Disclaimer: Exclusive rights to the story and characters of "Harry Potter"
belong to J.K. Rowling.
For Thren, who keeps me writing.
Even In Death
He wrote a list once. Years ago now, before James and Voldemort, before everything went to hell, he wrote everything down in unsurprisingly neat, precise lines on parchment he should have saved for his Potions essay.
When she smiles, I don't hate all Gryffindors.
Sometimes she dozes through History of Magic. But her hair falls
in this certain way. Like water or silk. I like it.
She walks softly, carefully.
She has green eyes. Green is my favorite color.
She hates James Potter almost as much as I do.
She calls me Severus, not any of the stupid, pathetic names her
classmates use to try to insult me. She's above such imbecilic
behavior.
She said I'm the best potions student in the school. Obviously,
I already knew this, but most Gryffindors cannot appreciate the
art.
In Care of Magical Creatures, right after lunch, her hands still
smell like orange peels.
And at the very bottom of the list, now folded away in the bottom of a trunk Severus Snape would rather forget, but cannot, lays a single sprig of mistletoe, dried and brittle. Their moment under it had been unexpected and tense, members of all houses looking on and jeering, until her eyes flashed with a rather maniacal determination that he'd seen before. "Don't mind them," she'd whispered, and as if it were the simplest thing in the world, she'd kissed his cheek. It was the only time he ever touched her. He'd wanted so badly to touch her again.
And now, nearing twenty years later, a hatred burns in him for her son. Everyone talks of how much Harry looks like his father, and they are right. But everyone also says that he has his mother's eyes, and to this man who loved her so desperately and futilely, it is those eyes that make all the difference. They are a glimpse, a fleeting reminder of what he loved, of what was never his. And when Severus turns his glare toward Harry in condescension, though the boy looks, for all the world, like his father- hair unruly and lips tight with anger--there is a glint behind his eyes, the spark of resolve and defiance that flares inside of him that cannot be hidden. And it is a light that the Potions Master has seen before,--in the eyes of Lily Evans, on a long ago night beneath the mistletoe--this light that he now sees in green eyes that do no belong in this duplicate face of James Potter. He hates Harry for what he is, because beneath the exterior that so looks like James, he sees Lily. He sees Lily in Harry, but he must look through James. And Severus Snape again damns the man for--even in death--standing between him and the woman he loves.
Fin
For Thren, who keeps me writing.
Even In Death
He wrote a list once. Years ago now, before James and Voldemort, before everything went to hell, he wrote everything down in unsurprisingly neat, precise lines on parchment he should have saved for his Potions essay.
When she smiles, I don't hate all Gryffindors.
Sometimes she dozes through History of Magic. But her hair falls
in this certain way. Like water or silk. I like it.
She walks softly, carefully.
She has green eyes. Green is my favorite color.
She hates James Potter almost as much as I do.
She calls me Severus, not any of the stupid, pathetic names her
classmates use to try to insult me. She's above such imbecilic
behavior.
She said I'm the best potions student in the school. Obviously,
I already knew this, but most Gryffindors cannot appreciate the
art.
In Care of Magical Creatures, right after lunch, her hands still
smell like orange peels.
And at the very bottom of the list, now folded away in the bottom of a trunk Severus Snape would rather forget, but cannot, lays a single sprig of mistletoe, dried and brittle. Their moment under it had been unexpected and tense, members of all houses looking on and jeering, until her eyes flashed with a rather maniacal determination that he'd seen before. "Don't mind them," she'd whispered, and as if it were the simplest thing in the world, she'd kissed his cheek. It was the only time he ever touched her. He'd wanted so badly to touch her again.
And now, nearing twenty years later, a hatred burns in him for her son. Everyone talks of how much Harry looks like his father, and they are right. But everyone also says that he has his mother's eyes, and to this man who loved her so desperately and futilely, it is those eyes that make all the difference. They are a glimpse, a fleeting reminder of what he loved, of what was never his. And when Severus turns his glare toward Harry in condescension, though the boy looks, for all the world, like his father- hair unruly and lips tight with anger--there is a glint behind his eyes, the spark of resolve and defiance that flares inside of him that cannot be hidden. And it is a light that the Potions Master has seen before,--in the eyes of Lily Evans, on a long ago night beneath the mistletoe--this light that he now sees in green eyes that do no belong in this duplicate face of James Potter. He hates Harry for what he is, because beneath the exterior that so looks like James, he sees Lily. He sees Lily in Harry, but he must look through James. And Severus Snape again damns the man for--even in death--standing between him and the woman he loves.
Fin