Ariel awoke to the sound of someone swearing. At first, she thought she was still dreaming, but then something that sounded a whole lot like pots and pans crashing to the ground made her eyes shoot open.

“I will do no such fucking thing —”

“Whuzzat?” Ariel murmured blearily.

“Severus, you need to calm down.”

“Do not tell me what I need to do —”

“You’re going to wake her —”

There were more crashing and banging sounds that caused Ariel to sit up straight and glance warily at the white curtain that separated her from the chaos behind it. Looking around, she found that she was in the Hospital Wing, and that her arm was in a sling. She didn’t remember coming here, but she could remember the voices on the other side of the curtain rushing into the room, just as Quirrell —

Ariel felt her insides scramble as everything came rushing back at once. She could still smell the rot from the back of Quirrell’s head, feel her heart thumping away like a hammer against glass. Everything had happened so fast, but she’d stopped Voldemort from finding out what was in the letter, and from getting the Stone. The last thing she could remember was Snape’s bottomless black eyes leaning over her —

Snape — that’s who was doing all of the yelling. It was Snape, and —

The curtain parted, nearly scaring Ariel half to death, but to her relief, it was Professor Dumbledore.

His somber expression stretched into a smile as their eyes met. “Good afternoon, Ariel.”

Ariel wanted to cry, seeing him, wanted to tell him everything all at once, like how Voldemort had tried to rip the letter from her memories. The night she had sat in front of the Mirror, he had sat with her and talked with her like he’d known the secrets of her heart before she had. She wanted to ask him why Snape had burned the letter, and then come for her when he hated her —

“The Stone!” she blurted out. “I had the Stone in my pocket —”

Dumbledore drew the curtain back behind him, lifting a finger to his lips. “Calm yourself, dear girl, or Madam Pomfrey will have me thrown out.”

“But —”

“The Stone is safe,” he sat himself at the edge of her bed and patted her hands comfortingly. “I’ve made sure of it.”

She could feel herself deflating with relief (again). Looking around, she found that she was alone, but the tables and empty gurney were covered in baskets of candy and flowers. She looked to Dumbledore in confusion, and he chuckled.

“Gifts from your friends. What happened between you and Quirrell is a secret, so naturally, the whole school knows. Miss Granger and Mr Weasley have been quite worried about you, though. They’ve been asking for you.”

“How long have I been asleep?”

“Three days,” said Dumbledore. “Madam Pomfrey wouldn’t let them in, insisting you needed your rest, but they’ve asked every chance they’ve got.”

Ariel’s heart squeezed in her chest, like it was trying to give her ribs a hug. “When can I see them?”

“Whenever Madam Pomfrey thinks you’re ready.”

“Why did she allow you in, then?” Ariel paused, realizing her question may have come off as rude. “Not that I didn’t want to see you, sir —”

His eyes twinkled. “I imagine you have some questions for me.”

She didn’t even know where to begin. She wanted to ask about the Stone — what had happened to it, was it safe? — and about Voldemort, how he’d been hounding her as the Smoke Monster but renting out the back of Quirrell’s head.

Instead, Ariel found herself asking, “Where’s Snape?”

The curtain pulled back again, but this time, it was so hard that some of the metal rings cracked off the rod. If Ariel had been paying more attention, she might’ve thought it was odd that Dumbledore didn’t turn around to see who it was.

“I hope you don’t mind,” Dumbledore gestured to the candy. “I’ve helped myself to some, but Severus seems to have accidentally set some on fire.”

Snape did not look… well. There were dark circles under his eyes that were so deep it looked like they’d been carved out with an ice-cream scooper. The sunlight streaming in from behind him made him look like he’d been peeled out of the shadows and stuck there. He looked so out of place that Ariel had to blink a few times to make sure he was real.

His eyes burned into hers like piping hot coals. It took every ounce of courage Ariel had not to look away, but even if she wanted to, she didn’t think she could. There was something wild and desperate in them — she had the suspicion that if she looked away first, something inside of them would shatter.

“Do join us, my friend.” Dumbledore said, still without looking behind him.

With that, he conjured a purple armchair, one that looked like it was made of satin and starlight. Snape stared at the chair like he wanted to put it in a chokehold, but after a moment, Ariel was surprised to see that he sat down on it. She tried to find her anger, to turn away from him and focus on what had happened in the room with the Mirror, but she couldn’t. All she felt now was a sort of hollow sadness. It wasn’t the feeling of loss, though, it was… something else.

