The next morning, Ariel and Hermione showed Ron the letter.

He was still mad at them for abandoning him the night before, but he seemed to be more understanding when Hermione insisted that she wasn’t about to leave Ariel alone. Ariel had then tried to explain that she’d wanted to be alone, but Hermione had cut in that it was better that she hadn’t, because of the troll thing, and all. Ron deflated a little bit at this, nodding along as Ariel quietly shared that her parent’s death was something she felt the need to commemorate since they had, you know, died and all.

They’d settled themselves by one of the fireplaces, far enough away from everyone else so no one could overhear. The other Gryffindors were busying themselves with getting ready to go down to breakfast, or finishing last minute assignments. The fire felt nice against the chilly November air that had begun to creep into the walls of the school. Ariel was wearing the jumper Hermione had loaned her, while Hermione had settled for her fluffy bathrobe. Ron was still in pajamas, and barefoot. It made Ariel shiver just looking at him. Fred and George were lurking around, planting dungbombs in some of the seventh years’ bathrooms. Some of them had apparently taken credit for an invention they’d put together, and they’d unintentionally started a one-sided war. Ariel felt bad for the seventh years, they didn’t know what they were in for. 

When Ariel handed him the letter, Ron gave her a weird look, like she’d given him one of Hagrid’s rock-cakes. “You want me to read it?”

“Of course I do.” Ariel frowned. “Why wouldn’t I? You’re one of my best mates.”

Ron went as red as a tomato. “I… erm, well, yeah, I mean, me too, but you don’t think it’s, I dunno, too personal for me to read?”

She shook her head. “I can’t explain it. You need to see for yourself.”

He gave the letter a wary look, as if he was afraid it would grow teeth and bite him. “Well… what does it say?”

Ariel fought the urge to roll her eyes. “That’s kinda the whole point of reading it.”

“I know that. Can you at least give me some sort of hint? You’re starting to scare me.”

Hermione and Ariel exchanged a knowing look. This seemed to make Ron angry again, because he huffed and crossed his arms. “Fine. Be that way. If you can’t bother to tell me where you will and won’t be and not tell me anything about whatever the bloody hell is going on —”

“It’s about my dad.” Ariel cut him off.

Ron stared at her as if she’d spoken a foreign language.

“It’s best you read it for yourself.” Hermione chimed in nervously. She wrung her hands in her bathrobe. Ariel could tell she was uncomfortable with all of this, but Hermione had done a pretty good job at masking it. She still couldn’t tell if it was just the part about Snape, or everything in between. Ariel wasn’t sure about it either, which made her feel both better and worse.

“Stuff like what?” Ron demanded.

It was at this precise moment that one of Fred and George’s traps went off, which resulted in a lot of frantic yelling, and a thin layer of smoke to slowly seep across the ceiling. The three of them jumped, a triumphant “HUZZAH!” echoing from somewhere nearby. Ariel couldn’t help but crack a smile at that. Ron, however, did not.

Ariel was reminded of a couple of nights after she’d left the Dursleys, when she’d gone to use the loo at the Burrow, and heard Mrs Weasley whispering angrily at Ron. He’d wanted to know why Ariel was there, what had happened, and why no one would tell him why’d she’d be staying with them until school started. Mrs Weasley had thought he was being rude and nosy, but it had made Ariel feel guilty, like she was holding onto a secret she had no right to keep, especially if she was imposing on the Weasleys. Ron sounded the same as he did then, both offended and forgotten. Ariel had told him the next day why she was there, about Dumbledore and Snape, but he’d thought she was lying about that last part.

“Mum kept some things a secret.” she said quietly. “Please, just trust me.”

Ron gave her another doubtful look, but unfolded the letter slowly. He didn’t start reading until Ariel gave him another nod, signaling that it was okay. She could tell when he got up to The Spot — his eyes went as wide as saucers and froze, like he couldn’t tear them away. He looked the letter up and down a few times, his fingers tracing over her mum’s words, smudged and uneven, both in their penmanship, and their delivery.

Ron looked at the letter, back up at Ariel, and then down at the letter again. “You’re pulling my leg. Did Fred and George put you up to this?”

Hermione spoke before Ariel could. “Really, Ronald? Why would we joke about something like that?”

Ariel was relieved to see that Ron was equally as horrified about this as she was. She still thought Hermione should’ve been way more upset. It was Snape.

Ron just kept shaking his head, his hair, still a mess from bed, falling into his eyes. “No, there’s got to be some mistake.”

“I don’t think there is.” Ariel said dejectedly.

“Yeah but… but how could Snape not know?” Ron continued scanning the page with laser beam precision. “There’s another page, right?”

“No, that’s it.” Hermione bit her lip, eyebrows furrowing. “We couldn’t figure it out either. It’s rather short.”

“Too short, if you ask me.” Ariel said, trying to keep her emotions in check. She felt like laughing and screaming at the same time. “She said she Obliviated him —”

“Yeah but… what about you?” Ron asked, an edge to his voice, a concern that finally released the tightness in her chest. “She left you to deal with Snape, and he’s bloody awful! You see what he does to Neville, how he favors the Slytherins!”

