Ariel is horribly ill, for the next few days.
She has no idea what it is, but it's awful. It's the sickest she's ever been in her entire life — more sick than anyone ever has been, probably. It's happening to her — just her — and it's terrible.
For the first twenty-four hours the world becomes a hazy blur, reality and dreams bleeding together until she can no longer discern between the two. Ariel recalls her father coming in and out to pour potions down her throat and cast Cooling charms on her, but she also recalls him flinging a piece of cheese at her head and telling her to get out of bed, so she's really not sure.
The nausea really and truly sets in around the second day. Ariel can't even hold down water — definitely no potions — and she resigns herself to the fact that she's going to waste away in front of the toilet. Her father hovers, a constant presence at her side. He holds her hair back as she retches, murmuring soothing words that Ariel can't quite make out through the pounding in her head. Ariel doesn't think he ever really leaves, but she can't be sure. Ariel definitely leaves — her fever dreams take her all over, to places she's never been and some she has.
When she can't make it back to the bed, or can't trust herself to be in the bed, her father sits on the floor with her, Ariel curled in his lap, her head against his chest, and he reads. Half the time Ariel's too delirious to know what he's saying — he could be reading Moste Potente Potions for all she knows, giving her all sorts of nightmares. Mum had always been strict about stuff like that — not just with Ariel, but with Dad too. It used to make Ariel laugh.
The third day, fever still raging, finds Ariel back in bed, a shivering mass of tangled hair and oversized pajamas, but she can hold a conversation again.
"What's wrong with me?" she croaks out when Dad returns, a bowl of broth in his hands. He sets it on her nightstand and sits besides her, testing the skin around her eyes and up her temple. He mutters what Ariel assumes are Diagnostic spells, little lights whirling and zipping around her head.
His hand lays against her forehead and he frowns. He looks exhausted, deep, bruised circles under his eyes. He's been getting as much sleep as she has (none). "Some kind of flu, but I can't be certain."
"Are you going to call for a Healer?"
The lines in his face deepen, like Ariel has somehow offended him. "No," he says. "That won't be necessary."
Ariel manages to sit up a bit, leaning back on her elbows. "Why not?"
"You know why not," Dad says sharply — a little too sharply.
Ariel does — and doesn't.
She stares at him, unable to do little else. Another rule — no magic. Or rather, no interacting with anyone who has magic, but no one in the fishing village does. They're all Muggles, and even if there was a wizard living out here — or hiding, like Ariel and her father were — they were so far away from everyone else that it was impossible to tell. Ariel could scream until her voice was hoarse and the only thing that would hear her were the seagulls, who'd probably leave with all the ruckus.
The gnawing little voice in the back of Ariel's head does not know why, though. There are many rules that don't make sense — like no Flooing anyone — but she can write letters to Remus, even James and Harry, but her father tends to get a bit tense when she mentions the last two, so she tries to stick to one a month for Remus. Dad has a glamor on her lightning bolt scar, and whenever they go into town on certain days, they do so under Polyjuice.
The most important rule, though, is that under absolutely no circumstances is Ariel allowed to practice magic. That rule may be the most important, under no talking about Mum. There hadn't been nearly this many rules at their old flat, and Ariel wonders where they've come from, what the reasons for them are, but Dad never says.
Ariel nods after a moment, wringing her hands in her lap. Her father sighs, before he shakes his head.
Neither of them have brought it up again — the fact that Ariel brought Mum up. She doesn't think it needs to be, but there was something freeing about it, like she'd opened up Pandora's box and wanted to revel in the chaos there. Remus had been the only one who'd tried to talk about it, but Ariel had been so consumed by not knowing where Dad was that she hadn't known how to grieve. It hadn't felt right to mourn without her father not there.
"What if I get worse?" Ariel asks quietly, instead. She tucks away her Other Thoughts for later. "Will you call a Healer, then? Will we go back?"
