Part III: The Prisoner of Azkaban

"I have love in me the likes of which you can scarcely imagine and rage the likes of which you would not believe. If I cannot satisfy the one, I will indulge the other."

— Mary Shelley

"No! No, please!"

Thunder cracked overhead, the room lighting up with each strike.

"No please, have mercy, have mercy…"

Green light spilled into the room, casting an eerie glow. The woman held her arms in front of herself protectively and cowered, begging through tears.

"Please, I'll do anything, please —"

She fell to her knees, tears streaming down her face as the figure in front of her raised his hand.

"Please, please, have mercy —"

The hand rose —

Ariel barked out a laugh. "Oh, brother,"

The woman on the television screen continued to plead for her life as Ariel watched from the couch, bored out of her mind. She wished she could just fall asleep, but after three hours of staring at the ceiling, she had accepted the fact that this zombie movie was about as good as it was going to get tonight. The zombie finally jerked forward, his claws digging into the woman's shoulders as she shrieked, and he took a generous bite out of her jaw.

Ariel dug around for the remote again and tried to change the channel. The bloody thing didn't work half the time — not that Ariel watched a lot of television — but sometimes a few good whacks did the trick. That was not the case tonight, and so Ariel watched with an air of indifference as the woman's arm was ripped from her body and chewed on like a turkey leg.

Sighing, Ariel flopped against the back of the couch. The light from the television was casting strange shadows on the wall, making the room seem smaller and more cramped, which was saying something, because Snape's house was pretty small to begin with. It was a single story, but Ariel was quite certain he must've made some changes with magic because the inside seemed a whole lot roomier than the outside. There was a living room and galley kitchen with a cramped table at the very back, a hallway just off the living room. The hallway was rather long, which made Ariel think Snape had changed things. He had a study and his bedroom, both of which Ariel was forbidden from entering, and then her bedroom and a door that led down to the basement, which was Snape's lab. Maybe it was the fact that Ariel had never seen half the house that made it feel smaller, but she was pretty sure it wasn't just her.

Snape also just had so much stuff. There were boxes and books and pieces of parchment scattered just about everywhere, covering every surface. She shuddered to think of what his study looked like — she was pretty sure he was a hoarder, which surprised her, because his quarters at Hogwarts looked like Aunt Petunia's freakishly clean house, compared to Spinner's End.

Ariel hadn't expected his home to be where it was, either. Every night around dinner she could see men walking back from the factories that coughed up smoke in the distance, smoking cigarettes and heading in the direction of the pub around the corner. One time she'd opened the front door, just to take a peek, and Snape had appeared so quickly that if she hadn't known better, she might've thought he'd Apparated. He'd nearly bitten her head off, for that one.

She heaved herself up off the couch and put the kettle on as the television flashed behind her. Snape had about three-hundred types of teas. He'd said they were all gifts from Dumbledore, who had heard Snape only enjoyed peppermint and black tea. He had showered him with every tea under the sun in order to expand his palate, but they were all crammed into one sad-looking cabinet under the sink, untouched. She'd been steadily going through them — this one was apparently called Immortal Nectar. Ariel liked the ones with flashy names.

The kettle screamed in time with the people on screen. Ariel fell back onto the couch and glared at the useless remote. She needed something less action-packed to lull her into sleep. The screaming only reminded her of… things she was trying desperately to forget.

When a tall, dark figure appeared beside her, Ariel didn't even flinch. Snape did that a lot — appearing without making a sound. It was a gift, Ariel supposed. Or he really was a vampire, like the Fourth Year Ravenclaws had theorized. They'd done a whole study that had gone out the window when Snape had actually eaten food during a meal, for once. No one else seemed to have noticed this until they'd started to suspect that he drank blood to stay alive.

"What in Merlin's name are you doing?" Snape hissed down at her, but she could tell by the fact that there was only thirty-percent anger behind his words that he wasn't really that cross. He already knew why she was awake. "It's nearly two in the bloody morning."

She stifled a smile. He was as much of an insomniac as she was. He was probably where she got it from.

"Can't sleep." Ariel yawned, stretching. She slurped her tea.

"I wonder why," he said flatly, glaring at the television.

"Nooo!" the woman shrieked. Ariel laughed as she just stood there while a zombie took a chunk out of her neck.

"Jesus Christ," he said under his breath.

"This isn't scary," Ariel rolled her eyes. "This is pretty dull if you ask me. Are there such things as zombies? I mean in our world — can you reanimate a dead body?"

"I'm not answering that." he rubbed his eyes tiredly. "You should be on observation for disturbing behavior, after this."

"Just admit you're scared."

His eyes practically rolled out of his head. "I've seen far worse."

Ariel was quiet for a beat. She picked up the parchment she'd started writing a letter to Hermione on, careful not to get any ink on the couch. Snape watched the screen with narrowed eyes for a while. Hermione had sent Ariel a puzzle she'd picked up somewhere in Burgundy yesterday. She'd been sending her little trinkets from every spot she'd visited on her vacation, so much so that Ariel had accumulated a small pile of Stuff in her room.

