A/N: This is my first fanfic. It's going to be a long and eventful story. There are some MAJOR inaccuracies here (I know that), including time frame (especially time frame!) and other details, but why does it matter? What's the fun of it anyway if you can't change a few things, right? So please read on and enjoy!

Summary: Tom Riddle struggles with being a teenager and attempting to be a Dark Lord at the same time. He must decide whether he really does love the new girl at school or whether he is only using her powers to fulfill great powerful things in the future. And how important is this woman to him? What is she like? Who is she and what other problems may that cause? And yes, like I said before, I suck at summaries. Sorry about that! Now please, enjoy! And please, take the time to read it and review! It means a lot and it's very appreciated because this is my first fanfiction ever and I would very much like to know how I've done. Thank you.

He thought she loved him.

She thought he loved her.

They both loved each other

for a very short period of time.

But love caused danger between them.

And soon arises Voldemort.

Tom had known her for four months now. He was sitting in Potions class, just like everyone else, and there came in, a new student, late. She had such silky red hair that ran down to the middle of her back and she contained deep green eyes, that seemed to flash sometimes. She looked just like any other girl, an ordinary girl, and there seemed to be nothing special about her.
When he looked at her, all he thought was"Psh. A new student." When he found out she belonged to the Gryffindor part of class, which was mixed with Slytherins, he had even less respect for her. He couldn't care less about this woman. Four months later and he cared a lot.

The first few days in Potions, this girl had embarrassed herself so badly. She had so much trouble with her work and created so many explosions in class that the Potions teacher, Mr Warwick, was starting to get fed up with her. Tom would laugh at her in his head, thinking about what a moron this new girl was. When he saw her embarrass herself, he just couldn't help himself but to shake his head ashamedly, along with a couple of his Slytherin friends.

Because Tom was the best student in class, Mr Warwick made him tutor her after school in that same dungeon classroom. She was a quiet girl who was just too blind, too gullible.

"I cannot believe you're making me do such a thing, Sir" Tom protested, looking at the frightened new girl standing silently in the corner, afraid that she was making him angry.

"She needs help, Mr Riddle, and you will be the one to tutor her. You have no choice. I'm going to make sure you'll do your job. I'll be watching you."

With a heavy sigh and an angry growl, Tom accepted bitterly. He was to tutor her after every Potions class when Potions class would be the last class of the day.

Weeks later and this girl improved tremendously. She made the best potions in class and Tom had seen her practise magic outside. He had seen her do incredible things, things even he was not capable of. That did not make him jealous, but somewhat impressed.

"Hmmm" he thought"she might be of much use to me after all."

He knew how vulnerable she was, how easy it was to manipulate her, and he took that to his advantage.

It was his eighth tutorial with her, and seeing that he had been helping her for so long, Mr Warwick stopped supervising him. Just as soon as Warwick left the cold drafty dungeon, Tom demanded this girl to hold out her wand.

"What? But I thought we were making potions."

"Just do as I say."

The girl held her wand out and for the rest of the hour, Tom asked her to do certain spells and taught her some new ones. He trained her and realized that she was a quick learner.

After three months of tutorials, which was less of Potions tutorials but more of powerful magic spells, Tom's student became very powerful. She was much more advanced with magic now, one of the best of Gryffindor perhaps. But no matter how powerful this girl was, she was still vulnerable, still blind. Tom was aware of the greatness of her power but she was not.
To gain her trust, Tom had spied on this girl to find out more about her and started conversations with her in the hallway. This girl did not know why he was acting so friendly to her all of a sudden, and had decided that he grew to accept and like her.

One day, the girl was having an awful dispute with James Potter, a mischievous boy who was also in her fifth grade and in her House. After her fight with him, she ran off crying. Tom saw the whole fight but pretended not to.

He pretended to bump into her in the hallway and asked with fake sympathy, "Are you alright?"

"Yes." the girl sobbed.

"You don't look alright. It's that nasty Potter boy, isn't it?"

The girl slowly nodded and wiped her tears away from her blotchy red eyes.

