Valentine

Because he was between jobs at the time, Lupin was given the task of cleaning out Snape's rooms after the "accident." No one ever discussed exactly what had befallen the most secretive member of the Order of the Phoenix, but from the Aurors' stony silence and Minerva McGonagall's tight-lipped grief, Remus understood that Snape had died in the struggle against Voldemort...and that his death had been no accident. The casket had been sealed before the funeral so that no one could view the body.

Lupin half-suspected that Dumbledore thought Snape might have left behind Death-Eater secrets he'd never shared. It was probably as necessary for Snape to have kept some information from Dumbledore as from Voldemort. When he was with the Death-Eaters, Snape had to be convincing as one of them, which probably had meant participating in activities of which he had been ashamed. Or maybe Snape had believed that any deception in the name of the Order could be justified, no matter the risks to other members.

Possibly even the headmaster didn't know why Snape had died. The man had scorned most of his colleagues and despised the boy whose life they were all pledged to protect; not everyone trusted him, and it was conceivable that someone on their own side might have betrayed him. As eager as Dumbledore might have been to find any connection to the Death-Eaters that Snape had squirreled away, he would have been just as determined to be certain that the potions teacher had not betrayed other enemies of Voldemort in an attempt to save himself.

Regardless of how he might have died, Snape would never be celebrated as a hero, reflected Lupin as he began the all-too-familiar task of sorting through a brief lifetime's worth of material objects. Severus had kept few personal items, not even a photo of his parents. His bedroom reflected a man consumed by his work, with few outside interests -- souvenirs from Slytherin team Quidditch victories, tokens that might have been from students or their parents like a paperweight in the shape of a coiled serpent.

In a chest by his bed, he hoarded potion ingredients...some exceedingly rare, such as powdered rhinoceros horn. Not only was that illegal, but Snape couldn't have afforded it on a Hogwarts professor's salary. It must have been a gift from a colleague or a friend who'd inherited a fortune. Studying the iridescent powder in the intricately carved glass container, Lupin wondered who, and how long ago, and whether Severus had kept it because it was precious, or useful, or because it meant something to him personally.

If Snape had kept a journal, he had charmed it to disguise or destroy itself upon the occasion of his death. Lupin never found it. There were no hidden compartments in any of the chests or wardrobes; the only treasures abandoned in pockets were notes confiscated from students and a couple of hexed quills. Remus did note with some amusement that Severus had quite the collection of lubricants in the bedside chest, though in among the other ingredients they hardly stood out except to one who recognized their popular use. He wondered whether Snape had used them alone or with someone, and if so, whom; since he had left Hogwarts, Lupin had never heard a whiff of romantic scandal connected to Snape, but that didn't mean there hadn't been someone (or several someones) as discreet as Severus himself.

The further he dug into the private chest, the older the items he found. There was Severus' school tie, threadbare from seven years' use -- his family must have been poorer than Remus' own, though Remus had not thought about that when they were young. The tie had been wrapped around a scroll of parchments, and when Remus examined them he realized that they were essays Severus had written years ago when they were students together...essays upon which he'd received top marks. Inexplicably, they made Lupin sad.

Beneath the essays, held with an enchanted string that took several spells to untie, he found a small collection of letters. One appeared to be a fancy wedding invitation, and as he glanced at the return address, Lupin realized that it had commemorated the nuptials of Bellatrix Black and Rodolphus Lestrange. Furiously he aimed his wand and incinerated it before it occurred to him that Dumbledore might have wanted to see it.

There was another strange item, a half-written Howler, not yet spelled to shout its message, that began, "GET ME OUT OF THIS SCHOOL BEFORE..." and then broke off. No way to know the date; no way to know whether Severus had been homesick, afraid of something (like a werewolf perhaps?) or simply tortured into misery by the cruelty of another student.

Near the bottom of the unremarkable pile, a pink envelope stuck out incongruously. A love letter? Curious, Lupin pulled it free. The flap was sealed with a pair of raised wax lips that made a crude kissing noise, but they parted to allow him to open the envelope with a simple unlocking spell.

He recognized the card when it fell open in his hands. It had been one of Sirius' pranks: "Let's convince Snivellus that Evans is in love with him! Think of the look on her face when he humiliates himself for her!" Sirius had made Remus forge the note, certain that Snape would recognize his own sloppier scrawl even with a spell to disguise it. But Severus had figured out the joke and confronted Remus, spitting disgust at him:

"Are you in the habit of sending Valentines to boys, Lupin?"

At that age, terrified and confused, Remus thought that maybe Snape knew something, and would tell all the others; he had apologized for the prank and been grateful to have the incident dropped. But since Snape had known all along that the card wasn't from Lily, why was it here in his box of keepsakes? A reminder of how much he hated Gryffindors?

There were no other Valentines in the stack -- no love letters, no notes passed to arrange trysts, nothing to indicate that Severus had had a secret life. Lupin had always supposed that he didn't want one: Snape was too secretive himself, too self-absorbed, and he didn't seem to trust anyone. Maybe this card in Remus' own handwriting was part of the reason.

He didn't dare bring it to Dumbledore along with the few items he deemed worth saving; instead he tucked it away in his own pocket along with the frayed Slytherin tie, too tattered to be reused by a more recent student. The rest of Snape's clothes would be distributed to those who might need them; his books and potion ingredients would be passed on to whoever inherited his position at Hogwarts. The little collection of buttons and cufflinks -- which might have been Snape's own, gifts from associates, or trophies from the bodies of Death-Eater victims -- would be sold or given away.

Snape would be missed by the Order, but Lupin doubted that he would be mourned for long, certainly not by his students. Putting his hand on the card in his pocket, he shut the trunk and murmured, "Goodbye, Severus."