DEFYING GRAVITY
a Harry Potter/Wicked AU crossover.
Written as a gift for ~TheAtomicBoom • beta'd by Michelle • K+ (for now) • Drama/Comedy • WIP • Severus/Lily, James/Lily, unrequited Sirius→Tonks, unrequited Tonks→James (yeah, you've read it) • Some characters, therms and plotlines belong to J.K. Rowling, L. Frank Baum, Gregory Maguire and Winnie Holzman. I'm making no profit with this fic.
Prologue: Horrors.
"We should drown it," whispered a male voice "throw it in the river before she wakes up and tell her it was a stillborn."
"For goodness' sake Argus, he's just a child! He may look... different, but it doesn't mean he's some kind of demon that must be wiped from this world!" replied a woman in a sharp, low tone.
Eileen Snape found herself lying sweaty and weakened on her bed as her senses returned slowly. Turning her head to the right she glanced at the family servant, Argus Filch, talking to the midwife at the corner of the room while the house elf watched them with a bundle wrapped in linen between her arms.
"If we don't kill it now the Governor will find a way to get rid of the child anyway," said Filch, "he would never allow a rotten offspring to taint his precious name. Ha! Imagine this lil' creature growing up to rule Munchkinland someday!"
Tobias, she thought, finally noticing his absence. Not that she expected him to be there; he would not care to watch his firstborn's arrival in this world as long as he was convinced that the birth of the future Governor of Munchkinland would be proficiently assisted so nothing could go wrong. Her husband was never by her side in her life's most significant moments unless his presence was incontestably required, as if their marriage was just another of his duties as a politician, but yet she felt in the depths of her heart that he still loved her in his very own way.
"I will never allow you to lay down one finger on this baby" dared the midwife, placing herself between Filch and the elf.
The menial ran out of patience, "In the name of Oz, Poppy, let me end this matter once and for all! It would be somewhat kinder to his mother if she never-"
"Where is my son?" the trio at the corner turned their heads to the bed where a sallow, yet resolute, Eileen Snape was seated with an inquisitive gaze in her coal-black eyes. "I wanna hold my son."
Filch hesitated. "Milady, we..."
"Do as I say."
Without a single word, Poppy bent over to the elf to reach for the wrap. As the midwife crossed the room, bringing the newborn, Eileen's heart skipped a beat when she noticed her own empty hands. Digging her arms under the mattress, she sighed with relief when her fingers found a tiny cylindrical form in the bed frame.
The green bottle.
She'd been clutching it as a lucky charm through every moment of those damned four hours of pain, screaming and blood that culminated in her fainting. A single look at it was enough to bring her back memories of the night she earned it, a sweet night that reprised itself over and over again in Eileen's memory.
It was a warm spring evening and she was alone in the living room, leafing through the pages of a sonnet book when she heard knocks at the front door, at least that's how she recalled it. Standing by the doorstep, an ordinary and grizzled man saluted her with his hat. He introduced himself as an outsider who had just arrived in town looking for shelter and maybe something to fill his stomach. Eileen was not the kind of woman who usually trusted people who were not of her acknowledgement, but there was such a crystalline quality in his gaze that she found it difficult to believe that the man might have bad intentions. She invited him to sit at the dining table and when she asked for his name the stranger just deviated with a head gesture, "Let's not talk about names," he said cordially, "a name would define me no more than my plain clothing or the color of my eyes. Let your own impressions dictate what you think of the man in front of you."
They had dinner by themselves, since Tobias was in Gillikin on a business trip. The man talked little about himself but opened his ears to her small talk that gradually became personal talk and suddenly she was letting her heart out of her chest in a way she hadn't done since... since she could remember. They kept on talking and giggling and exchanging confessions long after their plates were clean. It took a few moments until the conversation start to die slowly, leaving them with an accompliced silence.
When the clock strucked twelve, the stranger stood up and pulled a tiny green bottle, filled with a bright green liquid, from his pocket which he offered her as a gift in appreciation of her hospitality. He pulled himself out a second bottle when Eileen took the gift and together they toasted to their newly-engaged frienship.
The next thing she could remember was the touch of his lips on her bare skin as they layed down in the very bed she used to share with Tobias. The remembrance of that night unfolded in Eileen's mind like a patch quilt from which she could randomly recollect small details and sensations that followed her vividly thus far. Whoever he was, the stranger had made her feel alive than she had in years.
Eileen woke up alone in her bed the following morning, with no signs of the stranger anywhere. He had left at dawn, leaving no trace of his visit other than the blissful sensation in Eileen's heart and the tiny green bottle under her pillow.
And now, clenching her fingers around the flask, she knew nothing could harm her; for beauty can happen even in the darkest of times, as she learned from the mysterious wanderer months ago.
Poppy's gentle voice broke her flow of thought. "Here he is, my lady. A tough boy, did not even cry. Indeed, he hasn't even made a sound since I pulled him out," said the midwife, carefully placing the baby in his mother's arms and stepping back immediately. Eileen gave out a last glance to her servants' apprehensive expressions before uncovering her son's face.
"Sweet Oz!"
The baby's eyes were already open, deep black eyes like hers, through which he seemed to scrutinize her from an obscure corner of his mind. Scarce wisps of black hair entangled on the top of his head and he seemed somehow skinnier than the average newborn. But neither of those qualities were the cause of her interjection. Even by the reddish light from the fireplace her son's skin glittered an unmistakable shade of pale green.
Like a froggy, ferny cabbage. Green as sin.
Filch gulped sonorously and Eileen looked up at him, reading on his face that he expected her to have some sort of emotional breakdown and put the blame on someone for the grotesque tonality of her child. Notwithstanding, she just laid back down onto the pillows and held her son against her chest.
"Severus," she sighed closing her eyes. "I shall name him Severus."
And as the baby's green little hands held onto her clothes, she felt her heart sing for she knew there would be a reason for her to smile from this moment on.
Reviews are nice, me likes reviews.
And I apologize in advance for the long hiatus you'll have to wait between an update and other, because I've got some crazy stuff happening on my life right now. So, be patient.
=)