"You know, perhaps I shall teach him a lesson. Would you like that?"

"Oh please don't," the girl begged. "It isn't a very nice thing to do. He doesn't deserve anything nasty."

"Lily" he told her"you can't run away from your problems like that! It's important for you to face them! What have I taught you?"

"To face my problems, to overpower others."

"Exactly! And are you doing that? No, instead you're running away from them. You're afraid, Lily, you're a coward."

"No, no, I'm not."

"Prove it to me."

"It's ok, really, it's alright. Just let it go this time, ok, Tom?"

"Fine, but if he ever goes near you again-"

"I'll let you know."

One week later, Tom caught Lily and James having an even nastier fight this time in the hallway. He came in, held his wand up high, and mumbled a few latin words for a spell. All of a sudden, James was hanging upside down in the air high up. Everyone around stopped, pointed and laughed at James who was begging to be let back down. Tom noticed that even Lily found it funny, and he felt a great feeling inside.

"If I ever catch you bothering Lily again, it's going to be worse next time."

"Put me down! Put me down!" James begged.

"As you wish." And with a flick of his wand, James dropped to the ground and had his glasses fly across the room floor.

"You're not very nice, you know that? I thought you were a good man, Tom, with those looks and you being a Prefect and all" James grumbled, picking up his glasses.

"I am a good man, James. I just made Lily Evans a lot happier. Isn't that a good thing?"

James reassembled himself and stomped off in embarrassment and anger. Everyone else watched him, then proceeded to their own business, pretending they saw nothing.

"Wow" Lily muttered. "You actually did something for me. And I thought you hated me."

"Me" Tom asked with a false surprised tone in his voice"I wouldn't hate you. Of course not. Why would I hate someone like you?"

And at that moment, poor young Lily started feeling something for evil but brilliant Tom Riddle.

Lily could not stop thinking about him. She daydreamed about him so often that she couldn't pay very much attention in class. In Potions, she stared at him and when he caught her in the act of it, he asked, "Why are you looking at me like that?"

But he knew. He realized she was starting to feel for him, which was pretty much his plan.

"Now," he thought, "I have gained your trust, Lily Evans, and so I shall put that to use."

He told her to meet him after school outside behind a tree. He was thinking of telling her his plan, his plan of unleashing and controlling the Basilisk to kill those filthy mudbloods in the school. His plan of framing someone. He knew he couldn't frame her, nobody would believe it. Nobody was that much of a fool. So he thought twice, and instead of telling her his plan, he just decided to tell her what to do without giving any information about it.

When Lily met Tom behind a tree after school, she thought he was going to tell her about his feelings for her.

"You must listen to me, Lily. This is important." came out Tom's first words to her as they met. His expression was serious.

"I have something to say too," Lily told him.

"Can I say my thing first?"

"Of course," Lily replied with a smile.

"I need you to do something for me. Will you do it?"

"Yes. Anything for you, Tom."

"I need you to get me Rubeus Hagrid."

Lily's smile faded. "Why?"

"Because. He's important to me."

"And what about me?"

"What about you?"

"Am I not important to you? I thought you fancied me. Because I fancy you. I really do care for you, Tom."

"Not now, Lily."

"Everyday I dream about you, Tom. I've been waiting for quite some time now for you to express your love for me in return. And now that you've brought me here, you expect me to run some errand for you."

Tom couldn't lose her now. He still needed her.
"Alright, alright. Just settle down"

She was no longer shy, she actually had the courage to tell him her feelings about him. She began sobbing, and he held her in his arms to hush her up. He didn't want to attract anyone's attention or cause a commotion of some sort.
After she calmed down, she kissed him right on the lips. He didn't even let her stop. He felt something strange, something sensational, something great. He had never felt this way before. There was so much sorrow and hatred in his life that this moment was probably the greatest he had ever experienced. He did not feel lust, it was love, love alright. He could not believe he was experiencing such a thing. They stopped kissing, and Lily took a step back.
The air felt even warmer on his back, it being Spring and all, with flowers blossoming everywhere, giving colourful tones to the surroundings. It felt like love was everywhere, even in the air. That was what the flowers signaled in Spring. Love.

