Chapter Twenty-Four: False Pretense

It was the start of the spring semester and Dumbledore was pissed.

"Every year it's something!" He raved from his desk, throwing his bad hand in the air while his good hand cradled a bottle of Firewhiskey. "Every year! Merlin's beard I can't wait to die."

Snape couldn't blame the wizard. He had just informed him of Ariel's discovery that on top of having 7 Horcruxes, they now knew for certain the rumors of Voldemort having an army of ravenous, undead, unfeeling beasts at his disposal was in fact not bullshit as they hoped.

Dumbledore took a swig of the liquor bottle and rasped loudly. He despised the stuff. The smell, the taste, it was all vile, but he was tired of the pain that coursed from his fingers to his core and sometimes traveled down his nerves, making his hands gnarly shaky and weak. And worse, his body was constantly cold and clammy. Drinking warmed his cheeks and gave him the fire he needed to remember what he was staying alive for: to take Tom cockface Riddle down once and for all.

He sighed heavily once the warmth flooded over him dropped his head back into his comfy office chair, and told Snape, "Send that poor unfortunate soul my deepest thanks."

"I will."

Dumbledore smiled at him and after a small pause asked, "Did you have a, somewhat, lovely break?"

"I did."

Dumbledore's smile faltered slightly when he said, with great disdain, "I hope that...boy of hers doesn't torture you too much."

"Actually, he doesn't bother me at all. He and Ariel only visit each other, at most, once a week, and every time I enter the room he makes an excuse to leave."

"That surprises me. For as long as I've known that brat he was never one to share or play well with others."

Snape let out a deep sigh and shook his head. "I'm worried about her."

Dumbledore frowned. "Do you think she'd..."

"I'm not worried she'll betray us. She's made it very clear she despises his actions more than anyone. But... I'm worried... I'm worried when it will come time to...she won't be able to live with the guilt."

Dumbledore frowned hard. "She might not." He said with the glum sadness of a man well acquainted with resentments and shame. Then in a brighter tone, he said, "That's why you should marry this creature. So you can spend the rest of your life telling her she has nothing to feel guilty about."

"Stop trying to play matchmaker, old man."

"I can't help it. You know I'm a hopeless busybody."

Snape smirked involuntary then stiffened his face and said in his usual seriousness, "When are you going to the cave with Potter?"

"Soon."

"Good."

"Any new developments with my soon-to-be assassin?"

Snape sneered, "Stop calling him that."

"I'm sorry. Forgive a dying man's crude attempt at gallows humor."

"You can't keep using the dying card to keep being a wanker."

"Watch me."

Snape shot him a piercing glare then after a few minutes of seething informed, "He doesn't speak to me. And he hasn't for months."

"Do you think he'll speak to Ariel?"

"He'll see right through that. Besides, I loathe how much we use her already. Heavens forbid if that deranged man—" His sentence ended in a fury of sputters and dreaded silence. His hopeless silence thickened the air which Dumbledore broke with his light airy voice, "She's doing enough for us. Besides I'm sure Mr Malfoy will make himself known in one way or another. Maybe if I'll luck out and he'll kill me with kindness."

Snape made a small smile in spite of himself. "You and your optimism." Then after a small silence, he added, "I'm going to miss you."

The old headmaster gave him a tender eyed smile, his face glowing with endearment. Then he tilted the neck of his bottle towards Snape and asked, "Will you drink with me now, Severus? As per an old dying man's request?"

A sly smile broke out of Snape's grudging face before he relented and took a swig of Firewhiskey.

Unsurprisingly, that night of his meeting with Dumbledore, Snape was summoned by the Dark Lord.

He held the meeting in a rundown castle on the outskirts of Brasov. When Snape found him, the Dark Lord was standing before a dark almond-shaped window watching the midnight sky.

"Severus," he said amicably turning his attention to the witch. "How was your winter break?"

"It was fine, my Lord. Thank you for asking. Ariel sends her love."

Voldemort gave him an odd smile when Snape didn't elaborate any further than asked after another short beat, "Any announcements you'd like to make?"

"No it grieves me to report that there have been no changes since I last spoke with you, my Lord. Albus is still dying—" (Voldemort laughed) "and still desperately searching for the location of your Horcruxes." ("Good luck.") "He and Potter remains as ignorant as ever of your true plans. And, from what I know, Draco hasn't made any more attempts on the old man's life."

Voldemort's deformed mouth widened and curled into a broad grin. "Anything else?"

