The school had gone eerily silent, and not the kind of quiet Severus relished during the summer months. This was something different, something that put him further on edge as he glided through the corridors, searching for anything amiss. There wasn’t (surprise, surprise) and Severus felt himself growing more and more agitated. Quirrell was about as useless as a wet tissue, he decided on, tucking that thought away for later when Dumbledore tried to bring up the Defense position. He didn’t know what it was, but Severus often thought about Hexing that ridiculous turban straight off of Quirrell’s head. It felt like bitterness, but Severus knew what that really felt like, and this was not it.

It was the quiet that settled before an attack, he decided on. He remembered this feeling during the war, when he’d been walking through Diagon Alley. The crowd thinned suddenly, like sand running through an hourglass. It had gone silent, and then, before he’d known it, the Order was descending on him and Yaxley. Luckily, they’d had a Portkey, but it had been a close call, and Severus couldn’t help but wonder if it had been Potter who’d given them the tip. Potter and his cronies hadn’t known that Severus had been a Death Eater, no, but Lily and Potter had certainly had their suspicions. She’d make that abundantly clear during their final years at Hogwarts.

Perhaps that was why Lily’s daughter was such an enigma. She was in Severus’ opinion anyway, and that was the only one that mattered to him. He couldn’t find that ferocity Lily had, or the defiance Potter radiated in their child. Not that he was looking for either, but it was like the girl tried to shrink herself whenever she entered his classroom, only looking towards his desk to glance at the board with wide, nervous eyes. She looked just like Lily, a little carbon-copy of her as a child, which was incredibly unnerving, but Severus couldn’t tell what she was yet, but she did have seven years of schooling left. He hated her for existing, but he couldn’t say that he hated her personally just yet. It differed from Severus’ hatred of her father — that sort of loathing was a tie that was binding.

Tonight’s little stunt was the first of many. He was sure of it, even if it had somewhat good intentions.

It was Peeves who scared the living daylights out of Severus while he reminisced. Minerva bringing up Godric’s Hollow was enough to sour his mood for the remainder of the evening (and week). With the added stress of a troll in the dungeons and the sudden disappearance of the Girl-Who-Lived, he was a ticking time bomb when Peeves finally set him off. He knocked a full suit of armor into him, which he just managed to dodge as Peeves floated up to the ceiling like a balloon, cackling wildly.

“Jesus fucking —” Severus shot a unnamed Curse that Dumbledore would have read him the riot act for at him. “I’m going to have you exorcised, do you know that? There’s a petition in Dumbledore’s office.”

Peeves laughed maniacally, flashing Severus a grin that was far too wide. “Silly Snape, snapping Snapely along. No troll hunting for Snape tonight!”

“Did you let it in?” Severus snarled.

“Who?” Peeves feigned shock, placing an offended hand over his mouth. “Me? Never in my life!”

“You’re dead,” his eyes flickered to the corridor behind Peeves. “in case you forgot, and if you did let a troll into this school, the Headmaster will banish you himself.”

Peeves sombered at this, but that jeering light in his eyes didn’t dim, not even a little. “I would never, honorable professor never-done-anything-wrong snippy Snape sir!”

“Piss off, then.” Severus threw behind him, itching to shoot another Hex at the phantom.

“Snape stalking students! Snape stalking students!”

“Students?” Severus’ eyes narrowed as he whirled back around. “Which students? They’re all supposed to be —”

“Ol’ Voldy Moldys little friend, the carrot-top! Pretty little carrot-top firsty!”

Lily-thing. He was going to make her regret ever skipping a meal when he got his hands on her. Just as he was about to demand that Peeves tell him where they were, the insufferable poltergeist let out another howl of laughter, plunging himself through the wall. Severus swore, kicking the helmet of the knight Peeves had nearly killed him with. He scoured the corridor for any sign of an intruder, for anything suspicious, when he heard his (new) least favorite voice yelling.

“Ariel!” Granger was shouting, a desperation in it that tugged Severus in their direction. “Ariel, WAIT!”

Of course it was Lily-thing and the Know-It-All — he’d nearly forgotten that Granger was with her. Severus was annoyed it was he who had found them, because on tonight of all nights, he did not want to deal with Lily’s daughter, but he supposed that this was far better than the troll finding them instead. 

“HEY — WAIT!”

Severus frowned. Something was wrong — was Evans running from Granger? He’d never seen them so much as frown at one another in class. That was usually reserved for Weasley.