Dad stills, then tilts her head up to look at him. It's him looking back at her — Ariel knows that — but she can swear that something else shifts in those black eyes, a copy of her own, something dredged from deeper depths, something cold and biting. He's never had that in his eyes. There's only ever been tenderness, there still is , but it's — diluted.
She just wants him to be honest, for once. He isn't being dis honest — he just — doesn't. There's nothing but the fact that something has happened — or is happening — and he won't tell her what.
Maybe it's best if Ariel doesn't know. That thought rattles away, like a stone in a box.
Dad grips the hair at the back of her neck a little too hard, then. "You know that I would never allow anything to happen to you."
She swallows — hard. She feels like she's staring over the side of some precipice, wanting for a gust of wind to knock her off. It's not a question — it's a statement, like Dad is willing it into existence, and she knows why.
There's no more talking after that. Just the broth, and restless sleep.
He stays for both, the steady rise and fall of his chest the greatest comfort he can give her.
The fourth day — or rather, night — Ariel wakes up in a cold sweat.
She finds the room blanketed in darkness. It's coating the walls and the floor and the ceiling, leaving her feeling like the bed is suspended in air. She can't even make out the moonlight from the window, which means her father must've drawn the curtains and blinds. He'd wanted her to rest as much as possible.
And she's alone. Dad isn't here, and the hallway light is off. He must've tried to get some sleep.
Ariel feels about sixty-percent better, but still not her normal self, but the darkness — this level of darkness — is quite disorienting. She blinks rapidly, willing her eyes to adjust as she scans the room, trying to pull out familiar shapes, remembering where everything is. Her desk is against the far wall, her closet to the left, her bookshelf on the right.
Which is why when she hears it, she suspects that she's having another fever dream.
It starts as a slight whisper, like a far-off wind whistling through an open window. Her ears prick up at the sound, trying to discern its direction.
"Ariel."
It's the voice again. The voice coming from the closet.
Ariel's eyes flicker to the door, wondering if she should bolt — scream for her father — but something keeps her frozen in place. She'll never quite know what it is that keeps her there. Maybe a morbid curiosity, a desire to prove to herself that this is just a figment of her imagination.
"Ariel."
You're dreaming, Ariel tells herself. You're dreaming and you'll wake up any minute now.
But she doesn't wake up. Instead, the whispering continues, growing louder, more insistent.
"Ariel, Ariel, Ariel —"
She swallows hard, her throat dry.
Be brighter, have some fire — she tries to remember what Mum told her, right before —
A light, Ariel. You must always carry your light —
Ariel shuts her eyes tight, willing the pounding of her heart to still.
The voice from the closet continues — persistent. "Ariel, Ariel, Ariel —"
(She wants to call for her father)
It stops, all at once, like the eye of a hurricane. The silence is too much, so much so that Ariel throws a hand over her mouth because she's breathing so hard. Her head feels disjointed, like she's stayed underwater for too long, the cold sweat she'd woke up in now soaking through her back.
She moves slowly, so slowly that the rustle of her sheets and limbs is barely audible. She holds her breath and doesn't dare to break her line of sight with the closet. There has been no voice for several seconds, and so Ariel starts to count.
One, two, three —
Ariel gets all the way to eighty-six and a half when the closet door creaks open.
A strangled gasp escapes her, echoing in the stillness of her bedroom. The door moves, just a sliver, but it's enough to send a fresh wave of terror coursing through her veins. Her fingers curl into the sheets, knuckles white, as if it could shield her from whatever was lurking.
She eyes the door to her bedroom. It's directly next to the closet. If she could launch herself quick enough over the foot of the bed, she could make it to her father's room, but the closet door is open now, and something tells Ariel that whatever is inside knows exactly what she's thinking.
And then the voice changes. It's soft and lilting, carrying with it an ache that makes Ariel feel like her chest is going to rupture, like her heart is going to shatter.
"Ariel," calls Mum —
— and it's Mummy.
