Crispy: Well, here we go with another lovely tale from our favorite Hogwarts Founder. Remember, while the basic plot of some stories may seem familiar, Sal does not have memories of hearing bedtime stories during his childhood. He has a basic grasp of some points from muggle fairy tales and just fills in the rest with his own imagination - drawing heavily on characters from his own life or perhaps other bits of stories he's encountered.

Draco Malfoy: These are based on muggle fairy tales? That's fascinating! I would never have guessed, and I love all things muggle.

Crispy: Yes, we know, Draco. Just read the card, please.

Draco: Right. Ahem. Crispy Rice Burroughs does not own anything from Harry Potter - or the works of JRR Tolkien. Er...do you mind if I stick around? This is actually one of my favorites.

Crispy: Really? That's odd. Pull up a chair then.

Chapter Two:

Goldilocks and the Three Deatheaters

Once upon a time, there lived three naughty boys. They liked to call themselves "Deatheaters" - not because they ate dead things, although they certainly never ate living things, but because they thought the name made them fearsome and impressive. Their mothers didn't hold with that nonsense, however, and insisted on calling them Tom, Bert, and William. As soon as they were old enough, the three boys decided to establish their own residence out from under the "oppressive" thumbs of their parents. They set themselves up in a lovely, little cottage deep in the woods and proceeded to work on developing their reputations as dark wizards.

Naturally, the first order of business was to establish that they were indeed a group, distinguishable from all other wizards. The easiest way to accomplish this, they decided, was to dress alike. William suggested black robes, as black is the color most often associated with evildoers. Bert readily agreed because dark clothing would also make it easier to sneak around at night while they were getting up to no good. Bert also suggested they wear masks to disguise their original identities. Tom agreed (knowing it wouldn't do for their mothers to get wind of the trouble they intended to cause), provided that the masks were sufficiently frightening.

Of course, no self-respecting wizard goes out in public without a hat. All three boys were of the opinion that taller hats would make them appear more imposing. Bert thought their hats should be twelve inches tall, but Tom argued that Bert was already taller than the average person and didn't really need a hat to further prove this point. If Bert walked around with twelve extra inches on his head, Tom and William would not look nearly as intimidating in comparison. William didn't begrudge Bert his twelve-inch hat, but thought, as the shortest of the three, he should be allowed an additional twelve inches to compensate for the differences in height. Tom worried that people might think William was in charge if he had the tallest hat. This led to an argument over who was actually in charge until Bert finally managed to separate his friends and point out that the taller a group of individuals is compared to the general populace, the less any difference in height among them makes. Thus, it was decided that all three hats would be an impressive thirty-six inches tall. Luckily, William was proficient with starching and balancing spells to keep the hats nice and pointy and perfectly perched atop their heads.

Having spent nearly all of their coin to purchase their new garments and a modest hovel - er, lair, there wasn't much left for footwear. Bert argued that if they were running around committing evil acts, it would certainly be in their best interests to provide some sort of protection for their feet. Tom argued that they didn't have enough coin left to purchase respectable boots, and it would be better to simply wait until they had saved enough to afford something more suitable. William strongly disagreed. What if one of them chanced to step on a pinecone in the middle of a night raid? How could anyone fear an idiot hopping around on one foot while holding the other and shouting, "OW OW OW!" The other two had to concede his point. In the end, they decided there was enough coin to at least cover the soles of their feet, so they would purchase simple sandals. All of the Deatheaters were dismayed to discover that they could not quite afford three new pairs of sandals, but then the cobbler offered them three unfinished pairs that lacked the leather straps for attaching them to their ankles. The reduction of costly leather brought the price down just enough. The unorthodox design meant that the Deatheaters would make a terrible slip-slap-slip-slap sound as they walked, but William declared it would make an excellent harbinger of their approach to unnerve their victims who would, no doubt, soil their trousers in anticipation of the impending terror of a Deatheater attack.

