Platinum Blond and the Seven House Elves

The Land's Hero journeyed through the woods on the back of his faithful stead. He had been riding through the land ever since his heroic defeat of the Dark Lord. All that was left of the battle now was a thin scar on his forehead in the shape of a lightening bolt, and a fire in his startling green eyes that never seemed to fade.

The Land's Hero was bored; without someone to save, what good was a hero? Thus, when The Hero came across a weeping group of house elves outside a cottage, he felt compelled to stop.

"Whoa, Firebolt," he said to his horse, pulling gently on the reins and gracefully hopping to the ground.

He strode mannishly over to the sobbing elves who had yet to notice him. "Hello there," he said in a deep voice. "What seems to be the problem?"

One of the elves turned his head, revealing large watery eyes and sobbed, "Oh but it is Platinum Blond, sir! We has work for him, but he dies!"

"No, no," said another elf with unusually long fingers, "Platinum Blond sleeps enchantedly."

At these words, the hero perked up. "An enchanted sleep?" The Hero wondered out loud. "That sounds like hero work."

The elves stared at him doubtfully.

"All right, I will do it!" he announced. "Bring me to this Platinum Blond!"

***

The Land's Hero was brought to the middle of a clearing where a gap in the canopy overhead cast a soft ray of sunlight onto a glass coffin.

One of the elves broke into hysterics upon seeing the coffin and bawled as if he was just offered clothes.

Another elf slapped him and shut him up.

Then Kreacher tugged the bottom of Harry's tunic and with wide eyes pointed pointlessly to the coffin as it was the only thing in the clearing.

Without further ado, The Hero marched purposely forward and gazed into the glass coffin.

Inside lay the most beautiful boy he had ever seen. His lips were as red as a Quaffle, his skin as white as Merlin's beard, and his hair: his hair was a stunning, flowing, silky, platinum blond.

The Hero took a shuddering breath.

Lifter appeared beside him. "Will Sir be able to lift the curse?" it asked, its long fingers pawing the glass case.

"Of course," Harry said without hesitation, "for I am The Land's Hero and it is my duty to save those who cannot defend themselves against the evils of this land and the evils that dwell within the hearts of the blackest souls who practice only the darkest and most foul of magic and will forever pay the price deemed fitting retribution for crimes most heinous that have been committed by the darkest of evils within the land!"

The elf blinked at him and backed away to join the other elves where he began speaking in urgent whispers.

The Hero removed a glove and pressed his index finger to the glass. "No good," he said. The Hero then drew his sword. "Stand back little elves."

"No!" Grotesque darted forward and seized The Hero's arm just as he was about to raise the sword.

The Hero glanced down first in annoyance then his face twisted into something akin to revulsion.

"UGH!"

"Sir needn't use his weapon to get to Platinum Blond," said the elf, apparently unaware of The Hero's excessive discomfort at being touched by something that looked as if it had just crawled out of a rotting bog. The elf swiftly undid a latch on the side of the coffin and pointed to the handle.

The Hero lifted the lid to the coffin and peered down at Platinum Blond. "Never fear, my dear, I will help you," he said, and with that, he raised his sword high above his head.

"No!"

The Hero paused as a blond woman came running towards him. "Never fear, madam, I am saving this poor soul for I am The Land's Hero and that is what I do!"

"With a sword?!" Narcissa cried. "What is the matter with you?"

She slapped him.

The Hero looked as though he had been slapped. "Of course with a sword. That is how days are saved. How else did you imagine I would save him?"

"Just back off until I can think of something. A sword. Honestly! Gryffindors..." she muttered.

Another woman ran into the clearing, her long black hair trailing behind her. "Cissy!" she cried, rushing up to Narcissa. "I just heard. How awful for you. It's true what they say about the good dying young..." She turned an almost sad eye on Draco in the coffin. "How could this have happened?"

"Lucius probably did it," Narcissa said sadly.

"I did not!" exclaimed Lucius who had just entered the clearing.

"Now wait just a moment-" said The Hero, who was beginning to feel somewhat left out of the proceedings.

"Come now, Lucius, don't lie," Bellatrix said. "You wanted to kill him ever since you found out Draco was prettier than you from that mirror."

"Yes, this is true," Lucius admitted, pulling out the mirror from an extremely large pocket in his robes. "But I never got the chance. Someone took him away," he said with a mean look at Narcissa.

"Oh shut up, Lucius, or you'll split an end," Narcissa warned. "Besides I wasn't going to let you kill my son. In these sorts of stories he's supposed to kill you."

"I think I should-" began The Hero in a husky voice.

"Let the adults talk now," Bellatrix said pulling out her wand and making several nearby twigs on the ground begin a tango.

"If you think that will distract ... though they do have some lovely moves..."

The Land's Hero proceeded to get lost in the dance and provide no further commentary for the remainder of their conversation.

