A Circle Broken

Prologue-Dreams and Revelations

He was dreaming. The place he was in was one he hadn't seen in seventeen years, but he recognized it immediately.

He also recognized the woman sitting on the bench, talking to the girl next to her, who looked stricken..

He moved closer, smirking. He wondered if she was still thinking about him. After all, the last time he had seen her was when he left her crying on her front stoop.

It was a fond memory.

He was caught in that memory, remembering the exquisite look of pain that was on her face when he told her that it was all a ruse to get close to the Charmed Ones. After all, did she really think that he would be interested in a girl like her?

But then he caught sight of the girl next to Piper, and his breath caught in his throat.

It couldn't be?

Could it?

After all, it had only been one time, and surely she had taken precautions...

Hadn't she?

But then the girl looked up and he caught sight of her eyes. The Snape eyes, eyes that had run through his family for generations upon generations..

And had never shown up in any magical family, wiccan or otherwise, other than the Snapes.

He had a child.

Snape woke with a start, his mind already turning ideas and options over in his head. He would have to take care of this, and quietly. Maybe he could pretend that her mother was dead and he had sent her away to keep her safe? That would definitely be something that Dumbledore would believe....

But what about Voldemort?

Well, Voldemort would have to know the truth...after all, he was the one who sent him to the Charmed Ones. If this had been part of his plan, he would want to know that it had succeeded.

As long as he didn't hurt her. Snapes cared about their children, and while he wasn't the demonstrative of men, he would allow no harm to come to his child...unless she disgraced the name of Snape.

Then it was open season.

But he wouldn't think about that now, he had plans to make, and a daughter to claim from San Francisco.

After all, he could not allow a Snape to be raised as a follower of the light. Snapes were and had always been followers of the Dark.

Dumbledore should have remembered that before he so naively accepted that Snape had 'seen the light'.

It would have saved him a lot of deaths.

Chapter One- Lies and Deceptions

"Sam! Get down here!"

The peace of Halliwell Manor was broken by a shout and the sounds of stomping. A young girl, no more than fifteen, appeared at the top of the stairs, her hands on her jean covered hips. She was the picture of youthful rebellion, though her dress was relatively normal.

The look on her face was not.

And the woman at the bottom of the stairs knew it, and wasn't impressed.

"Samantha. You know what I want to talk about." The girl smirked and shrugged her shoulders.

"Maybe, maybe not. Depends on what they told you." Her mother rolled her eyes and sighed extravagantly.

"You're never going to admit to it, are you?" The girl shook her head.

"Nope, not happening. After all, admitting to it would mean that I'm ashamed of what I did, and I most certainly am not." Samantha seemed confident and sure of herself, and not the least bit repentant of whatever she had done. Piper Halliwell, her mother and one of the scions of the Halliwell line, frowned.

"Baby, you know that we're not supposed to use our powers for personal gain. It goes against everything that we stand for! And to curse another student, that is absolutely against the rules! You know what might happen, are you willing to risk it?" Her speech had the air of one long rehearsed...and long used. But, it did nothing to change the look on her daughters face, or the attitude that she projected with every breath. There was a knock on the door but neither witch paid attention to it, too engrossed in the argument that was taking place to care about something as 'trivial' as a knock on the door.

"No, mother, I don't know what will happen. You've been telling me all my life that if I used my powers for my own gains that I would lose them. Well guess what Mom, I've used them for gain more than once, and I still have them. That leads me to think that maybe you've...." She was cut off with a bang as the front door went flying open, and both witches turned to face it. The man that stood in the doorway, dressed in flowing black robes and sporting greasy black hair and a cruel smile, caused Piper to suck in a harsh breath, and Samantha just raised an eyebrow. Hmmm, she hadn't known that Halloween was early this year.

"Snape." The name was a hiss out of Piper's mouth, and she glared at him. He just smiled sarcastically back. "What are you doing here?" He crossed his arms and his face turned dark.

"I'm here for something that I should have had a long time ago. Sixteen years in fact." Piper just looked at him, both of them seeming to have forgotten that Samantha was still standing on the stairs behind them. That suited her just fine, she could use the opportunity to examine the newcomer. After all, it wasn't often that her mother reacted like that to anyone...