Ariel would know that voice anywhere. She knows it in the cracks in her memory, in the void of her heart, and it's then that Ariel realizes she's forgotten what Mum sounded like, until now.
She feels her breath catch in her throat. It turns into a sob, and she's burying her face in her hands to stifle the tears that come without warning, without mercy. She wants to wake up, she wants to wake up, but she feels a wave of crushing guilt at leaving that voice behind again.
"Come here, darling." The voice is soft, enticing, a siren's song that makes Ariel's heart throb with longing. "I've missed you so much."
Ariel's mind reels. She is torn, she is simply overwhelmed, then. Her hands tremble as she slowly lowers them from her face, her wide eyes fixed on the closet door. The voice — her mother's voice — is like a balm to her aching heart, soothing the raw edges of grief that have never truly healed.
But there's something else, something that makes Ariel's skin crawl, makes the hairs on the back of her neck stand up. A whisper of wrongness that she can't quite place, like a dissonant note in a familiar melody.
She doesn't care. She can't find it in herself. She's got nothing left — not when it comes to this.
"Mummy?" Ariel whispers.
The voice from the closet is like honey, thick and warm. "Yes, my sweet girl. My perfect girl. It's me."
She wants to believe it, wants it so badly that her chest aches with the force of it. She sits up, leaning on the back of her legs, her hands pressed into the mattress in front of her. A breeze seems to swell up, then, the smell of jasmine and cinnamon — her smell.
The closet cracks open another inch. Ariel leans in closer.
"Mum," she manages to croak out. "I miss you."
"I miss you more." the voice croons. "Come closer, let me see you."
Ariel's breath quickens. Falls into a fast staccato, making her feel dizzy. She knows this can't be real, it can't —
"Can — can you come here?" she asks in a small voice. "I'm frightened."
The closet door opens wider still, a yawning darkness that seems to swallow the dim light of the bedroom. A dim light — when had there been light at all —?
"Oh, my sweet girl," the voice sighs, and it's like a caress, a phantom touch that makes Ariel shudder involuntarily. "There is nothing to fear. I'm here now ."
Ariel desperately wants to believe those words, and maybe, deep down, the bowels of her grief, she does. Her feet move of their own accord, swinging over the edge of the bed. The floor is cold against her bare feet, but she barely notices. Her eyes are fixed on the closet, in the darkness that seems to pulse with a life of its own.
"That's it, just a few more steps." the voice coos, and it's warm, warm like her. "Come sit beside me. I've been so lonely…"
Ariel's heart is a wild thing, now. This is a wild thing — this dream — and if she wakes up she will be both glad and not. She takes another step, then another. The darkness from the closet seems to reach out, tendrils of shadow curling around her ankles, urging her forward. She feels a tug, gentle but insistent, and before she knows it, she's standing right in front of the closet.
She sits. Waits.
And then the voice hums, almost to itself.
"Now, my sweet girl." Mum says. "Tell me how I died."
The next morning, her father discovers that Ariel has miraculously made a full recovery.
Her memory is fuzzy, from the night before. Ariel remembers — her mother. That she definitely knows, but everything else is missing, like a puzzle missing pieces. She can't remember what they talked about, but she knows she was there — her voice is fresh in her mind, like a familiar melody.
She keeps this to herself, for now. Just for now. Ariel won't forget — won't let it go. Her father still looks like a strong gust of wind could knock him over.
Dad runs about twelve different Diagnostic spells on her, makes her do all these strange exercises that involve balancing on one foot while counting backwards from a hundred, and pokes her forehead with his wand more times than she can count. But Ariel is fine — at least, physically she is.
"I don't understand what was wrong to begin with," Dad murmurs, running a hand through his hair in frustration. "There's no residue, so it wasn't the Dark Flu, and your symptoms were too severe for it to be Wraith Fever, but you haven't been exposed to anything in months. It's as though it came —"
"From nowhere?" Ariel supplies, watching as her father's face tightens.
"Yes, that." he shakes his head, kneading his temple with his index finger. "No more hallucinations, either?"
