Twisted Faerie Tales

Author’s Note: Many thanks to Deb and Shannon, my beta’s for this story, and thanks to all who have reviewed so far.

Snow White Part 3

Draco stared at the glass coffin with an empty feeling in his gut. He hadn’t even registered the fact that people were gathered and staring at him, questions bubbling through their lips unheard by Draco’s distracted ears.

How could this be? The Harry Potter he’d read about and seen in Voldemort’s mirror was sly and powerful. How could he have succumbed to something as ordinary as a poisoned apple? “Tell me what happened,” he demanded, his eyes never leaving the pale form of his true love.

“First you might want to explain who you are,” answered the tallest of the ginger clan. Draco assumed he was the patriarch of this ragtag bunch, but he didn’t much care.

“My name is Draco Malfoy. I flew here from Riddle Manor to warn Harry that he was in danger,” he explained.

“Obviously,” snorted one of the gingers that looked remarkably similar to the one next to him.

“Couldn’t you have gotten here earlier?” the other one shouted before sneezing into his hands.

“Listen here, Sneezy,” Draco sniped, offering only a menacing glare. “Do you think I wanted to be late? Harry was meant for me! We were supposed to get married one day!”

“You were engaged?” asked the younger girl with a bashful blush.

“Harry never mentioned that,” the older woman added.

Draco winced and turned away from the prying women. He hadn’t meant to say that. “No, not exactly.”

“You were serious though?” asked the dopey looking one.

“Sort of,” Draco muttered.

“Then how come we’ve never heard of you?” pressed another one rather grumpily.

“Because he doesn’t know me!” Draco shouted, frustrated by the abundance of questions barraging his already grief stricken mind.

The gingers all gaped at him, suddenly at a loss for words. “Then what the hell are you doing here?” the grumpy one demanded.

“I came to save him!” Draco repeated. Being bombarded on seven sides was wearing on his nerves.

“And introduce yourself, I suppose,” one of the twins murmured unhelpfully.

“As his future husband,” the other muttered as the twins sniggered under their breath until their mother swatted them in the back of the head.

“This is no time for jokes, boys,” she chastised. “We promised this boy’s mother that we would keep him safe and we’ve failed miserably. Tell me, Draco, what news do you have of Lily Potter? We should tell her what happened.”

“I’m afraid that won’t be necessary.” Draco looked away before answering, unable to watch a grown woman so torn. “She was murdered some time ago.”

“So, it’s true then?” the grumpy one asked, looking forlorn.

“By him?” the father asked, and Draco nodded, knowing full well that the man was referring to Voldemort.

“Shortly before he killed my father and began courting my mother,” he added. “That’s one of many things Harry and I have in common,” Draco whispered, running his nimble fingers along the glass casket, wishing he could touch the man’s perfect lips instead. “Had in common,” he corrected himself only too late, the words nearly choking in his throat.

“How do you even know what you did and didn’t have in common if you never met him,” the grumpy one pried, but a look from his mother stilled his tongue.

“It doesn’t matter, Percy,” the woman whispered. “We lost a dear member of our family today, and we won’t be dictating who can and cannot mourn Harry’s passing.”

“Thank you,” Draco whispered, trying to blink back the tears that threatened to fall. He’d been wistfully dreaming about a new life, a life where he and Harry were one and they lived long and happily ever after, but that dream came crashing down around him as he stared down at the raven-haired man. Even in death, Harry’s lips were nearly the color of rubies, his skin the color of snow. Draco would have been happy to wake up every morning and look upon that beautiful face.

Voldemort grinned victoriously as he returned to his manor; still laden with the robes of the old farmer he’d impersonated to fool the Potter brat. He’d hit a stroke of luck to find the boy there all alone again, and he’d decided to act on it.

Potter had been cautious, at first, but Voldemort had soothed his nerves with tales of the produce he was gathering on a farm nearby and assured him that Molly and Arthur would be expecting his delivery.

“The apples are particularly delicious this time of year,” he’d told Potter. “You should try one.”

He’d grabbed an apple from the top of the bushel and handed it over to the boy, watching and waiting for Harry to take a bite.

“I shouldn’t,” he’d said, shaking his head. “I’ve had bad luck accepting things from strangers lately.”