(he’d told himself that the girl missing didn’t bother him, but he was nowhere near the dungeons)

He could hear footsteps slamming against stone — two pairs — and breathless gasping. He drew his wand, tensing as he briskly glided towards the noise, Granger’s panicked pleading echoing down the darkened corridor. Not to mention that the little idiots were going to get themselves stepped on if they found that mountain troll before the staff did.

“Ariel — ARIEL!”

Someone came flying out of the darkness, and smashed right into him.

It knocked the breath out of him for a minute as he fell backwards, something toppling into him. He could feel a knee digging into his ribcage as he quickly recovered, recognizing that blasted wine-red hair as her head lifted to meet his gaze. Lily-thing gaped up at him in — horror? It was something bone-chilling, and it might have startled Severus if he hadn’t immediately been overcome with rage.

Lily-thing scrambled off of him as Severus reached to grab the little monster, intent on possibly catapulting her out of the nearest window. She skittered back, like a cockroach when exposed to light. Her expression stopped him from saying a word. She stared at him, her chest heaving, with a look of pure fear, like she was seeing him for the first time. He stared back, trying to make sense of her expression, of the panicked, caged look twisting her face, trying to label it as her reaction to mowing him down, but he couldn’t. There was something unreachable there, something he’d never seen on Lily, and didn’t think he wanted to see on her daughter’s face ever again.

Before Severus could register what was happening, Lily-thing scrambled to her feet, and took off without a single word. It was then that Severus saw Granger fly by, her bushy hair a tangled mess.

“Sorry, Professor!” Granger squeaked out. “We’re sorry!”

Severus sat there, bewildered, as their footsteps faded away. He was rattled by that haunted look, of the quiet desperation. He wondered if that’s how Lily had faced the Dark Lord, before he’d murdered her. It caused him to shudder as he pulled himself fully upright, wincing as his side ached in protest. Lily-thing was small, but she’d come at him like a Quaffle in play.

He wanted to chase after the little shits and wring their necks, but unfortunately, he had more important matters to attend to. It didn’t matter, anyway. They were heading in the direction of Gryffindor Tower, which meant a Prefect would intercept them at some point, if another professor didn’t. All Severus really cared about was managing not to break his promise within the first few months of Lily-thing being here. He was going to find them later, and he was going to make them very, very sorry they’d not attended the Feast. They certainly could run, but they couldn’t hide. Granger was the kind of student who would rather rip out her own fingernails then skip a class.

A candle rolled out of the shadows, resting against his foot.

Severus stared at it for a long moment and waited for the fiery rage burning behind his ribs to subside before kicking it away. He rose, letting his Shields do the same as he looked off in the direction the candle had come from. Smoke trailed from behind it, where Evans and Granger had come running like a pack of frightened hippogriffs. From the stairs, Severus could see a soft light flickering, casting unnatural shadows along the walls.

He followed it until he found where they’d been doing during the Feast.

There was a circle of them, the candles, lining the alcove about halfway up to the Astronomy Tower staircase. Half of them were knocked over, like they'd been kicked or thrown about. In the very center was a picture. Severus refused to look at it — he’d seen a glimpse when first looking down, but he couldn’t bear to see the whole thing. It was too much to admit, because even though he’d known it had happened, he couldn’t ever acknowledge the happy, smiling family waving up at him.

It was the sort of sentimental shit Lily would have done. That was the first time he’d thought that, in relation to her foolish daughter. They shared the same bleeding heart.

The space where his heart would have been suddenly felt very heavy, like there was a rock lodged in there. Wind whispered around his cloak, scratching it against the stones as the treeline rustled in the distance.

Severus pointed his wand at the picture. “Incendio.”

-----

“Did — we — lose — him?” Ariel wheezed, clutching at her stomach.

Hermione nodded, taking a big gulp of air, like she’d been drowning and had only now reached the surface. “I — think — so.”

Ariel couldn’t get enough air, couldn’t get enough of the burning sensation as it rushed down her throat. It was the only feeling that mattered right now. Breathing was the first thing she’d felt since she’d open that stupid, amazing letter. She couldn’t get enough of it, couldn’t force enough air inside of her. She felt like she needed to be fumigated.

It had felt good to run. The only sensible thing. Nothing about what her mum had said made much sense, so she’d decided to get as far away from it as humanly possible for the time being.

