Dear Professor,
I suppose I had been warned about your ruthless behaviour. The older students on the Hogwarts Express had told me all about you. They called you a monster. They told me you hated Muggles, children and benevolence. I was once all of that. Born to Muggle parents, a girl of eleven years and a friend to all. Perhaps that's why I didn't believe a Hogwarts professor could be all that they had described. However, it didn't matter then what you were like. I didn't know you and I certainly didn't know how much my heart would cry out for you later that year.
If I had only heard one simple word spoken from your lips before that fateful September night, my life would be so much different than it is today. I'd have begged the Sorting Hat to place me where you'd be likely to appreciate me. It would have been me there sitting at that table with the rest of the Slytherin House once again celebrating the triumph we'd achieved over the last school year. If I'd been sorted into the Slytherin House, then perhaps it would be me you were looking at when your hands clapped together in high approval and that proud grin appeared on your face. Every year since I came to Hogwarts they've won the House Cup. It's no surprise. I can easily understand how badly they work throughout the year to make you proud. I've worked so hard over the years to impress you, but not because it was a House Pointed I sought after, it was simply your attention and admiration I wanted - if only for a moment. You never once gave Ravenclaw a point for my accomplishments nor did you once give me the satisfaction of a simple rewarding acknowledgement.
Instead you shunned me like a foul, rotten scoundrel. Each time we passed each other in the corridors my heart would pound and I would smile as I greeted you. In return you only scowled at me as if I were a foul stench caught between your lips and nose. Little did you know how much it hurt me to see you stare so coldly at me when all I wanted was to hear you whisper my name. Do you really even know my name? You haven't spoken it since the roll call at the beginning of my very first Potions class. The last thing I expected to happen when I heard you speak my name was to fall in love with you. I suppose I didn't that very day, but soon afterward. You first enchanted me with that faint velvet whisper that is your voice, then your effortless ability to captivate my full attention struck my heart with fire… and then I fell in love with you. For seven years I waited patiently to hear you speak my name again. You never did.
If I had known then, during my very first Potions class, that I would never again hear my name slip off your tongue I probably never would have allowed myself to fall in love with you. I was a fool to let my heart slip away so easily. You've done nothing to earn my love. You didn't ask for me to love you and I certainly didn't ask to fall in love with you. I just did.
If I had the power to make it all untrue, I would. But I've waited too long. For seven years I waited hoping that one day you'd see me the way I wanted you to see me. I'm such a fool!
Seven short years went by and not once did you ever look at me as I had devotedly stared at you. How could you not have seen the hunger in my eyes each time I looked at you? It was so obvious I loved you. I wish I didn't, but it's too late now. I'm in love with you and there's nothing I can do to stop it.
Tomorrow I leave Hogwarts probably to never see you again. You'll never know how much I loved you or how much you hurt me by not knowing it. Summer will along and you'll forget I even existed. There are no memories of you and I to remember me by. I was only the quiet little Ravenclaw who sat in the middle of the Potions classroom and did nothing more than the work you gave me. I didn't cause trouble, I didn't foul up my recipes and I certainly didn't talk about you behind your back like the rest of my classmates. On occasion, I even heard your own House speaking vulgarly of you.
If you only knew who was truly being faithful to you, things would be so much different. Instead of leaving tomorrow with nothing more to remember you by than your marking on my work, I would leave knowing that you meant it when you shook my hand and congratulated me for all the wonderful work I had done for you. But your hand will never touch mine. I'll never again look into your deep dark eyes and see the emptiness I so much wanted to fill. You'll never look into my eyes again and see the adoring love and passion I feel for you.
I leave you tonight Professor Severus Snape for a life without you that will be far less painful than the life I've lived with you.
Goodbye, my Love.