FIC: Rabe und Wolf, PG13 Title: Rabe und Wolf Author: Rosy Rated: PG13 Challenge: Fairy Tale Challenge Disclaimer: The Potterverse does not belong to me, and I do not make money off of it. More's the pity. Summary: Once upon a time, there was a puppet who wanted a heart. Warnings: AU, somewhat dark Notes: ...this is what happens when you watch Princess Tutu, read too many Grimm’s Brothers and Hans Christian Anderson, and then find out there's a Fairy Tale Challenge going on at Lupin_Snape.
Oh, you think with some disappointment. Is that all the story is? A man being murdered? Such things happen everyday. It is sad, to be sure, but it is not uncommon.
Yet you do not know the awful and heartbreaking truth of this man's death. For the man was a teller of stories and a maker of puppets. Puppets such as he created could not be found in all the world. They danced and sang; so lifelike and real that no one could say whether they were puppet or person. And with each puppet, the man wrote a story. This is not so amazing, except that the stories would bring the puppets to life and breathe life into the stories themselves. What was once wood and string became flesh and bone, and went out into the world to do some good, as their story dictated. That was the man's gift to the world; each story had a happy ending, and each puppet gave hope to the people it encountered.
Well... almost.
One day, the old man took from his workbench beautiful ebony wood and began to carve it. He worked from the sun's rising well into the night, the light of the lamp flickering across the glassy surface of the wood. The man peeled and shaped, drawing a form out of the beautiful wood. He took two pieces of polished jet and set them into the head for eyes, and then shaped two pieces of amber into a smooth, sharp beak. When he was finished, a magnificent raven sat on the worktable before him so close to reality that the pigeons on the windowsill peeked in curiously, chirping and calling to their wooden cousin. The old man chuckled, and tied strings to the puppets wings and legs. Suddenly, the raven hopped up and trotted about the table, trailing its strings behind it.
"What a marvelous puppet you are," the old man wondered. "What story shall I write for you?"
"A heart! A heart!" the raven cried. It flapped around the table croaking out "A heart! A heart!" The old man blinked and tipped his head, watching the raven.
When the sun set and moonlight spilled through the windows of the old man's workshop, the raven hopped onto the floor and took the shape of a man. He was still very visibly a puppet made of wood, with a beaky nose, eyes like jet, and hair the color of the raven's wing. "Who are you?" the old man asked.
"I am the raven you have wrought," the puppet answered. "The ebony tree was enchanted by the fae creatures of the wood, and whenever the moon shines upon me I may take the form of a man and walk upright. But still, I have no heart."
"What a sad thing, to be without a heart," the old man murmured. He turned to his paper and pen. "Do not worry, my friend. I shall write you a story where you are able to find a heart."
The puppet frowned sourly. "Can you not simply give me a heart, as that will be far simpler and less vexing than my questing for one?"
The old man chuckled, slowly swirling the nub of his pen in his pot of emerald ink. "Oh no, my friend. For many times, the journey is the worthier part of the story. How else could you cherish a heart, unless you learn what it is to see it broken?"
The puppet glared at him. "I think that is quite a foolish way to go about getting a heart," he said, and then proceeded to poke around the workshop until the sun rose, when he resumed the form of the raven.
During the day, to keep the marvelous raven safe, he would lock the puppet into a cupboard, laying it on a nest of satin and velvet. For three days, he closed his doors and windows, and went down to the woodcutter's cottage not a league from the village. There, he would spend many hours by the lake beneath the spreading branches of an old and gnarled willow, writing the puppet's story. When he was finished for the day, he would lock the sheaves of parchment in a box and go and have supper with Potter and his young wife, who lived in the cottage. Every day, the raven would ask about the heart. And every day, the old man would say, "Practice patience, little Rabe. Severe Rabe. And you shall have the heart you wish for."
But the raven grew more and more impatient as the days stretched into weeks. Soon, he began pecking at the lock of his cabinet until he could coax it open. He would hop down and begin hopping about the workroom during the day until a little before sun set. Then he would hide in the cabinet again and wait for the old man to return. Many days, the old man returned alone and let him out, talking about how the Potters were, and how young Lily was radiant with the child growing inside her belly. But on one day, the old man brought someone with him. In his shadowy cabinet, the puppet could not see the stranger's face, but he could see that the stranger was draped with lengths of pelt and furs.
