Warnings: BOOK 5 SPOILERS! (And some swearing, too!)
Summary: A cursed book transports two enemies into a living, jumbled up fairy tale, where Draco becomes prince, and Hermione is stuck living with three prince-adoring stepsisters and an evil stepmother. A fairy tale romance, with less ups than downs.
Resisting the KingChapter One: Inequitable Revelations
"It wouldn't be wise to speak of this right in front of him."
"Who cares? He's asleep."
"And if he hears?"
"He already knows everything I say to be true," the King sighed heavily, wearily glancing at his sleeping son, trapped beneath layers of silk sheets. "And of course, he never listens."
"Maybe he's not ready," began the mother, stroking her son's face with a gentle hand. "He's only seventeen-"
"Older than I was when we got married," he sniffed in response.
"Times have changed. You need to be more patient-"
"My deteriorating health, Amelia, is not patiently waiting for my son to find a suitable princess-"
The Queen grasped her husband's hand, eyed him pleadingly, and led him out of the room, past the son's hearing.
But the son had already heard quite enough.
As soon as the door had swung closed, Draco rigidly bolted upright, wiping the nervous sweat that had accumulated on his brow with a swipe of his arm. His face was burning, he had never been so terribly confused or afraid in his life.
What he had picked up from the harrowing conversation: merely that it was between an Amelia, who had taken to stroking his face (for which he felt very dirty) and a man who wanted him married who claimed to be his father:
Well, where was his father? Lucius would certainly straighten this out, intimidating people who needed to be intimidated, paying off others that refused, or Draco's personal favorite- hexing the hell out of anyone else who resisted.
He rolled off the ridiculous, femininely canopied bed, ran over to the door and burst it open. And surely, Amelia and "his father" were there, eyeing him strangely as he stood awkwardly in the doorway.
"Where is Lucius?" he bellowed, knowing full well that if his father ever heard that his son had called him by the first name, he would lose a limb.
"Lucius, honey?" replied Amelia, reaching out to comfort him. "Who is that, dear?"
"Lucius Malfoy," Draco repeated firmly, flinching from the older woman's grasp.
The man gave him a knowing stare, accompanied by a short nod.
"Another nightmare, Draco? Eat something, your confusion will soon pass."
"And what are you wearing?" asked Amelia, just noticing and looking quite scandalized at the sight of his Hogwarts robes. She screwed up her face to look at the badge, "What is Slytherin?"
And that's when Draco remembered- Luna, her cursed book, Hermione in the empty classroom, and then that flash of light-
Something told him he wasn't at Hogwarts anymore. And that he wasn't Draco Malfoy, son of Lucius and Narcissa, having woken up peacefully at the Malfoy Manor….
"Who… exactly… am I?" he asked tentatively, immediately answered with odd expressions.
"I told you he was going insane!" the man yelled angrily.
"The poor baby just had a nightmare! And what kind of father are you to call your own son insane?!"
Draco blanched when Amelia shouted the word son.
The woman cleared her throat and looked at him with a sympathetic smile.
"You, dear, are the Crown Prince of the Kingdom of Cire ruled by your father, King Christopher"- she pointed at the man beside her, who grunted irritably- "and myself."
"And, you must get married very soon," added the King grumpily.
"Christopher!"
Crown Prince? Suddenly, this wasn't as bad as he had thought. But the marriage-
He thought about it for a moment.
-couldn't be quite as bad as he originally had thought. As crown prince, he would have the pick of the best girls in the whole kingdom, every single power-hungry, gold-digging one (which would be all of them, of course)! This would be ever better than Hogwarts! For he had even more money and infinite amount of power...
"Well, Father, if you wish me married," he sighed dejectedly, belying the excitement he felt buzzing through him, "I guess I have no choice."
He hung his head down magnificently, blonde locks streaming over his forlorn face.
"That's my boy!" the man bellowed excitedly, giving Draco a fatherly pat on the back, "I'll send for all the ladies in the kingdom! In all the neighboring kingdoms! We'll have an enormous ball and find you a fabulous princess, and…"
He walked off, trailing on and on with his magnificent plans to himself.
