shostakobitchh

[shostakobitchh]

Hi! I just read the new chapter of splintering, and it was just GREAT. I had a quick question, I noticed that Harry’s name is mentioned here and there and was wondering if he’s just James’ kid with someone else?

Yeah Harry exists here - James had a kid with Mary McDonald (who's also dead, she died shortly after Harry was born) after Lily joined the Order. He's the same age as Ariel. They've met a couple of times, you'll meet him before the end of the story :-)

[shostakobitchh]

Chapter 7: take it back

They stare at one another for what feels like eons. Ariel’s quite sure that decades pass in a single moment, in between her next inhale, in the space of her heartbeat.

Ariel's vision tunnels, the edges going black as a roaring fills her ears. The letter crumples in her fist. 

She bolts. 

She doesn’t get far. She manages to get around Dad, who’s eyes widen a fraction as she hurtles toward and past him, whipping around the corner and sliding as her socks lose traction. Then she’s making a break for the back door in the kitchen, but Dad is faster. He catches her around the middle, his arm like an iron band pinning her against his side. 

"Let me go!" Ariel shrieks, writhing and kicking in his grasp. "You liar! You bloody liar!"

Dad's grip only tightens as Ariel thrashes, her fists pummeling his chest with all the strength her small frame can muster. He grunts in pain, but he doesn't let go. If anything, his grip turns nearly bruising as he maneuvers them both away from the back door and into the living room. Ariel kicks and claws the entire way, hurling accusations through her sobs. 

"You never sent them! All this time, you've been lying to me! You said you sent them, you promised! You’re a liar!” 

Dad doesn't respond, just wrestles Ariel onto the couch, pinning her thrashing limbs. She manages to land a few more blows, but Dad's strength overpowers her. He captures her wrists in one large hand, pressing them against her heaving chest.

“Enough,” he snarls. “You will be still or I will make you.” 

Ariel gasps for air between sobs, her face wet with tears and snot. “Let me go — let me go!” 

She can't believe he's done this —- that he's lied to her for months, letting her pour her heart out into those letters, thinking they were reaching Remus and her friends when really they were moldering away in some hidden safe. They must be so worried — 

“Where are you taking her?” Remus had shouted after them. “Snape — SNAPE —”

"Why?" she demands, her voice hoarse. "Why would you — why?” 

Ariel lets out another sound that scrapes her throat raw. She renews her struggles, twisting and bucking against her father's iron grip. Dad still says nothing, his face an impassive mask even as Ariel rails against him. His dark eyes are shuttered, giving nothing away, and it only fuels her anger.

Her accusations bounce off him like pebbles against a stone wall. He remains as unyielding as ever, weathering the storm without giving an inch. 

With each passing second, Ariel's fury turns to something colder, something harder.

She stops fighting him after what feels like hours, falling limp in his merciless grip and lets her tears fall freely. Her cheeks burn from crying, her throat achy and hoarse.

"Why?" Ariel asks again, quieter this time. When he still doesn't answer, she swallows down a sob and turns away from him.

There's a sharp pain in her wrists as Dad finally lets go of her. She cradles them in her lap, staring blankly down at the tender skin while Dad watches on. She can feel Dad's gaze still on her, a tangible pressure she does not have the strength to meet. His hands flex restlessly at his sides, one long finger tapping against his leg in rhythm with the ticking clock.

Ariel finds herself staring at that hand, tracing the lines of heavy calluses and old scars that mark their surface with her eyes. That hand, which had once held her now bears down on her like a crushing weight. 

It’s a hand that has kept her confined — trapped — isolated. 

Her voice wavers as she speaks again. "Why did you keep them from me?"

Dad still doesn’t speak, his dark eyes boring into Ariel with an intensity that sends shivers down her spine. There is no answer, no attempt to justify his actions. His silence is louder than any spoken words, echoing around them with a resonance that hits Ariel like a physical blow.

The realization hits her then — Dad may have been silent but he was listening. He heard each word she spat, every accusation and plea, and chose to remain unmoved.

She knows how to make him talk. She’s known for a while now — she knows how to hurt him, how to twist the knife and make him hurt so badly he’ll spill guts out. That thing is out of its mind, but it’s not a liar — not like her father. 

“You’re a Death Eater,” Ariel swallows, hard, swallows until her mouth is bone dry. “You were one of them. That's why we had to run — it’s because of you."

Dad's face goes white, his lips pressing into a thin, bloodless line. For a long, agonizing moment, he just looks at Ariel — not that she thinks he’s really seeing her anymore — his dark eyes glittering with something dangerous. 

“What,” his lips don’t move. “did you say?” 

She reaches down so deep within herself for her courage that she nearly drowns on the way back up, to where her voice tries to flee from her. “I know what you are. I know what you did. The letters — they never knew you were my dad because you were one of his.” 

