a/n: About AUs…

Well, this certainly can't be the weirdest one out there. So far in my nearly ten years of reading fics, I've seen: a Creature Inheritance with Harry being the son of several people, and ends up being 'bonded for life' with a cookie dough-eating Voldemort; a number of bashing fics with Harry having to pull a Peggy Sue, and throughout this there are barely any mentions of Ron and Hermione; insert any ridiculous combinations of harems with Super Duper Political Inheritances, and the list continues! So many variations of appearances and personalities and worlds, and they're still treated as fanfiction.

Which means that every instance of parallels, nods, in-character personalities are ties that keeps this in the realm of transformative rather than original. I've tried making this original, but there were too many ties to the Harry Potter universe.

…and this is how I ended up with six (somewhat) planned chapters for this fic.

I was inspired by the book Uprooted by Naomi Novik, and with heavy doses of folklore and fairytales from around the world.

My tumblr/ao3 accounts are under the name: displayheartcode.

Disclaimer: I'm a stressed, depressed and a mess of an undergrad.

Title: a year and a day - prologue

Words: 1.5K

Summary: The Witch of Privet is a mysterious figure. High Fantasy + Gender AU.

"He wasn't a person, he was a lord and a wizard, a strange creature on another plane entirely, as far removed as storms and pestilence."

Uprooted, Naomi Novik

before

Halley struggled to pull the boy out of the snake. The magic, not her own, licked and burned at her hands, forming writhing shapes of snakes trying to pierce their fangs into her skin. She fought back. Halley held tighter onto the boy, letting her magic thrive like fire in her hands, letting it wash over the boy. The green scales burned away, revealing human skin. The snake-shape that he was caught in had an iridescent shimmer—the ghost of a snake's skin that was choking the humanity out. Tendrils of that terrible magic were wound around his throat, bringing him closer so that the snake-shape could consume him again.

"I need you to fight!" ordered Halley. And she pulled, her hands going white-hot as she felt herself reach deep. Something burned by her side, and she knew it was the stolen sword. I don't need it, she told herself. She was going to set this boy free, he was going to live and so was she.

Scales bleed over her dark skin in painful bursts of blood. She screamed and stumbled backwards, smoke rising from her arms, the scales burning away and leaving blisters behind.

But what made her scream next was how the boy was changing. Eyes flashing red, teeth elongating to fangs, his skin melting and twisting as he doubled over with his clothes tearing to accommodate to his new shape. The boy was almost gone, and the snake was winning.

Sensing no other choice, she drew her sword up in a shinning arc of silver and red. Words played in her mind about the teachers talking about a possessed boy in one of the villages, her hubris thinking that she could save him while the local wizard had hid himself away like a coward. Instead she was in the woods alone with a boy being forced into a monster's skin.

"I'm sorry," she said to the boy. Tears were streaming down her face, and the sword was heavy in her hands. There was still something human left in the basilisk's features. He wouldn't be there much longer.

The monster, large and hissing, surged forward. Halley dove to the side, her heart beating loudly in her chest as she narrowly missed the edge of a curved fang. The tail slapped to the ground, sending the ground shaking. The basilisk's head turned towards her, and any hopes of the boy recognizing her died in Halley's heart

"Gideon," she tried one last time. She wrapped two hands around the sword's hilt. "Please."

The basilisk reared its head, a long shadow was cast—and the blade struck it in the snake's exposed front. Black viscous liquid seeped and burned the grass. The snake-shape twisted and crumpled like paper, bleeding ink and blood as cracks appeared in the skin. In a shower of blood, ink and scales, the boy, human again, collapsed in her arms, sobbing.

Exhausted, Halley released the sword and held him so that he wouldn't fall, but she fell to her knees. The edges of her vision blurred before everything went mercifully black.

I saved him, was the last conscious thought she had.

0o0

Six years later.

The Witch of Privet thought that a faerie had gotten lost. It wouldn't be the first time that one of the Fair Folk had stumbled away from their land beyond the hill, or from their hidden towers made of dreams and crystals. There were a number of things in the woods that attracted them, the strange overlay of magic, the proximity to the human villages, and her—the witch.

Halley balanced her fingerprint-smeared wand in her free hand, and pushed the heavy door open more with the other. Sunlight fractured and broke up in the air from the layers of wards that were placed upon her cottage for her protection. She blinked several times to be sure that the figure standing at the edge of her property was real.

