for r_becca

[poseida9]

I have been very busy lately, which is why I haven't been writing much, and I am still rather busy, but I am taking a minute to post this for r_becca, who challenged me to write a story about Harry having to take care of Ginny while she is sick.

Title: Delirious
Summary: Harry has to take care of Ginny while she is sick. (An adventurous summary, I know

Comments

[tunxeh]

It's a Scottish ballad (Child#39); if you search you can find various versions of the lyrics. Janet is warned to stay away from her family estate of Carterhaugh because young Tam Lin lives there and breaks all the young women's hearts. She goes anyway, to pick roses, and falls in love with Tam Lin. It turns out that Tam Lin is in thrall to the queen of the fairies, who must pay a tithe to hell every seven years; this coming halloween is the due date and Tam Lin fears he's the one she'll choose to send. As the fairies ride past on their horses, Janet lets them pass until Tam Lin rides by, and pulls him down. The queen of the fairies then changes his shape into a snake, then a lion, then a hot iron bar, then a naked man, and Janet must hold tight to him through these changes (as Tam Lin has previously warned her she'd need to do) to win him back from the fairies. When she does, the defeated queen tells Janet that, had she known this was going to happen, she'd have taken out Tam Lin's eyes and put in eyes from a tree, and taken out his own true heart and put in a heart of stone.