Ariel swallowed back the lump in her throat. She had been so angry, after coming back from Snape’s office. Hermione had tried talking to her, but all she’d done was crawl into bed, draw the curtains, and cast a Silencing charm. She’d cried, not for long, but enough to make herself feel a little bit better. The satisfaction of catching Snape off guard had come back to her in waves, when the bitter realization that her parents were not as perfect as she’d thought wasn’t chipping away at her heart. For a little while, Ariel had thought that she was angry just with Snape for being a git, but when she’d peered at her wall of pictures, she’d felt her chest burn with anger at her mother.

“Adults are weird.” Ron handed the letter back to her, shaking his head. “What’re you going to do? You can’t tell him.”

“I’m working on it.” Ariel said, rubbing at her eyes.

“I agree.” Hermione said firmly. “You shouldn’t say anything until you’re sure.”

“Then how am I supposed to find out if he’s really my dad?” Ariel asked, throwing her hands up in exasperation. “I’ve got to tell him at some point.”

Hermione bit her lip, and then, in a quiet voice, said, “If your mum couldn’t tell him then, what makes you think it’s okay to tell him now?”

That was a good question, Ariel realized, as another wave of horror washed over her. She stared down at the words in her hands, not reading it, but staring at the parchment, which was as old as she was. There was so much she didn’t understand. Death Eaters and James and the Order… she felt like a speck in the middle of space, small and undefined.

Ariel’s brain was beginning to hurt, as if it were too big, like all of their opinions and this new information was too much for her to handle. She’d thought telling Ron would take some of the load off, but it didn’t. It only made it worse. She hadn’t slept all night, rereading her mum’s words over and over, trying to make sense of it. When she’d tried to sleep, she’d felt her picture-parents’ eyes on her, the pictures that had brought her so much comfort now only making her anxiety worse. Ariel could feel them watching, feel their knowing glances down at her, saying, “we know you know, now what are you going to do about it?”

Hermione hadn’t said a word when she saw Ariel taking them down earlier that morning.

“I don’t believe it.” Ron said, breaking the tense silence. “Why Snape? How do you know your mum actually wrote this? It could be fake.”

“It was in her old school trunk.” Ariel smoothed her hand over the letter, folding it neatly down the middle. She’d have to find a better hiding spot than under her mattress. “Everything else in there was hers… why wouldn’t the letter?”

“And what would be the point in that?” Hermione chimed in. “Who would gain from making up something like this? I can’t think of anyone… can either of you?”

“Maybe Snape?” Ron guessed. “He’s a weird bloke. Maybe he put it there?”

“Snape hates me.” said Ariel, the words twisting her heart. They hadn’t done that when she’d said them last night. This bothered her. “I have a plan, though. I’m gonna find out what he knows.”

It was Ron and Hermione’s turns to exchange a wary, panicked look between them.

“What?” Ariel bristled. “I’m not going to flat out ask him. He knew my Aunt Petunia, that means the letter has to be a little bit true. She doesn’t have magic, but Mum did, so she could have known Snape, could’ve been his friend, I guess. If he really is my dad, I have to know. He seemed awfully bothered when I asked about it last night.”

“You what?” Ron bleated. “Have you gone completely mental?”

“I wanted to know the truth — I have a right to know!”

“But —”

Hermione let out a loud gasp, then. It was more of a shriek, but she quickly put her hands over her mouth. Ariel gave her a startled look, but before she could ask what was wrong, Ron was letting out a shout of his own, pointing a finger at the letter settled in her lap.

When Ariel looked down at it, the words were fading away, like melting snow. Her heart turned from fire, to ice.

“NO!” she frantically smoothed her hands over the letter, trying to get it to stop. “No no no!”

“What’s happening?” Ron leaned over, pulling at the corners as he tried to get a better look. “Why’s it doing that?”

The words at the far edges were the first to go, as if there was a magical eraser hovering over the page that they couldn’t see. Ariel couldn’t look away, couldn’t tear her eyes as they went, leaving her behind. She wanted to go with them, wherever they were going.

“I don’t know!” Hermione pointed her wand at the letter. “Hold on, I’m going to try a restoration charm. Ever —”

“No, don’t!”

Words were appearing in the very center of the page again, only this time, the handwriting was steady, neat, in a tight cursive. It was still her mum’s, but it looked so much cleaner, like she’d sat down and written it out thoughtfully. The old letter had been so cluttered, so messy and unintentional, too many discoveries and secrets for only one page to hold by itself.

“Where do we go when we walk on light?” it read now, her mum’s confession gone entirely. No more Snape and James, no more Order, no more Death Eaters and Voldemort.

“Wha… what does that mean?” Ariel asked, looking between Ron and Hermione helplessly. “What happened?”

Hermione gently pried the letter from her hands, her fingers curling into the space where it had been. She felt abandoned, those stupid (amazing, wonderful, heartwarming) words gone, no longer proof that her mum was real, that she had been there, and she’d loved her. Not to mention that the proof that Snape was her dad was gone now, too.

“It must be some sort of protective spell.” Hermione finally sighed, looking troubled. “You usually break them by reciting the answer. I read about them at the start of term, I’ll have to find the book in the library again.”

