Chapter 1: The Warlock's Hairy Heart
Albus Dumbledore sat at his desk in his office, rubbing his eyes. He was tired. Having an argument with Severus Snape always made you feel exhausted. Albus had just talked with Severus about women. Of course Severus had objected that he didn't want to marry, not after what happened to Lily Evans.
The Headmaster of Hogwarts liked to read. Of course he had a copy of The Tales of Beedle the Bard. It was one of his favorite books. Albus took it and opened it. He began to read. The more he read the more he thought of something. He took a parchment and a quill and began to write.
There was once a handsome, rich and talented young warlock, named Severus Snape. He observed that his friends became foolish as soon as they fell in love. The young warlock resolved to never fall in prey to such weakness, and employed Dark Arts to ensure his immunity.
Unaware of his secret, Severus's family laughed to see him so aloof and cold.
"He'll change," they said, "as soon as a maid catches his eyes!"
But Severus's fancy remained untouched. Although many maids came to try and please him, none succeeded. Not a single one of them could touch his heart. Severus gloried in his indifference and the sagacity that had produced it.
The warlock's friends began to wed and to forth children.
"Their hearts must be husks," Severus sneered inwardly. He observed the young parents around him disgustedly. "Shriveled by the demands of these mewling offspring."
Once again he congratulated himself for choosing not to fall for any maid.
In due course, the warlock's aged parents died. Their son Severus did not mourn them: he felt himself blessed. He alone reigned over the castle. Having transferred the greatest treasure to the deepest dungeon, he gave himself over to a life of ease. The only aim of his many servants was his comfort.
Severus was sure that be must be an object of immense importance and envy to all who beheld his splendid and untroubled solitude. Aggressive was his anger and chagrin, therefore, when he overheard two of his servants discussing their master one day.
The first servant, named Hermione, expressed pity for the warlock who was beloved by nobody,
But his companion, Harry, jeered, asking why a man as rich as their master was unable to attract a wife.
These words dealt dreadful blows to Severus's pride.
He resolved to take a wife, and that she'd be a wife possessing astounding beauty, exciting envy and desire in every man who beheld her; she'd spring from magical lineage, so that their offspring would inherit brilliant magical gifts; and that she'd be as wealthy as him, so that his comfortable existence would be assured despite of additions to his household.
It might have taken Severus fifty years to find such a woman, yet it happened that the next day a maiden named Lily, answering his every wish, arrived in the neighborhood to visit her family.
Lily was a witch of extraordinarily skill and possessed much gold. Her beauty could not be beaten by another woman: it was such that it tugged at the heart of every man who set eyes on her; of every man except one. Severus's heart felt nothing at all. Even so, Lily was the prize he sought, so he began to pay her court.
Everyone who noticed the warlock's change in manners was amazed, and said to the maiden that she'd succeeded doing something that hundred others had failed to do.
The young woman herself was both fascinated and rejected by Severus's behavior. She sensed the coldness that lay behind the warmth of his flattery, and had never met a man so weird and lonesome. Her family deemed theirs a most appropriate match and, eager to help, accepted Severus's invitation to a great feast in Lily's honor.
The table was full with silver and gold bearing the finest wines and the most luxuries foods. Minstrels strummed kn silk-stringed lutes and sand a love the warlock had never felt. Lily sat on a throne beside Severus, who spoke low, maintaining words of tenderness he had token from the poets, without any idea of their true meaning.
Lily listened, irritated, and finally replied, "You speak well, Severus, and I would be delighted if I only thought you had a heart!"
Severus smiled, and said to her that she did not need to fear on that score. Commanding her follow, he led Lily away from the feast, and down to where he kept his greatest treasure.
Here, in an enchanted crystal container, was Severus's beating heart.
Long since disconnected from eyes, ears and fingers, it'd never fallen to beauty. Lily was terrified by the looks of it: the heart was cadaverous and covered in long black hair.
"Oh, what did you do to it?" she bawled. "Put it back where it belongs, I beg you!"
Knowing that this was necessary to please her, Severus drew his wand, unlocked the crystal container, cut open his breast and put the hairy hear into the empty cavity it had once occupied.
"Now you are healed and will know love," the maiden called out, and she hugged him.
The tough of her soft arms, the noise of her breath in his ear, the smell of her heavy gold hair: all of that bored into the newly awakened heart like javelins. But it had grown strange during its long exile, blind and untamed in the darkness to which it had been fated, and its hunger had grown powerful and utterly reprehensible in nature.
The guests at the feast had mentioned the absence of their host and Lily. At first not troubled, they grew frightened as the hours passed, and finally began to search the castle.
They found the dungeon at last, and an unpleasant and gory sight met them there.
Lily lay dead on the floor, her breast sliced open, and beside her kneed Severus, holding in one with blood covered hand a smooth, shining heart which he brushed with his lips and rubbed, promising to exchange it for his own.
In his other hand the warlock held his wand, trying to persuade by gentle persistently urging the shriveled, hairy heart. But the hairy heart was more powerful than he was, and refused to give up its hold upon his senses or go back to the funerary box in which it'd been locked in for so long.
Before the fearful eyes of his guests, Severus threw away his wand, and seized a dagger. Promising to never be mastered by his own heart, he cut it from his chest with a rough blow.
For one moment, Severus knelt triumphantly with a heart held tightly in each hand; then he fell over Lily's body, and died.
A/N: If there are any spelling mistakes, please point them out to me and I'll try to fix them as soon as possible.