Severus Snape had seen many things. He had seen Dark Lords rise, he had seen the world crumble. And from the time that he was eight years old, he had been fascinated by a redheaded girl named Lily.
When Harry James Potter had first come to Hogwarts, he had been Sorted into Gryffindor and immediately behaved accordingly. He had proceeded to prove his overly Gryffindor, hotheaded personality down to the letter. Everybody else loved the boy, but Severus couldn't stand him. And, despite what everyone seemed to think, his physical resemblance to James Potter was not the reason why.
Harry Potter may have looked like his father, but he had his mother's eyes. Everyone knew that, even the people that had never met either mother or father of Harry Potter. Severus had memories of that forever green, but it wasn't in the face of James Potter. Oh, no.
Those eyes had made Severus Snape both love and hate Harry Potter with everything that he had.
Once upon a time, a boy met a girl.
Severus Snape had loved Lily Evans to his last breath, and he had protected her son with everything that he had. He had failed.
A/N: Just saw the movie, and I dreamed up this little drabble about Snape and Lily. Genre wise, I'm not putting it into romance because it's not really romance. So. And I know that he didn't fail to protect Harry, but Snape doesn't know that, since he died before Harry won. All that he knows is that he sent Lily's son to his death. Quite tragic, really.