“Is he gone, then?” Ariel asked quietly. “Voldemort?”

Dumbledore sighed deeply. “From the school, yes. Without a host, Voldemort is unable to stay within the castle as long as I am Headmaster, which he ultimately found a way around by sharing Quirrell’s body. I would suppose he would be looking for another suitable host in the meantime.”

“So that means he could come back?”

“It does,” Dumbledore said. “But that does not mean he will return in the same form.”

“I don’t understand,” Ariel shook her head. “why was I the only one who could see him, then?”

Dumbledore cleared his throat, and almost seemed to fiddle with his hands for a moment before looking at Snape. “Do you remember, my dear girl, when we found you at your aunts?”

Ariel blinked. “Of course I do, sir.”

“There was a reason you were left in their care,” Dumbledore said, and Ariel couldn’t help but notice that it seemed like he was ignoring the very pointed stare Snape was giving him. “It was for your own protection. You see, when your mother put herself between you and Voldemort, she left a mark on you, and if there is one thing Voldemort cannot understand, it is love. To have been loved so deeply, even though the person who loved us is gone, will give us some protection forever. It is in your very skin. Quirrell, full of hatred, greed, and ambition, sharing his soul with Voldemort, could not touch you for this reason. It was agony to touch a person marked by something so good.”

“But then why —”

Dumbledore held up a hand. “That protection was extended and reinforced by that love — it’s a sacrificial magic that cannot be broken. Your aunt shares your mother’s blood, and so by living under her roof as her own, that protection became binding — a binding that broke when you ran away, and your aunt readily accepted it.”

Ariel tried to digest all of this. “So… I saw him because I broke Mum’s magic?”

“You did not break it,” he said gently. “Not permanently, anyway. That’s where I’ve been, you see. I’ve just had a visit with your Aunt Petunia, and she has agreed to open her home to you once again.”

Something went clink, like when a rock had put a dent in Uncle Vernon’s windshield. Ariel’s eyes flickered to Snape, who she had done a pretty darn impressive job of not looking at, if she did say so herself. He was as still as a statue, his eyes trying to burn a hole into the stone floor. She was, however, quickly faced with the reality, that she was going to have to see Petunia’s miserable horse-face again, and listen to Dudley’s whining and bullying, all because of stupid Voldemort and his even stupider plan.

If she had been alone, she might’ve burst into tears. She thought about it, but when she accidentally looked at Snape, she saw that he looked like he was ready to do to Dumbledore magic-purple chair what he’d done to Aunt Petunia’s bathroom. How’d Dumbledore get her to take her back, after the mess they’d left?

“Why couldn’t anyone else see him?” Ariel asked quietly, not wanting to talk about the Dursleys. “Why was it just me and Quirrell?”

Dumbledore cleared his throat. “The first thing you ask me, I cannot tell you. Not today… not now. You will know, one day — put it from your mind for now, Ariel. When you are older — I know you hate to hear this — when you are ready, you will know. As for Quirrell, he was sharing a body with him, which means that when Voldemort became spirit once again, they shared a mind — a collective consciousness, if you will.”

She thought of Voldemort in her mind, in her head, in her thoughts and feelings and body, inside her magic and blood and nerves, and suppressed a shudder. “He had to live like that… every day?”

Dumbledore nodded. “He went down a path that many followed almost a decade ago. And even with Quirrell’s immense sacrifice, he left him to die. He shows his followers just as little mercy as he does his enemies.”

“But I didn’t invite Voldemort into my body like that. How did he make me pummel Malfoy if I didn’t let him in?”

Dumbledore sighed, and it was a tired sigh, the kind you gave after a long, hard day. “That was where I failed you, Ariel. It wasn’t until after Voldemort fled that I pieced together why he seemed to be growing stronger. You see, he was incredibly weak to begin with, having Quirrell resort to drinking unicorn blood to keep his master sustained. You, however, were providing him with a much different form of sustenance.”

Ariel’s head spun, trying to make sense of what Dumbledore was saying. “I never would have —”

“For Merlin’s sake,” Snape finally snapped, causing Ariel to nearly jump out of her skin. “stop speaking in riddles and tell the girl the damn truth.”

