Challenge Fic: Fidelity
Fidelity
By minnow_53
Disclaimer: These characters belong to JK Rowling.
Rating: PG
Summary: A bereaved king takes steps to avoid a disastrous remarriage.
Pairing: Remus/Sirius
AN: This fic is loosely based on Donkey Skin by Charles Perrault.
This is my challenge fic for hp_fairytales. Now crossposted to remusxsirius and the_kennel.
Fidelity
Once upon a time, in a beautiful kingdom of plains and valleys, forests, rivers and a city full of light and warmth, there lived two kings.
The pair loved each other dearly: they had been best friends nearly all their lives, since the day they first met at an investiture their royal parents were attending. On that occasion, Prince Sirius dragged Prince Remus out to the garden and asked, ‘Would you like to climb to the top of that pine tree with me?’ to which Prince Remus replied with an emphatic ‘Yes!’
Of course, both boys got into huge trouble, especially as Sirius managed to fall off the highest branch and break his collarbone, while Remus completely ruined his state outfit of gold breeches and silk shirt. Not that he minded: he found it far too fussy, and it was hopeless for running, jumping and playing in.
Sirius’s collarbone soon mended, and as his and Remus’s parents reigned over neighbouring kingdoms, the two princes saw a lot of each other.
When Prince Sirius turned sixteen, the senior courtiers suggested to his parents that it was time he was wed. Princesses from kingdoms both near and far came to the court to be paraded in front of him.
Princess Jezzabella was very beautiful, but Prince Sirius objected to her politics. ‘If I marry her, there will be no kingdom at all in a few years’ time, merely a republic!’ he told his father, the king, who was tempted to clap Jezzabella in irons and throw her into the deepest dungeon, but refrained: though he did send a letter to her parents warning them of her subversive views.
Princess Coral was too short. ‘How can my queen have authority when her feet won’t even touch the floor as she sits on her royal throne?’ Sirius asked his parents, who conceded that dangling legs were not very regal.
Prince Remus turned sixteen a few months later, and similar scenes occurred at his parents’ palace, where he saw a parade of princesses identical to those turned down by Prince Sirius: for the world in those days was very small.
He took a particular dislike to Princess Amalia. ‘She looks like a silly doll, with her golden hair and round eyes,’ he said to his father. ‘I expect that when she lies on the bed she will close her eyes and bleat, ‘Mama!’’
It was generally agreed that this would not be conducive to begetting an heir to the kingdom.
Eventually, both princes had interviewed between them every princess on earth, and they finally met up to compare notes. When Prince Remus saw Prince Sirius again, he thought, ‘How beautiful he is! If he were a princess, I would marry him and love him with all my heart.’
And Prince Sirius thought, ‘Why can’t any of those princesses be like my friend Remus? He’s so sensible and kind, and his eyes are the colour of the sky.’ And he reached out to touch Remus’s hair, and Remus reached back to stroke his cheek, and soon they were hugging like long-lost lovers who have finally found each other again.
‘I could certainly beget an heir with Sirius, if that were possible,’ Remus thought dreamily, as far as he could think at all with Sirius’s body pressed against his, and Sirius mumbled, ‘I do like your long legs, Remus.’ And then, everything was settled in a few kisses, and the princes agreed that they would go to their respective parents and tell them they wanted each other, not any silly princesses.
Though the parents were shocked, they could see the advantages of the union. For a start, the two kingdoms could be merged, which was only logical, as they had coexisted peacefully since time began.
‘Think how powerful we would be if our sons joined forces,’ the fathers said, sipping mead from vast goblets as they discussed the politics of it all.
The mothers, once they’d stopped crying and started contemplating the union as a real possibility, were equally amenable. After they’d seen Remus and Sirius together a few times, they agreed that they were just adorable, and so obviously in love.
‘They look so handsome together!’ the two queens rhapsodised. ‘Like two halves of a whole.’ And indeed, Sirius with his black hair and grey eyes, and Remus with his fair hair and blue eyes, were like moon and sun, night and day, winter and summer.
The two princes were united in a huge ceremony attended by dignitaries from all over the world, and the kingdoms became one kingdom and thrived mightily. Soon afterwards their parents all abdicated, and Remus and Sirius succeeded to the throne and ruled in their turn, wisely and well.
Sirius could sometimes be a bit impulsive. He would try to pass legislation making court jesters compulsory in all houses with more than six windows, or outlaw the ermine linings in courtiers’ cloaks, because he liked to see the little beasts running round in the snow.
But Remus, fortunately, was more level-headed. ‘Just think about it, Sirius. Most of our subjects would be appalled to have a jester lodging in the spare room, and cracking jokes over breakfast. In my opinion, nobody should try to be funny before midday.’
‘I don’t mind you being funny any time,’ Sirius said, kissing Remus on the tip of his nose, and Remus said, ‘Now, don’t distract me! We were talking about fur. The kingdom is overrun with weasels and stoats, so you could line a hundred cloaks with ermine and still have plenty left over! And you didn’t like ermines so much when that one bit you.’
They compromised, as all sensible couples do, by banishing jesters altogether and making it illegal to cull ermines during the month of December. So everyone was happy, and life ran smoothly for several years, both in the palace and throughout the kingdom.
*
There came a summer, though, when a great plague swept through the world, borne with tea and spices in ships sailing from the east. The disease spread relentlessly, sparing not a soul in its path.
At the height of the pandemic Remus and Sirius shut up the palace so nobody bearing the fatal infection could enter, but nonetheless, one evening Sirius said, ‘I feel so strange, Remus. My head is aching dreadfully.’ He then threw up vast quantities of thick, black matter and the dreaded buboes appeared all over his body. Remus barely had time to say a last goodbye to him before he was dead.
Naturally, Remus wished himself dead too. ‘I will surely contract the plague as well,’ he wept, kissing Sirius’s lifeless lips with abandon. ‘And then I shall join my beloved Sirius in heaven.’
However, by some ironic chance, Sirius was the only person in the quarantined palace to become sick, and Remus remained resolutely, if reluctantly, alive. Worse still, Sirius was one of the final victims: a few days later the plague had burned itself out and vanished from that part of the world, leaving hundreds of people bereft in its wake.
Sirius, of course, had a huge state funeral, attended by every survivor in the kingdom. Remus, as befitted a monarch, stood still as a stone by the graveside and shed not a single tear, but in his private chambers he wept and tore his hair out and vowed to Sirius that they would soon be together again forever.
*
Autumn passed, then winter, but Remus hardly registered the seasons, noting with some surprise one morning that it seemed to be June again.
In those days, it was the law that a widowed monarch had to marry his nearest female relative once a decent period of mourning had passed. Ancient kings were therefore bound to espouse their young daughters, mature rulers to marry nieces barely past school age. The law was rarely enforced, because most monarchs died of what passed for old age at that time, and their consorts soon followed. However, Remus was still quite young by any standards, so there was no way he could avoid a second union.
