When the candle began to glow brightly again, Hermione looked intently for the outline of some face or figure to identify. But now the light merely expanded until Hermione was completely engulfed as by a London pea-souper. Unable to see more than an arm's length in any direction, she strained her ears for some telling sound. The silence was absolute. No, she corrected herself, not quite. There was a sound, faint, unidentifiable. She couldn't decide if the sound was muted by distance, or was nearby but merely soft by nature. She listened closer, wishing for the fog to dissipate.
As if in answer to her wish, the fog melted away as at the behest of a gust of wind -- though Hermione felt no slightest breath of air. The mist rolled back to reveal friendly walls, dotted with prints of pastoral scenes and museum masterworks. There was a couch, chairs, tables. And -- there was carpeting under her feet, soft and plush --
Her feet! Hermione realized that her feet were no longer bare, but clad in comfortable loafers of the type she favored when at home during Summer holidays --
It was then that full realization struck her. This was her house! And she -- she was no longer wearing her wedding robes. She wore the simple, conservative attire of her everyday Muggle life in between school terms: A long-sleeved blouse, cream-colored, two buttons open at the top, one below; not tucked in, but swinging freely about her hips, which were clad in loose-fitting earth-tone slacks which, due to her short stature, bagged more than a little around her ankles.
And the sound...something sliding over cloth, rapping lightly on a hard surface...
"Oh, there you are, Hermione," called a musical voice. Hermione looked up from her self-inspection to behold her mother bending over the dinner table, apparently having just finished setting plates and glassware on a linen tablecloth. Three place settings, Hermione noted. Mrs. Granger smiled sweetly and said, "Now that you're here, be a dear and set out the silver? I have to go check the oven. Your father's busy making the salad."
As her mother disappeared into the kitchen, Hermione stood for a moment as her rational mind tried to adjust to the shock of it all. On her left hand was the modest living room of the Granger house; on her right was the adjoining dining area, debouching onto the kitchen, from which an inviting aroma was even now drifting forth to caress Hermione's senses. Rousing herself, Hermione went unerringly to the silverware drawer and procured three sets of cutlery. When the last knife was properly arranged, Hermione saw her mother's face pop around the kitchen doorway.
"Five minutes," Mrs. Granger said before her head vanished again. The vacancy was promptly filled by Mr. Granger, a heaping salad bowl in his hands.
"Five minutes," he said, setting the bowl to the left of a cut glass vase in which a single rose stood alert. A white rose, Hermione noted. "Just enough time for a pre-dinner chat," her father concluded. "Catch up on things, what?"
Before Hermione could reply, her mother appeared, her hand extended. She motioned Hermione to a short couch, seating herself beside her daughter. Mr. Granger plunked himself down in an easy chair facing the two women.
"Now, princess," he said in a cheerful voice, though with eyes wholly serious, "tell us about this young man of yours. He's not...that is...he's not one of us, is he? He's a...wizard."
"Daddy," Hermione said slowly, her brow furrowing with mild puzzlement, and not a little fearfulness, "you've met Harry. He spent last Summer with us. The two of you chatted on for hours."
As Hermione hesitated, uncertain how to proceed, Mrs. Granger placed a hand on her daughter's arm.
"Yes, we've known Harry and his friends for seven years now," she said with what seemed to Hermione to be a sort of forced calm. "But these people...they're not...well...they're not..."
"They're not exactly...normal," Mr. Granger finished.
Hermione's brain was spinning. Her reason told her that these were not her parents; her parents were hundreds of miles away, at the Burrow. These figures before her were merely images drawn from her thoughts and memories, given solidity by Merlin's powerful enchantments.
But -- and suddenly Hermione felt a chill -- were they nothing more? Hermione had seen ample demonstration of the potency of Merlin's magic this day. Could that magic be reaching beyond the confines of the Dome? Were tendrils of insidious sorcery even now sifting through her parents' minds, drawing forth these unexpected -- yet perfectly understandable -- doubts regarding their daughter's strange new lifestyle apart from them and the world they knew? Were these, then, her parents' true feelings, harbored in secret for seven years and never divulged until now?
