Hearts are Blind (Severus Snape X OC)

Thought You Ought To Know

A/N: Thank you for your continued support. Life is hard. Love you all.

~

On a small hill, down the lane from Warwickshire, half a mile off from the river, there was a little cemetery that overlooked a wheat field. When the wheat wasn't up, the land stretched on in hues of green and blue. The sunsets were a kaleidoscope of colors and the nights were cool, even in the summertime. The air smelled of honeysuckle and lavender. The light pollution from the city didn't quite make it out that far, so the stars were especially bright and clear on a cloudless, moonless night.

A boy sat under a towering aspen tree that resided at the very top of the hill. He rested his head back against the trunk, eyes closed peacefully, and listened to the crickets and the katydids calling in the dusky light of early evening. The headstones in this cemetery were on the older, more ancient side. It was a primarily "magics only" plot of land, where witches and wizards buried their dead. The boy's ancestors were there, as most of them were of magic descent, but there were a few muggles buried among them, as well. It wasn't unheard of to have close relatives that were muggles and then, in turn, request to have them added to the family plot once they perished. Few had a problem with muggles being buried there. There was no reason to refuse such a humble request...

But the boy's parents were not buried there.

Though they were muggles, that wasn't the reason for their absence. This particular boy's parentage was a complicated and painful one. His father had passed first and it was his mother's wish to lay him to rest in his own family's plot (as his father came from a long line of nothing but non-magic individuals). His mother then passed the year after and, although he was sure she would have requested it anyway, he lay her to rest next to his father. Their headstones gleamed beneath the streetlights of a small, faceless town that he'd only ever visited once in his life. He didn't return there to visit their cemetery. He came to the one on the hill.

The one in the swaying wheat and the lavender musk.

He sat beneath the aspen tree and felt his loved ones surrounding him. His parents' bodies weren't there, but that didn't matter. Their souls had long left this world and he imagined that, wherever they were, they were happy together. He thought that perhaps his mother was probably the happiest now that she no longer felt the inadequacy of her life. She was free from the burdens on her heart... And that gave him some comfort.

"Xavier..."

The boy's green eyes opened promptly and looked upon a pair of inquiring blue ones. The small woman stood just below him, further down the slope. She held a suitcase in one hand and a knitted hat in the other.

"It's almost dark, Xavier," she said. "It's going to open up soon."

"Oh, Pom-Pom," Xavier Michael sighed in careless wonder. "Don't you think it's better that I don't bother going back?"

"You most certainly will go back, Mr. Michael." Madam Pomfrey took on an appalled, stern edge. "You have two years left."

"Technically, I could leave this year—"

"Absolutely not—"

"As soon as I turn seventeen—"

"And what will you do then, hm?" The woman raised her eyebrows condescendingly. "Drift along with no purpose?"

"You cut me, Pom-Pom." Xavier put a fist to his chest. "You cut me deep."

"What about your friends?" Pomfrey adjusted her grip on the suitcase, ignoring the boy's complaints. Over the last year and summer months, she'd become increasingly accustomed to his antics. He was rarely ever serious. "Don't you want to spend your last years with them?"