He had no female relatives of his own, bar a senile great-grandmother, but the late King Sirius had an unmarried cousin at court, Princess Nymphadora. She was an only child, and something like twentieth in line to the throne. She was also rather tiresome, the two kings had always thought.
Princess Nymphadora was greatly given to pranks, even though she had now attained the age of sixteen. She dyed her hair with cochineal, and thought it hilarious to talk gibberish to foreign ambassadors, or put sneezing powder in the pepper at state luncheons.
When Sirius was still alive, the two kings were always scolding her for some misdemeanour or other, and she’d look up at them piteously and wail, ‘But it was only a joke!’
‘It wasn’t remotely amusing, Cousin,’ Sirius would say through gritted teeth, and later, when he and Remus were alone, he’d rant about her. ‘Nymphadora’s getting more and more impossible! Perhaps we should banish her to a convent.’
‘Which one would have her, dear Sirius? As far as we know, there’s no order of loopy princesses with pink hair.’
After her cousin died, Nymphadora allowed her hair to go back to its natural black, and with her grey eyes she looked a bit like Sirius in certain lights. Everyone commented on it, and Nymphadora’s mother went as far as to say, ‘When King Remus marries you, he’ll be very happy that you look so like my dead nephew. Why, he just needs to squint and he can pretend you’re Sirius.’
But of course, she was a foolish woman: Nymphadora’s resemblance to Sirius only made Remus miss him more, and there were moments when he wished she’d died instead of him. ‘After all, she’s totally expendable,’ he’d say out loud, while he was bathing in the morning. ‘Sirius didn’t like her at all.’
Actually, Sirius had probably loved his cousin as much as cousins do love each other, without sweating it, but he would certainly not have loved her enough to want Remus to marry her. So when the courtiers and Nymphadora’s parents started pressuring Remus to name the date, he understandably flew into a rage.
‘Sirius is barely cold in his grave and you want me to marry that child?’ he snarled, and the most senior courtier said, ‘With all respect, Sire, King Sirius has been dead for nearly a year now. It’s time to move on.’
Nymphadora herself requested, or rather, demanded, an audience with Remus herself. ‘Dear cousin - for you are my cousin by marriage! - surely Sirius would want us to be happy?’
‘I can’t be happy with you,’ Remus retorted rather rudely. ‘You’re a girl, and you must have noticed that I don’t like girls. Besides, you’re half my age! I could be your father.’
‘Not quite,’ said Nymphadora, who was very gifted with numbers. ‘You’re only about twelve years older. Cousin Sirius would have been twenty-eight had he not died, and you two were the same age, weren’t you?’
At the mention of Sirius’s tragically early demise, Remus was so upset that he ordered Nymphadora out of the throne-room; but this caused a flurry among the courtiers. In fact, one of them summoned the Prime Minister, a rather frightening-looking man with a hooked nose, who told Remus, ‘Your Majesty, if you will not honour the traditions of the kingdom, the Government will have no choice but to appoint a regent. Why on earth don’t you just marry Princess Nymphadora? You can pension her off eventually, if you like. Would you really prefer to be deposed as king?’
Remus liked being king, apart from the weird marriage customs, so he relented a bit. ‘Well, I don’t want to cause a lot of trouble... Give me a month to prepare myself, and then Nymphadora and I shall be married. I hear that July is a propitious time for a wedding.’
The Prime Minister said, ‘That’s my boy!’ and slapped Remus on the back, and the courtiers immediately held a meeting to plan seating arrangements and a wedding feast. As for Nymphadora, she was duly informed that she must have a suitable dress ready.
*
While the court rejoiced, Remus shut himself in his private quarters, having first ordered a pot of tea and some biscuits from the servants, and pondered how he was going to get out of this impossible marriage.
As he sipped his tea, he remembered the many times he and Sirius had sat in this same room, holding hands and discussing matters of state. He thought of how Sirius was always the one with the bright ideas, even if Remus sometimes had to temper them to make them workable. Remus missed their talks dreadfully: he hadn’t had a single idea of his own since Sirius died.
‘If you’re anywhere in the universe, I wish you’d come back to me,’ he muttered, gazing out of the casement with eyes dimmed by tears; and suddenly he noticed a big black dog frolicking in the palace gardens beneath his window. Not just frolicking: it seemed to look directly up at him, and wagged its tail. For some reason, its eager expression reminded him of Sirius in playful mood, like the time he passed a decree that all Mondays should be national holidays.
Remus felt compelled to leave his chambers and run down the twelve marble staircases to the garden, where he found the dog waiting for him. ‘Well, you can’t be waiting for me!’ Remus demurred out loud. ‘You’re only a dog.’
‘I’m not just any dog,’ the animal retorted quite crossly. ‘I’ve been sent to help you.’
‘By Sirius?’ cried Remus. He was so overwhelmed that he quite forgot that dogs didn’t usually talk.
‘Sort of,’ the dog said, rather more gently. ‘You could say I’m your fairy godfather, or furry godfather, if you like! Sirius is fine, by the way, and sends his love. He can’t wait to see you again, but begs you not to do anything rash, or you’ll go to the wrong place when you die and be separated from him forever.’
Remus, who still occasionally wished to fling himself from the highest turret, shuddered and said, ‘Well, if we’re to save my immortal soul, I must get out of marrying Princess Nymphadora. If I do, I’ll either drink myself to death, or end up murdering her after a month or two.’
‘I’d do exactly the same,’ said the fairy godfather dog. ‘She’s such an awfully hearty girl, isn’t she? Still, the law is the law, and you can only get round it if Nymphadora finds someone else she wants to marry and breaks off the engagement herself.’
‘I can’t imagine anyone would want to marry her,’ Remus said, and the dog put up his front paw and said, ‘You’d be surprised. She’s quite attractive, and she has a vast fortune. Just because you don’t like princesses doesn’t mean other people don’t.’
The law specifically stated that no widowed king could openly solicit a marriage between his closest female relative and another man. So Remus had to think laterally about the problem, and was glad to have some input from his new friend, the big black dog.
They decided to convene all the marriageable princes to a conference, where Remus would pretend he was planning to create a commonwealth. He called on Nymphadora to join in, on the grounds that she was going to be his wife and therefore needed to be aware of how the kingdom was run.
‘One of the princes is bound to fall in love with her,’ the dog said. ‘That’s what princes do, isn’t it? And then you’ll be rid of her for good.’
Unfortunately, the new generation of princes seemed a dreary lot and not inclined to fall in love at all, if they even knew what love was. The conference got off to a poor start when they demanded how a commonwealth would affect their own finances.
‘For,’ said the Prince of Moldavia, ‘if nobody makes a profit, there’s no point.’
‘Exactly,’ chimed in a bespectacled prince with a beard. He addressed the company at some length, speaking of stoats and their fur as ‘the national product’ and expressing a desire to keep sales figures high.
