April 1988

The bathroom span in front of her eyes as three sharp raps on the door distracted her from her catatonic state. She sighed heavily, letting the empty wine glass fall the short distance from her relaxed hand to the tiled floor, before she stood – using the doorframe to help her ascent. Three more short knocks encouraged her to move faster, out of the bathroom and to her front door. She was about to open it when she realised her half dressed state.

"Who is it?" She demanded, frantically scouring the messy floor of her bedsit for something relatively clean to shove on.

"Just open the door, Lestrange." The gravelly voice of her landlord floated through the wood. She huffed, finally spotting a large jumper and some jeans. She hurriedly pulled both items on before going back to the door and unlocking it.

The first thing she noticed as she heaved the thing open was how her legs no longer seemed to know how to hold her up. The second, however, was that her landlord was not alone. As she propped herself up with the doorframe – trying to look casual and not as if she were 1) slightly pissed and 2) rapidly losing blood – her eyes found a man with shoulder-length black hair and pasty looking skin. Ignoring her landlord's demands for rent – it wasn't that she didn't have the money; simply that she hadn't been out in days – she glared at the second man, daring him to speak. Which he did so without hesitation a few seconds later, cutting across the landlord's rant.

"You need to sit down, Callista." He smirked, evidently noting her 'casual' stance, "may I come in?" For a moment her clouded mind stuttered to a stop and her breath caught in her throat; she hadn't heard his silky tones in over a year, but how had he found her?

Before the rational part of her brain could catch up with her she'd slammed the door shut on him. At the quick movement black spots appeared in her vision and she slid down to sit at the bottom of the wall next to the door, her head cradled in her hands. Sitting there she felt a lot better, giving her time to think.

She had been avoiding almost any contact with the wizarding word since she had fled a year and a half earlier, not even getting the newspaper. So how had he been able to reach her? And why, after all this time – when surely even Dumbledore had stopped looking for his missing student – was he so concerned? It had been a long time since anyone had cared so much. But if she knew one thing it was that now he had found her, he wouldn't be turned away that easily.

How right she was.

The door was blasted open suddenly, without warning and really quite loudly.

Severus Snape stepped over the threshold, his dark robes billowing slightly, as always. He turned to face her as she lifted her head from her hands, his dark eyes softening slightly as her caught her venerable position.

She stood shakily, regretting it almost instantly as she stumbled against the wall. She could feel Snape's eyes boring into the top of her head as she gasped for breath, her eyes fixed in the floor. She turned to face the room, in futile hope that if she ignored him he would disappear. It took all her concentration just to put one foot in front of the other, walking towards the kitchen. She stumbled again, but this time she felt a pair of strong hands grasp her elbows, just before her eyes fluttered shut and she was swept into darkness.

"What's happened to you, Callista?" Snape addressed the silent room.

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June 1995

Callista rubbed at her tired eyes before replacing her glasses and pulling yet another awful third year translation towards her. Really where did these kids get their brains? She reached the last sentence fifteen minutes later, where with an exhausted sigh she drew a small red T. Every year they seemed to get thicker and thicker.

Try this with a text book next time. She wrote diligently underneath the grade.

A movement out of the corner of her eye caused her to jump, blotting the sentence and making her curse.

"Marking?" A voice drawled from across the room, Callista smiled tiredly up at Severus Snape. After a moment's pause, in which the dark haired witch pulled another – thankfully the last – parchment towards her, he spoke again. "We should be off soon." Callista inclined her head to show that she'd heard, triumphantly placing an 'O' at the bottom of the parchment. She looked back over to see Severus still stood in the doorway, just looking at her. He grinned as she caught his eye, an unusual occurrence even in the Snape household, and proceeded to take a seat next to her on the worn sofa putting an arm comfortingly around her waist.

