The Houses Competition

House: Hufflepuff

Position: Head of House

Drabble/Standard: Standard

Prompt: (character) Pandora Lovegood

Word Count: 2,894 words

Warning for Fairytale/Sleeping Beauty!AU, and a slight bit out of character due to this AU being used. I would like to take the time to thank everyone who beta read this story for me. It truly means a lot that you would take the time out to help me like that. So, thank you very much and I hope you all enjoy Sleeping Pandora.

Once upon a time, there lived a princess so beautiful and fair that every boy in the surrounding area wished to be in her favor. This princess had a name of equal beauty to her looks: Pandora. Pandora, Princess of Eveningstar. Her long golden locks would flow behind her when she danced merrily during feasts. Her gentle blue eyes held all the understanding in the world. But still, she never seemed to be as happy as she let on.

Her parents, the king and queen of the Eveningstar realm, had made a marriage pact with a neighboring kingdom. The kingdom of Malfoy rulers, Everdark. She was to marry their prince, Lucius. A most foul and loathsome lad, a year or so older than she was. She had pleaded with her parents to not make her marry him, but the ruler of Everdark was far richer than they were and a marriage with them would make more sense than anything else.

The proclamation of the marriage between Princess Pandora and Prince Lucius of Everdark was sent out to all in the kingdom. Then a grand feast was planned to celebrate. A feast with all the things that Pandora loved. The wonderful food, the great music, and tons of dancing. But the only thing that her parents hadn't taken into account was who to invite and who not to invite.

Upon the outskirts of both the kingdom of Eveningstar and Everdark, there lived a witch most notorious for her evil doings. This witch was called Bellatrix. Her little sister, a witch of great renown on her own, Narcissa, fancied Prince Lucius and thought to one day ensnare him and make him hers. But upon hearing that the Prince was to marry Princess Pandora, neither sister was happy. But their mother was even more displeased. She had worked so hard to put Narcissa close to the Prince so that she might catch his eye.

But it was to get even worse when they found out that a ball was being held to celebrate the occasion and none of them had been invited. Lady Druella Black had flown into a powerful rage, or so it is told by her daughters. She would make the kingdom of Eveningstar pay for their disrespect to the most honorable house of Black. She would see to that.

But as the days wore on and the feast to celebrate the great alliance between Eveningstar and Everdark approached, Pandora found herself wishing that she could be free. Free to choose who she would marry. Free to do what she wanted to do the most. Which happened to be to wander around the kingdom and talk to her people.

When she'd been younger, she'd been allowed to go out and speak with whoever she wanted to speak with, so long as she had a guard with her at all times and the person wasn't creepy looking. She would go around and speak with people and get ideas which she usually tried to propose to her parents to make the running of the kingdom smoother. Some of them were actually used, but most were not. Kings and Queens don't usually enjoy being told what to do by their children, after all.

"Where are you going, Princess Pandora?" asked her loyal bodyguard, Xenophillius. He was watching her with concern as she pulled on the long patched cloak she used when she snuck out of the castle to visit the village.

"You know certainly well where I'm going, Xeno," she said, turning her clear blue eyes upon him. If she were free to choose her own husband, she would certainly have chosen a man like Xenophillius Lovegood.

Xenophillius had been with her since her early childhood. His father had been her bodyguard before his passing and Xeno usually was brought along to play with the little princess. They'd play the most fanciful games. Xenophillius, with long flowing blond hair, was a prince coming to rescue Pandora, the fair princess, from the dragon.

But they were no longer children and Xenophillius had grown just as handsome as everyone had thought he would. His hair was still long and flowing and blond, but his grey eyes showed more of the world wariness than his father's once had. As though Xeno had seen more than one person should for his age of sixteen.

"Your parents don't like you going down to the village, Dora," Xeno said, using the woebegone voice which usually stopped her plans before they started. "You don't want me to get in trouble and lose my job, do you? How would I support my mother and myself?"

Pandora almost considered rethinking her plan at this point. She didn't want to put any strain on Mrs. Lovegood. The woman had gone through enough in the past few years, what with the death of her husband and her son taking his place.

"Xeno, I need a little freedom," she said, looking out at the numerous buckets of flowers that were being brought into the palace to be placed about the ballroom. "I need to be in control of some aspect of my life, don't you understand?"

Xeno let out a sigh. She knew that he did understand what she was saying. He had had no control over whether or not he wanted to take his father's place. But he still didn't look happy as he nodded his head.

The trip to the village was a rather quiet affair which should have been the first hint that something was wrong. People usually stopped them for conversation upon the road. But today the road was deserted. Not a single soul besides themselves were traveling upon it.

