Disclaimer: J.K. Rowling (and her related publishers and film corporations) owns all rights to the Harry Potter books. I have no claim over them, and I make no profit by writing this story. It is solely for my own enjoyment, and, hopefully, yours.
The Blue Hour
"I am too old for you," he says. What he means is this: "They will look at us and wonder how we could possibly be in love, and I cannot rob you of society's good will for my own selfish gain."
"I am too poor for you," he says, but what he is really trying to tell her is not that he cannot buy her presents, or take her for a nice night on the town. He needs her to understand has always been poor and he will always be poor, because no one will work with his kind, and whatever life they could have together would be funded by her and her alone. And he cannot impose on her like that.
"I am too dangerous for you," he says, but what his eyes are begging her to understand is not that he's afraid the wolf will hurt her—she's an Auror, she can watch out for herself. He is begging her to realize that everyone he loves dies, everything he touches is broken beyond repair, and he cannot destroy her like he has destroyed everything else.
She can see all of these things reflected in the tight white line of his lips, the bags beneath his eyes, the balled fists, the painfully straight line of his back. She can see all of these things, and she understands, but it is as if she cannot speak his language, only comprehend—
"I don't care," she tells him, and her words are desperate, the last cry of a drowning man as the rope slides from slick fingers, paralyzed with fear, "I don't. I love you."
But what he reads in her puffy eyes, her worried lip, her wringing hands, her face tilted up to him, as open as she can make herself, is a mistranslation of the highest order.
He sees a child where she is a woman, weakness where she is strong, fear where she is brave, reticence where she has passion. He mistakes the tremble in her lip for doubt where she is overcome by the strength, the surety of her love for him. He mistakes the tears in her eyes for naivety, cannot understand that they are solely fueled by need. She cannot bear to be this close to him without touching him, cannot look at his hands without thinking those are the hands I used to hold, cannot look at his mouth without thinking those are the lips I used to kiss.
All meaning has been lost in translation. Now, they circle the drain; they repeat themselves because there is nothing else left to say.
She waits for the day when he will look at her and understand.