Once upon a time, there was a beautiful girl. At least, her parents said she was beautiful. She thought her hair was too straight, her eyes too big, her mind too strange. But they told her to wait, her prince would come one day. So she did. But who would he be?
Then she heard one day about a boy. Only a year older than herself, he had already slain the evil dragon that had killed his parents. Was this her prince? Her friend, with fiery red hair and cute freckles, who never saw creatures no one else did, told her all about the prince. Eyes as green as the grass she loved to run on, thick hair black as a moonless midnight.
There were all sorts of stories about her handsome prince. She wondered if they were ALL true. Still, he HAD killed the dragon, and that was good enough for her. She simply waited for the day they would meet, and wondered if it would be love at first sight, like in the muggle story books her mother sometimes read.
One day though, tragedy struck, and the girl's mother died. Now she was closer to her prince than ever. For although her father was still alive, he was lost in his own world- one that only sometimes included her. Yes, it was the one thing that carried her through the dark times after, that at least she and her prince had something in common. What did her friend know of losing a parent?
Finally, the year came for them to meet. She kept on her mask, slipping into her other world to temper her anxiety and excitement. But her prince wasn't at the feast, though her friend was, and was placed in the same house as the prince. She, herself, was placed in the house of books. That was fine with her, though. For though of course her prince was intelligent, he was brave first and foremost, and rash, and she could balance him out.
The following year was strange and perplexing. Frightening things happened. The lost princess found herself disliked by the others in her house. One day, though, her prince passed by as they were tormenting her. And although he was already a mark for scorn himself, stood up for her and walked her to class.
This was her first up-close view. He was both more than she expected, and less. Shorter, younger, sadder. Kinder, with wilder hair and his eyes seemed to glow with some sort of magic that wasn't taught at their school. The princess knew she was in love, though it was too soon for the prince to know.
So she waited. And at the end of the year, when she found out that her friend had been rescued from another great evil that lay in the bowels of the school, it was the strangest tinge of envy that panged. If only the prince had saved her.
She waited the next year, watching him silently. When the dark creatures attacked, and he awoke with the screams of his dying mother in his ears, she realized that none of his other friends could understand as she did, and hoped.
The lost princess had renamed him the Shadow Prince in her mind, for the hidden shadows that sometimes crept upon his face when no one watched, and how he stuck to the shadows as much as possible to avoid undue attention. He talked to her sometimes, and listened in return, kindly, to her tales of invisible creatures. He did not mock her, and still protected her from bullies.
The year after that, her third year, she watched him live up to his reputation. Forced into a competition he did not want, he fought hard and with grace. Out-flying dragons, rescuing damsels in distress (there was that tinge, again!)- and then! The princess felt something grow cold inside. But she had always been there, standing strong behind him. She would not waver now.
They prepared to fight for their lives. That was all there was to it. The princess worked hard, patiently hoping he would realize soon that they were perfect, it hurt when they were still friends. Her eyes, still too big, watched worriedly as her friend with the brilliant, beautiful red hair and just-right eyes started to grow beautiful, then sighed in relief as she left the prince for other boys.
Many girls still wanted the prince, but he kept himself unattached to any girl except his 'adopted' sister. She had worried, for a while, but the girl loved another.
As the school year closed, the prince's first battle was a costly one. So much of the magic in his eyes was gone after that, it was all it took for her to not burst into tears every time she saw him. He had that lost look she often wore when younger, and still sometimes wore when lost in memory and not her safe world of animals.
The next year the princess suffered in agony as she watched the Shadow prince and his Fire princess together. Still, she waited, was still his friend.
The time she saw the Shadow Prince kiss the Fire Princess after defeating the evil dragon for the last time, the Lost Princess realized she was lost forever after.
Harry Potter, Luna, etc., are not mine.
And there it ends, unless you prefer a slightly more hopeful ending and read the epilogue.