An HP Fairytale

[angeleledhwen]

So here, and late, my entry for whitemunin's fairytale challenge.

(Temporary) Title: Twas a dark and stormy night
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: JKR's, not mine.
Notes: Thanks, as usual, to Isis and Amanuensis for beta.


Are you sitting comfortably? Then I'll begin.

Once upon a time, in a land far, far away -

That's how it's supposed to start, isn't it? But it's not quite right. I'll start again, then.

Once upon a time, in a land not very far away, there lived an orphan boy whose name was Harry.

Ah, you think you know this story. Perhaps you do, at that, and perhaps you don't know it as well as you think. Listen carefully.

Once upon a time, in a land not so very far away at all, there lived a boy whose name was Harry. His parents had been killed by the evil wizard Voldemort when Harry was but a little baby. Harry's mother had loved him so much that her love had saved him, but she could do nothing to save herself, or her husband. So Harry, orphaned, had come to live with his uncle and aunt, the only family he had left.

I'm sorry to say that his aunt and uncle were not very nice people at all. You see, they knew something Harry didn't about his parents, something that made them despise him. They knew his parents had been wizards, and they were terrified of being different. And that wasn't all. They had a son, who they loved to distraction, and their knowledge was the perfect excuse to give him everything, and to mistreat Harry. They were doing the best for him, they told themselves. They were making sure his parents unnatural nature would never manifest itself. It wasn't their fault the boy was wilful and ungrateful, that he had an inexplicable hatred of his wonderful cousin. But since he did, they were perfectly justified in punishing him for it - or so they said.

So Harry grew up in that house, never quite knowing hatred, but never quite knowing love, either. He grew up lean - he was never fed quite enough - and fast - he had to be, for his cousin would beat him to a pulp, but only if he could catch him - where his cousin grew round and slow and squishy, like a great ball of dough. He grew up, wearing his cousin's old cast-off clothes, far too large for him, never having anything new of his own. He grew older, and taller, and beautiful, though there was never anyone to tell him so, and always wondering if there was something better than this life he led.

And then it all changed one day a few months after Harry's eleventh birthday. It was late on a dark and stormy Thursday evening, just at that time of year when summer starts fading almost imperceptibly into autumn, with the wind outside howling like a tormented soul and battering on the roof. They were all inside, Harry's uncle and cousin lingering over their dinner, his aunt hovering solicitously, Harry doing the washing up. Just as he began scrubbing the last dish, someone rapped three times at the door.

His aunt was immediately suspicious. Who would be out in such weather? They certainly weren't expecting anyone. Besides, they hadn't heard a car drive up. Still, his uncle got up and went to the front door. He opened it, and he blinked, and then he shut it again and went back to the dining room.

"Who was that?" Harry heard his aunt ask, but didn't catch his uncle's reply.

The raps came again, louder. Harry's uncle went back to the door. "Go away!" he shouted to whoever was on the other side.

There was a moment's silence, then the knocks came a third time, louder still. Harry's uncle turned away from the door, but it swung open behind him, letting in a gust of chill air. "What-" he began.

Harry, peering out of the kitchen, saw a great black cat-like creature - a jaguar, he thought - on the other side of the open door, the raindrops in his coat glistening in the light from the corridor. "I have come for Harry," said the jaguar to Harry's uncle, in a booming voice. "You do not care for him, and I will take him away, if he wishes to come."

Harry was frightened, of course - wouldn't you be, if a jaguar came for you? - but then he thought of what his life was like with his uncle and aunt and cousin. Wasn't this what he had been hoping for all along, a different life?

"Well, Harry?" asked the jaguar. "Will you come away with me."

"Yes," said Harry, and he went to the cupboard under the stairs where he slept, and gathered up some of his clothes, and one or two other things that his cousin had cast aside but he loved.

"Get on my back," said the jaguar, and so Harry seated himself there, finding it surprisingly comfortable. "Are you afraid, Harry?"

"No, not any more," Harry replied.

"Hold on tight to my fur and you will come to no harm." Harry twined his fingers firmly in the long fur of the jaguar's neck, and the jaguar began to run.

And in that way, Harry rode on the back of a jaguar, far, far away from his house and family, from the only things he had known in all his life. Eventually, as dawn began to appear over the horizon, they came to a great castle at the top of a mountain. The jaguar knocked on the door and it swung open before them, and they entered a brilliantly lit hallway, warm and beautiful. The jaguar padded through the corridors, Harry still on his back, until they came to another door where he stopped. "This is your room," he said, and gave him a silver bell. "Dry yourself, and change. Ring the bell if you want anything, food, or entertainment, or anything else that I can provide."