How long Hermione sat inert, batting these thoughts about like so many Bludgers, she did not know. Turning to face her mother, she placed her hand atop the one still resting on her arm and smiled, a distant light hovering behind the surface of her soft, puppy-dog eyes.
"When I was a little girl," she said softly, "you used to tell me all the things I should look for in a husband. Do you remember what you said?"
"Of course, dear," Mrs. Granger said, returning her daughter's gentle smile. "I said the man who marries my little girl must be good and kind. He must be honest, with good moral fiber. He should not abuse his body with poison, nor his mind with unclean thoughts. And above all, he must honor you and respect you for the woman you are; for if he cannot do this, then any love he claims to have for you is a lie."
"Guess what, Mum?" Hermione said, her smile growing radiant. "You just described Harry."
"Princess," Mr. Granger said, leaning forward in his chair, "You know we love you. We only want what's best for you. When we got your Hogwarts letter, we scarcely knew what to think. It all seemed like some elaborate practical joke -- until Minerva appeared and convinced us it was all very real. TOO real, come to that."
Mr. Granger paused, covering his mouth with his hand. But the muscles of his cheeks tugging backwards revealed the smile hidden thereunder. He shook his head wonderingly.
"We always knew our little girl was special. But -- flippin' Guy Fawkes on a trolley, luv! -- this was something we just weren't prepared for! I mean, blimey, who could be? Magic! Real, honest to God magic! And our little girl -- a witch!"
"Yet you let me go," Hermione said. "I never heard a word of discouragement in seven years. You supported me all the way."
"But through it all," her father said with an undisguised heaviness in his voice, "we always thought, I dunno -- we thought, when it was all over, you'd -- you'd come back to us. To our world. The real world."
"Real," Hermione repeated, withholding a pointed sigh. "What is 'real', Daddy? Magical people are still people. Flesh and blood. You've met the Weasleys? I think they're more normal than any family I've ever met. They feel -- we feel -- " she stressed, including herself in this company, " -- the same things as non-magical folk. We laugh when we hear a funny joke -- and groan at bad ones. We cheer when our favorite team wins the Championship Cup. And we cry just like everyone else. And for the same reasons. When a baby is born...when we suffer a loss...or when someone steps on our heart..."
Hermione squeezed her eyes shut for a minute, fighting for control.
"When I found out I was a witch, I thought I was suddenly different from what I was before. And I was a little scared at first, though I'd never have admitted it, of course." She opened her eyes to find her parents smiling, causing her own smile to reappear. "But the funniest thing about Hogwarts was how bloody normal it turned out to be. The teachers, the students, the classrooms and the dorms; everything just reminded me, year after year, how ordinary I really was. And still am.
"So I can do magic. I can make things fly, or appear, or vanish. So what? What if -- what if you'd been told that I was a musical genius, a prodigy? What if someone from a conservatory had come and said I should be trained for the concert stage, that if I practiced hard every day, that my name would someday be on the marquee at the Royal Albert Hall? Would I be any different? Or would I still be Hermione Granger? Would I still be your daughter? Your little girl?
"Have I ever told you about my friend Dean Thomas? He's a wonderful artist. He's still a wizard, but it's very likely that he'll spend his life doing something that has absolutely nothing to do with magic. Well, unless you count paintings that talk back to you, and leave their frames to go visiting."
Mr. Granger's eyebrows rose, and Hermione chuckled.
"We're all of us the same, really. We all do the best we can with the tools we're given. And hard work pays off in the magical world just as much as in the Muggle world. I didn't ace my classes because my blood was more magical than anyone else's. There are hundreds of witches and wizards with magical ancestry going back three thousand years. But that didn't add up to a hippogriff's toenail when it came time for O.W.L.'s and N.E.W.T.'s. I got top marks because I worked harder than anyone else. You taught me that -- both of you. Everything I am or ever will be isn't because of Hogwarts. It's because of you."
"Do you really love him, princess?" Mr. Granger asked softy, seeming almost ashamed of his words before they left his lips. "It's not because..."