He had changed a lot in the years since she'd been a student at Hogwarts – mostly since he had tracked her down and forced her into living under his watchful eye. His hair was not longer a greasy mess down to his shoulders, but cut short and clean, and he no longer wore those ridiculous robes that made him look like an overgrown bat. Instead he usually wore a pair of black slacks with a button down black shirt – not even Callista had been able to dissuade him from the black. Not that she would have anyway.

Callista shuffled the papers into a relatively neat pile before leaning back into Severus' embrace, closing her eyes and removing her glasses. All was quiet for a few moments, the silence only broken by the comforting sound of the couple's breath. Callista was nearly asleep when a sharp pain spreading from her arm jolted her upright, next to her Severus grunted in pain, also clutching his left forearm. Callista grimaced, she herself wasn't a servant of the Dark Lord but having had her mother burn the Dark Mark into her arm at the tender age of six she shared her husband's pain.

The couple stood, Callista almost a foot shorter than Severus without heels, and Severus ran a hand anxiously through his short hair. "I'll be along as soon as I can. You remember the address?" Callista nodded, slightly apprehensive. She took a deep breath, reaching up to brush a light kiss across his lips, her arms around his torso. After a few moments she let go and with a sharp crack Severus disapperated.

Callista frowned at the spot he had previously occupied before sighing again and going up the stairs. She picked out a striking pair of black heels absentmindedly, eyeing her appearance critically in the mirror. Her dark eyes were surrounded by thick black make up, her plump lips covered in a bright red lipstick that contrasted sharply with the darkness of her clothing and paleness of her skin. She wrinkled her nose at her reflection, Minerva McGonagall would definitely not approve of the shortness of the black lace dress.

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Grimmauld Place was just like every other dull London suburb Callista had visited in her twenty-six years, the only thing setting it apart was the size of the buildings. At six stories high and twice the width of any normal town house, they towered above the trees that lined the street. Callista took no notice of this however as she ascended the stone steps that lead up to the concealed front door of number 12, her mind on other things. She rapped on the door with certain assertiveness that she lacked as a teen, grasping the bronze knocker tightly.

A few moments passed before the glossy black door was opened by a grizzled man whose bright blue magical eye stopped whizzing in its socket to rest uncomfortably upon Callista. Mad-eye Moody raised his grey eyebrows upon recognising the witch, letting her slip past him into a dark hallway.

"Lestrange, long time no see." He growled as he led her down the hall; Callista's mouth quirked up at the corners.

"I've grown up, believe it or not." Moody chuckled.

In the years following the imprisonment of Bellatrix and Rodolphus Lestrange, the teenage Callista had been arrested by the ministry on several occasions. Four counts of possession of illegal substances and twice for thieving, not that either of the latter had been Callista – so she had gotten to know Moody quite well in those years. Luckily as an underage witch she couldn't be sentenced but she had been lectured at by multiple Aurors on account of her parents. Each one cared so much about her, none of them were keen to have another Bellatrix on their hands, but all of them were just waiting for her to turn.

Moody led her down a short flight of steps and through a door into a large, spacious kitchen. The many people that surrounded the scrubbed wooden table in the centre turned to look at her as she entered. She picked out the faces of several of her colleagues as well as Kingsley Shacklebolt – another Auror, before her view was obscured by a mass of pink hair.

"Wocher Cally," The voice of her cousin Dora Tonks tickled her ear, "how're you?" She finally pulled away, letting Callista out of her crushing embrace just as Dumbledore spoke.

"Good to see you, Callista." His blue eyes twinkled down at her through his half moon spectacles, "No Severus?" Callista swallowed, rubbing her left forearm in frustration.

"He was called." She said simply, worry creasing her forehead. She was still being eyed curiously by the majority of the occupants. Feeling their scrutiny she removed her jacket and moved to sit down next to Minerva McGonagall. Just as Callista had predicted the older woman's lips thinned at her choice of clothing. She was sure she was about to say something, but Dumbledore interrupted.

"Now that we're all here, I'd like to introduce someone who is an invaluable professor and will most likely be an invaluable member of the Order. Callista Lestrange."