He's wrought of water and the sea, sinew and muscle composed from nothing. He floats on grass as if it's easy to live. She can't help but to stare, because this boy, oh, this boy. His fingers are long and graceful, his hair yellow like the Sun. And is he ever beautiful.
She watches him every day. He doesn't talk much, she notices, but he likes to sit by the lake with his feet in the water. All of their classmates call him strange, but even as the elements collide he's outside by the lake.
Her own skin is the color of a latte, her hair chocolate shined with copper. She's clumsy and couldn't be eloquent if she tried, but she's always loved a good contradiction. She craves this boy like the metaphorical blind man craves color. He could give her everything and more.
He reminds her of her Aunt Luna, because he's calm and steady and everything her family isn't. His name means rough waters, but that couldn't be further from what he is.
He finds her sometimes late at night when she's shaking and crying in some hidden corridor. She'll be sitting there sniffling like a child and he'll gather her into his arms and whisper "Roxy, oh, you'll get out someday."
And he seems to see things that no one else does, so she tries to believe him. She really does, but she knows somewhere deep in her heart that she'll never be able to leave Freddie and her father.
So she just wipes her nose and buries her head into the crook of his neck. "I hope you're right Calder."
His eyes are the exact shade of the ocean at Shell Cottage and they stare deep into her own. She loves this boy so very much, this boy who may or may not be here to stay. Roxanne closes her eyes and tries to forget, and just be with him. At least for now.
::
On a cold day in January Calder lies by the lake with his hand ghosting over the top of the water. Magic seems to radiate off of him, the lake reacting to his movements. It twists and curls and he looks at home there. Roxanne doesn't want to walk up to him and disturb him from this place that is his alone. But she doesn't want to stay watching forever.
She walks up to him slowly, trying to elongate time itself. When she's about two paces behind where he lies he hears her and sits up. "Need something Rox?"
"Uh, yeah. I-um, I wanted to ask you something," she rubs her hands together, and damn, why does he always make her doubt herself.
"Go ahead," he replies, those ocean eyes twinkling up at her. She'll never be able to forget this boy, not ever.
"This is going to sound crass and terrible, but I just couldn't wait any longer. We have something going on here, if we're friends or something more. I, Godric, I need to know what you are," Roxanne rushes out, and it's jumbled and messy but she can't keep her emotions in when she's around Calder.
He frowns, and it's probably the first time she's seen him unhappy. He seemed immune to the world, content to be with the elements. "That's kind of the reason I tried to stay away from people," he replies rubbing the back of his neck. "But I trust you."
Roxanne smiles, because no one has ever really said that to her before, not her family, and he's really her only friend.
"I'm not exactly, well, human," he says awkwardly. "My father, he made me I guess. I wasn't born, I was made. He used really dark magic."
Roxanne knew this much, the way he seemed to float instead of walk, and his beauty outshining even that of her Veela cousins. "I figured," she answers. "Don't really care that much though. Doesn't really matter does it?"
He smiles sadly at her, and he's looking at her as if he pities her. "Oh, Rox, that's the thing. Don't you understand? Have you ever heard the quote "Nothing gold can stay?""
She's starting to understand and great tears fill in her eyes. He's the only one who understands her, the only one who's there. "No," she whispers.
"The spell used to make me expires when I turn seventeen," he says. "After that I'm gone."
"No," she repeats. "You can't."
"I'm sorry Rox, but nothing can make me stay. This magic is dark and powerful, but it doesn't last forever."
"But I love you," she says, tears spilling down onto her cheeks.
"Please don't," Calder replies, desperately. "There's nothing I can give you."
"You've already given me the world," Roxanne replies. He is human, he is. You can't fake emotions. There's magic as deep as the ocean's and if it can create something like this the least it could do is let it stay.
"I know what you're thinking," he smiles. "But nothing in this world can prolong the inevitable."
"When's you're birthday?"
"February first," he answers.
"That's in three days," she cries. "I need more than three days with you."
"We'll make the most of it I'm sure," Calder winks at her.
She leans forward and captures his lips in her own, and he tastes like salt and the ocean and dreams. He's everything, he's everything. The pads of his thumbs wipe away the tears on her cheeks, and he peppers kisses over her. Her eyelids, her forehead, her neck.
"I love you," she whispers. "I always will. There will never be anyone else."
She looks into those ocean eyes she loves so much and can feel in her heart that it's true. No one could ever compare.
"I wish that wasn't true," Calder whispers. "I wish you could love someone whole and human and who could give you everything you could ever want."
"You already have."
They go back to kissing and she loses herself in the electricity he creates. Her fingertips tingle and she feels almost drunk with both sadness and elation. After all, she'll only have him for three more days.
::
The next three days are filled with kisses and whispers of love. They spend the days by the lake because she knows it's his favorite place to be. Her neck is covered in love bites and people stare when they walk into the Great Hall hand and hand to eat. They sit together at Gryffindor and her cousins shake their heads and whisper to each other.
They try to eat quickly so they can go back to being with each other in private. Roxanne is always touching him, holding on tightly as if he's to disappear at any moment. Which really, he is.
Roxanne leads him up to the seventh floor, and she paces three times before a blank wall thinking of a place to be alone. A golden door appears and Calder stands gaping before it. Roxanne opens it and inside is what looks like a common room with a great fireplace on the far side of the room. She takes Calder's hand and leads him in.
The air smells like the sea and smoke, and this moment, it's perfect. They walk to the fireplace and lay in front of it entangled with one another. He'll be gone tomorrow and she wants to remember him, all of him.
"Are you sure?" Calder asks.
"Absolutely," she replies.
And by the light of the fireplace a boy wrought of water and a girl needing a fire make love. Roxanne now understands what all the fuss was about, because there couldn't be anything better than this. She was fully with Calder, the boy who was her entire world, and nothing could ruin that.
"I love you," Roxanne says.
"I love you too," Calder replies. "I wish I could stay."
They kiss and lie together until the fire dies, and only the embers remain. They fall asleep wrapped completely in one another. Roxanne tries to stay awake, to try to memorize every part of him, to engrave it into her mind. But she's only human, and she falls asleep.
::
Roxanne awakes in the morning, alone. Light floods into the room from above, and he's gone. She starts to cry and scream and curse the world. She cries until the tears are gone, and rolls onto her side. Next to her is a picture, where Calder was before.
She picks it up, and it's a picture of the two of them by the lake, kissing. You can tell she's been crying, but as they kiss there's a smile on her face, and he's grinning. She smiles looking at it. She flips it over and there are words on the back.
I'll always love you. Try to find someone else once I'm gone. You're too special to be done.
She starts to cry all over again, and hugs the photo to her chest. She breaths in deeply, and the air smells like the ocean and dreams. It smells like him.
::
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