"I felt something Tom, didn't you?"

He looked away. He couldn't bear to stand the truth. He's never felt this way for anyone before. His father had abondoned him because his mother was a witch. It was very much his father who had caused all this sorrow in his life. His mother died. She died! And all his father could do was leave and spend time in his filthy mansion. Tom never learned to love and never learned the meaning of it. Back at the orphanage before coming to Hogwarts, he was a complete outcast.

"I don't know, I really don't know."

"Don't lie to me, Tom."

"Alright, perhaps I felt something. Is there something wrong with that."

"No there isn't, Tom."

"Exactly, then why are you-"

"No, it's you, Tom. You're the one ashamed of feeling something."

She turned to leave but he grabbed her.

"Wait. I need to know something," he said slowly.

"What?"

He moved closely to her, put both his hands on her soft cheeks, closed his eyes, and kissed her again. This kiss lasted a moment longer. They both stopped and she stared at him with her deep green eyes. They really entranced him.

"Do you know it now" she asked.

He couldn't stop looking into her vivid eyes. "I...I think I do. But I can't. It's not true. It's not possible." Her eyes were the colour of fresh grass in an early morning of Spring. They reminded him of the leaves of the jungle. He only realized then how beautiful and exotic her eyes were.

"What? Haven't you ever loved anyone before, Tom?"

"I have only loved one person in my life and that was my mother yet I have never even known her. I've never learned to love, Lily. That is what you must understand."

"But you love ME, don't you?"

"Perhaps."

"You do. I know you do. We've been sitting in that dungeon together so many times, we're fools to not have seen it before. And when I did see it, that it was more than just lust, more than just a simple crush, you saw it too. You were just too afraid. Too ashamed to admit that you are in love and"

He pressed his finger on her lips to silence her. "I'll meet you again some other time."

"And I will wait for you," she said, as she watched him go.

One thing that noone knew was that James Potter was watching from afar.

Tom walked straight to his dormitory room, and slammed his door shut. He had so many mixed feelings, so many brewed thoughts. He paced around, yelling at himself.

"What are you doing, Tom? You were supposed to use her! You were supposed tomake use of her extraordinary powers! I can't let my heart be in the way!"

He spun around, shaking his head.

"No, I love her! I do! I've never felt this way before! That kiss was intense. It wasn't just any other kiss, it was a serious kiss. It had love in it!"

He spun around again and paced some more.

"No, what are you doing, Tom! You are about to be a great lord, the Dark Lord! A Dark Lord needs no love, a Dark Lord does not believe in love! A Dark Love, no, Lord, a Dark Lord, that's right! A Dark LORD needs no love. How can I be a Dark Lord if I am in love with an innocent fool! No, I'm the fool!"

He plopped on his bed and lay down, wondering what to do, whether he should still use Lily Evans for his plan of the Chamber of Secrets opening or not. But if he was still questioning his plans with her, did that mean he loved her at all?

"Do I love her or am I just fooling myself?"

He no longer knew how he felt. What was he to do about the Chamber of Secrets? What about her extraordinary powers? He knew he needed them sometime soon. He knew he needed to make her use them. And while going through this awful number of varied thoughts and feelings, he fell asleep.

He awoke early the next morning and bumped into Lily in the hallway on his way to the great Hall to eat breakfast.

"Tom," was all she could say.

"Yes?"

"Do you still love me, Tom?" she whispered, making sure noone could hear her.

"What made you think I ever began loving you?"

At first, she went completely stone quiet. "A gut feeling inside me, Tom."

"How do you know that gut feeling is right?"

"I…I just do."

"Lily, even I, myself, don't know whether I love you or not!" he snapped.

"What makes it so hard for you to love me, Tom? What makes it so hard? Tell me!"

"Many, many things," he replied solemnly, staring coldly into her eyes.