“How am I supposed to figure it out?” Ariel stared at the parchment, feeling miserable and hopeless. She’d hated that letter (loved it, how could she ever have hated it?) and now, it was gone, just like her mum was. “She didn’t say anything about it… why would she spell it to disappear? Why now? Why not make it so only I can see it instead? This doesn’t make any sense!”

“Maybe try looking through the trunk?” Ron suggested, patting her shoulder comfortingly. “There’s got to be some way to figure it out… but you’re right, why make it disappear like that? She wanted you to read it, didn’t she?”

“The trunk is a good idea.” Hermione nodded eagerly. “You said she had old notebooks in there… maybe we could go through them? The counterspell could be written down somewhere. She must’ve left it for you, but she must’ve also wanted to make sure that no one else read it once you had. There must’ve been a time limit on it.”

Ariel didn’t know what to say. She wanted the wobbly vowels and crossed out sentences back. When she peered down at the only words filling up the page, she didn’t recognize the person who’d written them anymore.

“I’m glad you guys know.” she whispered, her eyes refusing to look up. “I’m glad you saw what she said. It means a lot.”

Hermione was hugging her before she could apologize for dragging them into this. She was secretly terrified that Ron would’ve been so disgusted with her, but the look on his face made her feel awful for even thinking that.

“ARIEL!” a voice screeched from the girls’ dormitory — it was Lavender. “ARIEL, my FAIRY LIGHTS!”

Ron jumped up from where he sat. “Bloody hell, what’s she going on about?”

Ariel didn’t move. She just folded the letter, and rubbed at her eyes tiredly. “The pictures,” she muttered. “Lavender spent so much time helping… she’s going to have a fit.”

—————

Severus found himself in a fouler mood than usual the next morning, and it had — not for the first time since term had begun — everything to do with Lily-thing.

He’d spent more time than he’d wanted to last night trying to piece together what the fuck could be going on inside her stupid little head. It was maddening, trying to figure out what the brat could’ve possibly gotten in to to warrant such a drastic shift in personality. Severus tried to label that smart little smile the girl had given him as Potter, but he couldn’t. It was the same smile he’d seen on Lily-thing’s face after she’d seen what he’d done to Petunia’s bedroom.

Aunt Petunia never told me when it happened

You knew her, didn’t you?

You said Aunt Petunia hated Mum because Mum had magic

Severus should have anticipated Lily-thing asking him about that. He hadn’t exactly hidden his emotions well after seeing the brat under the stairs, which was something he mentally berated himself for weeks after, but someone had to be angry. Dumbledore, even though those brief flashes of righteous anger filled in the whites of his eyes, would not have given Petunia half the retribution she deserved.

He really, really hated Petunia for that.

And yet, Seveurs had not asked the Headmaster what he’d done when Lily-thing’s relatives had returned home.

After resigning himself to accepting that he’d have to interrogate Lily-thing during her detention with him, he’d gone to bed, only to dream about Lily-thing being stepped on by the mountain troll, her mother’s ghost watching from afar. She’d let out a scream that had Severus shooting out of bed like a bullet, and then, he’d slept no more.

As Severus stalked into the Great Hall, he observed most of the first year Slytherins huddled around Draco. This wasn’t unusual, the boy had his father’s ability to hold a room, to make those around him think he was the only one worth being the center of attention. Lucius was a master at it, unless, of course, he had been in the same room as the Dark Lord. He’d slashed his confidence on more than one occasion in order to assert his dominance, but after his fall, Lucius had grown even cockier. That arrogance had not been lost on his only son.

The Gryffindor table was distinctly lacking three students, Severus noticed. His blood pressure shot through the roof at the thought of last night, of hearing the girls’ screams and the roar of the troll just as he’d run into Minerva.

“... a shame Evans wasn’t eaten by that mutt.” Draco was bragging. “It might’ve worked, if it hadn’t been for Weasley and Granger.”

He stopped short, and the students noticed. It was Parkinson who was the first to look panicked. Her face was enough to send the others skittering from the table. They all knew they were talking about something that would get them in trouble, and Draco, being a Malfoy, had chosen to say precisely the wrong thing just as Severus was walking by. The boy might’ve had Lucius’ charm, but he had absolutely none of his tact. They were only a handful of words, an offhand comment, but Severus knew everything he needed to know in that moment.

Something inside of him went click, and then, snap.

Lily-thing knew about the Stone.

Severus threw up his Shields before he did something semi-regrettable.

“I’m sorry, Mr Malfoy,” Severus hissed. “what was that?”

The Slytherins finished peeling themselves away from the table, leaving their breakfast mostly untouched.

Draco went as white as a sheet. “Nothing! I’m sorry, Professor Snape —”

“I recall the Headmaster saying something about ‘dying a terrible death,’ should anyone find themselves in the third floor corridor.” he gaze hardened. “Expulsion, for anyone who tries.”

“Y-yes, sir. I haven’t been up there, I swear!” Draco looked around desperately, but the others had left, and Parkinson was tripping over herself as she gathered her books. “I was just — Evans told me! She was bragging about how she saw some monster… you should tell Professor Dumbledore, she could get someone hurt!”

