The Princess Murders

Tonks take a bite of contaminated apple and a little bit of literal fairytale romance follows.

The papers were calling it, "The Princess Murders", although none of the young woman were actually murdered nor were they daughters of the royal family. In laymen's terms, they were victims of the fairytale fever or in Latin of mediwizards, Fabulam Fieri. The first reported case was documented by 'The Prophet' as a sixteen year old witch from Surrey found serenely sprawled in the floor by her parents, her only visible wound, a bloody prick on her finger. The second case came from New Castle where an young hair dresser was found strangely frozen in her own chair, a lock of her long yellow hair, tightly gripped between her fingers.

Then there was the lost girl from Lancaster that had inexplicably fallen down a large rabbit hole, the lass from Aberdeen that was found by the edge of a lake with mermaid-like scales unable to speak and finally, the strange incident of little Mary of Hickby who had nearly danced herself to death wearing a pair of mysterious red shoes. So when Nymphadora Tonks was found in Molly Weasley's garden unmoving, a once bitten apple in her right hand, it seemed that the fairytale fever had struck again.

"Wotcher, is she frozen?" Ron shakily reached out his hand touch the glassy, snow white skin of Tonk's face.

"Ron Weasley!" Chided him mother and slapped back his hand.

"It's completely fine to touch her Mrs. Weasley," said a young mediwizard now tickling Tonks nose with his quill which elicited no response.

"She looks like a corpse," Ron shuttered.

"But she's so," Hermione knotted her brows, "She so glassy looking. Her skin looks like a creamy porcelain teacup, her lips and cheeks are rosy. I don't understand how she could ill."

Ron looked at the mediwizard in distress. "Yeah, she never looked this good."

"Ron!" This time it was Hermione's turn to chide him.

The young healer made a few more scratches in his notepad as Molly, Arthur, Ron, and Hermione, fretted around the bedside of Room 12 c on the floor for Mysterious Illnesses at St. Mungo's.

"Oh dear gods!" Exclaimed a small dark-eyed woman, frantically entering the room, followed by Mad Eye Moody; then letting out a wail of grief she cried, "My baby! She's dead!"

"There, there Andromeda," Molly suddenly caught the crying mother in her arms, "She's only sleeping."

"Merlin, she's so cold!" Proclaimed Moody pushing aside a thick lock of hair which had turned a luxurious, chocolaty brown and had appeared to have grown about two extra feet, curling around her angelic face like a crown of virtue.

"It seems that she is suffering from Fabulam Fieri; commonly known as the 'fairytale sickness'."

Ron gasped, "The Princess Murders."

"You mean someone did this to her?" Hermione looked dismayed, but the mediwizard calmly raised his right hand to still the crowd.

"No. Despite what 'The Prophet claims', Fabulam Fieri is a virus that can only effect the female sex and it's not fatale. It strikes randomly and is thought to be carried on unwashed fruits or plants or it can be spread by a cut to the hands or perhaps, even through head lice. The result is a death-like state of the victim; glassy skin, rosy lips and cheeks and sudden hair growth."

"But she's a live?" Asked Andromeda, dabbing at her eyes with a handkerchief.

"Oh yes! As I said, it's not fatal. It actually preserves the patient in a perfect youth-like state indefinitely."

Andromeda released a small yelp.

The mediwizard instantly realized his mistake. "Umm…yes…Well, the virus is easily reversible. A small exchange of saliva with young virile man usually does the trick."

Andromeda just looked at the nervous healer with absolute confusion.

"You mean, I can kiss her and this can all be over?" Asked Ron, really ticked now because he could have just planted one on her back in the garden instead of lugging her body all the way to St. Mungo's.

Mediwizard stammered, "Well, it is a bit more complicated. It seems that patient must receive a kiss from someone close to her…umm, spiritually."

"You mean her priest?" Ron wrinkled his nose in disgust.

Hermione looked at Ron with annoyance, "She has to kiss her Prince Charming."

Smiling with satisfaction, the healer replied, "Yes! It has to be a kiss of true love."

Andromeda wailed, "You mean she could be like this forever!"

Molly patted, the ailing mother, "I think I know just the man…"

At that moment, a gruff voice boomed from below the mediwizard, "Blimey, this ain't Happy!" Ever head turned to spy a short stocky man with a long white beard wearing a blackened miner's uniform and carrying a miniature pick-axe on his shoulder.

Behind him, another strange little man noted, "Nope. Happy never looked that good."

"My, my! She sure is pretty," chimed in a third midget.

"Hell yeah! You get some Happy!" Rejoice a forth while slapping his knee.

"This ain't Happy's room, Stupid!" Chided a fifth.

"Damn, I'd sure be happy to be Happy with that doll in my hospital bed." Agreed a sixth.

"Where's Happy Schmidt? We came to see Happy!" Grumbled a seventh.

The mediwizard flipped through his charts nervously, "I don't have a record of a Happy Schmidt."

In the next moment, the seven little dwarfs were chatting and shouting and pushing in frustration.

"What the hell is going on here?" A tall lanky man appeared from the shadow of the doorway. The room was now stuffed to capacity with a crying mother, a confused healer, a distressed co-worker, too many well-wishing friends and seven hostile midget miners.

"Oh thank goodness you got my Patronusl!" Molly exclaimed.

The crowd fell away as Lupin, his face now ashen approached Tonks' bedside.

"She's alive, Remus, it's the 'fairytale virus'. I'm pretty sure she caught it from eating an unwashed apple in the garden."

He sat down on the bedside across from Andromeda, his concern so deep, he barely acknowledge Tonks own grieving mother.

"Dear, if you'll just kiss her, she'll awaken," whispered Molly, as she patted Remus knowingly on the back.

Andromeda looked squarely at Remus, who seemed neither virile nor young, "What good will he do?"

Suddenly, Hermione understood, "Do it, Professor; kiss her. She's like a princess in a fairytale, only the kiss of true love will awaken her."

Lupin's eyes clouded, his voice became strained, "But I'm not…"

Molly squeezed his arm, her voice that of an angry mother scolding a child. "Just do it!"

Lupin sighed deeply, thought intensely about his love from the woman now lying motionless in the bed and gently kissed her frozen lips. Just as suddenly, as ice melting under sunshine, the glossy mask of youthful death melted and Tonks blinked her eyes open. "Remus, what are you doing?"

"Waking you up," he smiled with new knowledge and it seemed that the entire room sighed with tenderness at the spectacle of Prince Charming awakening his Princess.

Tonks rubbed her eyes, "Was I asleep?"

"Yes," he said softly, "but so was I."

Hermione beamed and whispered to Ron, "And they lived happily ever after."