The Dark Gryffindor

To Sheherazade: Yes, I do have Valerie’s participation in the Battle of Hogwarts somewhat planned out already. But a considerable amount happens between now and then. Afterall, we’re only in the middle of January, and the battle starts on May 3. We have a few months to go, in which other things happen.

To Momo: Yes, I found writing male sub Snape hard. I agree it was done lamely. I am so embarrassed I can’t even re-read it! Not my fantasy either, but I want to put new ideas out in this fic and it was necessary for Snape to want to be in this role. Why? He felt powerless with Lily’s death and he realized after Lily died, that Snape had virtually no input in Voldemort’s decision to kill her, even if Snape asked him to spare her. The Dark Lord cannot be pursuaded, as Snape learned. Lily suffered powerless and Snape wanted to suffer at least a little bit and feel powerless because of what he did and he was sure Lily had felt powerless in the moments of her death. That is my interpretation of why Snape wanted Valerie to dominate him. I do think I could have written it better though.

To everyone: I have not updated in over two weeks because I went on vacation and then I found it difficult to get started again, just like you Shez! Plus, honestly these are not my fave parts of this story. The past of both Snape and Valerie is starting to get redundant. I know. We are almost done with this phase of the story, and then their pasts will not be the focus. I promise!


Chapter Seventeen: The Prince's Tale: Narrated


The next Occlumency lesson Valerie had with Professor Snape was only a couple of days later on a Thursday.

She came through the door with a mixture of nervousness and dread. Not dread to be with Professor Snape, but dread at the thought of viewing more of her memories, as she presumed this would be. Snape was already waiting at his seat with the large stone basin Dumbledore had bestowed on him, now placed before him.

“Ah, Valerie,” he said pleasantly. “How are you this morning?”

“Good, sir. Yourself?”

“The usual. But I am glad to see you,” and Valerie blushed with delight at this admittance on Snape’s part. “Have you been emptying your mind these past couple of nights?”

She complained, “Yes. But I still remember every one of those memories!”

“Of course you do,” he answered quietly. “The power of the pensieve only lies in removing them from the forefront of your consciousness. So that they do not distract you in your daily activities.”

She said blankly, feeling dull at this revelation, “Oh…”

“Eventually you will return them inside your head again.”

“What?”

“I said you would return them, once you have garnered the strength to exercise control. Do you comprehend this?”

She looked at him long and hard and answered, “I guess so…”

“Very well…As you probably remember: last time I vowed we would view something from my past. Yet of course, given your outburst we were unable to do it…”

Valerie recoiled and shot a furious glance at the headmaster, brows scrunching. Wasn’t her tantrum understandable, considering it concerned painful incest being relived? But she did not say anything on this, instead she asked politely eager, “What memory is it, sir?”

Snape peered at her long and thoughtfully and finally admitted, “It explains why Lily and I didn't work out. Or rather what I did to her.”

“So…I have the memory ready. Stored in the pensieve for us." And Snape put his wand to the tip of the rune carved stone basin. His wand twirled the swirling pearly strands around, until he had gotten the right one positioned to peruse. Valerie peered eagerly into the pensieve and saw a much younger version of Severus Snape. But still containing the pallor of him with the greasy hair and all his distinctive features. She smiled in anticipation, for this would be very interesting on her part, to see Snape when he was a teenager like she was!

Snape bent his own head over the surface and Valerie at once copied him, until they were falling, falling through darkness. Until they landed in a place of abundant sunshine, and Valerie looked around to see a grassy hill. Hogwarts castle was in the background, almost as immutably the same as the sun, streaming down in the past just the same as ever.

*

Several minutes later, Valerie and Snape emerged from the depths of the pensieve in the present day office. They had barely spoke while watching the scenario, as it played like an engrossing film depicting sixteen-year-old Snape getting hung upside down in a tree and calling Lily a Mudblood.

Snape was shaking in his attempt to suppress his anger, the event still bothered him deeply. Valerie took a step backward, and forced herself to look up into Snape’s dark eyes. And Snape was surprised to see tears behind her hard blue eyes. “I’m sorry that happened to you, professor,” she said meekly.

Snape did not say anything but his eyes bored into hers. He was relieved to see she was truly sympathetic.

“I have to show you the aftermath of the event. For that concerns Lily more than the childish prank James played on me once,” said Snape, gaining his bearings with every word.

“Right…,” said Valerie. “I can’t see why Lily wanted that James! What a jerk. I can see now why you hate Potter’s dad. He wasn’t any better a man than you are…sir.”

At these words, Snape took a gulping breath and the corners of his mouth twitched in a thin smile. It was wonderful to hear these things from somebody he had grown to love. With newfound strength he informed her, “One more memory.”

*

Valerie listened intently, as she heard Snape’s first love, say, “-to call me Mudblood? But you call everyone of my birth Mudblood, Severus. Why should I be any different?”

