1950

"I miscalculated."

She can't breathe.

Alphard might be dead, his chest, which was rising rapidly with his gasps only seconds ago, is now flat, any breathing impossible to detect, his skin quickly turning blue in the cold of the wing, his eyes still standing wide open, his hands still clutching at his chest, his legs still twisted from their efforts to escape the pain contorting his body, and all he can say is that he miscalculated? Alphard, tortured and pained, cold and closed and Tom-

He looks as calm as ever. She's never been so infuriated by that look, by that cool, unconcerned look. He doesn't care that Alphard might die. He doesn't care that he has just killed his friend, her fiancé. He doesn't care that a life might be over because he missed the bat's raven-colored body and hit Alphard's raven-colored head instead, the spell flying from his wand as quickly as the bat had from the abandoned wing of the Black mansion as soon as they set foot in it. And who launches spells like that at a simple bat? Spells she had never even heard of until they fell from his lips. Spells that threw Alphard down in the blink of an eye and just kept coming, as if he couldn't see that there were no bats around anymore, no dark winged creatures, that it was only Alphard and his dark clothes and his dark hair and his dark bags beneath his dark eyes and his dark hole where his livelihood had once been bright.

"You miscalculated?"

Air still evades her, but her words are calm and measured, her eyes focusing on Alphard's hand, daring it to move, her mouth hardly opening and her mind hardly thinking as she speaks the words.

He is confused, she can feel that much. Maybe he was preparing himself for her anger, her desperation, her pain, but she gives him nothing and she knows for a fact he would have eaten up the broken pieces of her soul if he could, danced in the shards if it meant Alphard was gone, broken her again and again if it meant she would be his. It's what he does. He takes her pride and her love and her joy and he turns them into coldness and shame and pain and she wants to be done with it all.

"I-"

And she must stop to take a breath, to give herself such a freedom, still granted to her and still missing from Alphard. She swallows and closes her eyes and launches a war in her mind and heart, daring the tears to come, and they stay back in fear, residing at the border, ready to fire as soon as she retreats.

She still doesn't look at him. She doesn't know if she ever can again. Her eyes burn just thinking about what he's done, about what she let him do to Alphard, because it was not an accident. They both know it was not an accident, but yet, here she is still, not killing him or hurting him or doing anything at all to him, but just dealing with herself, remaining weak and inconsequential and awful, even as Alphard lays at her feet, as his labored breaths begin to fall to memory.

She sees his hand twitch out of the corner of her eye, the paleness of his skin clashing violently with the black of his trousers and the navy of his sweater, just as his presence grates at her reason, her calm, her humanity. He must be debating reaching out to touch her. She's dizzy, nauseous, disgusted. His touch would make her vomit. His hand remains at his side and she's dimly aware of her relief. Because, maybe she wouldn't be disgusted. Maybe she would cave into him, give up her fight, relinquish her will, become his. This is too difficult, he is too cruel, too smart, too dark. She isn't strong enough for this kind of thing. She would give in if only he reached a hand out, said a word, asked her away. She would give in.

But he doesn't and she doesn't.

She looks down at Alphard, kneels beside him, grasps his cold hand in hers, lets tears gather at her eyes, the men preparing their arms, and she can't believe herself. This is Alphard, good and kind and his warmth turned cold for her. This is Alphard, dead and gone for her. For her, because of her, because of her, because of her. Her fault. A single man in the lineup shoots and a tear falls, her grip on Alphard's hand tightens, her body shakes with the effort to keep herself contained, to avoid Tom and his touch, to maintain herself.

Alphard's eyelids flutter and her breath catches.

He deserves so much more.

She clears her throat and nods, as if assuring herself that she is going to do the right thing.

"I have to go. I'm taking him to St. Mungo's."

And Tom springs into action immediately, reaching out to catch her before she can reach Alphard and apparate away, before she can leave his shores forever, bathing him in darkness for eternity.

"Hermione, we can heal him ourselves, you know we can. You do not need to go to St. Mungo's."

His voice is calm and collected, but the desperation is clear, his words a bit rushed, the hand he uses to reach out to her shakes just the tiniest amount, and she knows that if she had the courage or bravery or stupidity to look into his eyes, there would be nothing but pleading with a gauzy lining of confidence, no sadness or concern for her Alphard, but only for himself and what he would be without her.

His hand on her is painful. He holds her lightly and tightly, the edges of his nails rubbing her skin, the appendage still trembling in its efforts to not hurt her, to not frighten her with his force and fear.

"Hermione, please."

