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bookishwenchNumber 12 in the Muggle fairy tale series. The earlier ones can be found here
The earlier ones can be found here:
Cinder-What-the-Hell?-a
Snow Wh-at-Are-You-Kidding-Me?-ite
Sleeping Bea-You-People-Are-Mad-ty
Little Red Riding Ho-w-Is-That-Possible?-od
Rumple-Still-As-Crazy-As-Ever-tskin
The Frog Pr-in-What-Way-Is-That-Possible?-ince
Rap-solutely-mental-unzel
Jack the Giant Kill(-Me-Now!)-er
Hansel and Gr(eat-Now-I'm-Hungry)etel
Goldilocks and the Three B(e-Serious-Now!)ear
Beauty and the (Un)Be(freaking-lievable!)ast
Author: Meltha
Rating: PG-13
Feedback: Yes, thank you.
Spoilers: Through book 7.
Summary: Hermione tells the boys the tale of Hans Christian Andersen’s “The Little Seamaid.”
Author’s Note: Sorry this took so long.
Disclaimer: All characters are owned by J. K. Rowling, a wonderful author whose characters I have borrowed for a completely profit-free flight of fancy. Kindly do not sue me, please, as I am terrified of you. Thank you.
The Little Mer-(eally-Deeply-Disturbing)-maid
It was raining for the fifth day in a row, and the tent was starting to get soggy. It didn’t even help that they kept switching locations from day to day. All of England, Wales, and Scotland seemed to be drowning in rain. This night, their temporary home was perched precariously on a cliff above the sea, and the sound of the waves was mixing with the lightning and thunder. No matter how many times a day Hermione muttered “Impervious,” at the leaking ceiling, a new drip was bound to pop up as soon as the old one was plugged. Her mood wasn’t helped much by the fact the humidity was slowly turning her hair into a rather sizable afro, something Ron had made a habit of pointing out at least three times already that day. Harry was staring at the locket again, wondering exactly what was inside it and whether Norbert might be able to melt it if he could manage to track him down in Romania.
“Is there any fish left?” Ron asked, looking up from Hermione’s Arithmancy textbook, a sure sign he was now as bored as humanly possible.
“No,” Hermione said. “We were lucky to be able to summon that one, and I don’t think it’s a good idea to try again in the middle of this storm.”
Ron grimaced, then threw the book on the pillow beside him.
“Story,” he said without further preamble.
Hermione looked at him with disbelief.
“Pigsfeet,” she said. “Lint. Zebra. Tapestry. Mandolin.”
Ron looked at her as though she’d gone mad.
“What? If you want to try using a single word command as a request for me to tell you another fairy tale, I should have the right to reply in an equally disjointed and rude way,” Hermione said, rummaging through her little beaded bag, “particularly when you just came dangerously close to abusing one of my books.”
“She’s got you there, mate,” Harry said, shrugging. “She still hasn’t forgiven me for almost getting jam on her copy of Traveling with Trolls.”
“You’ve still got that thing?” Ron said, mouth agape.
“My reading matter is my own business, I think,” Hermione said, finally retrieving a hair tie from the bottom of her apparently cavernous bag. “So shall we try this again?”
“Hermione,” Ron said, batting his eyelashes, “would you please do us the honor of telling us another one of your fabulously bizarre and completely mental fairy tales that should put all Muggle children in therapy for the rest of their lives?”
Hermione sighed, but Harry was glad to see she looked amused.
“Fine,” Hermione said, then closed her eyes for a moment, looking as though she were trying to decide on the next tale. “Considering our location, let’s have the story of ‘The Little Seamaid.’”
“What’s a seamaid?” Ron asked.
“A mermaid,” Hermione said, and Harry could tell she was already starting to regret agreeing to yet another round of this. Frankly, that was usually what he enjoyed best about the evening’s entertainment.
“So why don’t they just call her a mermaid then?” Ron asked.
“I don’t know. Some versions do call her the little mermaid instead, but the closest translation from the original Danish is actually seamaid,” Hermione said.
“It’s about a breakfast roll?” Ron said, looking completely confused.
“The Danish language,” Hermione said, and Harry suspected she was already biting her tongue to keep from screaming. “The story was written by a man named Hans Christian Andersen in Denmark.”
“Oh,” Ron said, his features downcast. “I was rather hoping this one was about food again. So she’s a seamaid. Hey, what do they call the men, then?” he asked, suddenly looking sly.
“I suppose they’d be called…” but Hermione stopped cold in her tracks and gave him a withering glare. “Mermen. Mermaids and mermen. Alright then?”
“Fine,” Ron said, looking innocent but throwing a wicked look at Harry the moment Hermione’s gaze was elsewhere.
“Muggles know about mermaids?” Harry asked, desperate to get the conversation back on a level keel.
“A bit, but not much of what they know is right, and it’s changed over the years,” Hermione said. “They think mermaids are beautiful women that have a fishtail from the waist down. In the older stories they sang sailors to their deaths during storms like this one.”
“So kind of like the mermaid in the Prefects’ bathroom,” Harry said, remembering the rather flirty painting.
“Yes,” Hermione said. “Annoying, isn’t she?”
“Completely,” Ron said, but Harry had heard Ron go on about her charms often enough in the year he’d been a prefect that he was completely sure that ‘annoying’ wasn’t in the list of the top fifty adjectives he would have used to describe her. “Do go on.”
“Well, once upon…”
“…a time,” Ron said, motioning for her to continue.
“Yes, Ronald,” she said, and Harry began to worry that the lines in her forehead might become permanent. “In the sea there lived a great sea-king and his seven daughters, the princesses of the sea, along with their grandmother. Each was as lovely as could be, but the youngest one was the most beautiful of all.”
“Seven kids,” Ron said, looking at Harry. “Nice not to be the only one to know what it feels like to fight for the loo in the morning.”
“They lived in a gigantic palace, Ron,” Hermione said. “I doubt that was much of an issue.”
“Maybe,” Ron said, “but then again, with seven daughters and a grandmother, I’m betting the poor dad still has to make a reservation even in his own palace.”
Hermione rolled her eyes but continued on.
“The seven daughters were raised by their grandmother to be elegant and beautiful, and she told them stories of the world above, the strange animals that lived there and the tall buildings, and flowers and trees and birds. The princesses were not allowed to go above the water until their fifteenth birthday, and because they were kept in suspense, they thought and dreamed a good deal about the strange world above,” Hermione said.
“Wait, there’s seven daughters, and none of them are fifteen yet,” Ron said, working a sum on his hands. “Were any of them twins?”
“No,” Hermione said. “Why?”
“Just, okay, if each one of them is under fifteen, and there’s seven of them, then the youngest one would have to be what, eight or so years old?” Ron said.
Hermione squinted at the tent roof, obviously doing the math in her head.
“While highly unlikely, yes, the maximum age would be about eight years old,” Hermione said.
“So, at eight the kid is already the most beautiful of them all?” Ron asked. “There’s just something deeply wrong with that.”
“It’s a fairy tale thing, Ron,” Hermione said, sighing. “Remember, Snow White was almost as lovely as the queen when she was just a child too.”
“None of these girls ever goes through an awkward stage with spots and gangly legs?” Ron asked. “Doesn’t really seem fair.”
“A mermaid wouldn’t exactly be likely to have gangly legs. Besides, they’re magical princesses, Ronald,” Hermione said. “Please, just go with it, alright?”
“Fine, but it’s still weird,” Ron said, turning to Harry. “I’m betting even Madam Rosmerta was a little homely at some point, though.”
“Most likely,” Hermione said, seeming almost to smile for a moment, then continuing on. “When the eldest sister had her chance to go to the world above, she came down again and told her little sisters all about the land and the strange places there, and each sister pined in turn to see all the amazing things above the sea.”
“Pined?” Ron said.
“It means really wanted to,” Hermione said.
“I know what it means, but still, ‘pined’? You’re laying the old timey talk on a little thick there, aren’t you?” Ron said.
“It’s a perfectly acceptable English word,” Hermione said, looking rather prim.
“Okay, but the moment you start using lemman or mickle or something, I’m out of here, rain or no,” Ron said, nodding in determination.
“Since when do you know the fifteenth century term for sweetheart?” Hermione said, looking genuinely surprised.
“Since I caught Nick writing the Fat Lady a sonnet last Valentine’s Day,” Ron said, shuddering. “Some things just shouldn’t be imagined.”
