Mind Games

Thirty minutes had passed since Ariel had decided it best to settle down and actually try to get some homework done. Being able to accomplish something would make the day feel as if it hadn’t been wasted. It had been thirty minutes since he’d started but it had been fifteen minutes since he’d abandoned his task and decided to go up to the kitchens.

Whether he liked it or not, the homework had been doomed from the beginning. He’d been perfectly content sat there in front of the coffee table but after dreaming up a couple of recipes to try out on his family at Christmas he found that he had no interest in the essay. He had a title, that was about it and that was all he planned on writing. But that piece of parchment went in the fireplace after he felt compelled to doodle over it.

Ariel blamed the short attention span on having to work on an empty stomach. That realisation was what had prompted the trip to the kitchens. He’d gone to Hogsmeade and fetched the necessary ingredients from the Potions Shop. But the Peppermint had once again gone in his cup of tea and that along with half an orange was his dinner. The other half he’d given to a First Year that had gotten it into his head that dissecting oranges was just like dissecting a Hippogriff. After Ariel had given the orange to the boy with the suggestion he visit the Hospital Wing, he left for the common room.

There, he fetched his homework and that brings us back to the first paragraph. He didn’t finish the homework and it was doubtful he had any intention of doing it anyway. Well, the intent was there but he truly wasn’t interested in it.

Slytherin’s were hanging about in the Dungeon corridors again like the thugs they were. They were taking bets and people were doling out goodness knows what to each other. Authoritive figures were probably scared of the things that went bump in the night. That was probably the reason why it was so lawless in ‘the depths of hell’; the poor babies were too scared.

There was a hierarchy, however. It was important when establishing who ran the joint. Ariel figured it surrounded himself, naturally, that Krum brat and the girl that fawned over him. She was the head of that young group of terrorists or whatever. But your influence depended on a few things: money, good looks and bollocks. The last of which was defined by ego, arrogance, charm and the ability to bring young ladies and gentlemen to their knees with witty comments and sly smiles. ‘The Slytherin Prince’ was a title that had yet to truly be bestowed. Ariel wouldn’t have minded it, though.

The last couple of steps up to the kitchens, Ariel jumped up. He took hold of the rail to steady himself in case he decided to do a back-flip right back down to the dungeons but found he was fine as he was. Ariel closed the distance between himself and the portrait with a few quick steps. He looked at the painting critically before stretching up and brushing his fingers against the vibrant green pear. The pear shuddered at the touch and Ariel retracted his hand as the portrait swung open.

Upon stepping inside, Ariel threw his shoes off. A House Elf appeared by his side and retrieved the shoes, much to his chagrin, before disappearing, also irking him slightly. Then, they arrived in their socks, potato sacks and pillow cases. Ariel shook his head and walked through the small herd, their saucer eyes pleading with him to stay. He entered the kitchen area and went straight for the fridge, retrieving the fish and the asparagus for the recipe. Then he got to work.

Mops was sitting on the counter beside the stove, swinging her legs and whistling to herself. Ariel brought his eyes up and looked at her, a smirk on his lips. He pushed her playfully and she pushed him back, her protest audible.

“Get off my counter, you.” Ariel said with a small smirk as he rolled up his shirt sleeves. He unbuttoned a few of the buttons on his shirt and looked at Mops. “It’s supper time. Do you want anything?”

Mops shook her head and opened her mouth to ask, “Why does Master Greyback always have to make the food himself?”

“I don’t like people doing things for me, Mops.” Ariel answered almost instantly. “I like my independence. I don’t mind it the other way around when it’s for people I tolerate – so I never have to do it. It makes me feel uncomfortable to have to sort of say 'Oh thank-you' when I didn't even have to ask. Half the time you lot just nick my boxers, wander off and put them back the next day! Who wouldn't feel uncomfortable to find that House Elves have raided your underwear drawer?"

At least Mops had the decency to blush at this. “Master Greyback wants to clean?”

Ariel chuckled. He was on good terms with Mops. They’d been close since his first year when he’d stamped his foot and told the House Elves he was going to make his food, not them. Mops appreciated his ‘spunk’ and decided to watch him cook and keep him company as the other House Elves refused to have anything to do with him. He didn’t like anything House Elves stood for. They were slaves; it was as simple as that. People were perfectly capable of doing things themselves yet they chose not to. He chose to do things by himself, therefore he was an enemy of House Elves that didn’t like him interfering with their routines and refusing to eat their food. Mops didn’t care and she seemed to be the only person, House Elf or human, he wasn’t purposely vicious towards.

“To tell you the truth Mops, I would hate to have to clean. I’d hate every minute of it but you shouldn’t have to do it.” Ariel said, beginning to dish up his food. It had cooked faster than usual which as a plus. He was famished, it was time to eat. “The lazy sods take advantage and you have to learn to say no.”

“Mops couldn’t do that!” She exclaimed, scandalised, covering her mouth. “Mops would have to punish Mops!”

Ariel took a plate out of the cupboard and lifted the fish onto the plate with the fish slice. “Humans, my dear Mops, are the biggest mistakes evolution has ever made."

“But you’re not human...” Mops said slowly, fearing a glimpse of the temper Ariel and his canine were famous for. Instead, the Slytherin merely smirked.

“That’s right, Mops. I suppose someone somewhere got me right. I’m just one accomplishment amongst a million failures.”

It was beginning to get dark earlier and earlier as autumn was dissolving into winter, but Amelia barely noticed the change in the lighting of the room as the hours passed from early afternoon to late evening. The table light she was doing her homework by was really the only source of light she needed to read twelve chapters, write three essays, prepare a list of ingredients for the next potions lesson, and write down the practical implications of non-verbal transfiguration. This was the list of things she had decided to accomplish this afternoon, and she was on track to do just that.

