Plot, new characters, new magical terms and abilities etc. are my intellectual property. JK Rowling's characters and Wizarding Universe are all uniquely hers and I thank her for allowing fans to stretch our imaginations and creativity.

Summary: All Snape wanted was to put certain matters to rest. The Headmaster convinced him that were. But even the best laid plans can go awry – especially when they concern a young woman who is Voldemort's Daughter. The orig story to The Girl With The Haunted Eyes – EPILOGUE.

Alternate Universe: SS/OC, CD/OC, HP/OC

Dark Drama/Angst/Romance. This story is rated R/M. Language, Situations…etc.

The Girl With The Haunted Eyes - ORIG STORY

by NativeMoon

Chapter 001: Flesh, Blood & Bone

May 1981

21 year-old Severus Snape walked quickly to the Headmaster's office at the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. He could only guess that his summons had something to with the recent escalation in Death Eater activity. It was no exaggeration to say that he was grateful to be well and truly out of it thanks to Albus Dumbledore, the school's Headmaster thought by many to be the Greatest Wizard of the Age.

But Snape was no fool.

Despite the fact that he had Dumbledore's assurance that he would never know the confines of Azkaban prison, there were enough people who definitely could take exception to that from both sides. However, Snape was in the best possible position he could be in as the school's newest Potions Master and Head of Slytherin House, all things considering.

He called out the password to Dumbledore's office and stepped onto the moving spiral stairs which propelled him upwards. As he neared the door to the Headmaster's office, raised voices came from inside.

The school's caretaker, Mr. Filch, was waiting outside the door and looked the younger man up and down. The expression on his face left no doubt that trouble was brewing. He clearly wanted to make a comment, but was holding back. Snape was now a Master of the school, not a toerag student. As such, Filch had to watch his step. But the Potions Master had no doubts that he was going to be the subject of idle gossip on the Hogwarts rumour mill after this.

Snape hesitated, but as there was little of the conversation that could be made out he saw no point in lingering. Two quick raps and he opened the door and stepped through.

He immediately regretted it.

'I'll not see everything I've worked for ruined by this mess!' bellowed Hadrian Barrett as Snape closed the door behind him.

'With all due respect, Mr. Barrett,' Dumbledore sighed, not caring to endure any more of this foolishness than was necessary, 'She is of age and the situation is for her to resolve as she sees fit – and regardless of how you or anyone else feels about it.'

'This is all your fault!' Barrett roared as he spied the young Potions Master.

The older man launched himself at Snape who immediately hexed him into submission without thinking twice about it.

'You called, Headmaster?' he said evenly.

He didn't like Barrett any more than Barrett liked him and it was not in his nature to pretend otherwise.

'That will be enough, Severus,' Dumbledore said, peering over his half-moon spectacles.

Snape released the spells he was still parrying and Barrett collapsed into a heap.

'Headmaster; with all due respect, what does Barrett's domestic affairs have to do with me?'

'You filthy bastard!' Barrett roared.

Snape hexed him again before he could get himself off the floor.

'Severus!'

Snape sniffed and then pocketed his wand before taking a seat facing Dumbledore. As always his countenance was inscrutable.

The Barretts were secretly amongst Voldemort's most ardent supporters. They ranked high in the Dark Arts echelon alongside the Malfoys, Blacks, Lestranges, and a number of other prominent and supposedly "pure-blooded", wizarding families. Hadrian was desperate to ingratiate himself with Lord Voldemort and make it into the sanctum that was the Inner Circle. He had the nerve to be pernickety about whom he and his family dealt with and had no time for anyone outside of landed gentry like Lucius Malfoy. Sadly for him Malfoy had no time for pretentious scandal-prone "new money".

For the aspiring Death Eater to have the bold-faced cheek to seek Snape out at Hogwarts, thus involving the leader of the Resistance against his Master, something most serious was amiss. That something had nothing to do with redemption, regret, or crossing over to the side of the light – of that the Potions Master was most certain.

And that something supposedly involved him – but wasn't directly connected to the Dark Lord. If it did this "meeting" most certainly wouldn't be happening. So it couldn't be that important in the scheme of things because Voldemort never concerned himself with the trivial machinations of his servants and followers.