Even the handsome prince of Gallia, who looked Nymphadora up and down appreciatively when she came in, joined in the discussion about raising the profile of wheat. Remus noted that he also took a handful of free quills home with him.
By the time the proceedings were brought to a close, the dog was snoring softly in a corner and Nymphadora’s eyes were glazed over with boredom. Remus felt great relief as the princes were packed off in their golden charabanc.
‘At least Nymphadora hated the conference too,’ Remus thought, ‘so we do have something in common.’ But Nymphadora spoiled his moment of empathy by stamping her foot and complaining that her day had been ruined, and when they were married she expected rather more exalted entertainment.
Later that evening, Remus called for the black dog, who had wandered off after his nap.
‘We’ll have to think of something else,’ he said, and the dog said, ‘I should have known a conference was a bad idea. Conferences bring out the very worst in everyone. Next time, I have a right of veto.’
King Remus was very indignant, but the dog put its paw on his knee and said, ‘It wasn’t your fault the princes were so dull! Anyway, it was helpful to see them all together, because I was able to do some research, and I’ve found that the Prince of Gallia is actually Nymphadora’s soul-mate.’
‘Him? He only perked up when the refreshments were served,’ said Remus.
‘Just a pose. He’s very shy, really. Needs a push. But I’ve compared their astrological charts, and believe me, those two should be together. She’s forward where he’s reserved, dark where he’s fair, impulsive where he’s thoughtful... It’s a match made in heaven.’
‘How can a dog read astrological charts?’ Remus asked, and the dog said, ‘I’m very special, and intuitive too.’
‘Will you read my chart?’ Remus asked.
‘When we’ve got this lot sorted out,’ said the dog. ‘Nymphadora’s the most stubborn girl in the kingdom, so it won’t be easy to persuade her to marry the Prince of Gallia. But I have another idea, though you’ll have to implement it. First, you need to steal Nymphadora’s golden ring, the one she wears on the little finger of her left hand...’
They plotted deep into the night, and early in the morning, Remus put aside his kingly robes and donned an old wolf skin that was folded up at the back of his vast wardrobe. He’d shot the wolf himself by mistake, when he was aiming at an ermine, and its pelt had come in very useful. He and Sirius had used it as a disguise when one or other of them wanted to mingle anonymously with their subjects.
‘It’s so refreshing to live the simple life of a commoner for a few hours,’ Sirius used to say, though of course very few commoners wandered round in a rather smelly wolf skin.
With the fur wrapped round him, Remus crept into Nymphadora’s room, and removed the gold ring from her bedside table, stopping for a moment to make sure he hadn’t woken her. He then left the palace by the back door and made his way to the kingdom of Gallia, having first written a note for his courtiers and ministers so nobody would dethrone him in his absence.
‘Gone hunting. I’ll be back for the wedding! Love to Nymphadora.’
*
The wolf skin wasn’t the best attire for a hot day, and by the time he reached his destination, Remus was sweaty and dirty and looked like a vagrant who’d been living rough in the woods. That was no bad thing, because his intention was to ask for a job in the Gallian palace kitchens. He noted that the servants’ entrance was decorated with wooden carvings of kettles and cauldrons and chickens roasting on spits, and vowed that if he got home safely he would commission similar ones for his own palace.
The Gallians were famous for their feasts and banquets, so there were always vacancies for scullery boys in the kitchens. Remus was hired on the spot, and set to washing a mountain of filthy golden plates.
‘But I’m not sure about that fur,’ said the footman who hired him. ‘It looks very unhygienic, and isn’t it a bit hot?’
‘I have an allergy,’ Remus explained, rather alarmed, for he didn’t want the footman to notice he was far too old to be a scullery boy. ‘I must wear it to stave off hives.’
The footman shrugged. ‘Suit yourself. Just don’t sweat on to the clean plates.’
The Gallian court always held a huge banquet on Midsummer Day, which fell the following week. While the cooks were busy starting on the preparations, Remus, under cover of his wolf skin, sneaked out of the palace to intercept the messenger bearing the invitations to the great event. He jostled him roughly as he went by, whereupon the messenger dropped the pile of invitations and growled, ‘Watch your step, Wolfie! You can pick these up for me.’
‘With pleasure,’ Remus said, and collected together the slightly soiled envelopes, slipping in an invitation for Princess Nymphadora as he did so.
He then slunk into the woods, where the black dog was waiting with a small parcel containing a gipsy woman’s outfit, one of many costumes that he and Sirius had worn over the years at fancy-dress balls. It was rather too fine perhaps for a real gipsy, with a shawl of the softest cashmere, a bandanna dyed with indigo and a skirt shot through with strands of gold, but Remus felt it looked authentic enough.
The black dog wagged its tail in approval, then stood and admired Remus for a moment before sending him on his way. He stayed to guard the wolf skin and Remus’s clothes, while the king in his gipsy garments made his way to the front door of the castle and rang for entrance.
‘I must have an audience with the prince immediately,’ he announced to the butler, who seemed reluctant to open the door further than a crack: perhaps he should have brought along a few sprigs of lucky heather. ‘I have seen his future bride in my crystal ball.’
The butler was unimpressed, but fortunately the Prince of Gallia himself happened to be hovering in the great hall behind him. When he understood that the gipsy was going to tell him about his future marriage, he immediately flung open the door as wide as it would go and said, ‘Do come in! Now, what’s all this about brides?’
Remus just hoped the prince wouldn’t recognise him from the day of the boring conference, or worse, as a new member of the kitchen staff, but the skirt and bandanna proved a perfect disguise. The prince ushered him in and said, ‘Let’s go to the library, where we can talk in peace. I suppose you want me to cross your palm with silver and so on?’
‘No, no,’ said Remus hastily.
They sat in a window seat overlooking a very fine rose garden in full bloom, and for the first time since Sirius’s death, Remus found himself enjoying a beautiful view without feeling sad that Sirius was missing it. When he realised this, he was so distracted that the prince had to ask him twice what he’d seen in the crystal ball. He also forgot to pitch his voice higher than usual, and had to clear his throat a couple of times before he got it right.
‘I have seen two astrological charts in perfect harmony with each other,’ Remus finally intoned; though that wasn’t strictly true, as only the dog had seen them. ‘You will find a gold ring in your food at the midsummer banquet. Try it on the little finger of every princess present, and the one it fits will be your true love.’
‘You saw all that?’ the prince asked with shining eyes.
‘Yes. Oh, and there was a warning. Be careful you don’t break a tooth.’
He then remembered that the dog had told him to add, ‘She will be a princess both strange and familiar,’ so he did, though the words sounded a bit forced to his ears. Luckily, the prince didn’t seem to notice, but wrung the ersatz gipsy’s hand with great enthusiasm, and insisted he take a gold piece before leaving.