Dumbledore gave Snape a long, hard stare, one that was returned back without faltering. Ariel imagined that if she stood in-between them, she would probably go up in flames. She wondered what they’d been arguing about on the other side of the curtain, just before she’d woken up.

“Humor an old man, my dear girl,” Dumbledore finally said after a long, tense (and awkward) silence. “When you attacked Mr Malfoy, what were you feeling?”

Ariel thought back to that night — it was right after Hermione had returned from holiday break and told them she’d figured out who Nicholas Flamel was. Then she’d said that Voldemort might be the one after the Stone, and Ariel had been so overwhelmed by the thought she’d run out, not even able to think straight. Once Malfoy had started baiting her, it had set her over the edge —

She swallowed roughly. “I was angry that he was saying stuff about my parents, but right before then, Ron and Hermione were worried that someone might have been working for Voldemort on the inside. I — I wasn’t myself, but I could never explain why, but I didn’t mean to hurt Malfoy as badly as I did.”

“I know you didn’t,” Dumbledore reassured her. “but it was that perfect storm of events Voldemort had been waiting for. You see, pain and destruction and turmoil follow him wherever he goes. He leaves nothing good, nothing salvageable, in his wake. Those emotions, all of that anger and fear, made him stronger, and with the Blood Wards fallen, it was the perfect storm.”

She stared at him, stunned, feeling horribly used and guilty. It felt even worse than when Voldemort had been inside her mind, more of a violation.

“It all started after I found the letter,” Ariel whispered, mostly to herself. “I’d been so happy, but it made me confused and scared… that’s when the Smoke Monster — I mean Voldemort — that’s when he started showing up. And the other night, after —”

She stopped herself before she went on, but she felt all her confusion quickly melt away, the embers of anger stirring again. After Snape had burned the letter, that endless darkness had swallowed her up, and it was all because of —

Snape did not look at her. His hands dug into the arms of the chair, his back hunched, like every word she spoke was crushing him.

“Why’d he make me pummel Malfoy instead of taking me then?” Ariel asked tonelessly.

“I would wager it was a test, of sorts.” Dumbledore said slowly. “To see how much control he could exert over you.”

“Well it didn’t work,” Ariel muttered. “not even when he tried to find out what Mum’s letter said.”

“He will not be able to influence you like that ever again, if he were to return to power.” Dumbledore squeezed her hand. “I promise you that, Ariel. As long as the Blood Wards remain in place, you will be protected.”

Ariel felt her body swell with something powerful — it wasn’t rage, or sorrow, or guilt anymore. It was an emotion she had felt before, only she hadn’t realized it through the haze of adrenaline and panic.

“Good,” she said through her teeth. “even without the Blood Wards, it wouldn’t happen again, though.”

Dumbledore and Snape looked at her at the same time, their expressions mirroring each other.

“And why is that?” asked Dumbledore.

She looked him straight in the eye, then. “Because I won’t let him.”

————

It was late when the girl roused from sleep, finding Severus both exhausted and yet, still on a heightened sense of alert.

The emotional exhaustion far outweighed the physical one. After Dumbledore had told him the girl would have to go back Petunia’s, Severus had fucking lost it. He hadn’t cared either — normally he would have saved his outrage for when they were alone, but those risible Muggles, those sad excuses of people that were somehow related to Lily and her daughter were the last goddamn straw. The source of irony, however, was that Dumbledore seemed just as deeply unhappy with this development as Severus did. The difference was that Severus had begged for him to find an alternative way, but there was none, especially after he had told him how the Dark Lord had been using the girl. Then, all that had been left was soul-crushing guilt.

It was the only way she would be safe from something like this again. Sacrifices had to be made — Severus knew that better than anyone — but he would be damned if that girl suffered another fucking second, especially under Lily’s jealousy-ridden sister.

Her eyes were bright, like she’d been waiting for Pomfrey to leave for the night before waking. Severus stared back at her and wondered how it was that someone could be the perfect amalgam of two people; she looked so much like Lily, and yet, those eyes changed her face so much that it was impossible to pinpoint who she looked more alike. He wondered how he’d ever thought of her as Lily’s clone. It frightened him that this thought no longer bothered him, no longer burrowed into his every thought and made his heart heavy with guilt.

“Hello,” she whispered to him.