His voice is quiet this time, almost a whisper or the first, gentle waves at dawn, falling on cracked sand ravaged from a night of high waves thrown by the moon.

She might stay. If she looks into his eyes and there's- if there's- if there's anything there at all, anything real. She might stay.

She takes a deep breath and angles her eyesight up, bracing herself as if she were going to stare at the sun. His breaths become shallow as they make eye contact and she can see the emotions shifting in his eyes as he tries to decide which would convince her, how he could keep her in a little chair on the ocean's edge forever. He hasn't decided, he can't figure it out, so his tone keeps shifting and his ideas keep moving and he can't find the look, the words, the way to keep her. His shores need to pull at her, guide her, but he's too overwhelmed, she can see it, his eyes shifting from hers to her feet to the wall, to the window, to the couches, but never to Alphard, because that's not what he's thinking about. He might just throw a wave over and drown her, never allowing her body to wash up on shore, keeping her forever. He doesn't care about Alphard, she knows, but yet, it still takes a moment too long for her to make her final decision, for her to be rational and logical and for her to give Alphard what he's given her.

She feels like she hasn't breathed since she looked into his eyes. She looks away and lets the air rush in, but it feels like lead and her lungs are full and painful but she is empty.

"I need to go."

His breath is ragged, she can hear him swallow.

"Hermione-"

His voice broken, but she doesn't fall for it.

It sounds real.

"I have to go."

"Please-"

"Good-bye, Tom."

But how could it be? She doesn't look back. She grabs Alphard, too roughly, barely being able to feel, too numb and wrong, and he groans lightly from the pain and she hardly registers the hope this sound brings as she disapparates to St. Mungo's and, still, she can hear the echoes of him yelling after her, can still see one last image of him reaching out to stop her and sinking to his knees from the futility. Even with a dying Alphard in her arms, his blood on her clothes and his breaths running cold against her neck, she's thinking of him, always, always, always.

They question her for hours. Because they've never seen the curse before. Because they don't know if he's more dead or alive, if he'll ever wake up. They try spell after spell, even delving into muggle methods to try to figure out what's wrong, how to help him, try to offer some semblance of a future life, but it won't come forward, it won't make itself known. They don't let her near him. They keep her cornered in a secluded hallway on a stained green chair, always surrounded by at least three healers who never seem to run out of words, even if they've run out of ideas long ago. They suspect her, she can tell, and she feels too ashamed to tell them off, too guilty to push past them, too afraid to take a breath. She's afraid of what Alphard might think, afraid that he'll yell or be upset or tell her off, if he ever wakes up at all, if he even lives through the night. But, more than that, she's afraid he'll understand. That he'll just smile, inches from death, and tell her it's okay and crack some bad joke, his pain unmistakably shining through his dark eyes, and she, him, and the grim figure of death avoided will sit together and she'll feel all the worse because she deserves his hate and he refuses to give it. She can't live with his love, she's not worthy of it. She should have drowned in Tom's waves, but she came to let the sun dry her and it refuses to burn her, avoiding its nature for its goodness and her pain.

Through all the questioning, she doesn't say a word about Riddle and, she realizes, he knew she wouldn't, he would have stopped her otherwise, forced her to stay down, threatened her, done something, anything, and she's disgusted with him. For being so self-assured and arrogant to believe that she wouldn't give him up, that she'd lie for him and protect him after what he did to Alphard. But she's far more disgusted with herself for wanting to protect him, for falling into his predictions, for acting just as he knew she would. For taking his side without even thinking about it and allowing him to remain unpunished as Alphard struggles to shine down the hallway, the sun growing cold and the ocean threatening to take over, wrecking everything in its path with its chilling waters.

She misses her friends and her parents and the burrow and home and she doesn't know if she'll ever see any of it again and she makes a decision, finally one that she can claim as belonging only to her. She doesn't care about Dumbledore's mission. She doesn't care about any of it. She can live in this life. She can be here and she doesn't care. It's not her problem and that is her choice to make, her decision, and everything else is not her responsibility. She's going to be good to Alphard, she's going to deserve him. She's going to care for him and nothing else. He deserves a good life and she deserves her own.

She stands, as the healers continue muttering over her, as they try to push her back down, as they threaten to call security. They become blurs of color as the world fades around her and she walks to Alphard's room, calmly, knowing nothing in the world could stop her now, she'd kill them if they tried and the truth of the statement doesn't frighten her. This is her life.

He cracks an eye open when she walks in and smiles. Her breath stutters, but his smile only strengthens her resolve. She leaves with him. She leaves it all behind.