Ariel blinks — it takes her a minute to figure out what he's talking about — her dead mother walking around. "Er — no. Don't worry I still have all fourteen fingers." she wriggles her hands at him theatrically to prove her point. "And I haven't chucked up anything in almost a day."
Dad glares, but she can see the relief lurking beneath the display of irritation. "I have half a mind to keep you here for another week just to be sure."
"You can't do that! I need sunlight and fresh air — and my freedom!" she adds dramatically, throwing a thin arm across her forehead.
"Perhaps I should arrange for a parade in your honor, as well."
"If you're offering," Ariel retorts, grinning at her father's exasperation.
Dad flicks his wand and whispers an incantation Ariel can't quite catch. A thin wisp of silver smoke rises from the wand tip and swirls around Ariel before disappearing entirely. Nothing happens for a moment, then she feels a faint tingling sensation that soon subsides.
"Well?" she asks, putting her hands on her hips.
He lowers his wand and looks at her, his expression unreadable. "Nothing,"
Ariel shrugs. "You could just be happy I'm not dying anymore." she suggests, but her statement is met with silence and a brief flicker of something unidentifiable in his eyes.
"You were never dying," he says with a scowl, and Ariel immediately feels guilty for the poor choice of words.
"True," Ariel concedes, her voice wavering as she squirms under her father's piercing gaze. "We should celebrate, though. I don't need a parade — maybe a small feast. At least two desserts."
Dad does not smile. He never does — at least, not anymore.
"We should," he says, to Ariel's surprise.
It takes her a moment to register what he's said.
Ariel breaks into a face-splitting smile. "Wait — really?"
"Indeed," he smoothes a hand across her cheek, lets his thumb catch there and linger. "As long as you're feeling up to it, that is."
"I am!" Ariel says instantly. Dad gives a ripping snort. "Can — can we go into town? We can make that chowder you used to cook, remember? The one with the potatoes and leeks."
"Yes, I remember," he says, the corners of his mouth twitching. "A fine choice. I'm sure it won't wreak havoc on your digestive system at all."
She rolls back on her heels, bouncing on them. "And blueberry cobbler?"
He rolls his eyes and gives her a gentle shove. "Go and get dressed — and shower. You smell like a swamp troll."
"And the cinnamon swirls!" Ariel adds quickly.
"You're pushing it," he warns, but his eyes are lighter, like all the black is refracting in the sunlight cascading through the windows.
She laughs and bolts out of the room, her heart lighter than it has been in weeks. She throws on her favorite jumper when she's done scrubbing away the grime of the past few days — the one with the silver stars stitched onto the sleeves — and hurries back down. She finds her father already washed up and dressed, a rare sight. He usually opted for his usual black robes, but today he was donning a simple gray sweater and dark pants.
They step outside — Dad checks the Wards twice, and then checks to make sure Ariel's shoes are tied (they're not) before they head down the path to reach the outskirts of their seaside town.
The village is a quaint place, its cobblestone streets winding around a mosaic of pastel-colored homes and shops, all nestled against the backdrop of a harbor brimming with fishing boats. They weave through a throng of Muggle villagers, most of them familiar faces, at this point. The old woman at the bakeshop always gives Ariel a warm smile and wave, always remarks on how pretty she is, how she'll have all the boys chasing after her one day. Ariel always blushes, turning to bury her face in her father's side, and he doesn't seem to like the comments much either, his lips tightening even as he thanks the woman tersely.
"If a boy ever chases after you," Dad murmurs into your hair. "You're to cut his throat."
Ariel swallows her laughter and swings the basket in her arms. Children barrel past them, playing some sort of game in the streets with a ball that hits the sides of shops and nearly goes crashing through windows. Heads start popping out of them, angrily shaking their fists as the kids disappear around the next bend in the path. Ariel watches, feeling a pang of longing. She'd never really had friends her own age — there had only ever been Harry, and those visits had been few and far between.