Unless they were demons, and no matter how dark the guy looked, Samantha honestly doubted that he was a demon. A demon wouldn't have just stood there and talked to her mother, they would have attacked already.

"What?" Piper was genuinely confused. What could he possibly talking about? She didn't have anything of his, unless...No! "How did you find out?" She didn't know that even if he only had vague suspicions, by asking that one little question, she was confirming everything that he knew. His face closed down, becoming darker and colder than she had ever seen it, even when he had left her crying on her front stoop. This was dark anger, not just cruelty, and Piper, though she was fearless under normal circumstances, felt a hot burst of fright running through her. She had known this man, and even when they were 'dating', he had a cruel streak a mile long, and the tendency to hurt the people who displeased him.

She had the feeling that she had really 'displeased' him.

"I have my ways Piper. Did you really think that you could keep her from me? She's blood, Halliwell, and blood will always out." He gave her a sneer, and stepped more into the room, coming to stand directly in front of Piper.

That allowed him to catch a better view of Samantha, and he eyed her critically.

"Well, Piper, she doesn't look too bad. At least she seems to have avoided the 'punk' stage that those deplorable Muggles are going through right now." He gave an almost comical shudder, but even that did not disguise the slur on Piper's parenting.

Though Samantha was still in the dark about why he would be concerned with her mother's parenting skills, unless...

She dismissed the idea as quickly as it had come into her head. Leo was her father, this man was obviously concerned with something else, and that something else most likely didn't concern her.

But still...

"Snape, how I raise my child is none of your concern. You've seen her, you have no use for her, now why don't you leave? The door is behind you." It was clearly a dismissal, though Samantha didn't miss the shaking that colored her mother's voice. Something about this man scared her, and Samantha took a small measure of pleasure in that. It was about time that her mother realized that she was not the strongest person on the planet, despite the Power of Three.

The man seemed to understand that too, and just looked at Piper, raising his eyebrow in a way that was disturbingly familiar.

It couldn't be...

Could it?

"Piper, you seemed to have misunderstood me. I am here for her, and I will be taking her with me. You have no right to keep her, and in fact, she should have been given to me as soon as she was born." Things were beginning to point towards something that Sam really didn't want to admit, and her hand began to shake imperceptivity. She clenched her jeans to stop it. She would not show her shock, and she would not allow people to see her weaknesses.

Not even if those people turned out to be her parents.

"How do you figure that? I'm not sure how it is in the UK, but here in the US, the mother is almost always given custody. And knowing your history, you don't stand a chance. You're not going to get her." Piper said this with the tone of a person who had spent a lifetime convincing herself that she was right and that there was no way that she could be proven wrong.

But judging by the smirk on the man's face, he was about to prove her wrong. He reached into his robes and pulled out a rolled up piece of what looked like...parchment? Who used parchment nowadays? Samantha thought that it had gone out with the Middle Ages, or at least when printing presses had come around. Her mother took the scroll with a shaking hand, and unfurled it. Her eyes moved down the paper, and then it fell from her hands to hit the ground. Samantha moved down the stairs to pick the scroll up, wanting to know what had her normally unruffled mother shaking like a leaf in a strong wind. She unrolled it and read it quickly.

But her reaction was markedly different than her mothers. Instead of shock and fear, she reacted purely on instinct.

Samantha got angry.

The scroll, seemingly innocuous, lay on the stair, its words having caused no short amount of chaos in the Halliwell household. One wondered what its author intended.

United Kingdom Ministry of Magic

Dear Mrs. Halliwell,

This letter is to inform you that, under Ministry Code 546 Section A Paragraph 4 which became effective June 1 1992, your child, Samantha Nicole Halliwell, is being handed into the care of her father. A Family Tree Spell, done by one of the Department of Family and Child Services, has determined that she is the child of one of the Oldest Purebloods in our world. That being the case, it is against ministry policy for her to be raised by anyone of Muggle descent, which includes those families of Wiccan power. Visitation and other inconsequentials will be determined by the Father, one Professor Severus Tobias Snape. We are sorry for your loss.

Sincerely,

Janice Hopperson.