"I can't let him kill me!" Lucius was saying.

"And why ever not?" Bellatrix put in. "The mirror even said he was prettier than you."

Narcissa turned slowly to look at her sister. "How do you know what the mirror said to him, Bella?"

"I ... er..." she said and shot a quick look at the mirror.

Lucius's and Narcissa's heads snapped around to look at the mirror who was looking back at Bellatrix, mid wink. When caught, the mirror quickly resumed its stoic and omnipotent face.

"Don't judge me," it said.

Narcissa turned back to Bellatrix. "It was you all along!" she shrieked. "You killed my son!"

"Poisoned, actually," said Bellatrix, who knew when the game was up, "with an apple."

"Then there's still a chance," Narcissa said and spun around to look at her son. "Acci-"

"No!" shouted Lucius, who, without further ceremony, tackled her to the ground.

Where Narcissa learned to fight dirty like that was anybody's guess, but at one point even Homely looked somewhat scandalized. Belcher soon after handed him a sickle muttering something about a gentle-elf's bet.

Just when Lucius looked like he had lost (a face full of mud and hair full of tangoing twigs often gives this impression), Bellatrix jumped in to grab Narcissa's wand.

The twigs now otherwise occupied in Lucius's hair, The Land's Hero lost interest in the proceedings and turned back to Draco. "How am I to save you, my dear?" he asked looking at his sword again.

Kreacher, the Fool on the Hill, sighed heavily and pointed at the mirror. "Try it," he advised.

The Land's Hero looked up, eyes suddenly blazing with the purpose of a man with only one thought in his head: kill the mirror.

When a man only has one thought in his head, it is generally obvious to those around him exactly what that thought is. The mirror looked up suddenly as The Hero strode over to it and unsheathed his sword with a satisfying and dramatic metallic sound.

"Don't do it!" the mirror cried. "I can help you!"

"No one can help me now," Harry answered darkly. Not because no one could help him, but because it was the appropriate thing to say in a situation like this.

Lucius, in the mean time, had noticed what The Hero was up to and abandoned the fight to run towards the mirror.

The Hero raised his radiate sword above his head and paused for one breathtaking moment in which Lucius could have possibly saved the mirror had he not been irreparably distracted by the sight of Bellatrix ripping Narcissa's robes up to the thigh in their fight.

CRASH! SHATTER! SPARKLE!

The mirror exploded into a thousand pieces as The Hero's sword came crashing down upon it in a blaze of reckless stupidity and astonishing good luck as he was not mangled by the shards of flying glass.

Lucius stopped dead in his tracks, and the sisters abandoned their fight. Everyone looked at The Hero.

"Aha," he said with affected satisfaction.

"Merlin's Beard, the spell is broken!" Lucius announced. "I no longer care about my looks! I love my son! I will give to charity!"

"What?" Bellatrix interrupted. "That mirror wasn't enchanted. I just asked it to play off your two dimensional, egotistical-"

"Silence, wench!" he shouted diving back into what used to be the fray and grabbing her wand. He looked rather foolish as no one made an attempt to stop him, but emerged triumphant and pointed his own wand at her. "You have lost," he said coldly.

"Accio apple!" Narcissa shouted, wasting no time. She had always been the practical one and never understood all this drama business.

A chunk of poisoned apple flew out of Draco's mouth and he coughed once. The Land's Hero, surprised at the time it took for people to have lost interest in his great deed tripped and fell onto Draco, accidentally kissing him on the lips.

"You - you saved me," Blond said breathlessly.

The Hero looked down. "Er ... actually-"

"Of course he did," Kreacher put in quickly. "For he is The Land's Hero, and that is what he does. If someone has been saved in his vicinity, it was surely because of his great heroics."

"Er ... that's right, Platinum Blond," said The Hero, looking somewhat unconvinced.

"My hero!" Draco gushed.

Kreacher sighed the world weary sigh of someone who is under appreciated and knows that recognition is a disillusioned dream of the very distant future.

Narcissa and Lucius shrugged and quickly bound Bellatrix. "Perhaps you would make a better house elf at the manor than any of these rabid mushrooms," Lucius suggested.

"Nooooo!" Bellatrix wailed and was disapparated alongside her captors.

Harry and Draco then looked at each other.

"What now?" Draco asked.

Harry looked down the path through the trees where the sun was beginning to set behind the mountains in the distance. "Shall we away into the sunset?" he asked, suddenly back in his element.

"It seems the story calls for it," Draco agreed, and allowed Harry to help him onto the horse.

And so it was, the story tells,

That soon after rang wedding bells,

And further after went ratings higher,

Though not for violence or actions dire,

But this stays PG I'm sorry to say,

And there will be no sequel one day,

But let it placate you to know,

That Happ'ly Ever After ends this show.