Two of the Same (A Harry Potter Student/Teacher Romance)

Chapter 16: The Lost Years (Dumbledore's Narration)

Chapter 16: The Lost Years (Dumbledore’s Narration)

            There isn’t much to be said about the time that Severus Snape and Marceline Abbey were separated, so I will keep this short. Their lives eventually began to sink back into the monotony that they had been before. Slowly, normality took them over, but the pain still lurked under the surface. Each of them suffered with their demons. And now, without each other, they suffered in silence. They had no one to talk to, no one to confide in. There is no emptier feeling on earth than being alone without love.

            I watched, a heavy burden in my heart, as Severus once again became the cold, angry man he had been before. That glimmer of light that had begun to sparkle somewhere in the depths on his soul had been extinguished. It was as if he were a plant that had been grown in the dark, and Marceline had finally been his much-needed sunlight. Now, with her gone, he had withered and died inside again. He would never admit it, but he spent many a sleepless night thinking about her, remembering those bright green eyes, that long red hair, her laugh, her smile… He would never admit it, but she was the reason why he cried. Severus never showed weakness; he was a man of no emotion. Marceline had finally begun to break through that, and now she had left him even more broken than she had found him.

As for Marceline, her time at Beauxbatons was a truly a terrible experience. The other students disliked her because she was different. She wasn’t allowed to dress the way she wanted, she couldn’t express herself, and she couldn’t even speak the same language that the other students did. And, something happened at the beginning of her sixth year that alienated her even further… Without Severus, she sunk back into her quiet, introverted world of hurt and suffering. She was too afraid to let anyone in, to let anyone know those secrets that tormented her and made her cry herself to sleep every night. She shut herself out from the world, keeping her secrets to herself, her memories in her mind, and her past locked away.

Neither of them was happy, and both of them blamed themselves. Each of them tried to pin down where they went wrong, and each came up with  list of things that could have done differently. Most of all, Severus began to feel terrible remorse for what he did, getting so close to a girl as young as Marceline. Marceline blamed herself for not being able to bring herself to say I love you during the last time she and Severus saw each other. She knew that had been the last straw of breaking his already fragile heart.

A year and a half elapsed that they were apart. During that time, many other things went on in the world besides just the stories of Severus and Marceline. Of course, Voldemort was gaining power again, and war was imminent. During what would have been Marceline sixth year, her one-time boyfriend Draco Malfoy was given the task of killing me. I know that during this time, he and Marceline began writing letters to one another.

Their romance began to blossom again, but the flower of their love was diseased. Marceline was too fractured to ever really love again the right way. No matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t bring herself to declare her love for anyone. No matter how much she wanted love and affection, her mind just didn’t process it the right way. She felt like everything would go wrong, no matter what the situation.

Draco was in nearly as much emotional turmoil as her at that point, though. He was only sixteen, and yet he had been put up to the task of murder. How much that must have weighed on his conscience! A child, put up to murder under threat of death for him and his whole family. I suspect Voldemort threatened to kill Marceline as well. Marceline did what she could to console Draco, but she had problems of her own, and was thousands of miles away from him. I cannot begin to imagine how confusing it must have been for her to be so far away from everyone she cared about and all the actual battles of the war. She must have been furious not to be here the night that I died…

            In the end, Draco couldn’t go through with his plan. Severus ended up killing me in order to save Draco from fracturing his soul. Marceline found out about all these events upon a visit to Malfoy Manor a few days after they occurred. But, in another cruel twist of fate, she showed up just hours after Severus had departed, and again didn’t get to see him. It was all just as well; she had a deep secret that she couldn’t risk him finding out about, ever…

            Now, Severus is headmaster of Hogwarts. Marceline began her seventh year at Beauxbatons, but a few months in, when she turned seventeen, she elected to move to Malfoy Manor in order to return to Hogwarts. Bidding her grandmother a farewell, she departed France and returned to England where she felt she really belonged.

            Little did she know, everything was changed now. Hogwarts was not the cheerful place she had left a year and a half before. It was a dark place, a place of evil. With the Carrows in control,  no one was safe from the now-standard abuse. Within a few weeks, Marceline would be begging to go back to Beauxbatons.

            I believe that covers all the events of the lost years. This is a good place to let the story pick back up.

            And, to answer that nagging question I’m sure you are all asking; yes, I am indeed dead. And yes, this is all happening in your mind. But why on earth should that mean that it isn’t real?