Chapter 1

I haven't always been the cruel beast people see me as today.

All right, maybe I have.

But everyone can change. And, at some point in my miserable life, I did change. Because I thought I was in love. Can you imagine it, me? In love? I know. I was surprised myself. Her name was Lily. But I'm going to have to give you a more detailed version to hold your attention, aren't I? Well then, the story begins.

It was my seventh year at Hogwarts. I had established myself quite well as a rich, arrogant pureblood. After all, that was exactly what I was back then. Never had I thought that I would end up associating, with a mudbl- muggleborn, let alone fall in love with one.

Now, let me continue. For some absurd reason, I had apparated to the station quite early. We are all familiar with Platform Nine and Three- Quarters, are we not? And, for you lot out there, let me clear this up: I was not excited to go to Hogwarts. I could have disapparated just as easily back to my far more comfortable mansion, but I didn't. Fate, coincidence, happenstance, call it what you wish.

No one else was there yet, leaving me alone with my thoughts, just the way I liked. Oh, yes, another thing I would like to clear up: contrary to popular belief, I do enjoy being alone. Everyone seems to think that just because my two cohorts, Crabbe and Goyle, are forever trailing behind me, I need protection and therefore hate being alone. Quite the opposite, don't you think.

You know, I really should stop these minor interruptions; I'll never get this story finished. Where was I? Ah, yes. The station. Alone. Well, I wasn't alone for long. I heard a clear, disturbingly happy voice say her goodbyes to her parents. You know the jumpy feeling you get when everything's quiet, and something disturbs that silence? Like a rock dropped into a clear pond. I was just as jumpy when I heard that voice, angelic though it was. I turned around.

There, standing before me, was the most strikingly beautiful person I had ever seen. And I'd seen a lot. It took a while to recognize her, actually. It was Lily. Then, as was typical, my mind kicked in. Lily? That scrawny girl my fellow Slytherins, myself included, had called a scarecrow? How could someone change so much over so little time? I'd been acquainted with Her before. She was, to me, the 'Evans-girl' (when I didn't refer to her as the scarecrow, that is). Being the arrogant person I was then (and still am, by the way), I paid no attention to girls. Women were different, like butterflies. I often thought of girls as wretched little caterpillars that one had to put up with, just to see what they would metamorphose into later on. Well, Lily (no longer the 'Evans-girl'; she was more on the womanly side now—stress on the 'ly'), had changed. A lot.

By then, my mind had gone into a flurry of activity. The first thing that popped in my head was 'why am I wasting my time thinking about that mudblood?' The second thing was 'no one will call her a scarecrow anymore, look at those curves'. Ahem. That, sad to say, was the mind of an eighteen year old boy. My calm and serenity were all but gone now. Let me tell you this once, I hate awkward silences. I could just sit there and look pathetic, in front of her of all people. I needed something to do.

Obviously, the first thing that came to my attention was my luggage. That was horrible enough. But with my wand, it would be no problem. A few spells, and I'd be all done. That was the time I realized my wand was missing. It was at the bottom of my trunk. There was absolutely no chance I would allow myself to lose my cool façade in front of that girl by lugging that trunk about and into the train. Absolutely not. I'd open my trunk, and get my wand. Who cared if it was at the bottom? I could put things back just right.

So, I opened my trunk, and dug that wretched wand out.

Putting the things back in was the hard part. Who knew I'd packed so many things? And who knew house elves had so much more skill than I had at packing? Sad to say, when the moment came to re-pack, my things wouldn't fit. Wonderful, I'd appeared even more stupid.

What was worse was I'd actually tried a couple of spells to get them in, but they wouldn't. There I was, trying not to embarrass myself when I ended up doing just that anyway.

Lily was looking at me; I could feel it. I had a strange way of knowing when someone was looking at me. I turned around and glared right back at her, my steel-gray eyes challenging her emerald-green ones. And you know what she did? She smiled. How typically Gryffindor. I cast a rather Severus-tic one back at her. Unfortunately, nothing seemed to deter her--she walked over to me. "Do you need any help?"

"No." I wasn't a little boy with a scraped knee; I could do this myself. She knelt down (totally oblivious to the dust settling on her pristine skirt) and started putting my textbooks in the trunk. "I said I didn't need any help." I could be quite the mule when I wanted to be. She shrugged and smiled at me again. It should have been illegal to look so beautiful.

"You looked like you needed help. What you said--that doesn't matter, Lucius. Actions speak louder than words."