"Winter or Summer?" she called out. There were two main courts that the faerie had, and Halley was wary of them both.

He was tall with hair the exact color of fire. But his plain farmers' clothes weren't made from silken strands of moonbeams or the waves of the far-off ocean, just worn sturdy cloth that made trousers and a shirt. Even at the distance, Halley could tell that he lacked the appearance that the Fair Folk had. They were statuesque creatures that disregarded the standards of human beauty—eyes that burned with midday fire, hair shifting with the colors of a sunset or grew flowers where their hair should be. They were nature and the heart of those who lived in hidden worlds behind glass mirrors and veils of sunlight.

This man was nothing like that, she realized. He was very human looking with his freckled skin.

"Neither?" He blinked rapidly. "Do you remember me?"

"Should I" Halley straightened her glasses, seeing through the layers of dust and fingerprints on the lenses.

"You stabbed me with a sword."

Nearly half a decade ago flashed in her mind. The woods, the snake, the sword, and all of it and the repercussions of her actions. Her banishment that the High Wizarding Council had decided for her because she disobeyed orders, her assignment in the woods as a reminder, but the fact that he was alive and standing at her door sent a jolt down her spine.

Halley walked out the door and strode up to him right at the edge of the ring of stones where it marked the perimeter of her property. Up close, she saw traces of the boy she had saved, the bright brown of his eyes and the color of his hair, but the rest of him had disappeared under the new towering height and broad shoulders. He was a ghost in her memory made into flesh.

"You saved my life," Gideon said. He set his heavy pack down on the ground.

Halley remembered his name. She knew what it was like to have his blood on her hands, to hear his pained screams. She shook the memory away. "It was the right thing," she said.

His steady gaze met hers. "Which is why I want to thank you." He paused. "The thing is," he said, licking his lips. "I would like to repay the debt between us."

Halley groaned. Again, it wouldn't be the first time that a peasant wanted to express their gratitude. She had no means for money, livestock, or jewels. It felt like a good portion of her time was spent arguing about how she didn't want their last chicken, and no, she wasn't going to marry the apothecary's ill-tempered son.

It was her duty, and that of those before her, as the witch who lived in Privet Woods. Halley was the one who people went to if they were being terrified by monsters, if they needed a potion for sleep, to keep the peace between the Muggle and the magical community. It was a messy job because of her predecessor's sole talent of preforming Memory Charms. Most nights, Halley cursed Lockhart's name before she went to bed.

And now she was cursing her own

"Whatever debt there is between us, it's absolved." She pocketed her wand, and she shooed him away with her hands, but he stayed put by her property line.

Gideon straightened his posture, clearly unafraid. "I owe my life to you."

Please don't be another dragon egg, Halley suspiciously eyed his pack. Her roof had been repaired recently. She would hate to hunt down someone to fix it again.

She said flatly, "Whatever it is, I already decline What do you really want?"

"I want the debt to be repaid, and maybe I also want an adventure." Gideon's eyes grew distant. "I'm the youngest of seven, and all of my sisters are off having adventures of their own. The oldest is married to a faerie lord, another is helping knights how to tame dragons, the twins have their own apothecary business, and there's one in Londinium solving mysteries with the wizard there."

Halley paused, and she pondered with a brooding expression. She knew what it was like to long for adventure, but it was also the reason why she'd been exiled to Privet Woods. Her mind went back to the toppling pile of important letters, the herbs that needed to be treated for spells, the gnomes that invaded her gardens, the water spirits the constantly laughed at her… There was so much work that she needed to be done, and it all felt impossible for one witch to do by herself.

"You can swim, right?" Halley asked. "Can you handle danger and excitement? You don't fear monsters and what lurks in the shadows? I might be in need of an assistant, and you wouldn't be in any use if you're screaming in constant fear."

His smile matched hers. "I can do that and more."

"Only for a year and a day," she warned. "But I suspect you'll tire of me soon enough."

Gideon's hand—human skin, not snake scales dripping in blood—felt warm and real in her grip."A year and a day it is."

a/n: The 'before' part is inspired from Tamlin, a Scottish ballad. References of the faerie courts are also from Scottish folklore, and the line 'They were nature and the heart of those who lived in hidden worlds behind glass mirrors and veils of sunlight' is also inspired from the writings of Seanan McGuire (Rosemary and Rue, to be exact).