For disclaimer, see first chapter.

The Snow Qu(ite-Nutty-Aren't-They?)een

The snow was falling so thickly outside the tent that when Harry stood at the door and peered out into the storm, he could see nothing at all but a solid sheet of shifting white illuminated by the lights inside their current home. Visibility was down to nothing, and the cold was biting into him like a wild animal in spite of the warm clothes Hermione had managed to pack for them all in her evening bag.

"There's nothing for it," he said to the others, turning back around and closing the tent flap behind him. "If we went more than a dozen feet from the tent, we might not find it again. We'll have to stay in tonight."

"I suppose the good news is so will the Death Eaters," Hermione said, huddling a bit closer into her woolliest jumper. "I don't remember it ever snowing this hard so early in the year before."

"Yeah," Harry said, wondering if, like some of the other weird weather phenomena that had been happening since Voldemort's return, this might not be the work of Dementors.

"At least we have a bit of food for tomorrow," Hermione said, nodding toward the remaining half of the chicken and ham pie that Ron had somehow managed to cadge from a nearby village. They'd all gotten to the point that nobody was asking too many questions anymore about how exactly food was winding up on the table so long as it was there. "That's one less worry."

"Right," Ron said, looking sour. "Now we just have to worry about saving the world, destroying the Horcruxes, and dying in the middle of a snowstorm. Aside from that, we haven't a care in the world."

Harry looked at Ron and frowned. More and more of late, Ron's complaints were beginning to sound less like random grousing and more like disillusioned accusations. He knew Hermione was picking up on it as well when he saw her puckering her brow and looking at Ron, who was currently staring forlornly up at the ceiling.

"You know," she said tentatively, "while I don't much like the cold, I've always thought snow was probably the prettiest weather."

"Uh-huh," Ron said, still looking at the canvas ceiling where the shadows of the snowflakes could be seen racing overhead. "Real pretty. Then again, so's the dragon pox virus if you look at it magnified enough times. Doesn't mean it isn't still bloody deadly."

"You're in a cheerful mood," Harry said, forcing a laugh out.

"Not especially, no," Ron said, his voice disturbingly calm.

"Uh, Hermione," Harry said, shifting his focus and hoping this would work, "you don't happen to know any stories about snow by chance, do you?"

To Harry's relief, arryHarHermione smiled almost at once.

"Yes, actually," she said. "There's quite a good one about the Snow Queen."

"Snow Queen?" Ron asked, lifting his head with the slightest bit of interest.

"Yes," Hermione said. "It's by Andersen again."

"The nutter with the bleeding mermaid and the princess with swans for brothers?" he asked, and his interest level was significantly higher now, Harry noted.

"The very same," Hermione said, "though I warn you, this is rather a long one."

"Doesn't bother me," Harry said. "It's not like we're going to get much sleep with the wind screaming away like that outside."

Ron was knitting his brows together as though he was trying to remember something.

"He's the bloke who has the thing about maiming feet, isn't he?" Ron asked.

"Um, well, it seems that way in some of his stories, yes, though he isn't to blame for Ashyweeper, oh, now you've got me doing it! Cinderella!" Hermione said.

Harry and Ron couldn't help smiling over her mistake.

"Yeah, so, is there any foot mutilation in this one?" Ron asked.

"Hmm," Hermione said, tipping her head to one side. "You know, now that you mention it, there actually is an incident, but it's much milder than any of the others."

"On a scale of one to ten with one being a small blister on someone's big toe and ten being decapitated feet dancing in a church path, where would it fall?" Ron asked.

"I'd say about a three," Hermione said, "and decapitated is the wrong word to use there since it's technically only used for the removal of someone's head. The term amputated would work better grammatically."

Ron nodded, a satisfied look on his face.

"Okay, that seems like a reasonable number after a full dinner," he said. "So, let's meet the Snow Queen."

Harry watched as Hermione pulled herself into a cross legged position and collected her thoughts.

"Once upon a time," she and Ron intoned at exactly the same time.

"Do you know this story, Ronald?" Hermione said, giving him a look.

"The first bit at least," he said, smiling. "So, go on."

"Well, once upon a time there were a bunch of horrible demons who were bored," Hermione said.

"I don't think that sentence can possibly end well," Harry said.

"Wait, what kind of demons?" Ron asked.

"Actually, that's quite a good question," Hermione said with an approving nod. "Some translations use the word sprites, others hobgoblins, and others say they're devils of some sort. Whatever they are, they're supposed to be unpleasant."

"Doesn't really seem to matter then," Ron said with a shrug. "Most Muggles probably couldn't tell one a Hinky Punk from a Kappa anyway. So what do these horrible generic demons do to cure creeping ennui?"

"They created a large mirror, but the trick of it was that rather than reflecting what things really looked like, instead it distorted everything to look tainted and ugly," Hermione explained.

"Huh," Ron said, thinking. "I might have to give that idea to Fred and George. It sounds like something that would be perfect for Weasleys Wizard Wheezes."

Harry laughed, but he had to agree. Personally, he'd pay a good amount for a mirror that would make old Lucius Malfoy look less than perfect. Hermione had her head tipped to one side, thinking.

"You know, it probably would work with some variation on the Confundus charm," she said slowly, then snapped back to herself. "However, the real mirror was meant to be terrible. No matter how beautiful or good something or somebody was, the mirror would find fault with it. The demons laughed in glee over their prize and went flying over the earth with the mirror, looking into it and seeing everything warped and ruined."

"Okay, that's actually a bit disturbing," Harry said, thinking suddenly of the Death Eaters at the World Cup and how a perfectly wonderful game of Quidditch wasn't enough for them until they were able to destroy people to cap it off.

"But they got bored again," Hermione said.

"What, already?" Ron said, raising his eyebrows.

"Well, I suppose demons aren't known for overly long attention spans," said Hermione with a shrug. "They had already looked at the whole world in their mirror, so they decided to try to carry it up to heaven to see what it would make of the angels."

"They… wait, what?" Ron said. "Okay, supposing that were even possible, it doesn't seem like demons would be able to just saunter up to the pearly gates and say, 'Hey, we've got a rather dodgey mirror here we want to use to make fun of all you angels. Let us in, yeah?'"

"Actually, you're quite right," Hermione said. "The demons lost their grip on the mirror long before they reached their destination, and it shattered into countless tiny pieces and shards of glass."

"I guess, that's that then," Harry said.

"Oh, not at all," Hermione said. "On the contrary, the demons were delighted with the outcome."

"What? Seven years' bad luck?" Ron said.

"No. The wind blew the bits of glass all over the world, and each one carried just the same charm as the whole mirror had. From time to time, a bit of glass would become stuck in someone's eye, and from that time on, that person would see everything as not good enough and full of flaws, even the most wonderful things," Hermione said.

Ron squinted for a moment.

"What if they kept the bad eye shut and looked at things with the one that didn't have glass in it?" Ron asked.

Hermione blinked slowly.

"Well, I suppose if the person went around with one eye shut permanently for no apparent reason, then yes, it probably wouldn't have the intended effect, but that's pretty unlikely," Hermione said.

"Yeah, but what if the person lost an eye or something?" Ron said excitedly.

"Or what if they were a pirate?" Harry chimed in. "You know, with an eye patch and all."

Hermione looked like she was about to scream when Ron broke in with, "And on top of all that, wouldn't they notice they had glass in their eye? I mean, wouldn't they go to a healer or something to get it out?"

"It wouldn't be visible to anyone else because it was so tiny, and they couldn't feel it after the first moment it was in their eye," Hermione said.

"Okay, fine," Ron said, seemingly placated.

"But even worse was if a shard of glass lodged in the person's heart," Hermione said.

"Yeah, 'cause they'd be dead," Ron said sagely.

"No. Instead, the person's heart would turn into ice, cold and unfeeling, and they would never feel love or kindness or contentment or peace again," Hermione said.

"Okay, as bad effects from a curse go, that's really off the scale," Harry said, giving a shudder.

"Yeah, I mean everyone gets a bit picky now and again, but a frozen heart is just overdoing it," Ron said.

"So anyway, that's the background to our story," Hermione said. "Now, it so happened that there lived two children in a great city that's probably meant to be Copenhagen in Denmark."

"Bit of an abrupt shift, that," Harry said with a laugh.

"I suppose so, but that's how the story goes," Hermione continued. "They both lived in attic apartments with their parents, just across an alleyway from one another, and the two roofs were so close together that the children could step from one to the other with no trouble at all."

"That seems dangerous," Ron said, frowning. "How high up are they?"

"Oh, probably a couple stories or so," she said. "But the buildings were built extremely close in those days."

"But what if someone was a sleepwalker?" Ron said.

Harry stared at him.

