The Dark Gryffindor

Note: After the scene below we revert back to the nastier side of this tale (meaning less of this romance). But Severus and Valerie are in love and the sadness in Snape’s and Valerie’s past is perpetually present throughout.


I hope everyone is still enjoying this story! I know I am!


Continuation of….


Chapter Fifteen: My Immortal


Sunday was drawing to a close. Snape and Valerie apparated into the center of a snowy village. They saw a group of muggles departing a little church, the day’s religious services over. Further down they could see several shops, a post office and a pub. The lights of the first stars glimmered feebly above the entire scene.

Snape raised his wand and placed a disillusionment charm over himself, so he instantly disappeared. Valerie looked around in confusion, but suddenly she felt a cool trickling sensation. He had placed a disillusionment charm over her as well.

“What? Why? Come on, nobody is going to be here,” Valerie ranted and rallied almost at once.

“It is certainly a necessary precaution. And you will keep the fact you visited Godric’s Hollow away from the Dark Lord as best you can. As well as anyone else through your Occlumency….Understood?”

“Yes, sir,” said Valerie obediently. She slipped her mittened hand in the dragon-skin black glove of his hand and they walked onward. Even though unseen by each other, they could still feel everything.

They crossed the lane of the small-squared street, their feet trotting on dirty worn-out snow. Hand-in-hand they continued and in the others hands’ they held their luggage.

Valerie asked with a hint of awe evident, which she tried to conceal in case it offended the proud Slytherin, “This place is Godric’s Hollow, headmaster?…Does that refer to Godric Gryffindor, the founder himself?”

“Yes, him. See that Valerie?”

“Yes, sir. It looks like a war memorial,” she replied.

“Well, you’ll see what it really is when we get a few steps closer.” Snape hurried Valerie along, holding her wrist.

As they approached it, coming closer it transformed before their eyes from an obelisk covered in names to a statue of James, Lily, and the infant Harry. Snow was on the statue with patches of ice.

Snape went onward immediately passing it, and they crossed a road. Valerie saw from a distance the statue had turned back into a war memorial.

They veered off a shoveled lane into untouched snowdrifts instead of following the lane to the church’s front door. Despite being invisible there was still prints from their footsteps for the disillusionment charm cannot stop them from being solid. They headed to the side of the church, going past stain-glass windows glowing in the last light before dusk. But otherwise the church was completely unlit, empty of any people.

They came to a kissing gate. Snape opened it carefully without using magic, and it made a creaking sound. They stepped inside the wide expanse of a graveyard. About half of the field was filled with rows of headstones protruding, blankets of snow covering the tops.

Snape knew right where he was going as he had visited multiple times before. He had his wand out, plowing a path through the snow with Valerie walking close at his side. It took a little while as they ventured far into the graveyard. Once they were done, Snape decided to lift the invisibility spells, nobody would be able to make out who they were from such a distance in the failing light.

They were standing in front of a gray headstone with overgrown green moss bordering the words:

EILEEN PRINCE SNAPE
BORN 14 FEBRUARY 1927
DIED 3 JULY 1978

Valerie watched Snape’s reaction. He looked like he was feeling strong, yet there was a deep frown as he stared below at his mother’s grave.

After a respectful silence, Valerie interrupted gently, “She was fifty-one. How did Eileen die? Isn’t that young for a witch?” For she was referring to the fact that wizards and witches on average live at least two decades longer than muggles.

Snape responded just explaining matter-of-factly, “She was terminally ill. Not a muggle illness – something contracted – or it was something she did before I was born - in her youth. As far as I know, it was hard for her to get pregnant…. I don’t know what it was, she never told us what made her so…. Weak.”

There was no fellow Princes to accompany Eileen nor was there her muggle husband, Tobias beside her.

Snape sighed with misery and continued in a detached defeated voice, “And so Eileen – my mother died, just after I had gotten the Dark Mark. I was eighteen. Days later – I found Tobias – my father,” and now Snape was clenching his teeth, and he spoke gritting them, “He – my father – I killed in revenge. It was my first Killing Curse…” and he turned his head rapidly towards Valerie, “I’m not proud of it, Valerie. I’m not proud I’ve become a murderer even though Tobias deserved it, after all he did to my mother!”

