Apparently no one likes this story? tear That makes me sad. Reviews make me happy. I also thought I'd mention that, until further notice, all of these were written pre-DH, actually on a very long train ride in June. I understand why JKR started Harry Potter on a train: THERE'S NOTHING ELSE TO DO!!!!!!!!!

Here's the second chapter. I think it's the shortest and most abstract of them all.

THE ELTON JOHN COLLECTION

2. Sorry Seems to Be the Hardest Word

What've I gotta do to make you love me?

What've I gotta do to make you care?

What do I do when lightning strikes me?

And I wake to find that you're not there?

How do I convince you that this isn't simply an infatuation? I truly love you. I can't even remember a time when I didn't like you in some way.

Our first year, when you couldn't get your trunk on the train and then looked so surprised that a random person would help you, was one of the most memorable of the seven we spent together at Hogwarts, probably because we could have actually been called friends that year. Then one prank went wrong and you accidentally became the target after I had promised you that you and your friends would be safe. I lost your trust through one stupid mistake, like now.

I figured out that I was in love with you at the start of our fourth year. Something in my perception of you changed; I still haven't figured out what. It certainly wasn't your looks; I had told you in our first year that I thought you were the prettiest girl I had ever seen. You then responded that no one thought that after seeing her sister. You showed me her picture and I wondered how anyone so ugly and bony could be more beautiful than you. Not to say that you weren't beautiful in our fourth year, but that thought of mine had never changed, even if you did grow up.

Whatever the cause, a switch in my head was flipped from 'I like Lily' to 'I am in love with Lily'.

There is a phrase in French for love at first sight that translates to being struck as if by lightning. Seeing you on the train that year was hardly the first time I had seen you, but I still felt like I had been struck by lightning.

Then my heart broke when you didn't feel the same.

What do I do to make you want me?

What've I gotta do to be heard?

What do I say when it's all over?

And sorry seems to be the hardest word?

I did everything to get your attention. I know that I came off as an arrogant prick or an egotistical bully or an irresponsible prat or whatever your insult was that day; all I wanted was for you to see me. Even if you hated me, it was still better than indifference. It's a fine line between love and hate and all that stuff.

When I was fourteen, I certainly had no idea how to actually go about getting a girl. I still don't really. I just tend to play it by ear and pray to whatever deity is listening that it doesn't go SNAFU.

And then, in our seventh year, all my dreams came true. You agreed to go out with me, to be my date, to be my girlfriend, my best girl, the one I could tell anything and everything, my best friend. Mine to love, to hold, to spoil, to cherish, to pamper, to hug, to kiss without being slapped.

I did all that and more.

And now I've gone and screwed things up so badly that 'sorry' is meaningless and so hard to say because it wasn't my fault!

It's sad (so sad)

So sad

Oh it's a sad sad situation

And it's getting more and more absurd.

It's sad (so sad)

So sad

Why can't we talk it over?

Always seems to me

That sorry seems to be the hardest word.

It seems so strange that our entire relationship is based on the fact that we argue to keep the sparks flying, and yet this one important argument is one that we can't even seem to talk about.

One week ago, it started.

Two days ago, you left to crash at a friend's house. It must be a girl thing to cling and bemoan the faults of the male population when something goes wrong. My mates are somewhat less than sympathetic. We men just tell each other to get over it, and yet here I am moping about our apartment because it still smells of your perfume, the one I bought you for your birthday just days after graduation.

Today, I realized that I couldn't live without you and that maybe, maybe, I had a way to win you back.

What do I do to make you love me?

According to you, just be myself.

What've I gotta do to be heard?

Make my intentions known without any embellishments or pretenses.

What do I do when lightning strikes me?

Go after my epiphany.

What've I gotta do?

Get you back.

What've I gotta do?

Say I'm sorry.

Sorry seems to be the hardest word.