"Daddy," Hermione said warmly, "I love it when you call me 'princess'. It makes me feel more magical than anything in the wizarding world. But I know I'm anything but a princess. You always taught me to respect the truth. And the truth is, I'm not all that pretty. And you're wondering if I agreed to marry Harry because I thought I might not get another offer. It's okay, really. I used to think the same thing myself... when I was little, and all the boys ignored me in favor of the girls with the long blonde curls and big blue eyes, and faces like sugar candy. That certainly doesn't describe me, does it?" She felt a little laugh bubble forth, one entirely devoid of bitterness. "Not enough magic in the world to bring that owl to roost. Add to that I'm opinionated, I never compromise, and I've been told I nag like a fishwife. And in spite of all that -- and other things best left to my diary -- the bravest, noblest hero in the wizarding world thinks I'm beautiful.
"But that's...that's not why I love him. I love him because...I just..."
As Hermione's voice faded to a hushed whisper, her father reached out and tilted her face until her eyes met his.
"I know that look," he said almost breathlessly. "I see it in your mother's eyes even after all these years -- and I thank God for it."
Hermione leaped up and wrapped her arms around her father, feeling all of a sudden like she was six years old again and there was no bad thing in the world that a hug from Daddy couldn't set to rights.
Mrs. Granger was on her feet now, waiting to receive her daughter in a loving embrace. Hermione fell upon her with a joyful sob.
Her eyes closed fast, vainly attempting to block the flow of tears threatening to erupt, Hermione felt the warmth of her mother's arms spread through her in soothing waves. She did not know how long she stood thus. But at some point she realized that she was no longer standing on a carpet. Her once more shoeless feet felt only smooth stone. The loose, comfortable folds of her wedding robes were a reassuring caress against her skin.
Hermione knew without opening her eyes that she no longer held her mother, that the walls surrounding her were not those of her house. But the warm feeling permeating her was not diminished. The glow of love was an aura independent of the glowing candle. And, opening her eyes slowly, Hermione now perceived that yet another radiance suffused the Corridor in which she stood. Her breath trapped in her chest, Hermione looked past the candle to see not a dark passageway, but an opening from beyond which a pallid, surreal light shone.
"Harry," Hermione sobbed softly. "Harry."
Her love lending wings to her feet as well as to her heart, Hermione stepped through the doorway and into the Soul Chamber.
Harry had been watching the candle for what seemed ages. It was completely motionless, had been for what seemed hours to Harry's heightened, anxiety-laced senses. The featureless door stood behind the flickering taper in all its mute impassivity.
Harry shook his head as if to clear his vision. And when he looked again, the door was gone! In its place was a wall, painted a pale, tranquil green. Harry saw that his enchanted candle was now resting in an ornate holder in the exact center of the wall, its light dispersed by a bronze reflector. Like candles occupied similar places on the walls at either hand. Two of the walls bore windows, the curtains drawn. The third wall, which he supposed was an inner wall, was unbroken. All three walls were decorated with pictures and small shelves upon which objects of varying size and dubious identity sat in a sort of friendly casualness.
Harry felt heat against his back, indicating that the unseen fourth wall bore a well-stoked fireplace. The dry heat was reassuring on his shoulders, which he realized felt somewhat strained from his recent ordeals.
"Welcome home, Harry."
Harry whirled as if jerked by a leash. That voice! How many times had he heard it in dreams, in visions -- in the Mirror of Erised...
"Mum?" It was almost a sob.
Lily Potter smiled, her green eyes soft and tender. The loving smile on her delicate face was mirrored on the countenance of the man standing next to her, blocked momentarily as he ingenuously raked his fingers through a tousle of unruly black hair.
"Dad!"
Harry caught himself from rushing forward blindly. These were not, could not possibly be, his parents. James and Lily were dead. These were but shadows clothed in illusion, fleshed by his mind through Merlin's pervading magic.