Of course, even the most like-minded of roommates will have their differences from time to time. They always managed to reach a unanimous agreement on matters of evil-doing (such as from which village or road they should snatch an unsuspecting muggle and how they should go about torturing them and the like), but it was the everyday little things that caused the most arguments. That is how Tom, Bert, and William found themselves arguing over a simple breakfast while three freshly bound and gagged muggles waited in the torture chamber hidden below the parlor.

"I'll be finished preparing our lovely repast in just a moment," said Bert.

"It had better not be porridge again," complained Tom. "You make porridge every morning."

Bert frowned at him, offended. "Porridge is good for you. It sticks to your ribs and nourishes you throughout the morning until lunchtime. You can always add extra honey to your portion."

"But I don't like honey with my porridge," Tom whined. "I want fresh berries today."

"We have no berries, fresh or otherwise," Bert replied. "We are lucky to have the honey. You should be content with what's available."

"I like berries, too," said William. "Why don't we go pick some?"

Bert scoffed and shook his head. "And leave those muggles unattended? Besides, our porridge will be cold by the time we return. I have no predilection for cold porridge, berries or no."

Tom waved a dismissive hand. "The muggles are tied up, and we can always heat the porridge back up again when we return. I want berries. I believe I saw some wild strawberries about a mile south of here. I'll get the baskets."

"Why strawberries?" asked Bert. "I know for certain that there are blackberry bushes by the creek. Certainty is preferable to belief, and blackberries are preferable to strawberries."

"Nonsense!" cried Tom. "Strawberries are clearly better."

"Perhaps to your unsophisticated palate," muttered Bert.

"I like elderberries," said William.

Tom shot him an incredulous look. "Elderberries smell like squirrel droppings!"

William shot Tom his own incredulous look. "What are you doing going around sniffing squirrel droppings?"

"Leave him be," Bert chided. "He can't help it if he's an olfactory learner. And elderberries aren't even in season." He sighed, swung the pot away from the fire, and untied his apron. "I've grown weary of your bickering and complaining. If it'll silence you and allow me to enjoy my morning meal in peace, we shall go pick your strawberries."

"Yay!" cried Tom and William, and they rushed out the door.

"You imbeciles have forgotten your baskets!" shouted Bert, who snatched up said baskets and hurried after them, barely managing to shut the door behind him.

No sooner had they disappeared over the hill than a new character entered the scene. It was a young boy who had wandered into the woods alone. His parents had given him a proper name at his birth, but everyone in his village called him Goldilocks because of the golden color of his hair. This was understandable as he came from a village where polite people are taught not to speak ill of anyone, and there was nothing else positive to say about him beyond his pretty hair. Goldilocks was cursed with parents who spoiled him rotten - always giving him everything he wanted but neglecting to give him everything he needed, such as chores, lessons in good manners, and a healthy respect for others' privacy. This meant that Goldilocks often wandered about on his own, with his nose stuck so high up into the air that you could see all the way through his nostrils to the back of his head - that is, when he wasn't sticking said nose into other people's business.

Goldilocks strolled down the path and soon spotted the Deatheaters' lair. He had been wandering through the woods all morning, having found nothing of interest in the village, and was beginning to feel tired and more than a bit peckish. He immediately decided to approach the humble cottage and demand a hearty breakfast. Rather than stopping at the door and knocking politely, he lifted the latch and walked right in.

"Hello!" he called out. "I'm hungry! Come and cook me some breakfast!"

There was no answer. Perhaps they didn't realize who he was. He cleared his throat and tried again. "Ahem! It is I, Goldilocks! I am hungry and need breakfast now!" Still no answer. Perhaps they were not at home. Goldilocks thought that positively rude of them. How was he supposed to eat if no one was there to cook for him?