As she rolled up her last essay and waved her wand to place a seal on it, Amelia looked up for the first time in hours and only then did she notice how dark it had grown around her. The corner of the library she was working in was not usually very crowded, but right now it was absolutely deserted. Glancing at the watch on her wrist, Amelia heaved an exasperated sigh: 8:35 p.m. She had studied straight through dinner.

This should not have been surprising to Amelia, as it happened nearly once a week, but it never ceased to frustrate the overly-organized Ravenclaw. If she was intelligent and efficient enough to do a week’s worth or pre-reading in one sitting and write three, six-page essays without having to reference her textbook, why could she not be smart enough to remember to stop to eat?

Knowing what she had to do now – it was becoming almost routine after six years of it – Amelia gathered her books and other supplies and placed them in her bookbag, slinging it over her shoulder as she stood up from the table she had been working at. She tapped the table light with her wand to extinguish it and then left the mostly-deserted library, making her way down the steps without bothering to return to Ravenclaw tower to put away her things. Although she had been completely oblivious to it ten minutes ago, her stomach was now grumbling for something to eat, and that meant a trip to the kitchens.

Several flights of stairs and a detour to avoid Peeves later, Amelia arrived at the portrait that would allow her access to the kitchens. Although she and Raoul had never really seen eye to eye on rule breaking, his knowledge of the castle’s secrets had come in handy over the course of her time here. The kitchens was one of the secrets he had revealed before he decided to drop out and disappear to Merlin-knows-where, and so Amelia knew to tickle the pear to gain entrance.

Stepping through the portal to the kitchens, Amelia was careful to look down before she placed her foot, hoping to avoid stepping directly onto any of the many house elves that tended to be under foot on these habitual, but necessary visits. Thankfully, the area immediately in front of the portrait-hole was clear, and Amelia was able to stand there without interrupting the natural flow of the kitchen around her. Her presence, however, did cause a disturbance, and immediately four or five house elves came scampering up to her, their heads tilted deeply back in order to look up at her from where she stood at her full height.

“What can we do for you mistress Lyons?” a house elf to her right asked, one she recognized immediately by the characteristic construction cap he chose to adorn his overlarge head, ears poking out on each side. Amelia wasn’t certain if this was worn as a safety precaution or a fashion statement, but it made him identifiable to her as the man to talk to when she came looking for a late dinner.

“I just need a little bit of something to eat. Whatever you have around is fine,” Amelia responded, trying to seem friendly instead of curt while talking to the elf who could mean the difference between her going to bed hungry or getting something in her stomach.

“Of course, of course!” the elf squeaked, tapping the two elves next to him as he retreated to a table not far off, and after the three of them had climbed onto stools that seemed impossibly tall for them, began chopping away at bits and pieces of things Amelia couldn’t identify from where she was standing.

“I’m sorry to always be doing this to you,” Amelia apologized from where she was standing, speaking mostly to Brink – the elf with the construction hat – but also to the group as a whole, “Time just gets away from me sometimes.”

“You needn’t apologize, Mistress Lyons,” Brink shouted happily over the sound of chopping, “You are always welcome, and besides, you are not even the first visitor we have had tonight!”

“What do you mean?” Amelia asked, peering around what she could see of the kitchen, which was limited, looking around for the aforementioned visitor, but she could see no one.

Instead of answering verbally, Brink and the other house elves all looked in the same direction, to another kitchen area where led off from the entrance space prep area. None of them spoke up directly, but rather just more or less glared in the direction of the room, as though hesitant to say anything outright, but not at all hiding their displeasure with whatever or whomever was invisible behind the wall that separated the rooms.

Curious, Amelia crossed the room to the doorway until she could just see inside. To her surprise, the person that had caused the house elves’ disdain was none other than Ariel Greyback. To clarify, it was not surprising that Ariel should cause disdain among people around him, but rather what he was doing that was surprising: he was cooking and chatting with a house elf that was sitting off to the side of the counter he was working on.

Her curiosity had only intensified now, but she wasn’t certain she wanted to approach Ariel. Her interaction with him thus far was very limited, and she had seen the way he intermingled with the other students at the school – a little like oil and water, if the oil was on fire most of the time - and she wasn’t certain he was going to make an exception in her case. Seeing him, she was reminded of potions, in which he had asked her about her amortentia scents. Then he had sparked her curiosity as well, but they had been interrupted before she could derive any information out of the situation.

But was her curiosity strong enough to warrant her actually approaching one of her peers? Would she actually overcome her own seemingly innate ability to thwart any human interaction?

Only if she did it fast.

“Something smells fishy,” Amelia said from the doorway, her voice sounding far more confident than she felt. And she had actually managed to string together three words that were not only not embarrassing, but also fitting of the situation in more ways than one. She had simultaneously commented on the food Ariel was cooking, and also the fact that he was cooking at all.

Oh bra-vo… Amelia’s subconscious sneered, unimpressed, Three words. Do you want a prize?

No. Amelia’s mind responded, starting to realize what exactly she had just done. She had spoken up in front of the one person in school with the biggest reputation for crucifying anyone who showed even an iota of weakness. And Amelia had just started a conversation with him. Conversation was, without a doubt, an area of weakness for Amelia. So what now?

No. I want to get out of here.

[I am so sorry this took so long but here it is!]


The asparagus was cooking nicely now. Ariel made sure to turn them over a number of times so not only did they soak up the sauce and seasonings in the pan but also so they wouldn’t burn. Once he was sure they were cooked, he turned the hob off and lifted them onto the plate. He reached for the sauce he’d made while talking to Mops and drizzled it over the asparagus. He put it back down on the tabletop and held it up for Mops to see. He speared one of the green vegetables and held the fork out for Mops to take. She looked at him sceptically and pushed it back.

“Your loss, sweetheart,” Ariel chuckled and bit the top of the Asparagus, pulling the head away from the body. He hummed in satisfaction. “To be frank, sweetheart, this rivals anything you lot would or could do so what do you want?”

