The Dark Gryffindor

Sheherazade: Thanks for your review


and also my newcomer, thedarklordspet, thanks. Please review again.


Continuation of…


Chapter Eleven: Tears for Fears


After he shut the door, Snape still kept his wand readied, first lighting the candle-filled lamp hanging in the center of the sitting room. He made his way through the house like he was part of a swat team, bursting open a back door with a spell, revealing a view of the back kitchen.

“Clear”, muttered Snape to himself, yet Valerie was close on his heels.

He then turned right and revealed another door, which was, like the kitchen door, concealed perfectly within a bookcase. It really was the ideal house to hide in. Once opened, Snape went running up a narrow staircase, and then turned right, “check that room on the left!” he ordered after Valerie.

Valerie went into one bedroom, and could see nothing but a thick veil of darkness. She had her wand lit already, and she cast it over the place, also whispering, “homenum revelio.”

There was no response from the environment after the casting of her spell, as there was no human presence. She ran back into the hallway, and down to the only other room on the top floor. Snape was in there, and had also found nothing and nobody. He had his black bag like a doctor’s bag out on the bed, and with his wand was sailing a few items of clothing into shelves of a tiny closet.

Valerie smiled a little, at least the bed looked reasonably large, although the covers were of gray tweed.

As she opened her suitcase, she looked up and around the corners, and she spotted a fat, black spider with delicate legs, weaving a web.

She spoke to Snape, with calm humour; “Your home isn’t kept up nicely, is it? There’s a spider. Hope there aren’t bedbugs.”

Valerie bounded forward, swinging her suitcase, planning to crush it with it. She was not the least bit scared of bugs. Wizards and Witches worked with them all the time, like in Transfiguration, one of Valerie’s best subjects.

“Stop!,” said Snape sharply. “Don’t take another step.”

Unnerved, Valerie stopped in her tracks, and turned around wondering what Snape could be so startled by.

“Professor, what on earth?….It’s only a-” she countered nervously, watching him .

“It could be a Muggle-born in hiding. A Muggle-born whose an illegal Animagus. We shall know from this-”, and Snape pointed his wand diabolically at the spider, still spinning a web.

“Avada Kedavra,” said Snape, with a banal, but wretched tone. A jet of green light sailed between Valerie and Snape.

Immediately after hitting it, the spider shriveled up and died in the very web it had spun. It had not transformed into human form, which it would have if it had been an Animagus.

“It was indeed just a spider,” Snape said. Both relieved and finally relaxing, he pocketed his wand and returned to the bag on the bed, to finish the last bit of unpacking.

Valerie nodded in agreement, looking at the little spider in wonder and then back at Snape in greater wonder. How many people had Professor Snape been ordered to kill while serving Lord Voldemort?

Snape was rummaging through his bag again, until he took out something different than clothes.

Valerie suddenly realized, "Sir...What if it had not been a spider? What if you HAD killed it, and it turned out to be an intruder?" She said, "maybe he or she would have proven to be harmless? Wouldn't it have been wrong?"

Snape shook his head. "Don't think I had not contemplated it, Valerie. It wouldn't have been unjustified. This theoretical someone would surely consider me a Death Eater. He might put me into question, and furthermore, if I chose not to kill the person, I would at the least be required to keep them here as prisoner. For themself and for the greater good of all, they are better off dead. Do think you can understand that Valerie?"

Valerie was completely forgetting she needed to unpack. “ Yes!...But sir, don't you enjoy killing with being a Death Eater?”

Snape nearly dropped the thing he had in his hand; it was the back of a small wooden frame, turned down. He made a sudden movement, and Valerie quivered as he surveyed her sharply. He was horrified to see the blue eyes were for once not hard staring, but actually sparkling.

He sneered with exasperation, “Have I not told you my loyalties?" He continued musingly nostalgic, "No. I must NOT have ever enjoyed it. Lack of pleasure in the killings is all that kept me, stopped me from tearing my soul. For it is not actual “murder”, according to the universal laws, governing all magic.”

Snape did not say anything else, but he continued to look at Valerie in disgust, as his veined, fleshy hands held the back of the frame.

“I suppose you wouldn’t teach me how to USE the Killing Curse then?” she complained in a shrill, and being most disappointed, she pouted her full lips.

Snape finally did drop the frame in his hand, and it landed softly on the bed. He came closer to Valerie, walking slow and deliberately, hands at his sides, curled into fists.

A nervous habit of Valerie’s was to talk when someone was getting annoyed with her, so Valerie elaborated, “The class had not even finished with Crucio. But I think they're doing the Killing Curse now on animals. Please, sir? I want to learn to do Avada Kedavra like them... She complimented with a cunning smile, "And of course, you have the greatest knowledge of the Dark Arts.”

Snape made a scoffing sound, and said fiercely, “….If you ever do see someone die, I hope to Merlin you find it not the least bit pleasant, miss!” he retorted, his face inches from hers, trying to get inside her mind.

Valerie looked away, and hung her head a little. “I’m sorry, again. I suppose that it isn’t fun for you….I don’t think I want to see people die. I don’t! But I don’t know… I could kill for your master, sir. If he asked me to. I know I could!”

Valerie did not know what to make of it all, she could not understand who Snape was, and she was still confused about her own place with her headmaster, and then to complicate it further the Dark Lord had actually met her! She stood rooted to the spot, suspended in a dazed feeling at the thought of watching people die and being asked to kill someone.

Snape felt the blood in his veins cool from the anger boiling by her provocative ponderings. He returned to the bed, picking the frame up.

His lip's curled, filled with tender emotion, love, as he moved softly to place the frame next to the rickety night table. It was the very picture of Lily kept on his desk at school, the one ripped down one side.

Her eyes narrowed malevolently, as she watched Snape, his back turned, as he put the keepsake that represented his former lover to the place where he would sleep next to later.

She felt a wild surge of bitterness; she wanted to cry out in protest. But instead she feigned sweetness, “Remember, I said I had a surprise for your birthday, sir? It’s in the kitchen. I mean I’ll have it ready in a few minutes!”

Valerie grabbed two items out of her suitcase, and before Snape saw them, she turned away.

Snape watched the back of her depart. “I shall unpack the rest of your things, Valerie. Is it alright with you?,” he offered, knowingly. He did not want to make her too angry, he knew she probably was jealous.

“I don’t mind at all, sir! My surprise should be ready soon as you’re done!” she gaily and confidently called back from the hallway. Inside she was suppressing her real feelings of jealously of that Lily Evans Potter! She would have to find a way to outdo her and her surprise was hopefully a step in the right direction.

Reviews are appreciated.


Note: Interestingly, I noticed after writing this, how it foreshadows Snape' canon fate. Snape is kind of like the spider, in that Voldemort disposes of him so carelessly. Also, Valerie's reactions here are signficant to her fate in relation to Snape, though that is not foreshadow.

This story is going to be a lot longer than I thought. Close to the length of "The Midsummer Coup" I'm afraid.