The Love In Lily's Eyes

He knew he was dying. The cuts were too deep, to jagged, to be healed. He didn't have the strength, anyway, and even if he did, he didn't have a wand. He breath escaped his lips in shuddering gasps, his sanity fled his mind on his breath, and he found himself wishing he could see her eyes just one last time. The crimson wine that had flowed through his veins pooled on the floor around him, soaking his usually pristine robes. He wondered, idly, what sort of burial he'd get: That of a hero who died to keep their hero alive, or that of a traitor who had sold them all out. He supposed that depended on who one the final battle.
Misery knotted his stomach and he shut his eyes in pain: Not the pain of the wounds, the pain of dying, but the pain of failure. The boy still didn't know, he still might have failed Lily. His lips moved in a silent apology, begging her forgiveness now as he had done so many times before. The first time was when he learned of the Dark Lord's plans: He had fallen to his knees and begged her to forgive him. The second, third, possibly up the hundredth time, was when he found her lifeless body in the nursery, and every night after that, he apologized at least once more.
His apology would never be accepted now.
A creaking noise off to one side of him made him open his eyes, hoping to stare defiantly once more into the smug mien of the Dark Lord. He found, however, that he couldn't turn his head, and so he settled for just staring, refusing to look weak. The floor beside him groaned as weight settled down on it, kneeling to be level with him. A warm, calloused hand caressed his neck, pulling his head around so he could stare with new strength into the eyes of this unwanted visitor.
They were Lily's eyes.
A single tear trekked down as his face as he searched the eyes, so full of worry. A small part of him registered glasses, a scar, an unruly mop of hair, but the larger part of him saw only those eyes, wide in their helplessness, their want to be of assistance to him.
"Take them," he rasped, and repeated himself, stronger, louder, but only just barely. "Take them."
Frantic orders; a cool glass vial pressed to his cheek; a single tear, laden with his memories, gone from him.
"Look at me," he ordered, too weak to do more. And look at him the visitor did. He was overwhelmed, knowing now that he saw not one person, but two: And both loved him, and both admired him, and both forgave him.
"You have…your mother's…eyes," he ground out. The pain was tolerable, but his vocal cords didn't want to work. He stared into the green orbs, wanting to apologize, wanting to thank, wanting to love, but not another noise would pass. He hoped his own eyes, a steely onyx grown cold from an absence of true emotion, could still convey all he wanted to her eyes. She deserved to know, even if it was only through her son. The boy's heart would tell her, if only her eyes could still read his the way he used to.
He looked away, blind now: Blind for his tears, blind for his memories, blind for his success, and his failure, and her eyes. His body fell back; his breath was gone; he was dead, at last forgiven, and all by her eyes.
Harry trembled as he gently set the man's head back to rest against the wood stained by his own blood. What Harry had seen in those cold black eyes, he could not exactly describe…but he knew what it meant. It meant he had been wrong for the past seven years of his life. Snape loved him in the only way Snape knew how: Snape had pushed him harder than all the others, prepared him better than all the others, cared for him more than even Remus, and all because of his mother, all because he had her eyes.
And Harry was glad he had been there, not just for the memories, not just for the fact that he now understood his late Potions Master, but because he offered the man the only comforted he knew he would ever have wanted, ever accepted.
He had given him a last look at his eyes, the eyes that had belonged to his mother, the eyes that man had loved so. He let him see her eyes and her emotions, just one last time.
He had given that man the love in his own heart, the love in Lily's eyes.
He had given the greatest man ever to live one last chance to be happy.

A/N: So, literally, I just finished watching HPatDHP2, and I cried so hard during this scene and the memory scene, that I just HAD to have my thoughts heard. Many Thankies for the read~!
Much Love~!
~BritLuvr~