*
On the day of the banquet, Remus waited until the kitchen was hot and smoky and busy, then left his wolf skin propped against the sink, where it looked quite threatening, and stole out with a dish of freshly-baked rolls. He’d decided not to trust to fate and allow the ring to be mixed in with the dough, but to put it in the roll himself. The roll was a bit mauled about when he’d finished, but the prince was going to be so excited when he actually found the ring that he probably wouldn’t notice.
Remus then, rather belatedly, washed his hands and face at the pump, and made his way to the banqueting hall to lay the rolls ready on the side plates. Luckily, the Gallians went in for place-cards and so it was easy to find out where the prince was sitting. Remus also took the opportunity of removing the place-card for the Dowager Queen of Cartesia and replacing it with one that read ‘Princess Nymphadora’, for of course nobody else knew she’d received an invitation. The Dowager Queen was a formidable lady and perfectly capable of making a fuss and bullying the serving maids into preparing a seat for her elsewhere.
Just as he was tiptoeing out of the room, a lurking footman caught hold of his collar and said, ‘Oi, you! Why did you put the rolls on the side plates? We usually serve them in baskets.’
‘It’s a new fashion,’ Remus said, trying to wriggle away. ‘All the most up-to-date monarchs are serving their rolls like this. You can have your baskets too, of course. These are just to eat with the soup.’
‘Oh, all right,’ said the footman, and let Remus go. He ran back to the kitchen, put on his wolf skin, and scrubbed the breakfast dishes with such vigour that the chef himself said admiringly, ‘That scullery boy will go far!’
The guests started arriving at eight, and Remus left the kitchen for the last time, not without some relief. The black dog was waiting for him in the courtyard, and the two of them positioned themselves just outside the banqueting hall, where they could see and hear exactly what was going on without being seen themselves. The wolf skin was discarded: Remus folded it up as small as it would go and put on a set of his best robes, so nobody could possibly mistake him for a servant any more.
‘Don’t scrunch it up too much, though,’ the dog said. ‘If our plan fails, you may need it again.’
‘If our plan fails, it’ll be your turn to take a job in the kitchens!’ Remus exclaimed, ruffling the dog’s fur playfully.
The hall looked wonderful on this longest day of the year, lighted with thousands of candles as well as the golden sun. The royal visitors were resplendent in gowns of rich brocade, shirts of delicate cloth woven from the threads of fat silkworms. Nymphadora looked especially lovely in her full-skirted dress of white satin with silver embroidery.
‘I bet that’s her wedding dress,’ the dog said, nudging Remus with his nose.
‘Huh? But she doesn’t yet know she’s getting married,’ Remus said, confused.
‘You’re still a bit absent-minded, aren’t you?’ the dog said affectionately, standing on his hind legs to lick Remus’s face. ‘The dress she was going to wear to marry you. She doesn’t normally go in for such formal clothes. She probably had nothing else to hand.’
‘She can’t wear the same dress to marry the Prince of Gallia,’ said Remus, and the dog gave a bark that sounded very like a laugh. ‘She won’t need to, will she? I’m sure her prince will be happy to give her a dress like the sun and moon and rain, all mixed together.’
While Remus was trying to envisage such a complicated garment, the party sat down to their meal. By some serendipitous twist of fate, the Dowager Queen of Cartesia was indisposed with a summer cold, so nobody made a fuss about the missing place-card, which was still in Remus’s pocket.
The soup was served and everyone started to eat. Remus, roused from his sartorial musings, watched closely as the prince cut his roll instead of breaking it, having obviously taken the warning about his tooth seriously. He examined the inside carefully, duly found the gold ring, and gave a shriek of surprise and triumph that echoed round the banqueting hall. He then turned to his next door neighbour in great agitation, and insisted that she try the ring on: but his neighbour happened to be the Crown Princess of Scotia, who was both old and ugly, and the ring was far too small for her pudgy little finger.
As the prince did the rounds of the table, it seemed to Remus, and possibly to the dog as well, that his face lit up when he saw Princess Nymphadora, remembering that he was to find a princess both strange and familiar: and when the ring slid smoothly on to her finger, every guest at the banquet rose and applauded.
Predictably, Nymphadora herself made a bit of a fuss. ‘Hang on!’ she expostulated. ‘I know nothing about a gipsy prophecy, though this is certainly my ring. Anyway, I’m supposed to be marrying King Remus in a fortnight’s time.’
The Prince of Gallia said, ‘But that’s a marriage of convenience, isn’t it? You may break off the engagement at once if there’s someone you like better.’
Nymphadora pondered for a moment. ‘We...ell. He is a lot older than me, and his dead partner was another man, so it probably won’t be a very romantic match. But he’s awfully powerful.’
‘So am I,’ said the prince, quite indignantly.
‘Oh, all right,’ conceded Nymphadora. ‘But you must promise me you’ll never try to found a commonwealth. If you ever utter a word about sales figures or national industry, I shall divorce you.’
‘Fine with me,’ the prince replied, and they hugged rather stiffly as the guests applauded again.
When the clapping had died down, the prince, with a flourish, produced a large diamond and said, ‘This is to complement the ring that brought us together, my dear Nymphadora.’ He slipped in on her wedding finger and Nymphadora immediately looked much happier, even allowing herself a slight smile.
‘He doesn’t seem very reserved to me,’ Remus whispered, and the dog replied, ‘Well, it’s all relative, isn’t it? As long as he’s willing to marry Nymphadora, our plan’s worked just fine.’
They slipped silently away and started off home, the wolf skin safely tucked under Remus’s arm.
‘They’ll wonder what happened to the new scullery boy,’ Remus remarked, and the dog said, ‘I wouldn’t worry about it. But your courtiers will want to see the pelts of those deer and stoats you’re supposed to have shot on your hunting trip.’
‘I’ll just say I missed every one,’ Remus answered. ‘After all, this wolf is the only animal I ever managed to kill.’
He and the black dog walked on companionably until they reached his own kingdom and palace, chatting about this and that. The midsummer sun had long since set by the time they climbed the stairs to Remus’s rooms, but they were so absorbed in their discussion that they didn’t even notice.
*
Nymphadora became Princess of Gallia, and quite a temperamental one, given to throwing crockery at her poor husband, who sometimes wished he had never allowed the gipsy into his palace. Still, he consoled himself by reflecting that their astrological charts were compatible even if the two of them were not, which was some comfort.
The black dog remained in the palace with the king until Remus died a few years later, at which time the dog also disappeared. Some of the courtiers had got quite fond of it: after Remus’s state funeral, they searched for the dog for days, almost as upset at losing him as they were at losing their monarch.
Remus and Sirius were joyfully reunited in heaven, but it was a strange thing: when Remus told his beloved everything that had happened after he died, Sirius laughed and said, ‘Oh, I know all that. I was watching over you every second. You didn’t think something as trivial as death could part us, did you?’ And they clung to each other as if they’d never let go, proving that true love really does last for all eternity.
Stranger still, the dog didn’t only disappear from the face of the earth but he never arrived in heaven either; though perhaps he went to a canine paradise all his own.
