Those Green Eyes
By Misha

Disclaimer- Everything belongs to J.K. Rowling and is not mine, however much I might wish differently. However, I am not making any money off of this, so please do not sue me!

Author's Notes- This is my very first Harry Potter fanfic. I found Severitus' challenge and could not resist writing a response of my own. This is just a short, reflective piece, but I am working on a longer follow up called "How Things Change". This is set at the beginning of the Philosopher's Stone and is told from Snape's PoV. I am not quite sure how well this turned out, but I like it. Well, I hope that you enjoy, feedback is very much appreciated!

Rating- PG-13

After all these years, I finally saw him.

I have been waiting for this moment for years.

Dreading it for years. For though, I finally got to see him, I will never be allowed to acknowledge him.

In fact, I will have to be down-right cruel to him. I know that. Because he is who he is. Or rather who everyone thinks he is.

But even if I did not know the truth, I would still love him. I would love him simply because he is your son. Even if he wasn't my son as well. Even if he really was James'.

But he's not.

Unfortunately I am the only living person who knows that. Who can ever know that.

Looking at him hurt more than I thought it would. Not just because I will never be able to acknowledge him.

But because it is so easy to believe that he is James' son. He looks so much like him.

But I knew that. I should have been prepared for it. After all, I was the one who cast the spell on him the day he was born to hide his true appearance from the world.

But for a moment, he looked like me.

I will always remember the way he looked for those few moments that I held him in my arms.

We both knew that it could be only for a moment, after all, James might have missed the birth, but he came as soon as he could.

Giving us only enough time to hide the boy's true appearance and for me to hold him just once. To see myself in his newborn face. Before I made him a Potter.

But though he looks like James, it is okay. I don't mind, not really. Because he has your eyes.

I loved those eyes, I still do.

I think that is what I fell in love with first. Those beautiful emerald eyes of yours.

I never meant to love you, you know. Of course you do. For you never meant to love me.

We were not supposed to fall in love. Which is why all we ever had was stolen moments of secrecy.

Even from the beginning, we both knew that it had to be like that.

I can still remember that first moment we shared. The first hint of all that there would be between us.

Until then, you had always believed that I hated you. Sometimes I believed it as well. But I didn't. I never really had.

Almost from the first, I had been fascinated by you. By the stubborn, red-headed Muggle-born girl who just seemed to be full of light.

Everywhere you went, people looked at you and they felt better.

Even I felt that way. You managed to crack a whole in the darkness that was all I had ever known.

You brought light into my life.

A light that has been gone for ten long years. But it might come back now that he is here.

For he has it too. Our son has your light, your charm.

But, though, I felt your sunshine, I knew that it was never meant for me.

From the time you first came to Hogwarts, you and James became a duo. At first, it wasn't romantic, just friendly. But that changed quickly enough, didn't it? But even before it did, you became a part of his group. Of his inner circle, along with Black, Pettigrew, and Lupin. I hated them all, all except you.

You might have even been the reason I hated Potter so much. Though, I would never have admitted it to myself then.

Still, you were already James' girl by the time you and I found each other.

If only we had not been assigned as partners for that Potions assignment... If only we had not had to start spending all that time together... If only we had not started arguing one afternoon and then, somehow, ended up in that passionate kiss.

Because if we hadnÕt, then maybe I would not have spent ten years feeling an emptiness worse than any darkness that I felt before I met you.

I could blame you for everything that happened.

I could call you a slut. A red-headed mudblooded tramp who purposely made two men love her. Who was the public girlfriend of the popular, personable star Quidditch player for Gryffindor while sneaking out with his moody, sarcastic Slytherin rival. I could say that you wanted the best of both worlds, that you did not care who you hurt.

But I know that that was not true.

You cared too much.

That is why we kept it a secret. You did not want to hurt James. I did not have a problem with it, I had never liked him, never would. But I did not want to hurt you, so I did as you asked.

I kept it a secret. I tried not to get involved so deeply.

We both tried. Just as we both tried to end it. Several times, we both resolved to walk away. But we never did.

Not until that last night.

But by then it was too late.

Because that was the night you conceived our son.