"Hermione's still in France," Ariel said. "Have you ever been there?"

Snape gave a put-off sigh. "No,"

"Have you traveled anywhere before?"

"No," he sounded almost bitter now. Ariel dropped the quill and leaned forward, only mildly interested in the puzzle. Snape looked up at the ceiling like he was looking for guidance from someone.

"Do you want to help?" Ariel asked, scooping up the scattered pieces she'd left after dinner.

Snape just glared; the look so dense a rock would've folded like a piece of paper under it. "What do you think?"

"I think I'd like help with the puzzle."

"Go to bed."

"What're you going to do?" she challenged. "Return me?"

Ariel could still picture Aunt Petunia's face, half-mad and half-disgusted as she'd watched from her bedroom window — watching as Snape shrunk Ariel's belongings and offered his arm as they Apparated away. She'd been so relieved, because Aunt Marge was supposed to be arriving that same morning to stay the week, and Ariel hated Aunt Marge.

Snape scowled, eyebrows knitting together as an iciness permeated from him. "This has got to stop."

He meant the not-sleeping. Ariel couldn't recall a single night she'd slept through without Dreamless Sleep since Tom and it had morphed into her walking around the house at all hours of the night. It had been the worst at the Dursleys, not being able to do anything but lie in bed for a whole week. She'd managed to pick the lock on the cupboard so she could do her summer assignments, but she'd been so afraid of her aunt hearing her that Ariel had barely gotten anything done.

The Dreamless Sleep wasn't working anymore, either. It was so bad that even on the nights Snape did allow her to take it, she'd wake up in the middle of the night, hot and sticky, panting like she'd just had a nightmare she couldn't remember. Snape said it was because she was building up a resistance to the wormwood.

But she hadn't dared cast Lumos on her heart, not again. She'd felt phantom pangs from time to time, like her body was warning her — don't forget, you've broken the potion, you've broken the magic —

Ariel ignored him and patted her seat next to her. "You might as well join me. I heard you going down to your lab before, that's what made me give up trying to sleep."

"That's different," he said gruffly, but she could tell his heart wasn't in it.

"It's the best seat in the house." she tried.

He gave her another long, hard glare before he seemed to deflate. He fell on the couch beside her, pinching the bridge of his nose as the woman's lover screamed in horror, finding her half-eaten body on the floor.

The man held the woman in his arms and howled. Ariel shifted uncomfortably, wishing a zombie would show up and eat him too to make him stop.

Snape seemed to notice and sighed. "It's a miracle this damn thing still works."

She tucked her knees under her chin and peered at him. "I was surprised you had one, honestly. Dudley has three. Aunt Petunia got him one just for the kitchen so he can watch while they eat."

He scowled. "My father was the only one who used it."

"He was a Muggle, right?"

Snape gave a stiff nod, looking away. Ariel didn't press it any further. He had gotten tense when she'd asked him about Spinner's End, about growing up here. She knew his father was dead, but his mother wasn't. Since Snape never talked about her, Ariel figured they were estranged.

"Okay, look at that," Ariel pointed at the screen as the scene changed, another green and bloodied hand poking through the ground. "You seriously can't tell me if that's real or not? I feel like that's something I should know about."

"You'll never encounter one. They're only native to specific regions of the Americas."

Her eyes widened. "Wait, really?"

"And they're far less dangerous than… this." he gestured to the zombie who had dug himself free and was heading towards the farmhouse in the distance. "They don't do much of anything and they only attack when hungry. The bite isn't lethal to wizards, either."

"Well, that's a good thing, I guess." Ariel said. "That they're not that dangerous, right?"

"To a Muggle, they are, but to us, it would be like swatting a fly."

"So then… what was Tom?"

Snape visibly stiffened. She could see the muscles in his neck straining. They hadn't ever really talked about it, after he'd settled down a bit. Dumbledore hadn't allowed him to teach for a week after the Chamber incident, but she'd heard Madam Pomfrey muttering to the Headmaster one day about "magical backlash" and knew they were talking about Snape, had known it must've been whatever he'd done to Lucius.

Ariel had never been able to get Snape to tell her what he'd done. The most Ariel had gotten was that Lucius was no longer a threat and that he would remember nothing. She had no clue what the bloody hell that meant, but she kept it to herself. Hermione and Ron would've had a conniption — well, maybe just Hermione. Ron probably would've tried to nominate Snape for an Order of Merlin, after what Lucius had done to Ginny.

That look in Snape's eyes from that night hadn't faded though — Ariel still couldn't quite place it, but it was a mixture of both possessiveness and disbelief. It scared her as much as it comforted her.

"A symptom of his all-consuming fear of death." the shadows cutting across Snape's face seemed to darken.

Ariel frowned. "If he's so powerful then why is he scared of dying?"