It was a lie, though, not a bad attempt. Children were horrible liars (Lily-thing being the worst of them all in his experience). Severus might have believed it had he not heard Draco moments before, and thought that Lily-thing was a homicidal maniac. The girl was about as intimidating as a worm.

“I see.” Severus glared at him. “I’ll speak to Miss Evans… I would hope such a tale would serve as a warning to others.”

Draco gulped and nodded, letting himself be dragged away by Parkinson. Normally, Severus wouldn’t care what the little monsters got up to, but Lucius and Narcissa would become a thorn in his side if something happened to their precious baby boy — especially if they found out it had something to do with Lily-thing. That matter wasn’t as pressing now, because if the brats knew about Fluffy, then Severus would have bet his wand arm that they knew about the Stone somehow.

It was all coming together inside his head, a mindmeld that made him want to smash the breakfast plates. Lily-thing and Granger must have seen something last night, must have known something about whoever let that damn mountain troll in…

Severus was seething as he sat down at the High Table, but he hid it well. The girl would show up eventually, and when she did, he was going to make sure she knew what she was in for tonight. If that girl went anywhere near the Stone, Severus was going to kill someone. It couldn’t be her, because if she went after it, she’d be dead already. 

He purposefully forced himself to sit next to Dumbledore, who was far too happy with this development. The old man began chatting away about whatever Hagrid had ended up doing with the troll, which Severus barely paid attention to as he watched the entrance to the Great Hall. He was waiting for Lily-thing, because he was going to make sure she knew that he knew, and that he was going to make her sorry she’d ever had a curious thought in her life.

“Severus?” Dumbledore broke his concentration, a look of mild concern on his face. “Are you alright? You seem a tad stressed.”

He reluctantly broke his line of sight with the door to speak. “Did Minerva tell you who found the troll?”

Dumbledore’s mustache twitched. “She did, although, from what I was told, it was the troll who found them.”

Almost as if she knew they were talking about her, Lily-thing appeared in the doorway, Weasley and Granger at her side. She looked miserable as she dragged herself to the Gryffindor table, like there was a rain cloud hanging over her head. He hoped it was because of the detention. Severus sent her a cracking look, one that would’ve leveled the strongest of wizards. Granger was shoveling food onto her plate when Lily-thing finally lifted her eyes in his direction. He could still feel his blood pumping in his ears, the thought of the girl anywhere near Hagrid’s fucking monstrosity making it hard to concentrate.

Stupid, FOOLISH girl.

She stared right back, unfazed. It was almost as if she was looking right through him.

His knuckles cracked beneath the table. Why that little —

Mum had magic

To his annoyance, Dumbledore took note of this interaction. “I was wondering,” he said. “if you’d happened to notice anything that seemed different about Ariel?”

Severus looked back to the girl. She was shoving her eggs around her plate like they were toxic waste. The old man had noticed it too, but this wasn’t even remotely alarming. Dumbledore noticed everything. Severus would rather impale himself with his fork than mention what Lily-thing had asked about her aunt and mother last night. Dumbledore would take that inch, and he’d twinkle at him for days until he finally asked why Severus didn’t try to get to know the brat. That’s what all these questions about Evans were really about, after all. 

“She’s developed an… edge.” Severus jammed his fork into a sausage. “It’s undoubtedly the hero-complex she’s inherited from her father.”

Dumbledore clasped his hands together, like he was about to hear a story he’d heard a thousand times before.

“Miss Evans knows about the Stone.” Severus said, keeping his eyes trained on the brat. “That’s why she wasn’t at the Feast last night.”

He didn’t know what he expected, but the lack of any sort of appropriate reaction from Dumbledore made Severus’ blood boil. The old man simply leaned back in his chair, his blue eyes watching the girl as well. “I see. I assume she shared this with you?”

“She ran into Hagrid’s pet, and I caught her running through the halls last night with Granger, running from something, and then they just so happened to end up finding that troll. She knows. She… was acting strangely last night.” Severus seethed, ignoring Dumbledore’s suddenly intense gaze. “She was clearly frightened, but when I brought her and Miss Granger into my office she was… defiant — angry. The girl knows more than she’s letting on.”

“What did she say, when you questioned her?” asked Dumbledore, serious.

“Nothing that wasn’t a lie.”

Dumbledore frowned. “I hardly think Ariel would lie if she saw something.”

“You don’t know that.” Severus snapped. “You hardly know the girl.”

Something like regret pulsed through Dumbledore’s face, like a round of lightning. It was gone as quickly as it had appeared, but it shot through Severus as well, a sharpness that twisted his insides the wrong way. He could have very well told Severus that he didn’t know the girl well enough either to be making such accusations. The difference was that Dumbledore felt guilty, and Severus felt horror at even entertaining the notion.

“Well, while we’re discussing the subject,” Dumbledore reached for the marmalade, spreading it across his toast with a merry smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes. “I’d like you to keep an eye on Quirinus.”

It took Severus a minute to comprehend what Dumbledore had said. His eyes narrowed. “I beg your pardon?”

