The clouds overhead had been thick and grey all day, effectively blocking out any attempt of the sun to break through. When he had finally ventured out of the castle after sunset, the wind that teased and touched his cheeks with frigid caresses whispered of snow.
No one bothered him as he made his way to the greenhouses, neither student staying over the holidays nor fellow professor consigned to watch over them. His customary scowl was more forbidding than usual. Things were escalating. Malfoy had been openly defying him since the beginning of the year and Dumbledore –
But he would not think about that, not this evening. For a few hours, he would put his precarious situation out of mind.
The greenhouse was empty at this time of day. He made his silent way past the Mandrakes secure in their pots, the deceptively delicate flowing belladonna, and finally to the back corner. There, set aside by itself was a white vine that grew over a trellis; bluish veins traced through the nearly transparent leaves. Of the several heavy buds, only one was beginning to open. The pearlescent petals of the frostrose peeked out.
With the utmost care, he used a spell to remove the poisonous thorns and place them in a small phial; they were a useful, if prickly, ingredient and at their most potent just before the bloom opened. Then he severed the stem and departed.
By the time Severus Snape reached the courtyard snow had started to fall, dancing on the wind in intricate patterns. The full moon was only just cresting over the Forbidden Forest cast; by midnight, the courtyard would be bathed in its ethereal light.
Twenty-one years. It had been that long since he had found her alone in the courtyard. Snow had also been falling that winter solstice evening and the icy flurries had glittered in her fiery hair like an airy, magical crown.
Twenty-one years since the last time she had smiled at him and made him feel like a tongue-tied fool. She was the only one who had made him feel that way, had stilled his cutting remarks by her mere presence.
As he held his solitary vigil in the cold, Severus allowed his mind to wander in the memories of better times. The snow, falling now more heavily, did not seem to bother him, nor did the increasing cold. He was impervious, lost in retrospection.
Although Lily had perished just over fifteen years before, her memory had not diminished in his mind. The green eyes, almond-shaped and sparkling, the long dark red hair that matched her feisty spirit and the way the skin around her eyes had crinkled when she smiled. Each feature was as achingly familiar as his own.
When had he fallen in love with her? Was it when Slughorn had partnered them in Potions during their third year? They had spent hours together outside of class working on assignments. A Gryffindor and a Slytherin. It had been unheard of.
No, it had been earlier. Magic of a kind not studied at Hogwarts had been wrought the day he first spoke to her on the playground. Long before she had ever met that arrogant git Potter, Severus Snape had fallen in love with Lily Evans.
It was the same magic that had drawn him to this very courtyard that evening. For the first time in twenty-one years, the conditions were the precisely the same. The full moon finally rose above the walls of Hogwarts as it had long ago. The snow, now only a delicate tracing on the wind, once again soften the harsh lines of the walls.
Throughout the school, in the common rooms, individual dorms and in the staff room, clocks softly chimed midnight.
For a moment, the veil between worlds stretched thin until it was merely a pale gossamer curtain that separated the past from the present. Then in the pale moonlight, a mist rose and coalesced into a pair of figures.
A girl with snow in her hair danced. Her translucent face held joy and her smile was infectious. The awkward teenager boy, who held her in his arms and tried not to tread on her toes, returned the smile. That his robes were second-hand or his features not exactly what one would deem handsome did not matter to her. His fingers barely grazed her waist while in his other hand he grasped hers.
They twirled to music of the wind and the soft hissing of the snow falling. Their audience was the moon, a glowing eye in the heavens that did not cast judgment because they were in opposing Houses.
Then she paused, drawing their dance to an abrupt halt. Her lips moved and although no sound was issued, still Severus remembered her words.
"This is the best present I've ever received, Sev."
She rose up on her toes without warning, to kiss his cheek. At the same instant, he moved his head and their lips briefly met.
The blush that had coloured both their faces was not visible on the ghostly images of the past, but Severus still recalled the heat with vividness.
Where Lily had claimed the dance had been the best present, it was the kiss that Severus held dear and cherished even after twenty-one years.
Then the moment passed and the haunting figures dissipated into mist of time once more.
Wrapped in his black robes, Severus Snape walked to the center of the courtyard and cast the frostrose on snow where the figures had stood. On the petals a single teardrop glittered. Slowly it traced a path along an edge before freezing.
Then the Potions master turned and made his lonely way back into Hogwarts and to his desolate chambers in the dungeon.
Perhaps one day they would be united once again … if only in his dreams.