Heaving a great, put-upon sigh, Goldilocks concluded that he would have to fend for himself. Perhaps there was food that did not require cooking in order to be palatable. He poked his nose into various cupboards and found a basket containing a few apples. He liked apples. Unfortunately, these apples were neither sliced, nor peeled. He tossed them out the window in disgust. Perhaps he would have to try his hand at cooking, after all. He found a small loaf of bread and half a dozen eggs. Eggs and toast would be an acceptable breakfast, he supposed. He seemed to remember seeing Cook once toast bread on a rack over the fire at home. There didn't seem to be a rack like the one in Cook's kitchen, but he found an iron poker and speared the bread loaf onto it. Then he propped it by the fire and turned to the eggs. He rummaged about until he found a spoon and gently cracked the first egg. It was obviously spoiled - all runny and gross! He tried another...and then another...and then another, only to meet the same result five more times. "Ugh! What sort of idiots kept spoiled eggs in their cupboard?" he thought. Luckily, there was still toast. That was the moment he realized he was smelling something unpleasant. He turned back to the hearth to see the loaf of bread was now on fire. Perhaps he had placed it too close to the flames. Now he had neither eggs nor toast!

He tossed the whole mess - eggs, bread (still aflame), and poker - out the window to join the apples and sat down for a good pout. Of course, Goldilocks did not have the necessary attention span to really spend much time pouting. His gaze began to drift around the room, and he eventually noticed the pot of porridge cooling near the hearth. He didn't much care for porridge; nevertheless, it was food, and he was starving. Perhaps there was something he could put in it to improve the flavor. Further investigation yielded no berries, but he did find a small pot of honey. He removed the lid and dumped the entire contents of the honey pot into the porridge. Then he found another spoon, gave the porridge a proper stir, and tried a bite. It wasn't the tastiest thing he'd ever eaten, but the honey helped it go down. In fact, it helped so well that he ate the entire potful.

Having satisfied his immediate need for food, Goldilocks decided to explore the rest of the place. He stepped into the next room and looked around. He didn't find much: a few chairs; a bookcase half-filled with what appeared to be boring, academic texts (or so Goldilocks surmised from the appalling lack of illustrations); and a rather hideous rag rug which seemed to be attempting to communicate with him as it was emitting muffled sounds of distress. "I'd be distressed, too," Goldilocks told it, "if I were so hideous." He was about to turn away to investigate some narrow steps when something suddenly occurred to him. "Rugs don't make sounds - distressed or otherwise - no matter how hideous they are. That noise must be coming from something underneath the rug!"

Goldilocks pinched the edge of the rug with just his thumb and index finger (not wishing to touch the thing more than necessary) and gingerly lifted it to reveal a door. "Who puts a door in the floor?" he asked himself (because there was no one else there). He pulled the latch, and the door creaked open to reveal a rickety, wooden ladder which provided access to a large hole in the ground below the house. This was, of course, the cellar, but Goldilocks had no understanding of something so practical. Lying at the bottom of the hole were three men, bound and gagged, eyes wide and pleading. "What on earth are you doing down there?" Goldilocks asked them. The men began shouting again, but the gags in their mouths rendered all speech unintelligible. He climbed down the ladder to get a closer look. The men didn't seem dangerous; in fact, they looked quite silly.

"Stop shouting!" complained Goldilocks, rolling his eyes. "I can't understand a word you're saying with those silly rags stuffed in your mouths." Goldilocks approached the nearest man and carefully took hold of what seemed to be the cleanest part of the rag, pulling it free. The man sighed in relief.

"Thank goodness you're here!" said the man. "It feels like we've been here for ages. Please help us. We've been kidnapped!"

Goldilocks frowned. "That seems like a 'you' problem. What's in it for me?" he asked. All three men stared at him. "Can you bake cookies? I'm full of porridge now, but I think I'd like some for a snack later."

Muggle One blinked at him a few times before saying, "We can't very well bake cookies like this. Why don't you untie us?" Goldilocks couldn't argue with that logic, so he untied the man, who immediately went to free his two companions. "Thank you!" he cried.

Goldilocks simply shrugged and turned to climb back up the ladder. When he reached the top, he turned to look down on the men. "I prefer ginger snaps. You may bring them to me on a plate when they're finished. I'll be upstairs taking a nap." Then he disappeared up the stairs, leaving behind three very confused men.

