For you Harold and Lillian fans out there, I DO plan on writing a one-shot fic involving them. More on that later. I also want to write about what happens to the Fairy Godmother AFTER Shrek 2...but at the moment, those plot ideas are sketchy at best, and I'm not entirely sure that they are ever going to be formed into full-fledged stories. You can count on an eventual Harold/Lillian story, though.
One more thing....bonus points to anyone who can catch the Into the Woods reference made here. Oh, and keep in mind that since this story is taking place approximately twenty or so years before Shrek 2...some of the characters mentioned might be the parents or older relatives of the characters we all know and love. Just something to keep in mind. ;-)
And now, without further ado....Chapter 7!
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It was more than a month after her decision to take up the job of Fairy Godmother when she realized she was pregnant. She barely reacted to the news; there was nothing she was willing to do about the problem except ignore it and carry on about her business. She briefly considered terminating the child, but quickly dismissed that option as unfeasible. It was bad enough that she was going to be a Fairy Godmother with an illigitimate child...an abortion would simply ruin her image completely if word ever got out. Unwanted children were popping up all the time in all different social classes; that was a smear on her record that she could deal with. Besides, as soon as the baby was born, she would give it up for adoption and never spend a second more thinking about it.
At the moment, she had bigger problems on her mind. Such as the fact that she had already fired three employees...all three of them female. She had pretty much decided that she couldn't work with another woman around, so the handful of people under her supervision were all men. All but two of them were elves or of elven descent; they worked cheaply, since it was so hard for them to find employment after a recent scandal involving Keebler's, which had yet to be resolved. Besides the lack of decent help, she faced another problem. The only people who had come to her looking for help so far had been very trivial, trifling cases that didn't help gain her any of the publicity she felt she needed to succeed. She had become driven in the weeks since the loss of her handsome prince, and all remorse for him was replaced with the desire to be the most famous fairy godmother that ever lived. Her appearance had already been altered to more accurately fit the image of what a fairy godmother should be; her once-blonde hair was silver in spite of her young age, she wore spectacles (thus discovering that she actually WAS nearsighted and had been so for years), and a shimmering pair of wings adorned her back. All she needed was one big, important job to build her reputation...
"All right, Morty, what've we got today?" she asked the man (one of the only two non-elven employees) who worked as a scout and sometimes desk clerk for her. He laid a stack of papers down on her desk.
"More of the same....that baker over in Drury Lane is still trying to get out of the bargain he made with his local witch after he stole some rutabagas or beans or something out of her garden. Says he was drunk at the time and didn't really mean to promise her he'd give up his wife's unborn child...." he said, pointing to the topmost paper.
"Tell him for that LAST time, I can't do anything about that. Not my jurisdiction. Besides, it's his own damn fault for giving in to that snivelling little wife of his. What else?" she asked, crumpling up the paper and tossing it in the garbage can.
"Everything else there is either a follow-up on a case or a request that we can sell over the counter," he replied, shrugging his shoulders. Seeing that her explosive temper was about to flare up and that he would likely be on the receiving end of a tantrum, he added quickly, "However, my little cousin Kyle keeps telling me about a talking frog in a pond not far from here..."
"What would I want with a talking frog?" she demanded, then paused, an idea suddenly forming in her head. Since the day she had first taken the job, she hadn't given another thought to the amphibian she had spoken to earlier that first morning. He had said something about being a prince...
"Get the carriage, Morty," she said briskly, glancing at her appearance in the mirror to make sure she looked as Fairy Godmotherish as possible. "We've got a frog to visit."
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They had no trouble finding the pond again, but the Fairy Godmother was a little unsure of how she was going to find the frog in question. She didn't even have a name to go by. Leaving Morty in the carriage, she flew over to the edge of the pond and landed upon the same large rock where she had first met the frog. After a moment of silence, she called, "Is anyone here?"
"Can I help you, madam?" a voice from the ground said, and she peered down her nose at the big-eyed frog below her. To her relief, he didn't seem to recognize her at all.
"It seems to me that it's you who need the help," she replied as he hopped up on the rock beside her. He studied her for a moment with a froggy frown.
"Don't I know you from somewhere?" he questioned, and she blanched slightly.