The next thing Ariel had remembered was her nose smashing into something boney.

She had heard a deep grunt, and for a second, the overwhelming darkness felt nice, like she was finally hiding somewhere where she could be alone, just like her cupboard. She’d never thought she’d miss that miserable, dusty place, but in her mind, it was the first thing that had made sense since that letter. The cupboard was familiar, where the idea of her parents was left untouched, untainted.

And then, Ariel had looked up.

Her heart beat had tripled, as fast as a race horse. Snape’s black eyes had narrowed as they’d locked on to hers. She couldn’t look away from those eyes, those eyes that were so disturbingly familiar, because she looked at the world through those eyes every single day.

NO NO NO NO NO —

So Ariel had taken off, not daring to look over her shoulder. She didn’t care if Snape gave her a thousand detentions, she’d just needed to run, needed to concentrate on the stitch in her side and the burning in her lungs.

“Shouldn’t he have been at the Feast?” Ariel asked as she leaned into the sink. They’d ended up in the girl’s bathroom on the first floor, a place where, in her mind, she’d thought, “Snape can’t follow us in here.” Now, that seemed like a pretty ridiculous plan, because Snape was a teacher, and he could do whatever the heck he wanted.

“I don’t know…” Hermione grimaced. “When you crashed into him —”

Oh god, she’d done that. Ariel had come around that corner, and Snape had been right there and he’d given her this look… like she was about to shatter into a million pieces. Maybe she had been, she couldn’t really remember much after that. Her brain had been screaming. Ariel could only imagine what her face must have looked like. She’d never been good at hiding her emotions.

“— I didn’t hear him come after us.” Hermione finished. “You don’t think he’s hurt, do you?”

“He seemed alright, just… mad.” Ariel collapsed on the floor. “I don’t blame him.”

“You’re right though, he should’ve been at the Feast.” she wrung her hands together. “You don’t… you don’t think he could’ve… known, do you?”

Ariel shot her a panicked look. “No! Mum said she Obliviated him, that he asked her to! How could he?”

“But why would he want that?”

“I don’t know, maybe because he’s Snape?”

“Yes but…” Hermione bit her lip. “It doesn’t make much sense. I mean, she told you the truth, but there’s still a lot of stuff she didn’t say.”

She could hear the end of that sentence hanging over them, like a sword. Hermione was a factual person, Ariel had come to realize, and didn’t understand emotions, didn’t understand the way they twisted and made people lash out. She suspected that it was part of the reason Hermione and Ron had so many rows — Ron talked before he thought, and all Hermione did was think.

Mum hadn’t said anything else, because she expected… Snape to tell her the rest. That was what Hermione hadn’t said, and what they were both thinking.

Ariel darted towards a stall, slamming the door shut behind her. For a minute, she thought she was going to be sick, but it passed as quickly as it had come, like a summer squall… like the one the night she’d left the Dursleys. Her heart hammered inside her chest, begging to be let out.

“Hermione,” she whispered. “he’s my dad.”

The daydream of Ariel’s parents coming to rescue her was becoming distorted. This was not what she had imagined. She’d imagined loving embraces and tears… to find out they were dead was at least final, because at least you could imagine and believe in someone you missed but had never known. In reality… that daydream had come true, but instead of her mum and dad’s smiling, happy faces, it had been Snape sneering down at her, cursing while he nearly foamed at the mouth.

And that… fit her daydream, because Snape was her dad. It wasn’t what she had envisioned, but it had happened. He’d taken her away from the Dursleys to Hogwarts, but then he’d left her here, alone, without even saying goodbye or coming to see her again. That hadn’t been part of the fantasy. Maybe Ariel was being too greedy… but did it have to be Snape?

Hermione didn’t say anything for a long moment. The words hung there, in the air, like cobwebs. It was making things harder to focus, the less talking they did. The stall door creaked open behind her and Hermione’s warm hand grabbed hers.

“What are you going to do?” asked Hermione.

That was a loaded question.

“He’s awful, Hermione!” Ariel said, twisting her hands in her hair. “He’s mean and angry all the time, he hates Gryffindor and he hates me.”

“Hagrid said he doesn’t have any reason to hate you, remember?”

“He saved me from the Dursleys and now he doesn’t even look at me!”

“That doesn’t mean he hates you!” Hermione knelt down on her knees in front of her. “You mum said he’d never do anything to hurt you. That means he couldn’t… not really, anyway.”