"It is still unfinished, my young friend," the old man said quietly, resting his hand on the box where he kept the raven's story. "But soon, soon the last threads will come together, and the story I promised you so very long ago will be finished."
"I have waited a long time. But I can still wait for this story of yours, sir." The raven cocked his head, curious at the low, gentle rasp of the stranger's voice. It was not the hoarse croak of his daylight shape, or the velvet smoothness his night form produced. It intrigued him, and stirred something in the empty recesses of his breast. But that could not be, for he had no heart to feel.
The old man chuckled. "You have been patient, and for that I can tell you this much. The story may not end has happily as some I have written, but in the end, all will be well."
"How contradictory," the stranger drawled. "For the ending not to be happy and yet for all to be well. The only worse thing I can think of is a happy ending where all is not truly well." The old man chuckled, and then told the stranger that the Potters would be most happy to see them tonight. He would follow along in a little while. When the stranger was gone, he unlocked the cabinet and let the puppet out.
"I will return in the morning," he said, watching the puppet hop to the table. "I will spend some time with my good friends, and then I will work on the last bit of the story tonight."
"A heart? A heart?"
The old man smiled. "Soon, Severe Rabe. Soon."
The old man left him alone with a book, all about herbs and medicines and special brews. He gingerly turned the pages with his claws, reading and reading and reading until he felt his form shift to that of the man. He settled into a chair at the table, reading still more. The book fascinated him, giving him the secrets of how to blend potions and teas and serums. So engrossed by the book was he, that the puppet had not heard a rival puppet master open the back door of the workshop. "My!" the rival puppet master exclaimed, "Are you the old fool's latest creation?"
"He calls me Severe Rabe," the puppet answered. "Who are you?"
"I am a great master of stories and puppets," the younger man said simply, looking intently at the puppet. "Once, I was the old man's apprentice, but he would not teach me the greatest of all secrets. Now, I have powers all my own. Tell me, has he offered to write you one of his stories?"
The puppet nodded. "I wish to have a heart, and he says the story will help me to find one." The puppet sighed, glaring slightly at grain of the table. "And yet, it has been some time since the promise was made, and I have yet to see any of the story."
The rival puppet master chuckled. "Ah yes, that is his way, the old fool. Never showing anyone what he or she should know until it's 'the right time'. I always found it irritating in the extreme. Especially when one is ambitious, such as yourself." When the puppet blinked at him, the puppet master smiled. "Well, it's easy to tell. You grow impatient; because there are things you wish to do. And you want a heart. Though, I can't imagine why."
"It is the thing that separates puppet from man," the puppet said. "And if I were to have a heart, I do not think I would have to endure the empty feeling in my chest anymore."
The puppet master nodded. "Severe Rabe... I can give you what it is that you seek. But, in return, you must do something for me."
"I will do anything to have a heart," the puppet said earnestly.
"You must kill the old man."
~*~*~
He remembered the woods, though he could not smell the scent of moss or night flowers. He could appreciate their beauty, and he could hear the soft notes of a song lost on human ears. But when he touched the flower, he could not feel it, he could not smell it, could not take sheer joy in the knowledge that it was beautiful and sang a song for him. Humans couldn't hear the flowers, but they still loved them. He had seen this when the maids from the village came with the young lads to gather reeds and sticks and herbs. They would make crowns and bouquets, smiling and laughing. As a tree, he should not have cared, but the Fae magics made him long for that same touch. He had often wandered the forest at night, listening to the crickets and the night birds. Nothing would have changed if he had not seen the young couple lying on the soft grass of a moon-dappled glade. He had watched from the shadows of one of his brothers as the lad placed a crown of jasmine in her hair and whispered to her. How they wound their arms about each other and became lost to the world. How bright their smiles were.
It made him yearn from something.
And that something, to his conclusion, must have been a heart. For that is what separated him from men. And lack of one must be why he could look down on the still, motionless body half-lying in the pond, the silvery hair fanned out over the surface of the water.