"That's strange," Xenophillius said, looking about them. "We should have encountered someone upon the road by now."

Pandora looked around them. Xeno was right about this, of course. They should have encountered someone by now. But they'd seen no one, which was a strange thing for a village road in the middle of the week. That was when she noticed the figure hobbling ahead of them.

"Madam," she called out, racing up to the hobbling figure. "Madam, is there something wrong in the village?"

"Not that I am aware of," she said, looking up at Pandora. "I don't live in the village proper. I live with my husband and daughters on the outskirts of the village. So, don't take my word for it, dearie."

The woman's face must have been quite beautiful at one point in her life. The pale flesh of her skin told that she was a woman who'd never had work a day in her life. The long flowing hair under the hood of her cloak was a warm caramel color shot through with wisps of grey. Her eyes were like storm clouds just about ready to burst.

"Oh." Pandora let out a breath she hadn't realized she'd been holding. "Do you mind if we walk with you to the village?"

"I don't mind at all," the woman said, smiling at Pandora. "My name is Drusilla. What is your name?"

"P…"

"Penelope," Xeno said, cutting her off and shaking his head subtly so only Pandora could see it, "we ought not to bother the nice woman. Your mother will be expecting you home soon anyway."

"You're not bothering me, my dear," Drusilla said, smiling between both Pandora and Xenophillius now. "In fact, I rather insist you come to the village with me. I have seen a rather strange thing there and would like to share it with someone. Will you come with me, my dear children?"

"Of course," Pandora said before Xenophillius could make up another lie to send back up to the castle. "We would love to come with you, wouldn't we?" She elbowed Xeno in the ribs and nodded pointedly.

"Of course," Xeno said, rather unconvincingly.

The whole walk to the village Pandora and Drusilla talked and talked and talked some more. The more the woman talked, the more something seemed off about her, but neither Xenophillius nor Pandora could put their finger on what it was. They finally came to a rather fancy house.

"I think we just walked through the entire village," Xeno said, pointing towards the area beyond. "That over there is the village of Everdark."

"You must be thirsty from all that walking, dears," the woman said, smiling gleefully as a beautiful blonde girl walked out of the house holding cups of something. "Would you care for a drink of some ale? My daughter, Bellatrix here, makes it from scratch. She would be most disappointed if you didn't try some, wouldn't you be, Bellatrix?"

Bellatrix nodded, her grey eyes downcast at the floor, although Pandora thought she could see the twitch of the corner of the girl's lips.

"I guess it would be rude not to try the ale, wouldn't it?" Pandora asked, looking at Xeno for help in deciding what to do.

"Here," Drusilla said, holding out one of the cups her daughter had just handed to her. "Try some and see if you like it."

The woman had been friendly enough to them during the walk here. She'd even put up with Pandora's never-ending questions about life in the town. She figured that the only way to repay such kindness was to at least sample some of the given drink.

Taking the cup and bringing it to her lips, she hadn't seen the smiles on both Drusilla's or Bellatrix's faces. She took a great big sip of the ale, the fruity taste slipping over her tongue and down her throat.

"No," Xenophillius said, seeing the princess stagger a bit after the sip. "What did you do, Drusilla?"

"My name isn't Drusilla," the woman said, smiling grimly. "It's Druella Black. Your little friend there has stolen something great from me and mine. And we intend to make her and her family pay for it."

"What did you do?" Xenophillius said, pulling the sword he rarely used from the scabbard.

But before he could so much as move towards the woman and her daughter they said something in a strange language. A bright blinding light filled Xenophillius's eyes and when the light dissipated, he found himself in the palace courtyard. People were running and screaming for help. He looked over to find that Pandora still had the cup in her hand and her eyes were shut as though in a deep sleep.

Explain as he might, nothing that Xenophillius said seemed to pass for a reasonable explanation of what had happened. He was told that he was being relieved of the position he held as the princess's bodyguard and that he should be thankful that he wasn't fired outright.

Days turned into weeks. Weeks turned into months. Discussions were had on the princess's condition. Potions were brewed and fed to the princess, but none of them worked. Every possible way to cure the princess of her sleeping curse was tried but to no avail. It was as the situation reached the year mark that a solution finally showed itself in the strangest of places: the Princess Pandora's book collection.

The Princess had been rather fond of books and had a rather large library of them in her room for her own personal reading pleasure. It was in one such book that the Princess's mother had come across the story of an ancestor of theirs that had been put under the same curse by a fairy person. Except instead of drinking something, this ancestor had poked her finger upon a spinning wheel. Either way, the thing that had awakened the princess in that story had been true love's kiss.

