Red Shoes

Written for Quidditch League, round 12, Chaser 3 with prompts: (word) sore, (word) bleeding and (restriction) no letter "j"

JK Rowling owns Harry Potter and his friends, I am providing additional instruction in Muggle Studies

The first day of the new term was always as nervous an experience for the teachers at Hogwarts as it was for the students. It was even more so for the first new "real" muggle studies teacher since Professor Charity Burbage had "resigned" after writing a piece that was pro-muggle in the "Daily Prophet". She had been "replaced" by Alecto Carrow, who taught anything but muggle studies. The first class on Angela Llewellyn's schedule was Muggle Literature Studies for 8th years and her syllabus covered everything from folklore to Shakespeare to modern authors. These were the students who had been most affected by the second rising of Lord Voldemort for some of them had been dealing with the tumult since their first year at Hogwarts either directly or indirectly. The witch selected for this position was a muggle-born from the United States who had been tutored in magic, but never had attended a magical academy. Being in a school this prestigious was exciting and scary!

"Please, may I have your attention?" she asked as the students filed into the room. "I realize that you all know who you are and have been classmates for years. You only have my name to learn, I have 18 of you in this class alone. Please sit alphabetically by last name." She pointed to the board and added, "My name is Professor Llewellyn. If you have been unable to find any of these books listed, please see me after class. I know some of you have never shopped in a muggle bookstore. Please open your copy of "New Fairy Tales", Volume 1, 1998 edition to page 145, "The Red Shoes". The original Danish version by Hans Christian Andersen was titled "De røde sko."

Books were thumped on about half the desks. The other half of the class remained silent and without texts. "Has anyone read this story before?" She looked around the room, no one volunteered an answer. "Fine, since about half of you have texts, please share with someone near you and read. We will discuss this in ten minutes."

Angela Llewellyn sat down at her desk and made note of those students needing the volume and sent a text message to The Corner Book Nook ordering 9 copies to be delivered to her home address in Cardiff. She would have to floo home on her lunch and pick them up. Over the past week she had discovered that though she could not use her phone to call, she could still text from certain areas of the castle. This made contact with muggle suppliers of materials for this class easier.

"Ms. Bones, would you please summarize what you have read."

"There was a little girl named Karen. She was very poor and the shoemaker's wife made her a pair of red shoes from scraps of left over leather and silk. Karen was proud of the shoes and wore them everywhere including to church. When her mother died she was adopted by a rich lady. The rich lady was appalled by the poor red shoes, so she bought the girl a pair of black shoes and a pair of red shoes. She told Karen to wear the black shoes to church. On Sunday, Karen decided to wear the red ones instead. Her feet kept moving all the time in the red shoes. She could take them off when she got home. When the elderly lady died, the girl wore the red shoes to the funeral. An angel with a sword appeared to the girl and cursed her to dance forever, even in death. Oh, and she could not take the shoes off. She got really, really tired of dancing all the time and her feet were sore. The girl tried to go to church but the curse kept her out. She had an executioner cut off her feet to rid her of the shoes. The shoes danced away. After the bleeding had stopped, she had wooden feet made and tried to go to the church. The red shoes with the little feet in them blocked the door so Karen couldn't get in. In despair Karen went to work for the church. The red shoes continued to block admittance for Karen. Over time Karen continued to pray and help outside church she could not enter. The Angel came back and said that she had repented enough and the curse was lifted. Karen went back to church, lived a long life and when she died she was allowed to enter heaven."

"Very good, Ms. Bones. Ten points for Hufflepuff. Now who can tell us why this could also be called a fable?" Professor Llewellyn asked. "Mr. Malfoy?"

Draco moved nervously in his chair because this story hit a little close to home. "A fable has a moral lesson to it."

"Correct, Mr. Malfoy. Five points for Slytherin. For five more, can you tell us what the moral of the story is?"

Everyone in the room grew very quiet waiting for Draco's answer. "There is another muggle saying, pride goeth before the fall. This means that you have to humble yourself in order to be redeemed."

The room remained deathly silent. "Can anyone explain the role of the church in the muggle life?" She paused and looked over the room. "Mr. Weasley?" Ron shook his head. "Mr. Potter?

Harry shuffled his feet and looked at his hands, then toward Hermione for help. Finally he answered, "Because of the religious beliefs of some muggles, their lives revolve around the church and its teachings. Proper respect for the church is demanded from fundamental sects, therefore the red shoes would not be appropriate footwear."

"Minus five points from Gryffindor for Mr. Weasley's failure to have an answer, plus five points for Mr. Potter, therefore you are at a break-even point so far in this class." She went on to explain that when the story had been written the church had been more fundamental in its teachings. Wearing that bright red would have been inappropriate.

"Next question is who can explain the importance of the angel with the sword?" Professor Llewellyn asked.

Hermione knew the answers to all of the questions, but upon turning to Hogwarts had decided to hold back and allow others to answer first. She slowly raised her hand as she glanced around the room. "Yes, Ms. Granger."

"In Christian literature and art the Archangel Michael is depicted with a sword as he is the avenging angel, the one designated to carry out God's revenge. In the days when most of the populace was illiterate, windows and paintings were made with the traits endowed on the various persons and beings from the Bible. Whenever they saw an angel with a sword they would know who it was. These depictions carried over to the popular literature of the time, folklore." Hermione paused to see if Professor Llewellyn wanted her to continue or stop with the explanation here.

"Thank you, Ms. Granger. Five points for Gryffindor. Now, can anyone explain why Karen still couldn't enter the church even though she had her feet cut off?"

"Mr. Zabini, go ahead."

"Well, Professor Llewellyn, when she first had her feet cut off it was only because the constant dancing was only inconvenient. She was not sufficiently sorry that her behavior had not been appropriate. She was sorry that she had to dance, not that she was sorry that she had been thoughtless, rude, and disrespectful. Once she was totally humbled and repentant the she could enter the church."

"Very good, Mr. Zabini. You have earned five more points for Slytherin." Professor Llewellyn turned back to the board and asked, "Will you please look over the list on the board and write at the top of your parchment for the first essay those titles you are missing so that I can obtain them for your class next week. But for Wednesday please give me three feet of explaining the fairy tale means to your life. Specific experiences will give bonus points. Thank you all and you may leave even though we have ten more minutes left in class. I will remain here to answer questions until lunch. Good discussion class."