Hearts are Blind (Severus Snape X OC)

Pensieve

It was the first moment he'd gotten her alone...

Severus had spent the last week trying several times to speak with her, but she always left his class early or wandered off out of the Great Hall with Samael Scum during meals before he had a chance to. If it was under any other circumstance, he would have stopped it immediately. Hell, even if it was just him who would've caught hell over someone finding out about them, he would have intervened... but he didn't want anything happening to her. That's what made the situation so frustrating: if that vile Slytherin Prefect opened his mouth and told anyone what he saw on New Year's Eve, Lucinda would be the one having to pay the price. Snape could handle it. He'd been through much worse, but Lucinda... Lucinda would not survive it. So, when she left his class those few times, he did nothing. He watched the disgusting way the boy put his arm around her shoulders every chance he got and he didn't say a word. But now he could... Now they were alone.

He was more than surprised to see her in his classroom, especially during a free period, much less to find her working on a potion. He briefly wondered if she was trying to make up the ones that she'd ruined because of her sudden disappearances, but he quickly realized that was not it. He glanced at the table behind her, as she bent over the sink, rinsing it. The ingredients were unmistakably for her experimental potion. He recognized the pennyroyal and the bottle of Kudu sap. This also led him to wonder if she'd tried to use it yet and at what effect it had, had on the concoction... Realizing she was alone, at last, and that it might not be for long, Severus quickly walked up behind her while the running water masked his footsteps.

The events that transpired afterward were not exactly how he thought their first meeting alone would go...

He startled her, she hit her head and then he touched her again for the first time since New Year's Day. Everything came flooding back as he gripped her shoulders, trying to keep her steady as she swayed. She tried to leave quickly. He stopped her. He yelled, no longer able to pretend none of this bothered him. He had to know why—why she was still going to be with that insolent boy. And she might have told him. He might have heard the truth, the real truth from her in the next moment, had it not been for the crash.

They were sheltered under his desk and everything had gone quiet again.

"Are you alright?" He asked her, briefly searching her face, checking for cuts or bruises of any kind, even though he knew he'd thrown himself over her before anything could have possibly hit her. Honestly, nothing seemed to fall, except maybe a few bits of dust and plaster from the ceiling.

Lucinda stared at him with wide eyes. "I'm fine... Was that an earthquake?"

He would have been pleased that she was actually looking at him and speaking to him, but right now they had more important things to worry about. "No," he replied and stared out from beneath the desk. "I don't know what that was..."

Lucinda started to get out from her crouched position first, but Snape held his arm out across the opening to stop her.

"Wait." He said.

Lucinda looked at him sideways. "What if it happens again?"

"That is precisely why I don't want you to move yet," he said quietly and dropped his arm back down. There wasn't a look he couldn't decipher at this distance. They were too close together. Their shins touched as they sat with their legs pulled up, knees under their chins, facing each other. Lucinda continued to hesitate and Snape saw the weary look on her delicate features, as she stared just to the left of him. It wasn't because of the crash from above... it was because she didn't want to be near him. He could see it in that bit of hesitation and the anxiety in her eyes. "You're not that great of an actress, are you?" He suddenly asked aloud the question that he'd only thought to himself.