Okay, guys and gals, this chapter's a little disturbing

Okay, guys and gals, this chapter's a little disturbing. But read it through to the end and I'll give you a gold star! By the way, this is dedicated to Jessica, (aka P-Phunk), my first and most loyal fan, who put up with me reading her Christy II in the 5th grade. By the way, David did kiss the doctor, and there was also a blackout. Anyway, read on, if you dare.

Chapter Eight

Once Snape, his wounds now healed by Madam Pomfrey, was seated as comfortably as possible in Dumbledore's office, the Headmaster began.

"First of all," he said, "I want you to know that I have discussed this with Dr. Oliver and she agrees you have a right to know a bit more about her than she has divulged to the rest of the staff."

Snape suddenly realized something important that he had neglected to tell Dumbledore. "Headmaster," he said a bit frantically. "Yesterday, when she touched me on my Dark Mark, it burned. Like it would have if…if Voldemort had touched me." Alone of all the teachers, he was willing to say the Dark Lord's name, perhaps because he alone had served him for so long.

"Yes," Dumbledore said calmly, "as I see it, that would happen."

"You and Lupin have both acted very natural about it," Snape said accusingly. "But I can't wholly trust someone who has the power to do that."

"You do not know her as Remus and I know her," Dumbledore continued. "Severus, Sylvia Oliver is a very powerful Magical being. Suffice it to say, at this point she does not want me to tell you what sort of being she is, but you need to know this much—she ages differently than we do."

Snape's mind was racing as he thought of all beings and their methods of aging. Banshees and veelas had much longer lives than wizards, whereas mermaids and centaurs lived much shorter. She was hardly a mermaid or a centaur, though. And perhaps she was none of these, but some obscure creature that he had learned of once in a Care of Magical Creatures class and forgotten.

"The reason that your Dark Mark burned," Dumbledore said, fixing Snape with a very shrewd look, "is because Voldemort once had her in his sway. Take your mind back to the days of his power. Do you remember her?"

Snape didn't like to think back to those days of mindless killing and brutal torture, but he forced himself to mull on it. And suddenly, he saw her in his mind's eye and couldn't believe that he had not made the connection before. "My initiation ceremony," he said hoarsely, "when they—they burned it into my skin. She was there, I can see her…"

He was walking toward the Dark Lord, then prostrate before him, quavering with fear. He looked up nervously at the man that stood tall and thin and majestic in his black robes, his face not blocked with a mask like his followers, but gazing forth with all its horrible malice. And next to him, at his right hand, although a step behind him, was another figure not masked, a woman.

Warm, honey-colored hair, smooth skin with an olive tint, gray-green eyes, and an elegantly shaped hand that presented the brand of the Death Eaters to Voldemort. It was Sylvia. As the Dark Lord accepted it from her, he gave her a look in which lust and longing and desire were all commingled, and he gazed for a moment at her belly, which Snape suddenly and horribly realized was swollen with child.

"She—she…" he was too overcome with emotion to finish the sentence.

Dumbledore saw by the look in his eyes what he was trying to say, and replied, "Yes, she carried Voldemort's child, who was later stillborn. Understand this, Severus—the powers that drew Sylvia Oliver to Lord Voldemort were a deeper, more powerful magic than we use today…and a very dark magic. As soon as she lost the child, she ran from him and came to me."

"I just cannot understand it, Headmaster," Snape sputtered. "She is so kind and gentle and…and there is no Dark Mark on her arm!" He had seen her wearing short-sleeved t-shirts often enough while jogging to know this much of her.

"No, there is not," Dumbledore said sadly. "Sylvia's dark mark is in a deeper place than her arm. To be the lover of Voldemort, Severus…we just cannot imagine it. You served him, yes, but to you he was a master. To her…to her he was a lover, close to her soul. She had loved him before he changed, and she tried to love him after. She was misinformed."

"How could she have survived him?" Snape asked. He now felt a deeper kinship with the woman than he had thought possible—they shared a secret, horrible and gruesome, and it would bind them inextricably forever in their guilt.

"She is made of strong stuff, and does not lack sinew," Dumbledore said. "You can understand why she wanted you to know this about her. She was uncomfortable to tell you herself, and asked me to do it for her. Do you have a better idea now of her reasons?"

"I must go and speak with her right away," Snape replied, determined, and Dumbledore watched, smiling a bit, as the younger man walked down the stairs resolutely.

"Fawkes, what would he say if he realized that that wasn't the half of it?" the headmaster asked the phoenix, who looked at him wisely but did not speak a word.

