Lily's Eyes

a song fic by Amy

Disclaimer: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended. Also the song belongs to the creators of the musical "The Secret Garden" except for the parts I altered to say Harry instead of Mary!

Strangely quiet, but now the storm simply rests to strike again

Standing, waiting, I think of her

I think of her

Severus Snape sat alone in the potions dungeon thinking back on memories of happier times. He opened a drawer at the bottom of his desk and sifted through its contents. Then he came across a picture taken many years before, when he was just a small boy going up in Lyonesse. Smiling back him were three faces including his own.

They were neighbors, and neighbors didn't have to be friends. In fact Neighbors didn't even have to know each other, but when you are three of the local freaks you tend to become friends. When things got bad they had each other, and the promised that it would always be so. Unfortunately none of them could see the future, and none of them would be together.

Strange this Harry, he leaves the room

Yet remains, he lingers on
Something stirs me to think of her
I think of her

The smell of wrongly mixed potion reached Severus's nose and he instantly thought 'Potter'. The Gryffindors had left the dungeon hours ago, but Severus could still feel their presence, Harry Potter's in particular, and that stupid Longbottom boy as well. It was impossible to make their presence go away. Why? Well of course, Severus loathed them. That reason was obvious to everyone around.

He traced the border of the picture with his fingers. Those days had been perfect. Jean Caldwell was always there with a practical answer. A fix all charm or potion that would solve any problem he could bring to her. Jean was one of Severus's best friends in those glory days, those all too short glory days.

From death she casts her spell
All night we hear her sighs
All now a boy has come
Who has her eyes

The worst thing of course worst thing about that horrid boy was far too easily missed. He gazed almost longingly at the red haired young girl smiling back at him from the picture. His beloved Lily Evans. Of course he would never forget her. She may not have been as bright as Jean, but she was genuine. She was Severus's dream come true. Why did Harry have to have her eyes?

He has her eyes
The boy has Lily's emerald eyes
Those eyes that saw him happy long ago
Those eyes that gave him life
And hope he'd never known
How can he see the boy
And miss those emerald eyes

He remembered the first day of the term when Harry Potter first came to Hogwarts. He had been late to the start of term feast and had missed much of the sorting, but he got there just in time to hear the name "Potter, Harry" He looked forward to see the boy he had heard so much about and what did he see? He saw the face and form of his boyhood enemy as plain as day. But taunting him behind the body of James were her forest pool eyes. It took him back so many years.

"I hope you get in Ravenclaw Lily," Jean had said before she was sorted. Jean had wanted to be in Ravenclaw more than anything else. She wanted to prove to her mother that she was clever and Severus had teased he about it by telling her how the Slytherins have to be just as clever.

"Caldwell, Jean" The first of the company stepped forward to be sorted and Severus felt his stomach drop. What would happen if they were separated?

"GRYFFINDOR" The hat cried out. Suddenly he feared the worst. He knew he would never be a Gryffindor. He thought he was a coward. Then the ceremony wore on and Lily was called. Severus squeezed her hand trying to give her some courage. She was muggle-born and petrified. Then the hat called out Gryffindor once again. He listened sadly as the others were sorted, he didn't know anyone else.

"Snape, Severus" He looked toward the Gryffindor table. Five boys had already been sorted there. He didn't have a chance.

"SLYTHERIN"

He has her eyes
The boy has Lily's emerald eyes
Those eyes that closed and left me all alone
Those eyes I feel will never ever let me go
How can I see this boy who has her emerald eyes

He only saw her on the holidays and during the summer after that day, until of course he was made Prefect. He had been so excited when he received the letter he ran to her house to proclaim the news. "Lily, They made me a Prefect!"

She beamed at him, her eyes shining as they always did when something made her happy. "I knew could do it Severus." Then she showed him her own Prefect badge. He knew that this had to be a sign of sorts, that they were meant for each other. He had only started to see her as more than a friend a year before. It was the eyes that did. Those eyes made him melt every time he looked into them.

From there on they were closer than they had been, but there was a deep problem in Severus's plans. Unlike him Lily had made other friends and these friends, aside from the one other Slytherin among them, really didn't want to see them together. He remembered all the scheming that Arabella and her dratted boyfriend had done to try and hook Lily up with their mutual friend and fellow prefect James Potter. He remembered well how they all, Jean included at times, had tried to make him seem like a fool I front of her.

"Now," Sirius Black said to a group of students crowded were crowded around him, "The big dance at the Three broomsticks is in one week. How are the scout reports?"

"Well you and I both know that James doesn't have a date," Remus Lupin reported while rolling his eyes.

"Lily's free too," Arabella Figg said with a somewhat girlish giggle.

"Prefect. Just keep the 'ole Slime ball away. And the dance is in the bag."


In Lily's eyes a castle
This house seemed to be
And I, became her bravest knight became
My lady fair was she

Severus counted on Lily. She was someone he could go to in times of trouble. She had on countless occasions told him that she'd always leave the window unlocked. And there always was a living room widow unlocked at the Evan's household. It was rare for Lily to come to him with a problem though. Then one day he saw her crying a corridor. Tears were pouring out of those perfect eyes and something about it struck Severus as a sin.

