Author's Note: Harry Potter and all related characters are property of J.K. Rowling. Not me. This is just a weird leftover drabble I polished up about Snape and Lily's relationship. I tend to think if it exists on any other than the obvious level, there's an obsessive quality there. I tried to touch on it, just a little. Whether or not I suceeded is entirely up to you.

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Looking In
by drama-princess

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He hadn't loved Lily Evans.

Because he hadn't, love wasn't the right word for it at all. He'd merely watched her occasionally (and perhaps that had been the impetus for James Potter's anger, and not the curses he could cast?) when she wasn't looking. Lily had thick red hair that she cut after her fourth year, from that slender waist to the smooth slopes of her shoulders. She struggled with split ends and was always trimming it. Her eyes were odd, slanted strangely in the dusk. They were like a cat's. She was pretty. That was all Potter saw, the yelping hypocrite.

Potter couldn't know how Lily held her quill as she scribbled essays. The harder the essay, the neater and tighter her handwriting became until she wrote in a flowing script across the parchment. Severus wrote in minscule lettering, as arcane and perfect as the Dark Arts he studied. Both he and Lily pondered for a long moments over the right word to use, if the derivative would function as well. Or perhaps Severus merely invented that detail. She did tend to beckon your own interpretation.

Lily stood gracefully in the shadows, the light beading on her face and illuminating the white skin like it was powered. Her lips, her nose, her chin, were all delicately drawn, the fringe of her eyelashes clustered around those startling eyes. Lurid afternoon painted her like that. Bright, fresh, pickle-green eyes. Blood red hair and a mouth with a tiny, perfect crease in the centre of her lower lip.

She wasn't even pretty, really, he told himself. Not even in the heavy-lidded fashion Bellatrix Black was. Just shallow, with tiny slashes in her personality that indicated depth. Let her stand against Potter, it was all on fucking principle.

I don't need help from filthy little Mudbloods like her! he'd said, and watched as the muscles in Lily's face drew together. She struggled to maintain her compusure, her lips white about the edges, and blinked. He watched in satisfaction.

she'd said coolly. I won't bother again. And I'd wash your pants if I were you, Snivellus.

No, he hadn't loved Lily Potter.