"No sir. Everything is as it was when we last spoke." Snape said calmly.

Voldemort's eyes squinted slightly as if confused. "You... didn't make any...life-changing decisions over the holidays?"

"None that I am aware of, my lord."

"Damn." His face dropped. He appeared mildly disappointed. "I lost the pool." Noticing his follower's visible incomprehension, he explained, "There's a bet going around on when you'd beg her to marry you. I guessed around New Years'."

He said it so casually. Snape was thunderstruck.

"Damn I really thought—" Voldemort began still annoyed he was wrong and lost the wager.

"My Lord, you're—is this you're way of saying I have your blessing?"

"Blessing?" He said with a cold laugh. "You don't need my blessing," he said with an irritable hiss. All docility disappeared in an instant from his face. He was like a garter snake that turned into a rattlesnake ready to strike "This isn't the Muggle world Severus. Should she marry you that's her prerogative. And should she marry you I will support her decision entirely and be giddy as a fucking puppy for her because I think Ariel deserves to be happy. But should she refuse your proposal and or dump your ass because you know, she's a masterpiece and you're a pale greasy old shoe smelling atrocity, or worse, because you mistreated her in some way, my prerogative will be to saw off your head and skullfuck—"

"My Lord," Snape cut pleadingly. "Ariel is the love of my life. I adore that creature. I want to spend the rest of my life earning her love, worshipping her the way she deserves. And should she decide one day that she isn't happy with me anymore and does leave me I'll be grateful to have her in my life as long as I did."

For one awful second the Dark Lord stared at him, injecting himself into his mind, determining his lies. But then an instant later the Dark Lord's face softened and the hardness in his voice creased when he said, "I don't doubt that Severus. And as it stands, no, I wouldn't be upset if you two were to marry. I wouldn't go to the wedding because I think they're boring and the idea of marriage as a legally binding contract as idiotic but I'd send a gift and try not to torture you too much for being her husband."

"My Lord... I have no idea what to say."

"Treat her well." He replied simply. Then in a slightly lower voice, "She deserves it."

"Trust me, my lord," said Snape, "I think I love her almost as much as you love her."

His obvious flattery garnered a real smile out of Voldemort. He patted Snape on the shoulder winked at him and said, "'Almost'. Good answer." After a pause, his face turned somber and his hand returned to his side. "There's a second reason I called you here tonight." He dug into the pockets of his robe and took out four vials. He handed two to Snape then downed his lot like shots of copper and puke flavored liquor. Snape watched his master's bald head start to sprout red hair and his tall slightly doughy stature shorten and slender. Within seconds Ariel stood in Voldemort's robes, held his wand, and bore his broad bastard's grin. When Snape's stares lingered he told the wizard, in Ariel's melic mezzo, "Any day now. We only have so many hours to kill."

Snape took his potion and watched the midnight saturated window as he transformed into another Ariel.

"What is all this for, My Lord?" Snape asked with Ariel's melodic voice.

"We're going to go pay the Ministry of Magic a visit, Severus," Voldemort replied as he began the process of shredding his clothes into that of a tattered dress. "You're going to sit there and pretend to be catatonic while I am going to feed them sob stories about how I," he straightened and started sobbing on cue, and in a mask of anguish and suffering, said, "'He-Who-M-Must-Not-Be-Named kept me as a sex slave and—and—and he used to brag about how he's going to blow the Croatian Sea Organ on May 2nd'."

"Feed them false leads?"

"Exactly," said Voldemort in a voice so flat and devoid of emotion it turned the hairs on the back of Snape's neck into porcupine quills. It didn't help in Ariel's sweet voice with her angelic face it only doubled his dread. Then in a brighter voice, he said, "I'm Aria and you're my sister Adella and we've been held hostage by Lord Voldemort for the last 4 months."

Snape didn't say a word. He merely stood there wearing the same dour expression he usually bore.

"Perfect."

The whisper network told him Scrimgeour had taken up in a family friend's unused summer cottage. "Apparently, he doesn't feel safe at home," Voldemort said with a boisterous laugh. Snape felt a burning hatred for him. How dare he use Ariel's body and voice to deceive and create havoc but all he could do was stand there, his wand burning in his pocket with bitter impotence, as Voldemort tapped his shoulder and stole him away. The two of them showed up on Scrimgeour's doorstep covered from head to toe in blood-soaked rags looking like the twin faces of pure misery. Voldemort even gave Ariel's clone a black eye and a cut on their shared collar bone to play up the story.