Voldemort had chuckled at that, a deep laugh that sounded jolly in the farmer’s skin. “Molly told me of your trials. I can’t say that I blame you for not trusting a strange farmer like myself. But how’s this,” he offered, taking the apple back and slicing it in half. “I’ll eat from the same fruit. Would that be proof enough that I’m just a harmless old man?”

“I suppose there’s nothing wrong with that,” Potter had reasoned, beaming up at Voldemort, clearly unaware of who he was talking to. Voldemort smiled back and passed half of the apple back to Potter before raising his own half to his lips and biting into it.

The poison was only in half of the apple, and Voldemort had been very careful which half he kept. In fact, even if some of the poison had leaked into his own half, it would do little more than give him a nasty stomach flu – a small price to pay for being rid of the brat for good. The poison was one of Snape’s creations, and Voldemort had been taking small, harmless, doses of it for years, building up a tolerance. He knew how unpopular he was amongst his people, and he took every precaution against villains who might try to steal the Riddle throne.

“Well, how is it then?” Voldemort asked in the farmer’s happy baritone.

“It’s delicious,” Potter had acknowledged. “Very sweet…and there’s something else…something.” And then Harry’s voice faltered and his shoulders began to sag and his knees began to buckle.

It was deliriously sweet watching the light slowly fade from those gemstone eyes before they closed completely and with a finality that still lingered in what was left of Voldemort’s heart. In fact, Tom Riddle practically skipped all the way back to his manor.

Now that he was once more surrounded with the comforting stone walls of his fortress, Voldemort strode quickly to his secret chamber, set on reveling in Potter’s defeat. The mirror stood in the corner like a cold and distant relative, not speaking until spoken to.

“Mirror, Mirror on the wall,” Voldemort chimed, nearly rubbing his palms together in anticipation. “Who is the most powerful of them all?”

“With Harry Potter’s last breath lost, you, sire, are the most powerful. But at what cost?” the mirror replied.

Voldemort rolled his eyes and waved at the mirror as if to shoo the object away. “Never mind the cost. It’s done. It’s finally done!”

The mirror went black and Voldemort left his chambers, a happy little tune whistling on those sinister lips.

“Wait!” Draco shouted, clambering to keep his hold on the glass coffin. He was splayed across the top of it, gripping the edges with brutal force as the seven gingers tried to carry both he and Harry’s coffin out into the yard.

“Draco, dear, you’re going to need to let go,” the woman, who he’d just recently learned was named Molly, told him.

“You can’t just bury him!” Draco shouted. “It’s unseemly.”

“What would you suggest we do?” one of the twins asked.

“Use him as a coffee table?” the other put in.

Draco shot them both his sharpest glare but they seemed unfazed. “I just-” he began, but then he could say no more because he felt the glass give a massive heave and crack beneath him. “Bloody hell,” he muttered and tried to leap off, but he wasn’t in time to escape before the glass gave way and he found himself lying on top of his dead love. He paid no mind to the glistening shards beneath him, slicing into his flesh. All he could think about were the lips that were so very close to his own.

Harry’s bottom lip had been cut by the glass, and Draco’s eyes were mesmerized by the way the blood rose to the top and blended with Harry’s perfect red lips. It made his lips shine as if the boy were still alive and well and only sleeping very deeply.

Rummaging in his robe pocket, Draco produced a thin blue vial. Deftly he dipped his finger into the liquid and rubbed it along the cut, watching with a soft smile as it disappeared. It was in that moment that an idea occurred to him. He tried to concentrate over the bustling noise going on all around him, people trying to pry him off of Harry’s limp body and others trying to repair the damaged glass.

He ignored them all and reached for the apple, still clutched in Harry’s pale hand. Tentatively he stuck out his tongue and pressed just the tip against the soft cream flesh of the fruit. He tasted it briefly and then spat into the grass, his gray eyes glittering with triumph.

“I know this poison!” he announced, carefully extracting himself from atop the raven-haired boy below him. With a wave of his wand he had the glass replaced as if it had never broken and he was addressing the gathered Weasley clan. “Severus taught me this poison my first week in the manor. It was a favorite of the Dark Lord.”

“And this means what exactly?” Percy asked. “That we can carve the cause of death on his tombstone?”

