Severus Snape opens his eyes after a long nap. He is lying on the green grass somewhere between Hogwarts and a dream. He stares at the blue sky that extends into infinity; not a single cloud in sight.
He looks down to his right hand and sees her hand holding his. Severus turns around and looks at her. She is truly beautiful as she stares in awe at the firmament above them; her hair the color of fire glowing in the darkest of nights, her eyes like the ocean after a storm. Severus had never seen the ocean but he had read about it in books and poems and deemed the comparison to Lily's eyes appropriate. Her freckles seemed like stars that glistened upon her ivory skin and her teeth were white pearls against blood red lips. Everything about her seemed to sparkle and come alive when she smiled; so tender, so innocent.
Lily turns to him in one swift motion and smiles when her eyes meet his. Severus grins back, feeling his heart pounding like a hundred horses galloping in unison across a meadow. They hold each other's stare; a secret game they used to play when they were younger. The seconds seemed like hours to Severus when staring into her deep blue eyes. She is the first to break the embrace they managed to hold with a single gaze; a look that could send Severus straight into oblivion.
They stand up at the same time and hug each other. Severus whispers softly into her ear, "Would you like to dance?" and she replies with a giggle. He takes her in his arms, holds her tight and starts shuffling his feet awkwardly across the grass beneath them. She follows his lead much more gracefully. They danced to a song that only they knew, the song that played inside their minds when they were together. They twirled and swirled across the meadow; dandelion petals floating around them and the leaves of the trees beside them frisking to the rhythm of their song.
Not until the sun goes over the snow-covered heights of the mountains and the stars come to life after a long day of somnolence do the two friends stop their dance; exhausted yet eager to end the day with the same passion they started it. They lie on the grass, which is now humid from the droplets of rain that usually come with the dusk on warm summer days.
They look at the stars, trying to decipher the shapes they make when connected to one another. Lily sees a unicorn and Severus only manages to perceive something that looks like a cauldron. Lily smiles at Severus and that is when he knows he is in love. He leans forward, so close that their noses are about to touch. He wants to kiss her more than anything in the world; he wants to be with her always.
Snape wakes up from a vivid dream. He is in his bed at the professor's dorm at Hogwarts. He had said always, yet destiny had had other plans for him. A single tear slips from his eye and runs down his face before he can stop it.
