She was the last thing he saw before he was gone, her beautiful smile and soft, amused giggle.
And then he was watching her cry, weep, because of her sister.
It was just after Christmas Break, on the train back to Hogwarts. Lily was against his shoulder and Snape couldn't find the joy he would feel at her touch in any other situation. He only felt anger, and love, and a deep, primitive need to comfort Lily mixed with the crippling anxiety that prevented him from doing just that. She clung to him as if he were a teddy bear, and his arms were wrapped tentatively around her lovely, thin waist. He kissed the top of her head and continued to hum her favorite song, Daydream Believer by the Monkees, into her orange-red hair.
And then he was sitting in the Slytherin common room beside Lucius. Lily was talking to those four blokes, the Marauders or whatever tosser name they called themselves, and Snape was left here with Malfoy, and Bellatrix, and Dolohov, and all of the others who sneered about mudbloods. He hated listening to them, could only think how unlike the baboons they were describing Lily was. Bellatrix, the bloody gobshite, always looked at him with that look, and Snape would have to sit and take it or be left alone. Again. Because Lily had Alice and Sirius and Potter- she didn't care-
And then it was fifth year, and Snape couldn't be angrier or more embarrassed. And then Lily shouting at Potter as if she hadn't been rubbing shoulders with him all year, and he couldn't help it. He snapped.
Then the fucking bastard that was ultimately James Potter acting all righteous and heroic. As if he didn't hex Slytherins and Hufflepuffs and first years. As if he didn't have a superiority complex worse than that of Bellatrix's; at least hers allowed more than three people to be worthy of all that was herself.
He was begging Lily, he was weeping, and she only sneered at him. He called her a name once, and she hated him. Father called Mother the worst of names, daily, by the hour, by the minute, and Mother still worshipped him. He didn't know how to deal with it, how to handle it. So, like his drunken insane Mother, he crumpled and wept at her feet. But Lily, so much better than Father ever was, only sneered and left him there. Snape didn't stop crying, there in the hallway, until Lucius came and helped him to his bed. A sad world when Lucius Malfoy is the kindest hand you can find.
And sixth year, watching James slowly win over Snape's best friend. Watching the girl he'd loved in a way so much deeper than romantically, a way so much more detailed and infinite and dimensionalized than anything the blithering idiot James ever could, forget Sev and everything James Potter did to him. Watching her slowly become more like James as James slowly became more like her.
Then seventh year, Lucius coaxing Snape into Voldemort's circle and finally ripping himself away from Lily. He couldn't look at her anymore, not when she wore Potter's robes and Potter's shirts and Potter himself. Not when she had those beautiful, bright, lime green eyes that smiled at Potter, not him. He couldn't handle it anymore, he wasn't strong enough to look at her when she was looking at him, and she'd probably not have the little slimeball she considered him to be mooning over her any longer.
So, he focused his attentions on the Dark Lord. He didn't agree with any of the pureblood supremacy, but he could tell Voldemort had alterior motives. He hated Muggles, not muggleborns; that was simply a calculated addition to get the purebloods on board. It wasn't as if he cared about anyone but himself, anyway.
But then he was reporting to Voldemort the prophecy that woman had told Dumbledore. He saw the Dark Lord's face as he decided that it was Harry Potter, not Neville Longbottom. The disgusted sneer on his face as he agreed, only out of mercy and dismissal, to spare Lily. He pretended not to hear the next words, If she chooses to spare herself.
Crawling to Dumbledore and having to beg, quite literally, for him to save Lily. Save Harry and James, too, but save Lily. Being blackmailed and ridiculed by a wizard Snape knew had done things that made him no better than Snape, perhaps even a bit worse.
But it was worth it- yes, it was worth it, and all for Lily.
Hearing Wormtail give away the Potters' location, and immediately after the meeting, Apparating as close to Hogwarts as he could. Running, with all his might, towards the castle. His lungs were liquified and his legs were all but jelly, but he ran, dodging stray students and teachers and demanding McGonagall take him to Dumbledore, because Voldemort knows about Lily. And Harry. And Potter.
Telling Dumbledore, only to see that superior glint in his eyes, the same glint that everyone but Lily had looked at him with. Being told to take Hagrid to Godric's Hollow, because Dumbledore had bigger problems than whatever Snape cared about.
Finding put that they were too late. Running into the house and seeing James, on the steps, before hopping over him because maybe, just maybe-
But Lily was lying on the floor, baby Harry crying, blood gently flecking down his nose. He fell to his knees beside Lily, her hand on Harry's little foot in his little footie pyjama. Catching Harry's eyes and seeing the bright lime green he hadn't seen of Lily's for three years, and wiping his nose clean. He pulled Lily into his arms and, when Hagrid picked up Lily's baby, begging once, Please, Hagrid... Let me hold him.
A crying Hagrid set Harry in Snape's arms, and feeling broken, useless, and meaningless, Snape held Lily and a baby that could have, in another life, had Sev's face and not Potter's.
But Sev died when he held little Lily. Snape, who had had reign over motor skills for nearly half a decade, was all that was left of the quiet boy who'd watch Lily Evans from the bushes.
And then ten years of emptiness, of going through motions, of seeing those glints in Dumbledore's eyes. He pretended to hate the children, when really, he couldn't care about them at all. He sat in his Potions classroom and thought of Lily, refusing to let himself wonder about her son.
When he saw the child once more, his little pure white lightening scar, his beautiful, lime green eyes, it took every ounce of self-control not to go to the boy. He vowed to make Harry hate him. He vowed to be resigned to the monster James and Lily had been convinced he was. It was no less than he deserved, to watch Lily's eyes hate him. It was all he owed to Lily, for what he had done, for not understanding still how he had wronged her enough to negate ten long years of friendship.
It took lies, acting, and so much bluff to be as cruel as he could be to Lily's son, who he loved so dearly it made Snape's soul ache to see him after the scuffle with Quirrell- the bloody bastard Snape had so avidly defended Harry from- who Snape had originally befriended to learn his weaknesses-, to see him battle with Draco or how he had been after the diary incident with the Horcrux in that damned Chamber of Secrets, to see him in the damned tree with that damned man- who, despite his innocence, deserved no less than his sentence- who was an absolutely unbearable bad influence on Snape- and some bloody werewolf who Snape knew had forgotten his Wolfsbane, going crazy over his old mates, to see him compete in that bloody tournament, to have to watch him and even assist Dolores as she tortured him but not even being able to help or offer a single solitary kind word, to have to hate Harry when he found his book! or to not congradulate him on finally being right on something and on Draco- to not punish Draco for stomping on Harry's nose and leaving him on the damned train, and to not be able to see those beautiful eyes for a year only to have to suddenly fight Harry, with the face that looked less and less like James, with eyes that looked less and less like Lily, with a person who suddenly, to him, became just Harry; the boy Severus Snape had loved like Severus Snape had loved no other. His feelings for Lily were dwarfed against his feelings for Harry, so different and so strong. His memories came out as tears, a fatherly love blue instead of the motherly pink, and Snape begged Harry to take them, take them. Using his last moment of life to beg whatever deity may be ruling over the world to let Harry live a normal life and die a painless death after bettering the world like he so rightly deserved to do. And he relived the pain of his life over and over, thousands of times, until his mistakes were paid off.