"That is his only motive for everything he does," Snape paused. "and it is why death and destruction follow him wherever he goes."

She shuddered, wrapping the quilt she'd abandoned earlier around her shoulders. "Zombies don't have any motivation, do they? No plans for world domination?"

Snape snorted, but not with any real mirth. "No. They simply want to eat and survive – a simple goal for creatures that do neither very well."

Ariel turned her attention back to the movie. The zombie circled the farmhouse, orange light flickering over its half-rotted face as the remaining survivors huddled together in fear, lamenting over what to do. One of them had finally had the sense to grab a shotgun, but the others were arguing, pointing blame at one another for the deaths of their friends.

Snape sighed. "This is why I prefer vampires," he muttered dryly. "At least they have an agenda."

She grinned at him, stifling a laugh at the irony. "Are they interested in world domination?"

"No, but they're intelligent, unlike," he motioned dismissively with his hand as the zombie threw himself at the window. "This."

Ariel was quiet for a moment. "I think I'd prefer the zombies."

She could feel Snape's eyes on her, studying her, like he was trying to see through her skin. He did that often, more often since she'd come to stay with him. Sometimes, Ariel wondered if she should give him what he wanted — she wondered if there was an opposite to Occlumency, if there was a way to show and give and pour everything out of yourself so that the other person could know and understand.

The screen stuttered, all of a sudden. From beyond the static, Ariel could see the glass shattering, the Tall Handsome Man raise his shotgun as the rest of the group cowered behind him —

And then it changed to a Muggle news reporter, who was shuffling papers. Ariel squinted at the sudden change, the colors brighter than the dark, gloomy farmhouse.

"Ugh," Ariel's head fell back against the couch cushion. "It was just getting good!"

"We interrupt this scheduled programming to bring you a breaking news alert. A dangerous criminal has escaped —"

The television clicked off and Snape stood up. "Bed — now."

Ariel made a face but didn't argue as she stood up, stretching. She padded to her bedroom (which had been his bedroom as a child, which broke her mind a little bit). Ariel had her own bathroom and he'd even let her put some things on the walls of her bedroom, like pictures and such. The only thing she'd left down was the photo of her mum and dad on their wedding day, which he'd spotted and recoiled from like a cockroach exposed to sunlight.

Snape stayed in the doorway. He never came in, like he'd be Cursed if he crossed the threshold. Ariel had the feeling that the door to this room had stayed closed for a very long time before this summer. She'd found little spells carved at the bottom of the closet and had felt like crying.

"I'll try and sleep if you do," Ariel said.

Snape frowned, the space between his eyebrows creasing. "I don't do well with contingencies."

"You woke me up." she grumbled.

Snape rolled his eyes. "Go to sleep or I'm selling your owl."

Hedwig gave an indignant hoo-hoo from her perch. They glared at each other before Ariel flopped back against the pillows.

"I can't," she said. "I think I've been Cursed."

"Highly unlikely," Snape said, rather unhelpfully. "seeing as I wouldn't allow that to happen."

"Gee, thanks." Ariel tugged at her duvet, pulling it up to her chin. "Night," she called softly as the door closed with a click.

The darkness sat still and silent beside her. When Ariel closed her eyes, all she could see was green. That murky, muddy glow from underneath Hogwarts, a stabbing pain in her heart —

Alone with Tom, like she'd been that day. Hidden beneath the Cloak and beneath the castle.

Sometimes, when she thought of him, each heartbeat would turn sharp, like it was cracking with every thumpthump, thumpthump, thumpthump —

Cracking every piece of the magic Snape had given her.

Ariel threw off the covers and reached for her flashlight, opening up her copy of A History of Magic.

Non-magic people (more commonly known as Muggles) were particularly afraid of magic in medieval times, but not very good at recognizing it…

Severus took a long drag from his cigarette, watching the smoke curl the air.

This was the only time when he could smoke without the girl knowing — in the middle of the night. Severus wasn't about to be responsible for that bad habit, but she'd been swiping the cartons from him as of late.

He'd never say anything, but he knew it was her way of trying to get him to stop. When Severus had smoked around Lily, she had thrown them away — into water or patches of thick grass, bushes and thickets and down drains.

The girl had put them in the garbage disposal. He'd heard her earlier that night. Miss Evans wasn't even remotely stealthy about it, which told Severus that she wanted to get caught.

Instead, she was asking him about the fucking undead. He couldn't make up this sort of shit even if he tried. Sitting with his almost thirteen-year-old in the middle of the night, watching the same television his father would pass out in front of. The sound of it being turned on meant peace had come, however fleeting.

The girl had brought her own sort of peace.

Severus couldn't believe she was here.

Miss Evans would come around a corner and it would take everything in Severus not to flinch, to appear as taken-off guard as he was. He wondered what in Merlin's name he'd been thinking, bringing her to Cokeworth, but the look on her face when he'd come to fetch her from Petunia's had been enough to curb any uncertainty. Otherwise, Severus didn't know what the fuck he'd been thinking. He felt completely unprepared, harboring a child — a child that, if seen with him, would evoke uncomfortable questions.

