Snape looked out across the icy Potions classroom and caught sight of a shaggy, untamable head of black hair.
Potter. Harry Potter.
He was wearing round, wire-rimmed spectacles and he was turned in his seat speaking to his desk-mate, a small girl with bushy brown hair.
Wild black hair. Round, wire-rimmed spectacles. Small, thin frame.
Another James Potter in the making, Snape thought dismally. And in that instant he hated Harry Potter, because Harry Potter was all James and no Lily. The living image of his father; his mother could have been anyone, and Snape somehow felt that this new student was somehow being disloyal to the memory of his mother by looking so unlike her.
"Harry Potter," he spat during the roll. The boy looked up, eyes wide with confusion at the unwarranted hate he read so clearly in the Potions Master's tone, and Snape steeled himself to meet the detested hazel eyes.
But there was no hazel to be found. Instead, Snape found himself staring into wide eyes that were an astonishing emerald green.
Lily's eyes. Lily's eyes in James' face.
In reality, Harry was watching his new professor with a mixture of confusion and fear, but what Snape saw in those eyes was a reproach.
Lily Evans was looking out at Snape reproachfully from beyond the grave and begging him to be good to her son.
Snape could do that. He could be good to the Potter boy. Not kind; there was too much James in him for that – far too much – but good. He could be good to the boy.
For Lily's eyes, he could be good to the boy.