Chapter Thirteen: Never

She waited for him in the garden. She sat at a round little patio table, watching two albino peacocks wander through the manicured backyard freely until eventually one of them got tired of being followed and attacked their companion for no discernible reason. Shrieks were made; talons were drawn. The squabble ended as soon as it started with one victorious and the other cut up, missing tuffs of feathers, red streaking the immaculate white body.

Voldemort came out of the corner of her eye, using his wand to carry the same two matching teacups and teakettle from yesterday. The tea set assembled itself onto the table before de-animating itself in the center as he took his seat across from her, smiling.

They reached for their cups at the same time, but Voldemort raised his to a toast. "To reunions."

Ariel tapped her cup into his.

"Would it be inappropriate to ask you," he said after he took his first sip, "If you slept well last night?"

She cut him an uncertain glance, but when she saw he was smiling, she said, "I did sleep well."

"And…Severus?"

"Was a perfect gentleman."

He smiled, bringing the cup to his lipless mouth. "Good." He sounded like he meant it. "You know, I never would have pictured you two together." With a snicker, he added, "He hates children."

"I don't know. He seems pretty fond of that…" She snapped her fingers, trying to jog her memory. "Shrine boy."

Voldemort started to laugh. "'Shrine boy'. Merlin's Beard," He leaned in and told her conspiratorially, "You know until you came, I thought about hiding the shrine while he was away at school. That way I could watch his face as he tried to find it without asking anybody if they have seen it because how was he going to go around asking people if they'd seen his 'Harry Potter' shrine." His sentence ended in a fit of snickers.

"Leave the boy alone," Ariel said, listlessly. "You know, I had a marble statue of my crush in my treasure room when I was his age."

"Yeah, and look where that got you," he remarked.

Ariel looked down at her hands, the steam from her cup wafting against her forehead as she searched through the words she wanted to say next.

"You look…" Voldemort began. "Vexed."

"I am," she confessed. She lifted her head and said, "Severus told me what you…wanted to ask me."

"Really?" He asked, somewhat surprised. "Hm, I didn't expect him to tell you so soon. He usually dragggggs these things out for as long as he could." He glanced at Troubled Ariel and said, "We don't have to talk about this now."

"I think we should."

"Alright." He said, setting his cup down and lifting his head to give her his undivided attention.

Ariel didn't hesitate. She looked him in the eye and said, "We both know that I can't help you kill a child."

Voldemort wilted in his seat, looking mildly disappointed but not surprised. "I know." He said. He lifted his lips and forced out a smile. "And I respect your… (sigh) moral objections."

Ariel squinted at him. "Really?"

"Yes." He sighed, rolling his eyes, looking more disappointed with himself than with her. He glanced at her and upon noticing her baffled expression, he said, "I would never force you to do anything you didn't want to do, Ariel." With another roll of his eyes, he muttered, "God, I'm going soft."

Ariel squirmed in her seat, unsure of what to make of this conversation. It didn't feel like a win. But then again, he wasn't reaching for his wand, which laid idly against his saucer plate, and she wasn't struck dead either as she had expected.

"I don't understand…" she whispered.

"What's there to understand?" He asked, blankly.

"Everything!" She gaped. She felt suddenly unhinged. Sitting in this garden in this house of blood having morning tea with the world's most diabolical wizard underneath an Indian summer sun pretending like they were mother and son. She looked up and saw Tom's ghost dissipate from the table, leaving only the Dark Lord. She knew then and there she was a fool to think she could change him back into the boy she barely knew. With that, she abruptly got to her feet and said, "I gotta go."

She started towards the house, already in tears, when she felt Voldemort's hand reach down and grab her by the arm. Next thing she knew, he was pulling her into his body to embrace her. She didn't pull away, merely buried her face into his chest as he rested his chin on her crown, patting her on the back as she wept and wept and wept.

At some point, she woke up in a bed she didn't recognize fully clothed with a heaviness weighing over her eyes and a pounding headache. The windows revealed the sun hadn't moved much. It was still not yet evening.