Leaving her with those human shitstains had felt like torture. Severus had told Dumbledore he'd planned to take the girl – the Weasley brood had left for Egypt while Granger was touring the continent, meaning that the girl would be forced to spend most of her holiday at Petunia's if Severus didn't do something. He had felt like a limb had been severed — at first, he'd told himself it had been because he'd become accustomed to her nightly visits, sitting in her chair, and speaking her mind, but as the days passed, the itch grew. It had grown to the point of mania, keeping him awake at all hours, unable to do anything remotely productive. Severus hadn't intended to leave the girl at Petunia's for long, but a week — a week had been the breaking point.

Severus supposed this was what happened when your child nearly died in your arms — twice — three times. He'd forgotten about the paralytic, goddammit —

The girl never spoke of the Dark Lord. Tonight was the first time in months.

What was he — the girl knew. She knew how far he would go to get what he wanted — her. It was why she couldn't sleep. She would never admit it, but Severus knew better than she did.

He'd watch her toss and turn in the night, moan, and cry out, but she never screamed. She'd jolt herself awake and sometimes she would weep, the sound piercing through him like a blade, hot and sharp and shredding his insides in a way he'd never known was possible.

And he would wait for her to come, to call out, but she never did. The most selfish thought of all was that he wished she would, more than anything.

The thought curled around his heart, like the smoke.

The next morning, Ariel woke up to find that she'd turned thirteen during the night.

It must've happened in the middle of the zombie movie.

Ariel knew this because she flipped over the calendar Hermione had sent her, a small one that you had to change every day with pictures of Paris and the Louvre, places Ariel would've killed to visit for herself. At the moment, she was living vicariously through Hermione, who had drawn a little balloon and written Happy Birthday in her neat, tight handwriting next to 31st July.

Time moved differently here, differently than Privet Drive. Snape moved differently, too. The days were longer and stretched further, lending Ariel time she hadn't had after the whole Chamber business had gone down. She'd been rather annoyed, how quickly time had passed once everything returned to normal at Hogwarts. It didn't seem very fair.

It wasn't everything Ariel had hoped for, but it was something. She'd been trying to get Snape to open up the longer she was here, going through the boxes and rooms when he left her alone. It was about as easy as trying to get blood from a stone, but some nights, he would sit with her and read aloud whatever she requested, would linger in the doorway of her bedroom, and check on her when he thought she was asleep. Ariel could feel him, feel his eyes on her, like he was trying to turn her inside out. Sometimes Ariel felt the same way, too.

Ariel laid in her bed and stared at the ceiling while the sun worked its way over the horizon. The clock said it was a little after six, but Ariel felt like she hadn't slept a wink. She wondered if Snape had gone to bed, or if he'd gone back to working. He didn't seem to ever stop working. Ariel wondered what would happen if he did, if he'd just crumble like a pillar of salt or if he'd implode like a firecracker. She'd begun to understand that Snape operated on a different wavelength than most people, that he lived in a state of perpetual motion. If he wasn't moving, Ariel supposed that he was probably dead.

He'd be up already. He was always up before her. One morning Ariel had beaten him by a minute and had managed to get out a frying pan before he'd come flying out of his room and Summoned it from her. He never let her do anything remotely housework-related, even if Ariel asked to. Whenever she insisted, he'd tell her, "if I wanted a house elf, I'd get one," and leave her to stare after him with something in her heart she couldn't quite place.

The problem was that Ariel felt useless, not doing anything. She'd finished all her schoolwork the first week she'd been here, although Snape had made her rewrite the essay he'd assigned her year on Shrinking potions four times already. Ariel had tried to cook breakfast — she'd done it for herself at the Dursley's since she was five — but Snape refused to let her anywhere near the oven. It would've been more annoying if he hadn't been such a bloody good cook.

He rarely ate more than a few bites himself, but whatever he made was always enough to make Ariel's mouth water with just the thought. He was as good of a cook as Aunt Petunia — she wondered if it had to do with the Potions mastery. Surely cooking and potions were similar — like chemistry, in a way? That was how Hermione had explained Potions class to her parents.

Ariel rolled off the bed and groaned. This was not how she wanted today to go. She just wanted to be grateful she was away from Privet Drive and with Snape — she still couldn't believe she was saying that. Ariel couldn't wait until Hermione heard — she could picture it, her jaw hanging open while she struggled to come up with something that sounded like camaraderie, but held something else in it, something Hermione held that felt like a secret. Snape coming to get Ariel, to let her live with him, it had to say something, didn't it?

There was a plate of steaming eggs sitting on the cramped table, waiting for Ariel when she padded into the kitchen. She frowned, half expecting to hear Snape emerge from behind her, silent as a shadow, but she could hear him shuffling about downstairs in the basement. There was no second place set for him, but breakfast was always hit and miss with Snape. He joined her for dinner but anything else was a roll of the dice.

