Hearts are Blind (Severus Snape X OC)

The Turning Point

He was only inches from her. When Lucinda opened her eyes and lowered her head back down, she was met with the gaze of her professor. She didn't think she'd see him again until school started back up. She had planned to have herself ready for the encounter. She was relying on those last few days to breathe deeply and think logically and to forget him. She was going to concentrate on her own well-being, not to mention get Clover in a better mood. All of that was flying out the window now. Days had passed (five, to be exact) since the embarrassing scene in her bedroom, but she wasn't ready for this. She'd only just come downstairs the night before to have dinner with her parents and then she went back to her room again. When the Borealis family arrived the next day (THIS day), it was the first time she'd let her parents see her smile. She was letting the thoughts sink in and then dissipate... Now it was all shit.

"What are you doing here?" She asked and she was pleased to hear that her voice did not sound timid, nervous or anything of the like. She thankfully sounded offended that he'd show his face at her home again.

"Miss Morgan," he began, but then stopped. Thankfully, she hadn't noticed the slip of the word that started with an "L" and ended with an "A". She was looking at him quite ghastly, actually—which was perfectly fine, as long as she wasn't crying or starving herself... "Miss Morgan," he began again and straightened his posture, while the girl took a step back from him. "For your information, I was in—" he was going to say "invited", but in the last second he thought better of it. Maybe it wasn't such a good idea to say that her mother (once again, of all people) had asked him to come; told him to come, really.

"You were what." Lucinda spat and took another two steps back. The heels of her feet were nearly to the bottom steps of the porch.

Snape recovered quickly, "I was in the neighborhood."

She simply stared at him.

Okay so that wasn't the best cover. In fact, the girl looked perhaps even more stricken. This was not going well... He was supposed to fix things. Why he even bothered, he couldn't figure out.

"I don't care if you were in the neighborhood," Lucinda ground out and took another step back, her foot grazing the first step. "I told you to leave and never come back and here you are!"

"I have a very good reason for coming back—"

"You're a bloody liar and I won't hear another word you have to say!" She yelled and stepped once more away from him, but of course there was nowhere further for her to go and she tripped backwards. "Ah!"

"Lucinda—!"

She was nearly thrown back all of the way, but Snape reached out to grab her. His hands wrapped around her wrists and held her upper body suspended an inch above the steps. Regrettably, Lucinda didn't see it as him trying to help her. He stared down into her face that was beyond livid and his own looked back at her in an "oh shit" stance. There was no way around it, though. Lucinda's face dropped to a glower and then her knee came up without warning, crushing whatever resided between the man's legs. His hands squeezed a little tighter to her wrists involuntarily, his eyes bugged out of his head, his mouth dropped open and she saw him shudder. Then he released her and fell back into the fresh snow. He curled unto himself and Lucinda heard the unmistakable, "Oh ffffuuucckkk..."

Lucinda didn't move for a moment; she just watched the man shiver quietly on the ground as the snow continued to fall on top of him. His black hair covered all of his face except for the bottom of his jaw. She could see his teeth clenched and she listened to him hiss a breath out every few seconds. As much as it should have made her feel some ounce of sympathy for him, her loathing of the man clouded the rest of her judgment. She wasn't sorry one bit. In fact, she couldn't help voicing that thought right to him.