But it was important enough for Barrett to making a show of himself to the Dark Lord's enemy.

Snape mulled it over momentarily, but was still at a loss as to what Barrett was up to.

He would just have to play it by ear.

'Severus, you are on familiar terms with Mr. Barrett's family?' the Headmaster asked sombrely.

'They are not strangers to me,' came the answer as the young Potions Master found his voice again.

'You see he doesn't even deny it! He…!'

'That will be enough, Barrett!' Dumbledore snapped.

Snape's back was up ‒ way up.

If Dumbledore was unsettled then there was clearly something to be concerned about. Dumbledore was a lot of things, but he was no one's fool. And he knew far more about the pressures Snape had been under in active service as one of Lord Voldemort's Death Eaters than was comfortable.

The man wasn't known as The Greatest Wizard of the Age for nothing.

'You are an acquaintance of Melinda Barrett?' Dumbledore asked evenly, returning his attention to his new Potions Master.

'One of many from what I've heard these past few years,' Snape answered blithely.

One of his biggest regrets about his active service as a Death Eater before turning spy for Dumbledore at great personal risk was the not-so-small matter of Hadrian's sister Melinda, who wasn't as nearly discerning and careful as she needed to be.

Barrett was on the verge of losing it again and Dumbledore put up a hand to silence him.

'It would seem that Miss Barrett is with child, Severus.'

'And why should that concern me?'

'Apparently she is having a difficult pregnancy thanks to – shall we say – intercessions to end it by her own hand,' Dumbledore replied stiffly. 'Mr. Barrett seems to think throwing his weight around and wand duels are the solutions to problems which don't concern him.'

Outwardly Snape did not react, but inside he was raging.

Melinda Barrett had been the most ambitious of a certain type of girl attracted to the power and often seductive nature of Darkness he'd ever met barring Narcissa Black and her sister Bellatrix.

Apparently he was quite a challenge to someone like her. The more she heard about "Snivellus" Snape with his cold persona and prodigious talents with the Dark Arts as well as Potions, the more irresistible he had apparently become to her.

It defied the imagination.

Snape was so fiercely unattainable that the more Miss Barrett's feeble attempts to capture his interest failed, the more convinced she had been that she had to have him. In desperation she had turned to Theodore Nott Sr. – who happened to be one of the highest ranking of Voldemort's privileged Inner Circle.

Eager to have a taste of her considerable charms, Nott agreed – and had her work very hard for the favour he was to bestow. He also passed her on to his closest friends (of which Snape was not one), and had sometimes shared in their mutual enjoyment of her alleged skills. If the gossip was true, she didn't disappoint.

All before attempting to deliver the prize that was Severus Snape upon his elevation into the Inner Circle and posting to Hogwarts supposedly to spy on Dumbledore.

The Potions Master had been well-known to eschew intimacy of any kind within the Death Eater ranks and hangers-on. It was another peculiarity of his that did not entirely put him in good stead with some of his comperes prone to debauchery, especially Nott. Snape steadfastly refused to be a conduit to others in the Circle – and especially to Lord Voldemort.

The confrontation he'd had with Melinda Barrett in the presence of Nott and his gang had served as a warning to not try it on with him – ever.

"Don't dip your pen in the company ink" was the order of the day as far as the Potions Master was concerned. Voldemort never missed a trick where his servants were concerned and Snape's attitude towards not shagging his way through Aspirants had actually worked to his favour.

'When is she due?' he hissed through barely parted lips.

'September!'

'Interesting…'

'What do you intend to do about it, Snape!'

'Nothing,' Snape replied coldly. 'I have not seen her since the beginning of last November; not December when she would have conceived.'

'Is there anything else, Mr. Barrett,' Dumbledore asked politely. 'I do believe you have other visits to make concerning this affair, do you not?'

'"Is there anything else?"' Barrett snarled mockingly. 'Right – if that's how you want to play it…'

'Rather than cast aspersions far and wide which won't do you any favours, you would be better off waiting until the child is born and having a paternity test done,' Snape hissed. 'But far be it from me to tell you how to handle matters which actually have nothing to do with you – or me.'