After a few minutes of blinking and trying to remember where she was, it occurred to her that she was still at Malfoy Manor. She looked down at the black silk blankets then over her shoulder to find, to her immense relief, that the bed she laid in was empty. She tried to look around the room but was impeded by the painful pulse in her forehead. She fell back into the pillows, with a groan.

"Here," said a voice.

She opened one eye and discovered a teacup floating in front of her. To the right, in a chair in the shadowy corner, sat Voldemort.

"Thank you," she rasped after she chugged the entire contents and set the empty cup on a nearby nightstand. She raised herself up and asked, "How long was I out for?"

"Not long." He replied, his chin sitting on top of his white fist, studying her.

There was a long silence between them.

"I know," he began softly, twiddling his wand with his first two fingers, "This must be difficult for you."

Ariel didn't say anything. Instead, she propped herself against the ultra-plush pillows, then turned her head all the way towards him, giving him a weak but heartfelt smile. Then, she pushed herself into the middle of the giant bed and gestured at him to join her.

He smiled, locked the door with his wand, set it on the nightstand next to her empty glass, and climbed into bed with her. She allowed him to rest his head against her chest, curling one arm around him as he cuddled into the crook of her warm body. For a moment, they merely held each other, pretending this wasn't at all strange.

"Why did you lock the door?" Ariel asked.

"So, Bellatrix wouldn't walk in, see us and try to kill you in a jealous rage," He replied. Then with a laugh, he said, "She truly hates you."

"She knows I'm screwing Severus, right?" Ariel asked with a laugh.

"Yes, but I'm sure that doesn't help your case with her. She despises him as well."

"Does she despise anybody that isn't you?"

"Everyone but her sister and her nephew it seems." He said, moving his ear to her heartbeat. He listened for a while in indulgent silence then remarked, "This is nice."

"It is," Ariel admitted, her thoughts once again drifting back to that boy in the cave whom she used to dream about, often in this very scenario, just the two of them in bed together, him resting his adorable little head into her chest while her fingers ran through his thick, black hair. Only now when her fingers reached for his head all she found was the cold touch of a veiny, bare skull. She felt another crying fit come over her but she was too exhausted to produce any more tears. Not for this man.

"I know this is difficult for you," Voldemort said after another stretch of silence. "I know I am not at all what you hoped I would be."

Ariel didn't say anything. Enervation was taking over her and she felt like she was slipping back into another dreamless sleep.

"But I hope," he said his voice getting more distant and softer as her eyes got heavier, "You know, that I meant what I said back in the cave when I said that I would always love you."

"I know…" She murmured with hooded eyes.

"And I want you to know…" He whispered as he lifted his head to look her in the eyes. "You were the best mother a bastard like me could ever ask for."

Ariel gave him a broad, sleepy smile then caressed his face with both hands and drew him in to plant a wet, sloppy kiss on his forehead. "I love you, Tommy." She said in a happy, almost drunken slur.

"I love you too, mom." He whispered, holding her head in his hands until the light slowly faded from her eyes and her body fell back into the sea of softness.

The news of her death came in the form of no news. After that day, she was never mentioned again by the Dark Lord. As if she had never existed.

One night not long after she disappeared, when Draco and Snape were once again accosted by insomnia and they met up in his office to split a bottle of vampire wine Narcissa sent as a gesture of condolence, Draco raised his glass to the sky and said, "To Ariel."

Snape clinked his glass into Draco's and said with an impassive face and wet eyes, "To Ariel, may she rest peacefully." With that, the two of them took a giant swig from their glass and lapsed back into tormented silence.

At some point, a tipsy Draco looked up into Snape's face to discover the man was sobbing quietly with a face that looked like it had lived a thousand years of misery. Heartbroken, Draco got up from his end of the table, walked over and curled his arms around the man's neck like he used to do when he was a small child. He didn't say a word as Snape sobbed all his grief into that hug. Even as he realized, with crystal shattering clarity, that he was done with this life. He was done giving loyalty to a heartless wizard. And he resolved, then and there, to never follow another one of Voldemort's orders for as long as he should live.

Author's note: It's been fun. But I really gotta get back to my novels. Hope I made at least one of you cry!