Disclaimer: Everything you recognize is JK Rowling's or the Brothers Grimms'. Also, parts were taken from Fushigi Yuugi…I have no claim over those either, completely Yuu Watase's. Everything you DON'T recognize is most likely mine…unless I say otherwise! :D

A/N: Well, after a well-received first chapter, I'm back again with more! Thanks to all the reviewers…you really inspired me to write another chapter. You're thanked personally at bottom of the chapter. Let's hope you all like this chapter just as much, and I keep your attention! ^_~ I had to research a lot for this chapter…all links to resource sites, etc. are at the bottom of the chapter as well. Thus we start the next chapter!

Once Upon A Fairy Tale (or, if it strikes you, A Grimm, Grimm Story)

Chapter Two: Should've Stayed In Bed

Draco Malfoy was fit to be tied. It was bad enough that he had been assigned to be with Hermione Granger for a project (for Muggle Studies, no less! Could that class be any worse as is?), but to get sucked into a fantasy land with her…cruel and unusual punishment, that's what it was.

"Pinch me," he grumbled, sitting down on a rock, "since I really hope I'm in a nightmare."

Blaise leaned over and pinched him fairly hard on the arm. Draco yelped and jumped from his spot on the rock.

"Great Wizards, Zabini, it was a figure of speech!" he exclaimed, simultaneously glaring at Blaise and rubbing his arm furiously.

It had been a few minutes since Hermione had declared that they were in a fairy tale, and they were all trying to make sense of the situation. Hermione said logically that it must have been something to do with Voldemort, but Draco and Blaise had argued that Voldemort wouldn't want to capture two Slytherins for a Gryffindor, and that if he had really wanted to get to someone, it would have been Harry Potter.

So now they were relatively quiet, all three trying to come up with some explanation of what had happened. "Maybe," Blaise speculated quietly, "the book was meant for someone else. Maybe we weren't meant to be the ones sucked in to it."

Hermione walked back and forth around the clearing, distinctively irritated. "Yeah, maybe. Or then again, maybe not. The book did say two princesses and a knight," she said, pointing to the three of them, "though you and I don't really qualify as princesses, and Malfoy's hardly a knight."

Blaise snorted. "That's for sure."

Draco's eyes lit up with anger. "Hey, watch what you're saying. Especially you, mud-blood," he spat at Hermione.

Hermione whipped around. "Malfoy, please shove it up your tight-knit arse."

Draco sneered. "My arse is not tight-knit. And if that isn't just the pot calling the kettle black. You-"

Blaise cut him off. "Listen, you two. We don't get along. We know that already. But seeing as we're in sort of a helpless situation here, you both had better leave each other alone, or we might end up all killing each other."

"Or, I could just hex Granger into next week," Draco said threateningly, reaching for his wand. Suddenly, his eyes went wide with surprise. "Where is my wand?!"

Hermione scoffed. "Oh, that is just so typical of you, Malfoy. Can't even properly hex a person."

Blaise started searching her own robes. She ended up empty-handed. "Granger, this is serious. I…I don't have mine either," she said, shaking her head. "Check your robes."

Hermione muttered something under her breath that sounded suspiciously like, "Typical Slytherins," before going to work on her robes. But within a minute, when her search was to no avail, something started to dawn on her. "I can't find mind either," she cursed. "But…what if whoever sent us here didn't want us to have our wands? We're two princesses and a knight here, not two witches and a wizard."

Draco sank back down on to the rock, cradling his head in his hands. "That's just perfect! Just bloody perfect! How are we supposed to eat? Bathe? And I'm certainly not going a week without a manicure," he said pompously. "My hands are much too delicate to be forced to such a crude lifestyle."

"Malfoy," Hermione shouted, "I don't think you fully realize our situation! We are not in your Manor. We are in a foreign, if even real land, in the middle of a forest! It is possibly the Middle Ages! Not only are we going to have to fend for ourselves, but we do not have anyone to take care of us! We do not have anyone to pamper us! There's just the three of us!"

Draco glared up at Hermione. "Well, maybe gallivanting around in a dirty forest in absolutely fine for you, mud-blood, but I am used to a slightly more refined lifestyle. As far as I'm concerned, you're as good as my servant here. I will not live like you."

An angry blush ran into Hermione's cheeks, and before you could say "lemon drops," she had crossed the clearing and was standing right in front of Draco. "How…dare…you…" she managed to get out between gasps, and then she slapped him across his beautiful, "delicate" face. Really, really hard. And then she disappeared into the forest.