Barrett stood up fast and stormed from the room, slamming the door hard behind him.

Dumbledore sighed.

'I did warn you, Headmaster,' Snape said quietly, his countenance not betraying the sickness he felt inside. 'The others have far too much power and influence for him to try and force their hand as he has done with me. But for Barrett to come to come here – and involve you of all people to try and force my hand…!'

'Yes, you most certainly did. I must say – all things considered you were quite restrained.'

'I really do not see the humour in this situation!'

'Because there is none, Severus.'

'God help me if anyone else outside of those present knows about that night! Or if the Dark Lord finds out about this! The Barretts never could ever keep their mouths shut!'

'We will cross that bridge if we need to. But I do not believe we will.'

'It was one of the worst nights of my life! I hated it – every second it!'

'I have no doubt of that Severus. You have paid many a high price for your servitude to Tom…'

'"Tom"… even Lucius doesn't dare refer to the Dark Lord by his Muggle name…'

'A wise decision, all things considered.'

Snape snorted and then stood up.

'All you can do is get on with your new life and duties here as Tom demanded,' Dumbledore said quietly. 'Hadrian Barrett is the least of your worries.'

xxxOOOxxx

Snape did get on with his new life, such as it was.

There was only the endless tedium of dunderheaded students who definitely had neither the appreciation nor the skills required for the exact art and subtle science that was Potions-making. It was still tricky given how many of the older students had been underclassmen and remembered him from his time in the Senior School. The Potions Master was not a social animal and fraternising with the rest of the staff was not high on his agenda. It was just as well, as associating with him outside of the required dictates of having the same employer was not high on anyone else's.

Lucius Malfoy and his usual coterie Death Eater associates were keeping a decided distance and that suited Snape just fine. So far it seemed that Malfoy was unaware of the situation with Melinda. Ironic, since he had evidently partaken of the more salubrious of Melinda Barrett's proclivities more than any of the men she'd made herself available to bar Nott.

Malfoy was far more likely to have fathered her bastard child than Snape ever could have been. Hadrian Barrett was a lot of things but he wasn't completely without sense. To call out Lucius Malfoy would be to sign his own death warrant on top of destroying his hopes of taking The Mark.

It could have been the case with Snape as well to a degree, but the Headmaster had other ideas.

He always did for even the most difficult of situations.

"And this certainly ranked up there", Snape had thought to himself more than once since his newfound enemy had come calling.

But what Dumbledore's ideas were, he had no way of knowing.

As far as the Potions Master was concerned, all things being equal the child was better off dead than left to machinations of her brother and the scorpions nests that of the Barrett family and Lord Voldemort.

xxxOOOxxx

As if Snape didn't have enough stress with being a double-agent two times over; word had come from Malfoy that the Dark Lord was getting increasingly impatient in the hunt to find James and Lily Potter and their baby son Harry. The Potters had been in hiding for some time along with several other families in Dumbledore's Order of the Phoenix Resistance organisation.

It was the Potions Master's fault that Lily was in this predicament.

He had concerns about her in particular, but they were for him – and the Headmaster.

And the Dark Lord before him.

The feelings Snape thought he had for Muggle-born Lily Evans Potter was the reason Dumbledore decided to make use of him. They had spoken of it only twice and true to his word the Headmaster hadn't brought it up again, no matter how justified he might have felt he was in doing so.

Snape had been lost in thought and very settled into the deepest release he'd known in some time when he was rudely interrupted by the Headmaster bellowing from the fireplace in his sitting room. Feeling like a schoolboy caught doing something he shouldn't despite it being perfectly natural, Snape groaned and clambered from his sticky sheets taking care to put on a nightshirt and bathrobe before going into the main room of his quarters.

'You called, Headmaster,' he enquired benignly at the floating image of Dumbledore's head in the Talking Fire.

'Word has just reached me; we must see to Melinda Barrett at once!'

