𝐒𝐀𝐂𝐑𝐈𝐅𝐈𝐂𝐄 || Severus Snape x OC ||

20. CRUMBLING WALLS & PETALS RED

*.·:·.☽ ✧ ☾.·:·.*

The wind of the Forest howled around her as she remained hidden in his arms. His cloak draped over and around her, bathing her in his darkness, his warmth, and his scent. A fierce yet gentle strength with which he held her. Her eyes shut, her hands snaked around him, holding on to his frock coat, as the world stopped by his embrace. His rigid back softened beneath her still shaky hands. She pressed her face into his chest, his heart beating against her cheek with assuring rhythm, her lungs taking in the air as she felt her whole body ease, and an invisible force within her chest sought for his own. As if bound by a spell, an invisible thread that connected his chest to hers, she felt that in that moment, in those few seconds frozen in time, she was in the one place she had always belonged. The one place her heart ached to call home.

Beat...beat...beat... His heart a lullaby. Strong, disciplined, but holding deep within so much more than he'd ever let show.

How fast she was falling, how daintily she was surrendering to the waves of his ocean, how deeply, softly, deftly his embrace soothed her. How the rhythm of his breathing, of his heart held her still, how his nearness opened up her heart letting her soul unwind in his darkness which she knew she could never fight, nor ever resist.

Severus seemed to fight with himself each day. Each moment. The hardened surface contradicting a warmer, kinder side that few could glance upon. And, as she remained hidden in his embrace, her mind didn't venture to seek the answers to why he'd lowered down his walls to comfort her. Why he had reached out to her, holding her in his arms when all she had seen of him for a whole year was his colder, untouchable façade. It seemed enough that he had. That his arms were around her. Her heartbeat against his own.

Alice was a young woman, but her heart was still that of a child's. Pure and ignorant and unspoiled. Each action, each thought, was driven by her heart, her emotions. Sharp as her mind might have been, enough to grasp the rules of a world parallel to the one she knew all her life, still it never ruled her actions as did the man whose arms had come around her, pulling her out of the bleakness of her fears. She never had Severus's disciplined mind, nor had she the reins he had kept so tightly pulled on his own emotions.

But it was that deeply pure, unharnessed heart that kept beating for him. That raw, unobstructed river of feelings that opened up for him, sensing him, feeling the fragments and splinters of a man who pained deeply, a man who fought with himself more often than not; fought with the shadows of his past and the gathering clouds of his future.

Her chest heaved as her body turned weaker against his. He pulled back his hands, and, as he did, Alice felt the cold of the wind where his arms once were. She tilted up her face, lifting her gaze to find his. And there he was... The stoic, regal countenance fit for the emperors of the past, glancing down at her. Feathered ebony tresses curtained his harsh lines. His thin lips. Those same lips that not so far back had sealed hers with his kiss, a second before he had invaded her mind, spilling her deepest secrets before him.

Those lips were now so close, so near once more, and she could almost taste him, she could almost breathe in his air whilst his chest rose slowly against hers and his large hand came to her neck and jawbone, pulling her closer, heating her blood. Harsh and warm, and gentle. Her breath hitched in her throat as he leaned in closer, and his forehead met hers. His hooked nose grazing her own, the warmth of his breath heating her lips, so close, so near. A whisper away from his kiss. Her body yielded to his touch, tilting her neck to let him take her lips to his, and her fragile hand snaked up his chest to his shoulder and the collar of his coat. Her half-closed eyes got a glimpse of his expression as the stoic man's face turned pained as if he fought with himself against his growing desire to taste her lips again.