After several stops, their arms are laden with paper bags filled with groceries — mostly fresh seafood and vegetables, the stars of their chowder. Her father's attention, however, is diverted by the humble post office perched at the end of the street. He hands Ariel his share of the bags, his eyes never leaving it, his gaze going sharp, like he's wielding a knife and about to thwack it into the door.
"Wait here," he instructs, striding off towards it.
Ariel hardly notices as the chatter of the villagers fades to a distant hum, her eyes fixated on the worn wooden door that shuts behind her father. Her mind brews a whirlwind of thoughts — letters from home, urgent messages, news about what's happened after —
Yet, she watches in disappointment as Dad emerges moments later, his hands empty. Like always.
"Remus?" Ariel asks anxiously. He's never answered her — not once. No one has.
"Nothing," Dad's voice is soft but firm. He avoids her gaze, focusing on the cobblestone street beneath them.
Ariel's heart sinks. "What if something's happened?"
He shakes his head, his lip curling. "The werewolf is fine, Ariel."
"I really wish you wouldn't call him that."
Dads takes his things from her. Smoothes her hair back, stares down his nose at her. "If Lupin wants to write, he will write."
"But he promised." Ariel tries very hard not to stamp her foot, because the second the words come out of her mouth, she feels incredibly childish. She knows there might be other things demanding her attention, but Remus had been all she'd had, afterwards, and it wasn't like him to just — disappear.
They resume their walk, the air between them heavy. Dad doesn't say anything, but he doesn't need to. Dad hates Remus. The silence lapses and stretches the entire walk home, each step echoing Ariel's sinking heart. The bags swing like pendulums in their hands, matching the rhythm of their footfalls. Her father's gaze is distant, eyes glossed over with a film of ice.
As they near the bend in the path that hugs the shoreline, Dad seems to finally thaw, his gaze softening as he takes in Ariel's sullen expression, feeling as though she's had the wind sucked from her sails.
"Do you think we'll ever go back?" Ariel asks him quietly. "Home?"
"Where do you think we're going now?" his response is quick — sharp — like he'd been expecting her to ask it.
Ariel gives him a look. "You know what I mean. Our real home."
"You are my real home."
She stops walking for a minute. Dad doesn't — he keeps going, doesn't even look back.
There's a great, gnawing thing that's inside her. It's always been there — this curiosity about what Dad really is — what he was. She knows some things, like that he hadn't been around until she was three, or that no one else could know he was her father. Whenever Order members came by, Dad would leave, and he'd always come back in a foul mood, especially if it was Remus or James. The only time it had been the three of them with someone from the outside had been Dumbledore. Ariel had never been allowed to talk about Dad with anyone else. Mum said his work had been — tricky. That was the word she always used — like he was trying to fit an obscure shape into a perfectly square hole, never to be fitted in.
And then Ariel hates thinking this, because he's just Dad, but he's just so different now — or maybe he's always been this way and Mum has kept him tame. But that's just the thing — Mum isn't here anymore to soothe him, to keep him rooted and grounded. Now he's like a leaf being blown by the wind, erratic and unpredictable.
Ariel knows what tricky meant — the War — but they'd never, ever spoken about it around her. Except one night, when they'd forgotten the Silencing Spell —
It was more than Ariel expects to hear and she is almost immediately regretful, but it lures her in with the soft tone in which her mother is speaking.
"This is what's safest." Mum says, her voice steady and even. Ariel can picture how she's standing, with her arms crossed and chin pointed up. Dad is much taller, but when she gets worked up, Mum is just as big. "She can't live like this forever. What kind of childhood are we giving her?"
"Absolutely not." Dad responds, and there's a long pause. "Don't look at me like that — you can't be serious, Lily."
"James is sending his son."
Hogwarts — they're talking about Hogwarts. It's been coming up more and more, these days, since it's only two years away, now.
"The Potter brat is not being hunted by a homicidal madman." Dad snarls. "We have kept her safe for nearly a decade, I am not about to just hand her off."