“Fine. Each of the sisters waited in turn for their birthdays, and each of them saw something different: a great thunderstorm or icebergs floating among ships or children bathing at the beach or what have you, but the littlest mermaid, who had the longest to wait, was the one who wanted most of all to go above,” Hermione said.
“Not much fun being the youngest,” Ron said. “Everything winds up being a hand-me-down, and you never do get to be the first to do much of anything.”
“You’re not the youngest in your family,” Harry pointed out. “That’s Ginny.”
“I know, but it’s different since she’s the only girl in I don’t know how many generations,” Ron said. “It’s not like Dad made her wear Percy’s old trainers.”
Personally, Harry thought Ginny would have looked wonderful even in a beat up pair of Percy’s old shoes, but he decided to keep mum on that topic.
“Finally, the youngest sister turned fifteen, and her grandmother dressed her regally since she was now a grown up princess,” Hermione said.
“She was grown up at fifteen?” Ron asked.
“Yes,” Hermione said. “In Muggle culture back in olden times, people were sometimes married off quite young since they didn’t live very long. In Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, Juliet is only thirteen and her parents arrange a marriage for her, with her mother mentioning she got married when she was only twelve.”
“Uh… huh,” Ron said. “So this Shakespeare chap has been dead a long time, right?”
“Yes,” Hermione said, “almost four hundred years.”
“Good. Sounds like a right perv,” Ron said, shaking his head. “Anyway, go on. How’d Gran dress up—wait, what’s her name?”
“She doesn’t have one,” Hermione said. “When Disney made the movie years later, they called her Ariel.”
“Like Prospero’s servant spirit?” Ron said. “Wasn’t Ariel a boy?”
“Well, that’s left kind of vague in The Tempest,” Hermione said. “Wait, how do you know about that play? I thought you didn’t know anything about Shakespeare.”
“I don’t,” Ron said. “Prospero’s on a Chocolate Frog card.”
“Oh,” Hermione said. “Well, that does explain it, though now I’m wondering how Shakespeare found out about a real wizard. It could even be possible that Midsummer Night’s Dream is based on reality, with Titania and Oberon being based on actual fairies from the time period or historical conglomerations of multiple powerful beings. Perhaps Puck might actually be an archetype from one of the lesser-known pixie species. But if Shakespeare did have knowledge of actual wizarding practices, it sheds a different light on his treatment of the three witches in, um, the Scottish play.”
Ron had been nearly on the point of napping again when he noticed Hermione’s hesitation.
“The Scottish play?” Ron asked. “That’s what he named it? Bit of a boring title.”
“No,” Hermione said carefully. “It’s just that many Muggles consider it bad luck to say the name of that play unless they’re actually performing it. I don’t like to be superstitious, but it does seem like we can’t be too careful at the moment.”
“They won’t say the name?” Harry said, his interest suddenly peaked. “That seems awfully familiar. It’s almost like Vol…”
“Will you just not say that!” Ron yelped, slapping a cushion over Harry’s mouth. “It makes me nervous.”
“Sorry,” Harry’s muffled voice said through the pillow.
“Good,” Ron said, drawing his attention back to Hermione. “So we’ll skip the Scottish play. This Shakespeare sounds like a bit of a weirdo.”
“He also wrote a play called The Winter’s Tale with a character named Hermione in it,” she said with a wry expression. “She’s where my parents got my name from.”
“Oh,” Ron said, glancing at Harry. “Well, that explains it, I suppose.”
“Explains what?” Hermione said.
“Well, your name’s a bit unusual, yeah?” Ron said, and Harry silently sent mental pleadings for him to shut it before Hermione’s temper blew a completely unrepairable hole in the tent.
“You have a sister named Ginevra, and we go to school with Luna, Astoria, Cho, and Draco, and we know a Filius, Mundungus, Daedalus, Bellatrix, Narcissa, Lucius, and Walpurga,” Hermione said, almost visibly shaking.
“Well, yeah, those are normal names,” Ron said. “Your name’s odd.”
Harry quickly interposed himself between the two of them before Ron tempted her towards justifiable murder.
“So how did the grandmother dress up the youngest mermaid?” Harry asked, desperately hoping the ploy would work.
Hermione snapped her head towards him, her eyes actually sparking in the dim light of the tent, while Ron looked like he might have finally figured out he had made a serious tactical error, especially since they were camped so close to a cliff.
“New seashells?” Ron said tentatively with a weak smile.
Hermione took a deep, steadying breath, then shook her shoulders.
“Actually, yes,” she said, apparently having decided to let the whole thing go via one of the most massive acts of will power Harry had witnessed thus far. “She let eight oysters attach themselves to the mermaid’s tail as decoration, and the girl said that it hurt, but the grandmother said that beauty must suffer pain.”
“Yow,” Ron said. “How pretty can she be if she’s wandering around in agony because the equivalent of eight Monster Book of Monsters is biting into her fin?”
“Good point, but it’s practically the same thing as wearing high heels,” Hermione said.
“They hurt that much?” Ron asked, actually appearing interested.
“Imagine shoving your feet into a pair of oboes and then trying to walk on tiptoe all night,” Hermione said.
“Okay,” Ron said, wincing. “I suddenly feel extra sorry for Ashyweeper and her glass shoes.”
“So the youngest mermaid was allowed at long last to rise to the surface of the ocean and see the human world for the first time,” Hermione said. “When she first poked her head through the waves, she could see a great ship with many lights blazing on its deck. It was growing dark…”
“Wait, dark?” Ron cut in. “How long did it take Grandma to shove eight oysters on her grand-kid’s fin anyway? She wasted the whole day!”
Hermione looked strained, but continued on gamely, “There was a wonderful fireworks display going on, and she was stunned by the beauty of the brightly colored flowers in the air drifting towards their reflections in the water.”
“Oh, so it’s a dramatic time shift,” Ron said, nodding knowledgably. “I wasn’t supposed to notice the gap in events because it was more important for the pretty scenery to come in. And it is pretty. Fireworks on the water… kind of reminds me of the Quidditch World Cup.”
“Yeah,” Harry chimed in, remembering the day fondly. “The Bulgarians and Irish had some really cool stuff in the air that night.”
“Yeah,” Ron said, looking excited. “Do you remember the Omnioculars we bought? I used them to watch someone in the third row pick his nose over and over again.”
“I tell them the lead up to the most romantic part of the whole bloody story and he starts talking about—that,” Hermione muttered to herself. “There is absolutely no hope at all, none.”
“Hmm?” Ron said, seeming to remember she was there. “What did you say?”
“Not a thing,” Hermione said. “At any rate, during all of this, the little mermaid looked at a young boy who stood on the deck watching the fireworks. He was dressed very regally, and she assumed he must be a prince. She couldn’t help thinking he was extremely handsome.”
“Uh-oh,” Ron said, looking at Harry. “I’m sensing Cupid’s twanging bow.”
“Quite,” Hermione said. “The little mermaid fell head over heels in love at first sight with the young prince, but suddenly a vicious storm came up, and before she knew it, the prince’s ship was cracking to pieces in the high waves.”
“Shoddy workmanship, that,” Ron said, shaking his head. “Boats really should stay afloat. It’s sort of the definition of the thing, yeah?”
“Well, regardless of the skills of the boat wrights who built the ship, she split to pieces,” Hermione said.
“Who did?” Ron asked, looking alarmed.
“The ship,” Hermione said, staring at him as though he’d grown another head.
“But you said ‘she split,’” Ron pointed out. “Who’s she?”
“Muggles use the feminine pronoun to refer to ships sometimes, as well as automobiles, planes, spaceships, motorbikes, that sort of thing,” Hermione said.
Ron looked at Harry, sensing he was treading dangerous waters.
“Ehm, why is the boat a girl?” he asked.
“No idea,” Harry said. “Hermione?”
“I suppose it could have to do with the innate possessiveness associated with owning a member of the female sex as well as a certain fondness for the object and a desire to personify something that essentially is responsible for the safety and welfare of those riding it,” Hermione said, squinting one eye shut and staring towards the roof of the tent. “I’m rather surprised at myself for falling into the idiom without questioning it. It’s obviously sexist but perhaps not overtly misogynistic.”
“Oh, well that’s good then,” Ron said, and Harry could tell he was making a desperate stab in the dark. When Hermione didn’t immediately answer but remained rapt in her own bemusement, he quickly shifted gears and said, “I mean, it’s bad and awful and terrible and repressive and shockingly… and stuff.”
Hermione shook her head as though to clear it, then gave him an odd look.