“Quirinus, my dear boy.” he took a bite, gazing thoughtfully towards the ceiling. “I’d like for you to shadow him for a few days. Perhaps longer, should you find anything suspicious.”

“And why in Merlin’s name would I —” Severus stopped, setting down the cutlery. Dumbledore continued to eat, like they were discussing the weather, and not stalking a colleague. “What is it you know?”

“I know very little about anything.” he said cheerfully. “It would be unwise, however, to simply ignore that he was late for the Feast when a mountain troll entered the school. Wouldn’t you agree?”

This was just what he needed — to be paranoid about something else. Lily-thing was going to get herself eaten before Christmas, and Dumbledore thought that numskull Quirrell was trying to steal the bloody stone. He’d known someone must have been, for it to be held here at the school, but Dumbledore had told him something at the start of term, something that had made his blood turn to ice.

“I recall Tom asking me to put him in touch with Nicolas.” he’d said, as they’d sealed the chamber that would house the Stone. “It was just after I’d denied him the Defense position for the very first time. He’d expressed wanting to become an apprentice under him, if I recall correctly. I’d like to think I saved Nicolas’ life, by denying Tom that opportunity.”

Severus did not respond to this. He supposed it was good, in a way, to hone in his rage on something that would be otherwise beneficial to keeping the school safe. What Quirrell wanted with the Stone, Merlin only knew, but luckily, he was quite low on his list of people he tolerated. The man was a bumbling idiot, far too much of a coward to serve as any sort of example to children on how the Dark Arts were to be handled.

Yes, Severus decided, Quirrell would do quite nicely.

—————

Ariel left for her detention with Snape after receiving several pep talks from Ron and Hermione. She didn’t think she would have been able to handle Ron’s worried questions and Hermione’s searching eyes, not when her own stomach was in knots, but they were just as invested in this as she was, though Ariel was beginning to suspect that Hermione was treating this as more of a puzzle. She’d scoured old texts from the library while Ron and Ariel had skimmed through her mum’s old notebooks, reading aloud anything she thought might be helpful, but the author’s words echoed a different time, in rhyme and reason Ariel didn’t think she could even begin to try and decode. That was why, she supposed, Hermione was handling the research aspect.

They’d made an agreement that Ariel would not share anything from her mum’s letter, only that she’d try and see what Snape did and didn’t know. Ron had started to look a little green towards the end, but Hermione had shoved him off in the direction of the boys’ dorms, leaving Ariel to begin her descent down to Snape’s classroom. They’d assured her that they’d keep searching through her mother’s trunk for anything that could lead them in the right direction.

Where do we go when we walk on light? Ariel wondered what it meant. She wondered even more what the answer was. She hadn’t brought the letter with her, mostly because she was mad at it. What kind of stupid letter disappeared after reading it, anyway? How was she supposed to prove anything to Snape if it came to it? What if she told him and he thought she was a liar? Or worse… what if he tried to get her expelled for it?

She couldn’t remember ever feeling this nervous about something, ever.

Ariel let herself drag her feet a little as she made her way down into the dungeons. She’d never had a detention before, and wasn’t looking forward to the fact that her first one was with Snape. Fred and George griped a lot about them, but she had a feeling they were exaggerating a whole lot of it, and mostly to mess with Ron. As she passed by the Slytherin dorms she made a face, sticking out her tongue, secretly hoping Malfoy was directly on the other side. She couldn’t stand him — she remembered punching Dudley once, when he’d made some stupid, thoughtless comment about her parents and clocking him right in the nose, so hard it had started to bleed. Ariel had that same urge whenever he saw the look Malfoy gave Hermione, like she was dirt underneath his boot. The way he’d spoken to her on the Hogwarts Express was enough to (almost) make her lose it.

Snape liked Malfoy, though. Well, maybe liked was too strong of a word, but he certainly favored him.

This was the thought in her head when Ariel rapped on the door to his classroom. It flew open, a dark, foreboding figure looming over her, like a cat about to pounce on its prey.

Have some fire, her mum had said. Be better.

She stared up at Snape. His black eyes glared down at her menacingly, the light from the candles lining the corridor reflecting off them.

“In.” Snape jerked his head, pulling back the door so Ariel could enter. She remembered Fred and George telling her and Ron about Snape, but it was just how she’d pictured it the first day of classes, minus some of the torture devices the twins had listed. A dull light filtered in from the candles, most of them down to the wick. It was darker than it usually was, an eerie wall of blues and greens illuminated on the shelves. Ariel shuddered as she looked at the specimens inside, swearing one of them winked at her. She wondered how he worked in here.

Snape swept past her, his black robes brushing past her, and pointed at two large buckets of dead toads.

“You’re going to gut them.” Snape said in a soft voice, the same one he used in class. It was both an order, and somehow, a direct insult.

The poor-dead toads stared up at her, pleading with her not to do this terrible thing with their lifeless eyes. Snape dropped a pair of gloves — though they could barely be called that, they were full of holes and fraying at the seams — onto the table beside the buckets.

“All of them?” Ariel asked, horrified.

Snape gave her a horrible smile, one that made a shiver run up her spine. “All of them.”