The night that I lost myself in you for the last time.

I still think about it.

Sometimes, I wake up and for a second, I think I glimpse your red hair spread out on the pillow beside me.

Then I realize that it is only a fantasy. That you are long dead.

But that even before you were, you were lost to me. I know now that you were never really within in reach. You were never meant to be mine.

Even if you had not already been Potter's girl, we still could not have been together. I know that.

There was just too much working against us.

But we did love one another.

I know that.

Whatever else happened between us, I never doubted your love. It is one thing that no one can ever take away from me.

I felt it to the very bottom of my soul, I saw it in those beautiful eyes of yours.

The night I remember the love in your eyes being the strongest, was that last night, only a few days before you married James.

You looked up at me with tears in those eyes and told me that you were sorry, that you would love me, but that it was better this way. That you marrying James was better for everyone.

In the end, I agreed that you were probably right. After all, I certainly was not someone who would be able to give you a happy life.

So we both agreed that this would be our last meeting and we spent that last night in each other's arms.

Two days later, you became Mrs. James Potter.

A month later, you came to me with tears in your eyes and told me that you were pregnant and that I was the father.

I did not know what to say.

There was nothing I could say. You were James Potter's wife. Not mine.

So we agreed that you would raise the child as James' and that only you and I would ever know the truth.

I hated you that moment. Almost as much as I loved you.

But I did not say anything. There was nothing that I could say. Not really.

Then our son was born.

You brought him into the world and for a moment he was ours. I got that one moment when it was just the three of us. Just you, I, and our son.

Then, the moment ended and so did whatever it was we shared. The boy became James' son and that was that.

I did everything I could to try and forget you. To forget that you had ever meant anything to me as more than just a pesky Gryffindor girl who hung around with James Potter and his bunch.

It did not work. Not really.

But you and I managed to avoid each other, to keep our secret.

Then... God, then it happened.

You died. You and James.

I felt as if I had died as well when I learnt the news. Learnt that you were gone. That the only woman I would ever love had been killed.

Imagine my shock when I learnt of the child. That though you were gone, our son lived on.

He became a legend that day. The boy who lived.

But to me, he was simply my living reminder of you. Of what we had shared.

A part of me longed to claim him, to raise him as my own.

But I didn't. Because of my promise to you.

But also for his sake.

I believed that he would be better off thinking that he was James and Lily Potter's son, the product of a wonderful couple's loving marriage, then knowing the truth. That he was the illegitimate son of a man many despised, that he was the product of an adulterous affair, though still very much a product of love.

No.

This was one case where the truth was not better.

So, I let you be shipped off to your Muggle relatives. I had no choice.

I hoped that he would be safe and happy there, even though I had my doubts.

I knew that you had never spoken fondly of your sister. I knew that you disliked her and that the feeng was mutal. That she hated anything to do with magic and considered you a freak. That she had not even acknowledged your existence since your parents had died.

All of that made me wonder about the wisdom of sending the boy to her. Made me fear how Petunia would treat our son.

But I figured that it had to be for the best. I reasoned that Dumbledore would not send him there if it was not safe.

I hope that I was right.

Still, for ten years, I have been haunted by thoughts of him.

And of you.

Now finally, I see him. I see those eyes so much like yours and I want to cry.

I have not cried since the day you died, but seeing our son and knowing that I will never be able to claim him... It is almost enough to make me do so now.

Especially, knowing that I will spend the next seven years around him. That every day of his years here, I will not be able to escape the memories of you.

No, I will have a living reminder wherever I go.

Those green eyes of his, of yours, will remind me.

They will remind me of foolishness. Of a sullen youth who, though popular enough, kept everyone at bay, never let anyone close enough to hurt him. And of a beautiful red-headed girl caught between was right and what her heart longed for. Of a crazy, passionate love. Of loss and heartbreak.

I will see it all in those eyes. And I will see what never was. What might have been.

I will see those eyes and I will not be to help myself from thinking about you.

Those green eyes of yours were always dangerous. I was able to drown in them. They made me forget how things were and how they had to be.

But this pair is worse, for, they will make me remember.

The End