(Insert Disclaimer)
I'm not sure, but I'm pretty sure the Potters were killed Halloween night. If I'm wrong, feel free to correct me.
On we go!
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Cold black eyes gazed at a cold grey wall, and the wall stared back.
He was here. The potter brat. The child that looked far too much like his father, the one he had willed not to exist.
Of course, his will didn't amount to very much, now did it?
The image of the boy came unbidden to his mind. It was accurate down to every detail, and he studied each hair, every shadow, and every slight change of skin tone of his face.
Too much like the father... Far too much. No one should be such a carbon copy of his parent. It was not right.
But yet…his eyes were hers.
It was the eyes that burned. They taunted him, lurked in his deepest nightmares-exact in every way, including shape, to the ones that the boy had. Only the eyes in his dreams were framed by long red hair, and held more joy in them. Eyes that had been dimmed for eternity by a matching emerald light. Eyes that had belonged to the cursed child's mother, a woman he had killed, albeit indirectly.
The man swore inwardly. It should have been his! James Potter's life should have belonged to him-Lily should have loved him, Harry should have been his son! He had loved her far longer and more than Potter had. He had desired her for her beauty and her rejection-but he had loved her for her innocence and her willingness to stand up for him even when he rejected it.But his love had always played second fiddle to his pride and fear. And now, it was all he had left. Save for his memories of white roses and ivy, of revealed cruelty and hidden obsession, that left him drowning in self loathing and despair.He felt like a rejected romance novel antihero.But he would protect that foolish, repugnant boy. For her. Because she had died for the child, the child that would have been his if he hadn't been a proud, miserable coward.
People would chalk it up to the life debt he held for James, and not even Dumbledore knew how he felt for Potter's beautiful Mudblood mother. Hell, Lily had never known either. He wondered how it would have turned out if she did. The wizarding world of Britain in shambles, most likely. Controlled by a Tyrant with no memory of love, and she would have died anyway. But he would have been happy for a little while…but in times like he lived in, sometimes happiness had to be sacrificed for the greater good. His had, certainly. But there was nothing to do about it now. He would cling to his memories of lost and forgotten love, and educate hundreds of minds with the beautiful subtlety found in potions making, along with frightening their souls away from the darkness that threatened them all. After all, who wanted to turn out like the great bad bat that lurked in the dungeons?
He would teach, and he would be cruel, and he would guard Potter from the sidelines.
And no one would ever know.
Grasping the neck of the bottle next to him, Severus gradually drank himself into oblivion, just like every other Halloween night.