"I hope you know what you're doing," his mother said quietly.
"I hope so too."
____
"God, that lazy bitch. Look at her, she's sleeping again."
"Like, seriously! She thinks we keep her in the house just so she can lie all over the floor like some tramp."
"I mean, look at her, she can't even make it to her bed before passing out."
"Disgraceful."
"Seriously," the thin girl responded, delivering a sharp kick to the sleeping figure. "Get up!"
Her partner shrieked with laughter, her rolls of fat rumbling with delight.
"Oh Anastazia, really, you call that a kick?"
She lifted her billowing dress to the knee, unveiling her muscular calf, and gave the girl a sharp swing to the rib.
The girl woke with a start.
"Unph!" Hermione cried as another heeled foot slammed into her stomach. Groggily, she opened her eyes and found herself staring up at two hideous faces, one sallow and thin, the other rolling with multiple chins.
"So you're finally awake, princess," she slender girl remarked snidely with a mock-bow, "Do you have any idea what time it is?"
"Of course she doesn't, Ana, look at her. She so dazed she probably doesn't even know where she is."
"Oh Druzillda, what will we ever do with her?"
Druzillda snapped two chubby fingers in front of Hermione's face impatiently.
"Are you forgetting your place here? The only reason we keep you here is so you can do our chores and you can't even do that!"
Hermione, unlike Draco, caught on much quicker to the fact that she definitely was not at Hogwarts, or anywhere near Hogwarts, for that matter. She remembered it clearly, that flash of light from the opened book which shot through both of them, and then the blurry, trans-dimensional journey… But just to make sure she wasn't in the same place…
"Voldemort, Voldemort, Voldemort!" she yelled, suddenly, waiting for some reaction. None, except for two identical glares. Okay, so she obviously wasn't anywhere in the wizardring world…
"She's gone absolutely nutty," marveled
Draco, that obnoxious prat didn't realize that the book was bound for a reason. And by opening it, he either activated a portal within the novel, or even worse- awakened the Thief's Curse that guarded it.
She groaned and pulled herself to her feet.
"Now that you're finally up," remarked Anastazia bitterly, "You can go to town and buy some silk for my dress."
"Wait, why are you getting a new dress?" asked Druzillda with a frown.
"Because Mother is sending me to the castle tomorrow," she replied, matter-of-fact.
"To do what?"
"To stand outside the castle gates so that Prince Draco might see me from his window."
"And why can't I go?"
"Because for your dress, you would need more silk than we could afford. Maybe if you lost some weight-"
"Wait," interjected Hermione suddenly, "Prince WHO?"
Both girls shot her a nasty glare.
"She must have been more dazed than we thought," said Druzillda disapprovingly.
"Probably out drinking with old men, like her tramp of a mother," remarked the other with a smirk."
"Prince Draco," Druzillda finally answered with smirk. "Only the hottest-"
"Richest-" added Anastazia.
"Wealthiest-"
"Swoon-worthy-"
"Powerful-"
"Dashing-"
"Eligible bachelor-prince in the whole world!" Druzillda finally finished, after their tiring tag-team.
Hermione gagged. So Draco was prince, and she was stuck with these idiots?
"Not that it matters to you," the thin girl cooed. "He has no time for servants."
Hermione blankly stared at them for a full minutes, watching their faces rapidly turn pink with anger.
"What are you waiting for? Go get that silk!"
___
Author's Note: So the story's developed a little more now and I've introduced most of the major characters (except for Stepsister #3, their mother, and a few surprise cameos). I know, boring plot, blahblah… hopefully I can get this moving soon!
A big thanks to all the readers and those who reviewed my last chapter. I think one reviewer (Bombshell) hit the Send button a few too many times… but still, thanks!
arbitrary, of course I'm not quitting the Secret Keeper. It's crappiness is getting to me, though, and I get all depressed when I reread it. Ugh. Although some more chapters of TI might inspire me? : )
Banana Flavored Eskimo: Midnight DVD marathons, yes. Very exciting : ) And am I the only Hotohori fan in the world? : (