End
By minnow_53
Disclaimer: These characters belong to JK Rowling.
Rating: PG
Summary: A bereaved king takes steps to avoid a disastrous remarriage.
Pairing: Remus/Sirius
AN: This fic is loosely based on Donkey Skin by Charles Perrault.
This is my challenge fic for hp_fairytales. Now crossposted to remusxsirius and the_kennel.
Fidelity
Once upon a time, in a beautiful kingdom of plains and valleys, forests, rivers and a city full of light and warmth, there lived two kings.
The pair loved each other dearly: they had been best friends nearly all their lives, since the day they first met at an investiture their royal parents were attending. On that occasion, Prince Sirius dragged Prince Remus out to the garden and asked, ‘Would you like to climb to the top of that pine tree with me?’ to which Prince Remus replied with an emphatic ‘Yes!’
Of course, both boys got into huge trouble, especially as Sirius managed to fall off the highest branch and break his collarbone, while Remus completely ruined his state outfit of gold breeches and silk shirt. Not that he minded: he found it far too fussy, and it was hopeless for running, jumping and playing in.
Sirius’s collarbone soon mended, and as his and Remus’s parents reigned over neighbouring kingdoms, the two princes saw a lot of each other.
When Prince Sirius turned sixteen, the senior courtiers suggested to his parents that it was time he was wed. Princesses from kingdoms both near and far came to the court to be paraded in front of him.
Princess Jezzabella was very beautiful, but Prince Sirius objected to her politics. ‘If I marry her, there will be no kingdom at all in a few years’ time, merely a republic!’ he told his father, the king, who was tempted to clap Jezzabella in irons and throw her into the deepest dungeon, but refrained: though he did send a letter to her parents warning them of her subversive views.
Princess Coral was too short. ‘How can my queen have authority when her feet won’t even touch the floor as she sits on her royal throne?’ Sirius asked his parents, who conceded that dangling legs were not very regal.
Prince Remus turned sixteen a few months later, and similar scenes occurred at his parents’ palace, where he saw a parade of princesses identical to those turned down by Prince Sirius: for the world in those days was very small.
He took a particular dislike to Princess Amalia. ‘She looks like a silly doll, with her golden hair and round eyes,’ he said to his father. ‘I expect that when she lies on the bed she will close her eyes and bleat, ‘Mama!’’
It was generally agreed that this would not be conducive to begetting an heir to the kingdom.
Eventually, both princes had interviewed between them every princess on earth, and they finally met up to compare notes. When Prince Remus saw Prince Sirius again, he thought, ‘How beautiful he is! If he were a princess, I would marry him and love him with all my heart.’
And Prince Sirius thought, ‘Why can’t any of those princesses be like my friend Remus? He’s so sensible and kind, and his eyes are the colour of the sky.’ And he reached out to touch Remus’s hair, and Remus reached back to stroke his cheek, and soon they were hugging like long-lost lovers who have finally found each other again.
‘I could certainly beget an heir with Sirius, if that were possible,’ Remus thought dreamily, as far as he could think at all with Sirius’s body pressed against his, and Sirius mumbled, ‘I do like your long legs, Remus.’ And then, everything was settled in a few kisses, and the princes agreed that they would go to their respective parents and tell them they wanted each other, not any silly princesses.
Though the parents were shocked, they could see the advantages of the union. For a start, the two kingdoms could be merged, which was only logical, as they had coexisted peacefully since time began.
‘Think how powerful we would be if our sons joined forces,’ the fathers said, sipping mead from vast goblets as they discussed the politics of it all.
The mothers, once they’d stopped crying and started contemplating the union as a real possibility, were equally amenable. After they’d seen Remus and Sirius together a few times, they agreed that they were just adorable, and so obviously in love.
‘They look so handsome together!’ the two queens rhapsodised. ‘Like two halves of a whole.’ And indeed, Sirius with his black hair and grey eyes, and Remus with his fair hair and blue eyes, were like moon and sun, night and day, winter and summer.
The two princes were united in a huge ceremony attended by dignitaries from all over the world, and the kingdoms became one kingdom and thrived mightily. Soon afterwards their parents all abdicated, and Remus and Sirius succeeded to the throne and ruled in their turn, wisely and well.
Sirius could sometimes be a bit impulsive. He would try to pass legislation making court jesters compulsory in all houses with more than six windows, or outlaw the ermine linings in courtiers’ cloaks, because he liked to see the little beasts running round in the snow.
But Remus, fortunately, was more level-headed. ‘Just think about it, Sirius. Most of our subjects would be appalled to have a jester lodging in the spare room, and cracking jokes over breakfast. In my opinion, nobody should try to be funny before midday.’
‘I don’t mind you being funny any time,’ Sirius said, kissing Remus on the tip of his nose, and Remus said, ‘Now, don’t distract me! We were talking about fur. The kingdom is overrun with weasels and stoats, so you could line a hundred cloaks with ermine and still have plenty left over! And you didn’t like ermines so much when that one bit you.’
They compromised, as all sensible couples do, by banishing jesters altogether and making it illegal to cull ermines during the month of December. So everyone was happy, and life ran smoothly for several years, both in the palace and throughout the kingdom.
*
There came a summer, though, when a great plague swept through the world, borne with tea and spices in ships sailing from the east. The disease spread relentlessly, sparing not a soul in its path.
At the height of the pandemic Remus and Sirius shut up the palace so nobody bearing the fatal infection could enter, but nonetheless, one evening Sirius said, ‘I feel so strange, Remus. My head is aching dreadfully.’ He then threw up vast quantities of thick, black matter and the dreaded buboes appeared all over his body. Remus barely had time to say a last goodbye to him before he was dead.
Naturally, Remus wished himself dead too. ‘I will surely contract the plague as well,’ he wept, kissing Sirius’s lifeless lips with abandon. ‘And then I shall join my beloved Sirius in heaven.’
However, by some ironic chance, Sirius was the only person in the quarantined palace to become sick, and Remus remained resolutely, if reluctantly, alive. Worse still, Sirius was one of the final victims: a few days later the plague had burned itself out and vanished from that part of the world, leaving hundreds of people bereft in its wake.
Sirius, of course, had a huge state funeral, attended by every survivor in the kingdom. Remus, as befitted a monarch, stood still as a stone by the graveside and shed not a single tear, but in his private chambers he wept and tore his hair out and vowed to Sirius that they would soon be together again forever.
*
Autumn passed, then winter, but Remus hardly registered the seasons, noting with some surprise one morning that it seemed to be June again.
In those days, it was the law that a widowed monarch had to marry his nearest female relative once a decent period of mourning had passed. Ancient kings were therefore bound to espouse their young daughters, mature rulers to marry nieces barely past school age. The law was rarely enforced, because most monarchs died of what passed for old age at that time, and their consorts soon followed. However, Remus was still quite young by any standards, so there was no way he could avoid a second union.
