Severus could have loved Harry Potter. He's fairly sure he could have. Because, Dumbledore is right, however much he is loathe to admit it. Harry is a lot more like his mother than his father. Harry could become a substitute for Lily. If he started looking at the boy like that, if he could just get over the physical resemblance to James, he knows that he would start to love him, not as just Lily's son, either, but as Harry, a person.

But it was too early. The boy had come too early. He wasn't over mourning Lily. Ten years, and he hadn't finished grieving her.

In fact, twenty years might not have been enough. It might never have been enough. But he thinks, if he'd just had more time to accept that his Lily was gone, he might have been able to move on enough to see Harry Potter as just that. Harry Potter. Not James incarnate.

It's too late now, at any rate. He's hated the boy for too long. There's too much bitterness there, on both sides. He could not reconcile with Potter if he wished too.

So instead, he snarls and snaps and humiliates. He watches the angry, indignant flush rise on James's (Harry's!) cheeks, and it gives him a kind of furious, vindictive satisfaction.

He is careful never to look the boy in the eyes though. To look him in the eyes will be damning. If he looks him in the eyes, he knows he will see Lily.

If he looks that boy in the eyes, he will love him.