Dad rises from his knees. He stares down at her and his stare is all black — black eyes, blacker than she’s ever seen them, blacker than the Instant Darkness, blacker than the place her stomach sinks to, like a stone. 

Her chest heaves, each inhale uncontrolled — she’s going to start hyperventilating, if she’s not careful. She’s going to completely lose it and she can’t — not now. She’s got to be in control if she’s going to get out of here. 

“Careful, girl.” Dad whispers. His voice is liquid nitrogen. 

Ariel’s heart skips a full beat — maybe two. “That’s why we’re out here, in the middle of bloody nowhere, isn’t it? Because you have to be careful.” 

His hand strikes out and grabs her jaw — holds her there, but she reckons she’s pinning him to the floor with her eyes, because he hasn’t moved — only sways slightly on his feet. 

She wraps her hand around his, lets her nails dig into his skin but doesn’t pull — not this time. 

When Dad finally speaks, his voice is low and deadly calm, each word enunciated with icy precision. "I have done many things in my life that I am not proud of. Things that would make your blood run cold if you knew the full extent of them, but everything — everything — I have done since the moment you were born has been to keep you safe — to protect you from the people that would see you destroyed for the crime of merely existing."

Ariel’s heart nearly ejects itself up her throat. “Why go through all the trouble of having me, then? Or is that why it took you years to come around? You left Mum alone all that time — it was James who was there — who still came —” 

Dad gives her a shake and she stops, only because she’s so badly started by it. "You cannot begin to fathom the sacrifices I have made, the parts of myself I have carved out and left behind, all so that you may live — so that you may have a future beyond the reach of the Dark Lord's shadow."

“Thanks so much,” Ariel bares her teeth at him to keep them from clattering together. “Thanks so much for betraying the psychotic madman who murdered my mother!” 

Dad's hand loosens, falls away from her face. His gaze drops to the ground and the flickering lantern light catches on his high cheekbones, hollowing out his face even further. 

“I didn’t betray him for you,” he corrects softly, painfully. “I betrayed him for her and it wasn't enough.”

Ariel stares at him. Her chest caves in — that must be what the roaring in her ears is. She wants to roar at him, wants to scrape her nails against his skin and tear, wants to inflict her own sort of wound, one she knows will fester. 

She’s never felt that way before. 

It shouldn’t be a shock when a pale head passes just behind her father’s. It says nothing, but it’s watching, now — Ariel’s probably giving it one hell of a show. She doesn’t care. Her father might as well be that thing in her closet — maybe he sent it. Maybe it’s some dark magic he couldn’t cleave from. 

"I hate you," Ariel whispers hoarsely, the words ripped from some deep chasm inside her. "Mum is dead because of you!”

She sees the impact they have, watching as something in her father's eyes fractures, a hairline crack spider webbing across obsidian. He takes a step back then, like her words are some kind of Hex, and Ariel feels a sick sort of satisfaction.

"I know," he says simply. His voice is razor-blade thin, on the edge of shattering. 

She feels her father's grip slacken. It's just a fraction, the barest loosening of his iron hold, but it's enough. With a desperate wrench, Ariel tears herself free, nearly tumbling off the couch in her haste to escape.

She scrambles to her feet, chest heaving, tears still coursing down her flushed cheeks. Her father is staring at her, his hands still outstretched as if to pull her back, but he makes no move to do so. 

Ariel doesn’t give him the chance. She snatches up the knife she’d left on the coffee table, and then she’s running, heart pounding like a war drum in her chest. The house is quiet and cold as a tomb as she flees down the narrow hallway, but she can feel it — that sickening sensation of being watched, of malicious eyes boring into her back.

The Thing makes no move to follow, content to watch from its murky corner as Ariel barrels past and into her bedroom. 

She wrenches open the closet door — 

And Ariel falls. 

[shostakobitchh]

gonna have a new chapter of the splintering up in a little bit!

[shostakobitchh]

You said I killed you— haunt me, then!

Be with me always— take any form— drive me mad! Only do not leave me in this abyss, where I cannot find you!

[Emily Brontë's Wuthering Heights]

[shostakobitchh]

hey loooo

i know many are chomping at the bit for chapter 69 (or the splintering) and I thought I’d pop on quick to say that I have written most of chapter 7 of the splintering and exactly 50 words of chapter 69. it’s been nonstop for me since christmas and this weekend will be the first time i’m able to like, sit and breathe, so i’ll be working on them then

love u all ✨❤️

[shostakobitchh]

Accurate representation ☺️

[shostakobitchh]

I re-read A&I for the millionth time-

I can’t believe I forgot that Snape curb-stomped Qurriel. Blue didn’t even pull out his wand, he just-

👳🏻‍♂️👢

My favorite part about that is that Dumbledore definitely had to explain why Quirrell’s brain was splattered all over the floor to Ministry officials.