Draco raised a hand to the throbbing red welt on his face and lightly brushed his fingers against it, wincing at the pain that instantly shot into him. He had to admit, as much as he hated her, Hermione Granger had a very good arm.

Blaise slid over to him, and sat down on the rock. "That was really harsh," she said in her quiet, smooth voice.

"No it wasn't," Draco said, rolling his eyes.

"Yes Malfoy, it was. She may be a Muggle-born, and you may not like her, but she didn't deserve that." Blaise paused, then after a beat, continued. "Besides, we'll need her to get out of here somehow. She is the smartest witch in our year, whether or not you admit to it." Blaise stood up, brushed off her robes, and followed after Hermione.

"Bloody hell," Draco commented to absolutely nobody, "I knew I should've stayed in bed today."

Hermione didn't go too far into the woods, her internal sense of danger kicking in once again. Instead, she fell to the ground about two meters in, angry tears welling up in her eyes. She was happy brooding over her unhappiness all by herself, but was soon rudely interrupted by the crunching of leaves. She looked up, saw Blaise, and turned her head away.

"I'm sorry," Blaise said softly, sitting down next to Hermione.

Hermione wiped her tears off her cheeks, embarrassed that anyone would see her in such a state. "Why? It's not like you did anything."

Blaise sighed. "Yeah, I know, but that wasn't fair to you. I would tell you that he's only like that until he really gets to know a person, you know, guarded and rude and all but..." Blaise paused. "He's not."

Hermione grinned sadly, and hiccupped. "It's just so hard, you know? It really isn't fair. I always have to put up with name-calling because I was born into a Muggle family. It's not like it's my fault, or anything," she said, tears starting to appear once again. "I just want to be considered normal for once. I hate it!" Hermione's voice started to get louder. "I just want to hit something! I want to hit something until it feels as bad as me!"

After a shocked moment, Blaise said, "Well, you can always hit Malfoy again. It's not like he doesn't deserve it all the time."

Hermione laughed. "Thanks, Blaise."

Blaise's passive face broke into a friendly smile. "It's no problem. Laughter through tears is my favorite emotion." The girls had another connecting moment, and then like before, Blaise broke it, only this time kindly. "You know what we should do? We should go shopping. That always cheers me up. And I bet there are some pretty interesting places to shop here."

"But we don't have any money! You can't rely on daddy for pocket change here, Blaise," Hermione said quite a bit more coldly than she meant.

Blaise narrowed her eyes. "Nice, Granger, real nice." Then she smiled. "Actually you're wrong," she said, digging into a pocket in her robes.

In Blaise's hand was a fairly large bag. Hermione looked at her questioningly, and Blaise undid the knot at topped, and tipped the bag so Hermione could see what was in it. Hermione gasped-inside that bag, there were at least one hundred pure gold Galleons.

"Seems like my dad can help us," Blaise said laughingly.

Hermione looked at her incredulously. "Why—why do you have so much money with you?"

Blaise shrugged. "I always carry a bag full of Galleons with me. You know, just in case I should be caught in an unsatisfactory situation. It's quite useful, you know. I think Draco might have some money with him too. And even though it's wizarding money, gold is worth a lot anywhere."

Hermione closed her gaping mouth. "Blaise Zabini, you are brilliant."

Draco looked up, disinterested, as Blaise and Hermione walked back into the clearing, each wearing a small, secretive smile. He stuck out his tongue in a childlike manner to Hermione, and turned his attention to Blaise, who clearly had something to say.

"We've solved all of our problems! Er...well, at least, some of them."

Draco crossed his arms. "Enlighten me, Zabini."

Hermione, however, answered. "Blaise has Galleons with her!"

"What is your point?" Draco was getting quite bored. "Every wizard with common sense carries Galleons on them."

Hermione looked at him excitedly. "So you have some with you, too?"

"I will not tell you if I have Galleons or not, Granger! You'd probably try to steal them from me," Draco scoffed.

Blaise cleared her throat and stepped between the two. "Give me the Galleons, Malfoy."

Draco looked at her like she had gone loony. "No, I won't! They're mine."

"Ah yes, Draco's infantile manner seeps through once again," Blaise commented sarcastically. "Listen, Malfoy. We need gold, to buy things. Like food, like clothing, like possible shelter. Now give me your money!"

