AN;; What happens when a fanfic author is bored one afternoon, but doesn't really feel like continuing her half finished fic? A oneshot featuring one of her all time favorite ships. And if you don't get what's going on, it's supposed to be like that ;D

Disclaimer;; If I owned any of these characters, I could buy this site. I can't, so guess what that means

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It had happened one day, shortly after Christmas in their sixth year. He had been working on his Potions essay, and he looked up from his parchment to check something in his book. And years later, he still didn't know how it had happened, but his grey eyes had locked with Lily Evans' brilliant green ones across the room, and a blush slowly crept over her face. He looked away and didn't look back, but he could never forget the moment.

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The night was so cold it was literally freezing, but he didn't care. The ground was covered with several inches of snow, but he didn't care. The wind blew harshly, numbing his unprotected face with cold, but he didn't care.

A week had passed since those green eyes had looked through him, a week during which not a word has passed between him and Lily. But he couldn't stop thinking about it. How many undiscovered shades of green hid under those long lashes, how her pale face had slowly turned pink, and just from looking at him.

No, he had to tell himself again and again. You don't know that it was because of you she blushed. There could be a hundred different reasons, none of them to do with you.

But he still couldn't shake off the feeling that something had changed inside him, that he wasn't the same person he had been before Lily Evans had looked at him the way that she had.

What had been the way she looked at him? There was a very specific word, but he couldn't think of it. Lovingly, surely not. Curiously didn't really fit either. Nothing with a negative connotation, not disdainfully or disapprovingly or angrily. Thoroughly seemed proper, but there was something else. As though she could read him with a glance, understand him and know all his darkest secrets. And there was hardly a man anywhere that wanted to keep his darkest secrets secret more than him.

Could he be falling in love? That was what Sirius figured. Two days earlier they had sat in class, and Sirius seemed to notice his lack of attention. "I've never seen him daydreaming in class," he had remarked, "I'm telling you guys, the bloke's in love."

He had just blushed and said nothing, assuring himself he was not in love. No good could come out of falling in love with Lily Evans, especially for him. And while he couldn't explain to himself why he couldn't stop thinking about that moment, he was certain it was the moment he was thinking about, and not the one he had shared it with.

But somewhere, deep inside him, he had his doubts, which insisted on surfacing at least once a day. Whenever she was around him, he couldn't help but watch her, however discreetly. The way she moved, the way she laughed, the way she could never keep her hair up for more than five minutes. And it was these little details that he went over in his mind's eye every night before he fell asleep, and each day discovered another thing about Lily, slowly completing the image he had of her.

Why, last Wednesday he had heard her quarreling with a dorm mate about the chocolate frogs wrappers that the dorm mate in question had left lying about. Note to self, Lily is a clean freak. And yesterday she had scowled when a friend had declared that she didn't feel like doing this essay just yet. Note to self, Lily does not approve of procrastinating.

He loved her. The realization had surprised him with its suddenness, its absoluteness. But at that moment he knew; he loved Lily Evans passionately, perhaps he always had. His feelings had lain hidden in the darkest corner of his heart for a long time; perhaps they had never occupied any other part of him until that moment.

He was, for a few short moments, happy. He had found the one thing he had thought he never would find; love. He felt truly wonderful, for the first time since who knew when. And he might even have a chance, he realized as he remembered with a jolt the way that she had blushed while looking at him. Euphoria flooded him.

His joy went as fast as it had come, and disappointment took its place. Why must Lily Evans be his first love? Indeed, she was an amazing person, the most beautiful girl he had ever seen. But they could never be together. There problems, complications, third parties that must be taken into account. Third parties who were his friends, and he could never betray them, no matter who or what tempted him.

The wind picked up, blowing snow this way and that. If Lily had been here, those long auburn locks of hers would be flying in every which direction, and she herself would be wrapped up in five layers of cloaks and sweaters, shivering violently and urging him to go up to the castle with her.

"Mooney, what are you doing out there," came a voice from somewhere nearby, "Its freezing, what were you thinking?"

His heart leaped into his throat. Was she here, as he had imagined? No, he was being stupid. The voice was male, and Lily didn't know he was Mooney to his fellow Marauders. Sighing, he squinted in the direction the voice had come from. He made out a dark figure, and a few steps closer revealed the tall figure of Sirius Black. Joining his friend, and ignoring his questions, he made his way to the castle.

This night had been one he would never forget, not even twenty years later, happily married and father to a tiny, squealing baby. His love would never be known by a soul, not even when he was long over it. But Severus Snape has never been the only one who found consolation in Harry's green eyes; the same eyes that had made him realize his first and perhaps most passionate love of his life.