Disclaimer: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.

"Love: The Auror's Journal"
by Christine Anderson
aka Lilly Malfoy

Love is something I didn't really know much about when I was a child. My family didn't have a lot of love to spare, and they weren't about to waste it on me. The first thing I ever knew about love was what I found when I went away to school, when I made my first real friends. I remember waiting for the Sorting ceremony, not knowing what was going to happen, feeling very small and scared. Another girl smiled at me from across the room, a pretty girl of the sort I always longed to be friends with back home, but knew I never would. Girls like that didn't befriend girls like me. I didn't have much hope then, either, but I smiled back.

When we were both Sorted into Ravenclaw, the first seat I found at the table was next to her. I hesitated; she grabbed my arm and pulled me onto the bench next to her. She told me her name was Tara, and by the end of dinner we were friends. She was my first friend. For seven years we shared a dorm room and a million secrets. After we left Hogwarts, we shared a flat when we were just starting out as apprentice Aurors.

The first time Percy Weasley kissed me, I realized I understood romantic love, too, not just the love of friendship.

I learned about heartbreak, too, because that is the other side of love. It's sad that that was a lesson that came a lot easier to me than learning how to love ever did. I already understood, already knew, what it was to feel hurt and betrayed, lost and alone.

One thing I learned about love is that you have to temper trust with caution. You can't give everyone everything, all of you all at once, because you never know what might happen. You never know what they might do.

And I learned that sometimes, I don't know anything about love. Sometimes nobody does.

I learned there are times when you have to take everything you think you know, and throw it all away. Sometimes you have to take a chance.

The first moment I set eyes on Alastor Moody, I knew I was going to take that chance. I knew he could hurt me badly, wound me even more deeply than Percy ever had, but I was willing to take the risk. I knew then that you can't love without risk, that you have to accept the chance you might be hurt every time that you open your heart. It's safer, maybe, to keep to yourself, to never let anyone in. But life is short, too short not to reach for love when it comes your way.

It helped, I think, that when I fell in love, I fell in love with a man who had known pain and loss and heartache in his life. It helped that I loved someone who could say they understood, and truly mean it. I could let my guard down with him, could let myself grieve for things I'd lost or never had, and he would offer comfort and an understanding that was real.

Love, for me, is that sort of comfort, that closeness. But it's more than that. It's a warm spring day in my garden, sun on my face and dirt on my hands, the kind of day when you're simply glad to be alive to see the sky that shade of blue. It's time spent with my friends, light and laughter, good food and wine, conversation.

Love is something I never dared hope I'd find, but which is so much a part of my life now.

Sometimes, love is everything.