Many thanks to Avindara Nirvene for all her help with this. Anie, this is dedicated to you.
Sunrise
Some say the green flash, appearing amidst the blazing colours of sunrise or sunset, is a gateway. A connection between two worlds - ours and another. The land of the dead. They say that when the green flash appears, it can be crossed. A bridge transporting the dead to life once more. Or leading the living to where their loved ones lie.
The sunrise was breathtaking, dark night sky bursting into explosions of colour. But the dark man, sitting hunched over on the dark hill, paid no notice to the rosy pinks, fiery oranges, crimsons, scarlets and golds. He only perceived the faint streak of light, a slash across all the beauty. His eyes, half-crazed with grief and longing, reflected the emerald light. He stared at it with such intensity, such hunger, that it seemed as if, for him, the whole world had contracted into the narrow beam. As if it contained miracles, angels, wondrous things that only he knew of.
To him, it did.
For the briefest fraction of a moment, a pair of eyes shimmered in the green light, and for the first time in so many years, green eyes met black ones.
For the briefest fraction of a moment, the world was right again, and the bells of birdsong could be heard from the shadows.
And then the sun erupted over the rooftops, its golden rays blazing, painting over all other colour with broad strokes.
The green eyes faded into nothing, and the dark man's tortured howl echoed throughout the valley below.
An immeasurable amount of time later, Severus Snape wiped the last glistening traces of tears from his eyes, and rose. He turned his back to the blinding golden orb, and set out to find another sunrise.
Disclaimer: None of this belongs to me. It's all the work of the genius JK Rowling.
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