"A sleepwalker?" he said. "Where did you even dredge that up from? If I sat here for five hours I don't think I'd ever come up with the idea that one of the kids could possibly sleepwalk out the window."

"Seamus," Ron said with a shrug. "I've caught him wandering around a couple times in the dormitory in the middle of the night. I actually thought he was awake once and went to ask him what he was doing, and he told me, and I quote, 'The trees are full of Butterbeer, so I need to catch a train.' Then he settled back into bed on his own and snored away. Creepy, that."

Harry looked unnerved. That really was rather weird. He couldn't help wondering what Sirius would have done on the night he broke into Gryffindor Tower if Seamus had been taking a nighttime stroll when he came in. He was guessing it wouldn't have ended very well.

"Yes, well, nobody in either family was a somnambulist, so that's not really an issue," Hermione said, and from her expression Harry could tell she was trying to figure out how she had lost control within the second sentence of the story.

"Somna-what?" Ron asked.

"It just means sleepwalker," Hermione said rather apologetically.

"Blimey. You know a word for everything, don't you? Like—" Ron looked around the tent, then stared at his own shoe. "Like, you probably know what this thing's called," he said, pointing to the plastic bit on the end of his shoelace.

"Aglet," Hermione said automatically, apparently missing Ron's stunned face, then continued on. "In any case, the families of the two children had no garden of their own as they lived at the attic level, so they put flowerboxes up on the roof outside the windows and filled them with vegetables and flowers, particularly roses, and it was there that they played."

"Nice," Ron said. "So the kids aren't just stepping over a dangerous alleyway, they're climbing around on the roofs like a back garden, and probably running about and hopping around and jumping up and down as kids do. That just reeks of safety."

"Well, the story says that their favorite thing to do was to sit next to the planters of rose and watch them in wonder," Hermione said shortly, "and that doesn't seem especially dangerous."

"Because kids' favorite games obviously include Staring at the Roses, and even if they did, the roof still isn't the best spot for that, I'd wager," Ron said with an eyeroll. "Honestly, sitting around goggling at potted plants for hours at a go. I'm getting steadily more worried about these two."

"On the other hand, maybe that's how Professor Sprout got started," Harry said.

"Yeah, but she'd be running around pruning things or replanting mandrakes or something, not just getting into a staring contest with the closest daisy," Ron said.

"Anyway," said Hermione with a note of rising strain in her voice, "summer passed, and winter came. The plants became dormant, and the children stayed inside to watch the snow through the windows."

"What, the parents want them to miss the joys of wandering around the icy, snow-covered rooftops? They're deprived, I'm telling you," Ron said, feigning indignation.

"At least they still have a variation of their favorite game to play. They're still staring at things. They've just moved from roses to snow," Harry said.

"They did still visit one another regularly, and especially the grandmother who lived with them," Hermione said.

"Wait, which one's gran is this?" Ron asked.

"You know, the story doesn't really say," Hermione said. "It appears she lives with the family of the little girl, Gerta, but—"

"Gerta?" Ron askedermoieHerm.

"Yes, that's her name," Hermione said.

"Seems a bit unfortunate, but not completely barmy," Ron said. "Does the boy have a name too?"

"Yes, Kai," Hermione said.

"Kai?" Harry said.

"Yes," Hermione said.

"No, really, the poor kid's name is Kai?" Ron said.

"What is so terrible about the name Kai?" Hermione said, putting her hands on her hips and looking a bit dangerous.

"Well, it sounds like a girl's name, doesn't it?" Ron said. "Back me up on this, Harry."

"Sorry, but yeah, it does," Harry agreed.

"Well, considering some of the versions spell it K-A-Y, I suppose I see your point a bit, but it's pronounced Kai," Hermione said, rhyming it with the word spy. "I'd guess it was a fairly normal Danish boy's name at that point."

"Eh, okay, I'll give it a pass," Ron said.

"Thank you for you generosity, O great one," Hermione said a roll of her eyes, but continued. "Anyway, the grandmother lived with Gerta's family, at least that could be implied, but the story does refer to her as being their grandmother. It's possible that she was simply like an adoptive grandmother to Kai, but it's also possible that the two children are cousins."

"Bit vague, but fine," Ron said.

"When winter came, it was freezing cold, and even inside the attic apartments the cold crept in. The windows would ice over, and Kai and Gerta would take pennies and put them on the hot stove to warm. Then they would hold them up to the windows, and when they took them away, they would have perfectly round little peep holes to gaze out to see the snow whirling about," Hermione said.

"Aw, that's kind of cute," Ron said.

"Also, it lets them continue staring at random things, only now through holes," Harry said.

"Okay, so less cute, more Peeping Tom maybe," Ron said.

"Yes, I always rather liked that image. Thank you so much for destroying it. When the snow was particularly thick, the old grandmother would say, 'The Snow Queen's bees are swarming,'" Hermione said, giving the grandmother a creaky voice.

"Huh," Harry said, looking through one of the windows and watching giant flakes that had clumped together whirl crazily in the wind, almost as though they had a mind of their own. "It really does look like white bees, doesn't it?"

"Now that you mention it, yeah," Ron said in agreement. "Granny has a right old sense of whimsy. I think I like the old girl."

"I'm pleased you approve," Hermione said, and Harry thought she probably really meant it. "The children asked her about the Snow Queen, of course, and I'm really rather surprised you didn't."

"I figured you'd get to it eventually, what with it being the title and all," Ron said magnanimously.

"Thank you for the vote of confidence," Hermione said. "The grandmother said that the Snow Queen appeared when the snow was flying the thickest, and sometimes she would peer into the homes of mortals at night. You could always know when she had been there because the next morning the windows would be covered in the most beautiful patterns of icy flowers made of frost."

"So… she's a fae again," Ron said disapprovingly.

"She might be," Hermione said. "The grandmother said she was very tall, and extremely beautiful, with skin and clothes as white as the snow itself and eyes as blue as a midnight winter sky. She said her husband, the grandfather, had told her he saw the Snow Queen once, beckoning to him on the other side of the window during a mighty blizzard, but he hadn't gone out to her, and she had disappeared."

"Wonder how much Fire Whiskey the old boy'd had," Ron said. "Still, he's not an idiot that one. You don't mess with that sort of thing."

"Quite," Hermione agreed, and Harry was pretty sure he heard her mutter under her breath, "if only Hagrid would remember that."

"So, what happened next?" Ron asked.

"Well, that night Kai had a dream about the Snow Queen, if it was a dream. Just like the grandfather, he saw her outside his window, motioning him to come outside, but he didn't go, and in the morning fantastic ice flowers covered his window. From that, he knew it hadn't been just a dream," Hermione said.

"Okay," Harry said. "So is that it?"

"We're not even partway done yet," Hermione said. "Winter eventually ended, and then spring came, and glorious summer with all the roses once more."

"Nice to see some things don't change, like hanging gardens that needed to be condemned by the Building Board," Ron said.

"But something horrible happened one sunny day, just as the church bells were chiming," Hermione said.

"Which kid fell to their death?" Ron asked.

"Neither," Hermione said. "Instead, two pieces of the magic mirror, borne aloft on a breeze, found their way to the little garden."

"I almost forgot about that thing," Ron said.

"Gerta was quite frightened when little Kai first cried out 'Oh, my eye! Something has got in it and hurts so!' and then after a moment, 'Oh, there is a pain in my heart as well!'" Hermione said.

"Whoa, he got hit with both of them? That's hardly fair," Harry said sympathetically.

"No, but it's logical. Provided that the mirror's shattering pattern was relatively uniform, which might well not be the case, the individual particles would most likely scatter in a similar direction, and if, as the story states, they were being carried on wind currents, it would make logical sense that the disbursement of the wreckage would flow in a similar airstream, so if one were to come across a single particle, it makes sense that more particles would be likely to be found in the immediate vicinity of the first one," Hermione said.

"Huh?" Ron said.

"Like if a box of Bertie Bott's Every Flavour Beans spills on the floor, they tend to cluster together in a pile rather than space themselves out?" Harry asked.

"Yes," Hermione said, giving him a pleased smile, "something like that."

"I miss those," Ron said woefully. "Even the vomit ones."

"In any case, Kai soon said, 'No, I'm quite well again. It must have been nothing,' and little Gerta was relieved until Kai began acting very oddly indeed. 'Ugh! Look at that horrid rose! It has a great insect in it! And that one is the ugliest color I've ever seen! And this one smells so terrible!' and with that he pulled up all the roses and threw them into the street," Hermione said.

"Killing some poor passer-by in the process, most like," Ron said. "By the way, he just ripped the roses out of the dirt with his bare hands? Didn't the thorns get him?"

