There was a terrible fairy living in the forest who ate the hearts of men raw, cooked their livers for lunch, and made the river flood when it pleased her.
It was whispered she lured them away with promises of marriage. Men and women alike had all sorts of things to say about the fairy. She was as tall as an oak, as beautiful as a willow, and had hair like a maple in autumn. Her moods were as temperamental as the sea. She had a voice like a thunder crack, and the power to command earth and sky and flora with it.
Hermes didn't really believe any of it.
He believed in fairies, certainly, and he believed that someone might live in the woods, but he didn't believe in the Great Fairy of the Woods. It seemed to him that any fairy so powerful would return to Fairyland instead of creeping about in a patch of woods constantly bothered by village people.
He was one of those bothersome village people. Hermes had potions ingredients to gather and rituals to complete, so he went walking in the woods no matter the tales the other witches tried to feed him.
"I don't know, there's something to it," Dean told him as Hermes packed his bag irritably. "Lavender's been sighting strange things in the woods, and she said it's fairy magic, clear as day."
"Lavender sees plenty of things that turn out sideways of what she thought," Hermes said.
Dean shrugged. "Feels like fairy magic would be hard to mistake."
"Well, if she turns out right, I'll tell you, assuming I'm not busy getting my heart eaten."
"Grand!" Dean said with a laugh. "Dennis will write you a beautiful epithet if you die soon."
Hermes snapped the bag closed and shrugged it onto his shoulders, bidding Dean goodbye for now. The small stone tower the witches of the village used—called Hogwarts for reasons no one seemed to remember—was the closest structure to the woods, so it was not a far trek at all.
It was a bright golden hour when he set out, the sun sinking down beneath the earth, but it would grow dark soon enough. The full moon was already a pale circle in the still-blue sky, common in the summer months and exactly what Hermes wanted to see.
Several herbs he was low on were best picked on the full moon, and there was a chance he'd find some mooncalfs to guide back to Hagrid. The full moon was best for visibility, too, which paired with a lantern made the risk of wolves smaller. He had wolfsbane lining his pockets, but that was never a guarantee.
It took him half of the sun-down to find the St. John's Wort and pick as many as he judged wouldn't leave the area bare of it. Very useful in both potions and rituals, which meant he didn't want there to be a lack later on in the month.
Then he found his way to the patch of bloodroot and carefully dug up about ten of them. The root, of course, was the most useful part, so he couldn't just cut at the base and move on. A terrible pain to clean, but good when chopped fine.
So he went on, stopping here or there to cut bark off of marked trees or kneel down to check some flower or bud. It was one of those June nights that cooled fast, and he shivered when the wind picked up. He should have taken his heavier cloak, but it was too late now; he was deep into the woods and turning back for it would only make the night longer.
Hermes had just entered the small glade by the river where some good mushrooms grew when there came a sound from somewhere among the trees. He stiffened, but stayed where he was, lantern gripped tightly in his hand. Plenty of sounds happened in the woods, many of them harmless. There was a good chance it was just deer.
He peered into the trees where the rustling came from. Hopefully, it would not be wolves.
After a time his patience was rewarded—Hermes watched with astonishment as the figure of a woman strode confidently to the glade from the gloom of the woods. She did not pick through an old trail; Hermes knew there was none in that direction. Instead, the trees and bushes seemed to spring away with deference so that she might move unaccosted.
At last, the woman came out of the trees and into the glade, stopping just where the trees stopped. She had no supplies nor a cloak, not even shoes.
His first thought, quite stupidly, was that while she did not tower like an oak, the Great Fairy of the Woods really was tall. She would easily loom over him if she came any closer.
She was also quite beautiful, for all that her face was strange in some indescribable way, dressed in dark green with her pale skin all but glowing in the silver light of the moon. Her eyes were blue, as bright as the midday sky. They had a terrible piercing quality to them as she set her gaze on him.
"Hello, little witch," said the fairy, and her voice was as low and beautiful as rumbling thunder. "Why have you come to my woods?"
Hermes worked his jaw, trying frantically to remember what to do around fairies.
"...picking plants, if you do not mind it," he settled on.
"I do not. You come and pick every full moon, and leave some for later days. You may stay."
