Chapter Eight: Lady Ariel

Bellatrix went ahead with a solemn face and averted eyes. She gave Lord Voldemort and the woman she had kidnapped not twenty hours earlier a low, unyielding bow. "My Lord." She said with deep reverence. Then she picked up her back only to bent it again for Ariel, the tips of her long scraggly brown hair brushed the floor before Ariel's still-bare-feet, her voice almost halting as she pled, "Lady Ariel." To Ariel's discomfort, Bellatrix took the groveling one step further by dropping to her knees, crawling closer to Ariel, grabbing her by the hand and profusely kissing her fingers, pleading in-between wet kisses, "Forgive me for my earlier trespasses." (Kiss kiss kiss) "I know I deserve to be punished for my earlier trespasses" (kiss kiss kiss) "but had I known—"

"I already asked her," Voldemort's irritated voice cut in. "And she's not going to kill you. So, you can stop slobbering already."

Bellatrix's head shot up high enough for her to peak through her errant locks of hair to cast a stunned look between the pair. Ariel nodded and smiled at her reassuringly while Voldemort gave her a hard look that said, bitch, you are so lucky.

"Really?" Bellatrix said more shocked than relieved.

Ariel nodded again, gently recoiling her spit-covered hand from Bellatrix's grip as she said with a sympathetic shrug, "These things happen. You weren't the first person to kidnap and I doubt you'll be the last. At least, now we both know."

"Well," Bellatrix said as she slowly rose to her feet looking uncertain and thwarted. "Thank you…for not killing me."

"You're welcome," Ariel replied sweetly before she turned her attention to Draco and Narcissa who stepped ahead and gave their bows.

"My Lord. Lady Ariel."

"Ariel, you already know Narcissa." Voldemort introduced lazily. "This is Narcissa's son, Draco. One of our newest recruits. He's also the owner of the room you'll be staying in tonight."

"It's for only for the night," Ariel added to Draco reassuringly noticing right away the look of abject humiliation on the young boy's face at the sound of someone being in his room. Then to Narcissa, she said, "Thank you again for the kind offer. I hadn't had a chance since I've gotten to land to find a place to rest."

"It's an honor to be able to shelter you," Narcissa said with another quick bow.

"Yes, it's an honor to give you my room while I'm away," Draco said hurriedly like a man on his way to confession he didn't want to make. "But I want to throw this out there: all that stuff you see on my walls…it's for a project."

Ariel didn't respond to this lie with anything other than a look of second-hand embarrassment while Voldemort, who always enjoyed being front and center to other people's humiliations, told him bluntly, "You're too late Draco. We've seen the shrine."

Draco's face dropped. "You did?"

They both nodded.

Embarrassed beyond recognition, it was all he could do to allow his mother to drag him away from the line and scold him under her breath, "I told you to get rid of that thing before you left…"

At last, to Ariel and Voldemort's visibly increasing delight, Snape appeared before them and took his bows.

"And Severus," Voldemort remarked with a small smile as Snape straightened his back. "Ariel, you are already acquainted with Severus."

"I am," Ariel replied softly her head tilted down coyly at Snape enhancing her sparkling eyes, which gleamed under his gaze. "Nice to see you again, professor. I can't thank you enough for…" Her right hand receded from her lap and began to trail the highway of her thigh. "Your work yesterday."

"Yes, excellent work, as usual, Severus." Voldemort praised. "Once again, you've proven yourself to be one of the most talented wizards of your time."

"It was my pleasure," Snape said, making sure his lips barely parted so the words came out in a soft rumble turning Ariel's sweet smile into a lusty lopsided grin.

"Oh, that reminds me," Voldemort said abruptly, taking a stand for the first time since the ass-kissing began. "I must borrow you for a moment, Severus." To Ariel, he explained, "It's Nagini's feeding time and I promised Severus last time he could feed her."

"I got bad news Severus," Voldemort said once they were in the kitchen and the sound of Nagini tearing through sacrificial elven flesh like scraps of paper filled the back corner. "I think Ariel wants to fuck you."