"Oh, I don't know, maybe he put on gardener's gloves or something first!" Hermione said. "The point is he looked at the same roses he'd found just lovely a moment before, and suddenly none of them was good enough for him. And it wasn't just the roses. He began to make fun of the grandmother, imitating her behind her back, as well as all the teachers at the school. He had no time at all for Gerta, and when he did, he was cruel as often as not. He began to act most shockingly conceited."

"Maybe that's what's wrong with Malfoy," Harry said.

"No, I think it would take a whole mirror's worth of glass to make someone as unpleasant as Malfoy," Hermione said, wrinkling her nose in disgust. "Gerta was very frightened and sad at the loss of her playmate's usual attitude, but most everyone else just said that was the way all boys act at his age and said it would pass."

"They've got a point," Ron said. "I've known a few blokes who go through an awkward stage when they're highly insensitive and think nothing's good enough for them. At least I never did that."

Harry saw that Hermione seemed to be holding her tongue through an immense effort of will, but she managed it and moved on.

"Summer came to an end all too soon, and winter returned," Hermione said.

"That was fast," Harry said.

"Kai began to be friendly with a number of boys who stood about the village square and dared each other to do stupid and silly things. As he was one of the youngest, he was always on the lookout to be the most daring of them all. One day, the boys were taking it in turns to tie their sleds to the horse-drawn sleighs that would circle the village center and hitch a ride on the back of them before untying their sleds again," she said.

"Sounds like a good way to get run over," Harry said.

"Actually, I was just thinking it sounded rather brilliant," Ron said. "Be fun, that."

"I should have known," Hermione mumbled before continuing. "There was one very fast sleigh, all in white with white horses and a driver muffled in a white fur robe with the collar turned up high, and a white fur hat. All the boys dared each other to try to catch it, but no one wanted to since it went at such a break neck speed. Kai, however, took the dare."

"I think I know where this is going," Ron said.

"Probably," Hermione agreed. "He did indeed manage to attach his sled, and the sleigh took him on a dizzying ride around the square at great speed, but when Kai tried to untie his sled, it was impossible. The sleigh took off into the countryside, pulling the terrified boy behind it, unable to leap off. When they were far, far from the town, much further than Kai had ever been in his life, the sleigh stopped, and the driver got out."

"The Snow Queen?" Harry asked.

"You got it in one, yes," Hermione said. "She invited him into her sleigh and tucked her robe around him. Then she gave him a kiss on the forehead, cold as ice. Though Kai found fault with everything, even he could see nothing at all about the Snow Queen except perfect beauty, and he at once began to forget his life from before, for that was part of the magic of the Snow Queen's kiss."

Harry frowned.

"Okay, aside from the fact that the Snow Queen is obviously a lot prettier, that almost sounds like a Dementor," Harry said. "She kisses him and it starts to steal away bits of him."

"Oh!" Hermione said, looking excited. "It really does, doesn't it! I think that's the first time we've heard of a Muggle story that references Dementors specifically. That's very interesting. What do you think, Ron? Doesn't it sound a bit like it?"

"Uh, actually I was just thinking she sounded kind of fit," Ron said, looking guilty.

"Oh," Hermione said, looking disappointed. "Well, anyway, the Snow Queen kissed him a second time, then said, 'If I were to kiss you again, it would be the death of you,' and certainly Kai looked nearly as pale as the Queen now and his skin was as cold as ice. She continued driving, with the great snow bees flying thickly in their wake, until at last they came to her palace, for she intended to keep him there as an amusement."

"At least this one gets fairies right," Ron said approving. "Child abduction is kind of their thing."

"Yes, it is a bit more realistic," Hermione agreed. "Poor little Gerta, though, was heartbroken. The boys in the square told Kai's parents what had happened, but no sign could be found of the sleigh or Kai, and it was assumed that Kai was dead. Gerta, though, felt that she would know if that were true, and she did not believe it."

"Aw, that's sad," Ron said. "Kai runs off with a fae queen and poor Gerta gets left behind with staring through frosty windows at random things all alone."

"Not that Kai was all that nice before he left, really," Harry pointed out.

"True, but Gerta decided she was going to take matters into her own hands. Many people thought that Kai might have drowned in the river, so Gerta took the very best thing she owned, her red shoes, and went to the riverbank," Hermione said.

"Hold it, time out!" Ron said. "Her red shoes? Weren't red shoes the reason the girl in that other story by this nutter wound up having her feet chopped off and dying?"

"Yes, actually," Hermione said.

"Please tell me she's not about to chop off her feet and throw them in the river," Ron said, looking ill.

"No!" Hermione said, looking horror struck. "No, she just throws the shoes in, saying the river can have her shoes if it will give Kai back."

"Oh, good," Ron said. "That would have been a bit too much."

"Yeah," Harry said, going green. "I'd like to keep that chicken and ham pie down, thank you very much."

"Well, the river pushed her shoes back to the bank, and the waves seemed to be shaking in a way that meant that they didn't have Kai, but to be sure Gerta decided to get into a boat and row out into the middle of the river and offer the shoes again there, just in case she hadn't tossed them in properly," Hermione said.

"What's the river going to do with shoes?" Ron asked.

"Hey, rivers run, don't they? They must have feet, right?" Harry said, smiling, but the other two looked at him with patent disbelief.

"Mate," Ron said, putting a hand on his shoulder, "it was a good try, but please, never pun again. I can handle starvation, being lost, and constant mortal peril, but bad puns are one thing too many."

"Besides, the whole point is that the shoes were a sacrifice," Hermione said. "There really is something very ritualistic about the whole thing, but the main thing is she was willing to give up the best thing she owned to have Kai back. So she threw her shoes again in the middle of the river, but before the river could return them—"

"—or possibly before the giant squid living in the river could put them back in the boat like it did Creevy's kid brother," Ron added.

"—the boat slipped away, and Gerta found herself being carried very quickly down the river. That's how her journey to find Kai began," Hermione said.

"But she's got no idea where he is," Ron said. "How's she planning on finding him?"

"I suppose it's a little like our Horcrux hunt," Hermione said tentatively. "We don't know, but we're hoping we'll find what we're looking for."

"Yeah, hoping hers takes a bit less time than out epic quest," Ron grumbled.

Harry frowned, but he supposed he couldn't really argue Ron's point. They were becoming pretty aimless.

"Gerta's boat came to rest at last outside of a cottage surrounded by a stone wall and a lovely garden," Hermione said quickly, obviously hoping Harry hadn't heard Ron's comment, though he certainly had. "A little old woman came out and asked her what she was doing there, and Gerta told her all about Kai and asked if she had seen him. 'No," the old woman replied, 'but if you come inside, I'll give you dinner before you go on your way.'"

"She needs to run, right now," Ron said, looking panicked.

"Why?" Hermione asked.

"A cottage in the middle of nowhere with an old woman in it who wants to give her dinner? This is the witch from that creepy story that's put me off gingerbread for life, isn't it?" Ron asked.

"Bit of a leap there, mate," Harry said, trying not to sound a little sour after Ron's earlier remark.

"Actually, it's not too far off in some respects," Hermione said, looking impressed. "The old woman is indeed a witch, though usually she's referred to as an enchantress or sorceress in the translations."

"See?" Ron said, smiling smugly.

"But she doesn't want to harm Gerta, at least not like that," Hermione added. "She did give Gerta dinner, including a bowl full of the most wonderfully delicious cherries. Then she sat with her by the fire and brushed her hair, and each time the brush passed through her golden tresses, it seemed to take away a little more of her memory until soon Gerta forgot all about Kai and why she was there but was perfectly content to live with the old woman as her granddaughter."

"Memory charm," Ron said at once. "Obvious one, there."

"I agree that it certainly seems to have something of the flavour of some variation of a memory charm," Hermione said, then paused. "Though of course that's not usually how they're done, the general effect, particularly having it center specifically on removing memories of one person and transplant a desire to live elsewhere, is entirely possible."

She was quiet for a moment, and Harry knew she was thinking of her parents. It must have been horrible, he thought, the moments leading up to the spell when she realized they would be thinking about her for possibly the last time ever. Ron for once seemed to have realized what was happening as well, and he gave her a sad smile.

"Yeah," he said, looking wistful. "I think I'd give up my memories of Percy at any rate if it meant a big dinner like that, or even a good-sized bowl of cherries."

Ron, Harry thought, was occasionally deeply dim. However, Hermione's expression of disbelief went unnoticed by Ron, and she continued on.

"Gerta went to sleep, and the witch went outside into her garden. It was a truly wonderful place with almost every kind of flower imaginable, but the witch knew Gerta and Kai had loved roses very much, and this caused her worry. She cast a spell that made the roses sink under the earth so that they couldn't remind her of Kai," Hermione said.

"Huh," Harry said. "You know, I think there's two spells going on here."

"What do you mean?" Ron asked.

"It's not just a memory charm. Remember the bit where she's brushing the girl's hair? What if she was gathering memories like in a Pensieve?" Harry said.