He almost thanked her, but bit his cheek at the last second. By the slow smile that curled on her face, which was unfairly enchanting, she knew what he had almost done.
"Tell me your name," she said.
Hermes anxiously ran his tongue along the back of his teeth. "I beg your pardon that I don't, lady."
The fairy let out a loud, rough laugh. Hermes was startled by how abrasive and human it sounded. "Ah! Lady! Blind my sight, but I am not a noble lady."
With her beauty and stature he couldn't imagine how she wasn't, but perhaps it was some unknowable fairy matter. Those were common in tales.
"You'll find no trouble with wolves," she told him. "Don't waste the moon."
It was clear that she was about to leave, and damn Hermes and his curious mind, but he found himself quickly asking, "My lady, do you really eat the hearts of men?"
He cursed himself, but could hardly take it back.
"Daring!" said the fairy, an approving sort of grin sitting oddly on her inhuman face. "Tell me, little witch, how much do you prize your eyes?"
Hermes swallowed thickly. "Very much."
She leaned over him, her blue eyes gleaming. "Give me your eyes to keep, then, and I shall tell you."
"I would not like to."
"Then you will go on without knowing," she said. "A good night to you, little witch."
With that, she finally did depart, turning into a swallow before his very eyes and vanishing into the dark masses of leaves. He let out a shaky breath, glad he had managed to not get himself killed. Hurriedly, he rushed to the trees he knew the mushrooms grew under and began picking them.
The fairy had said he'd be left alone that night, but he hardly wanted to test that.
He found every other plant and fungus he needed and made his way back home at as quick a clip he could manage without outright running. The matter of the mooncalfs he discarded entirely. He could look for them some other night, when he hadn't met a fairy of wicked rumor.
There was no better relief in the world than shutting the heavy wooden door of Hogwarts Tower behind him. He had never before been so grateful for the iron handle on the door or the iron frames of the windows. If the fairy decided she hadn't liked his tone or his manner, at the very least she couldn't curse him as he slept.
By the morning, though, his fear had settled.
Fairies were tricky, but from what he remembered they often cursed those who offended at the moment of offense. That he wasn't a mouse about to be swallowed by an owl or missing his eyes meant the fairy had taken no issue with him.
He dressed for the day and went downstairs to begin preparing his gathered supplies for storage or immediate use. He found Dean sitting at one of the long tables sat beside the kitchen, often used for any magical work that could be done indoors. He was steadily tracing inked runes into the groves of a wooden amulet.
His fellow witch only looked up to greet him when he finished the curling stroke of ink. Dean set the amulet down and grinned over at Hermes, gesturing over at the bag he had set down on the table before going to bed.
"Looks like a good harvest," he said. "No troubles?"
Hermes opened his mouth, about to tell him that the rumors were true and a fairy did live in the woods, but something stopped him.
The most foolish reason not to speak of it was that he didn't want Lavender to be right, damn her. Lavender was insufferable when she was right. The slightly better reason was that the fairy didn't seem interested in causing harm aside from frightening him with her request for his eyes, and he didn't want to convince everyone in the village that the woods were deadly without cause.
"None at all, no wolves or pixies," he said.
"That's good, hope we're as lucky next moon," Dean said brightly, not noticing any hesitancy. "Do you need help with any of it?"
"Could you grind up the red moss?" Hermes asked.
"Certainly."
They both cleaned their hands and the table, and then set to work. Preparing plants was never an enjoyable task—in fact, Hermes found himself missing Neville dearly, who was the best at anything to do with plants and was off to the larger town two rivers away for an apprenticeship due to it. But Dean was easy-going company and two pairs of hands made for lighter, faster work.
By a week later, he had almost forgotten the encounter with the fairy. There was a good chance she wouldn't seek him out again.
It was the next full moon, which meant it was another night of going through the woods for ingredients. Seamus had almost taken the job, but his mother fell ill and needed his care, so Hermes was walking out into the trees once more.
Time passed as it did the last trip. Some of the plants and mushrooms he was gathering were different, but the travel and actual act of gathering were the same. He was not as hopeful for mooncalfs, as it had rained a few days before, but there was still a chance.