After throwing the two girls a withering glare, he reached into his robes and pulled out his money.

Hermione grabbed the money from his hands and handed it to Blaise. "Now all we need to do," Hermione said, "is find our way to some sort of city."

"Oh no," Draco said, pulling back from the girls, "I am not going into those woods. I could get eaten or something! I can not. I will not. I refuse."

"I can't believe I got dragged through that forest," Draco whined, about half an hour later. The trio had managed to make their way to a city-village, after much complaining on the part of Malfoy. He brushed burrs of his robe, and sniffed in a most haughty manner. "Never again, I tell you."

"Oh, do shut up," Blaise said, throwing a wary glance at Draco. "We've quite had enough of your droning, thank you very much."

Hermione nodded for affect, and the two girls walked off arm and arm towards the city. Draco looked around him, and then realizing he was alone, quickened to catch up with Granger and Zabini.

The three were now walking slowly through the city-village, and Draco spent a few moments examining the two of them. Granger...well, he could never stand her. But Zabini was a different story. They were fellow housemates, and they didn't always get along the best. She tended to think she was above even him, and was almost as much of a know-it-all as Granger. In fact, Draco thought as he glared at the two girls, he never really liked her very much either, though she did score some points for being a Slytherin.

It was the girls' friendship that was the oddest thing, he thought. They weren't really friends, but they were more than acquaintances. They seemed to get along relatively well...or at least as well as two people from different houses could get along. With a shock, Draco realized that the reason the two got along so well was that they connected by a similar dislike of him. Well, screw them. He hated them twice as much.

Draco looked around him as they were walking through the city-village. It seemed they were getting a lot of strange looks from people. He pointed that out to Blaise.

"Of course we are," she said condescendingly. "We're dressed as wizards from the twentieth century. They're dressed as…well, they're dressed as whatever they are from whenever they are. It's no surprise they think we're strange."

"Well, what are you going to do about it? I am not strange. I do not like people thinking I am."

Blaise raised her eyebrows and pointed to a wooden building in front of them. A worn sign hung above the doorway read, "TAILOR'S". "That's what we're going to do about it, Malfoy. Hopefully, between us we have enough money to pay for clothes for the three of us."

The old door squeaked as they opened it, stepping into the dark shop. From behind piles of cloth appeared a shabby woman. "Good morrow," she said in a tinny voice, eyeing the strangely dressed trio with caution. "May I be of service?"

The three exchanged looks back and forth, and then Hermione stepped forward. "Er…yes, please, mistress. We three are looking for some fashionable clothing. Perhaps something that can be ready today?"

The woman shook her head. "We have nothing that can be ready today, mistress. But perhaps we can fit you for dresses to be ready in about a fortnight?"

"Oh, please, can't you get something ready today for us?" Hermione's eyes were pleading.

"Tailor!" called Shabby Woman, taking a step back.

After a few moments, a door towards the back of the room shrieked open, and in came a large man with a seemingly cheerful disposition. "Yes, Helena?" he questioned, coming forward.

"These three want fine clothing…ready today," the woman now known as Helena replied, giving the three teenagers a threatening glance.

The man stepped towards the teenagers. Just as they were about to shrink away, he bowed with a great flourish of his arms. "Good morrow, mistresses, sire. I am known as Taylor the Tailor. How may I be of service?"

This time, Blaise stepped forward. "You see, we are from a faraway land, and we are not familiar with the fashions here. We need new clothing, but we were wishing to have it ready today. We can pay well in golden coins from our land. We'll take anything you have ready. Please, sire, can you help us?"

Taylor seemed to think for a moment, and rubbed his gluttonous red face as if he were stroking a beard. "A rather thorny situation…yes, quite thorny. You see, mistress, it takes about a fortnight to make dresses and tunics. However, we may have some extra pieces lying around…you say you can pay well in gold pieces?"

Blaise nodded and signaled to Hermione, who had Draco's portion of Galleons. Hermione pulled them out and handed them to Taylor the Tailor. His eyes grew wide with greed, and he grabbed the Galleons. "Why didn't you say you had so many gold coins? Of course we'll provide you with clothing! Helena will fit the two mistresses, and I shall fit the master. What a glorious day it is to clothe such wealthy young beings!"

Hermione and Blaise were dragged off by Helena to the back room, who immediately began undressing them. "What are these?" she asked, poking at Hermione and Blaise's bras.

Blaise coughed, her face turning red. "They're…um…necessity pieces from our land."

