Chapter Eleven

A/N: This chapter is much longer than the others, because I had to fit a lot of Sylvia's memories into it. So just plow on through, tough it out, and I hope that you will enjoy it. By the way, "Love Me or Leave Me" belongs to Walter Donaldson and Gus Kahn, "Bewitched" belongs to Lorenz and Hart (personal note: I have actually sung both of these songs), and, of course, Snape and Dumbledore and many others belong to J.K. Rowling's imagination. Only Sylvia is mine.

Chapter Eleven

Just as soon as he had felt himself being taken from Sylvia's room, he was placed down unceremoniously in a dimly lit and crowded room. He stood up, rubbing his head from the fall, then took a moment to look around.

It was clearly a gathering of Muggles, but their clothes were not those of modern Muggles. He would guess it was the early twentieth century from the way they were dressed, but he really didn't know that much about Muggle fashion. The room was smoky and noisy as voices and cigarettes and the soft piano playing melded together into a seamless mesh of sense-overload. A man behind a bar was passing out drinks that the others were taking up eagerly.

Snape wasn't sure where to go or what to do when the problem was solved for him. As he turned to get another look around, he saw Dumbledore right in front of him. At least he thought it was Dumbledore…the man certainly bore a resemblance, but he was much younger. His hair was a rich auburn shade, and his long beard had been replaced with a well-trimmed goatee. Snape squinted at his face, sure that it must be him.

There was then a great commotion around a small platform that was prominent in the little club and Dumbledore looked up eagerly, his face lighting up. Snape, not wanting to miss anything, also looked toward the stage.

Sylvia was standing on it, resplendent in a beaded gown of a purple hue, and holding on to a Muggle microphone rather carelessly, not looking more than a day or two younger than she did normally.

She then began to sing, "Love me or leave me and let me be lonely; you won't believe me and I love you only. I'd rather be lonely than happy with somebody else." Something was unusual about the way she sang the song. Her eyes had noticed something—or somebody—and she didn't budge them an inch. In fact, she was staring straight at Dumbledore, who was staring straight back.

"You might find night time's the right time for kissing, but night time is my time for just reminiscing—regretting, instead of forgetting with somebody else." This was definitely unusual, Snape decided. Her eyes had not once left Dumbledore's, nor had his left hers. In fact, despite the extraordinary amount of people in the room, he felt as if he were interrupting a private moment between them.

"There'll be no one unless that someone is you…I intend to be independently blue…I want your love but I don't want to borrow, to have it today and give back tomorrow. Cause my love is your love, there's no love for nobody else."

There was a loud round of applause after the song, and Sylvia stepped confidently off the platform, walking straight toward Dumbledore. Snape heard the Headmaster's sharp intake of breath. It seemed as if he were nervous.

"Albus," Sylvia said, her voice even more contralto than normal; it sounded seductive, rich, and beautiful in its intonation. "You came." She seemed to sum up everything in the two words.

"Not for that reason," Dumbledore answered with obvious difficulty. Snape felt incredibly guilty, eavesdropping on their conversation, and tried to choose a position wherein he was more hidden. He then realized it didn't matter, since they couldn't see him anyway.

Her smile faltered a bit, but she picked it back up. "Do you want a drink?" she asked. "This damn prohibition is the only reason I want to come back to England."

"Why don't you, then?" he asked, his tone too intense to be that of one merely joking.

Her expression changed. "Come with me, Albus," she replied, leading him by the hand to the back of the establishment, apparently to her dressing room. Snape noted with a small smile that Albus Dumbledore, wise old sage, was watching the swinging of Sylvia's hips with more than just an arbitrary attention.

They entered her tiny dressing room, cluttered with clothes and…and books. Snape looked around him in awe, reminded of his bookshelf back at Hogwarts. Clearly Dr. Oliver was an avid reader.

"Why is it that you're here, Albus?" she asked, sitting down in front of her vanity with a sigh and picking up a hairbrush to work through her thick bobbed hair.

"A few days ago…Sylvia, did you notice anything here in America?"

"Did you notice anything in England?" she asked, suddenly looking a bit afraid. "Is it Grendelwald?"

"No, although we do fear he's growing in power. I've come upon some ancient texts, Sylvia, that I believe you could interpret for me. However, I've done the interpreting on my own."

It seemed that Sylvia was, at least, interpreting the look that he gave her, and Snape struggled to recognize what she was thinking. "You've found out about my mark, about what it does," she said in a tone of finality.

Dumbledore's voice was sad. "Yes. With Grendelwald…do you feel it?"

