"I remember Tom from the chamber, you know." Harry's voice is ever so soft, like velvet against Ginny's ears.
She sits beside him in the hospital bed stained with his own blood. Her brown eyes are intent on his pale face, taking all of him into her mind and flipping it around and into shapes like play dough.
"I remember the way his hair curled a little at the end and how his eyes were still grey and smoky (Just a trace of red almost sprayed into his irises.)." The boy can feel his heart beating erratically in his head as he dabbles his fingers in the blood pooling from well, everywhere.
"No one sees the difference, Ginny, except for us. We were seduced by Tom Riddle. Tom Riddle. The monster that played part in our slow torture is not him. That was Voldemort." Harry laughs. "Was." It jingles in her ears.
"Ginny?" His quiet tone punctures her ear drums.
"Harry?" Hers is significantly louder.
"Did you love him?" It is hesitant and questioning, and it washes over Ginny like a stab at her gut. "You shouldn't waste your last words on him. R-really." Ah, her voice cracks.
"But it's important to me, Ginny." Ginny, Ginny, Ginny, Ginny, he keeps saying her name in that sad tone and she hates knowing it may be the last time. "Did you love him?"
"I – I don't know. Maybe, I th-think."
He turns his face toward her, green eyes staring out from under heavy lids and lashes. "I remember him so well. He wanted to be immortal, you know. He was afraid of death and so many other things. And I know he deceived me, despised me and tried to kill me – us, both of us but…"
She grabs his hand and his breathing becomes shallower.
"I can't help but think that if I had known him any longer I would have loved him. And maybe then, he wouldn't have died. Tom Riddle. I could have loved him."
And he's gone.
But Harry can't leave with those as his parting words. He can't leave her alone with that knowledge and memories of Tom and the chamber surfacing. Not when she loves Harry and Harry would have loved Tom.
"I could have…"
"I could…"
"I could have loved him."
She digs her nails into her head in anguish. Tom always took everything from her.