“Yes,” she said, though Harry couldn’t tell which end of Ron’s thoughts she was agreeing with. “In any case, the ship went to the bottom of the sea, leaving bits of flotsam and jetsam dotting the murky waters along with one little mermaid who was looking about in vain for the prince.”
“That’s nice,” Ron said, frowning. “Just ignore all the other blokes who are drowning because she’s got to find Prince I-Don’t-Know-His-Name-But-He’s-Fit-So-I-Looooove-Him.”
“Well, she’s a mermaid,” Hermione said, shrugging. “Normally she and her sisters would be luring sailors to their deaths out of habit, so it’s at least a step in the right direction.”
“Okay, I guess that’s progress,” Ron said, swallowing hard.
Personally, Harry suddenly found that stained glass window in the Prefects bathroom a lot less alluring.
“So did the mermaid find him before he kicked off?” Harry asked.
“Yes,” Hermione said, “she pulled the prince from the wreckage. He was unconscious, and she carefully kept his head above water all through the night, watching over him and kissing his brow.”
Ron grimaced.
“Nice that she kept him from drowning to death, but couldn’t she have just refrained from, you know, molesting him?” he said.
“She’s more than a little forward, yes,” Hermione said. “Reminds me a little of Romilda Vane”
“Reminds me more of Colin Creevey’s brother and the Giant Squid in his first year,” Harry said. “Remember when he fell out of the boat crossing the lake and it saved him?”
“Yeah,” Ron said, looking nostalgic. “I miss old Squiddy. Hope You-Know-Who doesn’t have a thing against oversized sealife.”
“In any case, when dawn broke, she was still pillowing his head on her breast as she pushed them towards land,” Hermione said.
Harry started to cough rather forcefully at that particular image, but oddly Ron appeared to be trying to figure something out.
“Nope,” he finally admitted. “I can’t suss out the anatomy on that one, even with a fishtail.”
“Just go with it,” Hermione said. “At long last they reached a beach with a lovely little church and convent, the bells just pealing to welcome the dawn, and she carefully laid him on the beach, then hid herself near the water’s edge by cloaking her head in sea foam, waiting to see who would come to him and if he would wake.”
“Sea foam as camouflage,” Harry said. “Okay, I can see that.”
“Until a high wind comes up anyway,” Ron said. “So who found him?”
“A group of girls processing from morning services to the school at the convent were walking along the edge of the beach, and one, the most beautiful of them, noticed the prince lying on the sand. She called for help and then knelt beside him, and at once he opened his eyes and began to show signs of life,” Hermione said.
“So he’ll be okay,” Ron said. “Well, that’s nice anyway. The mermaid saved his life.”
“Actually, the prince said the girl had saved his life,” Hermione said.
“What, by not tripping over him?” he said.
Hermione shrugged and nodded.
“Muggles are weird,” Ron said to Harry. “So what’d the seamaid, mermaid, mersea, whatever, do?”
“Well, she went back to her father’s palace below the sea, but she was heartbroken. She began spending all her time in her garden, for she had found a life-size statue of the prince that had fallen from the wrecked ship, and she put it beneath a great tree of coral at the very center. She spent hours wrapped around the statue, longing for him,” Hermione said.
“This girl needs to get a life,” Ron said.
“Yeah,” Harry said. “She’s starting to sound a little creepy.”
“There’s a limit,” Ron agreed. “I mean, when you had a thing for Cho in fifth year, you didn’t actually try to make out with her picture or something.”
“No,” Harry said, “but I’ve caught you sneaking a goodnight kiss to your picture of Cindy Crawford.
Harry was at once pummeled with a sofa cushion, and Ron blushed so brightly his freckles disappeared entirely into the redness.
“The little mermaid refused to tell anyone what was bothering her, but she did speak to her grandmother, asking her about the lands above the water,” Hermione said.
“The same one that stuck painful shellfish on her tail?” Ron asked.
“The very same,” Hermione said.
“Somehow I don’t think that’s going to end well,” he said.
“’Grandmother,’ she asked,” and here Hermione spoke in her usual high falsetto she reserved for female fairy tale characters, “’Do humans ever die like we do?’”
“Argh! That’s it, the prince needs a restraining order pronto!” Ron said, looking honestly terrified. “Of all the things she can ask, that’s her number one pressing question?”
“Do I even want to know why she’s asking that?” Harry said, wondering if he had turned as green as his eyes.
“Oh, it just gets better at this point,” Hermione said, and Harry noted she was actually enjoying this a bit. “The grandmother explained that yes, people died, but they didn’t live as long as merpeople do, who all live to be a hundred years old.”
“Okay, that’s wrong on a bunch of counts,” Ron said. “First off, Dumbledore was human and lived to be over 150, so we’ve got them beat there.”
“Yes, but that’s wizards,” Hermione said. “Muggles don’t usually make it to one hundred, and none of them ever live that long.”
“Fine, Muggles are in delicate health, but every single merperson just collapses in a heap on their hundredth birthday?” Ron said.
“According to the grandmother in the story, yes,” Hermione said.
“Okay, that’s deeply depressing, but then what happened to the little seamaid’s mum?” Ron said, folding his arms in satisfaction as though he’d found a flaw in one of Percy’s cauldron-bottom reports.
“I… I don’t know,” said Hermione, honestly surprised. “She’s obviously dead in the story, but if the seamaid’s grandmother is still alive, her mother should be as well.”
“Well spotted, Ron,” Harry said, giving him a bow in respect.
“Thank you,” he said, smiling smugly.
Hermione, meanwhile, was chewing on her lip and staring into space.
“Ehm, Hermione?” Ron asked, waving a hand in front of her face. “You still in there?”
“Andersen never stipulates whether the grandmother is paternal or maternal,” she said as though she were talking to herself. “If she’s the paternal grandmother, the father is still alive, so that would be acceptable, though it would suggest the king married a seamaid significantly older than he was, actually older than his own mother. However, it’s never stated whether or not the merpeople age, except, no, wait, the grandmother is definitely described as having gray hair. Now, if she’s the maternal grandmother, then her daughter would have predeceased her, meaning the mermaid’s mother couldn’t have reached one hundred. If so, that means that merpeople live a century unless there’s an accident or violence of some kind, raising the specter of foul play.”
Harry and Ron looked at each other. If they didn’t intervene, this could go on indefinitely.
“Tuna boat,” Ron said.
“Huh?” Hermione said, snapping back.
“She got caught in one of those illegal tuna nets that nab dolphins,” Ron said.
“That’s terrible! I don’t want the little seamaid’s mother to have died in a tuna net!” Hermione said, looking traumatized.
“Okay, okay, no tuna net!” Ron backpedaled, looking to Harry for help.
“Let’s just assume that something happened that the story didn’t cover and leave it at that,” Harry said.
“Fine,” Hermione said, giving a little shudder.
Harry was pretty sure that when this whole Horcrux mess was over, she was going to start a companion group to SPEW that focused on proper tuna harvesting techniques.
“So, merpeople usually live to a hundred years and then kick off,” Ron said helpfully. “Go on.”
“Right,” Hermione said, pulling herself together. “The grandmother went on to say that although humans lived shorter lives, they had immortal souls capable of going to heaven when they died, but merpeople, though they lived longer, just turned to foam on the sea when they died and didn’t have a soul.”
Ron blinked.
“Well, that’s specist of old Andersen,” Ron said indignantly. “Why does he assume the only sentient beings on the planet with souls are humans?”
Harry didn’t say much, but he thought of Sirius and Dumbledore, Mad-Eye and Cedric, his mum and dad, and he hoped Andersen was right on at least half of that.
“Oh, that’s only part of it,” Hermione said. “The grandmother explained that there was a way for a mermaid to earn a soul.”
“Well, that’s peachy,” Ron said. “What’s that?”
“If a mermaid could make a human man fall in love with her and married him, when the priest joined their hands, her husband would give her a soul while retaining his own,” Hermione said.
“Oh, come off it!” Ron said. “Seriously? If she marries some bloke she gets a soul out of the bargain?”
“It’s an anti-Horcrux,” Harry said in a flash of realization. “The husband splits his soul without committing a murder, and that’s why it stays whole instead of being damaged.”
Hermione and Ron looked at one another in shock.
“You’re right,” Hermione said, her voice shaky. “It really does sound like that, doesn’t it? I wonder how Andersen knew about dark magic?”
“Creepy,” Ron said, shuddering. “And here I was thinking the weirdest part of all this was that the story was really, deeply, scarily sexist and treated women like incomplete moral beings without the guidance of a supposedly superior male proprietor.”
Harry’s and Hermione’s eyes nearly bugged out of their heads.
