Legal Disclaimer: I own my stuff, but not the original source material. That belongs to whoever. Also, the opinions and interpretations I use here may not reflect the same in said whoever that owns the source material. Look, I'm just a poor college librarian. Suing me isn't going to get you anything but tears.
Warning: This work may be offensive to some readers. Additionally, there are multiple references to the canon emotional/mental abuse from the Dursleys. Feel free to back out if need be.
Author's Note: For those of you who might be wondering, yes, the pun in the title is intentional. For those of you who might not be aware, sidhe is a Gaelic word that roughly translates to "fairy mound" and it is pronounced "shee".
Submitting Info:
Stacked with: Quidditch League (Season 10); RAVEN (2023); MC4A (Winter Year 5)
Individual Challenges: Old Shoes (Y); Bucket Listing (Y); Two Cakes (Y); Eating Cake (Y); Lunar Era; Short Jog; Hold the Mayo; Neurodivergent
Team (Position): Wigtown Wanderers (Seeker)
Round (Prompt): R02 (Fairy Tale by Stephen King)
RAVEN Challenges: Settings [152](Yard); Items [67](Jar/Bottle); Colors [73](Jam)
Other Challenges: Zee Monthly [Day 27](Sharp)
Other MC4A Challenges: Chim [Rick]("Louder than Words" – Tick, Tick, Boom; Life/Death; Race Bend);Fire [x3](Leave); Hang [Phrase 4] (n/a); Soup [Let](Prompt); Swap [Knickknacks (Glass Apple; Elephant Trinket Box); Shoes (Frog Galoshes)]
Representation(s): Kid Harry Potter; Mr. Tibbles the Cat; Fairy Tale AU
Primary & Secondary Bonus Challenges: Fruit Fly; Second Verse (Seven Gates)
Tertiary & Generic Bonus Challenges: Share (Ameliorate; Rampant); Wings (Rosette)
Word Count: 1369 words
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The Sidhe Shed
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Harry had never given much thought to Mrs. Figg's garden shed. It was just another part of the neighborhood, a boxy wooden structure tucked away between five slender apple trees. It was the trees that Harry thought was interesting about Mrs. Figg's garden, if he thought of her garden at all.
The branches of the trees seemed to weave around each other like they were holding hands. The positioning had a practical effect that Harry knew from experience. The branches were positioned just right that the few apples that fell would roll along them to be gently deposited on the roof of the shed where they would then roll to the extra wide gutter where they were then delivered into a waiting bucket that Mrs. Figg emptied as often as she did the litterboxes of her many cats. Harry didn't know what the old woman did with the apples, as she wasn't particularly inclined to bake and never had any available in any other form, but it did seem like a practical system overall.
Honestly, whenever he was left at Mrs. Figg's by his aunt (which was fairly often, as both Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon hated the idea of leaving Harry alone in their house, like he was an untrained puppy who would destroy things, but also hated the idea of taking him with them on any of the many family outings they went on with their son Dudley), he rarely went outside except to weed the little garden beds near the house. If he thought of the shed at all, it was a passing thought about how odd it was that Mrs. Figg kept her tools in the mudroom near the washer and dryer rather than in the shed like his aunt did all of her tools (not that Aunt Petunia had used any of them since Harry was big enough to hold the pruning shears off the ground and push the mower around the yard).
Since all of Little Whinging and especially the neighborhoods around Privet Drive were completely normal, Harry had certainly never expected the shed to be anything more than it seemed. That was he hadn't up until the day he noticed the strange light coming from the keyhole.
He had been walking home from school, escorted by Mrs. Figg's favorite tom cat, Mr. Tibbles, when he saw the glow through the wooden fence. It was shimmering and bright, like moonlight, and barely visible in the fading light of the day. It drew him in like a moth to the street lamps. Without even thinking about it, he slipped through the arched gate into the old neighbor's back garden.