Helena gave them another one of her skeptical looks. "If you say so, mistress." She fitted Blaise first, re-adjusting different pieces of the dress. It went rather quickly, and then it was Hermione's turn.

Hermione thought the whole process of getting dressed was rather uncomfortable. She was squeezed into a hot, heavy dress and had to stand still while Helena re-adjusted her different pieces of wardrobe. But once the fitting was done, Hermione was allowed to look into a grimy mirror, and was quite amazed at what she saw.

Her hair had been pulled away from her face, and she was wearing a cone-shape headdress called a henin. Tumbling down from the top of the headdress was a see-through veil of rich gold which brushed her shoulder. The bodice of the dress, which was done in several patterns, seemed to make her breasts bigger. She smiled at that. The middle of the bodice was the same gold as the veil, and was embroidered in a crisscross pattern of deep blue. There was red trim around the center part that went up around her shoulders. The neck of the dress was a flattering square cut that showed some of Hermione's cleavage.

The same blue and gold pattern was wrapped around Hermione's shoulders before her sleeves started. Her sleeves, the rest of the bodice, and her skirts were the same deep purplish blue of the embroidery, and it seemed to shimmer. She had a long, light blue belt tied around her waist (did Helena say it was called a girdle?) of the same color as her headdress. Her overskirt was long and flowing and fell all around her feet. The bottom of the overskirt was covered in a trim of that same light blue color again, and then a thin strip of the red trim that went around the bodice. The light blue/red trim that went on the bottom of her skirt was also around her wrists.

Then there were the underskirts, which peeked through when she held up the overskirts (something she needed to do when she walked to make sure she didn't trip.) The underskirts were a rich pure gold cloth, just like at the center of the bodice and the veil. Overall, Hermione thought she looked quite decent. In fact, she thought as she looked at herself in the mirror once more, this dress was even better than the dress robes she had worn to the fourth year Yule Ball. She decided that she was in love with this dress.

Hermione heard rustling behind her, and looked over her shoulder briefly, then turned around fully in shock. Blaise was standing behind her, looking thoroughly uncomfortable in her dress, and absolutely, stunningly, drop-dead gorgeous.

Blaise was wearing the same henin-style headdress as Hermione, her thick black tresses also pulled away from her face. However, the body of the headdress was a shimmering gold, and her veil was a deep forest green, as well as much longer than Hermione's. Her dress was beautiful wine red, with white trim on the shoulders that came down in V-style to her stomach. A gold girdle was wrapped around her waist. Her deep red skirt matched wonderfully with her pale skin, her hand holding the overskirt up like Hermione. The same thick white trim that went around her shoulders was also around the bottom of her skirt, just above the deep green over her underskirts that matched her veil.

Overall, Blaise's dress was much simpler than Hermione's, but it was unbelievably elegant on her. She truly looked like royalty. Her dark eyes were searching Hermione. "Well?" she said, more timidly than Hermione had ever heard Blaise speak.

"Wow," Hermione said breathily, shaking her head. "I am so jealous. You look…amazing."

Blaise grinned. "You don't look so bad yourself. Where's Malfoy?"

Hermione shrugged. "Still getting fitted, I'd imagine."

"I'm right here," said a snarky voice from behind the girls.

They turned toward the source of the voice, and after one brief look, Hermione started laughing, and then Blaise as well. Draco crossed his arms, "I don't think it's very funny," he said angrily.

The first thing Hermione noticed about Draco was that he was wearing what appeared to be green tights. Over that, he wore a long black tunic, embroidered with gold, and a green shirt underneath the tunic. He had a gold and green girdle tied around his waist, like the girls did. And over his white blonde hair he wore some sort of black cap, with green and gold feathers sticking out of it. In all, it was a rather comical sight.

"I bet my outfit is more comfortable than those hideous dresses," he said in a weak attempt to stand up for his tunic-wear.

Hermione shrugged. "You're probably right, but at least we look nice," she said, laughing again at his outfit.

Draco glared. "Can we quite leave now?"

"Fine, fine," said Blaise. "Just as long as you two quit your bickering."

Taylor the Tailor appeared from behind Draco, looking quite pleased with himself. "What a handsome group!" he proclaimed. "And a handsome group that pays handsomely. No such better a thing!" He bowed extravagantly once more. "Thank you for your patronage."