With resolve Snape turned his back on Valerie. Snape was shaking as he knelt over the grave. With his wand he conjured flowers. A bouquet of purple tulips. He stuck the stems into the white snow so that it looked like the tulips were planted into it.

Valerie could just make out Snape’s whispers, barely audible, “Good-bye for now, mother. 'Till we meet again.” He certainly felt his time was near but nevertheless, he resisted adding for Valerie's sake, "soon."

He lingered and then finally rose, without looking at Valerie, “Let us go on,” he said plaintively. Valerie followed him to another location just a few rows away from Eileen’s plot.

They stopped before another Pure-blood surname, though this time unrelated to Snape directly. The headstone was larger than Eileen’s and frozen, made of lichen-spotted granite. The words read: ‘KENDRA DUMBLEDORE,’ and a short way below her dates of birth and death, and there was also written, ‘AND HER DAUGHTER ARIANA’ with her dates as well.

Snape did not look nearly as sorrowful as he had before his mother’s grave.

Valerie asked curiously, “Did Dumbledore – er Professor Dumbledore live in Godric’s Hollow sir?”

“Indeed true. As a boy. These are the graves of his mother and sister.”

Snape did not kneel before the grave like he had with his mother’s. However he did stoop over the site and conjure them flowers. A pair of bouquets of bright yellow daisies appeared in the ground in front of the quotation, ‘Where your treasure is, their will your heart be also.’

Snape did not hesitate, but stole determinedly onward. Valerie was sure where he was going next but she did not dare ponder it aloud. Only two rows behind Dumbledore’s family was a big headstone of white marble:

JAMES POTTER
BORN 27 MARCH 1960
DIED 31 OCTOBER 1981

LILY POTTER
BORN 30 JANUARY 1960
DIED 31 OCTOBER 1981

In the center of the headstone, between the couples date’s below was a wreath of Christmas roses. Harry Potter and Hermione Granger had put it there when they visited only a couple of weeks ago on Christmas Eve.

Snape spoke with a quiet reverence, “Lilys for my first love, my lily.” And he conjured a bouquet of white water lilies before the right side of the headstone, where Lily’s name was engraved.

Valerie hesitated to say something as she watched Snape take in Lily’s side of the couple’s grave. His face grew long and slackened. Suddenly Valerie noticed he looked old. She had never really seen it before.

She peered into his lost looking eyes as she asked tentatively, feeling nervous, “Can’t we put some flowers for Jame’s grave professor?”

“Why?,” said Snape sharply. He looked slightly removed from the moment of his sadness washing over him now. More like disturbed.

Valerie lurched at the contempt concealed under his tone.

“Why do you want to do that for?!,” he asked her again. Somehow he sounded disappointed and perhaps not quite angry with her.

Valerie suddenly remembered what he told her last morning when he taught her Sectumsempra. She turned to look at Jame’s grave, not looking at Snape as she stammered, “I’m s-sorry, sir. I forgot this man was your enemy of- of sorts. But still, I think it unkind to ignore James!…He couldn’t have been such an awful man, not if he married your Lily.”

“James was an arrogant, self-centered fool,” he muttered immediately, “and that Potter. His son is liable to go the same way if he isn’t careful.”

Valerie chose to ignore this ranting, it felt to her like it just burst out of Snape as a habit.

“Please, sir? I mean no offense. How about it?” and gaining confidence, Valerie raised her own wand. “Carnations. To represent the fact that she did indeed marry James,” she said, as if boldly announcing it. Appearing besides James Potter’s side of the headstone was a bouquet of red carnations. Valerie stuck them into the ground.

And Snape’s hands were balled into fists, a vein flickering on his forehead, watching Valerie. He could not hold it any longer. He forced out, “My love was unrequited.”

“W-what? It was?” said Valerie blankly, and she was out of breath at this shocking news.

He stated morosely, “It’s true. Lily was never in love with me.” It felt good to say it. He had never admitted it fully aloud, not even to himself.

“But why?,” said Valerie confused. She could not imagine what was so unattractive and ugly about Severus Snape. All Valerie could see was the alluring beauty of his character.

