Houses Competition. Ravenclaw, HoH. Prompts: Once Upon a Time (1), Bill Weasley (2), "You're going to be trouble, aren't you?" (3) - WC: 2932
Basis: Bill is a freelance cursebreaker. He is sent to Storybrooke to help them out with a sort of curse they have not encountered before.
AN: Likely to become a full-length story in time.
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I tug on the ponytail at the base of my neck. Mum isn't right, I don't need to cut it. I actually much prefer it at this length. But that doesn't mean that I'm not hyper aware of the fact that she thinks it's scruffy, which means that other people also think it looks scruffy. Due to the nature of the meeting I'm going into, maybe I should have had a haircut first. Just a trim.
I'm not even sure that I shaved.
Yesterday, I received an urgent owl to come to the Ministry of Magic this morning, for a meeting with a Ministry Official regarding my job. As I'm currently working somewhat freelance for various Ministry departments, I honestly thought I was going to be fired. I spent all of last night thinking over everything I had done, every procedure I might not have followed, and each comment I made to people. What if I'd said the wrong thing, missed out a step, and things had worsened?
A brunette girl looks up from her desk three feet away from me. She sends a nod in my direction.
Time to go in.
A gold plaque states the name of the person who occupies the office. Mr. Archibald Wensum. I knock three times, sparing one more glance towards the pretty girl and deciding that she's not that pretty after all. I think I prefer blondes. Then I open the door and step inside.
Mr. Wensum is sitting at an elaborate, mahogany desk, fingers steepled like a supervillain. He doesn't stand when I reach out a hand, but shakes it from his leather seat. The handshake is weak and clammy. Internally, I cringe. Externally, I smile politely and sit in the proffered chair opposite him. This all feels so alien.
"We have another job for you," he starts, leaning back.
I exhale in relief. That means I'm not losing my job, they're just giving me another one.
"Hold on, this needs discussion," Mr. Wensum continues. He reaches for a drawer in the desk and retrieves a large, manilla file from inside. That's the case? Shit. "It's a large job, and it will require an enormous amount of willpower and intelligence, no doubt of which you are capable. But it has been agreed that you will need a full briefing before you go in, as they say, willy nilly."
"Okay," I muse, intrigued. What could be so different? What could make this one so much more complicated that we need to have a full discussion on the proceedings? My eye catches on a flickering light in the back corner of the room. Obviously Mr. Wensum has been experimenting with Muggle technology and failing to some extent. Irrelevant, however.
"Shall we proceed?" Wensum asks.
I nod, thinking get the hell on with it.
"Were going to send you to another realm."
"You're what?" I ask, laughing in ridicule at the government official sitting across the table, his Ministry ID glaring back at me. The official stares back icily, not seeming to find it funny in the slightest. Which is extremely confusing. "You have to be joking. You can't actually do that, right?"
He coughs politely. "Mr. Weasley, I assure you that we can. And we will," he states. "We do, however, need you to take this matter more seriously, and to also understand the consequences of taking this job. You have to comprehend that this is of high risk, and of high importance." He smiles wryly. "You will be paid in kind. Fifty thousand galleons per day of work."
"For just this job? How long are you expecting this job to last, exactly?"
I swear to Merlin, my mouth has fallen down to beyond the ground, and my stomach has dropped about thirty million fathoms.
"However long it takes. It needs doing."
"Okay, say I take the job," I start. "How am I going to get there, wherever it is."
Instantly, I can see that I've surprised him. Did he think I wouldn't accept the job? Perhaps I've mistaken this look for one of cold delight. It's possible. The way his eyes are slightly widened, one eyebrow twitching to be raised in amusement. And a smile at his thin lips.
"So, will you take the job? I need confirmation in writing." From the air, Mr. Wensum retrieves a long scroll, the bottom of it landing just where my hands rest. "Sign on the dotted line please, Mr. Weasley."
For a single, salient moment, I pause.
But then I shrug, manifest a quill, and scribble my signature.
"No time to lose," Mr. Wensum mutters, standing quickly. I follow suit, a little alarmed by his suddenness. He goes to a cupboard I didn't see before and throw open its doors. Inside, I see a most peculiar thing. Says the wizard, I know. "The hat is your way through."
"You're joking."
"Mr. Weasley, I am not. It was sent to us, we think. It came through a portal of its own and we've been experimenting since." He glances quickly in my direction and gestures me closer. "One rule you must adhere to. The same number of people that go in must come out. You cannot bring anyone back with you."
I laugh. "Would I need to?"
Mr. Wensum doesn't say a word in reply.
"Alright, show me how this bloody thing works," I sigh.
"Tap the rim with your wand," he says, setting the hat down on the carpeted floor. I follow his instruction. "This imbues it with your magic. Now, spin it. This will create the portal." I raise an eyebrow. This is insane. Spin a hat and make a portal. Merlin, what have I gotten myself into?