"Well...I'm the Fairy Godmother. You've probably just seen me around," she covered, trying to sound important. He shook his head.
"No...no, you don't look like the Fairy Godmother I used to know..." he began, but she cut him off.
"It doesn't matter who I am. What matters is who you are. You're a frog prince, are you not?" she said in a brisk manner. He blinked his large eyes at her.
"Er, yes..."
"And you have a fair maiden in mind to break your curse, do you not?" she continued. Somewhere in the back of her mind, she realized that those words should be hitting home for her, but she had stopped allowing herself to think about the curse that had been upon her own prince. The frog sighed dreamily, and she rolled her eyes ever so slightly to herself.
"Oh, the most beautiful woman you could ever hope to imagine...she and her sister come for walks here, occassionally...what I wouldn't GIVE for her to notice me, just once, just long enough to tell her how I feel..." he said sadly.
"Well, in that case, I do believe we might be able to work out some sort of...arrangement," she replied, choosing her words carefully. The frog perked up.
"Really? Oh, that'd be simply marvelous..." he began, but she held up a hand to quiet him.
"I'll come back tomorrow after we've each had some time to think about what we want out of this deal," she continued, her tone not leaving much room for argument. "In the meantime, do you have a name so that I'll be able to address you properly in the future?"
"Er, yes. I'm Harold," he said, looking a bit downcast that he wasn't instantly going to be turned into a handsome prince or something. She nodded briefly.
"And what kingdom, exactly, were you a prince of?" she asked, trying to make it sound as though she simply needed the information for a part of helping him. The frog looked downcast.
"Well, I was the crown prince of Far Far Away until I turned eighteen...then all of a sudden, I was a frog. I've been this way ever since," he replied sadly.
"Right then, Harold. Well, I'd better be going," she said, trying not to seem too excited about her luck at finding the prince of Far Far Away. Without waiting for a reply, she flitted back to the carriage.
"Well?" Morty asked once she got there.
"I pay you to drive, not to ask questions," she snapped rudely, then slammed the door of the carriage behind her. Rolling his eyes, the driver snapped the reins of the horse and drove away.
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The next day, the Fairy Godmother got up early to finish brewing the potion she would use for Harold. She was fairly sure that a simple zap with her wand would turn him into a human temporarily; she KNEW it would turn him back into a frog again if she so desired. However, the potion was a safer route to take, being a more stable form of transformation. Besides that, she was beginning to learn that her clients trusted magic potions more than a wave of her wand.
The fumes from the brewing potion made her stomach a little nauseous, and she silently cursed the child inside her that was causing so many problems. Ladling out a little of the brew, she carefully siphoned the liquid into a small, green glass bottle before stopping it with a cork and sticking the vial in her cleavage for safekeeping, a habit left over from her days in the pub. Mentally, she went over her list of demands again; she knew that, with the potion so near within his reach, Harold would be hard pressed to refuse anything she might ask for. Just from the brief time she had met him, she could tell he was somewhat of a pushover, anyway. This was going to be a piece of cake.
In another half an hour, she was at the pond again. Harold was already perched on the large rock by the water's edge, hopping around in anticipation. "Well?" he asked eagerly as she approached.
"Have you decided what you want out of this?" she asked, already knowing full well what his answer would be. He nodded and drew a deep breath.
"I want to be human again, just long enough until I can get the beautiful Lillian to grant me one kiss," he said, sounding very rehearsed in his request. She smiled a little; things were going exactly as she had planned.
"Very well..." she began, pulling the potion out of her dress, and he looked even more hopeful than before. "As long as you agree to meet some of my own requests."
"Anything that is within my power, Fairy Godmother," he replied, eyeing the bottle.
"First of all, once you are returned to power, I want to be known as the official Fairy Godmother of Far Far Away," she said coolly. "That includes being in charge of all magical needs connected with the royal family, and being invited to all important functions, of course." Harold gulped a little at this, but nodded. "Furthermore, I want free publicity within the confines of the kingdom."
"Now, see here...shouldn't I be getting some percentage of your profits if you're getting free publicity?" the frog asked, frowning. The Fairy Godmother regarded him with a poisonous smile.