She shook her head firmly. "No. But—but a few days ago…I felt a great surge of power run through it…as strong as it had ever been. In fact, the only time it was stronger was the night it was given to me."

Dumbledore looked grim. "Then the Heir has been born," he replied.

Sylvia looked dreamy. "I remember it so vividly, that year," she murmured.

***

Suddenly, the scene before Snape was spinning and swirling and spinning again and, without quite fully realizing what had happened he was in a different time, a different memory.

He looked about him in surprise. It was his room at Hogwarts! It definitely looked newer and better kept, but it was his same dingy, drab room. He then saw two figures seated before him on chairs, and recognized both with a certain amount of shock. A much younger Sylvia Oliver, looking, at most, fifteen, and…and Salazar Slytherin.

He was sure of it! Slytherin looked to be in his late thirties. Not that bad looking though—not at all like the portraits of him later in life. His hair was sleek and black, and he kept a well-trimmed beard. He was actually quite handsome. Snape realized suddenly that this must have been Slytherin's bedroom as well.

Slytherin had several books before him, Snape noted, and stepped closer so that he could see, just in time to see Slytherin open one and flip through it.

"Ah, yes. Here we are—the hexes that you were speaking of." Sylvia leaned in to get a closer look and he reciprocated the move, so that their heads were almost touching.

"I see," she said, reading over them quickly. "Would it be all right if I borrowed this book from you?"

"Yes, of course. But in a moment. First let me speak with you of something that I have not told the others yet. You will hold it in confidence?"

"Of course," she answered, looking at him questioningly.

"Sylvia," he said smoothly, "you are the eldest of The Three, are you not?" She nodded. "And what have you sensed lately? Don't tell me you haven't felt it."

She looked at him fearfully. "An…an unbalance in Nature," she replied. Snape thought she looked distinctly nervous, and extremely young.

"That's right, an unbalance in nature," Slytherin said, urging her to continue. "Something that you are supposed to correct."

"Yes," she answered, and Snape saw her wringing her hands on her richly embroidered, heavy blue robe. "That's what Ruth told me, when I learned I would be the eldest. I feel…powers…in me that I have never known before. There is a great evil coming, I can sense it. And I do not know how to stop it."

"A great evil?" he said gently, looking at her intensely. "No, I think not, Sylvia. You mistake it. It is not a great evil, it is nothing but a change—a change in temperature."

"Still, I must correct it," she said. Snape thought she looked like she had come to the moment she had feared the most. "And I know not how to do this."

"Stay calm, my dear. I know what is causing the unbalance."

"You do?" She said it so eagerly that she actually jumped off the chair.

"Of course I do," he said, curling his lips up in the semblance of a smile. "It is I who has done this to Nature."

"You?" she said, at first not comprehending. "But—but how? And what do I have to do? Please, what do I do?" There was a certain tinge of panic in her voice, and Snape, being a man, could see the odious thoughts running through Slytherin's mind. She was so naïve, he realized, and so easily manipulated.

"Oh, you bastard," Snape said out loud, shaking his head in amaze, not thinking about the fact that he was cursing the founder of his own house. "You rat bastard. You are not going to do this to her."

"Sylvia, I should think you would know what you have to do," Slytherin, not hearing Snape's response, answered promptly. "If order and chaos merge, there is balance. When night and day mingle together, there is balance. When what you call evil and good need to be balanced, what do you think must happen?"

She stared at him hopelessly, clearly not understanding what he meant. "I don't know…" she murmured. Snape desperately wanted to hit the man sitting before her, lying shamelessly, and wished against hope that the Sorting Hat had paired him with one of the more upright Founding Four. He supposed, though, that Slytherin was just displaying the qualities that were looked for in his House members today—cunning, slyness, trickery.

"They must become one," Slytherin said firmly, and Snape ended his train of thought, not wanting to miss part of their conversation. "Do you know how?"

"No…I do not understand, Master Slytherin," she said, licking her lips nervously.

"Poor Sylvia, so uneducated about such things. What is good anyway, Sylvia? What is evil? They would say that you are good, and that I am evil, but these are not proper definitions. For us to be one, Sylvia, it's quite simple. You do know how a man and a woman become one?"

Her eyes widened as she began to comprehend his statement. "Yes…I believe so, Master Slytherin—Salazar. It is the only way to balance Nature?" she asked, her voice quavering with fear. Snape stood between them helplessly, trying to stop what was coming next, although he knew that he couldn't.

"The only way," Slytherin answered with finality in his voice, trying not to allow triumph to creep in, but Snape heard it anyway.

"Then I…then I will do it," she said with conviction, obviously trying to suppress her horror at having to be near this man.