"Oh!" Hermione said, looking excited again. "Yes, it really could be! She could be extracting the memories like Dumbledore showed you in those vials last year, and then once they're clinging to the brush, she removes Gerta's ability to remember they were ever there! That really would work perfectly, and it would explain how she knew about the connection to the roses, which seems unlikely to have come up in casual conversation."

"I suppose so," Ron said grudgingly. "So she sank the roses because they might trigger her memory. What's she planning on doing? Keeping the kid from ever seeing a rose again?"

"Well, actually, yes," Hermione said. "While she doesn't harm Gerta, she does basically keep her in the cottage and the garden. Apparently the witch was really lonely and wanted to have someone about for company."

"Golly, I can't possibly imagine why she's so alone if her idea of company is kidnap and memory modification," Ron said sarcastically.

"To be fair, she was probably ostracized from the rest of the people because she was a witch to begin with, so that most likely was very isolating, but still, it's not a healthy friendship by any definition," Hermione said in agreement.

"Sound pretty boring, too, just wandering around a cottage and the garden," Harry said.

"You'd think so, but the flowers were all enchanted to tell stories," Hermione said.

"Kind of like a library that you don't have to actually read," Ron said.

"Sort of, yes," Hermione said. "It's never really clear if Gerta can read, but she's entertained by all the different stories the flowers tell, so she was happy, though she could never quite shake the feeling that she was forgetting something."

"Yeah, like her entire life," Ron said.

"One day, the witch went into town, but she left her hat at home. Gerta found it, and painted on the straw bonnet were all sorts of flowers, including great scarlet ones that seemed the most beautiful of all," Hermione said.

"Wild guess. They were roses?" Harry asked.

"Indeed they were, and Gerta stared at them until suddenly they brought back all her memories of her life before and of Kai and her search for him, and she ran out of the house and into the garden," Hermione said.

"Why the garden?" Ron asked. "Why not just out the front door?"

"Well, she'd had an idea," Hermione said. "She went to the garden, weeping, and her tears woke up the buried rosebushes which at once sprang from the ground. She asked them if they had seen Kai, and the roses said that no, they had been in the dirt where dead people are, and Kai was not there, so he must still be alive."

Harry and Ron exchanged looks.

"The roses told her that, did they?" Ron asked. "Talking roses?"

"Remember, the garden was enchanted to tell Gerta stories whenever she asked, so it's not really such a stretch," Hermione explained.

"Yeah, but, because the witch sank them underground they automatically knew everybody who was dead?" Ron asked.

"In this story, yes, that's exactly the case," Hermione said defiantly.

"All right," Ron said. "What's her next move? Asking the daffodils?"

"No," Hermione said, "the tiger-lily."

"Wait, that was supposed to be a joke," Ron said, looking surprised.

"But she did. She went to each of the flowers and asked them in turn if they had any news about Kai, and each one told her a story in turn. The tiger-lily's was about a woman who burned herself to death on her husband's funeral pyre."

"Oh, that's charming," Ron said, grimacing.

"And then the convolvulus told a story about a maiden in a castle waiting for her knight to return," Hermione continued, "and the snowdrops told a story about three children sitting on a swing and blowing bubbles with a bubble pipe, and the hyacinths told a story about three beautiful sisters who all died, and the ranunculus went on about a beautiful garden by a cottage where a grandmother had just visited with her granddaughter and was already missing her."

"They do natter on, don't they," Harry said.

"A bit," Hermione said.

"What's a convulvus and a ranunculus, anyway?" Ron said.

"Flowers," Hermione provided helpfully.

"I got that bit, thanks," Ron said sarcastically. "I mean what do they look like. I know what a snowdrop and a hyacinth and a tiger-lily are, but why throw in the other ones? Why not go with, I don't know, violets or carnations or tulips of flutterby-bushes or something more common?"

"Muggles don't actually have flutterby-bushes," Hermione said. "They have butterfly bushes, though, which are a bit the same except they don't, well, flutter."

"Do they fly, then?" Ron asked, looking confused.

"No," Hermione said with a barely tolerant sigh. "Muggles are not in possession of flying shrubbery."

"Well, do you get butter from them at least?" Ron asked.

"They draw butterflies, Ronald," Hermione said.

"Oh," he said, looking appeased. "Well, I guess that does make some sense."

"As for convolvulus and ranunculus, convolvulus means 'bonds' in the language of flowers, and it's basically a morning glory. Since that one was talking about the return of the lady's knight, it might be a reference to a bond between them," Hermione explained. "Ranunculus means 'ingratitude,' which might be a reference to the possible ingratitude of the granddaughter leaving her grandmother. There are a lot of different flowers in that family, but the one I always think of when I hear the story is a buttercup."

"What is it with you lot and butter?" Ron asked. "Also, how do you know the meaning of all these flowers off the top of your head?"

Hermione shrugged. "When I get bored, I read. We've been cooped up for so long now, and I'm so sick of looking at snow that the other day I pulled out a flower dictionary to pass the time."

"Uh-huh," Ron said. "When I'm bored, I stare vacantly at things, kind of like Gerta and Kai, really. Harry?"

"I sleep," Harry said.

"See, you're not supposed to do constructive things when you're bored," Ron said. "That defeats the whole purpose of being bored, which is obviously to do nothing."

"Or to lapse into unconsciousness," Harry agreed.

"So, anyway, the talkative flowers tell Gerta nothing useful at all, which rather begs the question of why they're in here to begin with," Ron said.

"Some critics think that each of the flower stories was a fragment of a full fledged story that Andersen wanted to write, but he never got past the snippets we get in 'The Snow Queen,'" Hermione said.

"Yeah, okay, but none of them knew about Kai, right? So why did she keep up with it after the first couple that I can barely even pronounce when it's obvious they didn't know anything?" Ron asked.

"Because Anderson wanted to put them in there, I suppose," Hermione said. "Gerta apparently thought one of them might know something, and the narcissus was the last, but despite saying it had something very important to say, it only told a story about a maiden whose clothes were so spotlessly white that they resembled a narcissus."

"Is it my imagination or did that just become an advert for laundry powder?" Ron asked.

"It does sound a bit like it," Hermione admitted.

"Personally, I was thinking of Malfoy's mum," Harry said.

Ron did an immediate and highly accurate imitation of Narcissa Malfoy's condescending sneer that made Harry and Hermione fall into fits of giggles.

"Considering the flower's meaning is 'egotism,' I'd say whoever named her did a first rate job," Hermione said. "However, getting back to the story, Gerta came to the conclusion that none of the flowers could help her, so she ran out of the garden gate and into the forest, where she was surprised to see autumn had arrived, for the garden was always a mix of summer and spring."

"What about the witch?" Harry asked.

"Actually, we don't ever see her again. I suppose Gerta wasn't too chuffed about being all but held captive like that," Hermione said.

"Still, as these stories go for witches, at least she didn't try to kill anyone or turn them into swans or lock her in a tower. Okay, the last one is a bit close, I grant you. Hey, maybe that's what happened to her! Maybe the witch was so upset when she came home to find Gerta gone that she decided to build a tower for the next one, and that's how we get Rampo," Ron said.

"Aside from the fact the story of 'Rapunzel' is a lot older than 'The Snow Queen,' I'd say you actually have quite an interesting premise there," Hermione said. "Perhaps at any rate there are enough examples to suggest that the trope of elderly witches imprisoning young girls in various ways is common enough to be some sort of symbolic attempt to regain youth and beauty by refusing to relinquish it in the form of their surrogate daughters."

"Or they're just lonely," Ron said. "Six of one."

"Half a dozen of the other," Hermione finished for him. "After Gerta realized how much time had passed, she ran through the forest for as long as she could. She had no food or water with her, and having thrown her pretty red shoes into the river, she was barefoot as well."

"Good old Andersen," Ron said. "Knew he wouldn't let me down on the foot thing."

"After a while, she stopped to rest beneath a tree, and who should stop before her but a great black raven, who cawed down at her most politely and asked why she was all alone in the world," Hermione said.

"Another talking animal," Ron said with a sigh. "Muggles do realize animals don't actually talk, right?"

"On this one, you're a bit wrong, actually," Hermione said. "Ravens actually can be trained to talk, rather like parrots. Granted, they don't understand what they are saying at all, but they can speak a bit."

"But that's not what this raven is doing though, right?" Ron asked.

"Well, no, this raven is actually talking with a full sense of what the words mean," Hermione said.

"Okay, so it's barmy, but that's fairly normal with these things," Ron said. "So does Gerta talk to the freak of nature?"

"She did indeed, thinking that in his comings and going over the wide countryside, he might have spotted Kai," Hermione said.

"Sensible," Harry said, nodding his approval.