A wonderful thought bloomed, then. Ariel had a father that wasn’t dead. It didn’t feel real, because trying to connect dad to Snape was like trying to call a crocodile cute, but she wasn’t an orphan anymore. She was… something else.

Hermione pulled her into a hug, which nearly knocked Ariel into the toilet, but she didn’t care.

“It doesn’t matter what your mum said.” Hermione said fiercely. “It doesn’t change who you are.”

Ariel wanted to believe that, and she did, in a way. She was still Ariel Evans, still too short for her age and bad at arithmetic. Nothing had changed since she’d read her dead mother’s confession, but something had, in the air, in the frequency she usually operated on. It was building in her chest, like a crescendo, something great and horrible, like her mum’s letter. The smudges and wobbly lines were all making sense, the fear in her words that Ariel would somehow hate her (how could she, she would’ve done anything to have her here, anything at all).

She knew that fear, because now, she was absolutely terrified that Snape would somehow find out. She was scared that he really did hate her, and that thought was horrible, because he was her dad, and he didn’t know.

But she did.

And only her.

And that feeling dropped to the floor like an anchor, because she’d forgotten to take the letter with her, and Snape had —

“The letter!” Ariel frantically pawed at her robes. “I left it there!”

“No, you didn’t.” Hermione reached into her robes, pulling it out. “It almost flew away, but I managed to snag it. Good thing too, if Professor Snape was lurking around.”

She swallowed loudly. She still wanted to throw up. Instead, she hugged Hermione again tightly, thanking any god listening that she’d had enough sense to take it, because if Snape had gone up there and found it…

Ariel didn’t even want to think about it. She remembered him smashing Aunt Petunia’s china to the floor and shuddered.

Before she could tell Hermione that she was the greatest witch to have ever lived, a deafening CRASH boomed through the room. Ariel nearly jumped out of her shoes as Hermione let out a shriek a soprano would’ve been impressed with. She braced herself for Snape to come barrelling in, determined to meet him and take her punishment for running him over, but instead, something even worse happened. She pushed past Hermione and out of the stall, where she found herself looking up at… a Huge-Ugly Thing with an equally sized wooden club.

Ariel tried to say Hermione’s name, but she couldn’t.

They both screamed.

The Huge-Ugly Thing hollered right back, swinging it’s club wildly. Hermione tugged on Ariel’s arm, pulling her into one of the stalls. She slammed the door shut, a fresh layer of panic on her face.

“What is it?” Ariel whispered, like The Thing didn’t know where they were.

“It’s a troll.” Hermione hissed back, her eyes welling up with fresh tears. “It’s not supposed to be in the school!”

“Well yeah, I would hope so, Hermione!”

The troll roared again, smashing it’s club against the mirrors. Ariel and Hermione held their hands over their ears as they shattered in succession. Their hands went to their mouths once it had quieted to try and stifle their breathing.

A meek creeeak came from the door.

“Who’s in here?” a voice called, a mixture of scared and frustrated. Ariel recognized that voice.

“Ron?” Hermione shrieked.

There was a long, stunned pause.

“WHAT ARE YOU DOING IN HERE?” Ron shouted. “THE LOO WAS MEANT FOR THE TROLL —”

The troll roared and advanced, barrelling towards the bathroom door towards Ron, who had undoubtedly startled it. Ariel jerked open the stall, blindly grasping for Hermione’s hand. She pulled her forward with such force that it was a wonder she didn’t pop her arm out of it’s socket.

“RUN!” Ariel yelled as the door to the bathroom went flying off its hinges, slamming against the wall adjacent to where Ariel could see now Ron was standing.

The troll’s mean little eyes stared at them, hesitating in the bathroom doorway. Ariel looked around wildly before her eyes landed on something, staring at it until Hermione followed her gaze. There was a metal pipe laying beside the shattered door. She shot forward, grabbing the pipe and flew back to Hermione’s side.

“Now what?” Ariel asked, chest heaving.

Nothing but the stench of troll and labored breathing filled the tense silence. The troll’s nostrils flared as it finally stomped out of the doorway and turned its back on Ariel and Hermione so it could round on Ron.

“You’ve got to be kidding me.” Ariel muttered under her breath.

“What’re we going to do?” Hermione asked, looking around desperately.

“Get ready to run, is what.” Ariel answered, stepping forward and throwing her arm holding the metal pipe back in preparation, “OY! PEA BRAIN!”

