Written for my 'framed narrative' challenge at xoxLewrahxox's forum.
Prompt: framed narrative or story within a story
So, before I can let you get in to the story, I must say a few words. First, the story-within-the-story told here is inspired by Greek mythology, specifically by the story of Daphne and Apollo, but the relation between the two, plot wise, is tenuous at best. Second, in writing this, I came up with a series of relations between people that would probably be evident through close reading, but is fully understandable without knowing it. If you're curious, I'd be more than happy to tell you who everyone's relations are, and who the couple in the photograph are.
Now, after all that blabbering, let's get on with it.
1,800 words.
Rosemarie's mother stood facing the stove, flipping pancakes as her daughter, just barely seven, sat at the table, swinging her legs and slurping noisily at her milk.
Her mother turned around. "We're not pigs, Rosemarie," she said, waving her spatula. "Drink properly."
Rosemarie stuck her tongue out at her mother as she turned back to the stove.
"Rosemarie stuck her tongue out at you!" Petunia, her elder sister, cried.
"Did not!" she shrieked.
"Did too!"
"Girls! That's enough! Is it too much to ask for a peaceful breakfast just once?" their mother began layering pancakes into their plates. "Now eat your breakfast before it gets cold."
Suitable chastened, the girls did little more than trade glares over the marmalade until Petunia, apparently dissatisfied with the silence, burst, "Rosemarie wants to go see the witch!"
Their mother turned a keen eye towards her youngest daughter. "Rosemarie, is this true?"
Rosemarie gave her sister a nasty look. "Yes, mum."
She frowned. "You know I'd prefer it if you'd told me yourself," Rosemarie looked down at her syrupy pancakes, "but yes, you may go. But only after you've cleaned your room."
She stuck her tongue out at Petunia once her mother wasn't looking.
•••
Rosemarie did a hasty job of tidying her room after breakfast and with a shout of, "I'm going now, bye!" she rocketed out the door before either her mother or father could call her back inside.
'The witch', as Petunia referred to her, was an elderly woman on the outskirts of town. Although the Muggle and Wizarding communities had been integrated for quite some time, the two were rarely entirely comfortable with one another, which was why the elderly witch lived so far from everyone else.
She sold her magically enhanced vegetables to the greengrocer for a living and was seen infrequently in town. While the two worlds were very much integrated in big cities, the magical population was less accepted in small towns. Rosemarie was her only visitor.
And while the witch was an oddity within the town, Rosemarie herself was something of an oddity within her family, having inherited the vibrant red hair of some ancient relatives instead of their more common brown.
Rosemarie rapped on the door, and while waiting to be let in, admired the patch of strange flowers leading up the walkway.
The door opened to reveal the full form of an elderly lady, smiling pleasantly.
"Rosemarie, come in. I wasn't expecting you so early, dear, so the cookies won't be ready for another half hour. Would you like some tea instead? No caffeine, don't worry, just harmless little thistles." Rosemarie was ushered inside the cozy house and took in the mess. Nothing like her own home, with its neatly polished counters and decoratively empty rooms, here almost everything was covered with other things. The couch, for example, was a nest of clothes, books and, inexplicably, a carton of eggs.
"No thanks, Aunt Bella," Rosemarie said, shifting a pile of books to make room for herself on the couch.
She laughed. "All right then, dear. And what would you like to do today? The weather's lovely, if you'd like a ride on the broom."
Aunt Bella, as Rosemarie had been instructed to call her, was the owner of a toy broomstick that flew for Muggle and Wizard alike, and riding it was one of Rosemarie's favourite pastimes.
But today, Rosemarie shook her head. "No," she said flatly. "I want a story, Aunt Bella."
"All right then, you just settle yourself in there, and I'll be back in a moment, dear."
Rosemarie pulled a photo album from the pile of books beside her. She flipped through, admiring the way the inhabitants of the pictures waved up at her. She passed through the first few pages quickly, moving to her favourite.
It was an old photograph, discolouring from age; but Rosemarie liked it best of all. It showed a young couple holding hands on the beach, and Rosemarie thought that she looked like the woman. That same red hair and freckled face.
Sometimes Rosemarie wanted to tell Aunt Bella that she thought they looked alike, but the woman in the picture was obviously a witch, and she was very much not.
Bustling back from the kitchens holding a steaming cup, Aunt Bella sat down beside Rosemarie. "A story, did you say? And what story would you like today?" she set the cup down on the cluttered coffee table and made her way to the bookshelf. She pulled another photo album from the middle shelf and sat back down again.
"No, not those stories," Rosemarie shook her head. "I want the one about Tom and the girl."
Aunt Bella's eyebrows arched delicately. "Are you sure, dear?"