Ariel put his plate down and folded his arms over his chest, waiting for Mops to reply. He knew what she’d ask for before he’d even finished the question. He’d seen the way her saucer eyes had lit up and his hand automatically went for the cupboard he knew the House Elves stowed their popcorn in. His shirt rode up slightly as he bent over in search for Mops’ favourite brand of popcorn. He felt two little feet on his back and he looked around to see Mops perched there.

“Mops what are you-?”

The elf shushed him and Ariel pouted. She leaned forward to further inspect exactly what was poking out of the back of his trousers while Ariel smirked. Her head, as always, proved to be too big for her neck and shoulders to handle. Said head made her topple off of his back and onto the floor, just as he got the right bag of popcorn. Ariel laughed and grabbed the bag of Mops’ pillowcase. He pulled her up off of the floor and stuck her back on the side.

“Master you’ve got a branch!” She exclaimed upon getting her breath back. Ariel ripped open the outer bag of the popcorn and stuck the pop-bag into the microwave. He pressed a few buttons and got the microwave moving. He leaned against the counter and speared the rest of the asparagus he’d already eaten and threw it into his mouth. “Master! Mops must remove it for you!”

“Mops, I’ve got a tattoo on my arse. I’m not going to die because of it.” Ariel said upon swallowing. He lifted his right wrist and waggled it in front of her. “There’s one here too and there’s nothing you can do about it, Moppy!”

“Don’t call me that!” The House Elf growled, reddening as she watched Ariel move his tattooed wrist from side to side. The elephant, Ariel noted, didn’t seem to bother her as much as the orchid did. But when Mops realised how she’d spoken to Ariel, her hands quickly moved to cover her face. “Mops is sorry, master! Mops is a bad elf!”

The microwave beeped and Ariel took a knife from the rack. He opened the microwave up and took the bag of popcorn out. Mops sniffled and handed him a bowl from the side. He thanked her quietly and sliced the bag open. The corns spilled into the bowl and Ariel thrust it into Mops’ hands. “You’re not a bad elf, Mops. Eat the food, don’t hit yourself with it.”

The elf looked as if she was going to protest but a look from Ariel made her push some popcorn into her mouth. The blonde shook his head and picked up a piece of asparagus with his fingers. He folded the vegetable in half and put it into his mouth, savouring the taste of it before chewing and swallowing. He wiped his hands on the tea towel that was on the counter and picked his fork up again. He took a knife from one of the draws and began to slice the fish into wafer thin slices.

“Something smells fishy,”

The words startled Ariel somewhat, having been enjoying himself perhaps a little bit too much. One of those rare things to see upon the boy was the look of contentment. Mops, however, was sceptical of his scepticism as all she saw was Ariel happy, she’d never been exposed to his foul moods thank Merlin. But the shock of company rattled Ariel’s concentration causing him to miss the fish and cut off a piece of skin instead. He looked down and cursed, dropping his things and jumping over to the skin. He ran the water and stuck his hand underneath the faucet.

“Thank you for stating the obvious,” he hissed, looking over his shoulder. His gaze lost some of its fire when he realised it was Amelia. Ariel couldn’t help but smirk. “I thought being Doyle’s favourite meant you had to converse intelligently?” He turned the tap off and held his hand up to the light. “Clearly I was mistaken. Got the House Elves cooking have you?”

Ariel moved back to the chopping board, hitting Mops with a tea-towel to stop her from cutting any more of the fish. She yelped and sat back on the counter. Wide-eyed and nervous, she looked at Amelia. “Welcome, Miss! Master could use the company Mops is sure?”

“Mops may well be mistaken...” Ariel said lightly, picking up the knife again. “Do you want any of this Amelia or are the House Elves at work?” He asked, turning slightly. It wasn’t a sincere gesture. Ariel offered simply because he thought he might as well.

Although Amelia herself had been impressed that she was able to string together several words coherently and say them aloud without being prompted to do so, she didn’t expect such surprise out of the blond boy standing on the far side of the kitchen. As it turned out, though, her interruption seemed to take Ariel completely by surprise, causing him to miss a beat in his slicing and miss the mark in cutting as well. As if the cursing were not enough of an indication, Amelia immediately noticed the crimson blooming at Ariel’s fingertip before he turned away toward the sink.

Unsurprisingly, Ariel fired back a barbed comment about her unnecessary redundancy. If she had been in the same situation, she likely would have responded in a similar if not identical manner. Amelia herself hated being interrupted, and she had just done the same thing to someone else who had been enjoying his solitude – or rather, quasi-solitude, as he did have the house elf for company. Although she could sympathize with his annoyance, Amelia still gave Ariel a look that suggested he was over-reacting, a look that didn’t disappear even when Ariel’s icy glare changed slightly upon turning around to see who exactly had interrupted him. Somehow, Amelia’s presence at the door seemed to be not quite the last thing he wanted to see there, or at least it was suggested by his smirk and his bantering remarks about her being Doyle’s favorite.

Should have known he would go right to the taunting… Amelia thought to herself. Although she was initially muted by the fear that came with stepping outside her comfort zone – i.e. talking to a relative stranger that just so happened to have a very sharp tongue and a knack for poking fun at just about everyone he met – Amelia’s barbed wit was just about the only thing that ever loosened her tongue, and it did not hold back now either.

“And I thought being allowed to use knives meant you needed to know the difference between your fingers and your food,” Amelia quipped back, turning her head slightly sideways to imply the same condescension Ariel had used toward her. Of course he would think she was Doyle’s favorite; she supposed most everyone did by now, though if it was her choice, the man would know nothing more than her name and her grades.

“But yes,” Amelia continued more levelly, answering the part of Ariel’s question that likely hadn’t been rhetorical, “Brink is getting something for me. I usually leave the cooking to the experts.”