“It’s late,” Severus muttered. “go back to sleep.”

She shook her head. “I can’t. It's strange. I know he’s gone, but… I’m still afraid that Voldemort will be in my dreams.”

“That won’t happen, the Blood Wards have been reinstated.”

“I know,” her eyes lowered to the floor. “It's just a thought, that's all.”

Severus hesitated. “I can give you Dreamless Sleep —”

The girl shook her head. “No, I don’t want to sleep at all, really.”

“Your body needs sleep to heal.”

She made a face. “I feel fine.”

He wanted to tell her that she had almost fucking died in front of that Mirror, that if they’d been a minute or so later, there would’ve been two bodies taken from that damn room, but he couldn’t bring himself to give her any more misery. He had done enough — he had tried to protect her in the best way he knew he could, and it had almost killed her.

You’ve nearly killed your own child twice, now, whispered a cruel, dark voice. You’ve one job, and you’ve failed —

“You don’t have to stay, you know.” she whispered.

Severus didn’t know what to say to that. He didn’t want to tell her that the thought of leaving her alone in the Hospital Wing was enough to give him heart palpitations. He didn’t want to tell her that the terror had not left him, that the image of Quirrell stalking towards her as her eyes — his eyes — had shone with relief the second she’d seen him haunted him every time he closed his eyes. He did not want to tell her that when he’d lifted her into his arms, it was like she fit perfectly there, like a piece of a puzzle he hadn’t realized was missing.

“I’m aware,” he said stiffly. “I don’t need you to reiterate.”

Her eyes darkened. “So then why don’t you go?”

“You know why.”

“I really don’t.”

I’m all alone

are you happy?

it was the only thing I’ve ever had

He didn’t answer her. She deserved every answer, every confession, every apology, but Severus would not give it, because if he did, that horrible voice inside him would grow louder and morph into a beast. The beast in the jungle that would taunt him endlessly, and he had spent years hunting it down, taking it apart limb by limb.

The girl huffed, annoyed with his lack of a response. She twisted her legs in the bedsheets, curling her knees to her chest. She stayed facing him, her black eyes glittering in the dark of the infirmary.

“Quirrell said something to me down there,” she finally said. “He said that you hated James. Did you?”

That motherfucker —

Severus’ eyes narrowed. “I don’t know what that human shitstain told you, but my utmost loathing of Potter has nothing to do with you.”

“Did it… when you still thought I was his?”

He wanted to lie, but he couldn’t — not to her, not anymore. “For a time.”

She grimaced. “What about Mum?”

“We’ve been over this,” Severus rubbed his face tiredly. “You know why I am here, Miss Evans.”

“I think you owe my answers to some of it,” she shot back. “especially after Voldemort tried rummaging around my brain like it was Mum’s old trunk. He thought Mum’s letter was to tell me about some special power I had. Too bad for him, I guess. He would have been disappointed, I think. The two of you have that in common I guess.”

He should have been expecting it — Dumbledore had called it a reckoning, but what the old man had failed to realize was that Severus’ reckoning had already come and gone. The girl handing him Lily’s letter to read himself had been his undoing. Everything he’d come to know, come to shroud himself in and hold around the tattered remains of his heart had been under a siege he had never anticipated.

The girl’s words caused something sharp to twist inside his chest. Severus didn’t have the ability to express remorse — he had never been remorseful, really, never been able to muster together empathy unless it pertained to Lily. She’d left him practically cut to ribbons after an argument, and he would have done anything to make it right. With their daughter, however, it was not only the need to make it right, but this pull, this desperation to make her pain stop, to find the source and rearrange its insides.

What was he to do when he was the cause? He had tried, he had tried so damn hard to make her see —

Her face twisted, like she was trying to keep herself from crying. If she did, Severus didn’t think he would be able to handle it.

“I didn’t think I could feel that rotten.” her voice was steady, but her eyes shimmered like a mirage. “Especially when… when You-Know-Who was inside my head. I didn’t even feel mad or sad or anything, I just felt empty, like everything had been sucked up and taken away. I thought for a minute that maybe that was better than feeling all the bad stuff, but he didn’t just take the bad stuff, it was the good too, but the emptiness made me forget about it, made me forget it was still there until it was almost too late. That’s how I got rid of him… he couldn’t take that away, not when I used it against him, I guess.”