The troll turned its head, as though she was suddenly a side thought, and Ariel chucked the pipe at it’s back. It hit him square in the shoulder, but if anything, her yell seemed to have affected it more than the hit. It’s ugly snout turned back towards her as Hermione yelled another “RUN!” at Ron, who was now blocked from view. That only seemed to drive the troll more berzerk. It roared again and started towards them. Ariel grabbed the sleeve of Hermione’s robes, and they began to skitter backwards.

And then Ron did something that Ariel couldn’t figure out if she thought was very smart or very stupid — he must have taking a great, running jump, for suddenly, he was dangling around the troll’s neck and shoving his wand up his nose. Ariel’s jaw dropped at the sight as the troll howled and twisted in pain. The club was flailing about dangerously, and for a terrible moment, she was quite sure that it was going to hit him or one of them, for the troll had stomped forward, and they had barely moved.

“Ron, get off!” Hermione cried. “You’re going to hurt yourself.”

“Well, this wouldn’t have happened if you had BEEN AT THE FEAST!” Ron roared back.

Ariel recovered more quickly, a mad (completely mental, actually) thought crossing her mind. Taking a few steps forward, she shouted. “Wingardium Leviosa!”

The club flew out of the troll’s hand, flying high into the air, and then dropped with a sickening crack onto its own head, falling to the ground with a thud that nearly sent Ariel and Hermione falling over themselves. Ron rolled off the troll’s back, visibly shaking, as Ariel and Hermione shot forward.

“Are you alright, mate?” Ariel asked as Ron leaned his hands on his knees.

“Right as rain.” he replied with a shaky laugh, “Thanks, Ariel. I thought he’d throw me off for sure.”

“What were you doing? You put him in here?”

“NO!” Ron went white as a sheet. “Professor Quirrell came running into the Feast to warn us about the troll! I knew you guys weren’t there so I went looking for you… how long do you two take in the loo?”

A sudden slamming and loud footsteps made the three of them look up. It was then Ariel realized the terrible racket they must have been making, between the crashes and roars and screams and prayed like hell that Snape —

Please no no no no no

The first thing she saw was the inky black hair and the concentrated scowl and suddenly, the troll’s smell wasn’t the only thing making her feel sick. Professor McGonagall was right behind him, followed closely by Hagrid, who bent down to look at the fallen troll.

“What in Merlin’s name —” Ariel had never seen Professor McGonagall look so furious, lips white and eyes piercing. “What are you three doing here? You’re supposed to be with your Houses!”

Her face didn’t hold a candle to how Snape looked. Ariel saw Ron and Hermione cringe away from him, even though it was Professor McGonagall who was shouting. Snape had both hands clenched tightly at his sides, teeth bared, and a vein pulsing violently in his forehead.

Ron and Hermione looked at Ariel, who was opening and closing her mouth like a fish. “We uh… we um…” Ariel’s eyes darted about, trying to avoid the glares and imploring eyes that had all landed on her at once. “We… well…”

“Please, Professor!” Hermione cried suddenly, giving Ariel momentary relief as everyone looked at her instead. “We came here to use the loo when the troll wandered inside! It cornered us —”

“Yeah!” Ron jumped in, nodding along, like he liked what he was hearing. “I knew Ariel and Hermione weren’t at the Feast, so I came looking. I saw the troll go into the girl’s bathroom, and then I heard them screaming… I had to help! I just couldn’t leave them!”

Snape’s ice cold glare had turned burning hot, but he still had yet to utter a single word.

“And then the troll tried attacking him.” Ariel cut in. “We had to do something.”

“You could have been smashed to smithereens!” Professor McGonagall said a brittle voice, heavy under the weight of her fury. “What in Merlin’s name were you all thinking, taking on a full grown mountain troll?”

The three of them exchanged a look, causing Snape to take a menacing step forward.

“With all due respect, Professor,” Hermione said. “what else were we supposed to have done?”

Ron gaped at her like some sort of sea creature. Professor McGonagall sputtered at Hermione’s words while Snape looked like he was itching to grab Ariel. She took a protective step backwards, but made sure she was still clutching Hermione’s arm.

“And we did knock it out…” Ariel offered, causing Professor McGonagall’s own nostrils flare as the troll had just minutes ago. But then she did something Ariel did not expect. Professor McGonagall, instead of having steam come whistling out her ears, sighed, and clasped her hands tightly together in front of her.