"Yes, perfectly sensible to ask the talking raven to direct her towards her missing friend," Ron said with a smirk.

"Well, sensible to a point, I suppose," Harry said with a shrug. "Had he?"

"The raven said he thought he might have," Hermione said, "and Gerta was so thrilled she hugged and kissed him in joy."

"Birds don't really seem all that huggable to me," Ron said. "You were around Fawkes, Harry. Did he seem the type to enjoy cuddling?"

"Not especially," Harry said, "though he was pretty affectionate, I suppose. I miss him."

"Yes, we could do with a bit of phoenix song," Hermione said glumly. "In any case, the raven told Gerta that he had a sweetheart who was a tame raven who lived in a castle not far away."

"Not the Tower of London by any chance?" Harry asked with a grin.

"What tower?" Ron asked.

"Oh, it's an old prison in the middle of London, and there's a legend that says if the ravens ever leave the tower, the Crown will fall and Britain with it," Hermione said.

"Yeah, one of my old teachers at the Muggle school I went to before Hogwarts told us that story," Harry said.

"Seems a flimsy thing to pin an empire on: a bunch of ruddy birds not flying away," Ron said. "You lot really are odd."

"But no, it's not the Tower, just a typical castle where the tame raven lives. There was a princess there, said the raven, who was so clever that she read every newspaper in all the world and then forgot them all again," Hermione said.

"Odd way of measuring intelligence," Harry said, "forgetting everything you learned."

"By that standard, I'm brilliant at Potions," Ron said.

"Finally, she was quite bored with being a princess, and she decided she would marry. However, she said she would only marry someone who spoke clearly and sensibly in her presence. She wanted someone who didn't just look the part of being a king, but who could really be one," Hermione said.

"As plans for wedded bliss go in these things, that's actually far from the worst one I've heard," Ron said.

"An advertisement went out in all the newspapers explaining the princess's plan," Hermione said.

"This kid's got a thing for newspapers," Ron said with grin.

"The article, which was headed by her initials and surrounded in a border of little hearts, said that all eligible young men who wished to be considered for marriage with her should stand outside the palace and wait to be called in to speak with her," Hermione said.

"Bit twee, that, the hearts and such," Ron said. "Reminds me of how you decorated your second year class schedule for Lockhart's classes."

Harry snorted in laughter as Hermione turned bright red.

"I was twelve years old," she said with dignity. "I believe everyone is entitled to be a bit saccharine over someone they fancy at least once. Isn't that so, Won-Won?"

Now it was Ron's turn to cringe, though Harry was still immensely enjoying himself.

"As I was saying," Hermione continued, "the men came from miles around, and soon there was a line around the castle so long that they waited for three days. During that time, no food or water was given to them, though the cleverest had thought to bring their own, and that brought down the number a bit."

"Well, it would weed out a few of the biggest idiots, I suppose," Harry said.

"What about the ones who got in?" Ron asked.

"They had to go one by one up a flight of immense white marble stairs, into a great room lined with soldiers and courtiers and ladies in waiting, all in the finest clothes of gold and silver shoes, staring at the next suitor imperiously. At last he would reach the elaborate and rich throne room where the princess sat upon a single pearl the size of a spinning wheel," Hermione said.

"That does not sound comfortable," Ron said. "Impressive, though. Then what?"

"The princess would say good morning or good afternoon or good evening to him and listen to how he responded. Every one of her suitors had been struck dumb by the elegance and majesty of the castle, and they could only mutter back the same words at best, and most only made some odd wheezing noises, as often as not running from the room in fright. Once outside, they found they could speak freely again, but none of them met the princess's expectations," Hermione said.

"It's a bit like being called into McGonagall's office," Ron said. "I feel sorry for the poor blighters. It's not easy to find your tongue in a situation like that."

"That was just the point," Hermione said. "If they were so overwhelmed just by the palace, they'd never be able to manage being king there."

"Again, there's a bit of sense in there someplace," Ron admitted. "Maybe the princess does have a brain. But where does Kai come in?"

"The raven said that there was one boy who arrived on the third day after almost everyone had given up. He had shining eyes like Gerta's, and beautiful hair, and he behaved beautifully and was brave and very clever. At once, Gerta said, 'Oh, it must be Kai! It sounds just like him!'" Hermione said.

"Wasn't Kai acting rather like a berk before he ran away?" Ron asked.

"Well, yes," Hermione said.

"So 'beautifully behaved' doesn't really seem to fit," he said.

"We'll see," Hermione said. "He had walked straight up to the castle with a knapsack on his back, or so the raven said, though Gerta corrected him and said that it must have been his little sled that he was last seen with. The raven admitted he had not seen him closely, so that could well be."

"It's not him," Ron said to Harry without a shred of doubt.

"No," Harry agreed, "but keep going anyway."

"It's a rather heavy-handed bit of foreshadowing, I admit," Hermione said, "but the raven said the boy walked right up the steps, addressing the soldiers and courtiers and all the others quite politely and without the slightest sign of fear, and when he was admitted to the throne room, he greeted the princess heartily and they talked together for quite a while. She found herself impressed by him, so they were wed, and now they lived together in the castle and ruled wisely and well."

"Is it just me or did Anderson write yet another story inside of this story?" Ron asked.

"It's not just you," Hermione said. "This really is one of his more complicated ones, and that's saying something. Little Gerta said she must go to the palace and see Kai and tell him how much he was missed, but the raven said he would have to speak to his sweetheart to see if it could be possible since her clothes were all ragged and she had no shoes on her feet. He flew off to see what could be done."

"This raven is a good fellow to know," Harry said.

"Not long after, he returned with a soft roll in his beak, a present to Gerta from his lady friend. He had told her all about Gerta's troubles, and she was so moved she sent her food from the kitchens and assured her she would find a way to let her in by the back staircase used by the servants," Hermione said.

"Wish we had a bread-fetching raven," Ron said sulkily. "That'd be handy."

"I think St. Paul the Hermit got the last one of those," Hermione said with a grin.

"Huh?" Ron asked.

"There's a legend that there was a raven that used to deliver bread every day to a hermit who lived in the desert," Hermione said, "rather like an owl does with letters and parcels."

"Yeah, but owls make sense," Ron said with a wave of his hand.

"I really was intending to bring Pig, by the way," Hermione said apologetically, "but I never thought to put him in my bag for the wedding. Maybe he might have been useful."

"Nah," Ron said, waving a hand dismissively. "It's probably for the best. He'd just spend his time zooming around the tent and coughing up pellets, probably hooting like mad if Death Eaters came close. Anyway, did Gerta go to the castle?"

"Yes, and the lady raven was waiting at the back door. It was the middle of the night now, and Gerta was very nervous as she was guided down the corridors by the two ravens in the dark. Suddenly, she had the feelings she was being followed, and she turned around to see shimmering images of lords and ladies and horses and great dogs running swiftly towards her, then passing her. 'Those are only dreams, going to fetch the great folk to a night of hunting,' the raven said," Hermione explained.

"Ghosts?" Ron said, looking at Harry.

"Sounds like it," Harry agreed. "Actually, it almost sounds like the Headless Hunt. Nobody's head rolled off in all this, did it?"

"No," Hermione said, "but it is the sort of thing someone from the magical world might tell a Muggle to keep them from being too frightened of something obviously magical. When they finally got to the royal bedchamber, Gerta's heart was beating fit to burst. In the center of ther room from the floor to the ceiling stood a great replica of a palm tree, and swinging from it were two beds made to look like lilies. One was white, and upon it the princess lay, and the other, which was red, was the resting place of her husband."

"That is one weird decorating scheme," Ron said. "Lilies hanging off a giant palm tree? That wasn't in any copy of Mum's Witch Weekly as style of the moment."

"I think it's meant to represent the innocence of the characters, but I admit, it's odd and makes no botanical sense at all," Hermione said. "Professor Sprout would go into fits."

"So Gerta sees the prince, and?" Ron prompted her.

"And she thinks it's Kai for a split second, but when she gasps and he wakes up, she realizes at once that it isn't," Hermione said.

"Called it," Ron said, nodding to Harry.

"Gerta began to cry, and the prince and princess comforted her and asked her to explain her story, and she told them everything," Hermione said.

"You know, that's a remarkably compassionate response to being roused out of a sound sleep by someone you've never met before leaning over you while looking for someone else," Harry said.

"Yeah," Ron said, "I didn't take it that well when Sirius did it to me. Granted, he was holding a bloody great knife at the time and trying to kill somebody as opposed to, you know, looking for his childhood playmate who ran away."

"Actually, he sort of was looking for his childhood playmate who ran away," Harry said with a frown.

"Huh," Ron said, then shrugged. "Okay, well, Gerta didn't have a knife at any rate."