When Scrimgeour opened the door to find them, his heart broke instantly for the pair. It was too easy for Voldemort, with Ariel's magical voice and his talents for manipulating others, to make the minister of magic believe a hundred or so lies: how they were twins that were kidnapped during a sister's day shopping spree at Diagonalley ("there was just this explosion... then I looked up it was just You Know Who and five dead bodies...") how for the last few months they'd been kept in a room with no windows and kept as sex objects; how eventually He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named started confiding in them about future plans (the scheme to blow up Stonehenge, recruiting gnomes and invading Iceland) and how, after a daring miraculous escape, they came to that cottage in the middle of nowhere with the earnest hope to be apart of the team "to thwart his diabolical plans"

Rufus believed it all.

"This is incredible," he said breathlessly as his charmed quill furiously transcribed all the fake plans. "You're so brave for doing this."

Voldemort held the back of Ariel's hand to her face in a gesture that Scrimgeour thought was to conceal a sob but Snape knew was to hide a snigger.

After a few hours, Voldemort begged for an escort home which Scrimgeour was glad to oblige. He sent two veteran Aurors who jumped at the chance to do this favor, to be the knights in sleek robes for a pair of damsels in distress.

Snape kept his head low the entire time but every once and a while he'd steal a sideways glance towards Voldemort and catch him smirking behind Ariel's beautiful hands.

"That went better than I hoped," Voldemort remarked with glee as he, back in his regular body, toed the stiffening corpse of Hippagibble Jukkas, an Auror who Snape knew was two days away from retirement. The poor man died where he stood which sadly was the barren, unlit living room of the Old Gaunt Place. "Ugh. I always hated that guy. Glad he's dead finally."

Snape said nothing as he turned his head and looked everywhere besides the slain body of the wizard he just murdered. Thomas Fiddlebicker, newly retired. A longtime friend of Scrimgeour. Imaging the old lion-faced wizard's reaction from finding out a close friend had been murdered combined with the guilt of being that murderer, pained him like a repeated stab to the chest.

"I should start by sending fewer people on missions. Whenever there are too many people there's too many chances to fuck up."

Snape said nothing while the Dark Lord sawed off the wizards head with his wand and after enough blood poured out the wizard to fill a bathtub, picked up the severed head, studied it for a moment with a vague smile, then kicked it into an empty corner where it bounced off the cobwebbed wall and landed, upright, with a loud squishy like thud that would haunt his dreams for the rest of his life.

Eventually, Snape was dismissed. When he went home he found Ariel was reading in bed, eagerly waiting for his return.

"Dear husband," she said passionately as they kissed. "I'm so glad you're back."

"As am I, my dear beautiful brilliant wife, as am I."

NEW YEAR'S DAY

The decision came out of nowhere. They were reading quietly on the couch together when Snape looked up from his book and found himself staring at Ariel, his heart burning with profound love. He began listing all the things he loved about her: things beyond her beauty and her kindness, small things like how she hummed when she was happy and sang when she was sad; how her nose turned upward when she was mad; how she easily she cried whenever she spotted a cute animal; how she was quick to forgive and quicker to understand. He could've written a list on a mile-long parchment in all the ways he adored her which is why, out of nowhere, he asked her, "Will you marry me?"

Ariel looked up from her copy of Potions Heads Monthly, in stunned silence. He reached over and took her hand, explaining, "I know it's sudden. But with everything going on, I'd be honored if I could spend the last few years of my life being your husband."

Ariel listened to his speech in teary-eyed silence. When he finished, she plunged forward, wrapping her arms around his neck and told him, after a thousand kisses, "Yes, yes, of course."

The two married that night on that nameless beach underneath a bright purple moon in a ceremony that took less than five minutes with Attina as the officiant and the rest of Ariel's sisters, and Narcissa, Snape's only guest and the only person he trusted to keep this a secret, as witnesses.

"Do you Severus—" Attina asked the man in a black suit with the pink rose in his lapel, as the ten of them stood waist-deep in lilac waters.

"Absolutely."

"And Ariel, do you—" She asked her emerald gowned sister.

"Yes!"

"Well," Attina said with a happy laugh as the witnesses broke out into overjoyed cheers, drowning out the eldest sister's voice as she tried to continue, "With this I now pronounce you two—"

Neither of them waited to hear the rest of the announcement before they pulled each other into a passionate kiss cementing their decision to spend the rest of this Hellish lifetime together, whatever that might entail.