Ariel was back at his chopping board now, the house elf beside him nearly hidden beneath the towel he had thrown at her. She was a tiny little thing, but with eyes as wide as saucers, and she seemed far more nervous now that Amelia had made herself known than she had been while she was speaking only to Ariel. Amelia leaned against the door frame, taking in the scene before her and continuing to try to figure out just where cooking in the castle kitchens fit into her mental image of Ariel. The problem she kept encountering, however, was that it didn’t.

“Oh, I won’t be staying lo-” Amelia began to say in response to the female elf – Mops, as she identified herself – but before she could finish her sentence, Ariel intervened with a comment that would indicate that he wasn’t altogether pleased to have the ‘company’ Mops had mentioned. Go figure… Amelia thought to herself, fully believing that Ariel thought himself above the other students of Hogwarts. She had never really seen him interacting with any of their peers, unless of course you counted verbally and emotionally tormenting anyone that came within earshot. She had seen a good deal of that.

“I’m actually quite sure ‘Master’ Greyback has all the company he needs,” Amelia said, directing her response to the house elf, careful to put the same tone of reverence in the word ‘master’ as Mops had, though Amelia meant it with far less veneration and more scathe.

“He nearly always has that pocket mirror on his person, after all,” the redhead added, keeping her tone pleasant thought turning her attention toward Ariel as she added this second bit, knowing he would understand full well what she was getting at, but blowing off any worry that he might not like her because of it. Ariel didn’t seem to like much of anyone, and Amelia wasn’t exactly in the business of making friends. And besides, what she said wasn’t far from the truth; if there was anyone in the school that could have been Narcissus reincarnate, it was Ariel Greyback.

((So I know I didn't directly answer Ariel's offer for Amelia to have some of what he was cooking, but Amelia already said earlier that the House Elves were making her something, so if you could consider that the answer to both his initial question about the house elves cooking and then the second part along the same lines, that would be perfect.))

Despite Amelia’s flippant comment about his knife work, Ariel at first made no response, though she could see the corners of his lips getting tighter, the way her father’s did whenever he had something to say, but Antoinette wasn’t letting him get a word in edgewise. Her mother had always been the dominant personality in their household, commandeering nearly every conversation and situation, telling the family what to do as often as she did the hired help. Her father, for the most part, tolerated this, though he rarely did exactly what Antoinette told him to do, but rather agreed with it while she was around and then went back about his life as usual.

When she was younger, Amelia had often sat outside her father’s study for hours, waiting for him to come out, and wondering why it was that he spent so much time in there. Although Frederick had told her several times by that age that he was in his study a lot because he had very important work to do, Amelia had learned as she grew older that he used the room filled with spell books and magical machines she didn’t recognize at the time as a sanctuary from his wife. Antoinette had a way of inserting herself into just about everything, welcome or not, but she kept out of Frederick’s study. It was his safe haven.

Amelia had never had a safe haven of her own, but she did occasionally borrow Raoul’s. Her older brother had built something of a tree house in the far part of the orchard. It was built by hand, Raoul not being able to use magic outside of school at the age he was building the fort, and so it had always tilted to the left, and Amelia had to be careful when she ascended to the hideout so she didn’t get splinters. Raoul hadn’t shown her that place right away; he had been worried she would tattle on him. After a while, though, he took pity on Amelia constantly being followed around and badgered by their mother, and had given her the secret that allowed her to escape, if only once in a while.

With Ariel’s lips pursed the way they were, Amelia could tell he had something on his mind, but unlike her father, he didn’t keep his thoughts to himself. Instead, he opened those same thin, pale lips to spit out more of what she assumed he meant as hurtful statements, meant to cut her as definitively as he was now cutting up the fish on the counter.

Amelia scoffed openly at the suggestion that Ariel might be self-destructive, not bothering to suppress the urge to roll her eyes. The chance that Ariel would deprive the world of his oh-so-enchanting presence was about the same chance that Amelia would suddenly take over the role of most popular girl in school. The blond Slytherin loved himself far too much to end his own life. His next suggestion was slightly harder to mock, not because it was any more plausible – Ariel getting blood on that impeccably clean and expensive clothes of his? Fat chance – but because Amelia hadn’t missed the fact that the Naomi girl in the news bore the same last name as the boy chopping fish across the room from her. They were siblings, at least half siblings, and although he was flippant in placing this comment among the others, Amelia was almost certain he didn’t hold it on the same level of nonchalance. Stopped short of demonstrating her feelings of tedium by this sudden mention of Naomi left Amelia to be the one to purse her lips, holding both her eyes and her tongue in place until Ariel had finished his list of knife-related possibilities.

“My imagination is carefully in check, thank you,” Amelia responded bluntly to the Slytherin’s suggestion. It was a defensive response, automatic; it was probably a response Ariel would mock her for, but so be it. Amelia had never much seen the use in a good imagination; it basically amounted to pretending instead of doing, hoping for things that were unlikely ever to happen. It was an exercise in futility, and so Amelia rarely allowed her imagination to get away with her better judgment.

Shortly after the conversation turned to what she was doing in the kitchen, and Amelia admitted to accepting the food the house elves were preparing, Ariel was once again quick to criticize. Amelia was not overly surprised at this, but it was somewhat tedious to listen to his opinion on everything. Once again, Amelia found herself crossing her arms across her chest at Ariel’s comment that walking pillow cases were culinary experts, giving him a look that clearly read that she did agree with him. Just because Ariel felt the need to whip up something of his own didn’t mean everyone did – or could, as was the case for Amelia – and Amelia was perfectly content to let the house elves do their job. Food was food, and she hadn’t come looking for a five star restaurant, just something to hold her over until morning.

Having said nothing in response to Ariel’s barbed comment, Amelia was surprised when Ariel’s pallor changed from his normal pale to something more pallid and his chopping became more wild and imprecise. If she had responded with a particularly sharp comment of her own, Amelia could have understood this reaction, but whatever it was that had made Ariel change his demeanor seemed to have come from inside his own head.