Harry nodded silently, opened the door, and stepped into his new room. The candles inside flickered to life, and he looked around and gasped. Everything was of the most beautiful kind possible, especially the bed. He had never had a bed, that he could remember, and this one was big enough for three to fit quite comfortably, with four carved posts and bedcurtains lavishly embroidered and pillows that looked soft as clouds. He threw himself into exploring the room, only remembering his wet clothes and hair when he opened a door at the side and found himself looking into a bathroom. He dried, and changed into some of the clothes he found in the wardrobe - clothes that fit as if they had been made just for him. And then he found he was hungry, having ridden all night without dinner, and so he rang the silver bell and found himself in a room with a long table spread with all the food his young, hungry heart could desire.

Just as he was finishing, and starting to think about going back to his room and trying out the bed, the jaguar came in. "Hello," said Harry, feeling that the jaguar who had brought him to this place was quite possibly the nicest person he had ever met, just for feeding him this well.

The jaguar nodded at him. "Do you find everything to your liking?" he asked.

"Oh, yes!" Harry replied, and he would have continued except for being interrupted by a huge yawn.

"Perhaps you should sleep a little," suggested the jaguar. "I shall start teaching you tomorrow, and you will need your rest."

"Teaching?"

"I will explain everything tomorrow. No more questions tonight, Harry."

Harry would have argued, but the jaguar had already turned to leave, and besides he really was very tired. So he rang the bell again, and fell into his bed, finding it as soft as it looked. He slept well and dreamlessly, the whole night through.

When Harry woke up, it was early afternoon, and he was hungry again. When he appeared in the dining room, he found the jaguar already there, waiting for him. "Eat quickly," he advised. "We have a great deal to do."

As Harry finally pushed away his plate, happily full, the jaguar began to speak. He told Harry that he was a wizard, and how his parents had really died at the hands of an evil wizard named Voldemort. He told Harry that he would teach him how to use his magic, and that he would be safe in this castle from the evil wizard until he could look after himself, and all of this Harry accepted, for no other reason than it felt true. And he warned Harry about Voldemort's followers, nearly as dangerous as the wizard himself, all of them marked with the evil wizard's sign on their arms. Then he gave Harry his wand, and began to show him how to use it.

That evening, Harry was in the library, reading one of the books the jaguar had set him. Outside, night had just fallen, but the candles - magical, he now realised - gave more than enough clear, bright light to read by. He heard the door open behind him, and turned to greet the jaguar. He just had time to realise that the footsteps approaching were not the jaguar's before all the candles flickered out. As his eyes adjusted, he could just make out a human figure approaching him in the starlight coming in through the windows. His heart beating faster, suddenly wondering if the jaguar had lied, or the evil wizard had found him, he reached for his wand. And as he did, the figure spoke, in the jaguar's voice.

"Oh, do put that away before you hurt yourself," he said, and Harry did. The man who was the jaguar sat down in the chair opposite Harry's, only the merging of the two patches of slightly darker darkness showing Harry the action.

He opened his mouth to ask what was going on, but the man cut him off. "Don't ask me any questions. I will tell you what I can. Anything else will endanger us both." Harry nodded, but his mind was already racing ahead, thinking of possible explanations. "All you may know for the moment is that I am indeed the jaguar who brought you here, and there are good reasons for my being here like this."

"Oh." Harry had been hoping for a bit more. "Er. One question?" he asked, squinting at the shape opposite.

"Go on."

"Do you, hm. Do you have a name?" he asked, hoping that it wasn't a question that would get him snapped at.

"Severus Snape."

Harry repeated the name, trying it out. "It's a nice name," he said after a moment. It sounded much more interesting than his own boring one, and far nicer than any of the Dursleys'. He wondered what the face was like that went with that name, and what indeed the rest of the person was like.

"I am very glad of your approval." Harry didn't know exactly how to read that tone, but he had the feeling he was being made fun of.

Years passed, in the castle atop the mountain. During the days, Severus the jaguar taught Harry how to use his magic, and more mundane subjects, too. Once night had fallen, Severus the man would keep him company, sitting with him in the library, longer and longer into the night as Harry grew older, and talking about almost every subject under the sun. It didn't take long for Harry to stop lighting the candles at all, knowing that they would go out as soon as the man came in. And although he wondered every time why he had never seen his face, he trusted that there was a good reason. The curiosity itched inside him more and more every day, though, as he got better and better at reading every nuance of the man's meaning in his voice without ever seeing his face.

