How true that is. When somebody tells me I am intelligent, I shrug it off. I know it isn't true, know that I lost my intelligence when I found my love for her; although she was the most easiest girl in the world to love, because she would never love me back. There were too many differences between us; too wide a gap which could never be crossed, and so, my seven years at Hogwarts were filled with pining away over a girl who would never love me as I did her. Who would never love me at all, in fact. I worshiped the ground she walked on but she, she couldn't even bring herself to acknowledge my existence. I should have been able to forget about her, to force her from my mind and heart, and move on to another girl. Why couldn't I? I, a Slytherin pureblood, falling in love with a Gryffindor Muggle-born. Do you think it is ridiculous? Somehow, I don't. If you knew her, maybe you would love her too. Love her for the way she smiled, for the intelligent way she talked, for the way that unruly strand of reddish hair fell into her eyes when she bent her head to look at something. You might love her the way I did. I should have known how stupid it was to fall in love with her, how obvious it was that we could never be. I should have known that someday things would happen the way they did and I would be left, pining away for love of a girl who could never love anybody ever again.

The first time I saw her, on the Hogwarts Express, I never thought I would love her. Sure, she was pretty and she held herself in a way that demonstrated confidence and pride, but I didn't even know her. I don't believe in love at first sight, because I know that if it were possible, I would have loved her the moment I set eyes on her, but I didn't. I didn't hunger after her then, didn't savor every glance she sent my way, didn't dream of her. I was just an eleven-year-old boy with slightly greasy hair, bound for Hogwarts and seven years of sheer torture at the unknowing hands of Lily Evans.

As the days and weeks went by, I began to love her. I began to stare at her back in classes, willing her to turn around and smile at me. She never did. I avoided speaking to her because I had trouble trusting my voice in her presence. After a few months at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, I already knew that I loved her and already knew that I always would love her.

Of course, I knew that this was stupid of me. The more I loved her, the stupider it was. She was a Gryffindor and, in third year, began dating Sirius Black. She was always with Sirius, him and his friends, Remus Lupin, Peter Pettigrew, and James Potter. I wished I could be included in their group of friends, but I never approached them; never attempted to become closer to the one girl I loved more than anything else in the world, knowing it to be futile. So, instead, I built up a rivalry with them. I hated Black more than any of the others, and not, as most believed, because he was a Gryffindor and I was a Slytherin. No, it was because of Lily. And even when they broke up in fifth year and Lily transferred her attentions to Potter, I still hated Sirius with enormous passion. Hated him for taking her from me, even when she never even knew how much I loved her.

We all graduated Hogwarts and went our separate ways. All, that is, except for Lily and James. They married when I was twenty-one and still not over my lost love. I attended their wedding. I sat at the very back of the church and watched the whole thing, pain enveloping me when I heard them say their "I do's," and wretched misery threatening to overflow from my heart when they kissed. I escaped through the back door at the end of the ceremony, holding back tears. I do believe they never even knew I was there. The reality of the fact that I had lost her before I had ever had her filled me.

I closed off my heart and emotions, and even joined the ranks of Voldemort in a desperate effort to forget about the woman who I had loved, and still did, with all my heart. When Dumbledore insisted that I rejoin the ranks of good wizards, I gave in, dully, and became a spy for Dumbledore and the Ministry of Magic, not caring about anything. Again, upon Albus's request, I began teaching Potions at Hogwarts.

One day, I received the news that Lily and James Potter were dead. I couldn't believe it. The love of my life who had never even recognized my love, was gone. Forever. Somehow, I had always hoped that I would see her again; hoped that we could be friends, at least. When I heard that the baby had survived, and furthermore (from Dumbledore), that he had survived only because of Lily's -- my Lily, who had never been mine but who still haunted my dreams -- love, I wanted to kill myself. That she would die for her son, James's son, overwhelmed me.

When their son, Harry Potter, came to Hogwarts, I couldn't stand it. I couldn't bear to look at him every day in classes and see his eyes, the eyes that looked so much like Lily's; the eyes that haunted and still haunt my dreams, asleep and waking. But when Professor Quirrel, the Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher, attempted to kill him in Potter's first year, I saved the boy, muttering a countercurse that kept him on his broom. Oh, everyone thought it was because I felt I owed him after his father saved my life. But it wasn't because of that. James wasn't any more than the person who took Lily away from me. I saved Potter because of Lily. Maybe, wherever she is now, she saw me do it and thinks upon me more kindly. Maybe wherever she is, she is realizing my years of pain due to my everlasting love of her. Maybe, somewhere, Lily is looking at me and smiling, as I always wished she would during our school days.

.~*~.The End.~*~.