Dedicated whole-heartedly to Amy (You're Amyzing), Starlit (around the r i v e r b e n d), Coffee (coffee-stained lips) and Ro (Anonymity Effect) because they were all so enthusiastic about seeing this.
Thanks to my brilliant fiancee (poison teacup) for these amazing prompts: monograms of blue, simmering, chiffon, tangle me in your web and only tonight.
Disclaimer: I don't own anyone you recognise or the lyrics to Kiss the Girl.
silence isn't golden
There's a calm surrender.
…
It's not every day he walks into the bathroom and finds a redhead sitting on the blue tiles, a little crab sitting on her knee.
Her eyes are very blue, her hair very red and she's wearing some sort of sheet, wrapped around her slim form and tied with ropes.
"Who are you?" he asks. She opens her mouth and tries to form a few words, but no sound comes out and her face falls. "Can't you talk?" She shakes her head.
He leaves her sitting there and finds parchment and a quill, taking them back to her. "Write down your name." She just stares at him until he shows her how to dip the quill in ink and swirl it across the parchment.
Her writing is round, childish and she smudges the word with her elbow by accident. The little crab crawls down her leg and appears to read what she's writing. But, no, he's going crazy. Crabs don't read.
"Ariel." She smiles and nods and he does the same, practicing his most charming grin on this mysterious girl. "That's a pretty name. How old are you, Ariel?" She holds up ten fingers, thinks for a moment, closes her fists and holds up six. "You're sixteen. Same age as Lily, my little sister. I'm James, James Potter."
"James, where are you?" Lily's shout drifts from the garden up to the bathroom and he swears under his breath. "You're missing the game!"
"Come on, you can come and sit outside with Al," he says, holding his hand out to Ariel. He can't help but notice that the crab scuttles down her back as he guides her down the stairs and out into the blinding sunlight. His parents and Lily are hovering high enough for their toes to skim the branches of the apple trees. Albus, on the other hand, is sitting on a deckchair with his nose in a thick textbook.
"Al, this is Ariel. Ariel, this is Albus, my brother. He's a wimp and he doesn't like playing Quidditch," James says, summoning another chair and leaving the new arrival and Albus to talk - or not, seeing as he's reading and she's unable.
"Snail, snail, snail!" Lily chants as he takes his time kicking off from the ground. He glares up at her and soars towards her, aiming for the Quaffle. She dodges him easily and laughs, the sound merry on the summer breeze.
He gets his revenge by knocking her off her broom and into the apple tree. He denies any planning on his part when his mother asks, simply innocently saying that it was an accident. He looks down and notices that, far from being Albus and reading, Ariel is gazing up at the game with rapt attention. He dives down, slowing to a halt beside her.
"Do you want a ride?" he asks. Her eyes shine with excitement and she nods frantically. He grins - he hasn't seen a girl this excited to ride a broom with him since…well, ever - and jumps down, lifting her onto the broom in an elegant position Roxanne (Miss Expert-On-All-Things-Equestrian) always calls 'side-saddle'. He mounts in front of her.
"Hold on tight, he likes to go really fast," Albus mutters behind his book and James grins as Ariel's slim arms wind around him. He kicks off and they soar high into the air, far above the apple trees. The wind whips his hair back and he turns his head to see the twinkle in her eyes and the incredulous smile across her cheeks and he laughs, loud and happy, before diving straight down.
"James, stop flirting and catch this!" his father yells, throwing the Quaffle towards him. James catches it with ease - his father never was the greatest thrower, no wonder he never made Chaser - and passes it to Ariel.
"Throw it into that apple tree," he whispers to her and steers the broom away from Lily's grasping hands. He hears Ariel take in a deep breath and then the Quaffle is flying past his head, into the apple tree.
"It's a goal!" his mother cheers, punching the air with her fist. James turns and hugs Ariel tightly.
"You threw that well," he whispers in her ear. She's blushing and that laugh bubbles up again from deep inside him. She lays her head on his back and he high-fives his mother as they arc around each other, back into position.
Long after the game's ended, they're still outside. Lily's lying on her stomach down by the pond, writing letters. Albus is still buried deep in his book, their father watching the sky change from blue to orange and their mother inside, preparing dinner. As for James, he's trying to teach Ariel the rules of Quidditch.
"There are seven players on a team," he explains patiently, wondering how many times he's given this lecture to girls. "There are three Chasers and they play with the Quaffle - the big red ball. They throw it back and forth and try and score a goal through big hoops."
"Shut up, James, you're boring us all!" Lily yells. James just directs an unseen glare to her.
