PART 1: ACT 1
What do you wanna make those eyes at me for
If they don't mean what they say?
They make me glad, they make me sad,
They make me want a lot of things that I never had.
Emile Ford and The Checkmates, "What Do You Wanna Make Those Eyes At Me For?" UK Number 1 on 9th January 1960 (Severus Snape's birthday)
August 1994
It was a clear and sultry night in Spinner's End and Severus Snape was feeling increasingly restless. The next academic year was going to be extremely challenging for him, to say the least. The Dark Lord had now taken up residency in his father's old familial home in Little Hangleton, with Wormtail drawing the short straw of looking after him and keeping him alive with constant feedings of a potion which included venom from Nagini. Of course, it had been Severus who had devised the potion in the first place and had shown Wormtail how to create and administer it, and how to milk a snake properly. Severus remembered how scared Wormtail looked when handling a viper for the first time, and how pathetic his first few attempts at the potion were. But Severus persevered until Wormtail got it exactly right. There was no way he was going to let Wormtail's incompetence reflect badly on his own Potions prowess. And, thankfully, the Dark Lord had been pleased with the results.
But if Severus had thought he'd been let off the hook for his hard work, he'd been sadly mistaken as the Dark Lord had yet another task for him, one of even greater significance to his return: the creation of a Resurrection Potion, one that would bring the Dark Lord back to his true form. Which meant Severus was spending his sleepless summer nights worrying about the future and researching obscure dark magic. He supposed it appeared to be a walk in the park compared to babysitting the homunculus form of the Dark Lord, but the pressure to get the Resurrection Potion right was high and he was sure he would repay any failure with his life.
He was flicking through a stack of ageing parchments he'd acquired from Borgin and Burkes detailing ancient Inferi rites when there was a sharp rap at the door. With a sigh, he rose and swiftly crossed the small tatty living room into the hall, cursing his uninvited visitor. Scowling, he drew his wand and ripped the door open forcefully with his free hand, fully expecting the rattish oaf Wormtail to be shaking and weeping in front of him from being chastised by the Dark Lord with a Cruciatus Curse for the umpteenth time. Instead, he was met with the sight of a pretty young woman dressed in what looked to be grungy Muggle clothing, leaning nonchalantly on the doorframe and smiling through a sweep of eyeliner and a slick of lipgloss. His scowl turned into a momentary flash of surprise. Even though he'd never seen the young lady before, something about her mannerisms nagged him as being vaguely familiar.
"Alright Severus. Can I come in?"
Snape's hand gripped his wand tighter. "Who are you and how do you know me?" he asked slowly.
"I'm Delphini. But you can call me Delphi. And I know everything. Seriously, can I please come in? I'm sweating like a Boggart in a mirror shop out here. And I really don't have a lot of time." She shrugged her faded denim jacket over her slight shoulders, revealing slender arms and a thin black cropped vest top emblazoned with the words BLACK SABBATH in purple writing.
Severus tried in vain not to look at the young woman's lithe torso as she arched her back and finally wriggled out of the jacket, her tight low-slung ripped jeans providing a flash of smooth, pale, flat stomach. His wand remained raised. "What do you want?"
Delphi pouted and ran her black-tipped fingernails through the tendrils of silver-blue hair that had escaped her high ponytail and which framed her face, her eyelids heavy as she put on her best seductive expression and in a low, Marlene Dietrich voice uttered, "I want you to make love to me."
Severus stared at her blankly for a second before Delphi burst into melodic giggles.
"Well, that's not the main reason I'm here, obviously," she went on dismissively, waving a hand without a hint of embarrassment. "I'm from the future and I'm here to change to the past."
Now Severus looked at her like she was mentally unstable and went to close the door but Delphi slammed a scuffed army-booted foot in the gap to keep it open.
"Look, it's a long and improbable story, but the longer we talk out here the more chance of someone seeing us," she whispered urgently, plunging a hand inside her vest top and pulled out a long thin chain with a glistening object on the end. "Time-Turner. I make it August 1994, and that means You-Know-Who is working on getting his body back. Am I right?"
A muscle in Severus' jaw twitched, but he never lowered his wand.
"I told you, I know everything. I know why Harry Potter's green eyes make you angry and I know that your Patronus is a doe for the same reason." Her foot began tapping with impatience.
Now Severus' wand arm faltered as he took this in. Impossible was his first thought, but yet the girl had just implied that she knew his greatest secret as well as the Dark Lord's doings. "Why are you here?" he asked, his eyes narrowing in suspicion.
"I need your help," she replied simply, her hands open in a gesture of truce.
Severus mulled this over for a moment. A young time-travelling witch from the future needed his help. And she seemed to know a lot about him, the Dark Lord and perhaps even the outcome of the war. But that could make her very dangerous indeed. If she was here to help the Dark Lord, Merlin knew what horrors could lie ahead.
"And which side are you on?" His voice did not betray the unsettled feeling rising inside him.
"The right one, of course. I'm here to bring that snake-nosed motherfucker down." She stared at him defiantly, and Severus took the opportunity to brush her mind with his own with the lightest of touches, to ascertain her motives. The statement she had just given appeared to be the unwavering truth.
Delphi tore her eyes away, breaking the Legilimency. "Now do you believe me?"
In response, Severus poked his head out of the door and looked both ways in case it was some kind of trap, then wordlessly stepped aside and let Delphi in. As she slinked past he noticed what looked to be an intricate tattoo of wings on each of her shoulder blades poking out of the sides of her flimsy racerback vest top, and he tried hard not to imagine what the whole thing would look like on her naked flesh.
Despite his best efforts, Delphi had spotted him looking. "I'll show you mine if you show me yours?" she smirked over her shoulder.
A flash of annoyance, arousal and curiosity flooded through him at the same time as he turned from her and slammed the door shut.