Snape said, sounding almost light-hearted, “The reason Lily wouldn’t have me was that I was not fun like James. James Potter – the notorious prankster of Hogwarts. Further, Lily didn’t like my humor, and so didn’t accept me for who I was. She knew me well enough to detect my darkness and she grew to detest it!”

But of course that was not the real reason he had rejected him. He couldn’t bear to tell her. Snape feared he would bawl and sob in front of Valerie again like he had when he admitted seeing her snog the Slytherin prefect.

And Snape looked over his shoulder, across the way towards where he knew the wrecked cottage of the Potters house had been. He knew it was destroyed and for once, felt no sense in returning there. He was finally beginning to understand that it was over.

“Well I like you,” she said as if it were a decisive amenity to offer him consolation. Valerie blushed deep red, herself under his penetrating gaze. “And I like you more. Like you more than like …” It was the closest she could come to saying she loved him.

“But if it was unrequited, why waste your time?”

Snape did not answer. Valerie waited. She spoke again, reading the bottom of the Potters' headstone, “’The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death.’”

“I think…you should live beyond the loss of Lily Potter. Live beyond death like it says. And from all you’ve told me about how wonderful Lily was, I’m sure she would want you to, sir!”

Snape took Valerie’s hand in his again, squeezing it as they stood before the graves. The sky was a deep blue with shadings of purples and gray clouds. A typical winter sunset that descended upon them and was extinguishing everything into darkness.

Snape looked up to the stars shining through the disappearing light. It was becoming darker with every passing moment. He thought of Lily, Dumbledore, and even James watching over him somewhere beyond. He did not know and it did not matter, only his beliefs did.

Valerie raised her head to look to the sky as well. “Our dreams are weaving here on earth, as one day ends and another begins. I can’t wait to start a real life together!…Hopefully one day.” And it was ironic how the sunset cast the end like it was an ending to Snape’s past and his relations with those now dead. He must remember to live on with the living and a brighter tomorrow.

But Snape did not express Valerie’s enthusiasm, even if he was sharing this desire to be with her for the rest of his life, however long that might be. “Wait by the gate,” he only said rigidly and then continued coldly, “I wish to be alone.”

Valerie silently turned to depart through the paths they had made, going towards the kissing gate.

And Snape looked down at the thick snow, trying to hide the truth from his eyes, the terrible truth staring him in the face. She was gone and would not return. All that was left was her body, cold in the earth. He began to sob. Snape put a hand to his mouth, suppressing it, ashamed of his prolonged grief, allowing it to remain for so many years.

Minutes later, Valerie was where he made her to go. She watched the street lamps turn on, to light the darkness in the square. She kept turning around to catch a glimpse of Snape’s figure in the graveyard, smaller in the distance. She could see he was in the snow, huddling against the headstone with his hands pressed to it. No doubt, longing for Lily’s touch.

Snape returned once it was total darkness. They disapparated again landing right outside Hogsmeade Village. Valerie could see behind them now a swarm of dementors. 'It was a good thing the dementors did not bother them', thought Snape. He was sure he could not produce his full-bodied patronus now. And Valerie was incapable of the advanced magic, having never even heard of it. A shining propaganda poster was also present depicting a hateful caricature of the so-called generic Muggle-born.

Hardly conversing, they walked down the lonely path for several minutes, until they arrived back at Hogwart’s huge wrought-iron gates.

She heard Snape complain, more to himself, “I already wish I wasn’t back here….this school for the Dark Lord’s regime,” and he spat bitterly, “It is not mine!…Despite being headmaster.”

They went up the steps to the front entrance, Snape casting the Disillushionment charm over himself once more. He did not want to deal with resisters. In fact, Headmaster Snape spent nearly all his time in his study only appearing at meals. And Valerie went off without farewell in the opposite direction once they got on the first landing of the main staircase.


NOTE: If anyone has an interest in f Eileen’s life it is in my other fanfic “Tom Riddle and the Pure-blood Prince.” It gives my explanation of what happened to Eileen. She went to school with Riddle and knew him very well. Snape never knew this of his mother because she was too terrified to recount her time with Tom.