"So, where do you live? Who are your friends? What do you like doing?" he asks. Ariel just looks at him, and he suddenly remembers that she can't talk. There's a sigh from somewhere above their heads and a piece of parchment drifts down to land in front of Ariel. James looks up at Albus and clears his throat loudly. Looking annoyed to be dragged away from his book, Albus hands him a self-inking quill.
Ariel leans over the parchment and begins writing, her hair creating a curtain around the words. When she finally finishes, he pulls the parchment towards him and reads it with eyebrows raised.
"So, you're a mermaid who lives in King Triton's palace - you're his daughter, actually - under the sea," he says. She just nods as he continues. "Your best friends are Sebastian, Flounder and Scuttle, a crab, a fish and a seagull. You like singing and swimming and collecting everything that sinks with ships. You can't sing anymore, though, because you exchanged your voice for legs in a deal with a sea witch."
"Great story!" Lily yells. James glares again but she doesn't see - again - and just continues writing her letters.
"Sorry if we don't believe you, but it's a little far-fetched," he says to Ariel. "So how did you end up here?"
She starts writing again and he waits (im)patiently for her to finish so he can read the rest of the story.
"You looked into a mirror at Prince Eric's castle and saw my face," he reads, frowning in confusion. "Then you saw a big light, sort of like a lighthouse, then you fell and ended up sitting in our bathroom."
"Seriously doubt that!" James glares again at Lily's latest interjection and makes a rude gesture at her, which is unfortunately seen by his mother as she walks out into the garden bearing a tray loaded with plates of Hawaiian pizza (a family favourite) and glasses of lemonade.
"James Sirius Potter, don't make me ban you from Quidditch again," she scolds, her telling off marred by the corner of her mouth twitching. Lured by the smell of pizza, Lily runs back up from the pond and Albus finally snaps his books shut.
"I hope you like bacon and pineapple, Ariel," his mother says with a smile, handing Ariel her plate and settling cross-legged onto the lawn.
"Do you like lemonade?" Lily asks with her mouth full of pizza. Ariel shrugs. "Oh yeah, I forgot, you're a 'mermaid'." Lily sketches air quotes around the word. "Try it, Mum's lemonade is the best."
After a prompting nudge from James, Ariel hesitantly raises the glass to her lips and drinks deeply. A smile spreads across her face and she nods enthusiastically.
"You like it?" Lily asks. "Try the pizza." Ariel does as the other redheaded sixteen year old said and smiles even wider as she tastes pizza for the first time.
An hour later, Lily isn't so friendly to the girl.
"Why does she have to sleep in my room?" she whines.
"Because you're the same age, you destroyed Albus' spare mattress last week and if you think I'm letting a girl sleep in James' room you can think again," her father says irritably. "Now stop complaining and go and put your pyjamas on and find something for Ariel."
Muttering darkly to herself, Lily storms up the stairs and into her room, where she isn't impressed to find James showing Ariel how to make up the spare mattress for her to sleep in.
"You get girlier every day, James," she observes. James just glares and continues smoothing out the sheets. "You got a crush on her or something? Only reason I can think of for you to be actually helping around the house." He continues glaring while wrestling pillow cases that clearly shrank in the wash onto pillows and laying everything out.
He peers back into the room thirty minutes later and finds the pair of them asleep, equally red hair spilling across white pillow and both dressed in Lily's usual baggy shorts and tees. He smiles briefly and shuts the door, leaving the pair to sleep.
…
Summer continues to march onwards and the only thing that shows the passing of the days seems to be the cycle of the sun and moon.
Ariel falls easily into the rhythm of life in Godric's Hollow. Lily forgives the fellow redhead for forcing her to share a room and is soon showing Ariel how to fly and conducting races with her in the stream at the bottom of the garden. Ariel wins every time.
The little crab appears wherever she does and, though James is only interested in Ariel and Albus is always buried in dusty bindings and words in miniscule print, Lily is intrigued.
So, while James and Ariel are talking in the garden together, Lily finds the crab and sits it on her knee, looking down at it for a long silence.
"So, why did you come here with her?" she asks, feeling ridiculous. She's talking to a crab, for Salazar's sake! "Do you have a name, crabby?"
"I am the Royal Advisor to King Triton and he has charged me with watching over his daughter. I am Sebastian." Lily lets out a shriek and looks at the crab. He doesn't seem impressed with being unceremoniously flung into the air and is glaring at her.
"Al, get in here!" she yells. A moment later, Albus appears, a book clutched in his hand, as per usual.
