It was purely by chance that I noticed her, with her beautiful red hair and stunning green eyes. She looked, in her first year, so much like Lily that my heart nearly broke. My chest tightened and I'm sure that her friends and brothers weren't able to tell her why I avoided her like the plague. They wouldn't- indeed, couldn't -know.
It was purely by chance that as she grew older she grew more and more like Lily with each passing day. She fell into the same habits, chose the same type of boys to date, and looked so agonizingly, exactly the same. I tried harder and harder to avoid her eyes, avoid her scent, avoid her very presence within ten feet of mine at all costs. It got to the point, however, that that meddling old fool I call boss questioned me about my avoidance, and he knew. That damnable man knew exactly why! He knew, but he just enjoyed my pain enough that he wanted to hear it from my own lips.
It was purely by chance that the girl needed Potions tutoring in her sixth year. I was happy to give it to her, very happy indeed. She was a promising student and Minerva had revealed to me in the "Strictest Confidence (wink, wink)" that young Ginevra wished to go into Potions, and would be seeking an apprenticeship.
It was purely by chance that her insufferable boyfriend had learned some choice things about me that ground his fear of me to a dead stop. It was, however, not by chance that Harry Potter knew that Ginevra wished to go into Potions and passed things on to her that dispelled whatever small amount of fear I was able to inflict. She came to me asking about an apprenticeship, and with those grades, and that face that was the carbon copy of hers, I could not say no. it was at this point that I began to understand my own masochism.
It was purely by chance that I happened upon her journal and read it. I tried to convince myself not to, but I had to assure myself that she was not, in fact, Lily, though I knew this was not possible. It would put my mind at ease to know that this girl had different ideals, different tastes and opinions, a different life. The journal did the exact opposite of what I had hoped. She was different, alright, less modest and shy, so much more open and, I found, more powerful. She wasn't different in the ways I had hoped. She was, in every way I had hoped for her not to be, like Lily. At this point I began to wonder if I was saying that because it was true, or because I wanted a reason that I should stay away, a reason to be interested without being attached. I began to wonder if it was my masochism that drew me to her, years upon years of pining after Lily, or if it was something about Ginevra herself, something about her brash mannerisms and honest, blunt way of dealing with things. I also wondered why I had thought of that. My mind was beginning to confuse me.
It was purely by chance that I slipped into her mind one day. Years of spying had given me the reflex of using Legillimency whenever I looked into someone's eyes. It wasn't her fault that she didn't know this. I met her mind, her strong, uncompromising mind, and felt the images, the sensations, and the beautifully bitter textures her thoughts took on. She knew she looked like Lily. She hated that more than anything. It was what attracted Potter, and it was what she (had to have) guessed attracted me. She knew it was why Lupin hadn't been able to bear looking at her, and why Potter himself could never fully appreciate her as more than family. It stung to feel the pain that welled up in her when I discovered this. In the few seconds that I was in her mind, I discovered every part of her. Her mind was not prepared to resist me at all. I saw something that scared me. I saw myself. In her thoughts, in her dreams, in her darkest fantasy of what her life would be like in twenty years, I saw my own image as a wish, a fancied outcome. She ran from me, and didn't return. That night, I sat down and got myself good and drunk.
It was purely by chance, or perhaps the Headmaster's sick sense of humor, that, after weeks of avoiding me by all means possible (including one incident in which she threw herself into an empty classroom and promptly knocked herself out before she could conceal herself, thereby putting me in charge of taking her to the Hospital Wing), that she ran into me- quite literally, mind you- in the hallways. She avoided touching me, avoided meeting my eye, and tried to dash off. I didn't let her.
It was not purely by chance that I slipped into her warm and comfortable mind again, not by any happy accident that this time I opened my own mind to her and allowed her into the affection I couldn't express in words. I could see the questions in her eyes. The cries of outrage towards her double mingled with long-unshed tears. It was by no device of fate, but by my own doing that she now understood that Lily had broken me, and that I had lain there and taken it. She knew that my affections for her, the ones I dared not voice for fear of open rejection (something I couldn't handle twice), were not solely leftovers from the great love I had had for Lily Evans-Potter.
It was purely by chance that Ginevra Weasley accepted the simple apology conveyed in the brushings of minds from then on, an apology for everything I couldn't' bring myself to say. It was not, however, by any chance at all that she accepted me for all that I am, my flaws and downfalls, and that three months later she admitted to me three words that changed my life forever and made me the luckiest man in the world.
It was purely by chance that I figured out something important. We make our own chances, and we make our own luck.