As You Wish

As You Wish
A Snarry Fairy Tale (sort of)
by Darth Stitch a.k.a. Jedi Skysong

"...true love is the best thing in the world, except for cough drops. Everybody knows that." - Miracle Max

(from The Princess Bride - S. Morgenstern's Classic Tale of True Love and High Adventure, the "Good Parts" Version Abridged by William Goldman)

***

Prologue

Her ears were ringing. Her head hurt and her throat ached and her nose was stuffy. She clutched her stuffed dog Paddy close and whimpered. She was miserable.

In short, Katerina was sick.

Her worried parents hovered over her the whole day, pouring nasty-tasting medicines down her throat, getting her chicken soup, boxes of tissues, juice and extra blankets. She was ordinarily a very even-tempered child, a good little girl (most of the time, her father muttered, rolling his eyes heavenwards) but precious few children could be in any good humor when the sun is out, the weather wonderful for playing and the child sick in bed.

When Daddy poked his head in her bedroom door, Katerina whimpered and hid her face in Paddy's soft fur. "No more medicines, Da."

"No more medicines, I promise," he answered gently, slipping inside her room. She felt the mattress shift as he sat down on the bed beside her. Coaxing her from Paddy, he showed her that he did, indeed, not have any icky-tasting medicine with him.

Instead, he had a book.

Katerina ordinarily liked books. Her parents were rather fond of them, her father especially, so she liked them too. But right now, her head hurt too much to look at any old book.

"Don't wanna read."

"You don't have to," Daddy said comfortingly. "I'm going to read to you. You'll like this, I promise."

"Does it have a prince in it?"

"Yes. And a giant."

She giggled weakly. "I like giants." She did, indeed. Very much so. "Pirates?" She liked them too.

"Oh my, yes. And sword fights and dueling and -- "

"Magic?"

"That, too. And love. True love." Daddy smiled at that. Katerina loved to see him smile.

"Jimmy hates mushy stuff," Katerina informed him. Jimmy was Daddy's godson, so she saw him fairly often. She sniffed into her tissue, a disdainful little sound. "But I like it." She scowled. "And I don't have to be a girl to like it."

"Nothing wrong with that," Daddy laughed, gently ruffling her hair. "So. Shall I start?"

"Oh, yes, please!" Another sniff. Katerina really, really hated being sick.

"As you wish." Daddy made himself comfortable next to her, opened the book and began to read.

Chapter One (In Which We Meet The Bride...er, Groom):

The Potions Master

Severus Snape could never be called the most handsome man in the world.

His nose was too big, for one thing, and he quite hated it. A far more charitable person would call it "Roman" or "aristocratic" but Severus Snape believed in being honest with himself and would have none of that. Simply put, he had a great raptor's beak of a nose that he fervently hoped none of his children (as if he would have any) would ever be unlucky enough to inherit.

Katerina giggled. "That's what Papa always says."

Daddy scowled. "Do you want me to go on or not?"

Katerina privately thought that Papa scowled better anyway and Daddy still looked his best when he smiled. Instead of saying that aloud, however, she said quite meekly, "Yes, Daddy, do go on."

Daddy cleared his throat. "As I was saying..."

Also, his hair, although it was quite an attractive shade of black, was far too greasy from all the time he spent in his Potions laboratory. It hung in lank, limp, unattractive strands just below his ears and hid his face half the time. There was a time when he kept it quite long and tied neatly (more or less) back but he'd finally given up on the whole thing and hacked off most of it once and for all. Besides, having one's hair getting into one's potions wasn't very healthy. His skin was also an unhealthy pale shade and his hands, lovely and elegant as they were, were perpetually stained yellow at the tips from handling the ingredients for his potions.

Also, he scowled more often than he smiled (he never, ever smiled, actually). If he had one claim to beauty, then it was his voice. His voice was very much like warm honey, a deep, dark velvety purr that could ensnare the senses far more efficiently than any of his potions or spells could. He could quite stop a person in his or her tracks with that voice. It might have saved him completely except instead of saying nice, cheerful and complimentary things, he often flayed people alive with sharp, acerbic comments on their general intelligence and competence. Few people survived a verbal battle with Severus Snape and lived to tell the tale.