"What do you want?" he grumbles. She points a shaking finger at the crab.
"I think he spoke to me," she mumbles. Albus gives her a very odd look.
"Merlin, Lily, what potions are you sniffing?" he asks, bending down to look the crab right in the beady eye. "Can you talk?"
"Please don't patronise me. I am Sebastian, the Royal Advisor." Both of them jump and stare, because this little speech definitely came from the crab.
"So, you're Ariel's friend?" Lily asks. "Does that mean she really is a mermaid?"
The crab straightens up to his full (still very small) height. "Of course she is a mermaid, the daughter of King Triton, but she exchanged her voice for a pair of legs because she got out of my sight for one minute and fell in love with a human." Lily smothers a giggle, because there's nothing as strange as seeing a crab look indignant.
"She's falling in love with a human again," Albus observes, looking out of the window.
"We need to make them kiss," Lily says suddenly, standing up and looking down on James and Ariel admiring a burnished blue sky. "I'm not listening to him complain like he did about Mystii Corner." Albus nods in agreement, remembering the three months of their lives spent listening to James mooning over a girl he never had the courage to chase after.
For a good ten minutes the two humans and crab sit in silence, all of them wondering how to prompt James to kill Ariel. The sunlight creeps across the room, Sebastian's feet tap against the floorboard and James' constant stream of chatter drifts up to them.
"Well, down under the sea, I'm something of a composer," Sebastian says slowly, something like a smirk coming over his face when Lily and Albus turn to him with rapt attention. "I've written a song to prompts two people desperately in love with each other to kiss. It was originally intended to make Prince Eric kiss Ariel before sunset on the third day, but it will work just as well in this situation."
"Great, teach it to us," Albus says while Lily unearths a blank Orpheus Orb to record their singing.
"Gather around this crab," Sebastian says, smirking again when Lily and Albus lean close, Lily giving the orb a vigorous spin. "I'm going to teach you to create the mood."
…
Ariel nestles into his side and shivers slightly as a cold breeze - a true indicator that autumn is on its way - passes over them. James smile at the feel of warm (female) skin against his.
It's true that Ariel, with her bright red hair and sky blue eyes and habit of starting to say something and looking disappointed when no sound comes out, has touched his heart. Sometimes he thinks she's like the huge furry spiders Lily always holds when their grandfather takes them to a Muggle zoo: beautiful but deadly. Because falling for any girl is a terrible thing.
He looks at her and her terribly sweet smile and can't help the grin that spreads across his face. He wants to beg her to tangle him in her web and hold her tightly in his arms while her lips caress a thousand promises into his skin, but he won't admit.
Don't ask, because he's not going to say that he's suffering from that disease.
(He's in love.)
"Do you see all the stars?" he asks, sliding an arm around her and pointing up at the heavens. "I don't know much about stars, but that one's the Pole Star, and that one's the Big Dipper and…er…I don't know any more." She smiles again and takes his hand, her skin pleasantly cool despite the stifling heat of the day.
(Must be a positive side-effect to being a mermaid, he thinks not.)
And maybe he's imagining it, but he can almost hear a voice - a voice that sounds remarkably like his brother - singing gentle words in time to music composed of percussion, string and winds.
(There you see her.)
"Do you hear something?" he asks Ariel. She frowns and shakes her head, but he sees the slight glint in her eyes.
(But there's something about her.)
He sits up, bringing her with him and looks down at her suspiciously. "Seriously, do you hear singing?" She shakes her head again, but he sees the smile that spreads across her cheeks.
(Kiss the girl.)
(Don't try to hide it how.)
(You wanna kiss the girl.)
"It must be me going crazy," he says. She smiles and curls into his side again. He turns his head to ask her something, but he sees the glow in her young face, pretty red tresses perfectly accenting this mysterious glow and a smile playing across her lips. With a heavy sigh, he simply surrenders to the inevitable and bends to kiss her.
Inside the house, Lily stops the orb spinning, smirking in satisfaction. Sebastian looks just as pleased. Albus gives Lily a high-five and they leave the room to give the couple a little privacy.
There's a soft sigh as James moves away from Ariel and he knows that it definitely isn't made by him.
"Ariel, I-"
"Save it, James."
He stares at her, because a voice just came from her mouth, clear and sweet. She puts a hand to her throat, her eyes shining with hope.
"I-I think I love you," she says, and tears appear, little stars in blue, because she can speak again.
"Ariel, you can talk!" he exclaims gleefully, standing up suddenly. He lifts her into his arms and whirls her around until her hair flies around them like a protecting circle of flames, her laughter echoing on the wind.