But in the end, none of that mattered. Discarding logic like a tattered and unwanted cloak, Harry rushed forward and fell upon James and Lily, sobbing as he had not since that day following the third task of the Triwizard Tournament when Molly Weasley had held him as she would her own son. And though Harry loved Molly as much as he did anyone in the world, there was no price he would not have paid on that day to replace Molly's warm embrace with that of his mother. And now...
Lily's gentle fingers were laced through Harry's hair. A strong hand that could be none but James' was upon his shoulder, its firmness yet as loving as Lily's feathery touch. In that moment suspended in time, Harry felt 17 years of loneliness and anguish spill out of him like water from a sundered dam. He wanted to hold them like this forever.
When at last Harry drew back, he noted for the first time that he was more than half a head taller than his mother. The same thought seemed to have occurred to Lily as she appraised her son approvingly, her head inclined slightly.
"He's almost as tall as you, James."
"No 'almost' about it," James said, clapping his son on the shoulder jovially.
"I've missed you so much, " Harry said hoarsely, determined not to break down, not so much from pride as from an unwillingness to squander this cherished moment with such unproductive foolishness.
Smiling broadly, James steered Harry to an upholstered chair as he and Lily seated themselves before him on an antique loveseat.
"Now, son," James said with an air of fatherly command in his voice, "tell us what you've been up to lately. We do see quite a bit from the Other Side, but a lot slips through the cracks.
"Tell us," he said in a low, slightly thick voice, "about the war against Voldemort."
Speaking mechanically through his befuddlement, Harry said, "Voldemort is dead. Destroyed. He'll never again hurt anyone like...like he..."
Harry's throat constricted. They looked so alive! He had felt the warmth of their flesh against his. It was all a bad dream, he told himself in an effort to sweep reason into the forgotten corners of his mind. He had been hypnotized, made to believe that they were dead as some form of punishment, though for what crime he could not say. Voldemort was clever that way. Even with his power shattered all those years ago, the Dark Lord had reached out from the Nether Realms and corrupted Harry's perception, twisted his mind, shaped it to his own perverted ends.
Harry jerked his glasses away, his hand covering his eyes to stay the onrush of burning tears. And that innocuous action rent the tapestry of delusion and stripped the veil from Harry's mind and heart. For as he swept away his tears, Harry felt his fingertips brush the jagged outline of his scar. His touch lingered thereon, tracing the irregular line against the smoothness of his forehead. Harry felt the urge to laugh hysterically. Here, then, was proof of the lie -- the wonderful, impossible lie. For if Lily yet lived, whence this mark on his flesh? No. Lily was dead. It was her sacrifice that had caused Voldemort's Killing Curse to rebound from baby Harry, leaving behind this reminder, this signpost to mark the fate of its perpetrator.
"We always knew you could do it," Lily said with motherly pride. "Your father and I never doubted but that you would avenge our deaths."
"And not just us," James added. "How many hundreds, even thousands did Voldemort kill or destroy? And how many more would have suffered by his hand had he gone on unchallenged? Killed outright, like us. Or the Bones'. Or made to suffer something worse than death, like the Longbottoms. Our end, at least, brought a closure of sorts for those we left behind. But Neville's suffering goes on. Nor can Voldemort's destruction dry a single tear from his face.
"This was about more than vengeance, son. It was about justice. About opposing evil for no other reason than that it is right to do so. You've honored us beyond measure, Harry."
Harry felt a hand clutching at his heart.
"I -- I didn't do it alone. There was Dumbledore. And Moody. And who knows where we'd have been without Sirius? So...so many...
"But...I really couldn't have done it without Hermione."
"Tell us about it," James prompted.
"Yes," Lily echoed. "And tell us about Hermione."
"Well," Harry said stumblingly, his mind rejecting the rationality of the scene in favor of its deeper meaning to his pained soul, "She's Muggle-born, like you, Mum. But she's an only child. Her parents are dentists, about as thoroughly Muggle as you could imagine. Never know to look at them that they'd give the world the smartest witch of the 21st century."
Lily's face lit up at this, and Harry felt a surge from deep within that strove to burst his chest like a balloon.
"She broke every existing record for O.W.L's and N.E.W.T.'s," Harry declared. "There's never been anyone like her. Even hung a plaque of her in the Great Hall."
