A Light in the Dark (Severus Snape x OC)

Chapter 4: The Yule Ball

The Yule Ball quickly approached. Laura stood in her chambers, staring in the mirror. She hated wearing fancy dresses, but she did like this one, and she felt like she had to dress up a little more since she didn't really dress like the rest of the teachers at Hogwarts. It was a long, deep green dress with thin straps. She added a mini black jacket over it, and she kept her purple and silver pendant on, resting against her chest. She rolled the left sleeve of her jacket up and saw a long scar running along her arm. She cringed and pulled the sleeve down. She slid her heels on and headed to the great hall.

Setting up for the ball was relatively easy for witches and wizards. Laura walked into the hall and helped Minerva finish setting a few things up. Laura looked around the room. The great hall had turned into a winter wonderland and Laura had never seen anything quite like it. Laura began talking to Madame Maxime and Hagrid as they waited for the ball to start. Severus walked in, looking around at everyone. His heart nearly stopped when he saw Laura standing there. He had never seen her in a dress, but thought she looked beautiful. Severus didn't realize he was staring until he looked at Laura's face and saw that she was looking right at him. She smiled softly at him before looking back at Hagrid.

Severus averted his gaze quickly, wondering if he was making Laura uncomfortable.

"I was wondering how long you were planning on staring at her." Severus turned his head and saw Dumbledore standing next to him, a wide smirk on his face. Severus didn't say a word as he slowly walked away to stand next to Minerva.

More and more students entered the great hall. Along with the dance, there was also the traditional feast. To kick things off, the Triwizard Champions were the first to dance and soon after, more students and teachers joined in. Severus almost wanted to ask Laura to dance but was afraid of what the students and staff would think if anyone saw them dancing together. Everyone would have been surprised that there was someone Severus liked enough to dance with.

Once the first dance was over, there was eating, followed by more dancing. After Dumbledore danced with Minerva, he danced with Laura. Severus watched them for a moment, noticing that they were talking and laughing as they did. Severus liked seeing Laura smile and was even more tempted to ask Laura to dance since she had danced with Dumbledore, but he worried Laura would reject him.

A wizard rock band joined the festivities, which many of the students went crazy for. Severus ended up leaving the dance on a hunt to look for students misbehaving and ran into Igor Karkaroff. Severus and Igor got into an argument about their death eater tattoos. The tattoos were getting darker and moving more, which was causing Igor to panic. Severus played it off and pretended it was nothing, but once Karkaroff left, Severus began to worry. He knew something was coming; he just didn't know what.

Laura was sitting in a chair by the window in the Great Hall before she decided to head out. She wasn't required to stay, and she found the perfect time to leave. She left the hall and headed to her chambers. She walked slowly and made it about halfway there before feeling a stinging pain on the back of her foot, finding that her shoe had cut her.

"Dammit." Laura sighed as she pulled her shoes off and started walking again, feeling the icy chill of the cold stone floor against the bottoms of her feet.

"Walking barefoot?" A deep voice rang out behind her.

Laura turned to find Severus standing there, with an odd look on his face.

"Beauty is pain, I guess," she said as she held up her cut foot. "It's not bad. It's not like it's dripping blood or anything." She turned back around and started walking. Severus scurried to catch up with her.

"Wait." He stopped her and pulled a small handkerchief out of his pocket and got down on one knee.

"What're you doing?" she asked.