Not that many people dared to approach the Potions Master. Most of the time, he was perfectly content in his cottage, within his laboratory, brewing his potions and working on his spells. He was quite an accomplished wizard and he was far better known for his magical skill rather than his looks or his honeyed words. His only companion was his assistant - a young man named Harry, who was, more often than not, the usual target of his acid tongue.

"Fetch this, boy," Snape would say. "Chop this up finer, you clumsy fool - you're mangling it all up!" "Carry this, boy." "Bring this to the midwife, boy." "I asked for asphodel, you dunderhead!"

To all these, Harry would only answer, "As you wish." Which was odd, really. Harry had a pert tongue of his own and this often resulted in some lively arguments between them. He was perhaps the only person in the world who went toe to toe with Snape in a battle of words and though he lost more of them than he would like, the silly, foolish boy still kept at it. This new thing (" 'As you wish' indeed!" Snape huffed.) was so quite unlike the normally spirited young man that it put Snape quite out indeed.

He rather missed having someone to talk to who at least had half a brain in his head. Even if he denied its existence from time to time. Now it was "As you wish" this. And "As you wish" that. And quite frankly, Snape was getting sick of it.

Accordingly, his comments to Harry became more and more acidic, trying to provoke the young man into saying something other than " 'As-you-bloody-wish.'"

Finally, it all came to a head one day when Harry came back from the market, having been swindled quite nicely out of some vital potions ingredients for the nth time.

"Can't you bloody read, boy?" Snape raged, waving a sheet of paper practically under the young man's nose. "Everything has been written out here, quite clearly -- "

"I don't know how to read."

The words, spoken with a hint of the old defiance in the young man's green eyes, were enough to stop Snape mid-rant.

"What?"

"I said, I don't know how to bloody read. And you heard me the first time."

"Don't be impertinent, boy and just answer the bloody question. So how on earth did you manage the first few times?"

Harry shrugged. "I asked people to read them for me. It was usually all right."

Snape rolled his eyes. "You are far too trusting."

"There are new merchants in the marketplace. Strangers from out of town. I won't make that mistake again," Harry said firmly. The boy did have a brain that worked from time to time, Snape allowed. He wasn't the type to make the same mistake twice.

"Well we are going to rectify this matter immediately. I will have you learning how to read so you won't have to foolishly rely on the kindness of strangers ever again. And you will learn, believe me. I will not tolerate any inattention or laziness on your part. Is that clear?"

Harry looked quite pleased at the prospect and said, very eagerly, "As you wish!"

Snape tried very, very hard not to hex him clear across the room for that.

Chapter Two (In Which We Meet the Other Hero of Our Tale):

The Boy Who Reads

So Harry learned how to read.

Actually, Snape sometimes felt that all he ever really needed to do was to teach the boy the alphabet and how the letters went together and Harry just took it from there.

Harry started in with some old books that Snape had read as a child and then soon enough the brat began pestering him for more books from his library.

"If I find one tiny tear on a page, one single smudge, I will carve pieces out of your hide for potions ingredients," Snape threatened.

"As you wish." A careful hand gently turned a page.

"Will you stop saying that?"

Snape could have sworn Harry smirked before burying his nose in the book again.

So Harry read in the mornings before they had breakfast. And during breakfast as well, despite Snape's warnings that he would get foodstains on the book. Harry, in fact, became quite adept at eating and reading and keeping the book neat at the same time. He read in the afternoons after chores and he read in the evenings by candlelight. He read so much that he eventually needed to wear spectacles.

Snape, as usual, couldn't resist scolding him, even as he gave Harry his new pair of glasses. "I told you that you were going to strain your eyes."

"I know." The young man tried them on, blinked twice and then his face brightened. The glasses oddly suited him, even if they hid his lovely green eyes (Snape frowned mentally at that last thought: where in Merlin's name did that come from?). "This is much better. Thank you."

"I am so glad that my lessons in manners were heeded. For once," Snape said tartly.

"I do learn," Harry told him. "Even if you deny it half the time." He picked up the latest book he was engrossed in, took up his place in the ratty old armchair that had been his ever since he came to live with Snape and went back to read. "There are so many worlds here..." He murmured dreamily.

"What on earth are you blathering about?"

"In here," Harry pointed at the book. "There are so many worlds in these pages. And different ways of seeing things. It's fascinating, really."

Enthralled, that was what the boy looked like. Utterly enthralled. Snape knew that feeling once, long ago when he too had been very, very young.

So he simply said, "I know." And Harry smiled at him and went back to his book.