He had no female relatives of his own, bar a senile great-grandmother, but the late King Sirius had an unmarried cousin at court, Princess Nymphadora. She was an only child, and something like twentieth in line to the throne. She was also rather tiresome, the two kings had always thought.
Princess Nymphadora was greatly given to pranks, even though she had now attained the age of sixteen. She dyed her hair with cochineal, and thought it hilarious to talk gibberish to foreign ambassadors, or put sneezing powder in the pepper at state luncheons.
When Sirius was still alive, the two kings were always scolding her for some misdemeanour or other, and she’d look up at them piteously and wail, ‘But it was only a joke!’
‘It wasn’t remotely amusing, Cousin,’ Sirius would say through gritted teeth, and later, when he and Remus were alone, he’d rant about her. ‘Nymphadora’s getting more and more impossible! Perhaps we should banish her to a convent.’
‘Which one would have her, dear Sirius? As far as we know, there’s no order of loopy princesses with pink hair.’
After her cousin died, Nymphadora allowed her hair to go back to its natural black, and with her grey eyes she looked a bit like Sirius in certain lights. Everyone commented on it, and Nymphadora’s mother went as far as to say, ‘When King Remus marries you, he’ll be very happy that you look so like my dead nephew. Why, he just needs to squint and he can pretend you’re Sirius.’
But of course, she was a foolish woman: Nymphadora’s resemblance to Sirius only made Remus miss him more, and there were moments when he wished she’d died instead of him. ‘After all, she’s totally expendable,’ he’d say out loud, while he was bathing in the morning. ‘Sirius didn’t like her at all.’
Actually, Sirius had probably loved his cousin as much as cousins do love each other, without sweating it, but he would certainly not have loved her enough to want Remus to marry her. So when the courtiers and Nymphadora’s parents started pressuring Remus to name the date, he understandably flew into a rage.
‘Sirius is barely cold in his grave and you want me to marry that child?’ he snarled, and the most senior courtier said, ‘With all respect, Sire, King Sirius has been dead for nearly a year now. It’s time to move on.’
Nymphadora herself requested, or rather, demanded, an audience with Remus herself. ‘Dear cousin - for you are my cousin by marriage! - surely Sirius would want us to be happy?’
‘I can’t be happy with you,’ Remus retorted rather rudely. ‘You’re a girl, and you must have noticed that I don’t like girls. Besides, you’re half my age! I could be your father.’
‘Not quite,’ said Nymphadora, who was very gifted with numbers. ‘You’re only about twelve years older. Cousin Sirius would have been twenty-eight had he not died, and you two were the same age, weren’t you?’
At the mention of Sirius’s tragically early demise, Remus was so upset that he ordered Nymphadora out of the throne-room; but this caused a flurry among the courtiers. In fact, one of them summoned the Prime Minister, a rather frightening-looking man with a hooked nose, who told Remus, ‘Your Majesty, if you will not honour the traditions of the kingdom, the Government will have no choice but to appoint a regent. Why on earth don’t you just marry Princess Nymphadora? You can pension her off eventually, if you like. Would you really prefer to be deposed as king?’
Remus liked being king, apart from the weird marriage customs, so he relented a bit. ‘Well, I don’t want to cause a lot of trouble... Give me a month to prepare myself, and then Nymphadora and I shall be married. I hear that July is a propitious time for a wedding.’
The Prime Minister said, ‘That’s my boy!’ and slapped Remus on the back, and the courtiers immediately held a meeting to plan seating arrangements and a wedding feast. As for Nymphadora, she was duly informed that she must have a suitable dress ready.
*
While the court rejoiced, Remus shut himself in his private quarters, having first ordered a pot of tea and some biscuits from the servants, and pondered how he was going to get out of this impossible marriage.
As he sipped his tea, he remembered the many times he and Sirius had sat in this same room, holding hands and discussing matters of state. He thought of how Sirius was always the one with the bright ideas, even if Remus sometimes had to temper them to make them workable. Remus missed their talks dreadfully: he hadn’t had a single idea of his own since Sirius died.
‘If you’re anywhere in the universe, I wish you’d come back to me,’ he muttered, gazing out of the casement with eyes dimmed by tears; and suddenly he noticed a big black dog frolicking in the palace gardens beneath his window. Not just frolicking: it seemed to look directly up at him, and wagged its tail. For some reason, its eager expression reminded him of Sirius in playful mood, like the time he passed a decree that all Mondays should be national holidays.
Remus felt compelled to leave his chambers and run down the twelve marble staircases to the garden, where he found the dog waiting for him. ‘Well, you can’t be waiting for me!’ Remus demurred out loud. ‘You’re only a dog.’
‘I’m not just any dog,’ the animal retorted quite crossly. ‘I’ve been sent to help you.’
‘By Sirius?’ cried Remus. He was so overwhelmed that he quite forgot that dogs didn’t usually talk.
‘Sort of,’ the dog said, rather more gently. ‘You could say I’m your fairy godfather, or furry godfather, if you like! Sirius is fine, by the way, and sends his love. He can’t wait to see you again, but begs you not to do anything rash, or you’ll go to the wrong place when you die and be separated from him forever.’
Remus, who still occasionally wished to fling himself from the highest turret, shuddered and said, ‘Well, if we’re to save my immortal soul, I must get out of marrying Princess Nymphadora. If I do, I’ll either drink myself to death, or end up murdering her after a month or two.’
‘I’d do exactly the same,’ said the fairy godfather dog. ‘She’s such an awfully hearty girl, isn’t she? Still, the law is the law, and you can only get round it if Nymphadora finds someone else she wants to marry and breaks off the engagement herself.’
‘I can’t imagine anyone would want to marry her,’ Remus said, and the dog put up his front paw and said, ‘You’d be surprised. She’s quite attractive, and she has a vast fortune. Just because you don’t like princesses doesn’t mean other people don’t.’
The law specifically stated that no widowed king could openly solicit a marriage between his closest female relative and another man. So Remus had to think laterally about the problem, and was glad to have some input from his new friend, the big black dog.
They decided to convene all the marriageable princes to a conference, where Remus would pretend he was planning to create a commonwealth. He called on Nymphadora to join in, on the grounds that she was going to be his wife and therefore needed to be aware of how the kingdom was run.
‘One of the princes is bound to fall in love with her,’ the dog said. ‘That’s what princes do, isn’t it? And then you’ll be rid of her for good.’
Unfortunately, the new generation of princes seemed a dreary lot and not inclined to fall in love at all, if they even knew what love was. The conference got off to a poor start when they demanded how a commonwealth would affect their own finances.
‘For,’ said the Prince of Moldavia, ‘if nobody makes a profit, there’s no point.’
‘Exactly,’ chimed in a bespectacled prince with a beard. He addressed the company at some length, speaking of stoats and their fur as ‘the national product’ and expressing a desire to keep sales figures high.
