Written for the Art Museum Challenge; for the Disney Character Challenge; for the Triwizard Tournament Competition. Word count: 650.
Hodierna Wildsmith always knew that her daughter, even at the age of six, was highly intelligent, but she would never have guessed that she was probably smarter than Merlin.
Her husband was still out working; it =everyone on the manor had to work long hours that they could get in all of the food they needed with which to provide the lord of the manor. Hodierna, though, had five children, and none of them were old enough to work for very long. Instead of working, Hodierna stayed to watch the children.
Luckily, she had a good friend who was a writer, and he had provided her with a lovely little manuscript he'd written that he had titled The Tales of Beedle the Bard. She was able to keep all five children occupied by reading the stories over and over again.
There was one, though, that none of them had yet requested: "Babbitty Rabbitty and her Cackling Stump."
"Do you children want to hear a new story today?"
"Yes, Mummy!" chorused Jolecia, Idonea and Ignatia.
"Mummumm! Es!" babbled Leofric.
"No, Mummy," said Gerbold, the oldest, with a frown upon his face. Gerbold was reaching the age where he became uninterested in fairy tales, but Hodierna insisted upon his remaining with the family.
"I'm sorry, Gerbold," said Hodierna. "You're going to listen."
"Mummy – "
"A long time ago, in a faraway land, there was a great king who wanted to take all of the magic from his people."
Gerbold rolled his eyes. "He can't do that, Mummy. You can't take magic."
"Shhh, dear. To get the magic from all of the land's wizards and witches, this king decided that he needed to gather all of the wizards and witches at his castle. Thus, he formed a Brigade of Witch-Hunters. But since he had no magic, he decided that he needed to learn how to use magic.
"So he called for a wizard or witch to come and teach him magic, but out of fear none in the kingdom came to him. Instead, to the king came a cunning Muggle who convinced his ruler that he was a wizard, though he in fact knew no magic."
"He's a silly Muggle," said Idonea, who was four.
"Quite right, dear. The Muggle man insisted upon receiving treasure in exchange for his teaching. But the king's washerwoman, Babbitty Rabbitty, saw him pull two twigs from a tree and later say to the king that they were wands.
"While the foolish king and the Muggle charlatan were practicing, the king heard Babbitty laughing hysterically, and he became enraged. He demanded that the Muggle help him display his abilities to the town. The Muggle tried to tell the king that he was to be in town, but it was no use. So he went to the house of Babbitty Rabbitty to express his anger at the mess she had gotten him into. He then discovered she was a witch and forced her to help him.
"She attempted to do so, amused, but at this performance to the king's subjects he was to bring back to life a dead dog, which was of course impossible. The Muggle revealed to the public that the cause for the spell's dysfunction was the wicked witch, Babbitty, who hid in the bushes.
"They ran after her, but she disappeared suddenly. 'She has turned into a tree!' they shouted, so they hacked down the tree, the dogs stopped barking, and all believed the wicked witch to be dead.
"But if they had looked, they would have seen a rabbit leaping out from the stump, a wand in its mouth. The End."
"She turned into a rabbit?!" said Ignatia, her mouth open in a wide "O".
"Yes. Isn't that amazing?"
Before Hodierna could say anything else, her daughter transformed into a rabbit and scampered energetically around the house.
Ignatia was smarter than she had thought.