Of course that was true. It was hard to love her because he did not know what love was. It was hard to love her because he was planning to use her. It was hard to love her because he was evil and he knew that she couldn't love someone who was evil. It was hard to love her because he never learned to love anyone in his life.

"Can you tell me one thing?"

"I already have."

"But that's no excuse, Tom. Never learning to love is no excuse. That reason should not stop you from loving anyone else in the future."

"There's a lot more to it than that, alright? Now, may you excuse me."
And with that, Tom Riddle walked away, leaving her behind, leaving her in the dark.

As soon as he got to his seat at the Slytherin table for his breakfast, his friend Romulus Malfoy mentioned Lily.

"Is it true you've got a little thing for that redheaded fool Evans?" Malfoy sneered, as do his descendants.

"You do not call her a fool!" Tom bursted, surprised by his own outburst.

Malfoy jerked back, then realized the truth. "So you do have a thing for her, don't you? After all these months of mocking her, you suddenly feel sorry for the girl?"

"Where did you hear about this?" Tom demanded.

"What?"

"Where did you hear about this?"

"Is that any of your business?"

"Well it very well should be if it has something to do with me."

"Potter. I heard it from James Potter. He says he saw you and that Evans girl kiss!"

"What!" Tom's eyes widened. "How? When?"

"Just yesterday after school. He told me to watch you, Tom."

"Tell your little Potter friend that he should very well mind his own business."

"I have at first but then I just couldn't stop thinking about you and that girl making out. And besides, he is not my friend."

"Well you know what, Romulus? I'm going to have a little talk with that stupid boy!"

Tom stood outside the entrance of the great Hall after breakfast, waiting for James Potter to come out. Stupid James. Him and his geeky glasses. And that gang he hangs around with! No, that gang who follows him!

As soon as James came out of the Hall with his large gang, he immediately saw Tom and knew what this was all about. He told his gang to leave him alone for a while, and so his gang did.

"Alright now, Tom, what do you want?"

"You know exactly what I want."

"Not really. There could be tons of things-"

"I want you to leave me alone and to stop spying on me and Lily Evans!"

James did not say a word at first. He studied Tom for a moment, then spoke. "So you admit it. You do have a thing for Lily Evans."

"What's it to you?"

"I just don't want Lily to be around a guy like you, that's all."

"And why would you care?"

"Because…uh because…"

"You fancy her, don't you?" Tom said coldly.

"That's not what I said."

"I don't care what you said. You fancy her so you get jealous. Jealous of someone like me? Of Tom Riddle?"

"What do you mean someone like you?" James erupted. "Why would I not get jealous? With that perfect handsome look of yours, that Prefect Badge, those super high scores on those wizarding exams, how could I not be jealous? Huh? Tell me!"

"There's more to it than that, James. So what if I do well on the school exams? So what if I'm a Prefect? So what if I've got better looks than you? You just don't understand me, do you?" Tom shook his head with shame. "You foolish embecile. You think you're better than everyone, don't you, Potter? You and that bloody gang of yours, you all think you're so very smooth. And you know what? I know what else you're jealous of. You're jealous of me being with Lily. Isn't that so?"

James eyed Tom with venom, and with much fear.

"Well, that's too bad, isn't it?" And with that, Tom laughed a very cold laughter, and left the room, leaving James standing behind, standing in the dark.

Tom Riddle got to his dormitory room and was surprised to see Lily standing there, waiting for him. She stood by the doorway, without any expression on her face.

"Lily? What are you doing here? You're not supposed to be here. Girls are restricted from-"

"I apparated here. Apparently noone could stop me from doing that. Is that a problem?"

Tom was again surpised. "Apparated? You were not supposed to learn that until much later!" Even though Tom had taught it to himself, he was just stunned to see Lily's powers quickly advance. "I taught you well, didn't I?"

"Yes you have, and I've taught myself as well too."

Lily sat on Tom's bed and Tom stood in front of her, watching her every move.

"I've been thinking about you for so long, Tom. And so much. I know it's hard for you to love me but I know you do. I know your heart belongs to me and that mine belongs to you."