Severus closed his eyes. “I should have better prepared you.”

“How was I supposed to fight him? He was a ghost when he wasn’t on the back of Quirrell’s stupid head.”

I could have taught you Occlumency, I could have taken you far away from here but you’re only a child, you’re only eleven years old —

“I could have done more,” said Severus. “we all could have.”

She lifted her head, and looked straight at him, as though he were having her on. For a moment, Severus wondered if she was looking straight through, if she would ever truly look at him again. He wouldn’t have blamed her, if she had told him to get out, to never speak to her again. He could go back to protecting her from afar — that was what had been his downfall, after all. Caring at all for the girl — and he did care, which was the terrifying, brilliant, realization he’d come to carrying her into the infirmary — was his blind spot.

A blind spot Dumbledore told him would be her greatest strength, and he had taken it from her.

Or so he thought.

“I forgive you,” she said. “I don’t blame you for what happened.”

Her words caught him completely by surprise, like an undertow sucking him beneath the otherwise calm surface of a river.

“It’s not your fault,” the girl went on, almost mercilessly. “You couldn’t have known Voldemort was using me like an all-you-can-eat buffet. I should’ve figured it out sooner, I mean, I was the one who was doing all of the feeling. I just thought it was some horrible coincidence… but even that’s sorta reaching. I never really connected the two. But anyway, I shouldn’t have had the letter on me, I should’ve given it to you or left it in Mum’s trunk or something. I just… I wanted you to know, I wanted you to know because I think Mum did, even if you don’t believe me, and I wanted a part of the Mirror that was still here.”

Severus could feel the edges of his vision shimmering, a feeling like a fist in his throat. He could feel that beast, that thing that was still caged and locked away tight lurking, begging to be set free so he could run and get away, get as far away from here as a he could, but something else was there too, something bigger and hungrier —

The girl frowned; her eyebrows knitted together in concern. She threw her legs over the side of the bed and crept toward him. “Are you —”

He grabbed her wrist and pulled her towards him. She let out a gasp, but she did not look afraid, or repulsed, only…

Hope is the last thing ever lost, Dumbledore had told him.

“Do not think for a second you are in any way responsible for this.” Severus hissed. “I burned that letter, and I brought that pain. I should have never let you leave.”

She stared at him, her face inscrutable. “You were trying to protect me. You’ve only ever tried to protect me… even from you.”

Her fingers wrapped around his wrist. Her hand was ice cold, and where it touched his skin, it burned.

“I am not a good person, Miss Evans.” Severus finally said in a hard voice. “You don’t know the things I have done, the things I will continue to do to ensure that the Dark Lord does not rise to power again.”

She sighed and let go of his wrist. “I don’t understand what that means or why it matters.” 

“There was a reason your mother did not tell me that she was with child.”

“That’s because she Obliviated you —”

“No, Miss Evans,” Severus felt his fingers dig into his kneecaps. “That’s beside the point. I remember everything now, and she would not have told me.”

Her eyes widened in shock. “Why didn’t you tell me you got your memories back?”

“It doesn't matter, it changes nothing.”

“But — but you know now, you remember what happened!” she stopped suddenly, her eyes lowering themselves to the floor. “It still doesn’t change your mind at all then, huh?”

“Miss Evans —”

“Do you not want me because I survived, and Mum didn’t?”

He stared at her, speechless. She quirked an eyebrow at him, like she had asked him about the weather. The longer he pondered the ridiculousness of her question, the more Severus realized that her ease had come with contemplation. This had… not been the first time she’d asked it, maybe of him, but surely of herself. If Lily were here, she would have hung him by his fingernails for allowing her to think such a thing.

“It’s not a matter of what I want, Miss Evans,” Severus managed to strangle out. “though I have resigned myself to the fact that you are incapable of accepting no for an answer.”

“You didn’t answer my question,” she crossed her arms tightly across her chest. “Is that what it is? Or is it really because you think you’re a git?”

Severus rolled his eyes. “That is a gross understatement of the sentiment.”

“I’m being serious.”

“I do not blame you,” he forced out, the words sticking to his throat. “but you do not know what you ask.”

“I do!”

“No, you don’t.” Severus said sharply. “I have done nothing to warrant any sort —”

“You’re right, you haven’t!” she shot back, taking him by surprise. “You’re horrid to me and my friends, you ignored me for half the year until Quirrell sent that Bludger after me, and you —” she swallowed hard. “You burned Mum’s letter.”