"Just do it, Mr. Weasley."
"Fine," I grumble.
Slowly, I bend down and squat before it. Then, with one quick flick, I spin the hat.
The room is filled with a dark purple, swirling magic, like a vortex sucking us into the satin lining of the hat. Sounds are muted by it and I have to shout to be heard above the rumbling noise all around us.
"What exactly do you want me to do? Where am I going?" I shout.
"Storybrooke," he replies in a bellow. "Break the curse in Storybrooke before they all perish - that's what the message said, anyway."
We look to each other one final time. I nod.
Then I jump.
I guess I expected to feel like I was apparating. That old, sickening feeling of no breath and not enough room to think or feel. The tug in my navel. This is nothing like those feelings, not in the slightest. It's as if I've just jumped from our whirling, shimmering room, and simply landed in another, this one filled with doors.
"Storybrooke," I announce, hoping the hat is intuitive enough to guide me.
Lo and behold, a door behind me glimmers gold and opens on a rainy scene. Looks normal enough. Nothing horrendously special.
I shrug and enter. The door closes behind me.
Rain drenches me in seconds. Must be Britain with this level of downpour. Merlin, help me. Except, this is another realm. So it can't be the Britain I know - it's not even the world I know.
There's something else in the air as well that I recognise immediately.
"Magic," I mutter, sighing heavily.
That means that this realm is one that knows magic, and probably all too well. I can sense the familiarity of the magic - like oxygen needed to breathe. And yet, it doesn't look like anywhere magic. The hat rests on the gravel road behind me, which stretches out into an empty street. There are a few shops, including a pawn shop, a diner, and a clocktower ticking away above the public library.
It all looks quiet, but I can feel the curse. Just like I always do. I feel it, living and breathing like a weed wrapped around this town, Storybrooke. Suffocating it.
"You're going to be trouble, aren't you?" I ask aloud. I probably look completely crazy, not that there's anyone around to observe me speaking to the air. Instinctively, I check that no one is looking. Thank Merlin, they're not.
I am completely lost. Understandable. What if they don't understand me in this new world? What if they speak another language? What if they attack me? Merlin forbid it. Nevertheless, I need to lay low and gather intel. That's what I would normally do, anyway. Though, technically, normally I would speak to some sort of Ministry official or informant first.
Deftly, I pick the hat from the road and tuck it under my arm. The diner also appears to be a place to stay overnight. It looks quiet enough.
Granny's it is.
The front door bangs open loudly when I stumble through, and the empty room matches up with my expectations. I glance around, looking for a sign of life amongst the plastic and the metal, the menus and the napkins, and the battered jukebox in the far corner.
"Excuse me, can I help you?" an irritated voice hollers from behind me. I whip around. Good, English. That's going to be helpful. "Do I know you? If you're here for food, we're all out."
"For a diner that's pretty - never mind," I finish, seeing the stoney-faced elderly woman glaring back at me. Merlin's beard, she is a fearsome woman. "I'm here to break the curse. I've been sent from… The government -"
"Where's the Hatter?" someone else interrupts. "What have you done with Jefferson - that's his hat."
I spin around. "I have no idea who Jefferson is, but I was given this hat."
The woman before me strikes a power-pose I know all too well from my mother. Hands on her hips, a furious smile on her face - a smile that says she knows exactly how things are about to go down. Except, this time, the blonde woman before me is wrong. I've done nothing to make her angry as far as I know.
"Cut the crap, ginge," she instructs. "What the hell are you doing here? No one comes to Storybrooke. And especially not with our friend's hat."
"Merlin, you people are fun," I laugh, staring around at the two women who face me. Their stony expressions. Bright, grey eyes. But there's something else there, a lack of stability. Bursting through the silence, a tummy rumble that overpowers anything any of my younger, hungrier brothers have ever felt. "Hungry, too."
The older woman glares. "There's no food around here."
"You are literally inside a diner." To make my point, I make eyes at the kitchen.
"Just shut up," the blonde woman growls. "You're coming with me to the station. We can see how long you'll last with the rest of us and this crapping curse - "
"Hey!" I shout out. My arms flail like some sort of inept chicken. No such luck. Maybe I should have been a little more to the point about why I'm here instead of just going straight for banter about the ridiculous portal-hat that appears to have belonged to a friend of Storybrooke. "I'm here about the curse. I have a wand! I swear, I'm here from the Ministry!"
"He's crackers," the old lady muses.
In a hurried movement, I break away from the two of them and whip out my wand.
"Presumably you've seen magic before." They nod, transfixed as though I am a horse preparing to charge. "Good. I can feel it. I'm here to help. So you help me to help you and we can all go about our business like muggles. Capiche?" The blonde woman raises an eyebrow. "Or I will knock you all out, wipe your memory, and leave you cursed."
Silence, for five agonising seconds.