Even the handsome prince of Gallia, who looked Nymphadora up and down appreciatively when she came in, joined in the discussion about raising the profile of wheat. Remus noted that he also took a handful of free quills home with him.
By the time the proceedings were brought to a close, the dog was snoring softly in a corner and Nymphadora’s eyes were glazed over with boredom. Remus felt great relief as the princes were packed off in their golden charabanc.
‘At least Nymphadora hated the conference too,’ Remus thought, ‘so we do have something in common.’ But Nymphadora spoiled his moment of empathy by stamping her foot and complaining that her day had been ruined, and when they were married she expected rather more exalted entertainment.
Later that evening, Remus called for the black dog, who had wandered off after his nap.
‘We’ll have to think of something else,’ he said, and the dog said, ‘I should have known a conference was a bad idea. Conferences bring out the very worst in everyone. Next time, I have a right of veto.’
King Remus was very indignant, but the dog put its paw on his knee and said, ‘It wasn’t your fault the princes were so dull! Anyway, it was helpful to see them all together, because I was able to do some research, and I’ve found that the Prince of Gallia is actually Nymphadora’s soul-mate.’
‘Him? He only perked up when the refreshments were served,’ said Remus.
‘Just a pose. He’s very shy, really. Needs a push. But I’ve compared their astrological charts, and believe me, those two should be together. She’s forward where he’s reserved, dark where he’s fair, impulsive where he’s thoughtful... It’s a match made in heaven.’
‘How can a dog read astrological charts?’ Remus asked, and the dog said, ‘I’m very special, and intuitive too.’
‘Will you read my chart?’ Remus asked.
‘When we’ve got this lot sorted out,’ said the dog. ‘Nymphadora’s the most stubborn girl in the kingdom, so it won’t be easy to persuade her to marry the Prince of Gallia. But I have another idea, though you’ll have to implement it. First, you need to steal Nymphadora’s golden ring, the one she wears on the little finger of her left hand...’
They plotted deep into the night, and early in the morning, Remus put aside his kingly robes and donned an old wolf skin that was folded up at the back of his vast wardrobe. He’d shot the wolf himself by mistake, when he was aiming at an ermine, and its pelt had come in very useful. He and Sirius had used it as a disguise when one or other of them wanted to mingle anonymously with their subjects.
‘It’s so refreshing to live the simple life of a commoner for a few hours,’ Sirius used to say, though of course very few commoners wandered round in a rather smelly wolf skin.
With the fur wrapped round him, Remus crept into Nymphadora’s room, and removed the gold ring from her bedside table, stopping for a moment to make sure he hadn’t woken her. He then left the palace by the back door and made his way to the kingdom of Gallia, having first written a note for his courtiers and ministers so nobody would dethrone him in his absence.
‘Gone hunting. I’ll be back for the wedding! Love to Nymphadora.’
*
The wolf skin wasn’t the best attire for a hot day, and by the time he reached his destination, Remus was sweaty and dirty and looked like a vagrant who’d been living rough in the woods. That was no bad thing, because his intention was to ask for a job in the Gallian palace kitchens. He noted that the servants’ entrance was decorated with wooden carvings of kettles and cauldrons and chickens roasting on spits, and vowed that if he got home safely he would commission similar ones for his own palace.
The Gallians were famous for their feasts and banquets, so there were always vacancies for scullery boys in the kitchens. Remus was hired on the spot, and set to washing a mountain of filthy golden plates.
‘But I’m not sure about that fur,’ said the footman who hired him. ‘It looks very unhygienic, and isn’t it a bit hot?’
‘I have an allergy,’ Remus explained, rather alarmed, for he didn’t want the footman to notice he was far too old to be a scullery boy. ‘I must wear it to stave off hives.’
The footman shrugged. ‘Suit yourself. Just don’t sweat on to the clean plates.’
The Gallian court always held a huge banquet on Midsummer Day, which fell the following week. While the cooks were busy starting on the preparations, Remus, under cover of his wolf skin, sneaked out of the palace to intercept the messenger bearing the invitations to the great event. He jostled him roughly as he went by, whereupon the messenger dropped the pile of invitations and growled, ‘Watch your step, Wolfie! You can pick these up for me.’
‘With pleasure,’ Remus said, and collected together the slightly soiled envelopes, slipping in an invitation for Princess Nymphadora as he did so.
He then slunk into the woods, where the black dog was waiting with a small parcel containing a gipsy woman’s outfit, one of many costumes that he and Sirius had worn over the years at fancy-dress balls. It was rather too fine perhaps for a real gipsy, with a shawl of the softest cashmere, a bandanna dyed with indigo and a skirt shot through with strands of gold, but Remus felt it looked authentic enough.
The black dog wagged its tail in approval, then stood and admired Remus for a moment before sending him on his way. He stayed to guard the wolf skin and Remus’s clothes, while the king in his gipsy garments made his way to the front door of the castle and rang for entrance.
‘I must have an audience with the prince immediately,’ he announced to the butler, who seemed reluctant to open the door further than a crack: perhaps he should have brought along a few sprigs of lucky heather. ‘I have seen his future bride in my crystal ball.’
The butler was unimpressed, but fortunately the Prince of Gallia himself happened to be hovering in the great hall behind him. When he understood that the gipsy was going to tell him about his future marriage, he immediately flung open the door as wide as it would go and said, ‘Do come in! Now, what’s all this about brides?’
Remus just hoped the prince wouldn’t recognise him from the day of the boring conference, or worse, as a new member of the kitchen staff, but the skirt and bandanna proved a perfect disguise. The prince ushered him in and said, ‘Let’s go to the library, where we can talk in peace. I suppose you want me to cross your palm with silver and so on?’
‘No, no,’ said Remus hastily.
They sat in a window seat overlooking a very fine rose garden in full bloom, and for the first time since Sirius’s death, Remus found himself enjoying a beautiful view without feeling sad that Sirius was missing it. When he realised this, he was so distracted that the prince had to ask him twice what he’d seen in the crystal ball. He also forgot to pitch his voice higher than usual, and had to clear his throat a couple of times before he got it right.
‘I have seen two astrological charts in perfect harmony with each other,’ Remus finally intoned; though that wasn’t strictly true, as only the dog had seen them. ‘You will find a gold ring in your food at the midsummer banquet. Try it on the little finger of every princess present, and the one it fits will be your true love.’
‘You saw all that?’ the prince asked with shining eyes.
‘Yes. Oh, and there was a warning. Be careful you don’t break a tooth.’
He then remembered that the dog had told him to add, ‘She will be a princess both strange and familiar,’ so he did, though the words sounded a bit forced to his ears. Luckily, the prince didn’t seem to notice, but wrung the ersatz gipsy’s hand with great enthusiasm, and insisted he take a gold piece before leaving.