And then, one day more than five years after Harry came to live in the castle, Harry found himself fumbling in the dark, kissing Severus (once he'd reoriented himself from Severus' chin to his mouth, that was), without ever realising quite how he came to be doing it. It wasn't exactly the most comfortable thing he'd ever done - he'd never kissed anyone before, and it didn't help that he couldn't see what he was doing. But it was nice, and even more surprising than doing it was that when he pulled away, and said "Oh," very quietly to himself, Severus didn't snap at him or even push him away. Harry had learnt long ago that when the man lost his temper, his rages were spectacular, noisy things, so hopefully that meant he was safe for the moment.

Long fingers brushed his face to find his chin, tilted it up, although Harry had no idea what Severus could be looking for. He certainly wasn't going to see anything in the darkness he insisted on. "Harry."

"Sorry," said Harry pre-emptively, just in case.

"You should only be sorry if you do something you regret."

Harry thought about that for a minute. "Then I'm not sorry."

"Good." Then Severus kissed him, and somehow he managed to aim in the dark, because that was much more comfortable, and nicer, and closer, and a lot of other things Harry didn't quite have words for.

Before too many more nights had passed, Severus went with Harry when he left the library, although he was never there when Harry woke up in the mornings. The jaguar still greeted him in the dining hall every morning, though. Harry didn't like to think too much about the fact that his lover was a jaguar by day, so he didn't.

Weeks went by, accumulating into months. Then, one night, Severus entered the library and said, "Harry, there is something I must tell you."

"What?" Harry wondered if some of the secrets would finally be revealed.

"You have a godfather, Harry. He has been in prison since your parents died, convicted of a part in their murder." Harry started to say something, but he couldn't put together any words coherently. "It has just emerged that he is innocent, and that someone else ensured he would be convicted for a crime he did not commit. He is, therefore, your rightful guardian."

"Oh," Harry said. And then, after a while, "Can I meet him, maybe?"

"Certainly you may, and you must. I will take you to him. But there is something you must promise me. Another friend of your parents will be there, and you must not tell either of them my name. If you do let it slip, then you must not talk with your godfather alone, but only when the other is there; for he will want to lead you into a room to talk with you alone; but that you must by no means do, or you will bring great misery on both of us."

So, a week after that talk, Harry mounted the jaguar again, and they set off for the house where his godfather lived. It was a long, long way, but eventually they came to a cottage on the outskirts of a forest, and here the jaguar set him down. "Remember what I told you," he said, as he turned to return to the castle.

"I will," Harry said, and he went in.

His godfather - Sirius - and the other man - Remus - greeted him gladly, and Harry found himself comfortable there almost from that first moment. They wanted to hear all about Harry's life, as Harry wanted to know about theirs, and everything they could tell him about his parents. They exchanged stories as the days passed, tales of their schooldays in return for Harry's accounts of his time at castle - he'd skipped quickly over living with the Dursleys.

One day, as Harry was telling them about one of his more spectacular mishaps while trying to create a potion under the jaguar's guidance, Sirius asked "Does he have a name, this jaguar?"

"Severus," Harry replied without thinking, and then realised what he'd said, but it was too late.

"Severus? Severus Snape?" Sirius looked about to jump out of his seat, but then he looked at Remus and took hold of himself. Harry waited to see what would happen, but all Sirius said was, "Carry on with the story, Harry."

That wasn't the end of it, however. Just as Severus had predicted, Sirius tried to get Harry alone on several occasions after that. Harry was determined to keep at least that part of his promise, and wouldn't go. But one evening, a full moon outside, Remus was nowhere to be found, and Sirius cornered him.

"Harry," he said, "have you ever seen him?"

Harry had to admit that he hadn't. "But I'd love to," he added. After all, he had been wondering about it for almost seven years, and even more intensely in the last few.

"I know you haven't known anyone else for so many years, and you like him, but he is not a good man," Sirius said. "Look at him, and you'll know it." Harry started to shake his head, to say something, but his godfather carried on. "You want to see him anyway, don't you? I can help you do that. I'll give you a bit of candle to take away with you. It shouldn't be affected by whatever spells he has if you keep it hidden, and then you can look at him when he's asleep. You do know where he sleeps?"