Then, relief.
The two of them deflate, and the blonde woman steps closer to me.
"I don't know how Jefferson found you, but thank God you're here." Who is this bloody Jefferson they keep going on about? "You're British, right? You'll get along great with Aurora and Phillip when that swings around. For now, this curse. What do you need to know?"
The blonde woman takes me to the police station where her parents - who look exactly the same age as her, if not younger - are waiting. We spend about thirty minutes going through the particulars of it all. It's always a horrendously slow and painful procedure. They talk about the town and it's origins - fairy-tales, crazy! - and they talk about the kind of people that live in Storybrooke. And, by extension, the kind of people being hurt by the curse.
This isn't the first curse here, either. Unusual, certainly, but not unheard of.
I try not to reveal too much about myself, the Ministry, or the Wizarding World. It's easy enough, until they start asking questions in return. Things about my job, why I'm there, and who sent me.
"So you're a fairy, right? Because you have a wand?" Emma, the blonde woman, asks, pointing at my left breast pocket where I keep it. I swear to Merlin, my mouth falls open. "Do you have wings? I've not seen a male fairy before, but I guess these things happen."
"Just no," I reply, hardly about to speak through mortification. "Wizard, me. Not a fairy." Emma raises an eyebrow, but stays quiet for the moment. "So… Water, food, some speech. Anything else it's affecting?"
David and Snow, Emma's parents, look ominously at each, and then at their daughter.
"Magic," David starts. Snow grabs his hand in comfort. "The magic is different. Neither Emma nor Regina can practice in the same way as before. Not even potions are making the crops grow. Everything is… Dead." Dramatic, but true.
"There aren't any known villains in the town right now either," continues Snow in her soft voice. "Everyone is pretty good. Killian - sorry, Hook - is with Emma. Regina - the evil queen - is fine too, much better now. Even Mr Gold is doing okay. He and Belle have a child together, and it's such a relief -"
"Mom, stop," Emma interrupts. Snow lets out a breath. Clearly everyone is a bit het-up about this. "Can you help?"
I smile wryly. Merlin, I miss my family. My mother's warm hugs and excellent food. My father's incessant ramblings about everything he loves and finds interesting. My brothers clamouring for attention and displays of magic. My sister, calling for me from her cot.
They're not in this realm, and I wouldn't wish it upon them. Because if this curse isn't broken, all of the people here will not survive another three days - even with the resources they currently have.
"I can try."
"Thank you, Bill," David murmurs, gripping my hand a little too tightly. Must be a weird, prince thing. "Where do we start?"
Good point. "Considering all of your previous curses have been performed by people, I'll start with that. I can track to a basic point where the curse began or originates." The trio nod in understanding. "Great, okay."
This is a bit awkward.
I pull out my wand again and start the incantation. Lo and behold they all stare at me. In all honesty, it feels like I'm performing magic to muggles, which is so very wrong. But if they're not liars, then Emma holds magic herself - so they will all have witnessed it before.
"Regina should be here," Emma mutters to her mother. Snow offers a pacifying smile, to which Emma replies, "I know. She's looking after Henry. But still, it feels weird talking about magic when we barely know it. And not having her here."
"I know, honey - oh my goodness, look at that!" Snow bursts in exaltation at the golden stream that suddenly erupts from the tip of my wand. The magic twists and ripples through the air, leading us outside and into the main street of Storybrooke. "Is it leading to the curse?"
"Yes," I nod fervently, standing up. "Come on, no time to lose."
With that, I start to chase the ribbon of shimmering yellow, around the station and out of the doors to the road, the trio in hot pursuit. The magic glimmers and stretches out, but it's nowhere near as far away as I would have expected. In fact, it falls short at the Pawn shop, resting outside as if having encountered some sort of barrier.
A gust of sudden wind blows the glittering-gold magic into nothing.
"I guess we found our villain," I joke. "Who is it?"
Emma sighs heavily. "Rumpelstiltskin."
Ah yes. The most famous dark wizard there is in this realm.
"Right." I almost laugh, but it doesn't seem too funny anymore. Maybe that paying fee was correct after all. Especially if the Ministry expected me to die on the job. "Anyone want anything from the shop? No? Fair enough."
Funeral march music plays in the space between my ears. Death isn't exactly welcome at this early stage in life, but I guess I will face it at some point for this job. Why not now? Out of all the possible future curses I would have broken, and all the ones I have broken already - why not this one?
The answer is fairly simple. I don't really want to die.
So I take those steps toward the pawn shop, take out my wand, and prepare for a battle that might just about rival the darkness in my own realm.
"Hello, dearie," he greets, crooning, stepping out into the dying sunlight.
"Rumpelstiltskin, I presume." He bows courteously. "Great. Let's duel."
He smiles, a dark, horrifying grin.
"Yes. Let's."
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Thank you for reading!