“Very well.” she said in a voice that clearly said I-condone-none-of-this. “I suppose the circumstances were… not as they should have been. Fifteen points to Gryffindor.”

Ron beamed while Ariel and Hermione exchanged a relieved look.

And then Snape spoke.

“You two,” Sharp eyes stared both Ariel and Hermione down, a single finger beckoning them forward, “with me.”

Neither moved a muscle. Even Ron paled.

“Now!” Severus snapped when they did not comply. Ariel tugged at the robes that had still not left her grip, and she and Hermione fell forward to follow the billowing black mass that led the way down to the dungeons.

“Are you okay?” Hermione whispered anxiously to her as they walked, or more, ran in order to keep up with Snape’s long strides. “He can’t punish us. We did nothing wrong!”

Ariel didn’t answer. She had lost all reasoning when it came to explain why Snape did the things he did. She felt the hair on the back of her neck stand up when he tugged the door to his office open, pointing to their two chairs in front of his desk wordlessly. They both sat, but they both itched to bolt from the room the second their bottoms hit the wood. The… things in those creepy jars seemed to hum around them. Ariel hated it, and up until this point, she’d kinda liked Potions class.

Ariel could have testified under Veritaserum that the temperature dropped in the room. Both girls looked at each other from the corners of their eyes.

“Well?” Snape snapped, “I’m waiting.”

Ariel wanted to smash his stupid face in, then. The shock and fear was slowly sliding off of her, like rain on a roof. It sloshed off in great amounts, pooling at her feet, which still didn’t touch the floor. It suddenly didn’t matter if Snape was mad at them or not, because Snape never spoke to her, never treated her with an ounce of decency, and now, he was apparently her dad. That particular part still made her head want to explode, but for some reason, he thought that them being cornered by a troll was their fault?

She glared right back. Snape noticed, and his eyes narrowed dangerously.

“Why did you run?” Snape snarled at her.

“I didn’t.” said Ariel.

“You did.”

“I didn’t.”

“You did, I watched you.”

“Well, I didn’t watch you.”

Snape gave her a weird look, like he thought she’d lost her mind. Maybe she had. She couldn’t tell anymore, between the letter and the troll and Snape dragging her down to the dungeons to grind her into a potion.

“We were studying.” Hermione answered quickly.

“Studying.” Snape repeated flatly, obviously not buying it. “On a holiday.”

“I was just going to use the loo!” Ariel shot back. “It was in the bathroom and the troll cornered us. Then Ron showed up, we had no clue there was a troll in the school. How could we if we weren’t at the Feast?”

“So you were running through the halls,” said Snape, in a voice that didn’t believe them for a second. “And crashed you reprehensible person into mine because you had to use the loo. After studying.”

Snape glowered down at her, his hands flexing at his sides.

“What?” Ariel frowned, growing annoyed. “It’s not our fault. How did it even get inside Hogwarts?”

Hermione was shooting her a look that clearly told her to stop while she was ahead, but her irritation was steadily building, alongside Snape’s.

“‘How’ is irrelevant.” Snape spat back. “The point is that you were both not where you were supposed to be. If you had been, this wouldn’t have happened.”

Ariel fought back the urge to roll her eyes at his logic, but with a small head shake from Hermione, she leaned back in her chair. Snape wasn’t anything like Uncle Vernon (he was much scarier) but Ariel hadn’t forgotten how to intimidate. Unfortunately, Snape was immune to her glares. They did a good job on the Dursleys, when she tried. Snape gave her another one of those guarded, strange looks, like he was dealing with dangerous potions ingredients.

And then, he did something truly terrible.

“Miss Granger, you may return to your dormitory.” said Snape, a vicious glint in his eyes. “I’d like to speak with Miss Evans, alone.”

Ariel’s entire chest felt like it was caving in. Hermione shot her a look of horror, and before Snape could say anything, she was shaking her head vehemently at Snape. “No, sir, I’d rather stay —”

“That wasn’t a suggestion.” he snarled. “Out!”

“Sir, I —”

Snape’s biting glare made him appear skeletal in the candlelight. It was hardening the lines of his face, the line of his hooked nose, and if Ariel hadn’t been wondering why he wanted her alone, she might’ve done something Neville-esque and fainted. The idea of Snape knowing about the letter —

— which was sitting in her robe pocket, and she was sitting three feet away from her new father.

