Hearts are Blind (Severus Snape X OC)

Goodbye Severus

Author's Note:
I originally wrote this chapter a few years ago when Alan Rickman passed away. The following is an author's note that accompanied that chapter...

The dreaded day has come. It is a day I knew was to eventually arrive, but I did not think it would be here so soon. Alan Rickman has passed away. I don't think I need to explain to you how deeply this has destroyed me. I'm finding it difficult to come back to this story, but, alas I came back and finished the chapter I had been working on. If you are reading this fanfic, then I can assume that you are also a fan of Alan's work and are sharing in my misery. Words cannot even describe the despair I feel as I wake each morning to remember that he is gone from this world. I can't change it. I can't go back. I can't do anything except carry on, as that is all anyone can do. I didn't know him and I think what hurts the most is now I will never know him. I will never meet him just once, as I had hoped someday I might. Once again, though, we cannot go back in time. There is no use living with regrets that were out of your control. We can only remember him and honor him with wonderful stories. I have no doubt that he probably would have laughed at this fanfic, rather than enjoyed it, but it's the best I can do, you know? All I can do is keep writing this story and hope there are readers out there who enjoy it and feel closer to Alan Rickman as they read it, even though my portrayal of him is my own and not exactly as he was in the books or the movies. I hope somewhere up there, Alan has wifi access and can see this. Either that or just please hear my thoughts and prayers, along with everyone else who is down here grieving over you. I doubt the pain will ever fully go away...

Anyway, allow me to somehow move on and discuss the chapter. After doing some research, I found out that it is insinuated that kids usually get their Hogwarts acceptance letter around their eleventh birthday. Here I was thinking that everyone got them the summer before they were supposed to go. So, for the story's sake, let's not focus too much on that detail. Lucinda's birthday is sometime in March and the fight with her mother in Cokeworth takes place somewhere in June. This is vital information and cannot be changed. Enjoy this chapter and the ones that will follow, because I will never let go of this story.

Goodbye Severus

There was nowhere for him to go; nowhere for him to escape. He couldn't keep bothering the only friend he had. He felt like a burden on her anyway. She smiled and laughed as he spoke, but he knew she was a friend and nothing more. Lately, she'd been spending more and more time with that piece of shit Potter, as well. It really didn't even make sense. James was so full of himself. He was deliberately nasty to Lily and what did the girl go and do? She befriended him! She took all of his teasing and arrogance and flashy personality and just accepted it! There was a bitterly savage part of him that knew she was only that way, because the two of them were both Gryffindors. They stuck together like some segregated, oh-holier-than-thou. Those smug bastards walked around like they were rulers of the school. They looked down on the Slytherins. All of them did. Well... all of them except Lily. Lily was kind and sweet to the core and it was only a matter of time before Severus messed it up... Perhaps he already had.

The sixteen year old boy kicked at the dirt beneath his feet and trudged on, wishing with all his might he was allowed to do magic at home. He wanted to set the surrounding buildings on fire. There was no one in them anyway. He didn't necessarily want to hurt anyone; he just wanted to destroy something. He wanted to walk beneath the murky water that flowed to his left, down in the disgusting river. For a moment, he even thought seriously about it. It was below him, through the brush and the trash. Severus decided to walk down to the water's edge. Maybe he would make his decision once he was down there, staring at his hideous reflection in the brown water.

He was halfway down the slope, when there was a loud POP. It crackled through the air and he knew the sound well. It was someone apparating. That meant they were not a muggle. Severus couldn't help but feel an excitement stir in his stomach. Lily was the only other non-muggle in that town (that he'd noticed, anyway). They didn't know how to apparate yet (or, more so, they weren't supposed to know how to apparate yet), so he also knew that this person was not Lily. It was a whole new magical person, there, in Cokeworth (in the dirtiest neighborhood, no less) and he wanted to see them. He instantly wanted to know why anyone else would come to such a mundane place if they had mystic blood running through them.