I never expected to take on the life of a human.

I was just an ordinary mermaid, singing in the Black Lake. My voice, everyone said, was the sweetest of them all. I could sing songs of power, and everyone would listen. I wanted just to learn all the songs then. I was quite young.

But as I grew older, as the clock continued to tick on and on, I began to realize things about me. About my family. My sweet voice had made me sweet. Far too sweet for the cold Black Lake. I would peer into the Slytherin common room and see laughter, smiles, hugs, all sorts of affection.

When I tried to show my family I loved them in the same way, they rejected me. They'd slap me with their bigger, more powerful fishtails, would push me away, go tell me to play with Moaning Myrtle if I were so soft.

My family, like the lake, was cold.

I was warm.

I wondered if that was because I didn't look like them in the slightest. Not all mermaids are alike, you know. I was more on-parr with human standards of beauty. Dark red hair like the coral, blue-green eyes like the ocean, and a bright orange tail, I looked more like the Sirens of Greece or the beauties of Denmark-not the inhuman monstrous mermaids that were more on-par for the lake.

I had quite clearly come from somewhere else, but how, not one could tell me. Personally, Mother blamed Hagrid, the half-giant that had introduced many creatures into the lake and forest beyond.

I only really began taking action when the boy fell in the lake. I'd come up to the surface, as is tradition for any mermaid that has lived to sixteen, and I'd seen him. It was dark, but I could see that his hair was as dark as the night, his eyes as green as a frog's-it wasn't love at first sight, but familiarity or friendship at first sight, you know the saying.

A grindylow had dragged him under-and I dived back to save him. I attacked it-and while my fingernails weren't as long, my teeth not nearly as sharp, but I did break the fingers of the grindylow. I could see that the human was passing out-I didn't want him to die.

Please don't die, please don't die, I thought as I carried him to the surface, as I dragged him on the land.

That's when it happened.

I'd heard the stories of mermaids who had left the life of the water behind-but I never thought it would happen to me! I thought they were just that-stories!

I looked down to see two long tails-legs, I believe they're called-and reached my hand to my throat. I couldn't sing anymore. I couldn't sing! My sweet voice was gone!

Still, I took the robe the human had cast aside, covered myself, and unsteady legs that hurt I began to drag the boy along, trying to take him up to the huge castle I'd only seen through the common room window.

An old man found us first.

"Yer gonna get in trouble for this," he said with a particularly leering smirk at me.

I tried to ask for help, but I couldn't as the old man hobbled away, only to return with a woman in robes as green as a frog's. She was a severe looking woman, and she was staring at me rather unkindly.

I lifted my hand to my throat and shook my head. Her eyes widened in surprise.

"You can't speak?"

I nodded.

"I see then," the woman said, hesitating. "Are you one of my students?"

I shook my head, and pointed to the boy urgently. The woman gasped.

"Mr. Potter!" She then conjured up some sort of platform with wheels and levitated him onto it.

I was asked questions later-I wrote down the truth-and as amazing as it was, she believed me. I'd guess it was because she wasn't the sort of woman you lied to. She was the sort that you left quite well alone in hopes she didn't kill you.

She-McGonagall, she was called-allowed me to stay.

"You have nowhere else to go, after all," she acknowledged.

The boy-Albus Severus Potter, I learned he was called (the stupidest name I ever heard if I were an honest mermaid)-did get better. While I went to classes unsorted, he would often sit by me. He was a nice boy, not like the cruel humans that Grandmother warned me of when I watched the children in the common room. He was the son of someone important too-no one that I cared to know.

I knew he had too many questions about who I was, what I was-and I refused to tell him. I don't really know why-I guess I was ashamed of being a mermaid in that I was ashamed of losing my voice-the sweetest voice to ever exist, or so I was told.

What I didn't count on was that he was a clever boy. He and his blond friend, Scorpius, kept researching, trying to find out the truth about me.

"I know who she is!" Scorpius cried, sliding next to Albus. I hid behind the shelves, peering through the books. Could he have finally found the truth?

Who? Ariel?"

"Yes Ariel! Who else do you keep asking about?" Scorpius asked. He dug through his schoolbag stained from ink bottles breaking, and pulled out a tattered book titled The Little Mermaid.

"Isn't that a muggle fairytale?" Al scoffed.

"Well, it was also an account by a squib named Hans Christian Anderson," Scorpius said. "Ariel is just like the mermaid mentioned here! Clumsy, doesn't talk-why, I'd bet all the gold in Gringotts that she was the mermaid that saved your life on your birthday!"

"Why can't she talk, though?" Al asked.

"She traded her voice to look the way she does and walk," Scorpius explained. "Don't you get it, mate? She traded everything for you!"

I couldn't help but giggle at the silly Squib's account of things.

Al's eyes snapped up to meet mine, and he made his way to me. He took my face into his hands and kissed me.

A kiss that restored my voice.