After the last snow had melted, revealing cold and bare earth, asphalt, cobble-stones, pebbles or other street pavement, there would be warmth again. The term changed from winter to spring like every year, delivering everything one associated with this season. Bare, bone-like tree-branches twisting in the wind would be soon covered with fresh leaves, spurting seemingly out of nowhere. Young grass would shoot out of the ground, unmarked and vital. The birds would be twittering their happy songs and wizards and witches would cover their eyes smiling from the first sight of the brilliantly coloured plants. Bright green would flash in the new-found sunrays, teasing, flirting.

Spring always stood for a new beginning, a new energy, a new love. And spring always began with new life, with life-bringing green. Spring and green and life were as inseparable as Harry Potter and Voldemort and death. Unconsciously or not, everybody connected the words with each other, they belonged to each other. Only if life itself ended would spring stop being green. And only death could part Harry Potter from Voldemort. It was like some twisted kind of marriage, with Potter being the bride and being tied to Voldemort by his scar. Maybe unwilling slave would be a better term, though.

Avada Kedavra was an open mocking, pure blasphemy in itself. The green lightning curse brought one's downfall. Corrupted green colour, standing for death instead of life. And yellow envied it. Paradox, indeed.

Harry's breath hitched, his heart-beat sped up, while everything around him seemed to slow down, unnaturally. For the second time in his life, the green curse came spiralling towards him, for the first time he actually saw and understood the meaning behind it. The vortex was too slow, far too slow, Harry could tell, but it seemed so right. Why should it be fast? Only a few meters were between the Boy-Who-Wouldn't-Live-Much-Longer and the Avada Kedavra, but it seemed as if everything lay amidst this distance. His life, his hope, his everything. But unfortunately not his wand.

"The Dark Lord will be very pleased, indeed," a cold voice said. "Wouldn't you agree?"

Harry strained his ears, he had difficulty hearing with all the buzzing and the heavy pressure coming from all directions, trying to squeeze his head to a bloody pulp. Or was it just his imagination? Psychosomatically inflicted pre-death experiences?

"Our dear celebrity vanished under uncanny circumstances," the silky voice of Hogwarts' Potions Master went on. "Can't you just see the headline in the Daily Prophet, Potter? Oh, no, you can't see the headline with all the Killing Curse in your line of view." Severus chuckled, darkly.

"I should have guessed," Harry grit out slowly, as if he were under a trance, the kaleidoscope drawing closer, "that you'd enjoyed every second of it. And you do, don't you?"

Too slow, too green, it was as if Harry looked into a mirror. His own eyes showing him the inevitably future. Divination for beginners. How ironic. Irony was definitely nothing Harry Potter was too fond of, nor too keen on, whatever.

"Why shan't I?" Snape snapped, angrily. His eyes narrowed at the still paralysed boy who'd soon be history, if he hadn't been for all of his short life anyway. "The last seconds of famous Harry Potter," he spat, disgusted, "are something oh so very precious to me that it would be a felony not to thrive on every moment of it. Thriving, indeed, as this moment shall be burned into my memory forever, more life-bringing than divine ambrosia itself."

"You are sick," Harry said, tiredly, closing his eyes briefly. "I always knew it, but the extent is somewhat unsettling. Even for me, who I have seen far more than-"

"Not more than me, boy," Severus cut him off, infamous silk-covered steel in his voice. "Don't presume you have seen more than me or I'd be forced to take off 20 points from Gryffindor for your impertinence." He frowned, pseudo-thoughtfully. "It wouldn't matter anyway, now would it?"

Harry ignored the words and instead opted for bracing himself for the impact of the curse as it came in touching range, if he could have moved his arms, that was. Crucio was a painful curse, no doubt about that. But how would Avada Kedavra feel like? Would it be quick and painless? Most likely not. Would it be as painful as the Cruciatus Curse, maybe even worse? Possibly. Probably. Almost certainly. Oh well. Oh joy.

"Don't despair, Potter," Snape's voice reached his ears only instants before the curse hit home. "We shall soon meet again."