She bit the inside of her cheek, slapping down the gloves on the bench with more force than necessary. That hard little rock inside her chest she’d felt last night gazing up at her dead mum’s pictures was growing hot, burning against her throat. It wanted out, in that moment, but instead, Ariel swallowed roughly and took a deep breath. If Snape had noticed her flare up, he didn’t say so. He’d stalked over to his desk to set down a pile of papers. Ariel wondered if they were from her class — Snape never handed her back papers, though. He’d never returned a single thing to her, never given her a comment or even told her that she was doing well. Ariel only assumed because he hadn’t insulted her potion-making abilities… yet. That was a good thing, she supposed, because she rather liked —

Her stomach did a series of backflips. She was good at potions… because of the potions professor.

The poor-dead toads stared up at her, their eyes as empty as the space where her heart had been.

Ariel studied Snape while he worked. He wasn’t very handsome, but he wasn’t that old, either. She didn’t know how old he was, but if he’d gone to school with her mum and dad, that meant he was still kind of young, didn’t it? All adults in her mind were old, but he wasn’t old like Professor Dumbledore. Ariel could still remember the nasty shock she’d gotten when the Headmaster had told her Snape was a teacher, back in the Dursley’s kitchen. Back then, he’d just been a scary adult, but Snape the Teacher was someone… really, really scary.

Snape the Teacher is your dad, said a very nasty little voice inside her head, inside that wonderful?

Ariel ripped into the next poor-dead toad a little too harshly, blood and guts splattering her robes. She winced, mumbling an apology under her breath as it’s mouth hung open at her in shock. Her eyes flitted back to Snape, who was still ignoring her.

What had her mum seen in him that she couldn’t? He was so… mean.

Ariel was fifteen poor-dead toads in when she decided that she was going to try and talk to him. Snape still hadn’t looked up from the papers he was grading, his mouth fixed in a tight line as he slashed through what looked like essays with a blood-red quill. She stared down at the poor-dead toad guts, noticing her breath coming out slightly ragged, like she’d just finished running. The Sorting Hat had wanted her in Slytherin, and Slytherins were (awful) good at this sort of thing, weren’t they? They were good at getting what they wanted without being too obvious…

But she wasn’t a Slytherin, she was a Gryffindor.

She set down the carving knife, and took a deep breath. “Did you and the other professors ever find out how that troll got into the school?”

Snape’s eyes flickered to her, completely uninterested. “Magic.”

She blinked back. “What kind of magic?”

“The most unspeakable kind.”

Ariel wondered if he was being purposefully annoying. “Has a troll ever gotten into the school before?” she tried instead.

“Not since I was hired.” Snape stopped grading to give her a dark, warning glare. It felt like looking into the mouth of a cave.

“Okay… so…. how long have you been teaching?” she tried to make herself sound forceful, but it came out small, like she was wondering if she could ask the question.

“Too long.” he went back to the essay, his quill probably ruining some poor first years’ self esteem.

She bit her tongue, picking up the carving knife again. “You don’t like teaching?”

“I don’t like this conversation.” he stopped grading, only his eyes moving to give her a pointed glower. “You’re never this… chatty.”

“You don’t know that.”

Snape’s eyes narrowed dangerously. He set the quill down. “I do.”

“You and I have never talked before.” Ariel stuck the carving knife into the table. Snape finally noticed it then, his black eyes snapping up to meet hers.

“You want to have a conversation?” Snape hissed. “Fine. Let’s discuss last night.”

Oh no — had it only been last night? Everything felt like it had happened eons ago. The secret weighed so heavily on Ariel’s mind that it felt like it had been with her all her life. She might’ve been a Gryffindor, but she didn’t think she had it in her to have a conversation with Snape without letting it slip that Lily Potter thought he was her real dad. Hadn’t they had this conversation already anyway? Maybe he was still mad about it… he’d kicked her out when she’d asked about Aunt Petunia. She had a feeling it wasn’t a pleasant subject for him. They had that in common.

Ariel squared her chin, and tried to make herself look brave. “What about it?”

“You know what.” Snape bared his teeth, which were yellow and uneven on the bottom. “Let’s really discuss what you saw.”

She picked up another poor-dead toad, ripping the knife down its belly to keep her mind from wandering to the stupid (not stupid) letter. “I didn’t do anything wrong besides smacking into you… I’m sorry about that, by the way. I was running from —”

“So you were running from something.” Snape’s nostrils flared aggressively, like a bull about to charge.

Ariel set the poor dead-toad down on the table again, confused with this sudden burst of anger. “Not really. I just didn’t want to be there anymore.”

Snape stared at her, suspicion plainly written all over his face. His lip curled as he slammed a drawer closed, standing to lean forward over the desk. She stared back at him, trying to see whatever her Mum had. Something inside of her suddenly itched, this need to tell him, because he was suspicious and he wanted to know something. Ariel just couldn’t figure out what it was that he was after…

“The Stone.” Snape said flatly. “I know you know.”

It took Ariel a minute to comprehend what he was saying. “The — stone? What stone?”

