The Only One I Ever Loved

Another year at Hogwarts. A year like any other. Except it that wasn't. The ceiling still showed the swirls of the stars above it, the candles still hung in the air, the new students would be, I had no doubt, just as mediocre as any set of new students. But this year everything was different. One student in that Hall interested me. If interested was the right word. I had tried not to look at him all evening. Perhaps I was too scared to. Harry Potter. My lip curled instinctively at the name. Potter. It symbolised everything I hated.

Then the boy looked up at me and I saw those eyes. Lily's eyes. I must have been twenty feet away from him but I would recognise those eyes anywhere. 'He has her eyes, precisely her eyes. You remember the exact shape and colour of Lily Evans's eyes, I am sure?' Remember? I remember everything.

One of the very first times I saw her she was swinging on the swings. Her Muggle sister was next to her of course, swinging too, but Lily could swing higher than her, higher than anyone. With almost no effort at all she reached the very peak and lightly left the seat of the swing, flying in a perfect arc slowly back down to earth. She didn't even raise any dust.

I stepped out of the shadows. Her sister ran back, alarmed, but Lily stayed. It was then that her lashes lifted and revealed those eyes, those bright green eyes. Nothing else was like them – they weren't the colour of grass or the sea or a sun-dappled leaf. They were her eyes, just a girl's lovely eyes and yet they had more power over me than anything.

I told her what she was, then. I called her a witch. 'That's not a very nice thing to say to somebody!' she had said, and I could see the hurt in her beautiful eyes, see her wounded pride in the way she upturned her perfect, slightly freckled nose.

I promised to myself then that I would never hurt her again, and I can remember the exact placement of every freckle on her nose. Strange, how I could remember something as trivial as the position of freckles and yet could not keep my promise. Mudblood. The word had been spat, like hot oil from my mouth, burning her, and she had never forgiven me.

I'd never seen anything so beautiful as Lily Evans. I don't think I had ever seen beauty before then. Is that what love is? The gigantic realisation of the beauty of a single person, which then changes everything for the person who sees it?

It was a cruel joke, then, that now the eyes of the only one I'd ever loved were in the face of the man I hated most. No doubt the boy was as arrogant as James had been, as precociously talented on the Quidditch pitch.

Yes. It was a cruel joke that this boy should have taken her eyes and merged them with the face of his father. I had left my mark too - left my mark of the Dark Arts in that ugly, jagged scar. The Dark Lord, my master, he had promised... No. The name of Potter did not symbolise everything I hated. I hated myself too.

I'd never seen anything so beautiful as Lily Evans, on the swings, looking at me for reassurance when she couldn't make up her mind if she was excited or worried on our first train ride to Hogwarts, laughing at a joke we'd shared.

When she'd landed, after leaving the seat of the swing and flying in a perfect arc toward the ground, she didn't even raise any dust.

She was dust now.