Draco rolled his eyes and decided to address someone intelligent, but his eyes kept shifting from one freckled face to the next and he gave up hope for that and addressed Harry instead. “I think I can cure you,” he whispered, splaying his fingers across the broken shards of glass over Harry’s heart.

“You can cure death?” squeaked the girl Weasley, Ginny, if he remembered correctly. Girl Weasley was just so much easier to recall.

“He’s not dead yet,” Draco replied, his breath fogging against the glass. “Nearly, but not quite. He’s only ingested a little of the poison, so if I can brew the antidote, I can most likely revive him.”

“How likely?” Arthur, the father, asked.

“Does it matter?” Draco turned to face the man, fire in his gaze. “If there is even the smallest of chances, is it not worth trying?”

“It is,” Molly agreed. “You lot get Harry back inside,” she called to the ginger group, waving them along. They obeyed, as they always seemed to do when Molly gave an order, and soon Harry’s casket was being hauled back into the house. “Draco, we’ll set you up a place in Charlie’s old room. You can brew your potion there. Let Ron know what supplies you need and he’ll fetch them for you.”

“I will?” Ron asked, looking a bit put out.

Mrs. Weasley didn’t answer, she merely leveled a stern gaze on her youngest son and Ron shifted toward Draco, summoning a quill and parchment from the kitchen. Draco smiled and rattled off a few things that would get him started and set to work.

The faint plopping sounds of his potion bubbling could be heard behind him, but Draco wasn’t tending to the antidote right that moment. He had about an hour before it would be ready for another set of three clockwise stirs, and he killed the time sitting next to Harry’s coffin. It had been moved into Draco’s tight room several days back after Draco insisted he might need Harry close in case he needed to test his work. They’d agreed, but he suspected that Molly knew Draco was lying and merely wanted Harry in his line of sight at all times.

“This has to work,” Draco breathed, making little heart shaped smudges across the glass. “I want to meet you, Harry James Potter. I want to hold you and kiss you and love you forever and I can’t very well do that if you stay so silent.”

There was no answer of course, there never was. Draco could no longer count how many hours he spent sitting on the floor beside Harry’s coffin. Sometimes he would just sit there, staring into the placid face of the man he was trying desperately to revive. Occasionally he would read passages from Harry’s own journal, explaining how much he loved what Harry had said there, or how he could fully relate to the emotions Harry had illustrated in another spot. But, most of the time, Draco just told Harry about his own life, his dreams of the future, and how badly he hoped to share those dreams with Harry when he woke up.

Draco was only hypothesizing in his experiments and his assessment of Harry’s condition. Judging by the bite in the apple and the state Harry was currently in, Draco suspected he would have a few weeks to revive him or else everything he did now would be in vain because Harry would be well and truly dead at the end of a month. The potion would have worked its way to his heart and killed him by then. Draco might not even have a full month, but he was holding to hope that he could finish the antidote in time.

He didn’t even want to think about the consequences of failing.

With a sigh, Draco tore himself from Harry’s side and back to his potion, eyeing it curiously before he stirred, grinning when it shifted into the proper deep purple he’d anticipated. He wouldn’t fail his Harry; there wasn’t even a question in his mind now that he would save his sweet prince.

Draco’s absence from Riddle manor did not go overlooked, nor did the stolen broom from Voldemort’s stables. Narcissa was in a tizzy over it, wondering where her son could have run off to without even leaving a note. To appease his wife, Voldemort sent out a few of his loyal Death Eaters to seek the boy out, but each day they returned empty handed.

Voldemort would be lying if he said he was even the slightest bit concerned by this. He couldn’t care less if the boy ever resurfaced. It was just one more thing he didn’t have to worry about now that Harry Potter was out of the way.

Nearly every morning for the first two weeks after his victory, Voldemort checked his mirror, and each morning it said the same. Tom Marvolo Riddle was now the most powerful wizard in the land. He’d grown content in the following days, sure that his place in the world was now solid and he felt no need to keep confirming it with the mirror each day. Shortly after that, he began making new plans to conquer some of the outlying villages now that he no longer had to fear Potter rising up and defeating him.

