This song, "Lily's Eyes," is one of my favorite from the musical The Secret Garden, about a girl whose hazel eyes bring back painful memories of her aunt Lily. Granted, green eyes would have been better for the purpose of this story, but that wasn't going to stop me writing a fanfic. The lyrics have been tweaked slightly so that they fit exactly, rather than almost, into what I'm writing. The first part was very much inspired by a fanfic called Eulogy, by Professor Spork, which is one of the best I've read on this site. Check it out and listen to "Lily's Eyes" if you can—it'll give you more of an appreciation for this story, and besides, you'll love it.

Remus Lupin

It wasn't supposed to end this way.

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

They thought he was gone, convinced that a tiny baby had defeated him, but something in my heart told me that they were wrong, that he was just biding his time, ready to strike at the opportune moment.

The day was cool and clear, and a brisk autumn wind chased the dry skeletons of leaves down the street. With the many-colored trees, the chilly air, and the cheerful fall decorations, it might have been a normal November day.

For me, it would be a very long time before anything was back to normal.

Everything had been "normal" until that night.

And then I watched as my world came crumbling down around my ears.

I had listed them off so many times in the last three days that it seemed like an incessant drumbeat pounding a death chant into my skull. One in prison, one blown to bits, one killed trying valiantly but futilely to protect his family, and one murdered, her body found next to her crying son.

The only things I could see were the two long, narrow caskets, adorned with lilies, being lowered into the ground.

They all expected me to make some sort of speech, I think. I, the last of the Marauders, was supposed to give a eulogy about my best friends. They had no idea that the parchment I held in my trembling hands didn't have anything written on it. All the inspiration it offered was a picture of the two of them on their wedding day, smiling radiantly at me from out of the past.

There was James, on the left, his unruly hair seemingly determined to be rumpled even for the biggest moment of his life. His grin was not the one of impish mischief I had seen firsthand so many times, but one of complete and utter joy. This was the James Potter I wanted to hold on to forevermore.

Around his waist were wrapped the slender, white-clad arms of his bride. Her shining auburn hair cascaded in loose curls down her shoulders, and I could have sworn I heard a faint echo of her carefree laugh ripple through the silent, grieving crowd.

Standing, waiting, I think of her—

What could I have said to them? How did they expect me to convey the utter despair that was eating away at me, the infinite void that had once been James and Lily? No one wanted to hear that they weren't perfect. No one wanted to hear that they had had their spats and their fights just like everybody else. No one wanted me to scream at them that they could have no idea who the Potters really were—more than great parents, more than valiant fighters against Voldemort, more than young people with limitless potential, more than a boy and a girl helplessly in love.

—I think of her.

And my memories wouldn't leave me alone.

From death she casts her spell,
All night we hear her sighs…

The only remnant, the only heritage they left on this earth, is a small boy.

And now a child has come who has her eyes…
Severus Snape

He has her eyes…

Everything about him was exactly like his father. Right from his scraggly hair down to his strutting feet, he was the reincarnation of James Potter. The moment he walked into my classroom, my mind flew back twenty years, and I was watching Potter enter the very same dungeon in the bottom of Hogwarts castle. Everything about them was identical.

Except for the eyes.

He has my Lily's stunning eyes.

He looked up, and suddenly, for the briefest fraction of a second, I was staring at Lily Evans, not James or Harry Potter.

And the bitterness that never rests was clawing at my heart again, and that bitterness would not let me go, not for the world. Bitterness, for this eleven-year-old boy was proof that she had given her heart to Potter.

Those eyes that saw him happy long ago…

For a transitory, enchanted moment, I had deluded myself that those eyes had noticed me, that they had cared for me—that maybe, for the first time, I was the object of their love.

Those eyes that gave me life and hope I'd never known

But only for that moment.

I'd seen the boy when he was a child—pictures of him, at least, since Potter would never allow me near his son—but this one disparity between his and his father's appearances had escaped me then. This time, it hit me with full force.

How can you see the boy but miss those radiant eyes?

Sirius Black

Harry never saw it coming.

When he barged into that room on the second floor of the Shrieking Shack, it had never occurred to him that things might not be as they appeared. He had no idea that the next few hours would change his life.

James never saw it coming either.

He was prepared to accept that Remus was a Death Eater—it was the process of elimination. He trusted me more implicitly than he trusted himself, so I couldn't be the one, and Peter didn't have the brains or the courage, which ruled him out. Therefore, loath as he was to consider it, he came to terms with the fact that one of his best friends might have been in league with Lord Voldemort. He had no idea that his decision would end his life.

Appearance isn't the only thing that was passed from father to son. Their abominable lack of foresight was astoundingly similar as well.

But it wasn't his fault. It was mine.

I failed him, more than he could ever know. I should have seen what I knew lay dormant in Peter. Remus, a Death Eater? The very idea is laughable. Now I wonder how we could ever have gotten it so horribly, terribly, fatally wrong.

James never was afraid to die. If he had been, he would have steered clear of the Order of the Phoenix, of Dumbledore, even of Remus and of Lily, a werewolf and a Muggle-born. If it hadn't been for Lily, his death would not have been my failure.

I failed him because I didn't manage to keep him alive to spend years and years with her.

In Lily's eyes, a castle
Their world seemed to be
And James her bravest knight became
His lady fair was she…
Severus Snape

Nothing could have prepared me for this.

