Severus sat by the window, watching the soft flakes of snow dance through the frosty air, the garden outside buried beneath a blanket of white. The world outside was still, as if holding its breath. His thoughts wandered to the garden, the small space he had always kept with care—now hidden under the snow’s cold embrace. It was a garden he had nurtured in silence, the only place where he had ever allowed himself to feel something other than guarded. But now, in the quiet of winter, it was as if the garden was waiting for something to stir within him again.

It's new year, his birthday is in some days... He is tired of war, he needs to protect Harry and the students and keep up the fecade.

He feels like if his heart is winter itself. Cold, lifeless, lonely, quiet... Longing for something new to grow up, longing for a warm spring under all that fecade and legilimency. But, of course; He would never admit that.