"That's what I wanted to hear," he replied, and stood up briskly. "Now come, Sylvia, and I will show you such things as you have not learned," and taking her hand, he led her to his bed.

***

Snape shut his eyes, deciding he didn't want to witness what came next, and trying to control the anger burning within him at Slytherin. However, when he opened his eyes, the scene before him had changed, although he was in the same room with the same two people. Now it was night, Sylvia Oliver's belly was swollen with child, and she was slowly lowering herself onto the bed.

"He is your own child, Sylvia," Slytherin was saying in tones of great injury.

"He is your child," Sylvia responded, "not mine. I will know him for only a short while, after all. He will be your life."

"When do you expect he will be born?"

"Soon. This week." Snape thought it definitely looked that way. If she could have seemed any more uncomfortable, he wouldn't have believed it, and suddenly it all made sense. Sylvia had borne the Heir of Slytherin. No wonder Voldemort…he shuddered at the thought. After all, she and Voldemort had been related.

"You must hold him off for at least three days, until the Great Feast. What a portent if he was born on the holy day of Samhain!" Slytherin said grandly.

"He will come when he comes," she said irritably.

"Sylvia," Slytherin said, an odd gleam in his eyes, "you will love the child, will you not?"

"What mother could not love her child?" she asked rhetorically, turning awkwardly on her side so as not to have to face him.

"But to you, he will soon be dead."

"Yes," she said briefly.

"Then, my dear," he wheedled, coming behind her and lacing his arms around her waist and bulging stomach, "don't you want to know where his heirs are? Always? So that you can know your progeny?"

"I suppose it would be nice," she replied absently.

"I can put a charm on you, a strong one, of very ancient magic," Slytherin said, and from the look on his face, Snape could tell it was a plan he had come up with long ago.

"There is no magic more ancient than that of the Three," she answered honestly.

"But this would link you to my heirs forever. Whenever you were within a few miles of them, or if they needed your help, it would summon you to them. Will you accept it?"

She slowly nodded her assent, clearly not thinking much of it. "Should we wait until after the child's birth?" she wondered out loud.

"No, it must be performed while the heir is in the womb," he replied, but it was easy for Snape to see that he was lying.

She laughed a little, and Snape recognized that she had heard the lie in his voice as well. "Oh, Salazar, you do spin a good tale."

"What am I to do now that you can see through my falsehoods?" he asked her with slight amusement, reaching for his wand. "Regardless, I want to perform the spell now."

She shrugged. "Very well. It is your child's life."

He readied his wand, and exposed her left breast. "I think over the heart would be nice, don't you?"

"Will there be a scar?" she asked.

"Yes, a slight one, in the shape of a triangle. It is where you will feel the pain."

"A triangle," she replied, "is the symbol of The Three."

"I know," he answered, "This part was my design. Can it not also be you, the child, and myself? Likewise, we are three."

"Perhaps," she said dismissively.

"Are you ready?" Slytherin asked anxiously.

"I'm ready," she said, closing her eyes. "Perform the spell."

Lifting his wand, Slytherin cried out, "Natalis! " and a great flash of blue light rushed down towards Sylvia's heart. She sat up quickly, her eyes wide and menacing, and outside Snape heard a large crash of thunder, followed by the sound of hail on the roof. She then fell back onto the pillow, unconscious.

***

Again, before Snape had time to react to this, the memory was shifting. Now he was back in a time closer to the present, but his mind was still reeling at what he had seen happening between Slytherin and Sylvia. It explained her reaction to the portrait in his bedroom, and her hand over her heart. That was where her mark was!

He was clearly now in another Muggle club, but the clothes looked slightly more modern, so it was not as far back in the past. Sylvia was on stage again, this time in a glittering black dress with a long slit up the thigh.

She was singing, "…lately I've not slept a wink. Since this half-pint imitation put me on the blink. I'm wild again, beguiled again, a simpering, wimpering child again—bewitched, bothered and bewildered am I…"

There was a young man in the audience, Snape realized, with dashing good looks—jet-black hair, dark, brooding eyes. Eyes that were staring at Sylvia hungrily, possessively.

She looked down and met the man's gaze by chance, and her hand clutched at her heart, her eyes wild and panicked, though her voice never faltered, "Couldn't sleep, and wouldn't sleep, when love came and told me I shouldn't sleep…"

Then Snape knew beyond a shadow of a doubt who the man was, although he certainly had looked different as Snape remembered him. This was Tom Riddle, not Voldemort.

Sylvia stepped down gracefully from the stage to polite applause and Tom Riddle was immediately at her side.