"I do love you, James," she whispers as, dizzy with spinning and desire, they collapse onto the grass together, legs intertwined. He just grins - because, well, if she's admitting it, why shouldn't he? - and presses another firm kiss to her lips.
The kiss deepens and their bodies press together and he shouldn't be doing this because she's the same age as his little sister, for crying out loud, but none of it matters because she is his and he is hers, even if it's only tonight.
…
Of course, nothing this good can last.
They're laughing, the golden sunlight streaming across his face and her hair, her delicate fingers weaving daisies into long chains that she drapes around his neck. He kisses her, running his hand through hair as smooth and silky as velvet, intoxicated by her presence and warmth and touch.
"James…I think I have to go home," she murmurs as they part, his hand still resting on the golden skin of her bare midriff.
"What do you mean?" he asks, a tiny niggling worry that's always been in the back of his mind, ever since she arrived, threatening to submerge him. "But I love you and having you here and we don't want you to leave."
"Sebastian warned me this would only be temporary," she whispers, tears sliding down her cheeks. "I just forgot, with summer and you, that I would have to leave."
"How?" The word is strangled, choked by tears, and he's frightened because he's James Sirius Potter and he doesn't act like this, least of all over a girl.
"I think, if I go back to the mirror, it'll take me home again." She presses another kiss to his lips, resting her forehead against his. "I'm going to miss you, James."
"I hope this Prince Eric realises that you're one in a million and marries you, because he's a bloody idiot if he doesn't," he tells her, taking her hand and holding tight.
They walk back to the house in silence, tears still staining her cheeks. He knows that he always knew she'd have to return to the sea one day - it's her home, in her blood, monograms of blue engraved on her heart - but he didn't expect it to be this soon. His emotions are all simmering together in the pot of his heart and he doesn't know whether to scream, shout, laugh or cry.
They find Sebastian with Lily and Albus, as has become normality, and Ariel tells them she has to go home and take Sebastian with her. Lily cries and presses a kiss to the crab's shell and even Albus is speechless as, Sebastian on her shoulder, Ariel returns to the bathroom that started everything.
"I love you," she whispers, kissing James again, their tears mingling. He holds tight for the very last time and watches her turn her pale face to the mirror. She manages to smile sweetly for them one last time, waves and is gone, leaving only the scent of sea salt behind.
…
Life doesn't go on without her.
With a scandal that rocks the family to the core, Teddy leaves Victoire and marries Lily. Albus becomes a writer and his books are widely-renowned. Cousins are married off left, right and centre, but he can't get those blue eyes out of his head.
He can't waste his affections on girls with shiny hair and outlined eyes and tiny waists, who read too far into things and always want to ride his broom. He longs for the simplicity of a sweet smile and daisy chains on a hot summer's day.
"You have to let go." Everyone says that at some point or another, some more often or more insistently than others. He stands behind Teddy and then Albus as best man at their weddings and only wishes that he could be standing in pride-of-place, clutching her hand and taking her as his wife, for richer or for poorer, in sickness and in health, for better or for worse, until death do they part.
He wishes every night before he sleeps, every morning when he wakes up, every time he sees a body of water or a flower as red as her hair or the summer sky, that he will see her again.
…
It ends with a boat crash.
How fitting, for him to be taken to his grave by the very place that gave him the greatest love of his life.
He hears the crash, the crunching of metal and sees flickering flames before the water extends cool fingers around him, much like Ariel's. With her face dancing in his mind and her name on his lips, he gladly lets the water take him.
He opens his eyes to find himself in a meadow, with green grass and daisies as far as the eye can see. Ariel is walking towards him, in a gown made of seaweed-green chiffon.
"I missed you," she whispers, hanging a chain of daisies around his neck. With their snowy white petals and sunshine yellow middles, they remind him of long ago times. "Are you sure you wish to go on?"
He thinks for a moment. If he goes on, he'll never see his parents again, watch Lucy and Lorcan marry, meet Dominique and Scorpius' first baby, see Lily's secret bump grow round or watch Graham fumble his way through a proposal to Victoire. But if he goes back, he won't see Ariel again for a lifetime.
"I'm coming with you," he says adamantly. She smiles and kisses him, and her cool touch on his bare chest becomes water, extending far above and below him.
He opens his eyes and sees her mermaid's tail and smiles. With a flick of their twin powerful tails, they're gone, down into the ocean.
And now they can be James-and-Ariel, together forever.
And that is an almost 4K JamesAriel, guys. Aren't you proud of me? :D
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