***

Snape, still slightly dazed, made his way down to Sylvia's quarters, trying to remember all he had known of that woman he remembered from his initiation ceremony. None of the Death Eaters had known much about her; they had accused her of being aloof, in fact, of thinking that she was better than they were. Of course, it hadn't been long at all before the child was born, and she had disappeared.

Snape remembered when the child had been born. It was, he thought he recalled, a boy, but it had never drawn a breath before it was dead. Voldemort had been furious, burning with anger, and he had done things in those next few months that were so odious they still made Snape shudder. It had just made things worse when Sylvia had vanished without a trace.

He knocked on her door, and heard her cry out, "Come in, it's open!" As he entered the room, he noticed her hastily stowing something away in a cabinet, something that looked like a Pensieve. He wondered what kind of memories she was keeping in it.

"Sevy, I thought that might be you. Remember, we said we were going to meet tonight after dinner? You never turned up!" she said, smiling a bit until she saw his face, grim and ashen. "What on earth is wrong, Sevy?"

"The last few hours have been a little...traumatic," he began.

"Yes, Remus told me about your fight."

"Is he still here?" Snape asked, looking about anxiously. He didn't want Lupin suddenly intruding on them.

"No, he's gone now. How could you, Sevy, really?"

"It's not important anymore. Sylvia, I spoke with Dumbledore. He told me about you...about your secret."

"My secret?" she asked, a little panicked. "Surely he did not tell you everything?"

"He told me about you and Voldemort," Snape said, watching the expression on her face carefully. To his surprise, she barely even flinched. It seemed that this was good news to her.

"Oh, he told you about Tom and I," she replied easily, as if this was nothing.

"Sylvia, how can you be so calm about it? Lord Voldemort was the darkest wizard of our age." He saw her wrinkle her brow at that name, as if she did not like to use it. But who was she kidding? Tom Riddle, whose name she used so freely, was long dead.

Her eyes darkened. "Of our age, yes," she murmured. "No, I really found Tom a bit endearing at first. Then when he grew darker, I knew that I had to do something about it. Eventually I got away from him. I'm surprised you don't remember me, Sevy."

"I did, when Dumbledore reminded me," he said falteringly. "I remembered my initiation ceremony, where everyone was masked—save you and him—"

"He always told me that a mask would hide my beauty," she said softly, "and he wanted everyone to know that my beauty belonged to him."

"—You handed him the brand—" Snape continued, as if he hadn't heard her, "and you were with child—"

"I remember you like it was yesterday," she said, walking slowly towards him. "You were a pale, scared, nervous kid, weren't you, Severus?" She moved to push up the sleeve of his left arm, and, a bit mesmerized, he let her. Her fingers traced his Dark Mark almost caressingly, and there was a look in her eyes that he did not know how to define, but he did not like it. In fact, it frightened him. "Why did you join him?" she whispered.

"No," he murmured, shaking his head and pulling away from her. "I can't tell you…it's too much…please, Sylvia." She was still staring at him almost hungrily, and he was afraid of her.

"Please tell me, Severus," she pleaded. "I have to know…I have to know evil. It's driving me mad!"

Horrified, he stepped further away from her. "What—what are you? No more secrets, Andromache."

When she heard the name, her head snapped up and she looked at him strangely. "Who told you? Who told you my name?"

He laughed awkwardly, "Tell me your secrets and I'll tell you mine."

She was clearly uncomfortable. "Sevy, listen to me. Too much has happened today. Forgive me for what I said a moment ago. I lost control. Can we forget about this for now? Someday I promise I will tell you about myself, but not now."

He weighed his decisions. He valued her friendship, and didn't want to alienate her, but something about her was not right. However, she could not be so evil if Dumbledore trusted her. He would have to trust her as well, and wait until she saw fit to divulge her secrets. "Very well," he said, sighing, "We will forget about it."

"Thank you," she said, very relieved. "Now," she continued, "I do believe we were slated for a discussion on Sartre."

"How correct you are!" he said in a tone of false cheeriness, hiding the confusion in his eyes. "Let's see what Jean-Paul has to say."

***

Okay, so Sylvia's a little darker of a character than you thought she'd be, isn't she? I've always got a bag of tricks up my sleeve (I think that was a mixed metaphor). Again, I'd like to give the hugest of thanks to my wonderful, wonderful reviewers—Velvet, Jessica of course, Rushumble, lunakitten, Severa my mentula-amat friend, Raistlin Majere, Rosmerta (my very first reviewer!), kateydidnt, eowynstar (a loyal fandom friend), poltergeist, Himitsu Natsume, and All's Well that End's Well. Keep reviewing, please, y'all!