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Author's Note: This is a companion to my other Tom/Minerva story entitled All The Way Down. This scene happens directly before that story, so I suppose it can be considered a prequel. But you don't need to read All The Way Down to understand this. Enjoy!

Standard Disclaimer: JK Rowling owns. Story title inspired by John Keats' poem, La Belle Dame Sans Merci.













…he loves you again.

You open your eyes.

He looks at you.

He looks at you like he used to. The trick of the light in his eye. The sparkle. The glimmer. The look of pure fascination. He looks as you as if he can love you again. He looks at you as if it were true.

He puts a hand to yours. Draws circles. Small. Intricate. Eternal. He leans in and whispers in your ear. A secret so deep. A secret you two will share. For a moment, as his breath grazes your cheek and his lips press against your shoulders, you think that maybe it is true. Maybe it could be.

But the train is moving and so are you. The moment was not an eternity, but a fraction of a second. You blink and it ends. He pulls away and you feel cold again. He moves away and you feel severed.

You do not want to look at him. You do not want to see the nothingness.

Your shoulder now burns, burns in circles. You feel its longing. You feel the fire spreading. Spreading through out your body. You feel it being consumed. You feel him consuming you.

Your fingers yearn to search for his. Your skin yearns to find his in the edge of the darkness. You yearn for time to forget. For you to forget. To forgive. To end.

But it cannot.

You cannot.

For what was done is done. No yearning can quench. No fire can destroy. The sins of the past remain. It builds a wall of unspoken lies. Of unspent days. Of lingering distances.

Lingering.

The word has a familiar taste. No doubt he thinks the same too. It is the taste of sensation. The taste of the ages. The taste of his scent as it travels within you. As if becomes a part of you. It is the taste of a life. Of the gulf in between.

The gulf fills.

A whisper fills it.

Music. It is coming from his lips. He is humming. Or is it the train-tracks? Maybe it is both. The music escapes his lips. It grows. It engulfs you. It becomes your first dance. The birdsong when you had your first kiss. The echoing footsteps on the staircase when you realized he loved you. The silence when he said he did. The rustling of the leaves when you knew he didn’t anymore.

The train moves again. You shift. So does he. For a moment, you move in harmony. The music disappears. The harmony fades.

The moment has passed again.

An eternity has passed again.

You take a deep breath. You feel his hand is on yours. Drawing circles. Small. Intricate. Eternal. It no longer feels like fire. It feels like him. Like truth. Like peace.

Minerva, he calls.

Tom, you gasp.

You turn around.

Your hand is bare.

There is no one there.

You close your eyes.

He looks at you, and it is like he loves you again. He looks at you and his eyes tell the most beautiful lie in this world.

It feels true.

It is as if…