Her eyes flashed dangerously. Severus stayed perfectly still.

She took a deep breath. “You’ve done good things too, though. No one is ever just bad, right? We’ve all got good and bad inside of us. I bet even You-Know-Who had some… maybe not anymore, but maybe deep down, he did once.”

“Most people die without ever confronting themselves in the darkness,” Severus paused. “the difference is that the Dark Lord uses that to his advantage.”

Her nightgown brushed against his legs. “Isn’t that the difference between you and someone like him, then? You’re sorry for it, aren’t you? That makes you a good person.”

You’re sorry for it, aren’t you?

There it was — a simple question. An open doorway. An invitation over an impossible threshold. The girl was wrong of course, Severus was in no way, shape, or form a good person — he would never be, after taking the Mark and devoting his life to two masters.

He could protect her from that side of him, though. If he could not cleave her from him, he would do what he could. He would do what she asked. He would do anything for her.

Severus took a steadying breath and said: “There is something your mother left you.”

————

The next day, Snape came and fetched Ariel from the infirmary, right as the sun rose and swept through the castle.

He hadn’t told them what he had to show her or where they were going, only that she should stay close. This was rather easy to do, since his hand did not leave her shoulder the entirety of the walk up to their destination, which turned out to be Dumbledore’s office. Once they were inside, Ariel strained her head, looking for Dumbledore, but Snape quickly shook his head at her.

“He’s at the Ministry,” he said stiffly. “Sorting out the mess Quirrell made.”

Ariel didn’t know what to say to that, so she didn’t say anything. She would have rather not talked about Quirrell for a long time, if she could help it, but she was sure Ron and Hermione were going to have questions when she finally saw them.

Snape motioned for her to follow him over to an oddly shaped bowl. It was wide and shallow, not like anything Ariel had ever seen before, but she could see something shimmering on the surface of the still thing that looked like water, just beyond her sightline. There were Runes engraved on the side of it (Hermione would’ve loved to see them) and what looked like precious stones set in each of the four corners of the basin.

Snape spoke before Ariel could ask what they were looking at. “This is a Pensive. It acts as a vessel for one to view memories… either their own, or someone else’s. Your mother left behind two; one was the last night we saw one another, and the other… Dumbledore has made quite clear that it was to be viewed by the both of us, when I deemed it appropriate.”

Ariel swallowed back the ten-billion questions she had. “How does it work?”

“You look inside of the Pensive, like submerging your face in sink water.”

“Won’t we drown?”

“No,” Snape looked like he was trying not to roll his eyes. “you won’t. It’s not really water, it only looks like it.”

“Oh,” she shifted uncomfortably. “Er, alright.”

He knelt down in front of her. “If you are not ready —”

“No!” Ariel blurted out, earning herself a skeptical look from Snape. “I’m ready, I’m just… what’s in the memory?”

He bowed his head. “That I do not know. The Headmaster only said that she wished for us to see it together.”

She gave a jerky nod and he stood. Following him closer to the Pensive, Ariel saw that it wasn’t really water, like he’d said, but wisps of what looked like smoke swirling around the rims. It reminded her of fog on a lake on a rainy day, or of a candle that had been just blown out, the embers still hot.

“Do as I do,” Snape said. “If you need to leave at any time, you will tell me.”

Ariel gulped and nodded. Her stomach churned with excitement and trepidation, in the most wonderful way. She watched as Snape leaned forward into the bowl, and she did the same, feeling herself being sucked forward, until she was falling — only it wasn’t really falling, because her feet were suddenly beneath her again, only the floor was different. She looked around and found Snape beside her. She was about to ask where they were, but his eyes were focused on something in front of them, something that took her a moment to see herself.

They were in a bedroom, one that was somehow familiar to Ariel, but she couldn’t place how. There was a large bed with a canopy, and a bassinet beside it. Outside, it was pouring, the rain slamming against the windowpanes. It shook the screens and threw the rain wildly, so much so that for a moment or so, all Ariel could concentrate on was the sound of it splattering across the roof above their heads.

