"I prefer it this way. Just you and me."

The air seems to still, the golden dust floating around them, dirt and lint and tiny, insignificant, unimportant specks lit up by the sun, made beautiful by the sun, pausing in their journey around them. He hears her stop mid-breath and scrambles to come back from his bliss, to realize what he's said wrong, to understand what has elicited this reaction from her, this halt in her index finger drawing circles on his palm, this pause in her breathing, this stilling of air, this falling of her smile, this crashing of her eyes.

She's soft and lovely and shy and quiet and, after their night together, even just a few moments ago, when she was still smiling at him, her eyes alight and unencumbered by anything, by everything that they are always clouded by, when her eyes were a clear sky, a ray of sunlight illuminating his own meaninglessness, he was almost certain that he could produce a patronus, just looking into her, holding her and believing that she was to stay and that she would want to keep him.

She's so quiet. So incredibly quiet now and he wishes he wouldn't have said anything. He misses her whispers, only minutes after they've gone, he misses her touch, only moments after it's fled, he misses her smile, only notes after it's stopped playing, and he misses her love, only seconds after believing it existed, after his melody ended.

"Hermione."

He's afraid to speak too loudly, lest the world fall, lest the sun relinquish the dust and it all fall down, showering them in emptiness, the golden specks returning to their gray indifference.

She hesitates before looking him in the eyes, hers troubled, their bliss forgotten or repressed, she upset, nonetheless, and he trying to bring her back, to build a home in the bliss and live there forever, with her by his side, gazing at him with all of her golden sunshine, warming his waters and transforming his refuse.

"Come away with me."

As always, he demands where he should question, but she knows his uncertainty, the pride that could be destroyed at her rejection, the shame, the fear brewing just beneath his surface. She hesitates again but, laying so close to her, her golden eyes and golden hair and golden skin and golden self all surrounded by white sheets and light walls and open windows and his heart, he can see her like never before, he notices her eyes widening, just the slightest amount, and he notices this, not to hurt her, or sabotage her, but to understand her, to convince her. Her mind forces itself to fully awaken in seconds, her breathing becoming laborious, her forehead crinkling, her flush blossoming.

"Tom."

Her voice is soft, clean, apologetic, and he knows he doesn't want to hear what comes next, doesn't want to hear her rejection, her apology, her honesty.

She doesn't look at him. She readies herself to stand from the bed, her body tensing with the coming action. She's staring at the sheet covering them both when she speaks again and it's all facts he knows but doesn't want to think about, doesn't want to hear coming out of her mouth, attacking him with their truth, with their honesty, with her apologetic eyes and sincere tone, with her hands reaching towards him and her lips meeting the skin of his forehead, with her fingers brushing his cheek and her body cradling his with her soft words and broken promises and pained goodbyes and whispered plans for later. She's engaged. She's in love. She's sorry.

She pulls the sheet off her body and stands and he is treated to her bare back and her bare neck and her wild hair, all of it covered in him and his marks, but her heart remaining a bare, foreign land dry of his waters.

She gets dressed and pushes away his weak attempts to help her.

She smiles at him and kisses him lightly on the mouth before disapparating to her home, her face fading from right before him, fading from him and apparating to her fiancé, to the life she chose for herself, to the life he is not a part of, to the life she loves, the life she lives without him.

And he's angry and he wants her to be his and, even on his birthday, here he is, in a room in the middle of nowhere, alone and messed up beyond belief and with no one else he'd like to see but her, again, forever and always; and she with Alphard, again, forever and always and 'til death do them part.

He attempts to cast a patronus again, thinking of her warmth and the gauzy love between them, but he can't focus on her sunshine because all he can think about is Alphard, the sky, enveloping her for all of eternity, even when Tom can't so much as see her, left only with the darkness of night and his waves and the sand. He can't focus on her because it's all violated, corrupted, stained, ruined by him.

Her mind. For his conversation.

Her heart. For his taking.

Her smile. For his humor.

Her hair. For his fingers.

Her eyes. For his joy.

Her nose. For his tapping.

Her ears. For his whispering.

Her lips. For his words. For his mouth. For his tongue. For his body. For him. For him. For him.

He needs her to be his.

But he can't focus on that right now. Can't let the thoughts in his mind continue to float, can't let them take shape, can't let them become his actions, can't let them become his end, her end, their end. But, they never had a beginning. What's to stop him from bringing about the end to something that never started? That isn't real? That has no meaning? When his thoughts, when what those thoughts could become and could do could mean so much? Be so much? Be so real and meaningful? When those thoughts could end the unreal and begin, begin, begin?

His anger, the thoughts of killing and hurting, surge around him and his magic, dark and powerful, all-encompassing, and not fully his, swirls around his pale, naked body, the white sheet and all the purity of moments not long past shift. The bliss of it replaced by its falseness. The beauty of it replaced by its jealousy. The truth of it replaced by its end.

But

Even if it is all a lie, even if she loves Alphard, even if she will never leave Alphard, she must still feel something for himself. If not love, then at least some deep affection, something that could become love with enough pushing, with enough tugging and pulling, with enough time.

It's not all fake, not all debris and dust. There's some gold in it. Tainted and dull, but gold, nevertheless. Her sunshine still brings him a brilliant radiance, and he can't imagine going back to being dust.

He sits down again, allowing all his darkness and magic to seep back into his body, letting the room return to its white sheets and warm sun that so reminds him of her as he puts on his clothes, taking time with the dark cloths that he hadn't last night, her clothes already long disentangled from their pile, and heads out of the room, out of their everything, and to work, where all that exists is him and his ambitions, no thoughts of love allowed, only the hatred that can so easily be yielded from it, that he had so easily dissected and pocketed. He need only wait.