Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter or any recognisable quotes from C.S Lewis.
Story Title/Link: Once Upon a Time in Godric's Hollow
School: Ilvermorny
Theme: Scoring/achieving something – in this case, truth and knowledge are what is being achieved.
Main Prompt: 16. [Quote] "Someday you will be old enough to start reading fairy tales again." - C.S. Lewis
Secondary Prompt: 9. [Weather] Hurricane
Year: 7
Wordcount: 2176
Dedication: To C.S. Lewis, the man who made me love reading. Thank you for teaching me to never give up on happy ever afters.
Once Upon a Time in Godric's Hollow
"The storm is getting worse," Lily muttered as she peered out the curtains of her father's house in Godric's Hollow. Outside the house, the wind was howling faster that Lily ever remembered seeing. Rain and hail were sleeting everywhere, smashing against the window like it was trying to force its way inside. The trees were jerking and creaking, branches snapping in the gale, flying through the streets and littering the roads with debris.
"I just don't understand," Lily said, closing the curtain as yet another crack of thunder echoed across the sky. "Hurricanes don't hit Europe. They just don't."
"They can," her father said, "They're just rare. This will be the third one I've lived through now. Oh, the stories I could tell…"
Lily scoffed and rolled her eyes. "Not this again Papa," she moaned, grabbing the two steaming cups of hot chocolate she'd been making and walking them around the counter and into the lounge room.
The house was a small affair, just large enough for three people to live comfortably. It was a little on the dated side, but it had this lived in feel to it Lily had never experienced in any other home, even her own. Papa said it was because over twenty generations of Potters had lived in the cottage and that the magic spells placed on it by the 'ancient Elves' still held thousands of years later. She loved her grand-father, she really did. But he had a severely active imagination, and for an old man with terminal cancer, it was about time he grew up. She didn't understand why her mother had always encouraged his nonsense.
"You used to love my stories!" He exclaimed. Lily rounded the old brown leather couch and handed him the hot chocolate. He graciously accepted, and Lily sat down on the couch beside him as he slowly raised the cup to his lips. She hated seeing him like this. She still remembered when she was a little girl, and he would chase her around the garden of this very cottage, regaling her with stories of the Magical Kingdom of Hogsmeade – home to Elven Witches, Goblin Champions and Death Eaters. Now his face was covered with lines, his once vibrant green eyes had lost their shine, and his raven black hair had turned ashen white.
"Keyword being 'used to'," she pointed out, "I'm nineteen now Papa, I've grown up."
Papa blanched. "No, no, no. You should never do that," He decreed with a smile.
"Really, Papa. I know you love your fairy-tales, but you do understand that sometimes you just grow out of them, don't you?"
She placed a hand on his shoulder, growing frailer and frailer by the day, and smiled softly at him.
Papa just sighed, "My dear Lily…" he whispered, before placing the mug down on the coffee table. He grabbed his cane and tried to stand up. Lily quickly put down her own cup and helped him to his feet, and he started walking over to one of the bookshelves on the far side of the room.
"Your mother and I wrote this story together for you, but when we began it, I had not realised that girls grow quicker than books." He reached up with his free hand and pulled a book she knew off by heart from the shelf. Harry Potter.
"Tell me a story, Papa!" Lily exclaimed as her grandfather, Harrison Potter, tucked her tiny form into bed.
"Which story do you want to hear princess?" He asked her softly.
"The story of Harry Potter and the Elven Princess Ginevra!" She asked, eagerly. She'd heard it so many times she'd lost count. But it was her favourite story, and it always would be.
"Well, once upon a time, in this very cottage, there lived a young boy named Harry. He was a nice boy if a bit shy. But he loved the forest. He would spend hours and hours out there in the day and the dark, searching for the Fair Folk, whom his mother Lily had told him about." Lily had always grinned at that part because she knew her name came from her great-grandmother, who meant so much to her Papa, just like she did.
"Then, one time Harry was out in the forest, there was a great storm. A hurricane of wind and rain! The sky was cracking the trees splintering, and Harry was running father than ever before!" And Lily never failed to gasp.
"There was a great light, Harry crashed into a tree, a scream of fear, and Harry woke up, covered in snow!"
The Harry Potter novels, written by her grandfather Harrison Potter and her mother Joanne before she died, told the story of Harry Potter, a boy who discovered a magical world. She knew the whole story of course, but she'd never actually read the books. By the time they were published, her mother was dead, and she was fifteen. She had given up on fairy tales by then. What sense was there in living in a world that wasn't real. Happy endings didn't exist, there was no point in trying to lie to yourself about.
"But, someday, you will be old enough to start reading fairy tales again." He handed the book to her, and she ran a finger over the title.
"Papa…" An incredible crack rent the air, illuminating the sky beyond the house. And then the lights all went out.
"Bugger," she muttered. Slipping the book into her pocket, she guided her grandfather back to the couch.
"Stay here, Papa. I'll go down to the basement and check the circuit breaker," she said, grabbing a torch and padding towards the stairs.
"Lily." His voice had become dark and serious, she turned around, and looked to her grandfather, peering through the darkness beyond her torchlight.
"Yeah, Papa?"
"I love you, princess," he said softly, and Lily thought she saw a tear run down his cheek, but couldn't be sure in the dark.
"I love you too, Papa," she replied, confused.
"Good luck," he whispered. Lily shrugged it off and pushed the basement door open.
