Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter.

It's All In The Perspective

You see what you expected to see Severus.

Yelling and fighting and swearing and hitting and hating, that was all that there had been in Severus Snape's childhood. His father hated him, he knew that, he hated everything and everyone magical. Often he broke or destroyed all the magic books and gobstones games that his mum hand. He forbade his son from doing anything magical.

But whenever his father was away drinking, his mother would summon hidden books with her wand and those were the best days. Severus eagerly turned page after page, absorbing as much as could before his father could come back. Mum told him stories, wonderful stories about a castle, with teachers and ghosts and owls. It didn't matter to Severus that his mother had to whisper her stories to him or that her voice had taken on a wistful tone. Because he was sure that mum had been happy. He'd be happy there. He was sure of it, and he'd be in her house to.

Where were you sorted mum?

Slytherin Severus, I was in the best house of them all.

Slytherin he repeated lowly. His mother said he'd never ever be lonely again, there'd be kids his age, magical kids not like muggles, not like his dad, but wizards like him. He begged her, tugging her skirt to tell him about this house full of future companions. They were cunning she said, fast and loyal, and proud. Proud of being wizards.

Pure-bloods.

Severus worried secretly, he was only half pure-blood. If you're only half then your not really pure right? But his mother assured him he had all the makings of a real Slytherin. Severus practiced night after night on how to act, what to say if someone asked him about where he loved or who his dad was. And then he decided he wouldn't say anything at all. If he was in Slytherin, they'd assume on their own. All he had to do was keep away from non-Slytherin people.

And there was the little red-headed girl.

Mum and dad had been fighting over his birthday. Dad wanted to send him to muggle school and mum said he was a wizard and he needed to be trained. Severus had tried to focus on Hogwarts, on the awesome picture his mum painted for him in head, but it had faded and he only heard yells and sobbing, 'Why can't you accept us?'

He ran away to his favorite orchard in the neighborhood park and he found someone else there. A little redheaded muggle. Severus opened his mouth to snap at her to leave and then he saw. She made a flower bloom. Not just once, but twice.

She was like him.

And then all the sadness went away and he was happy, so happy, because he wouldn't have to wait till Hogwarts to be with others like him. Before he could decide what to say (he wished his mother had washed his pants properly- the soap suds visible) a taller girl, but less pretty, came running towards her.

"Lily! Mum says the food's getting cold and she said she's not going to heat up on the stove for you again!"

The girl dropped the flower and it wilted. "Coming Tunney!" She said and then she turned around and Severus ducked and saw a flash of green, emerald green, that made the breath whoosh out of his lungs.

Stove he thought belatedly as he lay against the bushes. Why would a witch need a stove? That was what muggles used when they couldn't heat their own food. She didn't need it, unless...

The happiness faded away. Muggleborn, a voice hissed.

For the first time in years, Severus blinked back tears. It wasn't fair. But he was a Slytherin, Slytherins didn't associate with muggle borns. He stayed away from her, but it wasn't his fault that his parents fought so much that he had to constantly go to his occupied orchard. And it wasn't his fault that the local school bell was so loud he memorized what time muggle school let out.

But it was his fault when his dad went away for a while to 'think' and he still went to the orchard. He watched everyday for the little redheaded girl. Mostly she was her sister, Petunia, but sometimes after school, she'd come by herself and make things happen. She made magic. Magic was magic right? She was a witch ...

Besides he told himself it's just a favor to the girl, they'd send someone to explain with her letter and it's not right to just have everything sprung on you in one day. If he told her who he was, who she was, it'd be a favor.

He practiced all the time on what to say to her, more then he did to his future housemates. And then finally when she showed her sister, Severus revealed himself, realizing a beat later that he should have worn something else. He thought maybe his sister and her would be so awed by someone who knew more about magic then they did, that she'd listen.

But it didn't, at least not at first. But Lily came back one day and for the first time, Severus had a friend. A real friend.

He told her everything she wanted to know and panicked when she wanted to know about him. Would she pity him, find him disgusting? But Lily never did, she looked at him solemnly and told him she was glad they were friends now. It was wonderful, exhilarating to have someone care for you on their own and Severus saw her almost every day after muggle school.