Whatever. At least he’s shut up for a few minutes, Amelia’s subconscious commented, watching as Ariel moved the fish cubes he had created onto a plate with some asparagus spears, smothering the whole lot in a cream-colored sauce. He even went so far as to wipe away the excess sauce that had dripped on the plate, which the obsessive compulsive part of Amelia was impressed with, but not so much so that she felt compelled to say anything aloud about it.

Instead, she stayed where she was in the doorway as Ariel got silverware out of another drawer, knowing his way around the kitchen to the point that Amelia understood that this was not the first meal he had prepared here. The house elf she had spoken to about Ariel not being lonely was quick to come to the Slytherin’s defense, clearly having a higher opinion of him than most of the rest of the school. Of course, there were the girls that fawned over his bad boy image and high cheek bones, and a few male students that wished they had his gall, but when it came right down to it, people didn’t really like Ariel. They may have liked to have what he did or look more like him, but they didn’t actually want to be with him. At least in that respect, he was like her, and Mops seemed to have picked up on that as well as a few other things, which she did not hesitate to share with Amelia, making the redhead smirk.

Ariel was quick to cut into that conversation, perhaps because he was uncomfortable with Mops revealing his family history to a relative stranger, or – and Amelia thought this more likely – he didn’t like that Mops was telling people he was lonely. Amelia knew that feeling. People so often confused loneliness with being alone, when actually, they were two completely different things. The Ravenclaw girl spent nearly all her time alone, but she didn’t feel like she was missing anything. Not consciously, anyway.

While Ariel seemed to think that he had had the final say in the conversation and thus had turned to other things, Mops did not seem to be quite finished with him. She had a look on her face that suggested she had just eaten something particularly sour and she was jumping up and down on the countertop, waving her arms at Ariel while he fetched wine from the fridge, and just when he wasn’t looking, and much to Amelia’s surprise, the house elf took a flying leap off the countertop and landed on Ariel’s lower back. After a few seconds of struggle, she fell to the floor, holding Ariel’s pocket mirror in her tiny hands and examining her own reflection.

Amelia was forced to put a hand over her mouth to prevent laughter from escaping, such was her amusement at the present situation. The house elf seemed overly pleased with herself, Ariel seemed furious, and Amelia could barely contain her pleasure at watching him attempt to retrieve his precious mirror. Mops was having none of it, though, and with a grin she bounded out of the room, shouting that now Ariel would need company because she had taken away his main source of it.

After watching the house elf scurry off to join her brethren, Amelia turned back to Ariel, who was standing with his eyes closed in the middle of the kitchen, as if willing himself not to explode. Amelia knew that look quite well, because her own temper seemed to cool itself under the darkness of her eyelids, and she employed the very same tactic in situations she found frustrating. Personally, Amelia was still taking a good deal of pleasure in watching Ariel’s distress, but she lowered her hand and rearranged her face into a more natural expression after she was sure she would not laugh outright in his face.

After a few seconds, the boy reopened his eyes, seemingly having composed himself, and produced two glasses from a cupboard, setting them near the bottle of wine on the counter. It was more odd to be in the same room with Ariel, now that they were alone together. Amelia had never been alone with him before, and she wasn’t sure what to expect of it. Whenever she had been around him before, he had always had another target of his attention –which was usually coupled with ridicule – but now, with her leaning against the door frame and him standing in front of a table of food, the only two people in the room, Amelia felt the sudden urge to flee.

Before she could, however, Ariel made an unexpected invitation for her to eat what he had prepared. Amelia was so surprised by this that her eyebrows were already higher on her forehead before her conscious thought caught up enough to think to keep them at a normal level. She might even have believed that she had misheard him the first time if he hadn’t continued the same line of thought with his next few comments, although those sounded more like the Ariel she knew – cocky and condescending, all in one package deal.

You’re not actually thinking about staying, are you? her subconscious questioned immediately as Amelia toyed with the idea.

Food is food. And he has a point, Amelia responded in her mental debate, Brink will find me whatever is left over from dinner, but I’ll be hungry early in the morning. Besides that fish does smell good.

You are utterly impossible sometimes, her subconscious pouted, backing off only because it knew it had been beaten out by Amelia’s grumbling stomach.

“Well with an invitation like that, I’m not sure how anyone could refuse,” Amelia replied sarcastically, pulling herself off the door frame and stepping fully into Ariel’s kitchen for the first time since spotting him in it. She took one of the chairs at the table, lowering herself into it hesitantly, as though Ariel might shout “Not!” at any moment, bringing his personal joke to light and making her feel foolish. She reached the seat of the chair, though, and pulled herself up to the table without him announcing his prank, so either this was a genuine invitation, or he was delaying the punch line.

“Wine is fine, thank you,” Amelia answered curtly to Ariel’s earlier offer, brushing off his sarcasm about her being cultured. His sarcasm wasn’t really all that biting, Amelia found, probably because his opinion of her matter less than zero. Amelia didn’t place much stock in what her peers thought of her – she was too busy trying to impress her parents, her professors, and, in some ways, Raoul – which was likely a large part of the reason she didn’t fit in with them.

Picking up one of the forks Ariel had set on the table, speared a piece of fish on the end of it, raising it into the light for examination before placing it delicately into her mouth. She could feel the crust he had fried onto the fish, just the right consistency, and the sauce brought out a taste in the fish that Amelia wouldn’t have noticed otherwise. It was expertly prepared with a strong attention to detail, and Amelia chewed it slowly before swallowing.

“It’s good,” Amelia said finally, looking up at Ariel for the first time since she had sat down. Her verbal assessment of the meal Ariel had prepared was a vast understatement – the fish was excellent – but Ariel didn’t need the ego boost that would come with the other adjectives Amelia could have thought of to describe the taste of the fish.