'"We?" Headmaster, it is the middle of the night. I can't see what…'

'It would seem that Hadrian finally had it out with his sister and was surprised to learn that he didn't know her as well as he thought. Apparently she's been Tom's favourite plaything for a few years. Though he has no use for love himself, I think you can agree that Tom wouldn't look upon being made such a fool of by a sexual conquest favourably. Hadrian is of course more concerned with saving his neck than his sister's and her unborn child. Lucius Malfoy and his friends are of a like mind. Their wives may turn a blind eye to their activities but Tom most certainly will not.'

Whatever lingering pleasure had remained from the night's activities quickly evaporated. Snape felt himself go limp and coldness wrapped itself around his insides as much as his now shrivelled-up manhood.

'Their aim is to eradicate any evidence of both Melinda Barrett and her most undesirable situation. It will just be another "unfortunate accident" as far as anyone else is concerned.'

Snape stared unseeing at the fireplace as Dumbledore stepped from it, fully dressed.

There was no such thing as an "unfortunate accident" where certain Death Eaters were concerned. Melinda Barrett would wish she had never been born by the time they got through with her. She would beg for the mercy that only a quick death could bring.

Such benevolence would not be afforded her.

'Melinda Barrett is a threat to too many of the wrong people – people who have a lot to lose. Being the show-offs that they are, Malfoy and his cohorts opened their mouths around her about certain things that she was better off not knowing,' Dumbledore continued. 'This business sure to bring about troubles they could all do without and Tom will not be pleased with their carelessness. The fear about what the he will do to all of them if this gets out is causing unprecedented panic.'

'Why lay this disaster at my feet?' Snape hissed. 'It's nothing to do with me – which the Dark Lord can ascertain for himself through his expert use of Legilimency once he's done torturing me just because he can.'

'There is always a choice, Severus: the choice between what is right, and what is easy, as you know better than anyone.'

Snape took a deep breath and nodded.

There was only one thing that could be done. It wasn't the easiest thing he could do for himself, but it definitely was the right thing to do if it saved the life of the child.

He hated killing and the last thing he wanted was to potentially be responsible for more people dying.

xxxOOOxxx

Melinda Barrett was a shadow of her former self.

The pregnancy was a difficult one and was taking a toll. If ever there was one who looked ripe for the grave it was her. And Snape still couldn't find it in himself to care for or about her even now.

'What do you want?' she demanded churlishly.

'The same as I have always wanted from you – nothing,' came his typically blunt reply.

Snape looked around the expansive opulence that was Melinda's bedroom. Even at a time most difficult and strained with her family, she couldn't give up the indulgent lifestyle into which she'd been born and raised, not even to save her own neck let alone that of her unborn child. It wasn't something he could relate to, being one of the "lowest of the low" as she'd always referred to working class Death Eaters, which included him.

Melinda glared at Dumbledore with the deepest of loathing she could muster as he stood placidly near a window. Her nostrils twitched and an ugly flush crept across her face. Her once luxurious mane of black waving and curling hair was dry and unkempt. Her tawny skin no longer dewy and youthful. She might as well be 61 rather than the 19 year-old that she was.

Living hard and being a plaything of high-ranking Death Eaters had aged her.

Being Voldemort's momentary favourite had destroyed her.

Snape couldn't stand the sight of her.

The realisation about the forces at work hit him like a lightning bolt during a rather bad storm.

'Deluded woman – you seriously thought that you could trap the Dark Lord with the oldest trick in the book didn't you?! The last thing he would ever want is a child! And your fool brother wanted to force me to marry you convinced it had to be mine because of your incessant lies and presumed deluded infantile obsession with me!'

Melinda said nothing, but the throbbing veins at her temples gave her away.

'You have not answered him, child,' Dumbledore said gravely.

There was no twinkle in his eyes or compassion in his voice. No, not for her. He was fair when he wanted to be, but the unrepentant darkness in her soul deserved no compassion or understanding. Her unborn child was the only thing that would save her – for the time being.

Dumbledore had his reasons; reasons which he was keeping to himself.

'I'm not afraid of him or you old man! You're fools – the pair of you! When the Dark Lord hears of this…!'