His father came back and his parents fought harder then ever. He knew it was because of the Hogwarts letter he was sure to get. But it was still the best summer of his life.

He told Lily he'd be glad when he could leave, and that he felt a little bad about leaving his mum with him, but that he was happy to go to Hogwarts with her. Lily agreed and asked him again and again to describe the castle in from his mum's stories. When mum wasn't looking he snuck her a book on Charms and Lily had beamed and given him wet kiss on the cheek.

Severus felt so happy.

And then they went to Hogwarts.

And he lost her.

He tried hard, so hard to hold onto his friend the minute they were sorted into different houses, but they drifted. Lily still sat with him sometimes during meals, returning any glares from other Slytherins, and they studied in the library and laughed in whispers and compared notes in Potions, but it wasn't the same. Lily didn't need him anymore, and Severus was sure she probably never did.

He needed her.

It had been in 3rd year that Severus realized that he liked Lily. Really liked her. And unfortunately, another boy had the same epiphany. James Potter. Popular, talented, Gryffindor Potter. At first Severus just disliked him immensely, they had been snapping at each other since they got off the train, but it had been in third year, when Sirius Black callously pointed out that between Potter and him, it was obvious who was going to win. And Black had been right, they were in the same house, had almost all the same classes and lots of girl liked Potter. But Lily wasn't most girls and Potter knew that too and he never helped his chances by picking fights with Severus. Lily was his friend.

Or at least was. Till-

Mudblood.

And then-

You chose your way, I've chosen mine.

Then without Lily, Hogwarts lost it's fun, he spent day after day trying to get Lily to look at him at least, but the most he ever got was a casual wave or a cool nod. And it never changed, she never changed towards him.

But then he saw, horrifyingly, that she changed towards Potter.

And when he tried to tell her what Black and Lupin and Potter had done, she wouldn't listen, she wouldn't. Couldn't she see it was his fault?!

It had been in 7th year, after he stared at a scarlet Christmas ribbon (the same shade of her hair) that he admitted he loved Lilly Evans. And he bitterly admitted he lost her.

It had been the day before another mission for the Dark Lord that he half heartedly read through the newspaper. His hand froze as he turned a page. Potter and Lily, and Lily was smiling, she was beaming, glowing in her light blue dress robes and her hair was falling out of it's bun and she missed a button on her dressing gown, but she still looked so achingly beautiful, her green eyes brimming with a joy he couldn't comprehend that his breath seemed to stop.

Through these difficult times we are pleased to annouce that things such as a joyful union can still exist. Among these new found couples are Samual Johansson and Mary Simmons...

James Potter and Lily Evans.

The stining in his eyes felt so foreign that he sat back and wondered why they didn't fall yet.

Photo Potter girinned at him.

Lily didn't see him and he doubted she felt sad on her wedding day because of that, but he was there. Behind the banister under a clever concealment charm. He stayed long enough to see her eyes overflow with happy tears. Gods she looked so beautiful. And then he left.

Everything since he was a boy his life revovled around Lily Potter. Her life, the her son. He'd do anything for Lily, she loved her son, died for him, so by god the little bastard would live.

He had been morbidly eager to see her son. Would he look like her? No he looked liked Potter. He was Potter, Severus snarled. And then when their eyes met during the feast, he saw Lily Potter's eyes looking back at him.

It was easier so much easier to believe that Harry Potter was his father, becasue seeing Lily in him was painful. And he found that his temper and mouth were his father's and he viciously provoked both of them, smirking with satisfaction when he proved his point. But for every time he snapped at Harry for no reason other than being himself, he swore Lily's eyes glaring at him with righteous fury.

Whenever he saw Potter with the poorest boy in school and the loneliest muggleborn, he saw the fierce redhead who stayed friends with the oddball Slytherin.

He hated and he loved seeing that part of Lily.

He'd killed Lily that day in the Hog's Head. He'd killed and lied, and beaten and done horrible things. And it was probably a better fate than he deserved to die looking into the open eyes of Lily Evans Potter.

And he died with both satisfaction and grief, because he had ignored the chance to reach out to the part of Lily that still existed because he was afraid of his own pain.

He didn't hate Harry, he didn't even hate James, he couldn't hate what had made Lily happy.

A flash of green eyes took his breath away.

x0x

A.N. Let me know what you think.