I was just a girl then...

She started out wanting to prove herself to him. Somewhere along the way she realized it was more than that. She wanted to know why he pushed everyone away. She found herself going out of her way to please him during lessons, obsessively wanting to penetrate that icy exterior. Her fascination grew each time she saw him, until finally she could barely keep her wits when he was around.

There I was in uniform

Looking at the art teacher

He would look at her sometimes, pausing slightly with an inscrutable expression in his dark eyes as his gaze swept the room. She would watch him too. She noticed the hard lines of his mouth and face disappeared on the rare occasions his lip wasn't curled in a sneer. She found she liked it. He looked his age.

I was just a girl then

And never have I loved since then

Her friends never guessed, and she never told them. They would never understand. They would never see what she saw.

He was not that much older than I was

He had taken our class to the Metropolitan Museum

She took on extra projects. She found any excuse to spend time in the dungeons. He seemed slightly surprised at her eagerness, but could find no reason to get rid of her. Begrudgingly he allowed her to remain in the room. Hours would pass with the two of them sitting in silence, he at his desk, she in front of her cauldron.

He asked us what our favorite work of art was

She would look up at him when he was otherwise occupied and study his face. The line of his jaw, the slight crease between his eyebrows when he was concentrating on something, the way his dark hair would fall just so when he was looking down to grade essays, the graceful flick of his wrist when he moved his quill.

But never could I tell him it was him

Oh, I wish I could tell him

Oh, I wish I could have told him

One time, she arrived to find the room empty. She sank down into her usual seat, feeling suddenly very alone. She then noticed a set of vials sitting at his desk. She looked around before slowly making her way to the front of the room. There were instructions to her scrawled on parchment. She smiled.

I looked at the Rubens and Rembrandts

I liked the John Singer Sargents

She sat in frustration as she tried to distill a particularly difficult ingredient, completing the task he had set her. Her friends came to interrupt, asking what the point of all this extra work was. Borrowing from what he had said in their first year, she snapped that nothing else was as exact or as precise, an art that they couldn't comprehend. They made a hasty retreat. She didn't know that she had been overheard.

He told me he liked Turner

"I didn't realize you felt so strongly." Her head snapped up at the surprisingly soft voice, and she looked up to see him standing next to her desk. Her heart fluttered as hazel eyes met onyx and she nervously readjusted her red and gold tie. She wondered if he realized the duality of his choice of words. Something in those fathomless eyes made her think that perhaps he did. She spoke finally. "I do."

And never have I turned since then

School ended and she was swept up in the chaos of a life spent always looking over her shoulder. In the middle of it all she somehow found romance with the one everyone expected her to end up with. She believed herself to be in love with him. They'd known each other for so long, that it surprised no one. They married in secret before the Final Battle. She believed herself to be happy. But he was always in the darkest recesses of her mind.

No, never have I turned to any other man

She never believed that he could truly betray them. The Second War ended, and truths were revealed. When it was all over, the most evil wizard to have ever lived was defeated, but so many had been lost along the way. Including him. He had sacrificed himself, revealing that he had always been on their side. She had known it in her heart all along.

All this having been said

She and her friends inevitably became famous. They got very lucrative jobs without having to ask; something she felt guilty about, but never mentioned aloud for fear of seeming ungracious. Her husband enjoyed basking in the limelight, which she couldn't begrudge him, even if she found it hard to abide.

I married an executive company head

She felt herself drifting away, yet stagnating. They'd bought this big house and filled it full of meaningless stuff, but it felt empty nonetheless. She threw herself into her potions work just to find something to feel passionate about again; to stave off the feeling of uselessness. She sat in her work room, staring into her expensive engraved cauldron. The walls were lined with the rarest of ingredients and she had the best tools, but none of it felt real. She wondered if it ever would.

All this having been done, a Turner - I own one

A year had passed already since the end of the War. A memorial reception was to be held on the grounds of the school, where all of the fallen were buried. She was asked to make a speech. She couldn't remember much of it, too distracted by the painful memories that pervaded her mind upon re-entering the grounds. She hadn't been back since that fateful day a year previous, and was surprised at how pristine it looked. Two rows of white marble tombstones marked where friends and colleagues lay beneath the vibrant green grass. A muggle phrase, possibly from the Bible, suddenly popped into her head. Something about "the faithful departed" and she decided it was an easier way to think of them.

Here I am in this uniformish pantsuit sort of thing

She smoothed down her dress robes and slipped away from the somber mingling crowd to slowly walk towards the "departed". It only took a moment to find him. His headstone was seemingly identical to the others at first glance, but then she noticed something. Aside from his name and dates of birth and death, the stone was completely smooth and empty. No beloved son, brother or friend inscription; nothing tying him to anyone living or dead. She fairly choked on her sorrowful anger. Surely there must be someone...!

Thinking of the art teacher

She slid her hand into her pocket and removed a yellowed bit of parchment, unfolding it to re-read the words that had been scrawled there so many years ago. She had understood his intent. Four simple words that she had aggressively taken to heart: Do not disappoint me.

I was just a girl then

She looked around before discreetly pulling out her wand. She spelled words onto the stone: Beloved Teacher

She stopped herself before inscribing the rest. She wanted to say so many other things. But what could she say? She lowered her wand, her hand trembling, realizing that in fact she had disappointed; him and herself. She'd never told him the truth, and now she would never be able to.

And never have I loved since then

She wept.

No never have I loved any other man