"No," Hermione said, "but the prince and princess were very kind and sympathetic towards her, and while they told the ravens they should never do anything like that again, they also offered them permanent positions as palace pets."

"Permanent positions as palace pets?" Ron said.

"Yes," Hermione said, "with a daily allotment of broken pastries from the kitchen."

"Palace pets with permanent positions and pastries," Ron said. "Were they practically peripatetically pickled with pure pleasure?"

Hermione grinned.

"Perhaps," she said mischievously. "In any case, the prince and princess obviously didn't know where Kai was, but they let Gerta stay with them for several days, and they said they would be content to have her live with them in the palace forever. But when at last she said she simply must continue her quest to find Kai, they gave her a beautiful dress of silk and velvet and a pair of lovely shoes as well as a coach of solid gold with the royal insignia on it and a driver and footmen and soldiers along with all sorts of food and candy, wishing her luck in her travels."

"Blimey," Ron said, looking impressed. "Okay, they're a bit of alright, I guess. Generous at any rate. Also, I notice old Hans got her a pair of shoes again, obsessed thing that he is."

"Little golden slippers," Hermione said, "along with a coat and muff and gloves, for she was heading north and the days were growing very cold."

"So off Gerta goes, riding away in her coach," Harry said. "I'm guessing this doesn't end well."

"You'd be right," Hermione said. "The ravens, now newly married, accompanied her in the coach, and they rode off with their whole retinue into the forest. However, it wasn't long before they reached a wild, dangerous country filled with bands of robbers."

"I'm guessing a solid gold coach probably wasn't going to pass without comment," Ron said.

"Quite," Hermione said. "Out of nowhere, the coach and its escort were beset by an ambush. The ravens flew away, but the driver, footmen, and soldiers were all killed."

"Whoa, okay, wasn't quite expecting that much violence all at once," Ron said, looking surprised.

"It's a bit of a digression in tone from the rest of the text, I grant you, but the concept of armed marauders overtaking a royal coach for the purposes of kidnap and theft actually wouldn't have been too far-fetched in some of the more remote areas of Europe during the setting of the story," Hermione said.

"Did you actually use the word 'marauders' in a sentence that didn't involve Harry's dad and friends?" Ron asked.

"I suppose so," Hermione said. "It's an appropriate term under the circumstances, though I admit the connotation of the word is a bit charged in our personal environment, so it may not have been the best choice in retrospect."

Ron just stared her for a moment before blurting out, "Did you actually read the entire dictionary at some point?"

Hermione blinked.

"What an odd thing to ask," she said, and Harry noticed that was not a denial. "The robbers pulled Gerta from the coach believing they had taken the princess and intending to hold her for ransom, but they were disappointed when they realized she was only dressed finely but not the princess at all. At once they decided the best thing to do would be to kill her, but there was another little girl, a robber's daughter, and she threw a fit and carried on, biting her mother and screaming loudly, saying she wanted to have someone to play with, and she made such a fuss that the robbers gave in and made a present of Gerta to her."

"Well, that's… I want to use the word 'lucky,' but I'm not quite sure about that," Harry said.

"Yeah, it's nice to get saved and all, but she seems a bit frightening," Ron said.

"The robbers rode off with the coach, and the robber girl got in beside Gerta. 'You shall give me your coat and dress and muff and shoes, and you shall sleep beside me at night and we shall play together, and so long as I am not displeased with you, no one will kill you,' the girl said," Hermione explained.

"Forget the 'a bit.' She's plain terrifying," Ron said, his mouth dropping open. "And what's with her taking her clothes and making her sleep next to her?"

"Oh, it probably isn't supposed to be read as a lesbian metaphor directly, though the subconscious subtext is difficult to ignore. Siblings and friends often slept in the same bed back then, and the robber girl gives Gerta another set of clothing in place of the dress and things because of course they were all highly valuable, and whatever else she is, she's a robber after all," Hermione said.

"Okay," Ron said, still looking distinctly uncomfortable. "Well, fine. So what happens then?"

"Eventually the carriage pulled up to the destroyed home the gang used as a base, and the robber girl pulled Gerta toward her own bed where she introduced her to her pets," Hermione said.

"Now that's a bit more friendly," Ron said, smiling. "Pajama party and puppies."

"She had several dozen pigeons that roosted on the walls, which were sleeping when they came in, but she grabbed several of them and shook them fiercely because she liked to see them flap their wings. 'Kiss it!' she ordered Gerta, who complied by kissing the pigeons," Hermione said.

"Okay, less like a pajama party, more like a scene out of St. Mungo's closed ward," Harry said. "Those things are basically just filthy flying rats."

"That remains to be seen. She also had a reindeer named Bac who wore a copper ring around his neck, and him she loved most of all," Hermione said.

"A pet reindeer? How far north are they?" Ron asked.

"A fair way," Hermione said.

"It doesn't fly by any chance, does it?" Ron asked.

"No, it's not one of Father Christmas's reindeer," Hermione said, "though the robber girl did say they had to tether him with a rope so we wouldn't escape. She would play with him every night by tickling his neck with her knife, which frightened him and made her laugh."

Ron and Harry stared at each other in silence for a while.

"Anybody else picturing Bellatrix as a kid?" Ron asked, voice trembling a little.

"Considering the robber girl is described as having dark hair and eyes, it's not that far from an accurate representation, perhaps," Hermione said with a shrug. "Still, she had Gerta explain her story, and she listened closely to her as she talked of Kai and her struggles and her desire to find her friend. When Gerta had finished, she nodded and said that if she was telling the truth, she would help her."

"I'm not sure I'm thrilled with that prospect," Ron said.

"Just at that moment, two of the pigeons cooed loudly that they had seen little Kai in their wanderings," Hermione said.

"There's a bit of luck," Harry said.

"I hope they turn out to be a bit more accurate than the raven," Ron chimed in.

"They saw Kai being carried away in the sleigh of the Snow Queen, who had stopped and blown on the nest full of pigeons that they had been born in, and all but those two had died from the bitter cold of her breath," Hermione said.

"Okay, now I feel a bit bad about the whole filthy-flying-rats comment," Harry said. "That's just cruel."

"It terrified little Gerta too, of course," Hermione said. "The pigeons said they believed she had gone to Lapland, where it is always cold, and the reindeer, who came from there, said that he too had heard of the Snow Queen and believed her palace was near the North Pole on the island of Spitzbergen, but her summer home was in Lapland."

"So the reindeer did come from the North Pole!" Ron said triumphantly.

"Well, not exactly. Spitzbergen, or Spitsbergen as it's spelled now, is a real island that's north of Norway, and a lot of it is made up of national parks now," Hermione said. "In reality it's still quite a ways to the North Pole from there, though."

"Whatever," Ron said. "I still think 'On Dasher, on Dancer, on Bac, on Blitzen,' has a nice ring to it."

"Clement Moore?" Hermione said, looking at him curiously. "You've been reading Muggle Christmas poetry?"

"Oh, come on, everybody knows that one," Ron said waving his hand. "Even the Malfoys probably made an exception for it."

"It's weird the things that cross cultures," Harry said. "When did you stop believing in Father Christmas, anyway?"

"Stop believing?" Ron said, looking confused. "I don't get it. He's a Gryffindor. Muggleborn, if I remember correctly. Right?"

"Yes, he is," Hermione said, nodding and taking in Harry's stunned expression. "Oh, I was more than a little surprised, too."

"Seriously?" Harry asked, eyes enormous.

"Apparently so," Hermione said. "He doesn't get out much anymore, though, as he's getting on a bit, although I think he carried on correspondence with Dumbledore. Anyway, back to the story. The robber girl said she would sleep on the idea to see what she could plan, and that if Gerta woke her or annoyed her, there would be no need to plan for she always slept with her knife in case of emergencies and she would kill Gerta herself before anyone else could."

Ron looked thoughtful for a moment.

"I'm feeling oddly sorry for the robber girl," he said slowly.

"You did catch that she just threatened to knife Gerta," Harry said with a laugh.

"Yeah, but still, can't really be much of a happy life, can it? Sleeping with a knife to stay safe as a kid, living with a gang that kills people for fun. When she said she wanted Gerta for a playmate, she really wasn't kidding, was she? She sounds lonely," he said, looking uncomfortable.

"She also sounds homicidal and slightly psychopathic," Harry said, "but yeah, probably a bit lonely as well. Not a great childhood, at any rate."

"I suppose so," Hermione said, considering. "I'd never really considered her that way before. Well, the next morning, Gerta woke to the robber girl saying she had a plan. The girl's mother, who was an ugly old creature who also had a remarkably long beard that made her look like a goat, always started to drink about mid-morning and passed out soon after, so Gerta could make her escape then."

"Yow," Ron said. "This child really does have problems."

