I make sure to seat myself next to Quirrel at the feast. I wait. And wait.
Soon the line of little first years will march in, and he will be one of them….
He who looks so like his father, with his mother’s eyes…. Lily’s eyes….
They march in, looking astonished. I can hear a girl with a bossy voice say something about the night sky…
I am immersed in memories.
She is in front of me, I can see the dark red hair dancing over her back and shoulders… smell the flowery lacy smell that is her soap…
She turns around and smiles with her eyes, and I smile back…
They call her…
“Evans, Lily.”
She walks up uncertainly, and I know the last thing she sees before the hat falls over her eyes is my face.
“GRYFFINDOR!”
I groan. She may soon be lost to me…
Somehow, I know where he will go.
Gryffindor. Like his mother and his father.
Finally, he is called, and he walks forward.
So different from Lily….
He walks like his father, so arrogant, proud, he struts up the stairs… it burns, it hurts to see James Potter walk up to me, a younger James Potter, with Lily Evans’ eyes…. Her eyes… .
Almost James Potter, with her eyes….
He sits on the stool for an eternity, but in the end, I know I was right, and he saunters off to the Gryffindor table….
***
I say something nearly inaudible to Quirrel, then begin to search the crowd anew. Soon, I can feel it; his eyes will find mine…
Then, with my eyes boring a hole in his black head, he glances up and meets my eyes.
My heart breaks in two. Lily’s eyes…
They are hers exactly, deep and green and understanding. If only they were hers…
Only his, her son, his son, Potter’s son, they are filled with questions, inquisitiveness, arrogance…
I curl my lip in a sneer and glare at him.
Another question blooms into being in her eyes, his eyes, and I turn back to Quirrel, continuing our idle conversation.
Must keep in Quirrel’s good books….
He is his father over again…
***
He walks into my class, so confident, and my memory flashes back again…
“Severus?”
I smile. I like the way she says my name.
“Lily?”
“We’ll be potions partners tomorrow, won’t we?”
“Of course.”
The next day, twenty years exactly before today, she and I walked into this very dungeon to make potions together….
He walks in, so confidently, with the Weasley brat in tow. Sidekicks, I spit. His father had them too. Black, a murderer, Lupin, a werewolf, and Pettigrew. Worse.
It’s almost like he’s…. tempting me.
All through roll, I am uncommonly tense. I do not want to utter his name. Potter… the man who stole Lily Evans away from me…
Through the roll, I’m suddenly fifteen years old again…
Hanging by an ankle… the invisible hook digs into my flesh… how did they discover my spell?
Emotions rage inside me… hate, jealousy, protectiveness…
They scream and taunt and hurt me, and she comes….
Angered and weak, I spit, “I don’t need help from filthy little Mudbloods like her!”
They lift me in the air again, and I yell and scream and cry for mercy, for Lily, despite what I am doing to myself…
My list arrives at his name.
I consider skipping over it, but then he may seek me out…
“Harry Potter,” I sneer quietly. “Our new… celebrity.”
Even I know it is false fame he has. It is Lily’s renown she deserves…. She gave her life… away…. Away from me….
In the infinitesimal gap between his name and his title, my eyes swim with unshed tears. Her fame… his name…. then I blink and the moment is gone.
I continue with the list. But there is no one of importance in this class. Except for him…. He looks so like his father….
His one good feature is her eyes….
I make my speech.
“Potter,” I say suddenly. It is a test.
“What would I get if I added powdered root of asphodel to an infusion of wormwood?”
He hesitates. This, at least, is sound. James Potter never hesitated. But neither did Lily…
“I don’t know, sir,” he says quietly.
His mother would have known.
I sneer. How delightful it is, to see James Potter cower at me, to lose to me, the boy he would torture…. The only problem is her eyes, looking out of his face with confusion, indignant…
I tut. “Fame clearly isn’t everything.”
The Granger girl has her hand in the air, desperate to prove she knows the answer. She is of no importance. None are, except… him.
“Let’s try again. Potter, where would you look if I told you to find a bezoar?”
I can see he’s tempted to say, ‘the supply cupboard,’ just as his father would have done…. Lily would have known…. She knew….
He hesitates…
“I don’t know, sir,” he repeats. The Malfoy boy is shaking with laughter at my sport.
Enjoy it while you can, Draco…
“Thought you wouldn’t open a book before coming, eh, Potter?”
He stares at me, and I’m lost again.
“Yeah, Sirius. I didn’t read any of the schoolbooks before coming. It’s a pity, I knew all of it anyway…”
I sneer as the Granger girl rises as far out of her seat as she can.
“What is the difference, Potter, between monkshood and wolfsbane?”
The Granger girl stands, her hand pointing into the dungeon ceiling.
I sneer again, and then it drops off my face into a snarl as he speaks.
“I don’t know,” he says quietly. “I think Hermione does, though, why don’t you try her?”
I snarl. Insolence! He dares deface me! He is his father over again…
Taunts ring in my ears.
“Wash out your mouth, Snivellus.”
“Snivelly!”
“Who wants to see me take off Snivelly’s pants!”
I sniff, then snap at the Granger girl, “Sit down!” and waspishly explain, the words rolling in my mouth, all the questions he got wrong. I’m so involved, I don’t notice no one’s taking notes.
“Well? Why aren’t you all copying that down?’ I command. Over the noise of a great many people searching for quills and parchment, I say to Potter, “And a point will be taken from Gryffindor for your cheek.”
Floors above, I can almost hear the ruby fly back into the upper bulb with a sharp clink.