Once the child was out of sight, Muggle Two said, "That is one very strange youth. Does he actually expect us to stay here and bake him cookies?"

"Forget the boy," scoffed Muggle One. "Let's hurry and leave before those crazy wizards return."

Unfortunately, those crazy wizards chose that moment to arrive home. The three Deatheaters were already aware that something was amiss as they had observed a small fire in their yard that was surrounded by partially cooked apples and eggs that were leaking out of broken shells - all of which centered around what appeared to be their fire poker sticking up out of a large lump of coal. Needless to say, they proceeded into their home with the utmost caution, wands out.

As soon as they entered the kitchen, Bert abandoned stealth to exclaim, "My porridge!" Tom and William turned toward the fireplace to see their friend looking mournfully at a very empty cauldron. "Someone's gotten into my porridge and devoured it in its entirety!"

"Not only that," said William, stooping to pick up their honey pot from where it lay cracked and discarded on the floor, "Whoever it was also helped himself to every last bit of our honey! Is nothing sacred?"

Tom glared at the ruins of their kitchen. "If he'll ransack our cupboards, who's to say he didn't help himself to anything else?"

All three of them immediately turned to look at the door to the next room.

"You don't suppose…" ventured Bert.

"Our muggles!" cried William, rushing into the parlor. Sure enough, the rug had been flipped aside, and the door was wide open.

Tom lit the tip of his wand and peered into the dimness below. He counted three bodies lying motionless on the floor. "They're still unconscious, but it looks like someone's untied them."

Bert scratched his head, as he always did when puzzled. Puzzles made his head itch. "Why would the intruder unbind them only to abandon them?"

William shrugged. "Perhaps he couldn't wake them up?"

"Or perhaps," said Tom, slowly as if thinking aloud, "he couldn't wake them from our sleeping hex...because...he's...a muggle!"

The itchiness of Bert's head increased. "But we never bespelled them with a sleeping hex. You insisted that anticipation would increase the efficacy of any torture we would choose to inflict upon them."

"That still doesn't rule out the possibility that our intruder is a muggle," Tom stubbornly pointed out.

"We didn't feed them," said William. "Perhaps they fainted from hunger?"

Bert nodded. "You did suggest choosing weak, underfed victims to increase our chances of successfully capturing them and decrease the risk of them escaping." He stopped scratching his head now that a reasonable explanation had eased his itching puzzlement.

Tom looked as if he were about to argue when a strange sound reached their ears. It was a bit like a snort followed by a whistle, and seemed to be coming from the staircase. "What's that noise?" he wondered. "Is that a pig?"

Bert shook his head. "Doubtful. Neither sus scrofa, nor its domestic counterpart is capable of whistling."

"Perhaps the pig isn't whistling," suggested William. "Perhaps it's running around in circles squealing, 'Whee!' "

Tom and Bert stared at him.

"What?" said William, defensively. "It makes sense."

Tom cuffed the back of his head. "Shut up and go look."

The three Deatheaters crept carefully up the stairs, wands at the ready. They needn't have bothered with stealth. A quick peek into the bedroom revealed that the snortwhistling was a small boy sprawled across Bert's bed, sound asleep.

"What on earth is a little boy doing in our bedroom?" whispered Tom.

"Yeah," said William. "Doesn't he know this is a scary Deatheater hideout?"

"The child hasn't even enough sense to remove his boots before retiring," Bert muttered with disgust. "He's sullied my favorite quilt with mud. It'll take hours to get those stains out."

"Should we kill him?" whispered Tom.

"I'm still hungry," said William. "Maybe we could eat him."

"Don't be stupid," Bert muttered, sounding even more disgusted. "He's naught but skin and bones."

William shrugged. "Well, let's fatten him up then."

"With what?" asked Tom. "We don't have any more food. What this little sneak didn't ruin he ate."

"Well then," William said brightly, "we've already fattened him up. Now we just have to stick him in the cellar and wait."

Tom cuffed the back of Wiliam's head again and shot him a dirty look.