Harry nodded, privately convinced he wouldn't change his opinion of Severus just because of his face, but unable to resist finding out what he looked like.

"Good. But you must be careful not to drop any wax on him. There's no telling what he might do to you if he wakes up and finds you looking at him. Remember, though, we'll always want you here."

That evening, the jaguar came to take Harry back to the castle on top of the mountain. At first, he asked about the visit, and Harry enthusiastically told him all about it. Then the jaguar asked him if what he had predicted had happened, and Harry had to admit that it had. "If you have done what your godfather wished, you have brought great misery upon us," the jaguar warned.

Harry, with honesty, said he had not done anything at all, and for a moment, he almost gave up the idea altogether. But the next night, after Severus fell asleep, he got up, took the candle from the wardrobe, and lit it with the lighter Sirius had also given him just before he left.

Walking back to the bed, he parted the curtains, and leaned over to let the light shine on the man. He registered the face of his lover, somewhere in his mind, but something else was far more important. On Severus' forearm, exposed by the way his nightshirt had fallen back, was a mark Harry recognised. The mark of Voldemort's followers. Harry gasped, and leaned down to look more closely. It couldn't be what it seemed like.

It was. As he jerked back in shock, the candle tilted and three drops of hot wax fell on Severus' shirt, waking him.

His eyes opened. "What have you done now?" Severus asked as soon as he realised the meaning of the candle.

Harry tried to say something, although even he wasn't sure if it was an angry accusation or a simple question.

But Severus seemed to understand the meaning of his gesture. "Yes, I was once a follower of Voldemort. I betrayed him when I realised what his rule would mean, and he cursed me to wear the form of the jaguar by day, and a man by night. If you had only held out to the end of seven years, you would have known all you needed to defeat him and I would have been free. Now I am under his power, and must leave you and return to him."

Harry could say nothing to this, but when Severus started to get up, he burst out with, "Where are you going? Tell me the way and I'll follow you and do what I'm supposed to do!"

"He lives in a castle east of the sun and west of the moon, and you will never find your way there. Somnus."

When Harry woke, he was lying in the middle of a dark, thick wood, his wand in his hand and a small bundle beside him. For a moment, he had no idea how he came to be there, but then all the night's events came back to him, and he knew that he had to find Severus.

There was a part of him that asked, how could he know Severus had not lied? Maybe all of this was a trap to lure him into Voldemort's clutches, he thought, the words of his godfather coming back to him. Yet he also remembered more than six years of living together, and that he loved him, and he simply did not believe he was lying.

So he set out, and as he did not know the way he chose a direction and began to walk. He walked a very long time, and as he did, he thought that the jaguar could have borne him on its back so much faster. Eventually he came to a house at the foot of a mountain, and outside it sat an old man with a long, white beard, and Harry thought to tell him his story and ask him if he knew the way to the castle east of the sun and west of the moon.

"I know nothing about it," replied the old man, "but that it is east of the sun and west of the moon. You will be a long time in getting to it, if ever you get there at all, but you shall have the loan of my broomstick to visit my brother: perhaps he may know where the castle is, and when you have got to him you may just strike the broomstick on the handle and bid it go home again; but you may take this with you." And saying that, he gave Harry an iridescent stone he had been passing from hand to hand as he spoke, and a warning not to sell it, though he would know who to give it to when the time came.

So Harry rode on the broomstick to the old man's brother, who was different only in that he had a beard even longer and whiter than the first, and he did nothing that was any different from his brother had, save that he gave him a magical cloak which had the power of making its wearer invisible.

And so Harry came to the eldest brother, who had the longest, whitest beard of all, and he gave Harry a sword with a gold and ruby hilt, and told him to ask directions of the East wind.

But the East wind took him to the West, and the West to the South, and the South to the North, and Harry was beginning to run out of hope, but never out of determination to put right what he had done wrong.

And the North wind, once he had calmed enough for his speech to be audible to mortal ears, told Harry that he had once blown a leaf there, but it was near the limit of his powers. Still, he said, he would help Harry if he truly wanted to go there, and if he was not afraid.

"I must get there," said Harry, "and if there is any way of going I will; and I have no fear, no matter how fast you go."

"Very well then," said the North Wind; "but you must sleep here to-night, for if we are ever to get there we must have the day before us."