Valerie stood beside present-day Snape in the memory as they watched together, looking in the same direction as past-Snape. Lily Evans gave one last contemptuous glance. Then Lily turned to climb through the Gryffindor portrait hole.

Snape concluded resignedly, as if coming to the end of a long, tragic tale, “And that was the final straw. After that – it was over.”

He grasped Valerie’s elbow and they soared upward and came popping out of the pensieve, landing to stand on the floor, themselves across each other, the desk between them just as if they had never left.

Snape, looking like he wanted to distract himself, turned away whilst carrying the stone basin in his hands, he went to a cabinet to lock it up.

And now they sat at the desk across from each other.

He was laden over with guilt. “So you see, that is the essential reason Lily could never love me or even keep me as a friend. And after that – we went our separate ways. I stayed with Mulciber, Avery and my confidante, Lucius – while she had James and so many others to keep her company.

“If I only kept my damn mouth shut. If I had not called Lily Mudblood! I should have remained free of tainting her with the word. Let the others be Mudbloods, but never Lily.”

Valerie couldn’t stand it anymore. There was a nasty look on her face, and her eyes flashed at Snape, as she said full of icy sarcasm, “Oh, because she was the only 'Muggle-born Mudblood'.” It was jealously more than Valerie’s learned racism that drove her to say this.

It took a second for Snape to process what he heard, shaking himself out of his monologue with a sharp lurch, and then he understood. Or at least understood enough to know what the rude remark meant. However, he had no time to ponder why Valerie would say such a thing other than because she hated Mudbloods in general and did not want any to be free of being called a racial slur.

A vein was pulsing on Snape’s left temple, and all the while, as Snape stared, Valerie stared right back, challengingly. Snape was on the verge of losing control of his temper by this point, and was shaking visibly.

After a short while of staring, Snape said in a quiet danger, “I understand the murtlap must have healed fully since last time. Do you wish to be sitting uncomfortably?”

“No, sir. But-“

“Take it back…,” Snape hissed.

She almost shook her head, but hesitated from fright. But still, 'Did she really want to take her words back?'

Through clenched teeth Snape repeated, “Take it back! If not - getting spanked across my knee will be the least of your suffering." But in actuality he did not mean this threat. He would have begged her shamelessly, more than spanked her or punished her through any other means. For it hurt Snape terribly to hear this from her.

“Alright. Alright. I take it back!,” she wound up yelling.

Another long moment of silence passed between them. One of the most uncomfortable moments she had ever experienced with Snape and that was saying something. She couldn’t bear how he wasn’t looking at her. He had turned his head to the side, expression disgusted disappointment.

Finally she burst consolingly looking for a way to relate to him, “You know I’m not popular, either. Nobody really likes me. Not even people in Gryffindor.”

Snape looked at her again. She saw his expression was still disatisfied and unhappy. It had not been the perfect thing to say, a full apology would have served much better. Valerie wished he had acted on his anger and done something horrible to her.

She spoke slowly, carefully weighing her words, “I think know the reason you didn’t do it just now, professor. Why you didn’t spank me or worse Crucio or perhaps even kill me. You felt sorry because of my past between my father. You feel pity towards me and I rather you didn’t!”

Snape was surprised at these words, they sounded so random to him. “Perhaps – this knowledge of what happened to you was on the back of my mind. But I assure it was not the deciding factor in my decision.”

“Fine. If you say so…,” she answered unconvinced. “But what I always wanted to know is whether our relationship would be different if we were the same age. What if I had went to school with you?”

Snape sighed. “There is no idea of knowing, Valerie, what could have happened. All we have is today. But – on second thought - if I wasn’t your professor and headmaster, yes it would definitely alter our situation.”

“Now…that is all I desire to see of you. Understand your defenses as an Occlumens are weak. Before they grow stronger, they must weaken. It is the only way progress happens in this discipline. Do not come back here until they improve. You are to empty your mind every night. If the Dark Lord comes calling – weak defenses like yours will blow all my work being Dumbledore’s spy. For I told you my true loyalties and you’ve seen and heard my explanations of my most pivotal memories on my character…Therefore, you may not return for two weeks. Is this clear?”

She answered to his stern instructions, “I won’t. I promise."

“Then go,” said Snape, rather harshly.

She went across the circualar room of snoring forming heads in their portraits to the door. Turning the brass doorknob, she felt a wild pang of loneliness eat at her and at once she went sprinting back, throwing herself into his arms.

She looked up at him and whispered flirtatiously, “I’ll miss you – headmaster.”

She put a cooling hand to his forehead, where he had sweat tricking down it, and she smoothed back his hair. At once they kissed passionately. It would be the only physical close-range private contact allotted to them for two whole weeks!


NOTE: Please review. I appreciate them and they help me sometimes do a better job and your thoughts can give me ideas to make it better sometimes!