"He's a boy, not a batch of bread dough," sighed Bert. "You don't just wait for him to rise before popping him in the oven."

Meanwhile, downstairs, the muggles were arguing quietly amongst themselves about whether to seize the chance to escape or help the defenseless boy upstairs.

"He did untie us," Muggle One pointed out.

"Yes, but he was very rude," Muggle Two countered.

"Regardless of his lack of manners, he's still just a child," reasoned Muggle Three. "I wouldn't leave my worst enemy to the mercy of those evil wizards."

Muggles One and Two agreed they had a moral obligation to help the boy, so they each grabbed an object to use as a weapon. Muggle One grabbed a small log from the pile next to the fireplace. Muggle Two grabbed a sturdy-looking rug beater that was propped against the wall. Muggle Three ducked into the kitchen and came back with...an entire butter churn. Muggles One and Two stared at him.

"What?" Muggle Three asked defensively. "I couldn't find the fire poker."

"What are you going to do?" asked Muggle Two. "Stuff them in there and churn them to death?"

Muggle One sighed, "You could at least remove the dasher and leave the barrel behind."

"Oh. Right." Muggle Three pulled the dasher from the barrel and raised it above his head. The lid slid down the length of the rod to rest on his hand like an oversized sword guard. "Thanks. This is much easier."

By the time, the Deatheaters had finished explaining to William why they couldn't eat Goldilocks, the muggles had reached the top of the stairs and launched their attack upon the evil wizards. The element of surprise allowed the muggles to completely overpower the Deatheaters in mere seconds. At the first opportunity, Muggle One abandoned his log to snatch the wands right out of the wizards' hands as Muggles Two and Three beat them mercilessly - Muggle Three having to stand a ways back in order to hit the fiends with the larger end of the dasher.

Not even Goldilocks could sleep through such a commotion. Realizing the brawling men were between him and the door, Goldilocks decided he had better find an alternate exit. He stripped the sheet from one of the beds and tied one corner to the bedpost closest to the window. He tossed the rest of the sheet out the window and quickly descended down the makeshift rope to the ground below. As soon as his feet hit the dirt, he ran off towards home as fast as his little feet could carry him.

The three muggles managed to subdue the wizards and marched them directly to the village. After transferring custody of the kidnappers to the local constabulary, they made their way home to reunite with their very relieved and joyful families.

The Deatheaters stood trial for kidnapping, aggravated assault, and misuse of magic (the last charge being added by the region's magical magistrate who, by fortunate coincidence, happened to be visiting that particular village that day). They were convicted by a mixed jury of muggles and wizards and served ten years hard labor, after which they were remanded to the custody of their mothers - which was when their punishment truly began.

Goldilocks made it safely home to his mother and father, who hadn't even noticed he'd been missing. He suffered a terrible rash from the coarse weave of the Deatheaters' bedsheets and vowed never to sleep in an unfamiliar bed again.

The end.

"That can't be the end!" you cried. "Goldilocks didn't learn anything! The child is always supposed to learn something."

"Some people never learn anything," I replied. "The point is: What did you learn?"

You thought for a moment and then said, "Don't make the muggles angry...don't complain about the food...and don't break into people's houses."

"Well," I said, "That's quite a lot of learning from just one story. Seems pretty good to me."

Omake 2:

Narcissa discovered Uncle Sal's Bedtime Stories one night during her pregnancy while browsing through the Malfoy library for a book to read. She'd been up most nights with a restless Draco kicking her bladder and various other internal organs. She immediately recognized the book as an excellent teaching tool and read it to Draco regularly throughout his childhood. Whenever he put on airs, she would say, "I can see the back of your head, Draco dear," and he would immediately blush and apologize. Unfortunately, he forgot all of this on the way to Hogwarts.

Narcissa is also terrible at doing the different voices; however, she does her best, and that's how Draco thinks they should sound.

Crispy: You know, I thought I'd be churning these stories out more quickly working by myself, but I've found I really miss working with ZA. I'll try to do better in the future. The butter churn was her idea, by the way. She insisted on it.