That meant he hadn't eaten. Snape made sure she ate every bite, but Ariel rarely saw him eat much of anything and figured that was why he was as thin as a rail. She huffed, grabbing a second plate and fork from the cupboard, and stormed down the steps into the basement.

Snape's laboratory was Ariel's favorite part of the entire house. The walls were lined with shelves filled with strange-looking bottles and jars, while the wooden workbench held all sorts of tools and implements for brewing. In the center of the room was an enormous silver cauldron, surrounded by several smaller ones. The most fascinating part of the laboratory, however, was the magical garden located at one end of the room. It was filled with exotic plants and herbs which glowed brightly in various colors and seemed to give off their own light. Snape spent hours tending to it, carefully pruning each plant, and maintaining its perfect balance — he had even managed to create some hybrid plants. It had taken almost a week of showing Ariel everything before he'd let her anywhere near it, and even then, she was only allowed to harvest ingredients under his supervision.

The plants emitted a faint green glow, reminding her of the Slytherin dungeons as she lowered herself down the staircase on her bottom. They were incredibly steep and slippery if she went down them in socks, like she was now.

"Morning," she sat in the middle of the stairs, craning her head so she could see him.

Snape was bent over a cauldron with something in it that looked like honeydew and sunlight. He didn't answer her but inclined his head in acknowledgment as he put a Stasis Charm on the potion. He was dressed in all black, in Muggle trousers and a turtleneck. Ariel wondered if he owned anything else. Maybe he was allergic to color — maybe that was why he acted extra cross whenever she mentioned Professor Dumbledore. Ariel would've figured she would've seen the Headmaster at least once, but the few times she'd mentioned it, Snape's face grew stormy and withdrawn. Ariel had a hunch he was still furious with him about Fawkes.

"It's breakfast time," Ariel announced, holding out the plate to him.

He did what he always did — he pretended like he hadn't heard her. Ariel scooted down a few more steps before she huffed.

Ariel frowned at him. "Are you going to eat?"

"Are you going to stop meddling?" he always said it like he was chewing on glass.

"Did you eat already?"

Snape gave her a particularly strong glare. The heat it gave off rivaled the cauldron he stood over, bubbling and steaming softly.

Ariel held his gaze evenly. "I'll only eat if you do."

He worked his jaw. She dumped half of her eggs onto his empty plate and gave him a triumphant smirk. Snape sighed, then reluctantly took the plate and began to eat. As Ariel watched, it seemed as if he was trying to make the experience as unpleasant as possible for himself. He speared his eggs with a fork and slowly, methodically cut them up into small pieces, taking bites so small that they were barely visible on his fork. He chewed each bite slowly, staring off into the distance with an expression of disdain on his face. When he finished one bite, he would pause for a moment before immediately going back to cutting and chewing the next piece.

Ariel couldn't take it anymore and finally let out a snort. "You're going to turn breakfast into your own special form of torture."

Snape raised an eyebrow at her without looking away from his plate and sneered under his breath. "It's easier than dealing with you."

"I'll take that as a compliment."

Snape rolled his eyes. "I'm not sure it was meant as one."

Ariel smirked, shoving a forkful of food into her mouth. "You know, you don't have to be so grumpy all the time."

"And you don't have to be so annoying," Snape replied, although the usual edge in his voice wasn't there. It hadn't been there as much as it had in the past, not since Tom. Not since he'd carried her back to the hospital wing in the snow and held her face in his hands like it was something precious. He hovered there, between that tenderness that was just out of reach, that could turn to cruelty so quickly.

She shrugged. "It's part of my charm."

"Is that what you call it?"

"Yup," she pointed her fork at him. "I get it from you."

"I'm afraid to ask in what way."

"Well, you're pretty sarcastic… I try to emulate it without the grumpy part."

"Perhaps you should try to be more serious once in a while."

"I can be plenty serious when I want to be." she said, hugging her knees to her chest.

They ate the rest of their meal in silence. Snape finished before her, going back to working as she watched. There was something fascinating about how he worked – Ariel could rarely tell what Snape was going to do next, but everything about how he brewed felt effortless, like he wasn't thinking at all. He seemed almost… relaxed. He'd never looked that way in class, although he never modeled how to brew anything for them.

"Prove it, then." said Snape suddenly, causing Ariel to start, nearly dropping her fork.

Ariel blinked at him. This was normally when he dismissed her and told her that he worked best alone. She would scour the boxes of junk and find books in layers of dust and broken kitchen utensils, broken picture frames with nothing in them and dried out flowers.

"What?"

"Prove it." Snape beckoned her forward with a crooked finger. "Your alleged seriousness. I need to restock the school's supply of Polyjuice."

An exclamation point must've appeared above her head because Snape gave her a long, bored sort of look that didn't match the urgency in his movements as he started Summoning vials and dry ingredients.