With a crimson gleam in his eyes, Voldemort decided to start with the small cottages in the forest bordering his manor – namely, the home that had housed Potter when he was a wanted fugitive.

Sweat covered Draco’s brow in a thin sheen as he leaned over the cauldron and added the final ingredient to his antidote. The liquid thinned, smoked and then turned a sallow yellow color. It was perfect, and Draco nearly shouted with glee in his triumph. It had been nearly a month already, and he was just hoping that the cure wasn’t too late.

A glance at Harry showed him paler than he was the day before, the red of his lips now blended almost perfectly with the snow-white of his skin. Draco swallowed thickly and refused to think that the boy already looked to have fallen into death’s cool embrace.

He dipped a golden vial into the mixture, because glass would be too volatile, and strode over to the coffin’s edge. With a muttered spell, Draco vanished the glass and stared down at the closed eyes of his beloved. Long black lashes rested peacefully against Harry’s cheeks, and Draco wanted nothing more than to see them flutter open so that he may look into Harry’s eyes, which he quickly realized with a start that he didn’t even know the color of.

“This will work,” he promised himself and Harry simultaneously. “It has to.”

With those last whispered words, Draco tipped the vial of liquid into Harry’s mouth, gently coaxing it down Harry’s dry throat.

Then he waited.

The potion should work fairly quickly as it eliminated the poison coursing through Harry’s body, but he allowed time enough for it to work…it had been weeks since Harry had ingested the poison after all. Seconds passed, then minutes and then finally an hour went by and still Draco saw no change in Harry’s complexion, or the telltale rise and fall of his chest.

Yet again, it seemed Draco was too late.

“Malfoy, can I get you anything? We didn’t see you at supper?” Ron called as he crept around the corner and into Malfoy’s room. What he saw there made his heart stutter to a halt. The blond was crumpled at the base of Harry’s uncovered coffin, his back heaving with silent sobs.

Ron’s mouth went dry and his hands were clammy as he clasped them into fists. He knew what this meant. He had learned to read Draco’s mannerisms over the last few weeks – mostly because he had to. The blond didn’t talk much, not to him at least. Ron heard him talking to Harry all the time, reading to him, discussing art, books, philosophy – all as if the man was awake to hear and respond. Ron thought it was a bit peculiar, but part of him, secretly, thought it was sort of sweet. He’d heard somewhere that sometimes people woke up from comas because people like Draco stayed by their side and coaxed them back to life. Deep down, Ron hoped that was what the mysterious blond was doing for their friend.

But seeing the usually stoic Draco Malfoy on his knees, weeping like a child…it made all of the hope in Ron’s bones flee like leaves on an autumn night. It didn’t bode well, not at all.

“I take it the antidote didn’t work,” Ron asked meekly. Draco lifted his head for a moment – long enough to stare at Ron with icy gray eyes – and then his chin dropped back to his chest in defeat.

“No,” he rasped. “It didn’t. I’m all out of ideas. He’s gone, Weasley. He’s really gone.”

Ron swallowed the lump that had formed in his throat and nodded. “I’ll get the others. They’ll want to know.”

Draco shooed him from the room with a sigh and turned his attention back to Harry, but all words failed him, and soon he was torn away from the coffin’s side when a gaggle of gingers moved into the room. Softly spoken words filled his ears, none of them measuring up to the heartbreak and self-loathing he felt in that moment. He’d let down the one and only person he’d ever made a promise to. The only promise he’d ever wanted to make and keep.

One by one the Weasleys each took their turn at Harry’s side, saying goodbye. “I was glad to call you my son, Harry, even for as brief a time as we had with you,” Molly whispered, reaching up as if she might pinch his cheeks before letting her hand fall slowly to the side once more. Arthur followed, but he remained quiet, simply squeezing Harry’s hand for a long moment before letting go and joining Molly to the side.

George and Fred followed, although Draco still couldn’t tell them apart. They commented on how easy Harry had been to get on with, and how they had liked having him around. Before they moved back, they each placed something in Harry’s coffin and Draco nearly rushed to the side to see what kind of prank they’d leave to desecrate Harry’s burial. What he found were two small bouquets of flowers made from intricately folded and twisted sweet wrappers. Draco winced and moved away, silently chastising himself for having doubted the twins for even a second.

