The Mirror of Erised
Summary: I show not your face but your heart's desire...
Author's Notes: I just wondered what the man we love to hate would have seen when he looked into the Mirror of Erised.
His cold black eyes grew larger and larger as he gazed into the mirror's glassy surface, until they finally flooded with long awaited warmth.
He had known his deepest desires, had known them all his life, and here before his eyes was the unattainable.
A slender young woman stood before him. Her hair was the brightest red, curling around her pale face like candle flames.
The eyes that tortured him every day, every morning, every night gazed at him dolefully, the intensity scorching his sallow skin. Those deep green oval eyes- her son had her eyes.
"Lily," Severus Snape said softly.
The mirror Lily smiled, a smile which chilled him to the bone, sent shivers up his spine, made him weak at the knees...
"Lily," he whispered.
She looked so happy here, at peace with herself at last.
He bowed his head, thinking about the day he lost it all. The day she would never smile at him again or give him that twinkle with her eyes...
It had slipped out.
"Mudblood".
The one word he would never use to describe her.
"Mudblood".
Turning his back on the mirror, he swept from the deserted classroom, his
black cloak billowing around him, shrouding him in the ever present darkness of his mind.
Every breath he took, every step that echoed in the corridor, every damn thing reminded him of her! She had walked here, slept here, lived her life without fear in the safe haven of the magical world!
He slumped against a wall, a deep sigh rattling his very bones.
"Lily," he whispered to himself.
He hadn't even noticed the teardrops falling down his hooked nose.