Hey all! This is my last fic of 2011! It's 11:00 where I live! Anyways, this is for a challenge at HPFC (my own challenge *blush*) - The Fairytale Challenge. Mine is The Little Match Girl - which coincidentally takes place on December 31st. Anyways, I hope you enjoy! This is AU, so don't fault me.
Most terribly cold it was; it snowed, and was nearly quite dark, and evening – the last evening of the year.
- The Little Match Girl by Hans Christian Anderson
It was New Year's Eve, and a little girl was huddled on the street corner. She couldn't be quite ten years of age, no, she was barely so, if even, and yet she was alone. Alone on the streets. In her hand was clenched a tiny, tiny box of matches.
Slender fingers – those were from her mother – and the snow-flecked red hair was surely from her as well.
But then hard look in her eyes was surely from her father.
Perhaps it was when their world fell that her father went hard. Perhaps it was when their fortune was lost and Hogwarts was left to rot and their ways of life fell back to primitive, medieval.
She didn't care. All she knew was that if she went home without a single match sold, without a single galleon to show for her pains, the man with the black hair that she called father would beat her black and blue.
Black and blue like her naked, frostbitten feet, like her mother's eyes, like her grandmother's dead body.
No one had taken pity on little Lily Potter all day. They all recognized her – daughter of The Boy Who Lived – a despised figure nowadays. For once someone becomes a hero, they are expected to remain a hero. And if they cannot save the world from a new crisis, they are cast aside.
Twist of fate. A little girl, daughter of Harry Potter, who had to peddle matches in Diagon Alley to help her family feed themselves. Her brothers were sent away to America, to try to find work.
Where could Lily Luna go, on this last night of the year? Not the little alleyway shack they called home, of course. Returning home without a galleon, a sickle, not even a knut, would mean a beating.
As the tiny snowflakes fell upon her long, curly red hair, she glanced into the windows of the homes where the happy families lived, with candles in the windows and shadows painting the ceilings. Homes with blazing fire-glow.
Home, love, family. Little Lily, the little match girl, thought there must have been a time when she had them too.
The smells of home-cooked food wafted into the streets, and Lily's stomach twisted with hunger. How long had it been since she had had a good meal?
No one saw as she pressed her tiny, freckled snub nose to the glass, watching the families who were still-well off. Watching them delight in things they usually took for granted.
But of course they weren't taken for granted on this night. Not on the last night of the Old Year.
How silly she was, having a whole set of matches, and freezing to death on a street corner. If only she could gather her bravery, enough bravery to light a single match to warm her hands by…
Wouldn't her father beat her for using her matches for herself?
She didn't care. A single match wouldn't be missed.
Carefully, she huddled herself into a corner of an alley, pulling her tattered shawl around her. How terrible it was that she was a Squib, how terrible it was that she couldn't use magic to warm herself by. How shameful it was that Harry Potter's daughter was a Squib.
She struck a single little match against the stone wall, watching the small crimson tip burst into a happy flame.
Warm, bright, friendly…
In fact, she could almost see a big stove, burning large, oaky, piney logs, filling the air with the scent of crushed pine needles and a thick forest.
Lily stretched out her feet to warm them by the stove, only for the match to burn out.
She was left in the dark again, holding a black-tipped little piece of wood, still smoking.
Experience made her bold. She took another match, to bring the stove back, rubbing it against the wall, letting it spring to life.
And suddenly, it was like the wall she struck the match on was a window, a window into some sort of pretty world, nothing like Lily had ever known.
There was a large mahogany table, piled high with beautiful hand-painted porcelain dishes, loaded with all sorts of delicious foods. A roasted turkey, golden brown and shining, with the stuffing just pouring out. Lily's mouth watered. Mashed potatoes, clumped like some sort of creamy ethereal cloud, vegetables with colors as bright as Lily had ever seen.
Then the match went out, and it all disappeared.
She was even quicker to light another one this time.
Now, she was sitting among wrapped gifts, but that was not what awed her childish eyes. What was striking was the fabulous Christmas tree, taller than the tallest. It wasn't scrawny or starved like Lily was – its branches were full and welcoming, the tinsel strung around it, shining, the ornaments, beautifully perfect. And the tiny lights! Oh the tiny lights gathered into lovely bundles, everywhere.
But the match went out, and then the lights rose higher and higher into the sky, until the lights of the tree had joined the very stars in the heavens.
A single star fell through the sky, like a trail of fire, and a tiny frown line appeared on Lily's pale, pinched skin, between her angled eyebrows.
"Someone is dying," she murmured, for her beloved Grandmother Weasley, the one person who had ever truly loved her, had often told her that every time a soul joins God, a star descends from heaven.
She drew a fourth match against the walls, and before her stood her Grandmother Weasley. The woman was just as Lily had remembered her in life – slightly pudgy, with red-grey hair and rosy cheeks, looking at her granddaughter with such love in her eyes. And she held out her arms to Lily and Lily burst into sobs.
"Grandmother Weasley," she cried out, "Oh, please, don't go – if you do, take me with you! Because, Grandmother, when this little match burns out you will disappear, and leave me alone – you'll go away just like the big stove, and the feast, and the Christmas tree!"
In a fit of terror at losing her grandmother, Lily struck the entire bundle of matches against the wall, for she couldn't bear to lose the one person who had loved her.
And the blaze gave the old woman a new light in her face – Lily had never seen her so beautiful and tall – and, taking the tiny girl into her arms, they flew away towards the sky, up higher, higher, until they reached a place with no hunger or cold, no beatings or poverty, no lonely street corners with only the light of a single match. They were with God.
When the first ray of icy sun struck the corner of the alleyway, there sat the small-boned, red-haired, snub-nosed girl, her cheeks rosy with the warmth of a hundred matches, and a benevolent smile resting upon her face. There Lily sat, pressed against the stone wall, frozen to death, frozen like a statue, in the last hour of the Old Year.
Still and frozen sat Lily Luna Potter, the bundle of burnt-out matches still clutched in her stationary white hand.
"She wished to warm herself," said the passersby, glancing at the little girl they all knew – the one who had haunted Diagon Alley like a specter – with only the hope of making a galleon or two to avoid a beating.
But none of them knew of the blaze of glory in which she had left this world, nor of the beautiful world in which she began her new year.
So what did you think? Please read and review! I love this fairytale and I want all of your opinions on whether or not I did it justice. :) Have a very Merry New Year to everyone! See you in 2012!
Love always and forever,
Lily