He made it to the glade by the river again, and found himself glancing around half-expectantly at the cusps of trees as he made his way to the mushrooms. But even as he picked them slower than they warranted, he heard no rustling of trees jumping away from their mistress of the woods.
Just as he straightened up and accepted that the Great Fairy had no interest in crossing paths with him again—an idea he couldn't yet determine if he was glad or sorry for—there was the sound of shifting fabric. He whirled around to see the same red hair as last time.
She was as tall and beautiful as he remembered.
"Little witch," she said. "That necklace you bear—it holds the magic of Hattie Potter. I was not sure before, but now, I can't imagine how I mistook it."
Hermes startled. "You know—"
He trailed off, unwilling to give her his friend's name, even though she already seemed to have it.
The fairy smiled slowly, amused. "Yes, I know her, though she did not give me her name when she first found me. I hardly needed her to; every magical being, from hob to dwarf to fairy, knows the name Hattie Potter."
"Why?" Hermes said.
"Why? " the fairy repeated scornfully. "Why! Of all things to ask. Little witch, you must know."
She looked out into the night towards something Hermes could not see. There was something strange and terrible about her expression, some light of secret knowledge in her eyes.
"On the anniversary of her birth, she was marked when the devil attempted to rip her from her mother's arms, for reasons no one knows to this day. Not with sin, but with lightning, for she and her parents drove the devil back with powers not even my people know."
Hermes shuddered at the recollection of a tale Hattie had despised being known.
"I simply had to go see her when she came into my woods, my mother would have killed me to know I had not," the fairy said softly. "That girl… she's marked by fate, with that scar of hers. Lightning promises great power, yes, but terrible, destructive power. She'll be followed by mayhem and chaos like a loyal hound, and she'll know the greatest sorrows in the world.
"If she is lucky, which she cannot help but to be, she will know joys beyond description as well," she concluded.
Hermes stared down at the moss, a strange frustration building up in his chest. He wanted those great joys for her, wanted her to find her place beyond a village that didn't know what to do with her, but he wanted, quite selfishly, that she could do those things while by his side like when they were children.
"I wish—"
The fairy went inhumanly still, her eyes flashing to him, and at once Hermes found the words dying in his mouth and his jaw snapping shut without his accord.
"Do not ever wish in these woods, little witch," she rumbled lowly. "You can never know what eager ears hide away from you, waiting."
It took him a long few seconds of working his jaw before he could manage to speak again. "My apologies. I wasn't thinking."
"Many men are killed because they cannot think, by magic and beyond. Do not become one of them."
The words had all the force of an order, though the fairy did not raise her voice. She did not need to.
"I will not," he said, and hoped promising something to a fairy was not another act of foolishness. It did not seem like a bad thing to promise.
For a long moment the fairy said nothing else, and Hermes thought she was about to disappear then and there into the trees. But then she turned away from him, still looking out into the night air. He could just see her from the corner of his eye.
"Your girl will come back to you," the fairy said.
She had vanished by the time Hermes jerked his head up to look at her with wide eyes.
…he was not sure why he felt the need to tell her that Hattie was not his girl by any measure, but he did. Perhaps he would say it the next full moon.
Hermes all but bullied his way into having the harvest-picking job for the foreseeable future after it occurred to him what an honor it was to have a fairy tolerate his presence. Knowledge of fairies was rare and scattered, and there was one in the woods who allowed herself to speak to him!
The others were really rather glad to let him have it, as no one other than Neville enjoyed the work. Not even Hermes did, much preferring his books. But he stubbornly walked out into the humid air of the July night.
He did not do a sloppy job of collecting everything, for the day Hermes did sloppy work was the day he had been replaced by a changeling, but he made it quick. He made it to the glade in good time and let himself rest by the clear waters.
It was just as he began to nervously wonder if giving himself the harvesting job had been a foolish plan that there was the beating of wings and then the shifting of fabric. The figure of a woman stood at his side, looking down at him.
"So you've come again," she said. "Have all the other little witches been scared off by tales of me and the werewolves that run amongst the trails?"
Hermes knew the only werewolf around locked himself a cellar every full moon, faithfully guarded by a black hound. He did not mention as much.
"I'm rather good at foraging, lady," he said.