“It seems I may have misjudged your amateur cooking status,” Amelia admitted, reaching for another piece of fish with her fork, but not yet placing it in her mouth.

What else might I have misjudged about him? Amelia wondered, letting her eyes meet Ariel’s and searching them for the other secrets he might be harboring. The ability to cook might not have been much a dark secret, but people who kept small things to themselves usually had larger things to hide, and someone who kept to himself as much as Ariel did probably had plenty swept underneath the rug.

Ms. Lyons’ imagination was in check – how disappointing. Ariel hadn’t thought for a minute that she actually had an imagination. She was too highly-strung for that sort of childish nonsense. All she’d succeeded in proving to him was that she had an imagination and it was wasted on her. What was the point of an imagination if it wasn’t allowed to roam free? Ariel paid that prospect no mind though. That was her choice and no doubt the choices of those she let influence her. She was a bright girl; that much was clear from the classes. She didn’t have to follow the leader all the time. It wasn’t Ariel’s place to remind her of that though and it certainly wasn’t his place to assume that that was the case even if it appeared to be.

When Amelia replied, Ariel waited patiently for her to give him a straight answer. She didn’t, instead she decided to sit. Ariel decided that she wasn’t trying to play around with him and gestured to the wine bottle again. Ariel nodded when she answered once more and picked up the wine glasses. He crossed the room and set the glasses down on the table. He pulled the cork out with the corkscrew and poured a substantial amount of wine into Amelia’s glass. He then poured his own and pushed her glass across the table towards her. Ariel put the wine bottle down and pulled out the chair across from her. He sat down heavily in the seat and reached up to scratch his temple. He reached forward after doing so and picked up his glass. He sat back in his chair and sipped the wine, idly watching Amelia as she sampled his food.

When she finally answered, Ariel cocked a blonde eyebrow at her. He knew it was good; he wouldn’t have eaten it if it wasn’t. He wasn’t just picky about everyone else’s food. He could pick holes in everything and he found himself the easiest out of everything. He rarely ate a whole plate of food because he’d mentally list what was wrong with the dish and by the time he got even half way through he’d had enough. He’d box it up and take it down to the Salvation Army centre that was in their area. The homeless got a hell of a lot of Greek Food which was all that he cooked at home – other than Chinese – his mother wanted a taste of home. From Zakynthos to Scotland. Yeah, that was a leap and a half.

“You like it?” Ariel asked finally, a sceptical tone leaking into his words. He leaned forward and put his wine glass down. Ariel swapped the glass for a fork and stabbed a piece of fish with the prongs. He held it up to the light before popping it into his mouth. It was good as Amelia had described it. . The sauce worked well with it too and it was all in all a decent piece of fish. He knew the asparagus was alright and he knew that they’d go well together. He’d known that from the start but he couldn’t help but feel it was a bit lacklustre. He turned his fork around and tapped the end against his cheek as he chewed. Ariel finally swallowed and sat back once more, picking his wine glass back up as he did so.

Ariel frowned and shook his head. “I’ve cooked better.” Yes, he knew that much. He wasn’t blowing his own horn either. He honestly felt he could have done better. She liked it though. That was good because she’d be eating it once he’d driven himself around the bend about it. “I’m...glad you like it, though.” He said after a moment, averting his eyes so he didn’t have to meet her blue gaze. He didn’t care either way really. Actually no, he did care. Ariel knew he wouldn’t have been happy if she’d said it was awful. He nitpicked but he knew he wasn’t a horrible cook. He fed his mother for goodness sake. If there was anyone in the world that knew about good food then it was going to be her. She grew up in a family where they ate and ate and ate. There was never a shortage of good, wholesome food.

“So why do you rely on them?” Ariel asked, before sipping some more of his wine, “You’re a multi-talented girl aren’t you? Why haven’t you learned to cook? Or is it that you’ve got House Elves at home? Your mother doesn’t have to cook, neither do you...neither does your father. So therefore you never needed to learn? I’m right aren’t I?” Ariel smirked.

Unlike Amelia, Ariel seemed to have had experience with opening wine bottles, and did so expertly before pouring two glasses of the dark red liquid. Amelia would have failed miserably trying to operate a corkscrew – she likely would have had to use magic to remove the cork, because the mechanical piece of metal in Ariel’s hand was foreign to her. Her mother had only recently allowed her to start drinking, and even that was begrudgingly. Amelia was of age now, so it was technically allowable, but her mother was certain that Amelia got herself into enough socially awkward situations without the aid of alcohol, and had thus limited Amelia’s intake as much as possible.

Nonetheless, Amelia took the wine glass that Ariel slid toward her, but kept her eyes on him as he sat down across from her. Although Amelia was consciously focusing on trying to remain relaxed, she actually felt tense in Ariel’s presence. In anyone’s presence, really. She was always putting on some kind of act when in the company of others; pretend to be social, feign ease, masquerade happiness. Ariel leaned back easily in his chair, idly sipping wine with one arm hooked over the back of the chair and the other holding his wine glass. He was the picture of nonchalance, and although Amelia was accustomed to the tension she felt in these situations, she suddenly felt it weighing more heavily on her because it was such a foil to Ariel’s behavior.

When she commented on the food, a single blond eyebrow rose on Ariel’s forehead. This one was a more difficult read, because his facial expression said cocky, but the words he spoke questioned whether or not she was being truthful in complimenting his food. The clash of these two possible meanings made Amelia raise an eyebrow of her own as Ariel stabbed a piece of fish destined for his own palate. It was rather absurd to her that Ariel would question the sincerity of Amelia’s compliment; she had nothing to gain by falsely flattering him, and if he knew anything about her at all – and it seemed that he did – he would know that she didn’t dole out compliments easily.