"Don't make it harder than it already is, Lily."

"It's not possible for it to be any more complicated!" Lily shouted. She calmed down and looked straight into his eyes, his greyish green eyes that really entranced her. "Kiss me, Tom."

"What?"

"Kiss me, Tom."

Tom bent down and gave her a long kiss. And he didn't stop. There were many more kisses to come. He couldn't control himself. Neither could she. They were both just so much in the mood that they didn't care about anything else that surrounded them.

Their first class of that same day was Potions. They were both late, entering the class at the same time. James, sitting in his own seat, saw that they both came in together, and he burned of jealousy. He did not want to know why they were almost fifteen minutes late in class yet he somehow knew the reason.

"Where have you been, Miss Evans and Mr Riddle?" Mr Warwick asked the both of them as they came in.

"Well, I…I woke up late," said Lily.

"And I, well, I wasn't paying very much attention to the time," answered Tom, which was somewhat true.

"Well, at least you two are friends now, which is sort of nice to see," said Mr Warwick as his two late students walked to their own seats.

That night, Tom found Lily again in his room. They both just couldn't help it.

Three days later, Tom sat on his bed, his head bent low, his eyes glued to the carpeted floor. He was thinking, thinking very hard. He had such mixed feelings for this girl. But if he had such mixed feelings, did it mean he really loved her?
He remembered that night, three days ago, he was lying right next to her, on that very bed, staring deeply into Lily's entrancing eyes. They reminded him so much the colour of grass, the wild leaves of the jungle. Her hair, so flamboyant and fiery red, perfectly matched her face and her fair smooth skin. Even though he was still planning to use her and her powers, he still couldn't stop thinking about her and about his feelings for her. She had got him Rubeus Hagrid just so Tom could befriend him. He knew Rubeus was going through tough times, so he decided to befriend him to prevent any suspicion about framing him for the opening of the Chamber of Secrets.

Anyways, Tom was seated on his bed, thinking. He was trying to decide whether he should come clean about his Chamber of Secrets plan, but then decided not to. He knew it would scare Lily. Lily was very easy to scare, she was still vulnerable and afraid. But then Tom remembered what she had said. "You were too afraid." Was he as easy to scare as it was easy to scare Lily? They were both afraid, but afraid of different things. Tom was afraid of feelings, feelings a normal human being should feel, while Lily was afraid of evil. His fear was a bigger deal than hers. Afraid of human feelings? Who has ever heard of that? Lily was real, Tom was fake. He realized he could've easily been a scaredy cat just like everyone else.

"No!" he shouted to himself as he stood straight up. "I will soon be Lord Voldemort, and Lord Voldemort may sense fear but he definitely does not have any." He sat back down and continued to think.

At the exact same moment, Lily was lying on the bed on her left side, thinking. She loved him. She knew she did. But then why was she so afraid? She had a gut feeling, a feeling that something terrible would happen between her and Tom. When she first saw him, she thought he was a perfect gentleman, with dark handsome looks and a refined expression on his face. In fact, everyone thought Tom was like that. He had won so many awards at Hogwarts and seemed to devote himself to so many activities at school. But once Lily got to know him, she knew there was something about him. Something not quite right. Inside, he was a dark lonely child, longing for love and company. She knew it and she also knew that it was sooner or later going to bring trouble. But she could remember lying next to him in bed, staring into his green grey eyes, a colour that reminded her of the sea, of the ocean, that seemed to go for miles. A colour that reminded her of the foam and the waves of the waters that would hit the large grey boulders on the sandy shore. His eyes were such interesting colour, and his hair, jet black, which was quite uncommon in the area. His skin, a natural tan, so soft and smooth…She remembered studying his face so well, with his perfectly shaped nose, which was straight and small, and his whole face was just so beautiful like that of a famous carved sculpture.

She wanted to love him so bad, and yes, she did love him, but she wanted love in return. She didn't want a man who couldn't love her back, a man who was so afraid of feelings.

She sat there, and continued to think, wondering why she was so in love with this man.