"I've got a solution," Queen Alysanne said, running into the room of her sleeping daughter while waving the book around in triumph.

"What is it, my dear?" her husband, Paris, asked, looking up from where he sat at his daughter's bedside.

"We must have Lucius deliver true love's kiss," she told him. "It worked before for our ancestors, it could work again for our daughter."

"But only if….."

"It will work."

The tone of the Queen's voice brokered no arguments, thus Prince Lucius was sent for, in hopes that the Queen's solution would work.

"What is the meaning of pulling us all down here?" snarled King Abraxas as he, his wife, and son walked into the room upon their arrival. "We've traveled all this way in hopes that the girl has finally woken up. And we don't even so much as step foot into…"

"Lucius, you must give Pandora true love's kiss," Queen Alysanne said, her blue eyes pleading as she ran a hand through her blonde locks. "It is the only way to wake her from the curse she's been put under."

"Father? Mother?" Lucius asked questioningly, looking between his parents.

They nodded, as though telling him to humor Queen Alysanne. Lucius took a deep breath and walked over to the bed and the sleeping princess that he was engaged to. If he was being honest with himself, he kind of hoped that this wouldn't work. It wasn't that he wanted Princess Pandora to stay asleep forever, but he certainly wasn't in love with her. His parents were more in love with what they could gain from the royal family of Eveningstar than he was in love with Pandora. But with both sets of parents watching, he could see no other way around it.

He walked over to the bed and slowly sank down to one knee beside the Princess. He closed his taking one more deep breath and then slowly leaned down towards her. His lips pressed in a gentle chaste kiss. He pulled away from her and watched as absolutely nothing happened at all.

"What did you do?" snarled King Abraxas, glaring at his son. "Try again."

"That's not how it works," a voice said from the doorway, making everyone turn towards it to see who the owner was.

"How would you know?" snarled Abraxas, glaring at Xenophillius as he stood in the doorway looking sadly at Pandora.

"Because true love isn't forced upon someone," Xenophillius said, walking over to Pandora's bedside. "It's given freely. That's all she's ever wanted. To be loved and to love freely." He reached down and moved a lock of blonde hair out of Pandora's face.

"How would you know that?" snapped King Abraxas, folding his arms over his chest. "You are nothing but a commoner. How would a commoner know anything about the wants or needs of a princess?"

"I may be a commoner but I was also once the Princess's own private bodyguard," Xeno said, looking down at the Princess lovingly. "We had many a conversation on the topic and she has told me her opinions on it."

Prince Lucius smiled knowingly and looked across the bed at Xenophillius. "Why don't you try true love's kiss on the Princess then?" he asked, nodding towards the slumbering Princess in question.

Xenophillius looked at Lucius as though the Prince had lost his royal mind. He then turned towards the King and Queen who'd been so angry upon finding what happened to their daughter. Both of them nodded.

Xeno took a deep breath and leaned down towards the sleeping Princess. "Here goes nothing," he said, hoping that this would work and awaken the Princess from her slumber once more.

Xeon gently pressed his lip against those of the sleeping Princess. He didn't dare to open his eyes as he pulled away from the kiss. He didn't want to see if the kiss didn't work. That would be devastating to him as well as to her parents.

"Xeno?" came the sleep-filled familiar voice that he'd been wanting to hear for almost a year now.

"Pandora," he exclaimed, pulling her into his arms and hugging her tightly.

It had been found out shortly thereafter that a plan had been hatched between Druella Black and her daughter Bellatrix with Prince Lucius to take Princess Pandora out of the equation. Once the Princess was out of the way, King Abraxas and his wife would have no other choice but to marry their son to Narcissa Black.

Suffice it to say the marriage alliance between Eveningstar and Everdark was called off due to these findings. Not that Prince Lucius minded. He ended up marrying the woman he wanted to marry anyway, Narcissa Black, to the chagrin of his father and mother.

Druella and Bellatrix Black were condemned to the outskirts of both villages for the remainders of their days, never to be considered a part of either community and to be steered away from due to their evil use of magic.

Princess Pandora who, having lost her fiance to be, because of his own actions was now free to choose who she wanted to marry. A thing that was never heard of in the kingdom of Eveningstar before now, but would forever be present from this point forward.

Xenophillius and Princess Pandora married two years to the day that he'd woken her from that cursed slumber with a kiss. They were the happiest couple in the kingdom and would go on to have a little girl who was the most loved Princess in all the history of Eveningstar. Princess Luna. But hers is a story for another time. And they all lived happily ever after.

The end.

I hope you all enjoyed Sleeping Pandora as much as I enjoyed writing it.