“You know what blasted Stone!” Snape snarled. “I know you and your little friends ran into that beast guarding it. I overheard Mr Malfoy discussing it, so don’t — lie — to me.” 

All of the blood drained from her face. She’d forgotten about the dog, and the revenge she’d been planning to take against Draco. The three-headed dog was… guarding a stone? It must’ve been pretty important, because Snape was getting angrier and angrier. Of course Draco had told Snape… she didn’t know why she expected any different.

“I don’t know about any stone,” Ariel said carefully. “honest. Draco tricked us into going down there for a stupid duel, but I didn’t see anything else besides Fluffy.”

“No? Ariel Evans didn’t find anything remotely interesting about a giant three-headed monster guarding the forbidden corridor?”

“No!” her face felt hot. “What does this have to do with last night?”

Snape’s glare hardened, the lines of his face deep against the dim candlelight. “You’re going to tell me what you saw. It’s imperative myself and the other professors know.”

Her head was going to explode, Ariel was sure of it. “What would I have seen? You know we ran into the troll, and we didn’t know it was there because Hermione and I weren’t at the Feast!”

“No more questions.” he growled at her, like he wanted to Hex her, or worse. “What did you see?”

“I didn’t see anything!”

“You did.”

“No, I didn’t! And even if I did see something, what does that have to do with —”

“Because someone is trying to steal it!” you idiot — his tone finished the sentence.

“Oh.” Ariel felt herself bristling. “Well, of course I would tell you if I saw something! Why wouldn’t I?”

“Because you’re a meddlesome Gryffindor.” Snape sneered.

“I am not!” she said, a little too loudly. Snape gave her a dangerous look that knocked her down at least two pegs. “I’m telling the truth! Hermione and I were just sitting there and I… I don’t know, I really didn’t feel good all of a sudden.”

Even Ariel realized, in that moment, how terrible of a liar she was. It made her mad, because she was telling most of the truth. She was just leaving out a very small (huge, gigantic, nuclear) detail. Snape, however, still wasn’t buying it. If she’d seen someone trying to steal some magic stone, she would’ve said something. She wasn’t completely mental.

“I promise I didn’t see anyone or anything.” Ariel said, just as Snape started to threaten her with something about the Headmaster. “It was just Hermione and I, we don’t know who let that troll in, and I don’t know about this stone you keep mentioning. What’s so important about it, anyway? Who’d want to steal it?”

Snape deflated a bit, but his eyes were still ice cold and unrelentingly staring her down. “It’s none of your business.”

“You’re accusing me of knowing about it, so I’d say it’s pretty important.”

“I’d say you’d better watch it,” Snape’s eyes flashed. “or I’ll have you gutting toads till morning.”

“Well if I’m gutting toads, I can’t look for this stone then, yeah?”

Ariel didn’t know what had caused her to say that, and while she was quite happy with herself for being brave and not letting Snape scare her up until then, it all dissipated at the thunderous expression that rolled over his face.

“I’ll stay away from the Stone,” Ariel said quickly — something that felt like her fight-or-flight instinct was kicking in. “and tell you what I was really doing during the Feast last night, if you tell me something.”

Snape jerked away, as if she’d thrown something at him. She could tell she’d caught him off guard, again, just like she had last night, but he stayed frozen. He didn’t break eye contact. Ariel could tell he wasn’t really looking at her anymore. “How is that in any way relevant? You’re in detention because you were doing something you shouldn’t have. If you’re withholding information —“

“It’s not!” she crossed her arms at him. “I told you, I don’t know anything you don’t!”

“Isn’t the Stone enough?” he snarled. “You’re not allowed near it. You’re not supposed to know, and if I catch you trying to find it, so help me —”

“No, I don’t care about that.” she did — her brain was already running through how she was going to explain all this to Hermione and Ron when she got back upstairs. “You knew Aunt Petunia, but you haven’t talked to me at all. Why?”

Snape just stared at her, his expression a mixture of disgust and blatant shock. He didn’t wear the look well at all. Ariel had somehow gotten in front of his desk. She didn’t remember her feet moving, or telling herself to leave the safety of the workbench and the poor dead-toads. He was taller up close, a whole lot taller than she was, but she was shorter than all the other first years. She’d overheard Malfoy telling Pansy one day, “how could someone so small have defeated You-Know-Who?”

“You’re treading on dangerously thin ice, girl.” Snape said in a quiet, deadly voice, one that was louder than any scream.

For some reason, Ariel was not scared by this. “Why won’t you just tell me? You said Aunt Petunia and my Mum didn’t get along. Did you know her?”

His face had gone hollow. He sagged against his chair. “Not this again.”

“Did you know her?” Ariel asked again — she was breathing hard and fast. “Did you know my Mum? She wrote me a letter. I read it last night, that’s why I was upset, okay? Everyone knew her and my dad, but no one knew them. You did though, you said so — you were her friend.”

Snape fell back into his chair, pinching the bridge of his nose, like he had a bad headache. He was silent for a few minutes, the only sound in the room Ariel’s labored breathing, and something simmering in a cauldron nearby.

“I’m telling you the truth, I swear.” she cursed herself for the wobble in her voice. “That’s all I was doing. I didn’t see anyone, it was just Hermione and I.”