"You wouldn't be." Mum says, and Ariel hears her swallow audibly. "You could go with her."
There's a pause — a long, long pause. "Goddammit, Lily, what did you do?"
"It wasn't my idea. Albus says Horace is retiring — they'll need a new potion's master. No one will be the wiser, and you'll both be protected. You can keep an eye on her — you can keep her safe."
"And he brought it to you first." Dad says, disgust dripping from his voice. "He knew you'd never be able to say no."
"This is the best thing we can give her. Hogwarts is a fortress, and with you there —"
"And you?" Dad demands. "You've failed to mention that bit, yet."
Mum sighs, her breath hitching. "There's a safe house —"
"No."
"Sev, please, just listen —"
"Absolutely fucking not." Dad booms, and something shatters —
Ariel wonders, then, what's wrong with her, what's she's missing, why she cannot bring him that peace — that she cannot bring Dad all the way back.
They make dinner together. Dad lets her skin the potatoes and he does the leeks — and whatever else. Ariel doesn't really pay attention because it takes her twice as much time to skin three potatoes than it does for him to do the rest of it. Dad's not even using magic — he's doing it the Muggle way, the way Mum used to.
It feels — normal. Maybe they had needed a reset, like this.
Maybe it's good, because Ariel is going to tell him what she heard last night. Who was in her closet. She'd wanted to tell him immediately this morning, wanted to shout it from the rooftop, if she could, but she had to wait. She's got to time it right, not take him by surprise too much or she'll give him a heart attack, but she doesn't know when a good place to slip it in is.
And after this afternoon, maybe — maybe he'll welcome it. Maybe knowing Mum's here —
Ariel is not quite certain how he's going to react. Maybe the outburst the other day — when she'd seen Mum walking into her bedroom — made it was shock to his system, enough to dilute whatever reaction he was going to have. Or he could just ignore her — he could blow her closet door to bits and splinters.
She decides just as he's cutting into the blueberry cobbler, she's going to tell him. It's either Mum is trying to come back, or Ariel is starting to go mad. Either one needs her father's intervention.
Ariel sits at the table, Dad at the counter. He's got the knife slanted, ready to cut, when she squirms in her chair and coughs. "Erm, Dad?"
The knife freezes in his hand. Dad doesn't look at her yet, but she feels the tension radiate from him as sure as a heatwave. She doesn't know how he does it — maybe Ariel is just an open book — but she knows he knows she's about to say something he's not going to like.
She puts her hands on the table to keep them from shaking. "You know my closet?"
The knife is still poised in mid-air. He turns to look at her now, his dark eyes boring into hers, searching her face for a hint of what's to come.
"I talked to Mum," Ariel says. "In — my closet."
It sounds completely mental, now that she's said it outloud, but there's no going back now.
For a moment, Dad simply stares at her, the silence of the room broken only by the faint ticking of the kitchen clock. Then he drops the knife, and it clatters against the plate with a jarring note of finality. He blinks once, twice, as though trying to process what she has just said.
"You told me you weren't having any more hallucinations," Dad says — his voice is flat flat flat.
"I'm not," Ariel responds, her voice shaking ever so slightly. "I'm not hallucinating, Dad. She — she was there. Not like a ghost or anything. More real than that."
His jaw tightens, but his eyes are full of something that Ariel can't quite place. Fear, perhaps? Or is it desperation? It's hard to tell with Dad. He's always been good at hiding his feelings.
Ariel decides she's not going to back down, this time. Not because it's not painful, but because what if it is Mum, somehow? She'd waited for her as a ghost, but Uncle Remus had told her at the funeral, she wouldn't come back unless given the choice, and she hadn't. She hadn't come back.
And then she'd thought Dad wasn't either. They'd both left. One had come back, why couldn't the other? Maybe this was how she returned — or it had just been a terribly, wonderful dream.