“What?” Ron said. “You were thinking it too.”
“Yes,” Hermione said carefully, “I was. Almost verbatim. I just didn’t think you were.”
Ron smiled beatifically and motioned for her to go on with the story.
“In any case, after the little mermaid’s conversation with the grandmother, one of her sisters eventually realized something was bothering her,” Hermione said.
“Big clue there was little sis trying to jump a hunk of granite,” Ron mumbled out of the corner of his mouth to Harry.
“Finally she confided in one of her sisters, and that sister told the other five, and then the sisters told their most intimate friends who told only their very closest acquaintances,” Hermione said.
“And by that time, the secret had warped so much in the telling that everyone thought kid sister had eloped with Stubby Boardman and was plotting to take over Bulgaria,” Ron said.
“Considering the rumour mill at Hogwarts, that wouldn’t be unlikely, but as it happened one of the other mermaids knew where the prince lived, in a castle built right beside the sea, and the little mermaid followed her there to see what had become of the prince,” Hermione explained.
“I suppose dropping in once to see if the fellow’s all right after that many hours unconscious is fairly reasonable,” Ron said. “Maybe actually introducing herself.”
“Every night she swam up the canal to the castle, where the prince’s bedroom had a balcony over the water, and she would rise out of the ocean, her arms raised beseechingly, hoping to catch the smallest glimpse of him from the shadows,” Hermione said.
“And we’re right back in the land of Deeply Disturbing,” Harry said. “She peeps in his window? Isn’t that illegal?”
“Really, it’s not all that different from Romeo standing under Juliet’s balcony window and eavesdropping on her,” Hermione said.
“Yeah, but he only did that the one time, not every night, and he was honest about it and owned up to the fact he was there after a bit,” Ron said. “Besides, I always sort of suspected she knew he was there anyway. Who wanders onto a balcony and starts blithering to no one about that really cute boy she just met and how much she hopes he asks her out unless she thinks he’s standing there hiding in the bushes?”
Hermione blinked. Harry blinked.
“What?” Ron asked.
“I thought you said earlier you didn’t know anything about Shakespeare?” Harry asked in complete disbelief.
“Okay, so I read that one once,” Ron admitted sheepishly.
“Closely enough to have come up with staging directions and motivations for the sequence of dialogue in the balcony scene?” Hermione said, narrowing her eyes.
“I got bored one day when we were shut in during that freak snowstorm in Cornwall three weeks ago, grabbed a book out of your beaded bag and started reading,” Ron said.
“You brought Shakespeare on a Horcrux hunt?” Harry said, refocusing his look of bewilderment on Hermione. “What for?”
“It’s Shakespeare,” Hermione said, looking unruffled. “He’s appropriate for any situation.”
“So, anyway, the little stalkermaid is floating about, staring in the prince’s bedroom window at night and generally behaving like she’s gone right round the twist,” Ron said, obviously trying to move on from his perusal of the romances of the bard. “Then what?”
“Her father, the king of the merpeople, threw a party,” Hermione said.
“And she plucked up the courage to ask the prince?” Ron said, brightening.
“No,” Hermione said. “Besides, how would he go to a party at the bottom of the ocean?”
“Bubblehead charm?” Harry suggested. “Gillyweed?”
“Partial human transformation into a really stupid looking shark/man?” Ron mumbled almost inaudibly.
“All right, so there are ways,” Hermione huffed, “but not if you’re a Muggle.”
“Scuba diving gear?” Harry said.
“Fine! So there are ways even if you are a Muggle, but not in the 1700s or whenever this is bloody well supposed to have happened!” Hermione all but screamed, then paused. “Well, aside from diving bells, but they wouldn’t solve the problem of the massive water pressure at that depth. In any case, no, she did not ask the prince to the ball!”
“Fine,” Ron said. “She was too scared to ask him. Whatever.”
“Yes, because it’s so easy to ask the person you fancy to go to a ball,” Harry said, sarcasm in his tone.
“Well, you eventually got up the nerve,” Ron said as though he were trying to make Harry feel better.
“Not him, you idiot,” Hermione said, snorting. “I believe he meant you.”
“I… what?” Ron said, suddenly looking cornered.
“Wasn’t it Harry who ended up getting Parvati to ask Padma to go to the Yule Ball with you?” Hermione said. “If he hadn’t, you’d have been stuck up in Gryffindor Tower alone, what was the phrase you used in regards to me, ‘crying your eyes out’?”
“Oh,” Ron said, looking as though somehow he’d been let off the hook. “Well, if you want to get technical about it, yeah, though I don’t think I’d be doing much weeping.”
“So the little mermaid was called upon to sing at the ball, and she was judged to have the most beautiful voice of all the merfolk, who of course had voices far lovelier than any heard on land,” Hermione said.
“So, out of desperation for her one true love, the little mermaid wins a singing competition?” Harry said.
“That’s odd,” Ron said, smiling, “but at least it’s healthy. She went out and got some other interests to take her mind off things.”
“Then later than night she ran away from home to make a deal with the Sea Witch so she could win the prince’s love,” Hermione said.
“So not so much with the outside interests then,” Ron said. “I’ve got to hand it to the kid on one thing, though. She’s tenacious.”
“The Sea Witch lived on the other side of a horrible collection of underwater polyps that tried to grab anything that went past, strangling them to death, so the little mermaid decided the best plan was to—“
“Go home,” Ron cut in.
“Probably, but she decided to propel herself through the field as quickly as possible, hoping they wouldn’t grab her. She rocketed forward with all her strength, and the polyps reached out their horrid tentacles towards her, but they couldn’t catch her. She saw all sorts of things they were holding, skeletons of fish and people, and even a mermaid,” Hermione said.
“Hey! Maybe that’s her mum!” Ron cried as though he’d solved the world’s greatest mystery.
Hermione considered for a moment, then said slowly, “Possibly.”
“Yeah, and she didn’t turn into foam on the water, either,” Harry said. “What’s up with that?”
“Yeah, Gran’s story seems to be full of some pretty gaping holes,” Ron said.
“I… I don’t know,” Hermione said, throwing her hands up in despair. “Even if the grandmother’s story isn’t full of holes, Andersen’s is at any rate.”
“Yeah, but then so are all of the rest of them,” Ron said reasonably. “They’re still a decent way to pass the time. What else are we going to do? Shadow puppetry on the tent wall?”
Harry tried very hard to school his features into an expression that would be worn by someone who hadn’t been trying to create the silhouette of a Hippogriff next to the kitchen sink three hours ago.
“Fine, well, when she got to the witch’s house, the old woman already knew why she had come. ‘So, you want to go ashore to win the prince’s heart, do you,” said the witch,” Hermione said, providing the witch with a suitably crackly voice.
“So, what, the witch is a Legilimens?” Ron asked.
“Perhaps,” Hermione said, considering. “It would explain a lot. Then she went back to feeding her pet toads with sugar cubes from her mouth.”
“Eugh!” Harry and Ron chorused together.
“That is just plain unsanitary!” Ron said, shuddering.
“Yeah, even Neville never did that with Trevor,” Harry said.
“Be about the only way he’d ever get a kiss, though,” Ron said with a snort.
“I think you’re selling Neville short,” Hermione said primly, looking very offended. “There are lots of girls who think he’s quite wonderful.”
“Oh, come off it,” Ron said. “Neville’s an alright sort as far as he goes, but seriously, I think Colin Creevey might be able to beat him up.”
“Why do boys always assume girls choose the attractiveness of boys based on whom they’re capable of besting in physical competition?” Hermione said, highly annoyed. “Why on earth would anyone even want to beat up poor Colin?”
“Cause they can?” Ron offered lamely.
Harry heard Hermione muttering some choice words under her breath about the fate of humanity based on the relative morality of adolescent males, but a moment later she continued the story.
“The Sea Witch agreed to help the little mermaid get a pair of legs so she could walk about on land,” Hermione said.
“Okay, well, that’s nice enough,” Harry said. “At least this story has a positive portrayal of witches in it.”
“Leaving out the whole toad-sugar-cube-kissing thing,” Ron added.
“Not exactly,” Hermione said. “Her payment was to be the best thing the littler mermaid had.”
“Her crown?” Harry guessed.
“Her multiple painful oysters stuck on her tail?” Ron asked.
“Her… mermaids don’t really seem to have a whole lot of possessions,” Harry said.
“No, her voice,” Hermione said.
“Um… seriously?” Ron said. “The Sea Witch wants to make her have chronic laryngitis?”