The basement was just as wet and damp as she remembered it. Possibly worse, though she attributed that more to the hurricane outside than anything else. She slowly made her way over to the circuit breaker, keeping the torchlight fixed to the floor to avoid any nasties. She needed to get her friend Molly over to help with cleaning this place up. When her grandfather died, the cottage would fall to her. She hadn't decided what to do with it yet. She would probably sell it, buy an apartment in the city to be closer to work. But she'd have to clean out this infernal basement first.
She reached the circuit breaker and reset the meter. There was a bright flash from upstairs, followed by the smell of smoke as the lights flickered back on.
"Papa!" She exclaimed, discarding the torch and racing back to the stairs. The door was closed. She knew she hadn't closed it on her way down.
"Papa! Are you okay up there?" She yelled, grabbing the door handle. The door wouldn't budge. It was jammed shut. What?
Another blast of light flashed from underneath the door, but there was no accompanying thunder this time. Only the smell of smoke, wafting into the basement.
"Papa!" She tried again, but there was no answer. She grabbed hold of the door, braced her foot against the stone wall, and pulled on the handle.
The door ever so slowly began to screech backwards. It groaned and scraped, and Lily's hands were covered in sweat, but inch by inch, the door edged open. Eventually, after what felt like hours as her heart hammered in her chest, Lily got the door far enough open to squeeze through. She slipped through, fully intending to race up the stairs to check on her grandfather but was stopped by something very sharp against her throat.
The stairs on the other side of the door had vanished, seemingly replaced by a cave lit by a campfire in the middle of the room. The source of the smoke. And standing directly in front of her were three figures half her size wearing metal armour, with long ears, big eyes and row upon row of razor-sharp teeth. The sharp object against her neck? A battle axe. A very big battle axe.
"Who are you?" the creature grumbled. Lily raised her hands, trying to will them to stop shaking. What the hell was going on? Was she dreaming? Hallucinating? Had lightning struck the house and even now she was trapped in her subconscious mind.
"Who are you?" she retorted, eyes still locked on the axe.
"Boss, she'd human," one of the creatures whispered, staring at her with a dumbfounded look on its face. The leader narrowed its eyes at her.
"You a human?"
What kind of question was that?
"Yes," she said. The leader withdrew his axe and gestured to his friends.
"Take her to Queen Ginevra," he said gruffly.
"Ay, Boss." The two creatures grabbed her arms and yanked her forward.
"Hey!" Queen Ginevra? That's when Lily started to get a very sick feeling in her stomach.
"When Harry woke up," her grandfather would say, "he found himself covered in snow! He sat up and looked around, before gasping. Because lying no more than a few paces away from him, was a girl no older than him, with long red hair and pointed ears."
"An elf," Lily would beam, bouncing up and down in her bed in excitement.
"Exactly! Now Harry, being the polite young man that he was, walked over to the girl, and helped her up. 'What's your name?' Harry asked her. 'Princess Ginevra of Hogsmeade,' she replied.
And it was in that moment that Lily Potter realised there might just be some truth to fairy tales after all.
Meanwhile, in an old cottage on another world, Harrison Potter smiled softly to himself as he sipped his granddaughters now not so hot chocolate. He looked to the shelf, where his daughter's chronicles of his childhood adventures sat still and unassuming.
"She got there in the end, Jo," he whispered to himself. His single greatest regret was that Jo, who'd devoted her entire life to stories of Hogsmeade, never got to see it herself. He glanced out the window, and closed his eyes, listening to the sounds of the storm fading away into nothing. Its job was done.
Lily sat down next to her son as a hurricane blew across the little sea-side town of Godric's Hollow.
"Do you want to hear a story?" She asked him as she tucked the sheets up to his ears. Little James giggled softly, poking his head out from under the covers.
"Yes, yes!"
"Which one?" Lily asked, even though she already knew which one he'd choose.
"Lily Potter!" He cried.
Lily smiled softly.
"Once upon a time, there was a little girl called Lily. And she was just like you…"
"Why do you encourage him?" Lily's eldest daughter, Ginny, asked from the doorway.
"You used to love my stories!" Lily said, her mouth twitching at the reminder of her dear departed Papa.
"Yeah, when I was, like, five," Ginny retorted.
"James is only seven, Ginny. And besides, since when did you grow out of stories?" Lily said, sadly. It was hard, knowing what she did and seeing her own daughter in the same state of denial she'd had. She wondered if Papa had struggled as much as she was now.
"Uh, since I realised stories are just something we tell ourselves to make the crap world we live in now feel better," Ginny said, rolling her eyes, "Fairy tales like your stupid story about Hogsmeade is the worst. Do you know how much teasing I get for that? He's going to have it even worse because he's a boy. And he still thinks it's real!"
"Ginny!" Lily snapped, and James grabbed onto Lily's hand. Ginny, at least had the decency to look resourceful.
"Someday, Ginny, you will be old enough to start reading fairy tales again," Lily said softly. A crack of thunder filled the air of the old cottage, and the sound of a tree falling to the ground in the backyard echoed through the howl of the wind. James jumped, squeezing tighter around Lily's wrist.
"Ginny, can you go and check that didn't fall on anything?" She asked. Ginny nodded and back peddled into the hall.
"And Ginny?" Ginny stopped, turning back around, "I love you, sweetheart. Never forget that."
"I know, Mum." With that, Ginny left, and a few seconds later, Lily heard the sound of the back-door opening. Another crack shook the house, followed by a flash of blinding white coming from the window. The next moment, the wind had stopped, and the rain began to taper in strength.
"Now, where was I?"
"Once upon a time," James prompted.
Lily smiled softly, "Yes, once upon a time…"