"Do you want this or not, sweetheart?" she asked sweetly, dangling the bottle a few inches from his froggy nose. He sighed and nodded. "Good boy. Now..." She trailed off, a sudden idea occuring to her; those were all the terms she had thought of originally, but she knew from watching countless poker games that it was always handy to have an ace up your sleeve. Providing, of course, that you weren't caught cheating and stabbed to death.
"Well?" Harold prompted, drawing her out of her silence.
"I also reserve the right to make one more request at any given point in the future," she added, in a tone that she hoped left no room for argument. After a few moments of thought, Harold sighed and nodded.
"Done," he replied, then added as an afterthought, "Shouldn't we have some sort of contract for this?"
"There's no need for that, pigeon. I trust you," she said with fake kindness. "Besides, if you go back on your word...I can go back on mine, if you get my drift," she added, waving the bottle precariously over the water.
"All right! I get the picture!" Harold replied nervously. Satisfied, she uncorked the potion and sat it down in front of him. "What do I do?"
"Just drink this, and you'll be human again until the stroke of midnight three days from now," she replied.
"Three days?" Harold cried out indignantly. "Is that all?"
"If you can't get this maiden of yours to just kiss you in three days, you're not much of a prince," she replied. He sighed again, looking from her to the potion. Then, before he could change his mind, he grasped the bottle with his webbed hands and drank it down quickly. He smacked his lips, blinked, and looked at his reflection in the water.
"Was something supposed to happen?" he asked, confused.
"Give it a few minutes to take effect," the Fairy Godmother answered. Harold kept looking at his reflection, waiting. The minutes ticked by in silence, and even the potion mistress began to get a little worried; she had never actually tested this particular brew, although it SHOULD be working...
Then, to her relief, the frog's skin began to take on a pinkish hue. She was expecting the transformation to be gradual, but as soon as his skin went from green to pink, there was a loud popping noise and a puff of smoke. When the smoke cleared, there was a rather short man, only a few inches taller from herself, standing with his back to her...and he was completely naked.
"Yaaah!" Harold yelled once he caught sight of his reflection in the pond and realized he wasn't wearing any clothes. He immediately dove into the water, which, now that he was a human, didn't cover nearly as much as it had when he was a frog. Still, it came up over his waist, leaving him plenty of modesty. "Erm...I don't suppose you could whip me up some clothes, wot wot?" he asked sheepishly, his arms crossed over his chest. She couldn't help but chuckle at the comical sight, and she waved her wand, giving him a royal blue outfit to compliment his thinning, already greying red hair. It was odd that his hair was already going grey at his age; then again, she supposed spending a few years as a frog was bound to take it's toll on anyone.
"Do you need a ride into the kingdom?" she asked as he stepped out of the water. Without waiting to be asked, she waved her wand again to dry the clothes off.
"Erm, no, that's quite all right. I'll just wait here for Lillian...she usually comes alone on Wednesdays, so I won't have to deal with her sister," he said brightly.
"Today's Friday, Harold," she remarked. He blinked, looking the slightest bit disappointed.
"Oh, well...that's all right, I'll just ask Lillian to meet me again later!" he said, cheering up again. Shaking her head a little, she handed him a plain business card that simply said "Fairy Godmother" on it in gilded letters. "What's this?"
"My card. If you run into any trouble, just shed a tear onto this, and I'll be there," she replied. The business cards had been one of her own little inventions that she was quite proud of; she thought it to be much more efficient than the old fairy godmother's way of doing things. Harold pocketed the card and nodded.
"Thank you, Fairy Godmother," he said sincerely. She forced a smile; sincerity was not something she put much stock in anymore.
"Just remember our deal, pigeon," she called over her shoulder, already flying back towards her carriage. The door slammed, and the carriage drove away, leaving the newly human Harold alone by the lily pond.
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A/N: Thanks to S2moviefreak123 for letting me bounce some ideas around and for helping me with a couple of decisions! Go read "Ogres Don't Live Happily Ever After!" Oh, and as you've noticed, I've stopped referring to our main character as Belinda and started referring to her solely as the Fairy Godmother; in my way of thinking, the part of her that really was Belinda Larae was mostly destroyed the day she lost her prince.