“No, she wants to cut out her tongue,” Hermione said, looking rather green herself.
Harry looked back and forth between the two of them, trying to decide who was in danger of getting sick first. Personally, he was feeling more than a bit nauseous himself. He was also starting to wonder whether the Dursleys might not have done him a bit of a favor by saying he couldn’t read fairy tales.
“That is just plain repulsive and makes no sense at all!” Ron finally spat out. “Blech! I mean, what’s she going to do, make a necklace out of it or something?”
“No, she wanted to put it in the potion with the rest of the ingredients,” Hermione said.
“That’s just… okay, there’s dark magic, and then there’s bloody freaking pitch black dark magic, and then there’s this!” Ron yelled. “I hope the kid wised up, went home, and married some nice Hinkypunk or something.”
“No, she agreed,” Hermione said, “even after the witch warned her that the potion would make it feel as though she were being cut in two with a sword and that every step she took would be as though she trod on razor sharp knives.”
“Mental,” Ron said, shaking his head sadly. “That’s not even funny anymore. She’s just plain sick.”
“She also warned her that on the morning after the prince married someone else, the mermaid’s heart would break, and she would at once turn to foam on the ocean, disappearing into oblivion with no soul and no hope of an afterlife,” Hermione added.
“This is not a good deal,” Ron said. “This is a very, very bad deal.”
Harry nodded numbly. Granted, though, most of Hermione’s stories usually ended happily for the main character, so perhaps things weren’t as bleak as they seemed.
“I quite agree,” Hermione said. “However, the little mermaid took the potion from her, rose to the surface, lay down on the beach, and then drank it down. The Sea Witch had been true to her word, and a pain as though a sword were slicing her in half burned white hot through her body until she passed out. When she awoke, still in pain, she found she had two of the loveliest legs in all the world.”
“Great, so she’s Betty bloody Grable,” Ron said. “Has someone forgotten to tell her that in the 1700s women didn’t go around with their legs visible anyway?”
“Betty Grable?” Hermione said, looking startled.
“I have layers,” Ron said. “Besides, Dad always fancied her. He’s got a picture of her in his workshop next to the poster of all the different kinds of plugs.”
“I’ve never seen that in there,” Hermione said, frowning as though she were trying to recall the layout of the room.
“Of course not,” Ron said, grinning. “Dad’s not dumb. It’s bewitched so that anyone with two X chromosomes only sees a gardening calendar. Mum would have kittens.”
“Well, regardless of your father’s appreciation for Miss Grable’s appendages, you’d normally be quite right about the cultural taboos regarding exposed legs in public during this era,” Hermione said. “However, when the mermaid awoke, who was standing over her but the prince himself, checking to see if she was alive. Embarrassed, she covered herself in her long hair.”
“Yeah, that’ll work,” Ron said to Harry. “Not unless she was that parsnip bird.”
“Rapunzel,” Hermione corrected him automatically. “In any case, the prince asked her kindly what her name was and what she was doing there.”
“Kindly, huh? He finds a naked girl on the beach and wants to know her name and address. I’m not thinking he’s qualifying for sainthood from all this completely unselfish kindness,” Ron said with a snort.
“Point taken,” Hermione said, blushing a bit. “However, the mermaid couldn’t speak, so she tried to tell him with her eyes all that had happened.”
“How’d that work out for her?” Ron asked mock-seriously.
“Not too well. The prince had no memory of the mermaid who had saved him, but he decided to bring her back to the castle and have a page’s outfit made for her. She soon became his favorite of all his servants, and she followed him everywhere. She even slept outside his bedroom door on a cushion he had made for her,” Hermione said, rolling her eyes.
“So… she’s his pet?” Harry said.
“It looks like it,” Hermione said. “He called her his ‘dear dumb child’ and she used to go on expeditions with him and his other servants and slaves and courtiers up into the hills around the castle, but all the time she was still in pain. Occasionally her feet would actually start to openly bleed on the ground, but she made light of it and tripped on gaily, so no one thought anything of it.”
“He just… let her bleed all over the rocks?” Ron asked. “Didn’t he maybe think of calling a doctor?”
“Apparently not,” Hermione said.
“Talk about self-absorbed,” Ron said. “This guy makes Draco look like a sensitive soul.”
“Yeah, I think even Dudley would have at least told somebody else to call the hospital, even if for no other reason than to keep her from ruining his carpet,” Harry added.
“But she could still walk, even with the knives and daggers and needles and pins and red hot pokers or whatever it was in her feet?” Ron asked.
“She not only walked but she danced as well. In fact there’s a ballet version of this whole story,” Hermione said. “The prince held a ball one night, and he applauded one of his servants for singing particularly well, though the mermaid knew her own voice had been far sweeter. However, when the band began to play again, she danced before the prince, as light as a bubble on the wind and just as graceful, and she was regarded as the most beautiful of them all.”
“I see,” Ron said. “You know something, ‘Mione? This is one seriously messed up story.”
“Yes,” Hermione agreed. “However, the little mermaid had hope, for the prince told her that she with her ‘speaking eyes’ was dearer to him than anyone else in the world, and that if he had his own way, he would marry her rather than any other girl.”
“Right, because dancing and bleeding are key parts of all relationships,” Ron said. “Speaking of speaking eyes, did she learn sign language or anything?”
“No, there’s no mention of that in the story,” Hermione said. “Sign language existed in Denmark at the time this was written, though it wasn’t widely studied, but Andersen doesn’t bring that into the story at all.”
“So no conversation, not that she could have even introduced herself, what with the lack of a name,” Ron said, snorting. “Granted, they’re on fair footing there since he doesn’t seem to have one either.”
“However,” Hermione continued, “the prince’s parents thought it was high time for him to marry and insure the lineage would continue, and his marriage to a princess had been contracted at birth.”
“That doesn’t bode well for our little bloody-footed princess,” Ron said, looking serious.
“Wait, how old is he supposed to be again?” Harry asked.
“About sixteen,” Hermione explained. “Again, it’s quite young, but if Edward VI had managed to marry and produce at least one child by his death at age 15, the whole mess between Mary I and Elizabeth I could have been avoided.”
“Mary the first what and Elizabeth the first what?” Ron asked.
“Queen,” Hermione said.
“How could they both be the first queen?” Ron asked, looking completely confused.
“No, just the first queen named Mary and the first queen named Elizabeth,” Hermione explained.
“Of England, I take it?” Ron said.
“Well, there were a few queens named Mary in Hungary, but yes,” Hermione said. “At any rate, both of them were daughters of the previous king by different mothers, and they went back and forth over who was supposed to be queen after their only brother died.”
“Right,” Ron said, looking bored. “So they married ‘em off young to keep the monarchy going or something. Let’s get back to nameless bleeding girl and nameless narcissist prince.”
“At any rate, he told the princess that his parents wouldn’t force him to marry the other girl,” Hermione said.
“Bully for them,” Ron said.
“Quite,” Hermione agreed. “For the time, they’re actually very open-minded. The prince told the little mermaid, ‘O, there is but one other lady in all the world who could capture my heart, and as it is not she, I would as well have you.’”
“And who might that be?” Harry asked.
“Well, the prince and his parents went to the seashore to greet the young princess, you had been away at a convent school,” Hermione said.
“Wait,” Ron said, frowning. “Convent school? You can’t be serious.”
“You’ve picked up on it,” Hermione said, nodding approvingly. “The girl who disembarked from the boat was indeed the same girl who had found the prince lying on the beach after the mermaid had saved him.”
“The same one he claimed had saved his life by not tripping over him?” Harry said.
‘The very same,” Hermione said, “and it turned out she was the only other girl he had ever thought he could love. Overjoyed, he enfolded his blushing bride into his arms and declared himself the happiest man in the world, insisting the wedding take place at once.”
“Yowch,” Harry said, wincing.
“He didn’t exactly ask her if she was willing to marry him, now did he?” Ron said. “Bit overconfident, isn’t he?”
“All things considered, it sort of fits with his character though, doesn’t it?” Harry said.
“Very true,” Hermione said, beaming at both of them for their realization. “In any case, the wedding was held that very day upon the same ship that had taken the princess to the harbor, and the little mermaid stood as maid of honor during the ceremony.”
“Okay, that’s just plain mean,” Ron said. “Were her feet bleeding as she walked down the aisle?”
“Let’s hope not,” Hermione said, shuddering. “The prince had told her he wanted her right next to him as the vows were said because he knew she would be happier for him than any other.”
“I hope she kicked him in the bum,” Ron said fervently.