Snape went back to check the potion he was currently brewing, not quite knowing why he felt so...content.

Of course, while Harry read, he learned and gods, how very much he learned. This time, the brat pestered him with countless questions and came up with his own opinions which resulted in some very lively debates between them. And this time, Harry began winning quite a substantial number of those debates, a fact that made Snape feel both put out and secretly pleased at the same time.

Obviously, Harry was never swindled in the marketplace ever again.

Most of the people in their village rather liked the quiet young man (he was only ever mouthy when provoked and usually by Snape) and preferred to deal with him rather than his crotchety Master. He came to live with Snape when he lost his parents at the age of fifteen and the villagers were all afraid for the boy at first, knowing Snape's temper. They were all quite amazed to see the young man out and about, quite healthy and whole, with his spirit unbroken.

"He's very temperamental but he's actually quite kind, really," Harry once told a concerned mother. And then he grinned, mischievously. "Just don't tell him I said that."

So it was to Harry that the villagers came to when they needed medicines and other things from the Potions Master or help from the odd boggart in the closet or troll that came a-wandering into the village. And Harry never minded acting as the go-between between them and Snape.

And then, there were the village girls.

The giggling, swoony, silly, moony girls.

Harry had no idea why they followed after him everywhere he went, sighing and batting their eyelashes and gently twirling their soft locks round their fingers. Sometimes he felt that he was rather like a mother duck trailed by ducklings. It was utterly ridiculous.

Snape didn't help things either. Every time he sent Harry off on an errand, instead of saying goodbye like any other sensible person would, he would sneer at the gaggle of girls who would eventually gather at the gate (braving the Potions Master's ire and all) and say, "Hurry along, boy. Your fans await."

The fact of the matter was, that unlike Snape, Harry could actually be considered one of the most handsome men in the world. Quite gorgeous, actually. There was something about his eyes, which were a lovely shade of emerald green, and the way he smiled, which could light up a room, that could quite take a person's breath away.

If you told Harry all that he would laugh in your face. He knew perfectly well what he looked like and that was a skinny runt who looked a little too young for his age (he was nineteen years old, for the love of Merlin!), with messy hair that refused to ever obey a comb and knobbly knees.

"Raving nutters, the lot of them," Harry told Snape one day when he suddenly burst inside the cottage and slammed the door behind him, locking it securely. The loud bang almost made the Potions Master add too much wormwood in his latest potion and he swore, quite loudly:

"Damnation, boy - what on earth is the matter with you?"

"It's the girls," Harry said, checking the windows and twitching the curtains closed. "Off their rockers, all of them. It's mad, is what it is."

"Oh for the love of Merlin, boy - they fancy you!" Snape finally said in exasperation. "Do I need to get you a new pair of spectacles and ban you from reading at night altogether?"

The young man stopped and stared at Snape. "Fancy me? Whatever for?"

Oh dear God, Snape thought, feeling an unaccustomed flush staining his normally pale cheeks. "Didn't anybody explain the facts of life to you?"

"You're not making any sense at this point, you realize."

"Watch your tongue, boy - haven't I wasted enough of my precious time teaching you manners?"

"All right. Sir," Harry added quickly. "Please explain to me what is it you're talking about."

Snape sighed. "The fact of the matter is that you are a beautiful young man and the little chits out there have quite noticed that and they are taken with you as a result. And if you have any sense, you'll eventually notice one of them in particular, marry her and make lots of brats of your own and I shall be out an assistant."

"Oh."

"Do close your mouth, boy, you're spoiling those looks when you gape unattractively like that." Snape reached out with one long finger and nudged Harry's chin up.

"So you think I'm beautiful, then?" Harry asked him and there was something in those green eyes that made Snape suddenly feel like one of those swoony, silly, moony village girls. He ruthlessly squashed that nameless feeling, grinding it under the heel of his dragonhide boot and forced himself to squarely meet the brat's (young man, a little voice in the back of his mind corrected) unwavering gaze.

"A very dispassionate observation, I assure you," Snape said quite frostily. "Don't let it go to your head."

That smile again, which made that strange feeling that Snape thought he'd already squelched out of existence, come alive once more. "As you wish," Harry said then, quite cheerfully. And set about putting away the potions ingredients, not to mention the food that he bought for the week.

Snape really, really wished Harry would stop saying that.

- TBC -