"Next to yours," James affirmed gently.
"Hagrid once said," Harry resumed, struggling against the redness rising to his cheeks, "that there hadn't been a spell invented that Hermione couldn't do. And -- " Harry hesitated, his voice dropping noticeably, " -- she needed every bit of magical skill she had when -- when Voldemort attacked."
James and Lily sat quietly as Harry's eyes took on a far-away look.
"There were Death Eaters all around us. It looked like there was no stopping them. But Hermione held them off with hexes and attacking spells and counter-Curses. She cleared the way for me to challenge Voldemort. Without her, I wouldn't have had the strength to withstand his attack. She very nearly sacrificed herself. All so I'd be up to facing Voldemort at full strength.
"But it wasn't just her magic and her bravery. It was just -- knowing that she was there. She's always been there for me. They -- they carried both of us off the battlefield thinking we were dead. I woke up first, days later, and when I learned that Hermione was still unconscious, I -- I thought more than once that...that I...I didn't want to live in a world without her. If she had died, then I wanted to die, too."
"It sounds like you love her very much, son," James said.
"More than I ever imagined I could love someone," Harry said haltingly. "I feel she's...she's the reason I was born...the reason I was spared when -- " Harry swallowed dryly. "She...she fills me up inside. All the empty places deep inside of me."
"The emptiness left by our deaths?" Lily asked delicately.
The question startled Harry into a fearsome silence.
"Are you marrying her because you love her?" James queried. "Or because she loves you?"
Harry shook himself, staring into his father's piercing hazel eyes, which in that moment reminded him forcefully of Hermione's penetrating gaze that could crucify his soul with the merest flicker.
"Do you love her," James pressed, "because she offers you the love you were denied for so long? The love you ached for on those cold nights in the cupboard under the stairs? The love that we couldn't give you?"
"What if we hadn't died?" Lily now interjected. "What if...what if you'd boarded the Hogwarts Express for the first time with your father and me waving to you, smiling at you, wishing you good luck and telling you how much we loved you? What if you'd grown up into an adult wizard with the two of us beside you every step of the way, with Christmas presents and birthday parties, and everything every other child had, whether wizard or Muggle? What if you...if you had no empty places that needed filling? Where would you be today, Harry? And more importantly -- where would Hermione be?"
After an eternity, Harry spoke, though with difficulty, being as there was a lump the size of a dragon egg lodged in his throat.
"It was hard growing up without you. Without anyone who cared. I think...I think if I hadn't turned out to be a wizard, I might never have found a way out. When Hagrid finally delivered my Hogwarts letter, I never imagined that I'd come to regard it years later as a gift from God.
"I found more than my 'own kind' -- witches and wizards -- at Hogwarts. I found a family. More than one, actually. But what I really found was the meaning of family. I learned how to love, and just as important, I learned how to let myself be loved. My schoolmates became the brothers and sisters I never had. The teachers were like aunts and uncles -- well, most of them..."
Harry's eyes flashed devilishly before lowering demurely. He just made out his father's smile, saw James' eyes flicker at Lily as he lifted a finger to the point between his eyes and make an arching gesture representative of Snape's hooked nose. Lily's eyes scolded her husband, but her lips curled in a smile and she emitted a titter of laughter.
"And then there were the Weasleys," Harry said with a joyful light dancing in his eyes. "Being with them made me feel how it might have been with the two of you. A real home, with loving parents -- and the fighting, the arguing -- the whole package. It was almost more than I could accept. I had a family. All the Weasleys, from first to last, took me in as if I were their own. And even though I still miss the both of you so much...at some point I...I began to think of Arthur and Molly as my parents."
"That makes us very happy," Lily said warmly.
"Hold on, then," James put in, his eyes taking on the same glint as Harry's a moment ago. "What about Sirius? Your godfather and duly-appointed legal guardian?"