Dad finally unsticks himself. He turns, the severe line of his jaw working itself. Ariel swears the kitchen has gotten ten degrees colder.
"You had a nightmare," he says, his voice bottomless and cold — so cold it burns.
Ariel shakes her head. "I don't think so."
"You aren't thinking at all." Dad bites out. His hands have turned into gnarled claws, shaking on the countertop. "Or else you would have come to that conclusion yourself."
It stings — she flinches. "I know what I heard. I talked to her."
"Enough," his voice is a dangerous whisper now, a teapot about to whistle with boiling fury. "You did no such thing."
The harshness of the statement hangs in the air, like a guillotine's blade between them. It's not the first argument they've had, but it's the most heated one since Mum passed away. Ariel bites her lip, stubbornly pushing back her tears.
"You don't believe me," she whispers. "Why don't you want to?"
His face — it — contorts, a mixture of burning fury and icy fear —
"Show me," Dad says. "Now."
Ariel stands up, and he's on top of her already, hauling her down the hallway by her arm. It doesn't hurt, but he's being rough enough that she feels overwhelmed, feels strangely cornered and trapped.
Dad thrusts her through the door of her room. There it stands — her closet, just as she left it — slightly ajar. Her father's breathing is ragged behind her.
Ariel moves toward it, and then freezes. What is she doing? What is she supposed to do? What does he expect her to do?
"Open it," Dad's voice slices through the tension, sharp and commanding.
Ariel turns to look at him, his face a mask of steely resolve bathed in the room's dim light. He brushes past her then, his long fingers wrapping around the closet door knob with grim determination.
The door creaks open, revealing only darkness within. Dad stands before it, a silent sentinel. He hesitates for a moment, his hand hovering over the threshold, and then, with a flick of his wand and a whispered incantation, soft light floods the tiny enclosure.
Dad moves in, his tall form all but swallowed by the gloom. His wand traces a series of intricate patterns in the air, casting sparks of vibrant colors that flicker and dance across the closet, illuminating every hidden nook and cranny. Ariel watches as he kneels, his long fingers running over the floor, inspecting the corners, trailing along the hanging garments that shroud the back wall. His breath hitches in his chest, and he flinches ever so slightly as his hand brushes against something — Mum's favorite jumper. The only thing Ariel had brought that was hers, and because she'd been wearing it when Dad came.
Ariel watches him, wide-eyed and breathless as he continues his inspection. His wand moves methodically over every square inch of the closet, his concentration unyielding. After a while, he finally straightens up, his face pale beneath the wand light. His eyes meet Ariel's, and she can taste the hard knot of disappointment in her throat.
"Ariel," he says. There's — nothing there. Nothing in his voice, nothing in the closet. Just the heavy resignation in which he says her name.
Her determination crumbles, replaced by a hollow emptiness, a void that threatens to swallow her whole. She blinks hard, her eyes stinging with unshed tears. But she won't cry. Not in front of him.
"I heard her, Dad," Ariel insists, her voice stubborn. "I heard her voice! I — I had a whole conversation with her — I think —"
He just shakes his head, closing the closet door behind him with a finality that echoes throughout the silent room. His dark eyes are troubled, but his voice is as firm as steel. "There is nothing there."
Ariel shakes her head fiercely. "She was there."
"It was a dream."
"No, no she was here." She feels her control slipping, but she's desperate. "She — I think she asked me how she died —"
Ariel doesn't even get to say the last word. It's catapulted to the back of her throat, all the way back to her lungs, when her father's arm moves like a whip.
Whatever is staring back at her — it's not her father. It's Something Else. It makes her entire nervous system short-circuit.
"Do not — ever ," Dad grabs her face, and his fingers clench against her jaw. "mention this again."
Ariel doesn't do anything — can't. She swallows — can't — a hot, queasy feeling in her stomach that wants out, but she holds that unsteady gleam in his eyes and tries not to blink.
She keeps very still when he leaves.
Doesn't move.
Sits.
Waits.