J.K Rowling on Harry Potter secret that Alan Rickman took to the grave

In an interview with RTÉ in 2011, Alan Rickman revealed that J.K Rowling had shared a snippet of secret information with him to help better understand his character in the Harry Potter series, Severus Snape. 

And while Rickman may have taken this secret to the grave, J.K Rowling did let her fans in on the context of the information on Twitter yesterday. 

Alan, who passed away last week from cancer, revealed to RTÉ that he understood more about Snape than anyone else while filming the movies. 

"She certainly didn't tell me what the end of the story was going to be in any way at all, so I was having to buy the books along with everybody else to find out.

"She [did] give me one little piece of information, which I always said I would never share with anybody and never have, and never will. It wasn't a plot point, or crucial in any tangible way, but it was crucial to me as a piece of information that made me travel down that road rather than that one or that one or that one."

While J.K Rowling did not give the entire game away, she did reveal what the secret was about. 

When one fan enquired about the secret on social media, the author simply responded: "I told Alan what lies behind the word 'always'."

Nawh!

This word became synonymous with the character of Snape, especially as it was revealed that he would "always" be in love with Harry's mother, Lily as uttered in the last book and film of the series. 

And according to Harry Potter producer, David Heyman, this little tidbit greatly affected the way he portrayed Snape in the films.

"It was quite amusing, too, because there were times when a director would tell Alan what to do in a scene and he would say something like, 'No I can't do that – I know what is going to happen and you don't.' "

We hope the true meaning behind the word always remains a secret.