Twisted Fairy Tales : Snow White

Chapter 4

Upon returning to her castle, the kindly queen Molly knew that in order to help Draco change from wicked to good; she needed the help and cooperation of the seven Weasleys. Draco, cunning as a fox, would have told the Weasleys lies about the queen, no doubt, in order to hide the fact that he was wicked. So how is she going to persuade the Weasleys to help her? Would they even believe her?

The queen need not have worried. The Weasleys would come to her. In fact, they would go to her exactly three days later. Begging for her help. But let's not talk about that yet, shall we?

*

Anyway, meanwhile at the cottage...

'Scholar, indeed!' muttered Draco to himself, as he slammed the window shut. 'That queen must think I am stupid, and that feeble disguise of hers would fool my clever eyes! Good people are such idiots!'

Scowling to himself, Draco went on to do the house chores like he had promised the Weasleys. But the moment he picked up a dirty dish from the table, he stopped. He did not like the idea of doing housework. Housework was work meant for servants, and not for someone as noble and gallant as he! And of course, Draco had no idea how housework was supposed to be done, as he was a spoilt prince, and he had plenty of servants around the castle to do his bidding. He put the dirty dish down on the table, and sat down on a chair, scheming for a way for him to escape the work he had promised thoughtlessly to do for the Weasley siblings. Suddenly, a wicked idea came to him. Draco smirked to himself, and mentally praised himself for being so brilliantly cunning.

*

In the evening, the seven Weasley siblings returned; and I need not say how grieved they were to see the young Prince Draco stretched upon the ground motionless, as if he were quite dead. However, they lifted his body up, and they found out what the matter was. There was a thick black cord tied too tightly around his waist. Percy was quite determined to undo the tight knot that kept the cord around Draco's waist (It simply is the right way to do it!) but Charlie rolled his eyes at his brother's suggestion and cut the strings with a pair of scissors. In a little time, Draco began to breathe, and soon came to life again.

'What happened?' Ginny asked anxiously. She had just gained a helper to do the house chores, and she was not willing to lose him so soon.

'After you left,' Draco begun, the rehearsed lie in his head. 'An old pedlar knocked on the door, and said that she had fine goods for sale. I thought her to be a very good sort of person and I let her in. When I unbolted the door, she showed me that she had some girdles for sale.'

At this point, Fred interrupted with a mischievous tone, 'Girdles? I thought only women wear those.'

'The type that women wear are corsets,' Draco said impatiently. 'Anyway, I thought that I might need one to keep my clothes in position. So, I tried one on.'

'And you put it on too tight, right? I can't believe you can't even put on a simple belt,' interrupted George this time, with mockery in his tone.

Draco was getting annoyed. He would have strangled the twins if their siblings were not surrounding him.

'I didn't put it on, all right?' said Draco, with a light growl. Fred and George looked like they would have added a comment to that if Draco had not quickly continued. 'She was the one who tied the girdle for me.'

The Weasleys took a while to process the information. Ron looked sceptically at Draco, and then at the girdle. For some reason, Ron did not believe in the prince. However, his siblings did not share the same opinion.

'The old woman was the queen herself,' Bill concluded. 'Take care another time, and let no one in when we are away.'

*

Ginny let out a sigh as she cleaned the house. She had thought that with the prince living with them, she would have less work to do. But instead, she had one more dish, one more goblet, one more set of robes to clean. Draco had explained that because he had been in a motionless state for the whole day, he did not have the time to do the house chores.

'I don't see why he can't help out now,' grumbled Ron, who had been bullied by his older brothers into sharing the housework with his sister.

'He was traumatized,' explained Ginny gently, although she secretly agreed with her brother.

Ron snorted. 'Yeah, trauma, my butt!'

'There is no need to discuss about your posterior,' said a voice. Percy was sitting at the table, examining the goblets with a scrutinizing eye. 'But I must say there is something dodgy about that prince. By the way, I don't think this goblet is quite cleaned.'

'You think so?' Ron asked. The two brothers rarely ever share the same thoughts.

'Oh yes,' Percy said briskly. 'There's some kind of stain at the bottom.'

Ron blinked. What was his brother talking about? It took him about half a minute to figure out what Percy was talking about.

'No, I'm not talking about the bloody goblet, Percy!' Ron said in an annoyed tone. 'I'm talking about the prince.'

Percy raised an eyebrow. 'There is no need for inappropriate use of language, Ronald.'

Ron let out a frustrated yell. 'ARGH! I give up!'

*

The next day, the Weasleys set out for the mountains to seek gold and silver again. Before they left, they reminded Draco not to let anyone in the cottage. Ron, suspicious of Draco and his tales, decided to stay behind. He did not tell anyone about this, and slipped off quietly as his siblings mined for treasures. He would prove to his siblings that his suspicions about the prince were true.