She comes to and he is gone. The darkness lifts as easily as a veil, the warmth returns to her fingertips. The spots in her vision recede and Harry comes into view, covered in blood and filth, trembling, eyes glistening with triumph.
He holds her hand between both of his. A lifetime ago, this was all she'd have wanted, the boy with the emerald green eyes holding her close like something precious. Now, his tender touch is a vice grip and the dank cold air of the chamber suffocates. His touch is a pale imitation of what she has already tasted.
He has pulled her from her beautiful illusion with his sword and his songbird; the sheer pain of the revelation is overwhelming. Their eyes meet, and in an almost comic misinterpretation of her stricken expression, he mumbles what should be assurances.
"It's going to be okay, Ginny. He's gone.
He's never coming back."
Her face contorts in grief and hot tears fall down her cheeks. She chokes out something about being expelled, an explanation for her poorly subdued hysterics. The words are hollow and meaningless, but poor, innocent Harry laps them up rather than comprehend the alternative.
He helps her up to her feet and begins to lead her out of the chamber, all trembling knees and dripping wet cheeks. Her eyes are on the mutilated diary the whole time. The encapsulation of all her dreams and fantasies she hadn't dared to speak out loud, stabbed through its center.
All of her love and hate, whispered into the ear of the boy in black. The avenger of her griefs, commander of her passions. Stabbed through his heart.
Only too late had she realized the culmination of all of his dark, ink black words, lovingly scrawled upon the pages of her diary, upon her veryskin. The words, they swam in her mind as she trembled upon the hallowed ground of his rebirth. He seemed to have sprung from her dreams - the boy, her beautiful boy. She drank in his appearance, falling to her knees in awe. Oh, his dark eyes, his perfect curls. The sharp angles of his cheekbones, the curves of his lips. Every new sight sent chills down her spine. Yet she couldn't bring herself to be afraid. Would Pygmalion cower in fear of Galatea? Would Frankenstein fear the creature he birthed with love and lightning?
Her breaths came out in white-grey swirls and she struggled to subdue them, fearing that the illusion would shatter at the flicker of a touch.
"T-Tom," she had breathed, in wonderment, scarcely daring to believe he was real.
It was a plea, yes. But a prayer too. To the boy-king she had brought to life with the sheer vitality and ardor of her words.
And he'd heard it.
He'd knelt down, meeting her eyes. (In a small thrill of triumph, she realized they were almost the same hue as her own.)
"Dear Ginevra," were the first words he spoke to her. To her only, murmured in amusement, almost tender. They were the first words he'd put to page, to her only. So how could she not smile? Smile, smile as he cupped her ice cold cheek, as he pressed a cruelly soft kiss to her lips, as her vision began to blur.
The irony of the situation wasn't lost on either of them, though Tom would have more time to muse upon it when she was gone.
A lost maiden and a prince, who had, instead of breathing life into her, snatched it from her very lungs. It was a monstrous, beautiful retelling of a tale. Perhaps when they were both gone, their names lost to the sands of time, it would live on. A warning, a lament for those who had done terrible things for love.
Before everything went dark, she had felt the softness of his palms graze her cheeks, had seen long, pale fingers travel through her hair. And she understood everything. And at the heart of her revelation, she realized she wouldn't have changed it, any of it.
Tom.
Her Tom.
He would always be hers.
It was this precious victory she would be laid to rest with. And it was enough.
He laid her head down upon the chamber floor gently as it began to droop, watching her wordlessly, almost curious.
She smiled at him under lidded eyes and for a moment, it seemed the corners of his lips had turned up in response. Her hand weakly reached out and he clasped it with his own, warm with the life she had gifted him.
His dark eyes and alabaster skin would be the last thing she saw before she was gone.
There was a justice in that.