The fairy hummed agreeably. "I see. I shall expect you from now on, then."
"Your woods are wonderful, I'm glad to be allowed in them."
The woman tilted her head, one of her slow smiles creeping along her face. She had freckles, Hermes realized as the light shone on her. A great scattering of freckles that left no expanse of skin untouched.
"I have not always claimed these woods as mine," she told him. "My family hails from the south, though we have each gone our own way by word of my mother."
"What family do you have?" Hermes asked, terribly curious.
The look on her face was almost fond. "Oh, far too many brothers. The eldest, he's gone off to Camelot, for he loves the secrets of the world, and he would like it very much if some of us came with him in time."
Hermes' eyes widened at the word Camelot. Every witch in England and the nearby nations dreamed of finding Camelot, some with much more fervor than others.
"Hattie seeks out Camelot." He whispered it like it was sacred wisdom.
"And marked as she is, she shall find it," the fairy remarked. "Though my brother and the rest shall give her a share of trouble for it. The second, he dances with dragons in the courts of my mother, and the third seeks all knowledge in this land for Fairyland."
"A noble quest," Hermes said, a scholar himself.
The fairy laughed. "Yes, you would say as much. The fourth and fifth are twins, and jesters beyond all measure. They're up terrorizing the highest point of the north, though I'm sure they shall make their way down the whole of the land in time, causing as much havoc as they please, which is as much as possible.
"Then there is myself, the first daughter and sixth child. My sister is the seventh of the seventh, and far more beautiful than I."
"I can't see how that's possible," Hermes said, because the fairy was the most beautiful being he had ever seen.
She shook her head at him like he was being foolish. "You mortals, you have no sense of the beauty of things like fairies. She is the most beautiful in Fairyland."
The fairy went on before he could say more. "Never mind that. My sister guards the gates between the mortal and the fae, and often visits the first in Camelot. Perhaps your Hattie shall meet her."
Hermes plucked at a stray thread on his shirt. "I would hardly call her my Hattie. Just Hattie."
"So said," the fairy said vaguely. "Just Hattie might meet my sister, then."
Having the sense that this was a disagreeable topic, Hermes quickly asked. "What of you? Do you have a quest here?"
"Ah," said the fairy. Her gaze grew rather distant, almost sad. "My brothers and sister have claimed all the most interesting and laudable quests, and my talent for flight is no unique thing, so I have gone to do as I pleased. These woods are small, but they are mine. And you mortals are quite the sight when the individuals among you are not endlessly irritating."
"Flight is an amazing thing," Hermes proclaimed loyally. He did not care for it, though he admired the broom-maker, Oliver, for being able to give flight to those who wished it. "Perhaps you'll discover all ways of flying, and fly the highest of all."
"Perhaps I will, little witch," she said, appraising him with unreadable eyes. "Perhaps I will."
The next chance Hermes had to cross paths with the fairy was in August, as July was full of summer storms too dangerous to harvest supplies in. He met her just outside the glade as she picked apples from a tree, dropping them into the gathered basin of her skirt.
"Little witch," she greeted with pleasure.
"Lady," he returned, which made her eyes scrunch with some secret amusement.
"I did not know that fairies ate human food," he said.
There were a good number of apples in her dress, he wondered if she would really eat them all.
"Some do, some do not," said the fairy. "I enjoy it, though I have not had much. I smell wonderful things in the morning, when I go to the edge of the forest where the village starts, but have not tasted any of it."
She cocked her head like a bird. "You have a new bag."
"Ah, yes," he said, heaving it off his shoulder so she could see it. "The Malfoys have yet to come back to the village for three years now, so their abandoned belongings have been set among everyone else, wherever needed."
"The Malfoys?" the fairy said with some interest. "I killed them a few years back. Turned them into yew trees and guided a woodsman right to them."
Hermes felt his mouth go dry. "Ah. May I… ask why?"
"I couldn't stand their magic, so I got rid of them. Then I learned they were trying to bind a hob to them as a slave, which would be the reason for their awful presence." She examined an apple blithely. "Terrible fools, that's how one gets themselves killed by a particularly nasty boggart. If they hadn't come into my woods and been such irritating gnats, I'm sure they would have suffered an even worse fate."