He definitely just used the “that horrid tom, when he left quirrell his head exploded!” excuse - all why Snape is foaming at the mouth in the corner bc burning a piece of paper nearly got his daughter killed. The aurors are all giving serious side-eye at Snape like “you sure about that Headmaster?” and after Snape calms down like 3 months later Dumbledore decides to broach the subject and Snape just smiles the whole time, reliving the memory.

Cut to Ariel and Ron and Hermione who literally had nightmares about it.

In short: that boot was PERSONAL.

[shostakobitchh]

I find it funny to think of how Snape would watch from afar as Ariel interacted with boys, only to make those boys' lives hell in Potions class. Detention for you, sir, for daring to come near my daughter not making this potion correctly.

Snape, from behind a pillar, hissing at every male:

Ariel, who has like zero interest in the opposite sex currently:

[shostakobitchh]

IF Cedric and Ariel are gonna be “a thing” in GoF and go to the Yule Ball together or something- I can just Imagine Snape in the corner, glaring over his daughter’s shoulder at Cedric like:

If Cedric had a choice between the graveyard and Snape, he would choose the graveyard.

[shostakobitchh]

i just re-read aim and ignite for the 35th time and it’s so phenomenal!

i have a question! in your version of the events of CoS, DOES Dumbledore know where the Chamber of Secrets is the whole (or part of) the time and just doesn’t reveal that information, as Snape suspects? or was he being honest when he said Fawkes was called to Ariel just in her hour of need?

thank you angel, I loved reading your comments over the past couple of days. I have a busy month ahead of me work-wise so seeing your reread gave me some bright spots ✨

*frantically opens notes*

I believe Dumbledore had ~suspicions~ of where it was but he wasn’t certain — like he had an idea of where it could be but really had no way of knowing. He was being partially honest — Fawkes went where he was needed — but Dumbledore also knew Snape wouldn’t be far behind. He’s well aware that kid is going to have a shadow with a shotgun.

[shostakobitchh]

JDKSKWKSKSKSKKSSKSKSKS

Me: Oh, I really like Severitus, but I’m not interested in reading bio kid fics

Shostakobitch: Haha you thought

[shostakobitchh]

Emily Brontë, Wuthering Heights

[shostakobitchh]

Just thought of Harry, in a moment of complete and utter frustration at Severus calling him a motherfucker. Dumbledore tells him off, but Harry just doubles down and goes “WELL HE IS? He is a mother fucker- He fucked my mother! You’re gonna look at me and tell me that I’m wrong?”

[shostakobitchh]

oh to get wine drunk with your childhood best friend

[shostakobitchh]

They’re definitely studying. You have to hold hands to read palms.

[shostakobitchh]

For Aim and Ignite, I’m wondering just what Snape’s reaction would be to Umbridge’s detentions with Ariel…

If he nearly killed Lupin based on suspicion alone, I can’t imagine the carnage that would ensue when Snape gets his hands on the toad

it’s trickier because Snape could probably actually get away with murdering Lupin, but Umbridge is a Ministry plant who thinks Snape is essentially aligned with her views. so Snape is forced to fake it, which we all know, he is NOT good at doing. And Dumbledore will be keeping a WAY closer eye on him by that point, because his top lieutenant has been severely compromised since *maury voice* he is the father.

I… actually haven’t mapped out a lot of OoTP because I don’t want to deal with Sirius right now, but I do know I’d like for Ariel to be the one to deal with Umbridge because it’ll be personal — Snape, being Snape, will want to claw Umbridge’s eyes out with a fork, but it also takes some of Ariel’s power away from her if Snape is the one to deal with the blood quill. I’m in severe denial about Ariel growing up but - as many people have pointed out - her role models are currently (1) an ex-terrorist with severe mental issues and trauma (2) a werewolf with severe mental issues and trauma and (3) an escaped convict with severe mental issues and trauma. so this is going to lead to Ariel becoming… way more vindictive and zero impulse control when she’s upset or angry. Dumbledore is trying from the shadows to curb this because he sees it coming a mile away - that’s why he was so insistent Snape steps the fuck up. You see a little bit of Ariel’s Snape-ness showing when Draco spilled the beans about Sirius — Ariel lost her shit and goes straight to confront Lupin and Snape, knowing it could spills the beans (and ultimately does).

So — I know we all want Snape to curb-stomp Umbridge like he did to Quirrell, and he’ll probably try to fuck with her, but this battle belongs to our girl.

[shostakobitchh]

🎁🎄🦌 MERRY CHRISTMAS 🦌🎄🎁