The North Wind woke him the next morning, and puffed himself up, and away they went as if they would not stop until they had reached the very end of the world. But that was only how they started. They went on and on, a long time went by, then yet more time passed, and the North Wind grew tired, and more tired, and at last so utterly weary that he was scarcely able to blow any longer. He sank and sank, lower and lower, until at last he went so low that the waves dashed against the heels of the boy he was carrying, and by then it had grown dark, with no moon and few stars.

"Art thou afraid?" said the North Wind.

"I have no fear," Harry replied as he had before, and it was true. They were not very far now, and there was just enough strength left in the North Wind to enable him to throw Harry the last little bit, down under the windows of a castle which lay east of the sun and west of the moon.

The next morning, Harry woke where he had been dropped by the wind, and sat there to think a while, for all his aim this far had been to get to the castle, and now that he had arrived, he did not know what to do next. As he thought, he played absently with the stone the first old man had given him, and the time passed by until a shadow covered him. He looked up, and saw a man standing there, a man Harry recognised from Severus' description of the dark wizard's followers, but even surprised as he was, Harry gave no sign that he did recognise him.

"How much do you want for that stone of yours, boy?" asked the man, with nothing in the way of introduction.

"It can't be bought either for gold or money," Harry replied, as he had been told.

"If it cannot be bought for either gold or money, what will buy it? You may say what you please," said the man.

"There is a man who came here recently, and I want to sit with him tonight," Harry asked, and the other man, not realising who this was, or perhaps eager to get him into the dark wizard's power so easily, agreed.

And so, Harry handed over the stone, and that night he was shown to Severus' apartment, where he found him sleeping, but when he shook him, he awoke easily. Severus' surprise and pleasure at seeing him was a great relief to Harry. Once their reunion was done, Harry had to tell him how he had come, and Severus explained that the man had attempted to give him a sleeping draught with that night's meal, but being skilled in the magical arts as Harry knew, Severus had detected it and contrived not to drink it.

When the stories were done, Harry only had one more question - how Severus could escape the castle, and the curse Voldemort had placed on him.

"There is a stain on my skin, which you have seen," Severus said. "I cannot leave this place unless it is removed, and that can only happen if the dark wizard dies. The stone you brought was the last thing he needs to bring himself back, and it is only when he has a body again that he can finally be killed." Then, he told Harry what to do on the following day, when Voldemort would complete his plan.

So the next day, wearing his magic cloak, Harry crept into the castle by the secret way Severus had told him of. Hidden in a corner of the great hall which had been set up for the ritual, the sword which had been the last gift of the old men at his side, Harry waited for the right moment. All of the dark wizard's followers entered, cloaked and masked. Harry knew that Severus was among them, but he could not tell which one he was. A cauldron was prepared, and then he did know him, because it was Severus that stepped forward, and his voice that chanted as he prepared the potion.

And finally, Voldemort himself appeared. Harry didn't know exactly what he had been expecting, but a strong gust of wind with a cloak on top certainly wasn't it. Another of the dark wizard's followers stepped forward and dropped the stone into the cauldron as Voldemort plunged in. There was a flurry of noise, like a pot suddenly boiling over, and then - nothing.

Harry crept closer after a few minutes. Had it not worked? Was Voldemort dead already? His followers weren't acting as if anything was wrong.

When Harry was only a few metres away from the cauldron, a long, pale body uncurled itself from inside. Harry didn't need Severus' warning look, unnoticed by the others in their staring at Voldemort's resurrection, to know that this was the moment - the only possible moment - to strike. The sword was out and striking almost before he knew what he was doing, and a distant part of him marvelled at how easy it was to kill someone. Voldemort crumpled back into the cauldron, and it was all over. All Voldemort's followers were incapacitated by the breaking of the dark ties he had bound them with, Severus included, just as he had said, and it was easier than Harry had imagined to lift him with a spell and flee the castle. When Severus woke, he chanted a spell and they returned to the castle on the mountain where they had lived without the need for the North Wind to carry them. Voldemort and his followers were never heard of again.

Well, not quite, perhaps. That's where the fairytale ends. It was all over with the Dark Lord's defeat, and they lived happily ever after. What of the rest of their lives? What did happen to all of the dark wizard's followers? Surely they didn't just let Harry and Severus live in peace? What happened when Harry's godfather found out he loved Severus?

The story doesn't say. I suppose we'll never know. It may be safe to say that 'happily ever after' doesn't quite fit it, but it's the best we have.

And Harry and Severus lived happily ever after for the rest of their lives.