My life was never perfect, far from it in fact. But if there was ever a time where I felt like I was a normal boy, it was when I was with her. Her. Hermione. Her name is ever so sweet. My memories of her are peaceful and painful. I remember meeting her so long ago. I remember knowing that she was the one.
She had walked into my train compartment the day we met. She looked at me as if I was the most magnificent thing she had ever seen. Our eyes met briefly. That's when I knew I could spend forever gazing into those honey eyes. I was so young, yet so troubled already. If only I knew what was to come . . .
School was hectic, always hectic. Hermione and I were very shy around each other at first. The first time I openly expressed my care for her was on Halloween. She was trapped in the bathroom with a troll. I gathered up the little courage I had and went into the bathroom with Ron. We defeated the troll. Hermione wrapped me in a warm embrace the moment she was safe. I clearly remember Ron eyeing us suspiciously, so she went over and half-heartedly hugged Ron. From that moment on, I knew that I could be in her arms forever. True, I didn't know love. I never had an example of love. No one had ever loved me. But the way I felt in her arms . . . I knew that it was a foreign emotion. I hadn't recognized it then. If only I did . . . I would have stopped myself then.
We were so young and so naive then. I was so carefree. I knew that I had feelings for this girl . . . the girl. The girl I could spend forever with. I look back so longingly at the days our friendship was blossoming, the days when the love inside was about to burst. I had never loved before. The emotion was pouring out of my very soul.
My memories are so clear, yet they are so faded. I hate thinking about them, yet I can't stop. She is like a drug to me. She always has been. I can't get enough. I'm addicted. It kills me inside. She is still torturing me . . . if only I had known then that this would happen. That it would end that way, that painful way. Sometimes I wonder how it happened. Hell, I don't even really know what happened. I still sit and think about how it ended. It's a mystery . . . a mystery I live to solve.
I spent the entire summer my first year thinking about her. I didn't receive a single letter from her, after all the times I wrote. I was depressed . . . the first major depression I fell into. Many more would come. After I found out that Dobby held my letters from me, I could have died in frustration. I loved her. I knew I did, even at the tender age of twelve. Oh now young and naive I was!
If I ever find her . . .
I won't. I don't know if she's even alive. I excluded myself from the world. I have become a shell of a human without her . . . I love her.
Her.