Ariel noticed her when her head moved. Her hair was the color of wine, halfway down her back in thick waves. She wore a green turtleneck and Muggle jeans, and her socks were mismatched, just like how Ariel wore hers, because who had time to sort through socks anyway? She was standing, hunched over a dresser with a Mirror above it. All across the dresser were scraps of paper and tissues, Muggle pens and a quill that looked like it had seen better days.

“Mum?” Ariel croaked, her feet moving of their own volition. She crept forward, wanting to touch her, to hear her voice, to tell her everything and ask everything all at once.

Mum looked up into the mirror. There were tears in the corners of her eyes.

And then her reflection looked straight at them. Snape’s arm curved around her shoulders, but she was barely aware of it, staring hungrily into the mirror. She could’ve stared into this mirror — this distant memory of one from years ago — the same way she would have stared into the Mirror of Erised.

Mum lifted a hand, as though she were about to wave, but her fingers curled back, her hand falling back to the dresser. Mum smiled — a smile that was so sad, so earnest and genuine that it hurt to look at. Ariel’s heart felt like it was going to explode, but after a minute or so, she realized she had been holding her breath.

“I feel really bloody ridiculous right now,” Mum wiped her eyes. “You might never see this, but I’ve got to try, right? I’ve got to try and leave you both something so that you know I just didn’t…” she sucked in a deep breath. “I never wanted it to be like this, but I’m realizing that I don’t have much of a say in the matter, and I can’t help but feel like I’m running out of time.”

Ariel started towards her, but Snape quickly pulled her back. “She cannot see you,” he said, in a tight voice, like he was running out of air.

“I just… I need you to keep her safe.” Mum said in a voice that was strong, ringing through the air like something sharp hitting a slab of iron. It rang and rang and rang until Ariel’s ears began to hum to whatever note hung in the air. “I would ask if you understood, but I know you do. You have to make sure she’s alright — no, you have to do better than that. You owe her that, Sev.”

Sev? Ariel thought to herself, but her brain was milliseconds away from exploding, so she tucked that thought away for later.

“I don’t know why it’s us,” Mum went on, and her voice was growing steadier, stronger, firmer. “But if I’m not there, if James isn’t there, you have to be there for her. She’s the only damn thing I’ve done right, I’d like to think. Isn’t that crazy? Someone spun into existence literally in the blink of an eye, and she’s the best thing that’s happened to me. But you know that already, I bet.”

Mum turned, kneeling down in front of her. Ariel wondered how she knew she was standing there. Maybe the Pensive did. Maybe, somehow, Mum had too. Maybe she could feel Ariel, in the same way she did, in a place where spirit met the bone.

Her eyes were the color of holly leaves. Snape’s hand gripped at Ariel’s shoulder, and she couldn’t tell if he was trying to pull her away or keep himself upright.

“What dies doesn’t necessarily stay dead,” she said quietly, thickly, honestly. “I’ll be with you, no matter where you go.” She looked straight up, craning her neck so that she was looking at Snape. Ariel didn’t follow her gaze, she just stared into her face, trying to memorize every inch of it, trying to make herself feel Mum’s touch. “Be the person I know you are. I know you’re still in there, and if you’re here, I know you’re on your way back.”

Ariel’s cheeks were wet, just like Mum’s. She tried to move closer, to press her face against hers, but Snape was holding her back in an iron grip. She didn’t dare look up at him, not wanting to miss a second of Mum, wishing she could stop this moment and stay here forever.

“I love you both,” Mum said, and she began to fade

Don’t go, Ariel wanted to scream, wanted to beg and cry and shout until her throat went raw, Don’t leave me again —

They were back, the jolt of resurfacing knocking Ariel off her feet. She stared at the Pensive, wanting to go back, wanting to dive back in headfirst and watch over and over and over, but Snape was pulling her up, pulling her out of the fantasy, out of her dream and terrible longing.

His hand curled around her shoulder, his arm extended so that she was not next to him, but he was touching her, his arm a comforting weight around her. His other hand kneaded his forehead, like he had a terrible headache.

This Snape was different — it was the Snape that had hugged her in the alcove, the one Mum had called Sev.

“I get it now,” Ariel said, curling her hands around his cloak. “why you couldn’t talk about her.”

He said nothing but pulled her closer. He smelt of old shoes and teakwood. His breathing was ragged and shallow, but she could hear his heartbeat thumping away — resilient.

Ariel leaned her head against his side, and closed her eyes.