“No, she did not, though she felt her heart breaking, and she knew she must die before the sun rose,” Hermione said.
“This is really sad,” Ron said. “I mean, yeah, she’s a creepy stalker, but that’s just too much.”
Harry had to agree. For a moment, he wondered what it would be like to see Ginny marry someone else, or worse, have to stand best man to the fellow doing it. He shuddered in sympathy.
“Yeah, Hermione, there’s got to be a way out of this one,” Harry said. “There always is, right?”
“Well, sort of,” Hermione said. “That night, after the band had finished playing and the little mermaid had danced to the delight of all the guests…”
“… this girl just swallows pain whole, doesn’t she?” Ron cut in.
“…the little mermaid stood on the deck and looked down into the water, realizing that in a little while she would be nothing but foam. At that moment, her sisters arose out of the ocean in a group, their arms stretched towards her,” Hermione said.
“Finally, the cavalry arrives!” Ron said.
“Maybe,” Hermione said, and her expression didn’t inspire much hope in Harry. “The oldest sister came quite close to the little mermaid, and it was then she realized that her sisters’ hair had all been cut off short.”
“Oh for crying out loud, did the witch from Rapunzel open a beauty parlor or what?!” Ron asked.
“You’re actually pretty close. The sister said that the six of them had all gone to the Sea Witch, and they had traded their hair for a solution to save their sister,” Hermione said.
“Oh,” Ron said, looking satisfied. “That seems like a pretty reasonable fee, all told. So what’s the solution?”
“The oldest sister handed the little mermaid a knife and said, ‘Before dawn, you must steal into the bridal chamber. There, plunge this knife into the prince’s heart. When the blood pours forth, let it flow over your feet, and they shall instantly become a fishtail again. Then you may return to us and live out the rest of your hundred years of life, carefree and happy,’” Hermione explained.
Harry and Ron looked at each other.
“Uh… huh,” Ron said slowly. “There is so much wrong with that statement that I’m not even going to touch it. Just keep going.”
Harry nodded as well, not sure he could find words to express properly just how disturbing the story was.
“The little mermaid took the knife from her hand, and the sisters splashed back beneath the surface of the waves, out of sight,” Hermione said. “Slowly, the little mermaid crept towards the beautiful silk tent that had been pitched on deck, where the prince and his bride were now sleeping.”
“Right,” Ron said, giving Harry a glance. “Sleeping. Sure.”
“Oh, come on, Ron, it’s a children’s story!” Hermione said in annoyance.
“Yeah, a kid’s story about slicing out tongues, walking around on mangled feet, and killing people with knives then bathing in their blood,” Ron said. “Silly me to make it sound sordid in some way by suggesting the prince and his new wife were doing what normal couples would on their wedding night.”
Hermione tipped her head to one said, considering.
“Point taken,” she conceded. “She carefully opened the entrance to the tent…”
“Geez, she really has completed the full course in stalkerhood at this point,” Ron said, making a face.
“…and she stared down at the prince and his bride as they lay sleeping,” Hermione said.
Harry saw Ron actually bite his lip to restrain himself from saying anything. Frankly, even he could have come up with some fairly apt ribald words on that one.
“The prince stirred slightly, then said the name of his bride in his sleep, and stilled again,” Hermione said.
“That was probably a mistake,” Ron said. “I don’t think she’s going to need much more to set her off.”
“The little mermaid raised the knife, ready to strike, but at the last moment she ran from the tent and threw the knife into the ocean, where blood spurted from the surface of the waves,” Hermione said.
“Oh,” Ron said. “Well, that was decent of her. Sounds like she might have accidentally knifed one of her six sisters, though.”
“You know, it’s very possible that’s what’s being implied, though I’ve never really thought of it that way before,” Hermione said, squinting. “Yes, that’s a perfectly acceptable assumption.”
Ron looked so pleased with himself that Harry rolled his eyes in disgust.
“Just at that moment, the edge of the sun came above the eastern horizon, and the little mermaid felt her body starting to dissolve. She threw herself into the water, feeling her flesh become only foam on the waves,” Hermione said.
“Wait, she died?” Ron said, really looking upset. “The poor kid actually died?”
“Yes,” Hermione said. “She knew she didn’t have a choice, so she tried to face it as bravely as she could.”
Harry shuddered. He didn’t think he’d be able to handle something like that so reasonably.
“Yeah, but,” Ron said, still looking very sad, “these stories have a happy ending all the time, don’t they?”
“No, not always,” Hermione said.
“That bloody well stinks!” Ron said. “I mean, she was a real weirdo, but I didn’t want her dead or anything.”
“I didn’t say it was the end of the story though, did I?” Hermione said kindly.
“Oh,” Ron said, slightly mollified. “Go on then, though usually there’s not a whole lot that fixes dying.”
“Well, the little mermaid suddenly looked about her and realized that she was still herself, though she wasn’t in her body anymore, and she saw many lovely invisible spirits in the air, and she suddenly realized she had a body like theirs now,” Hermione said.
“That’s… different,” Harry said, not sure what else to say.
“Better than drifting off into nothing at any rate,” Ron said.
“One of the spirits took her by the hands and said, ‘Dear little mermaid, you have proven yourself patient, courageous, and loving, and by your great suffering, you have become like us, the Daughters of the Air,’” Hermione said, using an appropriately misty voice that Harry thought sounded quite a lot like Luna.
“Daughters of the Air?” Ron asked. “Okay, whatever, but I rather thought she was going to be able to go to heaven now or have a soul or something. What’s a Daughter of the Air even do?”
“The spirit told the little mermaid that they brought cooling breezes to those in faraway lands, and that through their good works, they could in time earn a soul,” Hermione said.
“Yeah, kid, because you’ve had it so soft with the tongue amputation and the mangled tootsies,” Ron said. “So she’s what, a breeze now?”
“Pretty much,” Hermione said. “Just then, the little mermaid saw that there was a commotion on ship. They had realized she was missing, and after searching everywhere, the prince and his bride stared forlornly into the sea, thinking she must have drowned.”
“Wow. He managed to work himself all the way up to forlorn,” Ron said, pretending to look impressed. “So what’d the little mermaid do?”
“Well, she made a little breeze to cool the bride’s face, kissed the prince on the cheek, and rose into the air with the other spirits,” Hermione said.
“So how long does she need to work to get a soul?” Harry asked.
“Oh, the spirit told her that it would take them three hundred years,” Hermione said.
“Three hundred years?” Ron said, looking stunned. “Seriously?”
“Yes,” Hermione said. “But then she added that when they invisibly visited a house where there was a good, kind child who deserved his or her parents’ love, a year would be taken off from their time of trial, but when they came upon a bad, wicked child, the Daughters of the Air would cry, and each tear added a day to their wait.”
Ron looked at her for a moment, then blurted out, “So this whole thing is just a blackmail story to get kids to behave! ‘Be good, junior, or you’ll make the poor little mermaid cry and she’ll wind up in Breeze Limbo forever!’”
Hermione pursed her lips together for a moment, then said, “Yes.”
“I… that’s… I… it’s amazing you lot have any sanity left at all by the age of seven,” Ron said, dropping back against the cushions in emotional exhaustion. “That is just completely unreal.”
“Well, at least it got your mind off food for a bit,” Hermione said.
“Too right. I should go to bed, but I’m a little afraid of the nightmares this is going to give me,” Ron said.
“If it makes you feel any better, when Disney remade the film, the little mermaid ended up marrying the prince and living happily every after,” Hermione said soothingly.
“Yeah, I suppose so,” Ron said, still looking uncertain.
When Harry went to bed that night, he couldn’t help thinking of the strange, underwater world he’d seen at the bottom of the lake where the Merpeople had threatened Hermione and Ron. He was glad they couldn’t remember any of it. But as strange and horrible as much of Hermione’s story had been, the thought that haunted him most was the image of the little mermaid walking forward to her death, knowing that the only way she could prevent it was to trade the lives of those she loved for her own.
He didn’t know why, but it gave him chills.
The earlier ones can be found here:
Cinder-What-the-Hell?-a
Snow Wh-at-Are-You-Kidding-Me?-ite
Sleeping Bea-You-People-Are-Mad-ty
Little Red Riding Ho-w-Is-That-Possible?-od
Rumple-Still-As-Crazy-As-Ever-tskin
The Frog Pr-in-What-Way-Is-That-Possible?-ince
Rap-solutely-mental-unzel
Jack the Giant Kill(-Me-Now!)-er
Hansel and Gr(eat-Now-I'm-Hungry)etel
Goldilocks and the Three B(e-Serious-Now!)ear
Beauty and the (Un)Be(freaking-lievable!)ast
Author: Meltha
Rating: PG-13
Feedback: Yes, thank you.