She nodded.
It was her favourite tale – a tragedy from the War long ago. Aunt Bella had told Rosemarie all the stories she knew about heroes and love, but that one, that tragedy, was Rosemarie's favourite.
Aunt Bella sighed. "Well, all right then dear."
She wasn't sure if it was healthy for such a young child to be hearing such a story so often, but Aunt Bella had never been able to deny Rosemarie anything.
It was quite a long time ago indeed when a young man named Tom was born in a town not much unlike our own. His mother was a witch, but the poor woman died not long after giving birth to her beautiful son. She left him in the care of a kindly woman who swore to raise the boy like her own.
When Tom was not much older than you, Rosemarie, he was visited by an old, wise man—
"Tell me the part about the school."
The school? Well, when Tom was eleven years old, he went to a magic school called Hogwarts. Now you have to understand that Hogwarts wasn't like a normal school. No, at Hogwarts, everything was magical. The walls seeped magic, the ground below the students' feet was lush with magical plants. Even the stairs moved of their own free will. And at that school, Tom fit in very well, because he was wizard.
Tom was a very charming and popular boy at school and he had many friends. But even though Tom acted like a very sweet boy, he was very prejudiced – do you know what that means, Rosemarie?
"Yes."
What does it mean?
"It means you don't like people even though you should."
Very good. So Tom was a very prejudiced boy, and he didn't think that witches and wizards who had Muggle parents should go to Hogwarts.
"That was mean of him!"
Yes it was. And so Tom did some very terrible things –
"What did he do?"
I'll tell you when you're older, Rosemarie. You know you're too young.
"But –"
When you're older, Rosemarie. So, as I was saying, Tom did terrible things. But even though he did terrible things, the other students still liked him.
"Why?"
It's hard to explain. Some people are just very likeable. And one of the students who liked Tom was a young girl. She was very beautiful and very intelligent, so many other boys liked her. But she turned them all down, because she was in love with Tom.
"Did she know he did bad things?"
Not at first. None of them knew at first. But for a very long time, the girl didn't tell Tom that she loved him, because she wasn't very brave. But one day she was alone outside after a boy who liked her had been bothering her, and she saw that Tom was alone as well.
And so, because she was feeling reckless after what had happened with the boy, she approached Tom, and she told him that she loved him.
And Tom was taken aback, even though he knew that many girls liked him, because most of them never confronted him like that. And Tom said, "you think you love me?"
But the girl said, "no Tom. I know I love you."
Tom didn't believe her, though, because Tom didn't believe in love. So instead of telling her that he didn't love her back, he said, "and what would you do for love?"
And she said, "I would do anything."
Tom left then, and he didn't see her again until the end of the year. And when he saw her again he said, "do you still love me?"
And she told him that she did. So he told her that –
"No, tell me exactly what he said."
Tom said, "will you pledge your life to me?"
"Yes," the girl said.
And so Tom took her outside and said, "you would do anything for me?"
And she said yes.
And Tom said, "anything at all? Anything I wanted?"
"Yes, yes" she said.
So Tom told her to close her eyes, and he pointed his wand at her. When she opened them again, she wasn't a girl anymore, but a snake.
Tom spoke the language of snakes, so he asked her, "would you still do anything for me?"
And she still said yes.
"Because she loved him?"
"Yes, Rosemarie. Because she loved him. Now, would you like anything to drink?"
She shook her head. "Did the girl have Muggle parents?"
"No. I don't think Tom would have done that if she did."
"He wouldn't have loved her?" Rosemarie asked, appalled.
"You think he loved he?"
"Well…yeah. If he didn't, then he wouldn't have turned her into a snake, right?" She frowned. "You left out the part about how he named her Nagini and he brought her everywhere with him."
Aunt Bella laughed. "Yes, I suppose I did. Now, you don't want anything to drink, but I think the cookies are ready. Can you smell them?"
She got up from the couch and made her way into the kitchen, where she pulled the cookies out of the oven. "Nice and hot, Rosemarie. Would you like to try?"
"Yes!" Rosemarie leapt off the couch and skipped into the kitchen. "You're the best, Aunt Bella."
She wrapped her skinny arms around the witch's midsection in a tight hug, and mumbled into her hip, "When I'm older, I want to be a witch just like you."
•••
When Rosemarie got home later that afternoon, her mother met her at the door.
"You know I don't like you spending so much time over there. You should have been home earlier."
"Sorry mum," Rosemarie said, looking at her feet. She knew it was best to act chastened when visits to Aunt Bella were on the line.
"It's all right for now. But I don't want her to think we send you over there because there's not enough room here, you know. Next time you go over, be sure to tell Mrs. Malfoy I say thank you."
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