His Father's Son

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Severus Snape took his place at the High Table for the start of term feast, just as he did every year, wearing the same black robes as he usually did, the same hat, the same unpleasant look upon his face. However, despite his outer coolness, despite the calm, collected fixed stare, inside he was a mess. He despised himself for this; anyone who allowed their emotions to overcome them was weak and foolish in his opinion.

His black eyes were staring, like everyone else's in the Great Hall, upon a small wooden door that led to a small ante-chamber, where the terrified first years would be waiting to be led out and sorted. However, he knew that he had a very different reason to be staring at the door than the other teachers and students.

Behind that door, concealed behind a bit of wood and stone was the son of Lily Evans the only child of the woman he had loved since he was a small boy. He had never seen this child, he did not know what he looked like, but Snape could still picture clearly, even after all these years, his mother's beautiful face. Her almond shaped green eyes still shone clearly in his mind's eye, surrounded by her pale skin and thick chestnut locks.

With a creak of wood, the doors of the anti-chamber swung open and Professor McGonagall swept in, followed by a gaggle of trembling eleven year olds. Snape's eyes swept the group, trying to pick out one face from the mass. Which boy was it? He did not know what he was looking for. Did he have his mother's red hair and green eyes, or did he not look like her at all? Did he have the dark hair and eyes of his father? As he thought of James Potter, Snape wondered if he actually wanted to see the boy at all. Would this Harry taint his memories of Lily by reminding him of the man he had hated so passionately and for so many reasons? He snapped his eyes away from the group and stared down at the solid wooden table, his mind in turmoil. He would have to know the boy at some point.

Snape paid no attention to the names being called by the deputy head. Maybe if he tuned out the words, he wouldn't hear the name and it would put off the moment that he would have to look at the boy. He wasn't even sure if he wanted to see vestiges of Lily in someone else's face, he didn't know if he could cope, if it wouldn't bring back the old grief and pain he felt, drag it up into his conscience again.

Suddenly, he was jerked back to harsh reality as Professor McGonagall's voice cut through him like a whiplash.

"Longbottom, Neville," she called, reading the Name from the scroll in her hands.

Longbottom.

Snape felt like his stomach had been plunged unsparingly into the freezing lake beyond the walls of the castle as the boy's Name was called. The shock of the unexpected had caused him to jerk suddenly in his seat, causing several of his colleagues to shoot him nervous looks of concern. He pointedly ignored them, refusing to meet their eyes ad instead stared at the podgy, round faced boy who was currently extracting himself from among the thicket of students.

He did not know how to feel. He had forgotten, completely forgotten in his torment that this Boy would also be starting school this year. This Boy who should have been the one marked By the Dark Lord as his equal, as his enemy. This Boy should e the one who was parentless and alone, or else dead in the Dark Lord's stead. His father should have been the one who died to defend him; it should have been his mother who was the one forced to give up her life for her son. Not her. Not Lily. It should have never been her. She didn't deserve to die like that; she should have gone on, lived forever. But she hadn't. She was dead; asleep forever beneath a blanket of earth, asleep beside her husband. Briefly, she flitted through his mind, her red hair dancing in the breeze. This was how she would remain, forever young, unlike he, who would age and crumple with mortality and time. A thought entered his head, one that he had not dared to think of for many years. A thought in which she was alive, maddened with grief for her husband ad child, a thought in which she would have fled to his arms for comfort, and he would console her like a lover.