"Polyjuice?" she bleated, a hint of excitement in her voice. She set down her plate with a little too much force, nearly knocking it clean off the stairs. Snape must've noticed, because something passed over his face like a curtain, drawing in all of the cool calmness and shuttering her out. Ariel cleared her throat and tried to look innocent. She'd never told Snape about the Polyjuice she'd been brewing for Malfoy's interrogation, but she could show him that she knew what to do — prove that she was smart and had a knack for Potions. Ariel had never been able to show off in class with Neville having a nervous breakdown the entire time, and Ariel couldn't bear to let him work on his own with Snape prowling around and criticizing his every move.

"Yes, Polyjuice," his black eyes were studying her with that scathing precision he wielded like a sword. "It was part of your summer reading, if you'll recall."

Ariel swallowed loudly and nodded. "I remember. It turns you into someone else, right?"

Snape raised an eyebrow. "You remember the basics, at least. But there's more to it than simply turning into someone else. The process is delicate and requires precise measurements and timing. Can you handle that?"

Ariel straightened her shoulders, determined to prove herself. "Of course I can."

"Good — then pay attention." Snape handed her a small vial filled with a murky liquid. "This is a crucial ingredient. Without it, the potion won't work. What is it?"

He was giving her a pop quiz on her birthday. Well, what else did she expect, honestly?

"Murtlap essence," Ariel answered automatically. She took the vial gingerly, careful not to spill any of the contents. She watched as Snape added a few drops of his own to the cauldron, the simmering liquid turning a sickly shade of green. He gestured for her to pour in the rest, and she did so, her heart racing.

As she stirred the potion while he added in the other ingredients, Ariel tried to focus on the task at hand and push away the fact that this was the second year in a row Snape was acting like her birthday was a regular, normal day. Not that she'd expected him to throw her a bloody party, but some acknowledgment would've been nice. Hermione had sent her birthday gift already, a box of expensive French candies and a dress that Ariel didn't think she'd ever have the opportunity to wear, and even then, she didn't think she could bear to, not wanting to ruin it. Aunt Petunia had never allowed her to wear dresses, and especially not one like that.

Snape interrupted her thoughts with a sharp command. "Stir clockwise, not counterclockwise. Do you want to ruin the entire batch?"

She jolted back into the present, quickly following instructions. "Sorry — sorry."

He muttered something under his breath while he ground down something into a powder. Ariel frowned — the recipe she'd followed in Moste Potente Potions hadn't mentioned that — unless it was the moonstone, and he was adding it in too early?

Ariel bit her tongue to keep from saying something. He'd probably kick her out if she started questioning his methods. One time, Hermione had asked for clarification about notes he'd written on the board, and he'd taken ten House points.

"This needs to be kept at a constant temperature." Snape tapped the side of the cauldron with the pestle. "If the temperature drops, it will lose its potency and be completely useless."

She gave a jerky nod. She could feel Snape's eyes on her, cold and unyielding, watching her every move as she continued to stir.

It must've not been good enough, because Snape spoke up again, his voice low. "You're not paying attention."

Ariel froze, her heart giving her a jolt of surprise as she looked up at him.

Snape's lip curled. "I can see it in your eyes. You're distracted."

Ariel looked down at the simmering potion, feeling her anger flickering, bubbling just below the surface, like the brew. "I'm not, I'm trying —"

"You don't try hard enough," his lip curled, slamming down the pestle and mortar onto the workbench with a loud thud. "You have talent —"

Something fluttered in her chest, like a second heartbeat.

"— but you consistently disappoint. You do not put in the required effort or patience."

"It's been like, five minutes!" Ariel protested.

"It takes five seconds for a brew to be ruined — have I taught you nothing?"

"I know what I'm doing!" Ariel finally snapped. "I've done it before!"

They both froze as Ariel gave an icy jolt of instant regret shot through her. She gulped, gripping the ladle hard as she avoided Snape's piercing glare, one that melted the iciness in her sternum away like a laser.

"When?" he demanded. "Not in my classroom, you haven't."

Ariel thought about lying to him, but it was pointless. "I made some around Christmas. Tom ruined it because we were brewing in Myrtle's bathroom."

He went still, the only part of his face visible the contour of his hooked nose. Ariel could see his breathing quickening. He was going to throw her out — maybe even send her back to the Dursleys, but no, no, he wouldn't —

"We thought Malfoy was the Heir," Ariel put down the ladle with a shaking hand and sighed. "We were going to try and get a confession out of him. It was a dumb idea when I look back on it now."

"Yes," Snape agreed in a cold voice, so cold that it sent a shiver down Ariel's spine. "It was."

Ariel gave another defeated sigh. "I'm sorry."

Snape didn't respond. He just stood there, silently watching her, his eyes hard and unreadable. Ariel felt a wave of embarrassment wash over her as she waited for him to say something — anything.

Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, Snape spoke up again. "You will brew the Polyjuice by yourself, then. No more distractions — no assistance from me. Prove to me that you can be… serious."

She stared at him, a small smile slowly spreading across her face. "I can do that."

It turned out that Snape's birthday present had been… Polyjuice.

Not the Polyjuice Ariel had brewed, of course, since it would take another month to finish. She was feeling too accomplished to be annoyed when he handed her a full vial and told her to drink it, telling her that they had somewhere to be. Ariel knew better than to try and ask questions, so she'd downed the vial and watched Snape do the same before she'd taken his arm to Apparate away.

She was much smaller — she figured she must've been around six or seven. She'd caught her reflection in a store window and had caught a glance – strawberry blonde hair and blue eyes and tanned skin. Even being the shortest girl in her year at Hogwarts, Ariel was used to looking up at people, but she was struggling as Snape loped ahead. As they walked, her little legs had to work much harder to keep up with the tall, stocky man Snape had transformed into. He'd taken her home from King's Cross in the same disguise, waiting in a dark, shadowy corner hunched over with a sneer on his face. Mrs Weasley had asked her exactly seven times if Ariel was sure she was meant to go with him while Mrs Granger had almost hauled Ariel into her car herself. He looked like a young Ebenezer Scrooge, scowling through a bushy, brown beard, and thinning hair. His eyes were grey like a storm cloud.

Snape led her down a narrow side-street. Ariel had absolutely no idea where he was taking her, but this was not at all what she'd imagined her day turning into. Then again, she hadn't thought that turning into someone else and leaving the house was in the cards for today, either. Most of the shops here were abandoned, with large FOR RENT signs hanging jaggedly in windows, falling off of doors. The only one that seemed to be open was one called Madam Penelope's Palm Readings with about fourteen different signs advertising a first free consultation.

"What're we doing here?" Ariel asked for the third time. The first two, Snape had simply pretended like he hadn't heard her.

"Walking." he replied, like this was a sufficient answer.

Ariel pouted up at him — she wondered if it would be more effective since she was a young child, but Snape barreled forward like he was on the warpath. As they walked, Ariel noticed that the street was becoming increasingly darker and more desolate. She could sense the unease creeping up within her, but she refused to let it show on her face.

She must've been doing a bad job of hiding it, because suddenly, Snape paused and looked down at her. "What's the matter?" he asked, his voice wary.

Ariel hesitated. "I feel like we're about to be murdered."

Snape scoffed, but he grabbed her hand, which was much smaller than his, and continued on. "The worst you'll see here is a stray dog."

"Then why are we in a disguise?"

"I'd like you to think about that, Miss Evans."

Ariel scowled. His hand was warm in hers — she would've thought it would be cold to the touch. "Where are we?"

"Only about six blocks west from the house."

She looked up at him, surprised. "So why did we Apparate, then?"

"I didn't want us seen leaving it."

"We couldn't have Apparated there straight away, then?" Ariel grumbled.

"I have Wards in place — no one can find it."

She tried to stop, mostly out of surprise, but Snape had an iron-clad grip on her, and they marched forward, taking a sharp turn at the end of the street where Ariel noticed a creek, almost hidden behind tall blades of grass. It was the first bright color she'd seen, apart from the grays and browns and blacks that seemed to haunt the rest of the area.

He pulled her forward, a group of low branches snarled together, blocking their path. Snape flicked his wand as they stretched apart, shaking and trembling as they pulled away from each other.

Ariel craned her neck around Snape's tall frame to see what they'd been hiding. It was —

A sad-looking, old playground surrounded by overgrown shrubs and wildflowers. Ariel stopped short, almost tripping as Snape thrust her forward with him into the clearing.

There was a willow tree standing to one side, its spindly branches sweeping the ground while the leaves hung heavy in the midday heat. Nearby, the still creek was choked with reeds and water lilies, their green pads standing out against the muddy brown water. In the center of it all were two swings that were once painted different colors now all washed over by time.

Ariel stared up at Snape in confusion. When she did, she was unable to tear her gaze away. His expression was lost, almost, even behind the face of a stranger, like he was searching for something he will never find again. He was staring at the playground as if it were a graveyard.

"Um," Ariel shuffled her feet, her hand still in his. "Not that this isn't interesting but… what are we doing here?"

The air seemed to still around them. Like Spinner's End, time had begun to unravel differently all of a sudden, the light filtering through the willow like a stained-glass window. It was… sort of beautiful, in a sad sort-of way.

Snape shifted his weight, his jaw tight. For a moment, Ariel was worried that something was terribly wrong, that he'd taken her away to tell her something had happened. Had someone else seen what he'd done to Lucius that night? Did he have to return to the Dursleys? Or maybe —

"This is where I met your mother," Snape said, in a whisper that was somehow louder than any scream or shout Ariel had ever heard. His voice was empty and hollow, but she wondered how emptiness could sound so heavy.

