Hello again! Thank you for all of the reviews; I'm glad you all like these little one-shots. If you've read or watched Stardust then you will appreciate this next one; if not, then I highly recommend it to any who are curious. If you haven't, then Septimus is a Prince of the magical Kingdom of Stormhold, which apparently doesn't have the law of primogeniture in place, meaning that all the Princes try to kill each other for the throne. Septimus is a very great deal like Snape, hence this cross-over. The beginning of this tale happens around the mid-1800s and then skips to 1959.
Disclaimer: None of this is mine. Not Septimus, not Snape, not either of the universes they come from. I do, however, own Maeve as much as it can be said that I own a fictional character.
Wizarding legends were seldom only tales.
She had known it all of her life; of course she had. No pureblood would deny it; they knew all too well how old wives' tales could, and often did, prove to be terribly real. The addition of magic into any story muddied the waters, blurring the line between truth and fantasy. She knew, and yet….
And yet somehow she had not expected him.
She had hardly noticed him at first. It was dark, and the crumpled figure lay mostly in the shadows cast by the Wall, his sable-hued cloak shielding him from immediate notice. Only his ragged breathing alerted her to his presence, and even then she did not approach him for several moments, too shocked at what she was seeing.
The Wall had been there for longer than anyone in the village could recall. The stories of its construction had died into dust along with the old magic of the world, and the guard had been reduced to a ceremonial contingent, there more to keep adventure-seekers away than to keep a true watch, but it had not always been so. Once, her grandmother had told her, the Wall had been taller; once, there had been no hole, no way to pass through to the other side. In those days there had been more of them; the town had been both a town and a garrison, the first line of defense against the things that sometimes came from beyond the field. It was these tales which came to the front of Maeve's mind now, and she shivered suddenly, pulling her cloak closer around her as she realized that she was alone. The guards were sleeping; it was late, and no one took the watch seriously anymore. If the man woke…..
A groan split the silence; with a frisson of horror she realized that the man (elf?) was coming to. She half-turned, ready to run and raise the alarm… and then he opened his eyes and she could not look away.
They were dark; she would later discover that they were not only dark but black, a shade of onyx which could glitter or dull according to his mood, and she was entranced by them. Even now, shining with pain as they were, they were utterly captivating, and she found herself at his side before she knew where her feet were taking her.
"Who are you?" she asked.
"Prince," he managed to gasp out. "Septimus."
She wavered for a moment and then, in one split second, her decision was made.
"Maeve Carrow," she said by way of introduction. "Come, let's get you inside."
There were rules to their strange courtship, and they both understood them from the beginning. They did not ask questions; that was the first.
"How did you do that?" he asked when she healed his wounds with a flick of her wand.
"Does it matter? You're healed, aren't you?" And he was.
"What are you?" she asked once early on.
"Does it matter?" And on reflection it did not.
They did not make demands of each other either; it was another unspoken rule and one that they adhered to almost religiously.
"I'm forbidden to marry until I'm crowned King," he told her one night, regret and longing simmering in the depths of his eyes. "I'd ask now if…"
"I know," she replied softly. And she did; he was a Prince of Stormhold, and if he did not take the throne… apparently the thought of killing children was too much even for elves. When the time came, she did not even demand that he stay with her.
"My father is ill," he told her. "Soon he will be dead and I have three brothers still living. If I can…"
"I'll wait for you," she replied. They did not need to say anything further; it was understood that he would return if it was in his power to do so.
She did not realize until after he had left that she was pregnant.
It was said that the Prince line had been founded by a pureblood daughter of the Carrow family. No one could say now; it had been too long and the Carrows had not been so assiduous in their tracing of pedigrees as some other families perhaps had been. Where the name Prince had come from was a mystery; some said it came from a foreign wizard while others whispered that it came from a wandering gypsy Prince. Members of the family knew two things, however; he had been dark of coloring and he had had magic in him, for every so often the Prince line would breed a throw back. Dark hair, black eyes that glittered or dulled at whim, and powerful magic would crop up every few generations; they were always loners and seldom long-lived, for somehow they always managed to attract trouble. And sometimes, somehow, there was something – other – about them, as if they did not quite belong to this world. Eileen had thought to escape it; after all, her husband's color was dark, and she herself was no slouch magically… and then the child opened his eyes, to look at her with orbs of black, eyes that seemed to see through her.
"Severus," she sighed, knowing what was to come somehow. "His name is Severus."