For seven years I've watched you, seen your physical growth and emotional deterioration, the way you've learned to conceal the side of you that expressions any feelings whatsoever. I've watched the way you turned from an angry little boy to a bitter young man. I witnessed the way your hatred of the world and of your Muggle father have inspired you to become something you are not – a Death Eater, a tormentor, one who kills for the pleasure derived from it. I've seen you serve a master who could be inferior to you. I've seen you lower your intelligence to fit in with others, I've seen you change yourself so much...

And yet I still can't help falling in love with you again.

Not to say that you don't have your good qualities, too, because you do. You are inventive, intelligent, and amazingly talented at everything you set your mind to do. You are unique and try not to give a damn what others think about you, even though I know you do, that you care so much more than you'll even admit to yourself.

I remember the first day of Hogwarts – I guess times like these always leave you particularly prone to reminiscing – on the Hogwarts Express. I was scrawny, half-starved, and ragged from my recent transformation. You were tiny, bruised, and scarred from a "family" life that sickened you to even think of, and somehow we found ourselves together in a compartment, where I was immediately struck by those eyes you have...

But with you, the memories are bittersweet. There are memories of us, together as first years, a strange fascination with each other forming in between us...but there are also memories of you dangling upside down as I sat in the corner, looking away because I was too afraid to stand up to my so-called friends and tell them that enough was enough, to leave you alone. I've seen the way those piercing black eyes have bored into me painfully, simultaneously accusing me of being just like your persecutors and asking me why, why I don't run to the rescue when I so easily could.

Simply because I flee from conflict. I'm not like you or James or Sirius – you all dwell in the heart of a good fight. But me, I hate it. I hate violence that goes on between you, but even more than that, I'm too afraid to tell them that they should stop. That's me, spineless, useless Remus – Remus has his books, so what else does he need in life?

You.

I need you in my life.

We'll be graduating tomorrow, and I have only one regret from my years at Hogwarts – that I was never able to confess my feelings for you. So many times I've come so close, but our relationship has been so unsteady that it was nigh impossible to even know my feelings at all. Sometimes we were the best of friends, sometimes you hated me for discovering the secret of my lycanthropy. Sometimes you were repulsed by me, sometimes I wanted nothing more than to press my lips reverently against yours and tell you that there is nothing you need to hide from, that emotions were made to be shown, not suppressed. Sometimes I wanted you to hold me and let me cry on your shoulder.

What is it about you? That question I've asked myself constantly, over and over again – why do I feel so strongly about you when there are hundreds of other at this school I could easily have fallen for instead of you. Why must it be you, so cold, aloof, unattainable? Why do I long for only the things I cannot reach?

Perhaps it is human nature to refuse to be satisfied. Perhaps it is the wolf within me. But either way, I want you and need you and would do anything to simply take you in my arms for a matter of minutes and hold you. Before we say goodbye, Severus Snape, I love you.