She felt like she'd been electrocuted. Her whole face went cold and then very, very hot. Ariel had long since given up trying to figure out what they had been — what had happened between them. The anguish in his face haunted the edges of her nightmares.

Her mother's face filled those same dreams. Her tear-stained cheeks and holly-green eyes. Her plea to her father — I need you to keep her safe — you owe her that —

Ariel stared at the swing and swallowed roughly. "How — how old were you?"

"Nine," Snape's hand twitched, like he was about to reach for it. "Your grandparents lived down the street."

Nine. For some reason, Ariel hadn't pictured them as friends this young. She'd pictured them meeting at Hogwarts, whatever fissure that pulled them away from each other happening in their later years. Mum hadn't mentioned that they'd met before Hogwarts in their letter, but she supposed it made sense.

They'd grown up together. They'd known one another before Hogwarts — before everything had happened. There was something… oddly comforting about that.

Another thrill of joy and longing washed over Ariel. "What were their names?"

Snape didn't even glance in that direction, he just kept staring at the swing. "Violet and Edward. Your grandmother's side of the family had a long-standing tradition of naming the girls after flowers. It's a wonder your name wasn't Tulip or Daffodil or some other absurdity."

Ariel smiled, but her heart yearned for more. "I thought her name was Rose. It's my middle name."

"That was your great-grandmother. Your mother was close with her." her cleared his throat as his eyes flickered down to her. "Your aunt never…?"

She gave him a pointed look. "What do you think?"

Snape exhaled sharply through his nose, shaking his head in disgust. Ariel could see that thing in his eyes, even though the Polyjuice, the thing that hung between them, so close and vulnerable that could so easily turn —

But right now, as she stood next to Snape in the park where he had met her mother all those years ago, Ariel didn't want to think about that. She wanted to know more about her mother and her family. It was her birthday, and she wanted to remember that she hadn't sprung into existence, fully formed, and waiting to be resented by her magic-hating aunt and forgotten by her father.

"Aunt Petunia never had pictures of any of them," Ariel said quietly. "not even my grandparents… it's like they never existed… or that she wished they never had."

"Your grandfather died in a car accident when we were your age," Snape cleared his throat. "Your grandmother was diagnosed with cancer the year we graduated. She was gone before you were born."

"Oh…" Ariel had wondered why there hadn't been pictures of her with them as a baby. There had only ever been Mum and Dad and a few other people she'd assumed were their friends.

Friends that were probably dead, like they were. Friends that had fought with them against Voldemort.

She wanted to know everything.

He must've known because he gave her something — and something was better than nothing.

(Nothing was better than pretending nothing had happened at all)

"I'd noticed her a week or so prior, she'd been making the wilting flowers bloom. Your aunt was trying to get her to stop before their parents noticed. I told her she was a witch, and your aunt just about had a fit. Your mother was… well, I don't think believed me at first, to be quite honest with you." he stared up at the sky, the sunlight making the gray in his beard shimmer. "But she came back."

She couldn't believe this was happening. Snape was willingly talking about Mum. Had there been some sort of drug in the Polyjuice? Was Ariel dreaming? "So… this is where you spent most of your time, then?"

The breeze rustled his hair. It was whisper-quiet, like it was waiting for him to answer, too. "For a time."

Ariel watched the swing sway in the breeze and imagined her mother's hair flying behind her, apple red in the glimmering, golden summer light. Her eyes would be the color of the grass and the greenery and the glass vase she'd passed in the antique store in town, when Snape had taken her for a few things and for the first time in her life, Ariel had felt normal. She'd been grocery shopping with her father, and he'd paid with Muggle money and told her to stay close instead of leaving her there to walk home by herself.

She decided to try her birthday luck and ask something else — something that had been slowly eating her alive like a parasite.

"What happened between you two?" Ariel asked, wanting her voice to come out normal but instead, it was a breathless whisper.

His face hardened, the muscles in his face clenching. "There's nothing to know."

"That's not true," she persisted. "I wouldn't be here if that was the case."

"I am painfully aware of that, Miss Evans."

"But you remember now —"

"Remembering has nothing to do with it," Snape snapped, his voice rising. "Your mother and I had a complicated relationship. We made mistakes — mistakes that cost us."

Something crackled through her heart, like the broken magic.

"Right," Ariel murmured. "Sorry."

His head whipped in her direction. There was something in the stranger's eyes that looked like regret, but it wasn't, it was that thing that could turn so quickly, so effortlessly that she hadn't seen once the summer.

It wasn't regret — no — but if it was, Ariel didn't know if it was for her, or for what he'd said. Snape opened his mouth, but something flew into the clearing, causing Ariel to let out a shriek of surprise, feeling quite stupid when she realized that it was an owl. There was a letter attached to his leg.

Snape opened it, and the not-regret transformed into something that made Ariel's legs turn to jelly. She shook his arm, not trusting herself – or him – to speak, and glanced over his elbow, down at the parchment.

There were six words written on it.

Sirius Black has escaped from Azkaban.