"What," Snape said, clearing his throat after a half-minute of intense deliberation over his next choice of words. "Makes you think that, My Lord?"

"Just the way she looks at you," Voldemort replied off-handedly. "Also, she told me earlier that she thinks your voice sounds like sex on a velvet rug during a thunderstorm."

Snape stood quietly, suppressing the urge to smile and an innate fear growing in his chest, while he gauged Voldemort's reaction.

"I don't know how you want to handle this," Voldemort began after an awkward pause floated between them. "But if you turn her down, I highly recommend doing it away from a body of water—"

"My Lord," Snape interrupted. "Do you…want me to turn her down?"

"No?" Voldemort replied as if it obvious.

"Are you sure?" Snape asked, cautiously. "Because…there's no shame in admitting you…desire her…"

"Desire her?" He echoed, repulsed. "Ugh! You think that because I worship the woman that I want… ugh!?"

"So, you don't?"

"No! Ugh! You know sex is disgusting, right?"

"So, you wouldn't have a problem if she and I started an…intimate relationship?"

"No! Why would I?! Ugh!" Voldemort demanded with a disgusted shudder. Once the repulsion passed, he asked "So, wait? You wouldn't have an issue sleeping with her?"

"Not at all, no."

"Oh. Good then." Voldemort said, his voice back easing back to its normal octave. "This actually makes the next topic I have to talk to you about much easier. At some point before, during, or after you…ugh…go to town on each other, I need you to convince her to help me kill Harry Potter."

"You want...her to help you kill Harry Potter?"

"Yes."

"Uh, forgive me, My Lord, but aren't you...always...going on about how 'i have to be the one to kill Harry Potter'?"

"Yes, and as much as I would love to be the one to kill Harry Potter, he has turned out to be an...impossbily hard child to kill. So, if I can't kill him, I'd be happy to just... watch him be forced to rip his own dick off and...slowly bleed to death on the cold hard ground, begging to be euthanized."

"Fair point," Snape replied quickly. "But wouldn't it be easier for you to ask her yourself?"

"No, because then she's going to think I said all those nice things about her to manipulate her."

"And…you didn't?"

"No," Voldemort said, his voice soft with a genuineness that Snape had never heard, or expected from the Dark Lord, before. "No, I meant everything I said in there."

"You truly admire her so?"

Voldemort laughed. "You're kidding, right? The woman's a literal god. Or she might as well be one. Her grandparents were gods, her father was a demigod. The woman can make a person rip their own genitals off just by telling them to. I've wanted to do that since I was 8. Hell, that power alone is half the reason I want to achieve immortality so badly so I could spend the next however many years learning how to do that with just my mind. I want to be just like that woman. Also," He paused to look around the room to make sure they were alone. Then with his piercing blue eyes boring into Snape's soul, he added, "I'm only going to tell you this because you two are going to be intimate soon and it'll probably come up anyway but," His face softened slightly. "Some of my few good childhood memories were with Ariel." Snape didn't dare speak while Voldemort's eyes went dreamy and distant. "I remember…when I first got the news that I was a wizard. I snuck out to tell her. I suspected she knew I was magic but she pretended to be surprised when I told her. Then she spent the whole night asking me about what I wanted to be, the classes I would take. She even found an old tie from her collection and showed me how to do a Windsor knot."

Vivid fragments of that night played out before him in the kitchen. He could see his younger-self standing, trying to look bored, while Ariel the little mermaid smoothed his black hair down with her wet hand and admired him in his new uniform which he wore every day from the day he got it. He remembered her making him stay still so she could admire him then he remembered her pulling him into the first proper hug of his life, her melodic voice telling the little rigid boy who wasn't used to affection, "You better visit."

At some point, he remembered himself and pulled himself out of the reverie to find Snape quietly waiting for him to return to the present. He gave Snape's face a quick tap with his palm telling him to "treat her well" before he veered towards the door.