That was rather alarming. Hermes had somehow managed to forget all of the more frightening tales of the Great Fairy of the Woods, and now they were coming back to him quickly. She could kill him at any moment, if she wished. It was not a pleasant thought.
"...I had wondered what happened to them," he said. He hadn't actually cared, for they were all deeply unpleasant people, but he had truly wondered.
The fairy flicked the apple away, apparently finding some flaw. "I can't imagine why you bothered to spare them a thought."
"I tend to wonder about things."
She glanced over towards him. "Yes, you are the curious sort, aren't you? Very dangerous, you know."
"Hopefully, I can keep myself from being killed too horribly," he said.
The fairy hummed, low and melodious. "You shall fear no risk here."
By my word alone, went unsaid.
"Are they the only men you've killed?" Hermes asked before he could help himself.
The fairy let out one of her loud laughs. "Little witch, that is a question that will get you killed. But yes, I certainly have.
"Several have attempted to catch and wed me, which I do not abide. McLaggen, the ceaseless fool, I turned into a carp and cast to the ground to die. Hm, there was the flaxen-haired one—I do not remember half their names, though most are stupid enough to give them. Yes, Flaxen-hair, he was a witch who could turn into a rat and tried to ride into Fairyland by my dress, so I drowned him." She picked another apple, twisting it in her hand.
After a few more moments of thought, she added, "The rest harmed my woods, so I twisted them into this or that plant or animal. There was a pack of hunters who tried to kill my white hart, so I made half deer and had the rest kill their fellows to eat and damned them with the consumption of human meat. But that is the only interesting one."
Hermes swallowed sharply. "Seems they got what they deserved," he demurred.
The fairy smiled down at her apple, slow and cruel. "Yes, they did, didn't they?"
She bit into the apple, still smiling. Hermes could not help but think she looked more beautiful yet.
"I have a request of you, little witch," the fairy declared.
Hermes jumped, almost dropping his bag and spilling all of his harvest into the grass. He could feel a shiver working up his spine—a fairy's request did not seem like something he would be able to deny. He worried about what on earth she could request of him even as he turned to face her.
"Yes, my lady?"
"I would like," she leaned over him, "a broom."
"A… broom?" he repeated.
"One of your flying brooms. I have heard about them, but have yet to see one," she was smiling, almost cheery, which was very strange with her otherworldly presence. "I would like to."
"I—yes, we have a broom-maker. I can ask him for one," he said.
"Very good," she said, blessedly leaning back some so Hermes had room to breathe.
He made the trip to Oliver's a few days before his next venture into the woods, and the man gave him a broom readily enough. It was one of the simple ones that were meant to hold one person and go only so fast.
"I thought you swore off these things," the man said.
Hermes shrugged, unwilling to say he was buying it for a fairy. "Sometimes Seamus would fly in the woods to bring back more supplies than he could carry himself, I thought I'd try a broom again to see if I could."
Oliver accepted that—and Hermes' coins—and so Hermes was off.
He flew the broom into the woods until he would no longer be seen from the tower and promptly got off the thing. Truthfully, he still did not enjoy having to trust a thin broom handle with his weight, and would rather just walk.
The fairy was waiting for him this time, sitting underneath a willow tree near the river bank. She peered between the leaves when his footsteps approached, and he could just barely see her smiling when she saw the broom in his hand.
Standing up, she waved for the willow to pull its bending branches away and met him in the middle of the glade. Hermes handed the broom over.
She examined it by holding it away from herself. "My, witch's runes are so interesting—so heavy. I can't imagine this poor thing flying, but it must."
Then, with that strange fluidity that she did all things with, the fairy moved it so she held it parallel to the ground behind her. She hopped on, sitting on it as one would sit side-saddle on a horse. It sunk some, but held her weight easily.
"You guide it by the top of the broom," he told her, one of the only reliable tips he could give about flying a broom.
"I would have assumed, little witch," she said.
She began circling it around the glade with infinitely more grace than Hermes had ever managed. It was completely natural to her, and her pleased face became even happier as she convinced it to go much faster than Oliver had probably intended, spiraling up towards the treetops.