"Lily," He said putting his arm around her, "What's wrong"

"Nothing Severus, don't worry about me," she said simply, but he knew that it wasn't nothing.

"Tell me Miss Lillian Joy Evans."

"I don't think I can." She paused then. This moment their eyes meet and she didn't have to tell Severus anything. He could see it plainly in her emerald green eyes. She thought that someone she cared about had betrayed her. That her friends were keeping something. Severus couldn't bear the blasphemy of the situation.

"I will make sure this is remedied," He told her. He kept his promise too. He tried his hardest to find out what James and the others were hiding, and he did. Sirius had to be a prat about it though. He had to tell him how to get through the willow right in front of Lily. She had to run for the only person she could think of to help. She had to run for James. And James, James had to be a hero to impress his Lily. Severus was sure he would have let him die if some else had run to him and pleaded that he save Severus Snape.

He has her eyes
He has my Lily's emerald eyes
Those eyes that loved my enemy-never me
Those eyes that never saw me
Never knew I longed
To hold her close
To live at last in Lily's eyes

The day of the dance had to be one of the worst of Severus's teenage years. After various annoying pranks to keep him apart from Lily he ended up going with an annoying little Hufflepuff named Veronica Smethley who kept fawning over him. He sat a table with Veronica and watched them all come in, two by two. First were Jean and Frank Longbottom. This is another prick in his heart. Severus had never felt for Jean the way he felt for Lily, but Jean was still his Jean and He had vowed that Frank would pay for being the smart guy.

Then came Narcissa Collins and Peter Pettigrew followed by Fiona O'Flaherty and Remus Lupin, and Arabella Figg and Sirius Black. Severus didn't care about them. Narcissa was a Slytherin, she could handle herself. She was also betrothed to someone else and he never like Fiona or Arabella anyway. Finally came the most horrible moment. Lily walked in with James and brushed past him like he didn't even exist. Severus saw the way she held James in her eyes and he wanted to cry. He wanted that to be him.

He never spoke to Veronica again, which was for the best. It wouldn't have been fair to her. All he could think about was the fact that Veronica's eyes were dull and lifeless.

Imagine me, a lover
Would God had let her stay
He has her eyes
He has Lily's emerald eyes
Those eyes that saw me
Happy Long ago
 

That was when made his most horrible mistake. He was a Slytherin in a time when all the Slytherins went dark. It was expected of him to do the same. He went with the closest things he had to friends at the time; Ryan Lestrange, Evan Rosier, and Patrick Wilkes, to get the dark mark emblazed upon his left forearm. He felt sick about it. But what happened a few days later made him even sicker.

"My God, Severus!" he heard his mother scream. He leapt from bed and to the window. He could see the same mark he had on his arm floating above what hand been the Evans' home.   He felt some inside him churn as he ran down the hill to the house. Then he saw her. Lily was standing, she was alive, but she was crying harder than he had ever seen in his life. She was clutching her sister Petunia, who she hadn't really gotten along with before, like a life raft. The two stood as lone survivors. Their mother, father, and littlest sister had all been killed.

At the funeral Severus was at Lily's side. He had never seen her cry so much in his life. "I hate them all," she had said a strange determined anger in her voice that Severus would never forget. "I hate every last Death Eater who ever walked the earth." When she said this Severus wished he could fall through the cracks in the sidewalk, but still he did nothing to change his fate. Until logic stepped in many years later, but by this time she was gone from his life.


I longed for the day
She'd turn and see me standing there
Would God had let her stay
He has her eyes
He has Lily's emerald eyes

Severus remembered the two blasphemous invitations he got the summer after he graduated. The first was printed on clean on clear white paper:  The marriage of Jean Caldwell and Frank Longbottom. He went, of course he went, Jean meant something to him, but there are still something you cannot do. Underneath the picture Severus say something he thought he had burned. A lovely green letter with gold print:

The honor of your presence
is requested at the marriage of
Ms. Lillian Joy Evans
to
Mr. James Robert Potter
Saturday, the tenth of August
at four o'clock

As he outlined the letters with his fingers he remembered how his mother had talked him into going. "She's still your friend," she had said, "you used to care about her." Of course he still did. So he went and spent te evening in the corner being taunted by Sirius and the others and pestered by Veronica. He ignored them all until his old headmaster Dumbledore came over to have a serious talk with him. He was convinced to leave the Death Eaters and become a spy. It would be quite a danger, but everything in him knew that it was the right thing to do.

A little over 2 years later he heard of her death and he was devastated. He woke up in the middle of the night sleep talking, "Damn it Lily. Just leave the boy." He could never forgive the child for that, and for having her eyes.

Those eyes that first I loved so
How can
I now forget
That once I dared to be in love
 alive and whole
In Lily's eyes
In Lily's eyes

He put the picture back in the drawer where it belonged and walked out of his office. He almost thought her could she her sitting their in the front row next to Narcissa listening to Professor Pearson rambling about the 15 uses of bat wings.