Longing
A/N: my second response to the Mirror of Erised Challenge.
"Greater men than I have been unable to tear themselves from this place."
He sat, staring at the picture this mirror presented to him. A slow, cold smile spread over the lips of his reflection. Inside the mirror, the man pulled up the black sleeve and showed a pale, unblemished left arm.
Always. Always this. What dreams it showed the world.
He stared at his bare forearm, marred by the burning black mark that had taken his life. His worth. Everything.
He wept. For the first time since his childhood, Severus Snape wept.
And in the mirror his reflection laughed.