With a jerk of the broom she shot up past the trees and into the night sky, rising and rising until he could barely see a dark pinprick against the colors of the sky. Just as he became concerned that the spells on the broom would give out, or that she would simply never return, she began to coast back down.
"Not at all disagreeable," she said as she breached the tall branches of the trees again. "Not at all. The sky feels quite different, being up there without a bird or bug's form."
"Not as fast as I would have liked, though," she added, dismounting.
"I'm sure that went as fast as any broom could," he said apologetically.
"Ah, time always brings new ideas," she said. "In a hundred years or so, you witches will have found solutions to make them faster."
"Perhaps."
The fairy set the broom gently against a tree. "Now, little witch, I shall show you something. Have you ever played Fairy Chess?"
"I can barely play mortal chess," he admitted, already dreading whatever would happen.
She laughed, loud and bright, the light in her eyes dancing. "I'll take pity, little witch, I'll take pity. You won't suffer total loss until the second game."
Hermes very much doubted that, but let her take his hand and lead him under the willow branches.
Fall shifted into winter, and so Hermes couldn't go out foraging for a good few months. He found himself more melancholy than he would have expected, looking out of the thin windows of the tower to the woods often.
Was she comfortable, he wondered. What did she do in the winter cold?
It was all very foolish. Several times he sternly reminded himself that fairies might not even care about the cold, and if she was upset by it she could simply winter in Fairyland until the woods became acceptable again. But he missed her and worried nonetheless.
The others noticed his sighing and moping, but put it up to the usual winter gloom and missing Hattie, which wasn't untrue. He missed her as well, but he was used to missing Hattie ever since she had set off for her quest. Missing the fairy, whose name he didn't even know, was new.
But the winter passed, as it always did. It was a busy time for the witches of the village, the new year being such a magical period and the villagers in need of spells and keepsakes either for practicality or as gifts for others.
Hermes threw himself into his work; researching rituals, gathering supplies and organizing what day would involve which rituals and blessings. It was familiar and soothing, and with time his ache for friends he could not contact faded.
Either they would come back to him, or he would come back to them.
Spring arrived like molasses off of a spoon, but it arrived.
He found the fairy sitting with her feet in the rushing current of the river. It would almost make her look mortal, such an ordinary action, if not for the way the mud seemed to refuse to spoil her green dress with its touch. Or the knowledge that the river must still be freezing cold. The moon shone, dappled, onto the red of her hair and the green-blue of the water.
"You've come back to me," she said.
"Of course," said Hermes.
She waved him to join her at the river and he did, refraining from putting his feet near the water. Her eyes were the same piercing blue he had thought of often as she looked at him.
"I could not see you at Yule, we fairies have our own holidays. Still, I have a present for you: the truth," she said with her slow smile. "I do not eat men's hearts, little witch. Only my sister does, of evil-doers."
"I don't consider myself an evil-doer."
Her eyes crinkled. "Most evil-doers don't. But I do not think you evil, little witch."
"Nor I, you," he said instead of thanks.
The fairy hummed. "That is my gift, but you have given me several gifts over the year past. I shall give you one more, you need only ask."
Hermes stared at her, stunned. But she did not take it back, or laugh. She just watched him with that wide, lazy smile that suited her so well.
There were a thousand things he could ask for. Some secret knowledge. A fairy boon. Safe passage through the woods for as long as he lived.
"...a kiss from you, great lady," he said.
Her blue eyes glinted in the moonlight as she smiled wider.
"You foolish man," she murmured. "Such desires have killed hundreds of men before you."
He swallowed. "I know, lady."
She caught his chin with her hand and leaned down to press her lips against his. Her fingers and lips were as hot as a fire. Just as quickly, the fairy drew away.
"As that was as much my desire as yours, I shall give you another gift," she said, her hand still cradling his chin. "Your village shall come to no harm from me without due cause, and you shall come visit me beyond full moon nights, little witch."
She tilted his head so he had to look at her. "I have become very fond of you."
"Thank you," he said breathlessly, for lack of anything better.
The smile on her face was her sweetest yet. "Do not thank fairies, little witch. You must repay me some day soon."
She stood up, turned, and vanished into the sky as a bird. Hermes watched her go, certain that whatever payment she asked for, he would enjoy it as much as her.