Please tell me please please please

The things in the jars behind his desk were the only things moving, like they were nodding along in agreement. Ariel kept her gaze even, watching him, watching his eyes, but there was nothing there. He’d gone cold and dark, like a person when turned to stone. There was such a lack of a reaction, and yet, such a sudden shift in his demeanor, that Ariel knew the letter must be true. He might not have remembered everything, but he did remember her mum.

Her heart ballooned, like her courage. “Did you know her? I asked Mrs Weasley, but she said only in passing, and Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon basically banned me from asking. I’ve never met someone who was their friend. Were you?”

“Was I what?” his voice was sharp and precise.

Ariel couldn’t help but jump at his response, but her chest hammered away, like an axe beating a block of wood. “Her friend.”

Something happened in his eyes, a light the size of the end of a needle. It shot through her like one. “Something like that.” Snape’s voice was twisted and uneven, identical to her mum’s handwriting.

Ariel was beginning to learn that Snape did not talk like a normal person. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Because I did not wish to tell you.” he said tonelessly.

“Is that why you came to the Dursleys?” Ariel crossed her arms tightly across her chest. “Because you were friends with Mum… or something like that?”

Snape buried his face in his hands, massaging his temple with his thumbs. “No. I came as an incredibly unfortunate result of circumstance.”

She flinched — Snape didn’t seem to notice. He looked like he wanted to disappear into the floorboards. It made Ariel feel terrible and angry, an insatiable need to ask and know more roaring away inside her, but stifled by her guilt. There was no reason for her to feel bad, but she supposed Snape looking so… defeated was only because of her questions.

“I meant it before, you know.” Ariel said, placing the carving knife on his desk. Her hands stung from gripping it so tightly. “I really didn’t see anything. I was just reading her letter.”

He gave her a tired, weary glare, pinching the bridge of his nose. She could tell that he’d convinced him of enough to cross her off his thief-list, but she also couldn’t blame him for being skeptical. Ariel had, after all, mowed him down in the middle of a corridor. The need to know something, however, seemed to be far less important than the idea of talking about her mum.

“Do you know anything about making words disappear?” Ariel asked in a small voice.

Snape blinked, his eyebrows furrowing. “Excuse me?”

“Like… off of a page?”

His lip curled. “Why? What did you do?”

“Nothing.” she sat down in the chair across from him. Snape gave her a look like she’d sprouted a second head. “This morning, I was sitting with Ron and Hermione and… the letter… it erased itself. I really didn’t do anything, why do you think I’m always doing something wrong?”

He responded with another cold, direct reply, like he was aiming his words at her forehead. “Because it’s in your nature.”

It was Ariel’s turn to give him a baffled look. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

He waved her off. “Some letters will fade away once they deem that the person it was intended for has satisfied its requirements.”

“Like what?”

Snape sighed, a short, frustrated sound. “There is oftentimes an emotional attachment left within this category of Charms. Professor Flitwick would be able to help you.”

Ariel bit her lip. “You seem to know what you’re talking about.”

There was a long pause. Snape had leaned forward again, his chin resting on a closed fist. His eyebrows were knitted together in an expression of both deep annoyance and calculating certainty. She could see his eyes boring into hers, trying to figure her out. Ariel had the feeling that Snape wasn’t taken off guard very often, and she wasn’t exactly trying to be open with him. Hermione was right, she couldn’t tell him the truth until she knew more, but she also had to give him something.

She wanted to ask more about her mum. It was an itch in her bones, in her teeth. She wondered if her eyes were familiar at all to him, or if he even saw her at all. Snape had a way of looking at you, like you weren’t really there, like you didn’t matter one bit.

“We’re done here.” Snape said coldly. “Return to your dormitory, Miss Evans.”

“What?” Ariel shot out of the chair. “But I’m not finished with the —”

“I said,” his voice was deadly, even though it was barely above a whisper. “we’re done.”

She felt like crying, the condemning glare too much to handle when she was so close. Why didn’t he want to help her? If he’d known her mum and had been her friend, why was he acting like he wanted nothing to do with it? What kind of friend was he?

They hadn’t been just friends, though… there was something more…

Why don’t you know? Ariel wanted to shout, wanted to throw the rest of the poor-dead toads at him. Why did you want to forget?

Instead, Ariel peeled off her gloves, and shoved them onto his desk. Snape watched her with a bored, guarded sort of look that made her want to punch him, like Malfoy. She pivoted on her heel, without a word, and headed for the door.

“Miss Evans,” Snape called from his desk.

Ariel turned around, her heart giving an excited start.

“If I find out you’ve gone anywhere near that third floor corridor again,” his voice was like a riptide, pulling mercilessly, making itself known, threatening to drag her somewhere deep and dark and untouchable. “I will make you regret it.”

She did not nod, or say yes, sir, or even turn away. Ariel swallowed the lump that had formed in the throat, and thought about her mum’s lost letter.

don’t give a damn what anyone thinks

“She mentioned you.” said Ariel. “I thought you’d want to know.”

In the meantime, she was just going to have to land herself another detention.