Just inside he stopped and stared, his heart beating fast. He had heard stories about magical creatures, but he would never have thought he'd see anything like it. After all, if there was anything that the Dursleys were more vocal about than how much of a worthless burden their nephew was, it was that there was no such thing as magic. By extension, this meant that magical creatures could not be real.
Taking a deep breath, Harry stepped closer to the shed. The snow crunched beneath his secondhand frog galoshes, normally a soft sound but in the silence of the garden, it seemed as loud as a shout. He bent down and peered through the keyhole of the shed door. The shed was filled with the strange light, and in the center was a round portal that was shimmer with every color in the rainbow and some colors that Harry wasn't even certain could be named. He blinked, unable to believe what he was seeing.
Carefully, he reached out and pulled on the door handle. He was shocked when it opened with only the telltale creak of unoiled hinges. The portal's light flooded out, bathing him in its surprising warmth. It felt like the heat lamps in the school cafeteria. It smelled like the first flowers of spring, with apple blossoms being especially strong. He hesitated only briefly before he stepped inside the shed.
The walls of the shed were lined with shelves. Each shelf was filled with strange objects, like jars of glowing white sand, several glass apples that were all the color of strawberry jam, and delicate vials in so many shapes and hues that Harry felt like he had walked into a shop of some sort. It certainly wasn't the kind of shop that Aunt Petunia would have approved of, let alone shopped at.
There was a worktable at the far end of the shed that he could barely see around the portal. As he cautiously edged around it, he could see that there was another shelf right above it that was filled with leatherbound books that looked centuries old.
Sitting on the table, as innocent as anything in the shed could be, was an obsidian trinket box shaped like an elephant. Sitting atop the trinket box as if riding it was a tiny woman who was no bigger than a hawk moth. She had delicate butterfly-like wings that were a bright cerulean blue at the top and faded into a rich emerald at the bottom tip. Each wing had two concentric circles on the broad upper part of it. When she turned towards Harry, her eyes were as dark as his cupboard was at night, with no white portion to be seen. She blinked once, apparently as shocked as he was to be in the same place.
Harry gasped in amazement, and it was like a spell had been broken. The fairy launched herself into the air with a frantic flutter of her wings. Mr. Tibbles also launched himself in the air, determined to catch the flying thing that was so small and prey-like. Instinctively, Harry lunged after the cat. He had no idea exactly how dangerous a fairy might be, but he did know that Mrs. Figg would be very upset if anything happened to the favorite cat in her menagerie.
Just like how his luck tended to go, Harry failed to grab the feline. The inertia from his lunge brought him close enough to the portal that he could feel the warmth of the weather on the other side seeping through. In fact, he felt a rush of spring-scented air flow over him. Then suddenly, his stomach lurched as he tumbled through the portal into what was definitely a whole new world.
Harry landed in the grassy meadow on the other side with a hard thud. For several moments, all he could do was lay there and try to remember how breathing worked. Thankfully, Mr. Tibbles seemed content now to just lay on Harry's chest and groom himself. Harry groaned as he struggled to sit up enough to look around himself.
There was no sign of the portal he had fallen through. There were, however, many strange creatures, like gnomes and sprites, and even more strange plants, like glowing mushrooms and delicate flowers. Above him, the stars shone brightly in the night sky, and a full moon lit up the landscape as brightly as a summer day. Other than the cat kneading his legs with exceptionally sharp claws, Harry felt like he had fallen into a dream.
It slowly dawned on him that he was well and truly trapped in this other realm, far away from the relatives who hated him. A small secret part of him whispered that he had been given a great gift, as had the Dursleys who had never wanted him in the first place. They had certainly never shied away from telling him so.
Harry noticed that the fairy had landed on a mushroom nearby. Her dark eyes fixated on him as he processed his surroundings. Seeing that she had his attention, she smiled at him kindly, and then she motioned for him to follow her as she took off flying again.
Harry followed the fairy through the meadow, deeper into the sidhe with a purring Mr. Tibbles in his arms. He felt more alive than ever before. Even if he never managed to find his way back to Surrey, he just knew that this would be the most exciting journey of his life.