Disclaimer: I own nothing! Nothing! I'm worthless! Okay! Happy now, you evil sadists?

A/N: Okay … I was rereading The Prince's Tale chapter in Deathly Hallows and I just wanted to write something about Lily and Severus. Just think, if things had only been tweaked a tiny little bit differently, they could have had such a beautiful and eternal friendship. And I love Snape's character. He's so ambiguous! I mean, you spend the first six books not sure if he's good or not, and then he killed Dumbledore, so you spend most of book seven hating his guts, and then you read The Prince's Tale, and you go "oh…" and think what a brilliantly noble guy he turned out to be. I mean, he went through so much without any appreciation or acknowledgment, all for the love of a good woman. Sigh. Also, this is the first thing I've ever written where love is the main theme. You have been warned.

Beauty In Green

People die, but real love is forever

– Even In Death, Evanescence

Lily Evans was beautiful. There was never any doubt in his mind on that. The way she smiled, the way she laughed, the way her eyes flashed when she was angry. He always thought she was beautiful.

(It is real, isn't it? it's not a joke? Petunia says you're lying to me. Petunia says there isn't a Hogwarts. It is real, isn't it?)

So beautiful when she was eleven and gazed hopefully and trustingly at him with those inquisitive green orbs.

(I don't want to talk to you. Tuney h – hates me. Because we saw that letter from Dumbledore)

Beautiful when she was crying and miserable. When the green was wet with tears that spilled over her lids and down her cheeks in rivers.

(We are best friends, Sev)

God, she was gorgeous when she told him that, so incredibly wonderful it made his heart sing.

(I know James Potter's an arrogant toerag)

Beautiful in the truth. When she would say things like that, it made him want to kiss her, hold her. It made him willing to go back down that tunnel to the Shrieking Shack and face the werewolf Lupin if she would only admit the truth about Potter.

(Let him down!)

Fuck, when she defended him…she cared about him, cared about him, and that was beautiful, those green eyes flashing and glinted with fury aimed at Potter, all on his behalf…

And then he went and ruined it all in a moment of blind, furious humiliation. Destroyed the friendship he had with the one person he cared about, and made her stop caring. He still cared though. He would care until it killed him.

(I've made excuses for you for years)

So go on making them!

(None of my friends can understand why I even talk to you)

I'm your friend!

(You and your precious little Death Eater friends – you see, you don't even deny it!)

You hate it when I lie, and you're too beautiful to hate anything

(You don't deny that's what you're all aiming to be!)

I won't aim for it if you don't want me to, I'll go in completely the opposite direction, I'll be an auror if you want, please, Lily, please!

(You can't wait to join You-Know-Who, can you?)

It's you I want to be with, Lily, I want to protect you from You-Know-Who, even if I have to join him to do it!

(I can't pretend anymore. You've chosen you're way, I've chosen mine.)

But you are my way!

(You call everyone of my birth Mudblood, Severus. Why should I be any different?)

Because you're Lily, he'd wanted to shout at her, but he knew she wouldn't have accepted this as a valid answer. Lily Evans was always fair and just, it was part of her beauty, and she didn't see why she should be exempt from his prejudice just because she was his friend.

And she turned and walked away from him, head held proud. She was beautiful even as she walked out of his life.

She was his life.

She married Potter. She had his child. Potter's child. She betrayed him by marrying that, in her own words, toerag. He should hate her for that. But he didn't.

He did join the Death Eaters, just as she predicted, and they were on opposite sides.

But the Dark Lord killed her. She was dead…

And then, sixteen years after her, he lay dying, and there was her son, her son with her eyes, and the boy looked at him with her eyes, and her green orbs haunt his death. And he lost his sight as he died, yet those emerald spheres were burned into his eyelids, and then there was a bright light and a tunnel, and he was flying down it, so fast, too fast, much too fast, and he squeezed his eyes shut tight, and then he seemed to be slowing down, getting slower, and slower, until he came to a full stop, and then … and then…

"Sev?"

Beauty in green.

A/N: There you go. A sort of happy, hopeful ending. So. Go. Review. Now. Or I'll set my Padfoot on you. He's very upset, because he wasn't mentioned in this story, and he needs someone to vent his anger on…