Chapter 33 3/4: The Princess's Tale

Summary: After all this time? Always. Serverus was her friend, and Lily... See how a love that lasted a lifetime began in this missing moment from DH's Chapter 33: A Prince's Tale.

A/N: Obviously, none of the characters are mine. Thanks to JKR and Bethany, Marauder by Midnight, for superb betaing.

Grit crunched loudly under his feet. He was certain that the whole street could hear his every breath as he crouched behind the Muggle car. He swallowed carefully to try and control his pounding heart, the effort bringing a torrent of noise to his ears. The sprint from the door of the house back to his hiding place had been nothing for a boy like himself who was used to walking everywhere and anywhere. No, his racing pulse was from the anticipation of seeing her again.

From his vantage point, he could see the door crack open, and he held on fast to the car to keep from leaping forward in excitement.

"The same as yesterday, just as before! There is no one at the door! I am going to have to say something about this to your father when he gets home."

The woman who had answered the knock turned back into the house irritably. A young girl with a long, thin face and dirty blonde hair scanned the street warily then followed her mother inside.

The boy released the breath he'd been holding with a slight slumping of his shoulders. He looked down dejectedly to the box he held and stood. A door closed heavily somewhere in the distance, and the boy started at the sound of footsteps pounding across the front garden. Whipping around, he was greeted with brilliant green eyes and red hair that streamed behind in the wind.

"You! I knew it was you! Why do you knock on my door everyday and then hide? Why don't you ask for me to come out?" A flushed and shining face waited impatiently for the boy to answer. "Is that for me?" she asked, pointing excitedly to the box. The boy simply nodded, unable to take his eyes off of the girl's captivating smile.

He held the small box out to her with barely contained pride. Her eyes grew wide as she lifted the lid and peered inside. At the bottom were a dozen small white flowers; the same as the flower she had shown to her sister, Petunia, only a week ago.

"Oh!"

No sooner had she set the lid aside, that the little flowers began to shiver. One by one, their petals fluttered, opening and closing. They floated from their container, lilting on the afternoon breeze around her. She gasped again then threw her arms wide and turned with the flowers swirling all around.

The boy wanted her to remember their first meeting as fondly as he had. He often travelled back to that afternoon on the playground when the fighting between his parents became too much to bear. He remembered everything: her hair lifting in the warm breeze; her uninhibited laughter as she flew off the swing and landed as softly as a feather in front of his hiding place; the flower held carefully in her hand, opening and closing it's petals for her sister to see. He remembered everything.

The boy could not stop the face-splitting grin that stretched his mouth from ear to ear. His chest rose and fell powerfully as exhilaration swept through him; he couldn't remember ever feeling happiness as he did now. She had looked at him with such wonderment.

"What's your name again?" she breathed happily.

"Severus." Colour mottled his cheeks, but he didn't break his gaze from hers.

"Severus," she repeated. "Severus is an unusual name." She scrunched up her face as if taking this into great consideration. A heartbeat later, she beamed at the boy.

"Well, Severus, would you like to come in for tea?"

She began to turn back to the house, but what she saw as she looked back made her stop. Unexpectedly, the boy's smile crumpled as he self-consciously snatched closed his oversized coat. This did not go unnoticed by the girl, who quickly turned back to him and reached out her hand to cover his. It was the simplest of gestures, and yet it made his heart momentarily stop.

"Or... A walk! Do you fancy a walk? You could tell me more about witches and wizards." She smiled kindly, and his face brightened again.

"I know just the place," he replied, his smile slowly returning. "I like to go there when I need to get away from home."

The pair walked down by the river, chatting endlessly and taking turns chucking in stones. The day had grown warm, so Severus removed his coat but held it tightly in front of him. The girl either didn't notice his odd apparel or couldn't be bothered by it. Instead, she had picked up another stone and, screwing up her face with her tongue out, attempted to chuck it further than his last.

"... and that's all I can tell you, as I haven't been there yet myself," he was saying. "We'll be there soon enough, though. We'll get our letters next year, you and I." He looked around self-importantly; she hung on his every word, soaking in all he had to say.

"A prison in the middle of the sea, a village completely made up of wizards and witches, and a train ride to a castle. A castle!" She sighed and a dreamy expression fell onto her face. "It's just like a fairy tale, isn't it?"

"Fairy tale?"

"Yes!" She giggled at his bewildered expression. "You know, stories usually about princesses and knights in shining armour, kings and queens, and acts of chivalry?" Merriment sparkled in her eyes and she grabbed his hands, drawing him near. As startling as this was for the boy, he couldn't deny how wonderful the warmth of her hands in his felt, the simple comfort of another's touch. He instantly dreaded having to eventually let them go.

"Oh! We can pretend that I am a princess who is betrothed to an awful king, and I refuse to marry him because he is so mean to his subjects. He becomes so angry he has a curse placed on me so that I turn into a beautiful and graceful doe by day and return to my human form each night. The king forces me to live out my days in this magic forest!" She paused dramatically, swept up with her own imagination. He watched her raptly.

"You," she said, still holding his hands and beginning to spin around. "You can be a knight! Not in shining armour, though. A knight, dressed all in black - it's much more striking - who rescues me, just as the king is about to pierce my heart with an arrow! I scamper off into the woods, and at nightfall, when I'm human again, I find you in slumber under a tree." The girl let go of the boy's hands, and they tumbled down to a lush carpet of leaves, each laughing.

Severus sat up, still giggling between breaths. Lily got up and sat cross-legged in front of him trying to catch her own breath. He reached over and plucked a leaf from her hair. The sun dappled off of the surface of the river behind her and gave the illusion that her dark red hair was ablaze.

"So, to thank you for saving my life, I give you a kiss," she continued, and before he knew what had happened, she leaned forward and kissed him softly on the cheek. "And with that the curse is broken, and we live happily ever after. Fairy tales always end with 'happily ever after'."

His cheeks burned, and he stared at her, his mind groping for something to say.

"Yes, well that couldn't really happen," he began lamely. "The Ministry of Magic would have caught the king and thrown him in prison for doing something like that. They set and uphold all the laws about doing magic against others. Even for kids, ^∗and the Ministry can punish you if you do magic outside school, you get letters." The boy exhaled as he had successfully turned the conversation back around to a subject he felt more confident in. Lily was once again captivated by each word, drinking in all she could about her new-found life.

^∗ "But I have done magic..."

^∗ Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Chapter 33 p. 666, American Edition
© JK Rowling