Percy went next, grumbling under his breath about Harry’s audacity to just leave them this way, how he hadn’t gotten time enough to spend with them while Ginny sniffled beside her brother, tears glistening down her cheeks. “You were a good friend, Harry,” Ron said as he stood next to the coffin. “The best. I only wish I had told you that when you could still hear me.”

With that, the family silently levitated Harry’s casket through the house and out into the forest beyond, and this time Draco didn’t stop them. There was nothing left to try, nothing left that could possibly bring Harry back from a brink he had already crossed. All he could do was stare as the Weasley family gathered around and sang Harry into the afterlife.

When they were about to lift the glass lid and seal him in forever, Draco could hardly bear it. “Please!” he shouted. “Please wait just a minute.” They all paused, giving Draco sad eyes as they nodded and stepped away. “Could I have just one more minute alone?” he asked meekly, stepping up to the edge. He didn’t notice where everyone went, just that they went.

Draco trailed his fingers along the smooth flesh of Harry’s arm, wishing it were warm and flexing and wrapped around him. “I’m so sorry, Harry. I failed you, and I’m so sorry,” he whispered in a half-sob.

The ebony locks of Harry’s wild hair looked so soft that Draco had to reach up and touch them, lacing his fingers through and wondering what all that gorgeous mane would have felt like snuggled against him. “I had such plans for our future together,” Draco sighed, letting his fingers brush across Harry’s cheeks. What he wouldn’t give to see them flush with excitement. “I’m confident we could have been happy together, you and I. I don’t even know you and I’m already mad for you, Harry. What am I supposed to do now?”

He wanted desperately for those thick lashes to flutter open and gaze at him with blue…brown…purple eyes – it didn’t matter to Draco so long as they were looking at him. Boldly, Draco leaned down and placed a kiss on Harry’s ruby lips, agonizing that they were somehow even softer than they looked. He was sure his grief-stricken mind was playing tricks on him when those lips began to move beneath his own, until a wet tongue darted out to taste of him and Draco pulled back with a mighty gasp.

Green. Harry’s eyes were the most stunning shade of green that Draco had ever looked upon, and they were locked on him. And those lips, they were grinning madly and those cheeks were blushing and even more fantastic to look upon than Draco could have imagined. And he was sitting up. And he looked fine – more than fine judging by the warming in Draco’s trousers.

“You were dead,” he breathed, still unsure if he was dreaming.

“I think you… fixed me,” Harry said in an angelic tone that did nothing to convince Draco that he wasn’t dreaming.

“Fixed you,” Draco repeated lamely.

“Well, I assume that you’re the same man who has been watching over me, reading to me from my journal and telling me fantastical stories of our lives together?” he asked, a bemused grin on his face.

“You heard all that, did you? I thought you were…asleep, or dead or something,” Draco stammered.

“Did you not mean it then?” Harry asked, already losing the grin that lit his face up so beautifully. Draco rushed forward and grabbed his hand, eager to keep the sweet emotion from fading away from those emerald eyes. Even if it was a dream, Draco didn’t care. He would simply fight to stay asleep.

“I meant all of it. Every word,” he assured. “It’s just a bit…embarrassing. You don’t even know me and there I was, gushing like a girl at your bedside.”

“Your favorite color is green, and you love the smell of fresh baked bread and even though you tried not to like them, you fell reluctantly in love with the Weasley family,” he listed, beaming as he did. “You lived where I did, if only for a moment, and you share a pain I couldn’t share with anyone else. You loved me before you even met me, Draco,” Harry sighed, his hand squeezing tightly around Draco’s. “That’s all I need to know.”

Draco didn’t know who started the kiss, or even how long it lasted out there in the darkening forest. All he knew was that he could finally taste Harry and he tasted like apple and cinnamon, and that his tongue seemed to fit perfectly within the confines of Draco’s mouth, and that his hands were warm and his fingers nimble for a man who had been asleep for weeks.

He knew that he wanted his man, now more than ever, and that in some brilliant twist of fate, Harry wanted him too.

Author’s Note: Well, I could leave off there, but there is one last part to post, so please stand by. Beeeeeep. Oh, and Happy New Year to everyone. My resolution is to finish my book and write more porn...not necessarily in that order.... What's yours?