those I love, from you or anything else.
"You put great stock in prophecies, Voldemort. That may have been your greatest failing -- though, with so many to choose from -- " Harry said with a venomous smirk, " -- that would be a difficult assessment to make.
"You never understood that prophecies -- even genuine ones -- are only vague blueprints at best. In the end, it all comes down to choices. When you murdered my parents -- when you tried to murder me -- you may have thought you were doing no more than fulfilling Trelawney's prophecy. But that feeble justification can never wipe the bloodstains from your hands. And years later, you convinced your Death Eaters that that same prophecy guaranteed your ultimate victory. But I suppose you had to tell them that to keep them from deserting you in droves when the Aurors and the Order of the Phoenix were bringing your dreams of conquest crashing down around you." Harry laughed shortly, which sound brought a snakelike hiss from Voldemort's fleshless lips.
"They call me the Boy of Prophecy -- the Destroyer of Voldemort. But if mine was the hand that struck the final blow, the power behind that blow came from more than myself alone.
"Dumbledore told me many times that it was my power to love which was my greatest strength. Love for my friends; love for my family -- the second family I found to replace the one you stole from me. But more than anything, it was my love for Hermione that was your downfall. You see, I love her so much, I would have given my life gladly if in so doing I could have bequeathed to her a world forever free from your foul, polluting stench. And that's something you could never understand. You told Dumbledore that there was nothing worse than death. That's where we differ, you and I -- and why, in the final analysis, you were doomed almost from the start."
All trace of anger was now gone from Harry's voice. The face that had only minutes before been contorted with fury was now serene in a manner that incensed Voldemort beyond his ability to express the emotion.
"I love my life," Harry said simply, "whereas you -- you covet yours, like -- like a pile of gold. But though gold glows with fire, it gives no warmth. To me, life isn't a possession -- it's a blessing -- and a blessing has no value until it's given away. And that's a concept you could never so much as conceive -- that there could be a cause worth paying the ultimate price. If you weren't such an abomination, I could almost pity you."
Harry slowly returned his wand to his pristine robe, a hard smile on his face that matched the emerald gleam in his eyes.
"Wizard I may be -- but for all his power, imagined or otherwise, a wizard is still just a man. And a man's strength comes from more than himself alone. It comes from those he loves, and who love him. As for me," Harry said with quiet affirmation, "Hermione is my strength. It was she who defeated you as much as I. With her beside me -- and inside me -- I am what you strove in vain to become -- the king of the world.
"But I have better things to do than stand here trading platitudes with the likes of you," Harry said with an almost regal dismissiveness. "Hermione is waiting for me, somewhere beyond that door. And just as I gave my life without reservation to the cause of destroying you, so I intend to give it again, once and for all time. So go crawl back into the foul pit that spawned you. But know this -- Hermione and I will be Joined, and not you nor all the fiends of Hell will prevent it. And if by some unholy power you do defy death yet again and return to the world of the living, make no mistake -- we will be waiting for you -- Hermione and I -- today, tomorrow -- and forever."
As the last echo of Harry's voice died, he swept his arm before him as if he were sweeping aside a cloud of midges. At this gesture, the darkness pressing him from all sides shivered visibly, like black blood in a trembling crucible. In a silent implosion, it collapsed in on itself as at the crux of a whirlpool. Harry blinked his eyes once, and the next moment he beheld once more the clean blackness of the nighted Corridor, its outlines receding before him beyond the periphery of the reinvigorated candle flame.
"You are my strength, Hermione," Harry reaffirmed, his eyes fixed on the Stygian gloom whose depths beckoned
him onward. "I love you." And he resolutely followed the advancing candle -- and his heart --
forward.