Amelia placed her own piece of fish into her mouth as Ariel chewed, looking deep in thought. Having already made her critical judgment of the dish, Amelia did not have to put thought in any longer, but instead focused on the flavors and the appeasement of the hunger that had been noisily making itself known only a few minutes earlier.

After a few seconds of sampling, Ariel’s perfectly shaped pale pink lips turned down in a frown as he declared he had cooked better. Amelia raised both eyebrows at this statement, smirking at him and not bothering to stifle a roll of her eyes. If he thought that he could fish for compliments with her, he was mistaken. She wasn’t about to reassure him that his food really was good, that the fish tasted much better than she would have expected from a foul-mouthed, I-hate-everyone Slytherin. Amelia had already told him, honestly, what she thought; that was all Ariel was getting.

A moment later, however, Ariel seemed to do what Amelia had dubbed the “paranoid turnaround”. It was a classic move of hers, saying something bitter or barbed and then hearing her mother’s voice in her head and immediately following it with something more socially acceptable or pleasant, usually one of the things Antoinette had made her rehearse over and over again until she could deliver the line without sounding robotic. As far as Amelia knew, however, she had never seen Ariel do a “paranoid turnaround”; he seemed to say whatever he wanted and not give one iota of thought to the consequences. So why had he bothered to make an exception in this case?

Ariel had dropped his eyes from Amelia, which only added to her curiosity concerning his motives for correcting himself and made her wonder even more when the boy was thinking. Ariel had never seemed like a multi-dimensional person to Amelia, but that was likely due to the fact that she had never really bothered to look closer at him than it took to make sure he was torturing someone else rather than her. It had been all too easy to categorize him as a bully, someone good-looking enough to get the attention of the swooning, needy girls in class, but with a bad boy image that toughened out his more effeminate name and features. It was hypocritical of her to have judged Ariel from what little she knew of him, but Amelia could not have grown up in her own household without unintentionally picking up a few of her mother’s unfortunate habits.

But although Amelia had had a moment of reconsideration of her view of Ariel, she was quickly reminded why it had been so easily to assign Ariel a stereotype in the first place. He was back to questioning why she relied on the house elves to cook her food, making it seem like she was the one that was breaking the norm, rather than the truth that he was the odd one for wanting to cook for himself.

“We do not have house elves,” Amelia said defensively, trying to get Ariel off her back, even though he was mostly right in his assessment. Amelia hated perceptive people.

“But we do have a cook,” Amelia admitted begrudgingly, busying herself with reaching for her wine glass so as to avoid having to look directly at Ariel as she said this. She hated having to give him the gold star for his prying questions; being right about this one would only encourage him to ask more, but this wasn’t exactly something worth lying about. And why bother lying to Ariel in the first place? It’s not like she cared what he thought about her… right?

“It’s not as though I couldn’t cook,” Amelia added, although it was very likely that this was the case. She had never actually tried to cook because, well, exactly for the reasons Ariel had already described: she had never had to. Her parents didn’t cook, the house elves prepared food while she was at school, and her mother would likely have had a heart attack if Amelia had ever expressed an interest in doing something so menial as cooking.

“I have just never wanted to,” Amelia finished, though without the full level of conviction she had wanted her words to hold. It was not the lying to Ariel that had let a suspicion of untruth sneak into her words; it was her subconscious skepticism that Amelia could actually cook much of anything. She had never made so much as toast.

“And why would you learn to cook?” Amelia asked pointedly, turning the tables on Ariel as she finished taking a drink of the wine her hand, her fork deserted for now on the table, “Like everyone else, I see your designer clothes, the aristocratic appearance, the way you carry yourself. You can’t tell me learning to cook was a necessity for you. Or perhaps you were just always too good for what your house elves made you, just like you’re too good for their food now?” Amelia asked, smirking back at Ariel as though they were two halves of the same mirror, both pale and sneering.

Wine did not get along with the pup much. It made him a little bit loopy. Ariel was just glad that there was a fair amount of space between him and the dog mentally. The dog was as irritable as Ollie was after his monthly letter from his step-mother when he had a hangover. Ariel didn’t have to deal with a whiny canine for a long while yet. The Full Moon was on its way but there was still a substantial amount of space between them. Well, it was a large enough gap to keep the dog out of his head. It wasn’t often that Ariel indulged himself with alcohol. Today he felt like doing just that. He wouldn’t drink enough to become intoxicated because that was ridiculous. A glass or two would not hurt though.

Amelia was immediately on the defensive. Ariel smirked. He leaned forward and speared another piece of fish with his fork. He pushed his glass of wine away and rested his arms on the table, curling his feet around the front legs of his chair and pulling it forward as he did so. Ariel placed the fish in his mouth and watched Amelia interestedly. He hit the end of his fork against his arm and hummed thoughtfully. Cooks, House Elves, Maids, Butlers....it was all so lazy. Ariel picked up his glass of wine and sipped it before looking back at Amelia.

“You have a cook...” he repeated slowly, sceptically. The closest thing to a cook they had was the little old Chinese woman from the Laundromat in town. She’d make Moon Cakes, Jian Dui and goodness knows what else for his mother, Penny and Orion when he wasn’t there. On occasion she’d even attempt to teach Fiona how to cook simple dishes; then she’d owl Ariel and explain to him what went wrong and what he’d have to go shopping for at the weekend. The most memorable disaster was when Georgio was staying with them and the little old lady had gone there to find the two trying to cook Moussaka. That weekend, Ariel nearly went through the roof when he came home to find the kitchen in a state. The cooker looked as if it had been scorched with a flame thrower. Needless to say, Georgio was the one footing the bill for that.

People, Fiona in particular, genuinely wondered why Ariel was so possessive about his kitchen. With all of the counts against his mother and her brother, he thought it would have been obvious. Clearly not. Ariel was glad, too. He enjoyed the hilarity of shooing people out of the kitchen. Penny never really got the hint though which irked and amused Ariel at the same time.

