Her name was Lily, and I was thoroughly enamoured with her. The one unfortunate aspect of our relationship was the fact that she loathed the mere sight of me.

I contemplated this problem for what felt like eons, before ascertaining a solution; I decided to simply appraise any celebrated novel, play, etc. with an amorous nature, so as to discover the true secret to romance. I would then woo Lily with my newfound expertise.

After my extensive research into the genre of romance, I decided that I was as ready as I would ever be. Project: 'Win Lily Over' was a go. Plan A was to give my dear Lily the most beauteous of all flowers. A red rose. Unfortunately, this did not go over as well as I had intended. You see, there was something that I had forgotten about roses. They have thorns. As I presented the rose to my beloved, one of these thorns scratched her palm, causing her to bleed copiously. She thought that I had done it on purpose even though I said I hadn't. Hmm… it was time for a new plan.

I then moved on to Plan B of Project: WLO. This was to bake her pastries with my own two hands. So, I went down to the kitchens, and bullied the houselves into letting me cook. I lovingly made brownies, you know, the kind with walnuts in it. I gave my darling the platter that I had so thoughtfully prepared for her. She took one bite and spewed it out almost immediately.

Is my cooking that bad? I inquired.

I'm allergic to nuts, you git! she responded.

For the next week she was covered in hives and I had a bruise the shape of a hand on my face. Time for Plan C.

So. Plan C. The inspiration for this baby was achieved during a night of insomnia. I decided to try my hand at writing my own prose, in the form of a love sonnet. It opened with 'When I look into your eyes, I see a new hope.' Now that was classy. And I think Lily really liked it. I lobbed the poem to her during class (the message was folded into the shape of a heart), but McGonagall observed. The Professor snatched my note and proceeded to read it aloud to the class. Lily was so overjoyed that she burst into tears and ran from the classroom to hide her euphoria. She tried to cover it so well that she actually told me that she despised it, but I knew better. I was sure that I was finally starting to get to her. Project: WLO seemed to be working.

To keep the process moving, I progressed to Plan D. I perceived that we were now at the stage where it was acceptable to exchange jewellery. But I nobly decided that Lily shouldn't give me anything, you know, because we weren't officially dating or anything… yet. I bought her a ring, quite a lovely one, if I do say so myself. Lily actually seemed to like it, and she took to wearing it on the third finger of her right hand. A few weeks later, I become aware of the fact that she wasn't wearing my promise ring, so I inquired as to what the reason was. She simply showed me her finger, which had a lovely band of green around it.

Plan E came quickly, in an effort to overlook the whole ring debacle. But I had a lot of difficulty assessing what act I should carry out next. Suddenly. I had an epiphany; I would serenade her. I mean, I'm pretty sure Romeo serenaded Juliet at some point, right? So I set about learning the words to the much-loved romantic ballad, 'Muskrat Love' by Captain and Tenille. I learned it swiftly and decided to surprise my love outside her room. It was late, but I knew I could stand beneath her window and croon, and it would be terribly romantic, and she would come running outside and… but I was getting ahead of myself. So I went to what I assessed to be the Gryffindor fifth year girls' window, and, grabbing my handy broomstick – did I mention I'm quite gifted at flying? Anyways, I grabbed my handy broom and levitated to outside the window, where I belted out my heartfelt rendition of that beautiful song. Suddenly, before I could even finish, the window above me was raised, and… all I saw was a big, bald head. Uh oh. The wrong window. Professor Trebanks, the Potions' Master, roared a barrage of obscenities at me, and… they ended with him threatening to give me so many detentions my grandchildren would still be serving them. So, naturally, I beat a swift, yet dignified, departure.

Not giving up my quest, I moved right along to Plan F. By now, I wasn't following the book guidelines at all anymore. I figured I had progressed enough to devise my own tactics. I knew exactly what I wanted to do next. It was perfect, for we had the Yule Ball coming up that weekend. I decided to do an interpretive dance, based on an idea Sirius gave me, depicting my love for Lily. I spent numerous afternoons choreographing my dance, and let me tell you, it was a strenuous amount of labour. It involved a great deal of slow, smooth glides, a lot of 'moving as a tree in the wind,' and a few well-placed 'I love you's.' You know, for impact. I also had this intense, love-filled look on my face.

Then the big night came. If truth be told, the ball did not go over too well. As I finished my last hand sweep, I recognized the look on Lily's face to be horror. She then proceeded to laugh until she was doubled over. I took the hint and left, to let her reflect upon the message I was relaying. Which was obviously 'I love you.' I needed to let her come to terms with the fact that she loved me, and I knew that she would want to be alone.

Wow, Plan G already. This was a lot tougher than I thought it would be.

Oh, wait; did I mention that I got my love sonnet back? You know, the one that Professor McGonagall confiscated? Yeah, so I announced it to the entire school at dinner one night, because I knew how much my sweetheart liked it. When I was halfway through, she stormed over to me and hexed me until I was covered in tentacles. She then followed this uncalled for response with a grand finale of ripping my poem to pieces, so…

Back to Plan G. I knew that Lily's birthday was the following week, which was quite ideal, so I decided to gift her with a token of my affection on her special day. After much careful, yet subtle, questioning, I discovered that her preferred animal was the monkey. So I transfigured her – did I mention I'm a whiz at Transfiguration? – a monkey from an old pair of socks I had. But I'm not insane; I did train the monkey before giving it to her. I trained it to do my interpretive love dance. So, on the big day, I gave her the monkey. To be honest, I left it in a box tied with a ribbon outside of her room. I was still afraid of her roommates, who had threatened to tear me limb for limb if I didn't leave Lily alone after the pastry fiasco. You remember, Plan B? I'm pretty sure they were kidding, but… better to be safe then sorry. She informed me the following day that the monkey had ruined the entire girls' dorm and ripped apart her favourite stuffed animal. I had to pay for damages.

Plan H was my final plan. If this didn't prevail, nothing would. I hired… wait for it… leprechauns. You know, the flying ones? A brilliant idea, if I do say so myself. I got them to fly in the air and script 'Lily, I love you,' at an appointed time, over our school. It was during lunch, so I anticipated that Lily would be outside. I strategically placed myself near her and lingered. But when the event occurred, she merely rolled her eyes and, without so much as glancing at me, strode inside.

I found her by the Gryffindor common room. I inquired as to whether or not she had any feelings for me whatsoever.

Leave me alone; I'm trying to think, she said.

Ok, I replied, and did just that.

I must admit that the numerous brush-offs were starting to get to me. Initially, I had merely assumed that Lily was frightened to admit to herself the extent to which she cared for me. But after my many romantic gestures, I had to wonder…

I did some serious contemplating that weekend. I really examined Lily. After some careful consideration, I came to a conclusion.

Monday rolled around. I was eating breakfast with the guys, and guess what? Lily came over to me! She told me that she now realized how hard I was trying to win her over, and that she had reconsidered, and was now willing to give me a chance.

I looked at her for a minute, revelling in the irony of the fact that the day I had finally gotten over Lily she found she was attracted to me. I heaved a sigh and said, frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn.

And then the new girl walked in.