Snape leaped across the bed and pulled Melinda up by the scruff of her dressing gown. Dumbledore supposed that he should stop him – but he wouldn't. He knew the man that was Severus Snape even better than Snape knew himself in some respects. There was a line his Potions Master would not cross – and he was entitled to be as angry as the Headmaster knew him to be.

'You dare mention him to me! You dare threaten me, is that it?! Half of the Inner Circle is combing the country looking for you no thanks to your dear brother! He shopped you to the highest bidder; conveniently Lucius Malfoy as it so happens! And Malfoy is no fool – he is stereotypically Slytherin thinking only of himself and all that he stood to lose. He sold you lock, stock and barrel to the Dark Lord without breaking a nauseous sweat or betraying himself or anyone in the Inner Circle in the process! Consider yourself fortunate that you have not begun to show! But you could not have carried on with this charade. And you should get down on your knees to Merlin and give thanks for Bellatrix Lestrange being unaware of her competition.'

Snape relished the look of horror on Melinda's face and would not spare her from his deepest loathing.

'Oh – taken you by surprise again have I?!' he continued. 'I warned you, little girl! I warned you but you would not take heed! I knew I was never going to be enough for you, oh no; not the likes of me with my low-born status and nearly empty bank vault! Did I not warn you to stop these foolish games after you damn near ruined my life the first time? You seriously convinced yourself that you and you alone were making a difference in the Dark Lord's life and turning him to Love? FOOL!'

It was obvious that she had – and that the truth was more than she could bear as Snape spat the word "love" at her.

'Did you really believe you were the first? Or that you would be the last?! Had you convinced yourself that he would never desire anyone as he had done you?! Did you honestly believe that you and you alone enjoyed the pleasures of his flesh and sharing his bed?!'

Snape didn't look behind him, but he was all too aware that Dumbledore had moved closer.

'Was I supposed to be jealous, was that it?! Being with the Dark Lord was supposed to make me want you?! You are an even bigger dunderhead than I am used to suffering if you thought that or believed that he could be played like the dupes that many of his followers happen to be! You were never meant to be more than just another notch on his headboard! Siring a child with you was most definitely not on the cards!'

'What we do now is for the sake of your unborn child,' Dumbledore said firmly as he moved forward and loomed over her. 'And there is no time to waste. There is a price on your head and the babe's. Remain here and at best you might actually deliver before you are discovered. All things considered I do believe your brother will up the stakes and betray you completely. When they find you – and they will – it will be with him leading the way. It will be by his hand that your life is forfeit.'

'No!' came a feeble croak. 'You lie! He… he wouldn't…'

Snape's eyes narrowed into slits as he laughed a cold shrill laugh that would gave Voldemort a run for his money in eeriness. She was referring to the Dark Lord and the delusion he would suffer her presence; hers and the child's.

'If I were another type of man I wouldn't cross the street to piss on you even if you were on fire,' he hissed darkly. 'The Dark Lord doesn't appear to be overly fond of the idea of becoming a father or you as the mother of his child. And that puts you in a most precarious position, doesn't it? You can thank Dumbledore for caring. I, for one, do not.'

For the second time since they'd entered her boudoir, Melinda Barrett looked frightened. All her plans had been ruined. There was a very high price to be paid for her recklessness. And being the arrogant self-centred sort that she was, everyone else but her was to blame.

But Merlin, what she wouldn't give to undo this unholy mess!

'Yes or No, Miss Barrett?' Snape demanded. 'Come with us and you and the child have a chance. Otherwise you can remain here – with no recollection of our little chat.'

Melinda opened her mouth voicelessly, giving her the grotesque appearance of a floundering fish out of water struggling to breathe.

'I will take that as a 'yes', shall I?'

Snape reached over and hoisted her up in his arms, wrinkling his nose at the sour scent of her.

'My things!' she shrieked. 'I'm not going anywhere without…'

'Your life or your precious things, Miss Barrett,' Dumbledore snapped, clearly impatient with her. 'Things can always be replaced. Lives cannot. Your unborn child is your priority – your only priority!'

Dumbledore grabbed onto Snape's travelling cloak and with a loud CRACK they Disapparated, leaving no sign of having ever been there.