"Thank you for your excellent service, sire," Blaise said, curtsying to him. "And you as well, mistress," she said to Helena. Helena didn't answer, but simply handed Blaise her and Hermione's school clothing.

They all said their farewells, and then the trio made a graceful exit, back to the glaring sunlight of the road-path. "Now all we need to do is figure out how to get back—" Hermione started, but was interrupted by a high pitch whistling. Her eyebrows furrowed, but she didn't have to wonder too long. The three teenagers looked down, and in front of them were five strange little men in strange little red caps.

The teenagers and the strange little men surveyed each other for a few moments before Hermione worked it out and exclaimed, "Elves!"

"Of course we're elves," one of them scoffed. "What else would we be?"

"Quite rude, you are," pitched in another.

"Can we help you with something, elves?" Draco asked, stepping forward and wrinkling his nose with disgust.

"We've heard about you!" one of the elves exclaimed.

"You have?" Blaise said incredulously.

"You dress strangely! As if you were from…" the elf talking paused, his face growing with excitement. "Another land!"

"That's because we are," said Hermione.

"Then you are the Ones!" announced one of the elves.

"Which ones?" asked Blaise.

"The ones from another land predicted in elfish prophecies!"

Draco sighed. "Listen, we don't really have time for games. Since we're from another land, we don't know about your elfish prophecies. Would you just tell us what this is all about and get it over with, you strange little men?"

One of the elves stamped his foot impatiently. "You are the Ones sent to us from another land, to restore our land to piece, return our King to us, and bring us back to greatness! You are the Ones we have waited for, the heroes our Seers have long talked about! Your arrival has been much anticipated in our land!" With that, all the elves bowed down to the three teenagers.

Draco's head was spinning. He was tired, sore, and he just wanted to go home. Yep, he really should've stayed in bed.

***

A/N: Bear with me, this is going to be a long author's note. First off, the next chapter: Hermione, Blaise, and Draco find out more about their role in fairy tale land, as well as scary enchantresses, some appearances, and some disappearances! I know, I know…there hasn't been and D/H action yet, which is what everyone wants, but hold in there! It'll take a while for them to get to that point, but it should be great fun once it happens! :D The next chapter won't be out until at least next week, maybe two weeks, since I'm on vacation right now. I'm going to try to make it even longer, but who knows what'll be like. Not me, for certain! :D

Thanks to all of my *wonderful* reviewers…you guys really keep me going! I was really pleased to see that this story was on the favorite story list of a lot of you, after just one chapter. *hugs* My reviewers: DianaZei (thank you!!! Yep, I knew that "Into the Woods" was a musical. :D I'm really big on musical theater…I want to be on Broadway! ^^ So I thought it would be a good inside joke with myself to name that chapter that.), hypergal (*points to the disclaimer to the first chapter, and the second one. I know, I know. I'm actually planning to remove part of that so it doesn't seem like I'm copying it completely. I came up with the plot idea before I realized it mirrored Fushigi Yuugi, and then decided to use parts of FY to pull the plot together), Felicity, Draco Lover (well, I'm trying to make it unlike any other HP fan fic! Good to know it's working!), Rebecca, Darcel, apie, DARKMEW13, phantasie725, dragon eyes (you are too sweet! It's reviews like yours that really make a person feel good!! *big hug*). Sorry I didn't have individual messages for all of you. Maybe I will next time!

Also thanks to Tinkerbell (D'Arcy) my amazing beta reader and friend, who's doing a really great job, even if she couldn't find any mistakes in the first chapter. She did a wonderful job with this chapter, too. :D

I had to research a lot for this chapter, to find out what they wore in the fifteenth century. Seriously, I did hours of research. It was exhausting, but quite fun. I couldn't really find much information on male dress in the fifteenth century, other than the basics of what they wore, so that's why I didn't describe Draco's garb very much, even though I went into extreme detail with Hermione and Blaise's dresses. If you want to see pictures of what I based their dresses on (though I didn't describe them as much as the pictures go into detail, and I changed some of the colors and things), Hermione's dress is here and Blaise's dress is here. Pretty, nay? Also, the picture I looked at to get an idea of Draco's clothes is here. Maybe you'll get an idea of what I was trying to describe for him, since I certainly couldn't put it into words.

Well, thanks for reading, everyone! If you're American, have a great Thanksgiving (thanks giving break! Woohoo! I personally am spending the week in South Carolina, how bout you? I love getting off school for a week.), and if you're not…well, have a good week. :D -Suli