"Yes, apparently," Hermione said. "She said she would let Gerta ride on Bac, who would carry her back to Lapland where he had originally come from. She tied Gerta on so she wouldn't fall off, and gave her a pair of her mother's old gloves and long woolen leggings, though the robber girl kept the muff because it was pretty. Then she gave her some food for the journey and sent her on her way."

"So she loses her friend and the pet reindeer because she did the right thing and helped the girl escape," Ron said. "Okay, now I'm sad."

"Well, so was Gerta, for she cried when she left, and it made the robber girl stamp her feet and say that she really should be happy instead, so she was alright with the situation, I suppose," Hermione said, "but yes, it is a remarkably selfless thing to do, well, except for the muff. In any case, the reindeer took off at top speed, heading towards the northern lights to guide him home."

"That's a nice little image," Harry said.

"Weirdly, in the story it says the lights made a noise like someone sneezing in order to call him onward, which I always found rather odd," Hermione said.

"Sneezing northern lights," Ron said, raising his eyebrow. "What was this Anderson fellow on again?"

"Oh, probably some variation of opium like half the people in the 1800s," Hermione said. "Anyway, the reindeer ran onwards for days, and the food the robber girl had given Gerta had completely run out before at last they came to the home of a Lapland woman, which was a little mound that barely poked above the turf for it was underground."

"Why would they live underground?" Ron asked.

"It's warmer that way," Hermione said.

"Then why isn't the Slytherin Common Room toasty?" Ron asked. "When Harry and I went there second year, it was damp and cold."

"Yes, well, I think the Slytherin dormitory is actually under the lake, which might explain it," Hermione said.

"Oh," Ron said. "I suppose that makes sense."

"Gerta had gone unconscious by this time, and the reindeer told the Lapland woman his story first, which he considered far more important, and then added Gerta's as an afterthought. Immediately, the woman took both the reindeer and the girl into her home, letting them warm up and giving them something to eat," Hermione said.

"Wait, what was the reindeer's story?" Ron asked.

"I suppose about his capture by the robbers and being the girl's pet, then his escape with Gerta and running for several days to bring them their," Hermione said.

"That beats talking flowers and ravens, memory erasure, a friend kidnapped by the Snow Queen, breaking and entering a castle, and an attack on an armed carriage by a bunch of thieves who killed a load of people?" Ron asked incredulously.

"Everyone tends to think their own story is the most important, I suppose," Hermione said.

"Maybe," Harry said, looking wistfully at the window in the tent and wondering if Ginny and Neville and Luna and the others at Hogwarts were having a more productive time of it than they were.

"They stayed with the Lapland woman only very briefly, for they still had far to go, and she gave them a message to give to a woman in Finland, which she wrote on the skin of a fish," Hermione said.

"Nice stationery," Ron said. "Still, she's a decent sort. Mum would like her."

"Once again, the reindeer and Gerta rode off together until they came to the hut of the Finnish woman, who took them in when she read the note on the fish skin, which she then ate," Hermione said.

"I suppose that's environmentally responsible, at any rate," Harry said with a grimace.

"The reindeer begged the woman to help them, for she had the gift of being able to tie up the wind for sailors so that they might go as they pleased, even unleashing a hurricane if need be, but the woman said that was unnecessary," Hermione said.

"Wait, is she a witch?" Ron asked.

"She very well might be, though it seems she specializes in some form of climate-based magic that Hogwarts has never really covered," Hermione said. "It wasn't an unheard of charm then, though, for women to try to control the wind by tying a series of knots to keep it from blowing or untying them to create a greater wind. I'm not really sure if the theory behind it is sound, and it may well be just a folk belief rather than genuine magic, but it's fairly well documented."

"Tying knots keeps the wind from blowing?" Ron said. "Seems a bit thin on reality."

"While we point sticks at things instead and think nothing of it," Hermione said.

"Well, yeah," Ron said as though this were the most obvious thing in the world. "That's only logical."

"If you say so," Hermione said. "At any rate, the Finnish woman said that Gerta already had power of her own, and she would need every bit of it because Kai was perfectly happy where he was in large part due to a splinter of glass in his eye and in his heart, which would need to be removed before he would consent to go home."

"I almost forgot about that bit," Ron said. "How'd she know that?"

"She just knew," Hermione said. "She said that the Snow Queen's gardens began only two miles away and that there was no time to lose. The reindeer must set Gerta down by the bushes with red berries that bordered the queen's domain and wait there for her. At once, she put Gerta on the reindeer's back and he ran at once, though she had left behind her gloves and her shoes."

"Is this the second or the third time in this story the poor kid winds up shoeless?" Ron asked.

"I believe it's the third," Hermione said, "and she did suffer quite horribly from the bitter ice and snow with her bare feet."

"Does anyone else suddenly feel like putting on an extra pair of socks?" Harry asked.

Ron and Hermione both raised their hands in agreement.

"By now, they had reached the bushes, and Gerta knew that she must go on alone," Hermione said.

"Why?" Ron asked.

"I don't know. That's just the way these things are done, I suppose, and the poor reindeer really had done his bit already. Gerta saw the Snow Queen's enormous palace far in the distance and began to walk towards it, barefoot in the freezing snow, when suddenly she was surrounded by enormous snowflakes that instead of falling from the sky swooped towards her, glowing like the aurora borealis but terrifyingly powerful."

"I guess that makes sense," Ron said. "The Snow Queen has attack-snowflakes."

"Wonderful, now I'm thinking of dear old Fluffy," Harry said.

"Whatever happened to him, anyway?" Ron asked.

"I don't know, though knowing Hagrid he's probably romping playfully somewhere while causing massive amounts of mayhem," Hermione said.

"Forbidden Forest is my guess," Harry said. "He'd fit right in with the skrewts."

"Just as long as they don't interbreed," Ron said with a shudder. "Giant, three headed, stinging, flaming crabs that can wag their tails? Hagrid would have a dozen as pets."

Hermione and Harry looked at each other in horror as they realized Ron was probably completely right.

"Well, going back to something marginally less likely to give me nightmares for the next three years running, the monstrous snowflakes began to take on the forms of animals as they came closer to Gerta: gigantic porcupines, hideous interwoven snakes, and bears with their fur standing all on end," Hermione said.

"Wait, a bunch of glowing white animals are attacking her?" Harry said.

"Essentially, though they're made of snow," Hermione said.

"No, they're not, though they might look like it," Harry said seriously. "They're patronuses."

Hermione's eyes grew wide at that while Ron nodded thoughtfully.

"It sure sounds like a bunch of them, but if only the Snow Queen is there, who's making them all?" Ron asked. "Hey, is it possible for someone to conjure more than one patronus?"

"I don't know," Harry said. "Usually one's enough to get just about any job done. Have you ever heard of it happening, Hermione?"

"No," Hermione said, "but I suppose theoretically speaking if a person were able to center on more than one happy memory at a time, it might be possible, but it would take an extremely strong wizard. Even Merlin's recorded as having only one patronus."

"But if this Snow Queen is as strong as the story says, then maybe it is possible?" Ron asked.

"Maybe," Hermione said. "Oh, now this is going to bother me! I wish I'd thought to bring Wulfric Murkington III's Assessment of Patronus-Based Magic in Australia. He might mention something in the appendices, though they are a bit wordy even for my taste. Still, I probably could have gotten it into my bag if I'd only rearranged the medical supplies, but I was planning to do that the day after the wedding."

"Hermione, I'm disappointed in you. How could you possibly miss packing good old Forkington?" Ron said, rolling his eyes.

"Murkington," she corrected him automatically.

"Whatever," Ron said, "I doubt it's going to be that crucial to the fate of the world. So how does the Muggle girl surrounded by angry patronuses – wait, is it patroni?"

"Technically both are correct," Hermione said.

"Okay, how does she escape? Or considering this is Anderson, does she not and get eaten starting with her sore feet?" Ron asked.

"The story says that she said the Lord's Prayer, and when the steam came out of her mouth, it formed itself into angels armed with spears and lances who defeated the snow animals," Hermione said.

"So… she conjured multiple patronuses too," Ron said. "Can a Muggle do that?"

"I don't know," Hermione said. "I'd say no, but then perhaps Gerta is actually a Muggleborn witch. If that's the case, small children have been known to perform automatic magic under certain circumstances, including peril to life and limb, so it's not entirely without precedent."

"Like when Neville got dropped out the second floor window as a tyke and bounced away unhurt," Ron said. "That kid's family really does have issues."

"Do you think so?" Hermione said sarcastically, wrinkling her nose in dislike.

"His grandmother might be better intentioned than the Dursleys, but if it weren't for magic, I'm guessing they'd get along together pretty well," Harry said. "She is one intimidating witch."

"Or something that sounds extremely similar to that," Ron muttered under his breath. Harry was grateful that Hermione feigned deafness.