I was fuming, furious that he could expect something like this from me. I had things to do: papers to grade, potions to attend, methods to work out. And here I was, waiting in my office for the person I hated most in the world.

A knock sounded loudly on the wooden door, and slowly, it creaked open.

"Shut the door behind you, Potter," I said exhaustedly. As he did, I felt my insides writhe: the click of the knob was like a death sentence, locking me in here with Potter's son for the rest of the evening. I motioned to the chair that I'd placed in front of my desk and surveyed him coolly.

He looked exactly like always: haughty, defiant, and proud. He wanted to be anywhere but where he was.

Explaining to him the delicacies of Occlumency and Legilimency was like trying to teach a rock how to float. He did not seem to understand that the mind was more like a place than a thing; he could not get past the naïve Muggle concept of "mind reading." His impudence was evident from his impertinent questions, and with each passing moment, my mind sank into further despair. Is this what my Monday evenings were bound to consist of until the end of term? Or, God forbid, even further?

I rose slowly from my chair. "Stand up and take out your wand, Potter. You may use your wand to attempt to disarm me, or defend yourself in any other way you can think of."

He did so, and his confident façade seemed to slip for a moment. "And what are you going to do?" he demanded.

I couldn't help but relish the look on his face. "I'm going to attempt to break into your mind."

He shuddered involuntarily.

"We're going to see how well your resist," I continued softly. "I have been told that you have already shown aptitude at resisting the Imperius Curse. You will find that similar powers are needed for this. Brace yourself, now…. Legilimens!"

In the briefest second before the spell hit, he looked up.

He has her eyes…

He twitched and jerked as his memories flashed before my eyes, but all that I could think of was his mother.

He has my Lily's shining eyes…

I felt a sharp pain in my right arm. My wand came down as I clapped a hand to where the hex had hit. Cursing, I watched as Potter fell to the floor and hit his knee against the desk. He blinked bemusedly as he looked at me and tried to connect what had happened.

"Did you mean to produce a Stinging Hex?" I asked coolly, trying to force my mind away from the memories that lurked behind a veil, which had come so near to bursting just a few moments before.

"No," he said defiantly, though he looked as though he wished he had.

"I thought not," I answered, curing the weal on my wrist with a tap of my wand. "You let me get in too far," I reprimanded him. "You lost control."

"Did… did you see everything I saw?" he asked hesitantly.

"Flashes of it." I had to strain to remember what I had seen: I hadn't been paying enough attention. Something sprang to mind. "To whom did the dog belong?"

"My Aunt Marge," he said begrudgingly.

I instructed him (or tried to, rather) as to how to close his mind to my attacks. I could tell he wasn't doing it: he was too angry with me. All the better—he would only learn if he was subjected to pain, and he would not be able to force me out if he allowed his rage to stay in his mind.

"Legilimens!" I cried again, and, though he didn't look up this time, I those brilliant green eyes seemed to fill my vision once more, and once more, I remembered…

Those eyes that loved James Potter, never me…

An honest self-assessment would have told me that I hated Harry Potter because I hated his father for being his father. Lily should have borne my son, not his.

Those eyes that never saw me, Never knew I longed
To hold her close—to live at last
In Lily's eyes…

Suddenly, Potter's mind was showing me an image that brought down the leaky wall holding back my memories.

There, waving at him out of the Mirror of Erised, were James Potter and her.

Imagine me, a lover!

It only lasted for a split second, but time seemed to slow, and I stared at the two of them for an eternity of pain and loss.

I longed for the day
She'd turn and see me standing there…

How could Dumbledore expect me to do this?

Would God had let her stay!
Albus Dumbledore

The physical pain is receeding, and I know the end is near.

I can't see him, but he's there, and he's watching in horror as what strength is left fails me.

"We've got a problem, Snape," snarls one of the men standing above me. "The boy doesn't seem able—"

Snape. Severus Snape.

This is the pivotal moment, the one where everything will go on as planned or crumble around our ears. But as he gazes at me, his face full of fear and self-hatred, I don't know if he remembers.

"Severus…" I whisper.

He has her eyes…

Severus doesn't know it, but he's there, hidden from view as he watches the scene without being able to move. If he had known it, maybe he wouldn't need reminding…

Remember Lily's emerald eyes…

That's who you're doing this for. For her. For Lily.

I remember Lily's eyes. Sometimes stern, sometimes laughing, sometimes sorrowful, but always fully of love.

He has Lily's shining eyes…
Severus Snape

My wand is raised, the spell on the tip of my tongue, but I cannot force the words out of my mouth.

The world has gone mute, and all I hear is a gaping silence as he mouths my name.

"Severus…"

It is but a name, but in it lies an explosive meaning. He's telling me something, reminding me of what I promised.

Remember Lily, he seems to say. He's playing on my weakness.

My Lily's eyes…

They're all looking at me, expecting me to do it, to kill him. I hate myself, I hate him, I hate the world for it, but that's what I'm supposed to do.

Those eyes that I first loved so long ago.

Don't forget, he seems to say. Don't forget that her son has to live on, and for that, I must die…

How can I now forget—

He sinks a little lower against the wall, and I know his time is nearly up anyway.

—that once I dared to be—

"Severus…"

—in love, alive and whole—

And suddenly, my lips form the words, and my voice forces them out.

"Avada Kedavra!"

And it's all over.

—in Lily's eyes…

I'm going to rot in hell.

…in Lily's eyes…