I Loved Lord Voldemort

Perhaps loved isn't the right word. I can't fully describe the way that I felt about him. There was no logical reason for it, but I couldn't help it. He was handsome, without a doubt, and extremely intelligent. But more than that, he was intriguing.

We never had lengthy conversations, but he had a way of looking at you that would make your heart melt and fill you with fear at the same time. It was absolutely thrilling. And it felt like he was always watching.

Things never turned out the way I expected them to, obviously. Certainly not the way I had fantasized. Instead I am left with a heart that is too scarred to ever love again. The world is dark and cruel, and I am old now. At one point I was young, vibrant, and full of hope and vitality. Those days are gone now.

It would probably be best if I started at the beginning. I was born in 1926 as Phoebe Lynn Gallagher, and I grew up in a wizarding family. My life was pretty average, if anything it was better than average. I got along well with my parents and my sister, and we were pretty well off. Things continued to go smoothly in my life when I began to attend Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry at the age of 11.

I loved Hogwarts and almost everything about it. It would be almost impossible not to fall in love with the place. Upon entering I was sorted into Ravenclaw, the perfect house for me. There I was surrounded by people like myself and I made some close friends.

I'm sure you could guess that I was quite intelligent and excelled in my studies. I never really thought of myself as anything extraordinary, but people had high expectations for me. Not surprisingly, I was made a prefect in my fifth year.

This story truly begins towards the end of that year. I was fifteen years old and insanely stressed about my upcoming O.W.L.s. My best friend Catherine sat beside me in the Ravenclaw common room, panicking.

"I don't know anything," she moaned. "I'm sure I'm going to fail my Transfiguration OWL!"

"Don't be silly," I told her. "You know what you're doing, you just get too nervous. It won't be that hard."

"Easy for you to say. You're so good at it." She wrote down another quick fact about animagi that might come in handy. "Shouldn't you be tutoring Garrett now?"

"Mmm, that's right. I'd better go up to the library now."

Garrett was our age and a Slytherin. I had never talked to him before I began tutoring him, for obvious reasons. Slytherins always stayed to themselves and they hardly ever chose to mix with the other houses. It was because of Professor Dumbledore that I ended up helping Garrett out. Garrett had been struggling in his studies and Dumbledore recommended that he get a tutor, and told me to do it. I wasn't crazy about spending any of my free time with a Slytherin, but I didn't want to disobey a teacher's word.

Garrett was nicer than I expected him to be. He was very quiet at first but he eventually opened up a bit. I found that he was immensely ambitious even though he didn't always have the skills to get where he wanted to go. He could very easily have flunked his transfiguration OWL and dropped the subject, but he was determined to prove that he could do it.

I can't really say that Garrett and I became friends, but we were certainly on friendly terms. As I went to him that afternoon I really thought he was starting to get the hang of things. Then he said to me, "Listen, do you want to come and hang out with me and some of my friends in Hogsmeade next weekend? You know, after OWLs are over?"

I hesitated. This was completely unorthodox- Ravenclaws just didn't hang out with Slytherins. "I don't know," I told him truthfully. "I'll think about it."

The next week passed in a blur, as test weeks always do. My dreams were filled with spells, charms, and potions, and I was obviously relieved when it was all over. As I headed off to bed that night, I figured my problems would be over for now and I wouldn't have to worry anymore- at least until my test results came. I couldn't have been more wrong.

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A/N: I used to write a lot of fanfiction, but this is my first story in about two years. I hope you like it so far, and I hope you will review! I know it starts out a bit slow, but I promise I know where I'm going with it and it will get very interesting.