"Well, you might also like to know that the angels patted Gerta's hands and feet so that they became less cold," Hermione said.

"About time," Ron said, folding his arms indignantly.

"Then she ran towards the palace of the Snow Queen, which was all of ice," Hermione said. "Meanwhile, Kai had been trying to solve a riddle."

"All this time?" Harry asked.

"The Snow Queen had promised him the whole world and a new sled if he could solve it, but so far he could come up with nothing at all," Hermione said.

"The whole world and a new sled?" Ron said. "If he got the whole world, wouldn't he be legally entitled to pretty much all of the sleds in it?"

"I suppose so, but that was the wording of the agreement," Hermione said. "Kai had indeed forgotten all about Gerta and the grandmother and his home, and everything at all before the Snow Queen. The shattered remains of the horrible mirror and worked their way deep inside his heart and his eye so that nothing he saw was pure or good anymore, except for the Snow Queen's beauty. He played with pieces of ice to form a puzzle, and the answer to the puzzle would win him the world and the sled. The Snow Queen was not in residence at the time, for she had gone south to tip the mountaintops with snow, but if he had managed to solve the puzzle by the time he got back, he would win."

"Wait, so if the Snow Queen wasn't even there, who conjured the porcupines and snakes and bears and things?" Ron asked.

"Maybe it was some sort of guard alarm?" Hermione suggested. "I suppose it could be possible to trigger the spell remotely, though I admit it's far-fetched."

"This is really complicated," Ron said. "Okay, so what was the kid trying to make out of the puzzle?"

"Eternity," Hermione said.

"Uh… how?" Ron asked.

"He had to spell the word using the ice, but he couldn't do it," Hermione said. "He could make all sorts of other words and patterns and pictures that seemed very beautiful and important to him, but eternity was something he simply couldn't grasp since his heart had turned to ice within him, and he had gone blue with cold though he felt nothing."

"He's blue?" Ron said.

"In the story, yes, he's entirely blue and not moving at all," Hermione said. "It isn't really clear whether the Snow Queen is killing him or trying to turn him into some sort of creature like herself, heartless and built of ice."

"But Gerta doesn't let that happen," Harry said.

"No, just then, Gerta ran into the great hall of the palace where Kai sat. The walls were made of sheets of snow, and the windows and doors were icy wind, and the length of the hall was so great that Kai appeared only as a tiny dot on the other side. But Gerta knew him at once and ran to him, weeping for joy and calling his name," Hermione said.

"And?" Ron and Harry said.

"And nothing," Hermione said. "Kai just continued to stare at the ice, not moving or even looking at the girl who had traveled so far and through so much danger to save him."

"Oh, come on!" Ron wailed. "Tell me that's not the end of the story!"

"No, but Gerta was so hurt that she began to cry in earnest, and she wrapped her arms around him, begging him to remember," Hermione said. "Her tears fell upon his eyes, and they washed away the splinter of mirror there, and they fell upon his chest and penetrated to his heart, removing the one that was there as well and melting the ice to flesh again."

"This is like that turnip-head girl's tears that cured blindness," Ron said.

"Yes, I suppose you could draw a parallel between the healing properties of Rapunzel's tears and Gerta's ability to remove evil with hers," Hermione said thoughtfully. "Granted, the first one is a slightly more pseudo-scientific explanation while Gerta is Anderson's way of pitting faith and imagination and love against pure science and reason, so there are dissimilarities present as well, but the efficacy of emotion on suffering does seem to be an underlying theme for both tropes."

"Uh huh," Ron said. "Them tropes will get you every time. So what happened after Gerta couldn't find a tissue?"

"Kai came back to himself, recognized her, and said over and over how cold and bleak it was there. She took his hand and they ran back across the hall and out of the palace, and melted into the ice on the floor behind them was the word 'eternity,' so Kai had won," Hermione said.

"I think that's probably some form of cheating, but I'll let it pass," Ron said.

"The two of them returned to the berry bush where the reindeer was waiting along with another reindeer, who gave them fresh milk, and they rode south again, stopping at the home of the Finnish woman, who gave them food, and the Lapland woman, who gave them new clothes and fixed Kai's sled," Hermione said. "The reindeer stayed in Lapland, for that had been his home before he was captured by the robber gang."

"Did the poor kid finally get some shoes?" Ron asked.

"I'm going to assume yes," Hermione said.

"Until Anderson has them spontaneously combust during a plague of locusts or something," Ron said.

"Or while she's walking over burning sand," Harry added.

"Hey, why not both?" Ron said.

Hermione rolled her eyes but shrugged.

"Anyway, as they came to the edge of the forest, who should Gerta see but a horse that had once pulled her golden coach, and riding on it was the robber girl, who had decided to go forth and seek her fortune. They greeted each other as old friends, and the girl looked Kai up and down and asked if he were really worth walking the whole world over to save, but Gerta only smiled and asked how the prince and princess were," Hermione said.

"Tactful," Ron said.

"It turned out that they had gone abroad, and the raven had since died and his wife was now a widow and wore a black crepe band on her leg in mourning," Hermione said.

"That's pointlessly depressing," Ron said.

"You know, it really is," Hermione said. "I never understood why that detail was in the story, but it always is. I suppose it's to underscore the presence of death, but it doesn't serve much of a purpose really. Anyway, the robber maid wanted to hear all about their journey, and Gerta and Kai told her all of their adventures. When they were through, the robber maid said 'Schnipp-schnapp-schnurre-basselurre,' and promised to visit them should she ever come to the town where they lived, then set off again."

"Schnipp-schnapp-schnurre-basselurre?" Ron repeated in disbelief.

"It's a nonsense phrase of some kind," Hermione said. "Apparently it has something to do with a Danish nursery rhyme, but the robber maid uses it to sort of sum up her view of their adventures before moving on."

"Well, at least she seems to be turning out okay," Ron said. "Hopefully she doesn't go kill somebody in the next town over or start raiding petrol stations or something."

"One may hope," Hermione said. "As Gerta and Kai traveled south, the spring began to arrive with its green leaves and flowers and birdsong, until finally they crossed the threshold of their old home at last. The grandmother stood at the stove, reading her Bible, and the clock ticked on the wall as it always had, and as they sat once more in the chairs where they had sat as children, they realized they were now grown-ups, though always children in heart. The dreary magnificence of the Snow Queen's palace melted from their memories, replaced by the beautiful roses of their rooftop garden, and it was summer once more, within and without."

"And that's the end?" Ron asked.

"Yes," Hermione said, crossing her arms. "Well?"

"Okay, so when you say the memory of the palace melted away, do they not remember any of that?" Ron asked.

"I'm not sure," Hermione said.

"Because if not, I can't believe the grandmother isn't going to whack them right over the head and want to know where they've been for the last year or so, and if they don't have any kind of answer, they're going to wind up in a right lot of trouble," Ron said.

"Yeah," Harry agreed. "I mean, wouldn't the whole town think they're dead?"

"And they just come waltzing in, hand-in-hand, mooning about over the roses and sitting in chairs that are too small, but nobody bothers to notice?" Ron said.

"Alright, well, I suppose it could just mean that the palace was replaced by the roses, which were better than anything the Snow Queen could offer," Hermione said, casting around for an acceptable answer.

"Yes, their wonderful old deathtrap of a hanging garden on the roof," Ron said. "I still say somebody is going to fall off that one of these days. There's no way that would pass a building inspection."

"It's supposed to symbolize home and happiness and love being better than palaces and riches with no heart," Hermione said. "I think we could all do with a bit of the former about now."

"Well, we could sure do with less snow, at any rate," Ron said.

"If you hadn't noticed, the snow stopped about a quarter of an hour ago," Hermione said.

Ron and Harry both stared at the ceiling and listened. They were stunned to realize she was right: the wind had stopped, and no pelting blasts of frozen snow were pattering on the canvas anymore.

"That really was a long one," Ron said.

"Yes, we really should be getting to bed," Hermione agreed. "Morning will be here soon."

Harry nodded. It was nice to think of home, wherever that might be when all this was over, and the possibility that someday happiness would return, that they would see their friends and families again, that somewhere right now they might even be thinking of them, as well. Maybe by the time the roses were blooming in Professor Sprout's greenhouses, this would all be nothing but a cold, bleak memory. He hoped so.

"Good night, then," Hermione said as they all climbed into their bed, and the lights went out.

It was quiet for a moment, and Harry was nearly asleep when he heard Ron whisper something.

"You really did read the dictionary, didn't you," he said.

A long pause stretched out, and Harry thought Hermione might be about to throw a pillow at him when he heard her whisper back, "I was ten and it was the only book available at the time."

Harry and Ron both laughed, and then, though Harry could never figure out how she did it, Hermione did indeed successfully chuck a pillow at both of them simultaneously before rolling over and going to sleep.