Spoilers: Through book 7.
Summary: Hermione tells the boys the tale of Hans Christian Andersen’s “The Little Seamaid.”
Author’s Note: Sorry this took so long.
Disclaimer: All characters are owned by J. K. Rowling, a wonderful author whose characters I have borrowed for a completely profit-free flight of fancy. Kindly do not sue me, please, as I am terrified of you. Thank you.
It was raining for the fifth day in a row, and the tent was starting to get soggy. It didn’t even help that they kept switching locations from day to day. All of England, Wales, and Scotland seemed to be drowning in rain. This night, their temporary home was perched precariously on a cliff above the sea, and the sound of the waves was mixing with the lightning and thunder. No matter how many times a day Hermione muttered “Impervious,” at the leaking ceiling, a new drip was bound to pop up as soon as the old one was plugged. Her mood wasn’t helped much by the fact the humidity was slowly turning her hair into a rather sizable afro, something Ron had made a habit of pointing out at least three times already that day. Harry was staring at the locket again, wondering exactly what was inside it and whether Norbert might be able to melt it if he could manage to track him down in Romania.
“Is there any fish left?” Ron asked, looking up from Hermione’s Arithmancy textbook, a sure sign he was now as bored as humanly possible.
“No,” Hermione said. “We were lucky to be able to summon that one, and I don’t think it’s a good idea to try again in the middle of this storm.”
Ron grimaced, then threw the book on the pillow beside him.
“Story,” he said without further preamble.
Hermione looked at him with disbelief.
“Pigsfeet,” she said. “Lint. Zebra. Tapestry. Mandolin.”
Ron looked at her as though she’d gone mad.
“What? If you want to try using a single word command as a request for me to tell you another fairy tale, I should have the right to reply in an equally disjointed and rude way,” Hermione said, rummaging through her little beaded bag, “particularly when you just came dangerously close to abusing one of my books.”
“She’s got you there, mate,” Harry said, shrugging. “She still hasn’t forgiven me for almost getting jam on her copy of Traveling with Trolls.”
“You’ve still got that thing?” Ron said, mouth agape.
“My reading matter is my own business, I think,” Hermione said, finally retrieving a hair tie from the bottom of her apparently cavernous bag. “So shall we try this again?”
“Hermione,” Ron said, batting his eyelashes, “would you please do us the honor of telling us another one of your fabulously bizarre and completely mental fairy tales that should put all Muggle children in therapy for the rest of their lives?”
Hermione sighed, but Harry was glad to see she looked amused.
“Fine,” Hermione said, then closed her eyes for a moment, looking as though she were trying to decide on the next tale. “Considering our location, let’s have the story of ‘The Little Seamaid.’”
“What’s a seamaid?” Ron asked.
“A mermaid,” Hermione said, and Harry could tell she was already starting to regret agreeing to yet another round of this. Frankly, that was usually what he enjoyed best about the evening’s entertainment.
“So why don’t they just call her a mermaid then?” Ron asked.
“I don’t know. Some versions do call her the little mermaid instead, but the closest translation from the original Danish is actually seamaid,” Hermione said.
“It’s about a breakfast roll?” Ron said, looking completely confused.
“The Danish language,” Hermione said, and Harry suspected she was already biting her tongue to keep from screaming. “The story was written by a man named Hans Christian Andersen in Denmark.”
“Oh,” Ron said, his features downcast. “I was rather hoping this one was about food again. So she’s a seamaid. Hey, what do they call the men, then?” he asked, suddenly looking sly.
“I suppose they’d be called…” but Hermione stopped cold in her tracks and gave him a withering glare. “Mermen. Mermaids and mermen. Alright then?”
“Fine,” Ron said, looking innocent but throwing a wicked look at Harry the moment Hermione’s gaze was elsewhere.
“Muggles know about mermaids?” Harry asked, desperate to get the conversation back on a level keel.
“A bit, but not much of what they know is right, and it’s changed over the years,” Hermione said. “They think mermaids are beautiful women that have a fishtail from the waist down. In the older stories they sang sailors to their deaths during storms like this one.”
“So kind of like the mermaid in the Prefects’ bathroom,” Harry said, remembering the rather flirty painting.
“Yes,” Hermione said. “Annoying, isn’t she?”
“Completely,” Ron said, but Harry had heard Ron go on about her charms often enough in the year he’d been a prefect that he was completely sure that ‘annoying’ wasn’t in the list of the top fifty adjectives he would have used to describe her. “Do go on.”
“Well, once upon…”
“…a time,” Ron said, motioning for her to continue.
“Yes, Ronald,” she said, and Harry began to worry that the lines in her forehead might become permanent. “In the sea there lived a great sea-king and his seven daughters, the princesses of the sea, along with their grandmother. Each was as lovely as could be, but the youngest one was the most beautiful of all.”
“Seven kids,” Ron said, looking at Harry. “Nice not to be the only one to know what it feels like to fight for the loo in the morning.”
“They lived in a gigantic palace, Ron,” Hermione said. “I doubt that was much of an issue.”
“Maybe,” Ron said, “but then again, with seven daughters and a grandmother, I’m betting the poor dad still has to make a reservation even in his own palace.”
Hermione rolled her eyes but continued on.
“The seven daughters were raised by their grandmother to be elegant and beautiful, and she told them stories of the world above, the strange animals that lived there and the tall buildings, and flowers and trees and birds. The princesses were not allowed to go above the water until their fifteenth birthday, and because they were kept in suspense, they thought and dreamed a good deal about the strange world above,” Hermione said.
“Wait, there’s seven daughters, and none of them are fifteen yet,” Ron said, working a sum on his hands. “Were any of them twins?”
“No,” Hermione said. “Why?”
“Just, okay, if each one of them is under fifteen, and there’s seven of them, then the youngest one would have to be what, eight or so years old?” Ron said.
Hermione squinted at the tent roof, obviously doing the math in her head.
“While highly unlikely, yes, the maximum age would be about eight years old,” Hermione said.
“So, at eight the kid is already the most beautiful of them all?” Ron asked. “There’s just something deeply wrong with that.”
“It’s a fairy tale thing, Ron,” Hermione said, sighing. “Remember, Snow White was almost as lovely as the queen when she was just a child too.”
“None of these girls ever goes through an awkward stage with spots and gangly legs?” Ron asked. “Doesn’t really seem fair.”
“A mermaid wouldn’t exactly be likely to have gangly legs. Besides, they’re magical princesses, Ronald,” Hermione said. “Please, just go with it, alright?”
“Fine, but it’s still weird,” Ron said, turning to Harry. “I’m betting even Madam Rosmerta was a little homely at some point, though.”
“Most likely,” Hermione said, seeming almost to smile for a moment, then continuing on. “When the eldest sister had her chance to go to the world above, she came down again and told her little sisters all about the land and the strange places there, and each sister pined in turn to see all the amazing things above the sea.”
“Pined?” Ron said.
“It means really wanted to,” Hermione said.
“I know what it means, but still, ‘pined’? You’re laying the old timey talk on a little thick there, aren’t you?” Ron said.
“It’s a perfectly acceptable English word,” Hermione said, looking rather prim.
“Okay, but the moment you start using lemman or mickle or something, I’m out of here, rain or no,” Ron said, nodding in determination.
“Since when do you know the fifteenth century term for sweetheart?” Hermione said, looking genuinely surprised.
“Since I caught Nick writing the Fat Lady a sonnet last Valentine’s Day,” Ron said, shuddering. “Some things just shouldn’t be imagined.”
“Fine. Each of the sisters waited in turn for their birthdays, and each of them saw something different: a great thunderstorm or icebergs floating among ships or children bathing at the beach or what have you, but the littlest mermaid, who had the longest to wait, was the one who wanted most of all to go above,” Hermione said.
“Not much fun being the youngest,” Ron said. “Everything winds up being a hand-me-down, and you never do get to be the first to do much of anything.”
“You’re not the youngest in your family,” Harry pointed out. “That’s Ginny.”
“I know, but it’s different since she’s the only girl in I don’t know how many generations,” Ron said. “It’s not like Dad made her wear Percy’s old trainers.”
Personally, Harry thought Ginny would have looked wonderful even in a beat up pair of Percy’s old shoes, but he decided to keep mum on that topic.
