Rosy (real_life_rosy) wrote in lupin_snape, @ 2008-07-08 01:58:00 |
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Entry tags: | fic: pg13, prompt: fairy tales |
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: There once 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.
Part I, Part II, Part III, Part IV
Part IV
Once upon a time, there was a puppet who wanted to love.
Even if he didn't know it. For what could a puppet made of ebony and amber, even one enchanted by fae magic, know of love?
When the puppet master learned what the raven puppet had done, he was furious. "Deceitful wretch!" he screamed. "Do you know what you have done? He knew where the child is. The boy who is prophesied to cause my downfall! And you let one of his protectors escape!" The puppet master sent his greatest hunters out, to try to catch the trail of the man in furs. "They shall catch him before the day is out!" He said to the raven, "and then we will kill him and you together, for your betrayal!"
"Never! Never! Never!" the raven clacked, hopping along his perch. The puppet master had him chained to the arm of his grand throne in his palace. The puppet master's hunters searched three days and three nights. None of them were able to find the man in furs, and the raven never revealed that it was the silver wolf that escaped from the puppet master's dungeon. Surely, surely, none of them could find the sleek and silver wolf. But the greatest and most fierce of the puppet master's hunters, more beast than human, returned on the fourth day with a scrap of fur from the man's cloak.
"I have caught his trail, milord, and surely I shall catch him."
The puppet master smiled. "No. Take my best guards with you and follow him. He will lead you to the Potters, and you shall bring them here. Then I shall dispose of this child and all those who harbored him." He turned to look at the raven. "You have one last chance, puppet. Make the potion which will turn the Potters into my puppets, and I will forgive you. I shall give you what you wished for: a heart. A true heart." He held out the potion recipe to the raven.
The raven looked at the potion recipe, knowing that the puppet master had not the skill to brew it, nor did any of his followers. "Never! Never!" he cried, mantling violently against the leather strap tethering him to the throne.
The puppet master was furious. "Take him to the courtyard and bind him to the dead tree!" he screeched in his rage. "He shall watch as we perform the ritual to send the child into the netherworld, where he can never be reached, and then kill those who harbored him!" Though the raven struggled, two of the puppet master's servants carried him out to the courtyard and tied him to the craggy trunk of an apparently dead oak tree. The tree had once been massive, shading the whole courtyard. Now, it was skeletal and gray, with no leaves budding from it's twisted limbs. The two bound him tightly, so that even when he shifted in the moonlight, he would not be able to escape. For a while, the raven struggled, knowing that with each wasted moment, the Potters and the silver wolf had less time to live.
'Be calm and think!' he chided himself. 'Though you've no true heart, you've more a mind than that megaloniacle fool! Now think. How can you help the Potters and Remus escape?' He turned the problem over in his mind, and waited for an idea to come. Then, quite suddenly, an idea struck him. For in the quiet of the courtyard, he had heard a sound that no human could hear: the soft thrumming of the barren oak's life. The oak, though old and lumbering towards its true death, only slept like the very old. The raven, though a different shape, was still the heartwood of another tree, and so could still remember how to whisper in their private language.
'Father Oak! Father Oak! I am in need of your help!'
'Burrraaaarooom.... who is that whispering in my ear?' The sleepy old oak rumbled.
'I am the raven bound to your trunk, come to try and stop the puppet master. I need your help, Father Oak!'
'Hoooooraaaarrroom.... why should I care? One human falls... another will take his place. Humans measure time in hours and days. One life of a tree is thousands of the lives of men... why should I care if this puppet master falls or not? Another will come eventually... you should know this...'
The raven huffed. He was getting no where this way... 'Aren't you tired, Father Oak?'
"Mmmmmmyeeeeeeesss....' the grand old tree groaned, its limbs shuddering. 'I have grown in this place for many many years... and now I merely wait for the last, deep sleep to fade into the earth...'
'My plan will only hasten that end, old Father,' the raven whispered. 'You can sleep in the deep recesses of the earth, never to be bothered by the petty meanderings of men until the crack of doom.'
The old tree was silent for a long, long moment. "Brroooorarrrrrr.... yesss... do what you must... little raven... I ammmm too tired to argue....'
The raven would have leapt for joy, had he not been tied. The first part was done. Now for the harder thing to do. He reached down to the core of himself, seeking out the bit of magic always pulsing in the very core of him. He called to it, cajoled it, and whispered to it. Slowly, he felt it answer, spreading through his limbs and drawing out his transformation. He felt his legs dangling above the ground, and his arms wrapped back around the trunk. He took a breath, then coaxed it out beyond his skin, into the old, withered oak tree. Slowly, the magic seeped into the crusty bark, and began to seep further and further in, drawing him in with it.
His legs sank first, merging with the tree up to the waist. Then his arms to the shoulder, until the only things apart from the tree were the jutting prow of his chest and his head. Even the tendrils of his hair were burrowing into the craggy bark. He had to fight, though, to keep his mind from the tree. For if he sank too deeply into the old oak, he would become more treeish and lose his sense of time. Even now, the minutes seemed to melt away...