Hearts are Blind (Severus Snape X OC)

Jasper's Bound

They didn't speak again. As the days passed, Lucinda fully realized that it was the end. It was time for her to continue on with her life and to stop letting this small bit of hope hold her back and keep her from her dreams. Her time at Hogwarts was supposed to be precious to her and enjoyable. Tristin was back to normal—so normal, that she could hardly remember him being any different. It was as if the events over Christmas break never happened. The only difference now was her friendship with Aurora... They still hadn't reconciled; mostly now, because Rorie was beyond done with her. Weeks had passed. They never spoke. It became routine. Life was quiet, dull and regular. She hadn't spoken to any of her other friends, either. Once some days had passed, Lucinda didn't have the will to try and talk to anyone else. She felt numb... So, she threw herself into her work, instead.

Every potions lesson was spent with her bent over her notes. She'd slowly begun to practice with ingredients, but there was never enough time during each period to work on it as much as she wanted to. Admittedly, she might have been getting a little obsessed with the elixir, but it was easy to do. It gave her joy. It was the only thing that gave her joy, anymore... besides Tristin. He was actually being very kind to her. It was a nice change. He no longer made it a point to pick her up from her classes and he wasn't overbearing. He talked to her gently, made jokes and laughed with her. He kissed her tenderly and threw out his arm to steady her when she stumbled sometimes in the hall or while they walked on the Castle grounds. He was back to the perfect and charming boy that he used to be... and this time she didn't question it. However, she didn't really acknowledge it, either.

She concentrated harder on her potions.

Snape had not spoken to her outside of a comment here and there while she worked in class. Sometimes he would ask her a more in-depth question about her potion, but then again, he did that to many of the students in the class. Things were normal... so Lucinda had no problem asking her professor if she could use the Potions classroom in her spare time. He only went so far as to ask what it was for and when she said it was to progress her Everlasting Elixir, he let her. He didn't question further. Class would end and she would stay and he would usually leave. Then he would come back after she left to lock up the classroom. Sometimes he would stay because he was working on the next day's lessons or grading papers, but he rarely spoke. Once in a while, Lucinda would ask his opinion on a particular factor of her potion that she was stumped on and he would answer, albeit he would do it in a very short manner and usually with no real engagement at all. It no longer bothered her. She accepted it. She moved on. And the days moved on...

There was another Hogsmeade weekend coming up and Lucinda was thankful for it, because she needed to replenish many of her ingredients. Most importantly, she needed to get more powdered moonstone. She'd been using so much of it, because it was the main ingredient in her elixir (as was the case in most Everlasting Elixirs). She didn't use as much of her other ingredients for obvious reasons: one, she wasn't sure yet if the item was pertinent in making the potion work, and two, the potion would fail before she had a chance to add anything else. In all honesty, she probably could have gotten away with using the potions classroom supply of powdered moonstone, but she felt bad. She had seriously used a lot of it and that stuff wasn't cheap. She didn't want to use up professor Snape's supply and force him to go buy more... so she planned to go and get her own.

"You're not going to Hogsmeade with me?" Lucinda questioned her boyfriend the day they were supposed to be walking over. It was the beginning of February and winter was on its last—but strongest—leg. Lucinda was standing in the entrance hall, adjusting the ear flaps on her wool hat, when Tristin walked up behind her and squeezed her around the middle. She didn't flinch. She knew it was him.

"Nah," Tristin answered her with a shrug. "I haven't been feeling well. I was awake all night hacking up a lung, honestly."

"That's not good." Lucinda frowned, pulling her gloves on. "Go and get some rest. I'll pick you up some soup from the pub."