*
On the day of the banquet, Remus waited until the kitchen was hot and smoky and busy, then left his wolf skin propped against the sink, where it looked quite threatening, and stole out with a dish of freshly-baked rolls. He’d decided not to trust to fate and allow the ring to be mixed in with the dough, but to put it in the roll himself. The roll was a bit mauled about when he’d finished, but the prince was going to be so excited when he actually found the ring that he probably wouldn’t notice.
Remus then, rather belatedly, washed his hands and face at the pump, and made his way to the banqueting hall to lay the rolls ready on the side plates. Luckily, the Gallians went in for place-cards and so it was easy to find out where the prince was sitting. Remus also took the opportunity of removing the place-card for the Dowager Queen of Cartesia and replacing it with one that read ‘Princess Nymphadora’, for of course nobody else knew she’d received an invitation. The Dowager Queen was a formidable lady and perfectly capable of making a fuss and bullying the serving maids into preparing a seat for her elsewhere.
Just as he was tiptoeing out of the room, a lurking footman caught hold of his collar and said, ‘Oi, you! Why did you put the rolls on the side plates? We usually serve them in baskets.’
‘It’s a new fashion,’ Remus said, trying to wriggle away. ‘All the most up-to-date monarchs are serving their rolls like this. You can have your baskets too, of course. These are just to eat with the soup.’
‘Oh, all right,’ said the footman, and let Remus go. He ran back to the kitchen, put on his wolf skin, and scrubbed the breakfast dishes with such vigour that the chef himself said admiringly, ‘That scullery boy will go far!’
The guests started arriving at eight, and Remus left the kitchen for the last time, not without some relief. The black dog was waiting for him in the courtyard, and the two of them positioned themselves just outside the banqueting hall, where they could see and hear exactly what was going on without being seen themselves. The wolf skin was discarded: Remus folded it up as small as it would go and put on a set of his best robes, so nobody could possibly mistake him for a servant any more.
‘Don’t scrunch it up too much, though,’ the dog said. ‘If our plan fails, you may need it again.’
‘If our plan fails, it’ll be your turn to take a job in the kitchens!’ Remus exclaimed, ruffling the dog’s fur playfully.
The hall looked wonderful on this longest day of the year, lighted with thousands of candles as well as the golden sun. The royal visitors were resplendent in gowns of rich brocade, shirts of delicate cloth woven from the threads of fat silkworms. Nymphadora looked especially lovely in her full-skirted dress of white satin with silver embroidery.
‘I bet that’s her wedding dress,’ the dog said, nudging Remus with his nose.
‘Huh? But she doesn’t yet know she’s getting married,’ Remus said, confused.
‘You’re still a bit absent-minded, aren’t you?’ the dog said affectionately, standing on his hind legs to lick Remus’s face. ‘The dress she was going to wear to marry you. She doesn’t normally go in for such formal clothes. She probably had nothing else to hand.’
‘She can’t wear the same dress to marry the Prince of Gallia,’ said Remus, and the dog gave a bark that sounded very like a laugh. ‘She won’t need to, will she? I’m sure her prince will be happy to give her a dress like the sun and moon and rain, all mixed together.’
While Remus was trying to envisage such a complicated garment, the party sat down to their meal. By some serendipitous twist of fate, the Dowager Queen of Cartesia was indisposed with a summer cold, so nobody made a fuss about the missing place-card, which was still in Remus’s pocket.
The soup was served and everyone started to eat. Remus, roused from his sartorial musings, watched closely as the prince cut his roll instead of breaking it, having obviously taken the warning about his tooth seriously. He examined the inside carefully, duly found the gold ring, and gave a shriek of surprise and triumph that echoed round the banqueting hall. He then turned to his next door neighbour in great agitation, and insisted that she try the ring on: but his neighbour happened to be the Crown Princess of Scotia, who was both old and ugly, and the ring was far too small for her pudgy little finger.
As the prince did the rounds of the table, it seemed to Remus, and possibly to the dog as well, that his face lit up when he saw Princess Nymphadora, remembering that he was to find a princess both strange and familiar: and when the ring slid smoothly on to her finger, every guest at the banquet rose and applauded.
Predictably, Nymphadora herself made a bit of a fuss. ‘Hang on!’ she expostulated. ‘I know nothing about a gipsy prophecy, though this is certainly my ring. Anyway, I’m supposed to be marrying King Remus in a fortnight’s time.’
The Prince of Gallia said, ‘But that’s a marriage of convenience, isn’t it? You may break off the engagement at once if there’s someone you like better.’
Nymphadora pondered for a moment. ‘We...ell. He is a lot older than me, and his dead partner was another man, so it probably won’t be a very romantic match. But he’s awfully powerful.’
‘So am I,’ said the prince, quite indignantly.
‘Oh, all right,’ conceded Nymphadora. ‘But you must promise me you’ll never try to found a commonwealth. If you ever utter a word about sales figures or national industry, I shall divorce you.’
‘Fine with me,’ the prince replied, and they hugged rather stiffly as the guests applauded again.
When the clapping had died down, the prince, with a flourish, produced a large diamond and said, ‘This is to complement the ring that brought us together, my dear Nymphadora.’ He slipped in on her wedding finger and Nymphadora immediately looked much happier, even allowing herself a slight smile.
‘He doesn’t seem very reserved to me,’ Remus whispered, and the dog replied, ‘Well, it’s all relative, isn’t it? As long as he’s willing to marry Nymphadora, our plan’s worked just fine.’
They slipped silently away and started off home, the wolf skin safely tucked under Remus’s arm.
‘They’ll wonder what happened to the new scullery boy,’ Remus remarked, and the dog said, ‘I wouldn’t worry about it. But your courtiers will want to see the pelts of those deer and stoats you’re supposed to have shot on your hunting trip.’
‘I’ll just say I missed every one,’ Remus answered. ‘After all, this wolf is the only animal I ever managed to kill.’
He and the black dog walked on companionably until they reached his own kingdom and palace, chatting about this and that. The midsummer sun had long since set by the time they climbed the stairs to Remus’s rooms, but they were so absorbed in their discussion that they didn’t even notice.
*
Nymphadora became Princess of Gallia, and quite a temperamental one, given to throwing crockery at her poor husband, who sometimes wished he had never allowed the gipsy into his palace. Still, he consoled himself by reflecting that their astrological charts were compatible even if the two of them were not, which was some comfort.
The black dog remained in the palace with the king until Remus died a few years later, at which time the dog also disappeared. Some of the courtiers had got quite fond of it: after Remus’s state funeral, they searched for the dog for days, almost as upset at losing him as they were at losing their monarch.
Remus and Sirius were joyfully reunited in heaven, but it was a strange thing: when Remus told his beloved everything that had happened after he died, Sirius laughed and said, ‘Oh, I know all that. I was watching over you every second. You didn’t think something as trivial as death could part us, did you?’ And they clung to each other as if they’d never let go, proving that true love really does last for all eternity.
Stranger still, the dog didn’t only disappear from the face of the earth but he never arrived in heaven either; though perhaps he went to a canine paradise all his own.
End