Ariel’s heart went THUMPTHUMPTHUMP so loud, she didn’t know how Hermione and Snape didn’t hear it.

“It’s okay, Hermione.” she managed to force out. “I’ll see you up there, yeah?”

Hermione shot her another one of those are-you-completely-insane glances, but before she could argue, Snape had thrown open his office door, pointing to the empty, dark corridor beyond it. Hermione peeled herself out of her seat, searching Ariel’s eyes for reassurance that she wasn’t abandoning her. Ariel gave her a slight nod back and managed to give something that looked like a smile. That anger towards Snape hadn’t subsided, but the impending doom of being forced to talk to him, alone, was sending her mind into fight-or-flight mode. She was itching to run through that door, all the way up to Gryffindor Tower, and never leave her bed ever again.

Hermione whirled around once she was over the threshold. “Sir —”

Snape slammed the door in her face. He rounded on Ariel, his expression homicidal. Ariel was not in the mood to think clearly about anyone’s state of mind anymore. She was, however, in the mood to say straight out whatever occurred to her without fear of the consequences

“You were running from something before.” Snape sat at the edge of the desk, his arms crossed tightly across his chest. “You’re going to tell me what.”

Ariel stared up at him, into those fathomless black eyes. Did hers look like that? Did they glitter menacingly, did they seem bottomless? She didn’t think so, otherwise, Dudley never would’ve picked on her.

“I told you.” Ariel said in her best lying voice. “I had to use the loo.”

Snape ripped out a snarl, slamming his fist down on the desk. It made Ariel jump, the letter crinkling against her side. She tried to keep her face straight, praying that Snape hadn’t heard it. He didn’t — his face had glossed over into a smooth, emotionless mask, like an undisturbed pond.

“I know what you were doing tonight.” Snape finally bit out. “Professor McGonagall told me you asked her permission, so I know you’re lying about studying, which tells me you’re lying about why you were rampaging through Hogwarts.”

Something cold slid down her spine and up her throat. “What did she say we were doing?”

His black eyes fixed on hers. This was the first time he was looking at her, really looking at her. Ariel wondered if Snape would recognize the eyes, put two and two together, when he finally looked away.

“Every magical child knows what happened on Halloween ten years ago.” Snape’s voice didn’t have a bottom. “And now, so do you. Professor McGonagall sympathized with this.”

“Because they died.” Ariel said. “My parents, I mean. James and Lily.” 

She could’ve sworn she saw him flinch. The letter in her pocket suddenly felt like it weighed a thousand pounds. Snape didn’t say anything, he just stared at her, like her was trying to read her mind. She could see his nails digging into the wood of the desk. This… bothered him.

And this made her bolder.

“Aunt Petunia never told me when it happened.” Ariel leaned forward in her seat. “You knew her, didn’t you? You said Aunt Petunia hated Mum because Mum had magic.”

Snape had gone very still. The candlelight flickering over his face was the only part of him that moved. His eyes had even stopped glittering. They’d gone as dark and cold as the dungeons. They weren’t a faraway look, more like he’d disappeared inside himself, and his body was a husk, a shell waiting to be inhabited again. Ariel kept her gaze level with his, waiting for a response, a reaction, anything.

When he spoke again, only his mouth moved.

“Detention, with me, tomorrow.” Snape hissed. “Don’t be late.”

Ariel blinked up at him. “What?”

Her confusion seemed to snap him out of whatever was happening inside of Snape’s head. He bared his teeth, leering over her as she leaned back, cursing herself as the letter made its presence known again. If Snape heard it this time, he didn’t say so.

“Get,” his whisper was louder than any troll’s roar. “Out.”

Ariel didn’t argue. She felt… satisfied.

Snape knew something, and she was going to find out what.

-----

Severus could’ve sworn the girl had a smile on her face when she left. He didn’t like that smile, didn’t like how it followed her questions like a victory march. He picked up a jar and threw it into the fireplace. It exploded, causing the fire to roar intensely for a moment before settling back comfortably into the hearth.

Because they died

Stupid fucking —

Mum had magic

That girl was up to something. She’d changed, between this morning’s Potions class and minutes ago. There was a sharpness in her face, a glint of mischief in her eyes. That haunted, ghostly face that had barrelled into him earlier in the evening was gone. It was hard for Severus to categorize them as the same person.

Neither of those people looked like Lily. Not one of them looked like her daughter, either.

Evans… knew something, and Severus was going to find out what.