Shouldn't he feel something? This man was his creator, and had promised to give him what he desired. In time. As a tree, he had no knowledge of time: days and nights simply flowed one into the other in an endless stream of light and song. But when the old man had freed the raven from the ebony, this concept of time seemed pressed upon him. Would he not eventually rot? Would he not eventually be destroyed? Why must he wait for a heart, when he longed for one so very much? He hadn't understood this concept called patience. He hadn't needed it as a tree. Now, he wondered if it was something he should have acquired.
Severe Rabe, he called me. the puppet thought. Surely, he could have given me a true name. And yet, he gives me only what I am: Severe Raven. Harsh Raven. He looked down at the old man's body, and something twinged in the empty recesses of his chest. What was this feeling? He didn't know about feelings, never having them before. And yet this twinge... he didn't like it much. He knelt down and brushed the silvery hair away from the old man's face.
They said you could write stories to bring your toys to life. And yet... where is my tale? Or is this the start of Herr Dumbledore's last story?
The puppet stood up and walked a little ways from the pond. He could see a soft, golden light through the trees. They came from the windows of the woodcutter's cottage, where the old man had dined with his friends, the Potters, and the stranger from today. He frowned. What was the old man doing, writing a story for someone else when he had promised a story for the Raven? Is that why the story hadn't been finished? Because of this man dressed in furs? He wondered if, when he finally had a heart, he would hate the man in fur.
He was surprised when the great silver wolf crossed his path.
He had seen wolves before, as they wandered through his forest. He had never really paid them any mind, unless they chose to "mark" him. He would bristle and shake his leaves at them, though they paid him little mind. Carnivores never did. This wolf, however, seemed different. He was larger, for one thing, the muscled shoulders coming up to his hip and supporting a massive head. Its pelt was pure silver over white, so that he seemed to be nothing more than moonlight flitting through shadow. The eyes, though. The feral, golden eyes held an intelligence that the puppet had only seen in humans.
"You are a strange beast," the puppet said. "What are you doing here?"
The wolf looked at him, and then looked over at the lake and its occupant. The golden eyes turned back to the puppet and the beast growled softly, its hackles rising.
"Oh... you are a friend of the old man?" He looked back over his shoulder, frowning. "I suppose I ought to feel... sad. Yes, sad is the word. Yet I don't know how to be sad."
The wolf cocked his head, looking at the puppet strangely. It made a soft sound, almost like a question.
"The old man, Herr Dumbledore, carved me from a magicked piece of wood. By day, I am the raven that he wrought. By night, I am as you see me now. He promised that the story he would write for me would give me a heart... so I cannot feel sad for him." He looked at the still, silent body of the toy maker. "It is strange, though... there is the oddest twinge in my chest. Like... a vague twisting of something. Yet I don't know what it is or where it comes from."
The wolf regarded him for a moment, then paced forward and gently nudged his hand. The puppet looked down, and then gently ran his fingers through the fur. "I cannot even feel if your fur is soft or coarse," he murmured dully. "I cannot feel anything at all. Surely... the Marionettenmeister will do as he promised. Surely he will give me a heart. Then I can feel sad for the toy maker, as I ought to. Don't you think?"
The wolf's ears flattened at the name of the Marrionettenmeister. He growled softly, pulling away. The puppet looked at him in confusion. "What's wrong?" The wolf snorted, glaring at the puppet in contempt. The puppet frowned. "What is it?" he huffed. "You think I should have waited for the old toy maker? I have not even seen a page from him... and I fear I run out of time. I can feel this body dying around me. It is most... unsettling."
The wolf huffed, then turned and walked away, padding back towards the lake. The puppet watched as the wolf gently nose and sniffed the old toy maker's corpse. Then, he sat back and howled. The mournful sound echoed over the trees, thrumming in the empty recess of the puppet's chest. The puppet staggered, and then fell to his knees as he gripped his chest. It hurt... that sound twisted and churned in his chest, wringing something from him. He gasped at the pain of it, at the potency, then staggered to his feet and ran as fast as he could away from the silver wolf and its mourning song. Finally, finally, he returned to the safety of the old man's toyshop, bracing himself on the worktable. The twisting, churning pain had stopped, and he felt himself calm again. He reached up to brush his hair back, and was surprised to see something blue on the heel of his hand. He glanced into the mirror...
... to see twin tracks of blue paint leaking from his eyes.