"Are you Sylvia de Agincourt?" he asked eagerly.

She looked him over slowly. "No one has called me that in a long time, my boy. I'm known as Sylvia Oliver now."

"Are you…are you Andromache?" Tom went on, his dark eyes widening with excitement.

"Yes. I know who you are as well, child. Come, and let's talk."

Tom didn't seem to enjoy the references to him as a child (Snape thought with a touch of irony that he certainly had never referred to the Dark Lord as a child), but willingly followed Sylvia out of the club into the crisp, cold air.

Sylvia wrapped her arms around herself, looking up at the sky. "It's been a long time since I've felt my mark burn, child. Did you come all the way here just to find me?"

"My name's Tom Riddle," he said impatiently, "and I'm not a child. I am Salazar Slytherin's heir, and I can do dark magic that you've never dreamed of. Of course I came here to find you."

"Tom," she said tiredly, "there is nothing that I haven't dreamed of. No dark magic, no white magic, no good, no evil, nothing." Her eyes seemed to glow with intensity as she said it, and even Tom had to shrink away. "What do you want with me?"

"Mother," he said intensely, approaching her slowly until he had her pinned against a wall. "You are my mother, aren't you?"

"I'm not your mother, Tom. Perhaps in a manner of speaking, yes, I'm your foremother. Not your direct mother."

"You were Slytherin's mistress—"

"Wife," she said immediately, looking hurt.

"Yes. You were with him. I want to know how to do what he did. Can't you show me, Mother?" He smiled sickly, and Snape turned away, because the look in his eyes was all too familiar and too disgusting.

"I can show you everything you desire," she said simply. Her voice wasn't seductive or sexual at all, merely that of one offering a benevolent favor. "What do you want to know, my child?"

"I want to be more than your child," Tom said, leaning his head closer to hers. "I want to be both, even more than Slytherin was. A double bond is stronger. So I will be child and lover, and I'll have more power than he ever knew."

She sighed. "Yes, you will," she admitted.

"Severus," Sylvia said softly, and Snape turned, shocked. She was there, with Tom, and next to him, wearing a nightdress.

"Sylvia. I—I'm sorry, I saw your Pensieve and I just…"

"It's all right, Sevy. It's better for you to know. Let's leave them," she gestured to herself and Voldemort, "alone."

"What happens next?" he asked, wanting desperately to know.

"I was biding my time. I knew that if I could get The Three of us together, we could destroy him, like we had to do with Slytherin eventually. But it would do horrible things to me as well."

"What things?" he asked.

"After Slytherin, I was deeply unbalanced. I had grown so used to his evil that, once he was gone, I craved it still. It took nearly a century for me to recover. Now that Tom is gone, I am going through the same process." She took his hand, and they were suddenly back in her bedroom.

"But it's not as hard as it was with Slytherin," he prompted, trying to get her to tell him more.

She sat down heavily on her bed. "No," she admitted. "Remus has been a help to me. It's very different this time because my One is alive. The way that we know our One is that we feel that Nature has been supremely righted, and that all is in harmony. That has counterbalanced the evil in me."

He was dying to ask her if Remus was the One, but couldn't bring himself to do it. His mind was whirling with all that he had seen and experienced that night, and he realized all of a sudden that he was deeply tired. So, bidding her good night, he left her room, deep in thought. After he was gone, she sighed slowly, clutching the triangle that was emblazoned over her heart.

***

I hope that you liked it! By the way, copious thanks to all my wonderful reviewers, including: Lilith Morgana (I love your story, btw, Severa introduced it to me); Rosmerta the fabulous first reviewer and lover of the philosopher's song; Severa (maybe we could do a crossover with Mallory and Sylvia? I didn't really mean to insult her); Jessica, the lover of Caesar, Krycek, and more baddies; Rushumble, who is a great giver of constructive criticism; Sphinx, with whom I hope I can co-own intellectual Snape; Blackletter, who loves the fast-paced world of classics; Kaire Epsilon, whose surname is from my favorite alphabet ever; Velvet, who I really hope will come back and read more of my little story; Lunakitten, who also shares a love of philosophy; Raistlin Majere (I'm glad you were patient while I revealed Dr. O's secrets); EowynStar (I love HP and the Futile Curse! You are doing a great job on it, not to mention the Austin Powers crossover); Himitsu Natsume (the Survivor crossover is hilarious!); and last but not least, All's Well that Ends Well, who I hope comes back to read more.

Thanks, y'all! Keep your reviews coming. Sometimes they make me all teary-eyed with joy. Enough sap, though. See you soon.