Ariel hummed thoughtfully and smirked at Amelia. “I don’t think you can,” he taunted playfully. “I don’t think you know the first thing about cooking. Breakfast cereal doesn’t count by the way,” Ariel chuckled and speared another piece of fish. “Being good at potions helps. It’s the same principle...to a degree. Isn’t being good at potions a requirement for being Doyle’s favourite?” He questioned idly.

Ariel sat back and kicked his legs up. He rested his feet on the chair beside Amelia’s and observed her coolly. “I cook because I want to,” he answered simply, “And because my mother would kill us all if she cooked.” He smirked and ate the fish he’d stabbed prior. Ariel put his fork back down and picked up his glass of wine, “There is much to see behind the labels, Amelia.” He said simply. “Just as much as there is to see behind your exterior. You, I think, are much easier to read than myself. Being an aristocrat gets you the right connections but it all boils down to one thing doesn’t it? Blood. Nowadays, being a Pureblood is no small thing to be. Not that it ever was mind you but there is only so much you can do before they begin to look for something below the surface. Ironic in my case, perhaps.” He smirked and sipped some of the wine. Yes, being a Pureblood was no small thing to be but being a Half-Blood, a Half-Breed was.

Oh that smirk. That smirk was something that ought to have made Amelia want to pull out her wand and make sure Ariel’s face swelled to the point where that sort of facial expression would no longer be possible. She would have considered it if it had been anyone else, or maybe if it had been only an hour earlier. But in the last hour, or maybe for longer than that and she just hadn’t noticed or admitted it, Amelia had become fascinated with Ariel at least to the point where she didn’t want to curse him. A person who had seemed like such a cut and dry case was starting to show cracks in the framework, if only subtle ones. And it was more than just the cooking and the being friends with House Elves bit. There was something more to why she was intrigued with this blond Slytherin boy, but she couldn’t yet put her finger on it.

He is an enigma… Amelia thought as Ariel pulled himself closer to the table, closing the space between them just slightly. Amelia wasn’t nervous yet, because the table was still between them, but just because she was curious about Ariel didn’t mean she wanted him in her personal space. As interesting as he was, Amelia also knew him to be dangerous, at least verbally, and anyone with that high a tolerance for causing pain to others surely had at least some capacity to do physical harm.

Amelia pursed her lips when Ariel finished chewing and commented on the fact that she had a cook. Yes, very good. You can hear… Amelia thought to herself as Ariel continued to hum – heaven only knew why – and then seemed to decide that what he was thinking was exactly what he was going to say. He taunted her, but Amelia wasn’t able to ignore or laugh it off as quickly as she might have wanted to. He wasn’t saying something out of scope or the realm of possibility just to get a rise out of her; instead, he was saying something she knew to be true, and something he had been able to perceive. Perceptive people were some of the most dangerous Amelia knew.

The redhead was able to scoff more easily when Ariel finished his pompous description of cooking and how it had to do with potions, ending with another comment about her being Doyle’s favorite. Amelia didn’t know whether or not she was Doyle’s favorite, but she did know that if she was, she hadn’t intentionally put herself in that position. In a constantly frustrating experience, Amelia had attempted to remain under the radar of her professors while still doing well, but those seemed to be mutually exclusive. The best and the worst got the attention, and those in the middle went by undetected. Amelia didn’t want to be ignored badly enough to do anything less than her best ,and thus she had to endure the attention of Doyle, Wilson, and just about everyone else with a teaching position at Hogwarts.

“Doyle doesn’t even like people,” Amelia retorted stubbornly, crossing her arms over her chest and leaning back in her chair, “So I’m pretty sure he doesn’t have favorites. He dislikes all of us equally.” Not exactly a full truth, but at least it was plausibly true. The old man was about as bitter as they came, and to anyone who didn’t know about Amelia’s meeting with him – which included all but the parties involved – would probably not have a lot of difficulty convincing themselves that Amelia’s version of things could be true.

Apparently Ariel didn’t care one way or another what Amelia was going to respond, which she should have anticipated. Ariel liked to get a rise out of people, but what form that response took seemed to matter little. As if to prove his nonchalance, he kicked his feet up on the chair next to her, and Amelia felt his leg brush by hers on its way up.

Instinctively, Amelia moved her legs away from Ariel’s, crossing one over another so that now most of her body was tied up in tense knots as Ariel made his explanation about why he liked to cook, which somehow segued into seeing beyond exteriors. It was at this point that Amelia began to really get defensive, wanting to blurt out at Ariel’s every breath to mind his own business. She was insulted that he would think he knew anything about her. He knew she was a pureblood – so what? There were so few pure lines left that everyone in the wizarding world more or less knew who belonged in that category. But still, it irked her that Ariel knew that tidbit about her and she knew relatively little about him. She knew his bloodline couldn’t be pure – the story that Ariel was Fenrir Greyback’s son couldn’t help but perpetuate itself in the cloistered environment that was Hogwarts – but she once again found herself mentally cursing the fact that she knew so very little about the person she had decided to strike up a conversation with. What had she been thinking – why him?

“If there was anyone who ought to know about wanting to shirk a label that had something to do with blood, I would think it should be you,” Amelia said bluntly, feeling her temper rising though she was keeping it in check for now, “My blood status does nothing for me except give me yet another set of parental expectations to live up to, and yours makes you the target of skepticism from the order, your peers… hell, even Doyle gives you crap about it.”

“So if you want to parade your blood line around like it is something to be proud of, your claim to fame, go ahead,” Amelia said, feeling anger that had less and less to do with the current conversation boiling in her stomach, “But I’d personally rather be known for what I’ve done than where I come from. My parents’ status may have given me my start, but what I did with it doesn’t belong to them. When people look below the surface I sure as hell hope they see something more than my bloodline.”