Hearts are Blind (Severus Snape X OC)

New Year's Eve is Coming

"I thought you'd never call me..."

There still wasn't any snow. It was strange. Lucinda couldn't remember the last Christmas she had with no snow. Hell, it hadn't even snowed once yet. It was cold and windy; the clouds were steely and dark, but not one fleck of the white stuff had shown itself. It was a pity, really... because she had been looking forward to at least that one thing to cheer her up. After everything that happened a few days prior to her moment in the kitchen with the telephone under her chin, she needed something to cheer her up.

"I've been kind of... distracted."

"Well, that's evident," the girl on the other end of the line spoke with a scoff, "but your mother won't tell me anything. I've called every day for the past four days. I never got to say goodbye to you before we left..."

"I know, Lina. I'm sorry."

"Well? WELL?"

"Well, what?" Lucinda mumbled dejectedly and stared out of the window above the sink; the telephone cord stretched across the room behind her. "My mom hasn't told you anything, because I haven't told her anything, either."

"Nothing? Nothing at all?"

"Well, all I told her was that professor Snape was my friend and now he's not."

"What?"

"Lina, I don't want to talk about this. Especially over the phone."

"Well, jeeze, if I decided to write snail mail to you, like the rest of the wizarding world, I would've had to wait even longer! Come on, just give me something."

Lucinda glanced behind her and then peeked her head down the hall outside the kitchen. "Okay, look," she said a little softer into the receiver. "I don't know what to believe anymore. He came here saying how he was sorry and all this other crap and that he was going to cut off all friendship and whatnot with me—"

"Bastard!"

"—but then he suddenly turned into this raging lunatic and told me the complete opposite; about how he basically only wanted me for... for, like, my body or something."

"What?!"

"Please don't say anything," she said nervously and glanced down the hall again. "I'm still trying to wrap my head around this. I don't believe him. I can't. There's just no way. He's... He's just not like that. I don't know why he..."

"You sure he wasn't just messing around?"

"You didn't see his face, Lina," Lucinda said seriously. "Even though he would never say those things to me, he was so convincing. I-I feel like he really is this lecherous man who just wants to... touch me or something."

"But he's just a boy."

The line went silent. "What?" Lucinda said in a slightly offhand voice. Something was prickling at the back of her neck at her cousin's words.

"He's not a man, Lucy. He's a boy. He's only twenty-two. I mean, I know you're used to this mature man or whatever, but don't forget how young he is. He may not have experience with this kind of thing."

"Well, I-I know that, but he... he still acted completely inappropriately with me—"

"I know," Lina said matter-of-factly, "but guys are horndogs."

"You know that isn't an excuse."

"I know," Lina echoed, "but I don't know anything about this guy. I only saw him for a second. And I can understand why you would get blindsided by his sophistication and all that jazz, because he's got that air about him—even I could tell that right away—but the way a man really is, is usually buried way deep down."