"Merlin save us all from Sirius Black," Harry smirked. "I love him almost as much as I love you two. But you can't deny, he has more contradictions than Trelawney's Divination class. Father figure one minute, incorrigible Marauder the next. Though I will say this for him: Once Pettigrew was caught and his confession exonerated Sirius, your old schoolmate did everything in his power to make a real home for me. Fudge's signature was scarcely dry on the pardon parchment before Sirius was lobbying Dumbledore to get me away from the Dursleys, and Voldemort Curse any who got in his way. I never knew how mucked up wizard bureaucracy could be. But to his credit, Sirius worked like a dog to cut through the bollocks and win through."
"Worked like a -- " James choked, covering his face as his shoulders shook with muffled laughter. "Blimey, Harry! I'd say you've been hanging around him too long!"
"Sirius, my bum!" Lily chortled. "That's your sense of humor, James! Tell me!"
His spirits thus lightened, Harry sighed through an easy, tranquil smile.
"You see how it is, then? Whatever empty places I had were filled long before I gave my heart to Hermione. Arthur, Molly, Ron, Sirius, Hagrid, Dumbledore -- everyone gave me a little piece of themselves, and together those pieces filled up every empty place I had. All but one.
"You remember I said there was a time when I not only didn't know how to love, but how to let myself be loved. That was the real gift my friends gave me. Hagrid was the first, I think. Pulled me from the ruins of the house, didn't he? I think I knew from the day we met at the Dursleys' cabin that Hagrid and I would be great mates.
"But it really all started with Ron. And Hermione. We all started from square one, though they did have a bit of an edge, coming from whole families as they did. But still, together we learned how to love each other, and how to let ourselves be loved in return. From the day I first realized that I loved Hermione in a special way, I also realized that I never could have loved her that way if I didn't first love her as a friend.
"I've had lots of opportunities to look back on those years lately. And I know that the Harry Potter who used to crawl out of that broom cupboard every morning to fix Dudley's breakfast could never have loved anyone in any way. But I'm not that Harry Potter any more. He was only an empty shell with a hole where his heart should have been. But, by the grace of God, that Harry is dead and gone. I'm a whole wizard now. A whole man. And it's as a whole man that I gave my heart away.
"You asked how it would have been had the two of you never died. I think... think I would have fallen for Hermione even sooner, actually. If I'd grown up with a bit of confidence and self-worth, I wouldn't have wasted so much time chasing after pretty faces just to bolster my sodding ego. I would have seen Hermione's inner beauty sooner. As Ron did.
"Hermione isn't a substitute for any loss, real or imagined. The empty place she fills in me is the one every man has, the one that can be filled only by the woman he was born to love.
"Without her, I would still be who I am. A whole man. A man I hope you would have been proud to call your son. But I know, too, that every man can become more than he is. And he can only do that with the love of the right woman. And there is no doubt in my mind -- or in my heart -- that Hermione is that woman."
Lily rose from her seat next to her husband and bent over Harry. She brushed his unkempt hair aside and placed a light kiss upon the scar her death had caused nearly 17 years ago.
Harry's eyes closed, valiantly endeavoring to seal off escaping tears. And failing.
How it happened, he was not able to determine. Whereas he had been sitting, now he was standing. He opened his eyes. The candle was precisely where it had been. But the wall into which it was set was gone, with everything else. His parents had returned to that secret place inside Harry, where they would continue to live on in denial of Voldemort and his Killing Curse. But though James and Lily resided securely in Harry's heart, yet was there still room and to spare for many others. And, in particular, for one other.
Looking beyond the candle now, Harry felt a rush of mingled fear and euphoria. For beyond the candle was no door, but an open portal beyond which an unearthly light danced as if to strains unhearable by human ear -- but not to human heart.
It was a song, Harry thought. A song of celebration. And the last mote of doubt was swept with finality from Harry's soul. The one final, heart-wrenching doubt: Would she be there? Was Hermione waiting for him in the bosom of that mystical iridescence?
Yes. She was there. He could hear her voice, calling to him.
"I'm coming, love," Harry called in a voice born neither from lips nor tongue, but from his heart. "I'm coming."
And he followed the prelusory candle into the heart of the Soul Chamber.