Potter


She would never be Lily Potter to him. She would always be Lily Evans in reality, or sometimes, Lily Snape in his dreams. If she was to be married to someone, it would be to him, not James. Never James. The one that they used to make fun of and escape from in the secluded corners of the world. The one that drove them apart in the first place. The one that ruined all chances of his ever being truly happy. Sometimes he suspected that she had started dating him out of spite, and married him out of revenge for what had happened that day, for what had broken between them. But when he saw them together, he knew that his feeble hopes that their love was all just a hoax, an evil plot to get back at him for his poison-tongue were false. No. He could see it in her eyes, there was a smile, a glint, a passing sheen, that lighted them whenever she looked at James that had never been there when she looked at him. He remembered then that she would never do that. Not to him. Not to anyone. He should never have even thought it. The idea that Lily Evans could be so petty and vile was unapproachable. Not to be considered.

It's a boy. Didn't you hear? Didn't you know? Yes, last night. Harry. James told me this morning, he was so happy. Sirius is godfather! Godfather! Can you imagine that? Lily—simply radiant.

A child. A child. Lily Evans, his Lily Evans. A child. Potter's child.

How he tried to hate her for this. When he imagined them together with that perfect child. He imagined the thing having black hair and brown eyes and the same smirk and awful strut as his father. Oh look, doesn't he have his father's arrogance? And what of the act in itself? How this wretched nightmare came into being. The thought of her and James together was more horrible to him than anything. Him stroking her hair and kissing her—him lying with her among the tangled bedclothes—him getting to witness the birth of his child which would bear his appearance.

How he hated James for this. He had stolen his life. Taken what should have been his.

Where had James Potter been when Lily's sister hated her? Where had James Potter been when Lily opened flowers and flew off swings and dreamed of spells and feared Dementors and imagined being at Hogwarts for the very first time? Where had James Potter been when she needed someone to talk to, a shoulder to cry on, a soul to confide her secrets to, a friend who would cherish her and love her and hold her and tell her about his own wretched existence. She had been the only good memory in his childhood. His only peace when he had nothing else. His only friend. His only love.

Where had James Potter been when Lily died?

Oh yes. That's right. With her. James Potter, villain and thief, husband and father, till-death-do-us-part, scoundrel and rogue had been with his dear Lily Evans when she—when they both died.

And Severus woke up every morning wishing that he was dead. That he could have taken her place, been buried in the dull grey cemetery and left there to be wept upon, probably by her, with her husband standing beside her with a comforting arm around her, a somber expression on his mask of a face but a feeling of triumph in his twisted heart.

But no. She had died. He had died. Leaving behind that child. That child called Harry Potter, which as far as he was concerned was not her child. Because to him, her name would always be Evans. That was Potter's son. There was no Lily Potter, only Lily Evans—at least, that's what he told himself. And the odd thing was, was that he could almost have believed that, if it were not for the eyes. Lily Potter's eyes, which were now a constant reminder of all he had lost, in the face of her son.