“Finally, the youngest sister turned fifteen, and her grandmother dressed her regally since she was now a grown up princess,” Hermione said.
“She was grown up at fifteen?” Ron asked.
“Yes,” Hermione said. “In Muggle culture back in olden times, people were sometimes married off quite young since they didn’t live very long. In Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, Juliet is only thirteen and her parents arrange a marriage for her, with her mother mentioning she got married when she was only twelve.”
“Uh… huh,” Ron said. “So this Shakespeare chap has been dead a long time, right?”
“Yes,” Hermione said, “almost four hundred years.”
“Good. Sounds like a right perv,” Ron said, shaking his head. “Anyway, go on. How’d Gran dress up—wait, what’s her name?”
“She doesn’t have one,” Hermione said. “When Disney made the movie years later, they called her Ariel.”
“Like Prospero’s servant spirit?” Ron said. “Wasn’t Ariel a boy?”
“Well, that’s left kind of vague in The Tempest,” Hermione said. “Wait, how do you know about that play? I thought you didn’t know anything about Shakespeare.”
“I don’t,” Ron said. “Prospero’s on a Chocolate Frog card.”
“Oh,” Hermione said. “Well, that does explain it, though now I’m wondering how Shakespeare found out about a real wizard. It could even be possible that Midsummer Night’s Dream is based on reality, with Titania and Oberon being based on actual fairies from the time period or historical conglomerations of multiple powerful beings. Perhaps Puck might actually be an archetype from one of the lesser-known pixie species. But if Shakespeare did have knowledge of actual wizarding practices, it sheds a different light on his treatment of the three witches in, um, the Scottish play.”
Ron had been nearly on the point of napping again when he noticed Hermione’s hesitation.
“The Scottish play?” Ron asked. “That’s what he named it? Bit of a boring title.”
“No,” Hermione said carefully. “It’s just that many Muggles consider it bad luck to say the name of that play unless they’re actually performing it. I don’t like to be superstitious, but it does seem like we can’t be too careful at the moment.”
“They won’t say the name?” Harry said, his interest suddenly peaked. “That seems awfully familiar. It’s almost like Vol…”
“Will you just not say that!” Ron yelped, slapping a cushion over Harry’s mouth. “It makes me nervous.”
“Sorry,” Harry’s muffled voice said through the pillow.
“Good,” Ron said, drawing his attention back to Hermione. “So we’ll skip the Scottish play. This Shakespeare sounds like a bit of a weirdo.”
“He also wrote a play called The Winter’s Tale with a character named Hermione in it,” she said with a wry expression. “She’s where my parents got my name from.”
“Oh,” Ron said, glancing at Harry. “Well, that explains it, I suppose.”
“Explains what?” Hermione said.
“Well, your name’s a bit unusual, yeah?” Ron said, and Harry silently sent mental pleadings for him to shut it before Hermione’s temper blew a completely unrepairable hole in the tent.
“You have a sister named Ginevra, and we go to school with Luna, Astoria, Cho, and Draco, and we know a Filius, Mundungus, Daedalus, Bellatrix, Narcissa, Lucius, and Walpurga,” Hermione said, almost visibly shaking.
“Well, yeah, those are normal names,” Ron said. “Your name’s odd.”
Harry quickly interposed himself between the two of them before Ron tempted her towards justifiable murder.
“So how did the grandmother dress up the youngest mermaid?” Harry asked, desperately hoping the ploy would work.
Hermione snapped her head towards him, her eyes actually sparking in the dim light of the tent, while Ron looked like he might have finally figured out he had made a serious tactical error, especially since they were camped so close to a cliff.
“New seashells?” Ron said tentatively with a weak smile.
Hermione took a deep, steadying breath, then shook her shoulders.
“Actually, yes,” she said, apparently having decided to let the whole thing go via one of the most massive acts of will power Harry had witnessed thus far. “She let eight oysters attach themselves to the mermaid’s tail as decoration, and the girl said that it hurt, but the grandmother said that beauty must suffer pain.”
“Yow,” Ron said. “How pretty can she be if she’s wandering around in agony because the equivalent of eight Monster Book of Monsters is biting into her fin?”
“Good point, but it’s practically the same thing as wearing high heels,” Hermione said.
“They hurt that much?” Ron asked, actually appearing interested.
“Imagine shoving your feet into a pair of oboes and then trying to walk on tiptoe all night,” Hermione said.
“Okay,” Ron said, wincing. “I suddenly feel extra sorry for Ashyweeper and her glass shoes.”
“So the youngest mermaid was allowed at long last to rise to the surface of the ocean and see the human world for the first time,” Hermione said. “When she first poked her head through the waves, she could see a great ship with many lights blazing on its deck. It was growing dark…”
“Wait, dark?” Ron cut in. “How long did it take Grandma to shove eight oysters on her grand-kid’s fin anyway? She wasted the whole day!”
Hermione looked strained, but continued on gamely, “There was a wonderful fireworks display going on, and she was stunned by the beauty of the brightly colored flowers in the air drifting towards their reflections in the water.”
“Oh, so it’s a dramatic time shift,” Ron said, nodding knowledgably. “I wasn’t supposed to notice the gap in events because it was more important for the pretty scenery to come in. And it is pretty. Fireworks on the water… kind of reminds me of the Quidditch World Cup.”
“Yeah,” Harry chimed in, remembering the day fondly. “The Bulgarians and Irish had some really cool stuff in the air that night.”
“Yeah,” Ron said, looking excited. “Do you remember the Omnioculars we bought? I used them to watch someone in the third row pick his nose over and over again.”
“I tell them the lead up to the most romantic part of the whole bloody story and he starts talking about—that,” Hermione muttered to herself. “There is absolutely no hope at all, none.”
“Hmm?” Ron said, seeming to remember she was there. “What did you say?”
“Not a thing,” Hermione said. “At any rate, during all of this, the little mermaid looked at a young boy who stood on the deck watching the fireworks. He was dressed very regally, and she assumed he must be a prince. She couldn’t help thinking he was extremely handsome.”
“Uh-oh,” Ron said, looking at Harry. “I’m sensing Cupid’s twanging bow.”
“Quite,” Hermione said. “The little mermaid fell head over heels in love at first sight with the young prince, but suddenly a vicious storm came up, and before she knew it, the prince’s ship was cracking to pieces in the high waves.”
“Shoddy workmanship, that,” Ron said, shaking his head. “Boats really should stay afloat. It’s sort of the definition of the thing, yeah?”
“Well, regardless of the skills of the boat wrights who built the ship, she split to pieces,” Hermione said.
“Who did?” Ron asked, looking alarmed.
“The ship,” Hermione said, staring at him as though he’d grown another head.
“But you said ‘she split,’” Ron pointed out. “Who’s she?”
“Muggles use the feminine pronoun to refer to ships sometimes, as well as automobiles, planes, spaceships, motorbikes, that sort of thing,” Hermione said.
Ron looked at Harry, sensing he was treading dangerous waters.
“Ehm, why is the boat a girl?” he asked.
“No idea,” Harry said. “Hermione?”
“I suppose it could have to do with the innate possessiveness associated with owning a member of the female sex as well as a certain fondness for the object and a desire to personify something that essentially is responsible for the safety and welfare of those riding it,” Hermione said, squinting one eye shut and staring towards the roof of the tent. “I’m rather surprised at myself for falling into the idiom without questioning it. It’s obviously sexist but perhaps not overtly misogynistic.”
“Oh, well that’s good then,” Ron said, and Harry could tell he was making a desperate stab in the dark. When Hermione didn’t immediately answer but remained rapt in her own bemusement, he quickly shifted gears and said, “I mean, it’s bad and awful and terrible and repressive and shockingly… and stuff.”
Hermione shook her head as though to clear it, then gave him an odd look.
“Yes,” she said, though Harry couldn’t tell which end of Ron’s thoughts she was agreeing with. “In any case, the ship went to the bottom of the sea, leaving bits of flotsam and jetsam dotting the murky waters along with one little mermaid who was looking about in vain for the prince.”
“That’s nice,” Ron said, frowning. “Just ignore all the other blokes who are drowning because she’s got to find Prince I-Don’t-Know-His-Name-But-He’s-Fit-So-I-Looooove-Him.”
“Well, she’s a mermaid,” Hermione said, shrugging. “Normally she and her sisters would be luring sailors to their deaths out of habit, so it’s at least a step in the right direction.”
“Okay, I guess that’s progress,” Ron said, swallowing hard.
Personally, Harry suddenly found that stained glass window in the Prefects bathroom a lot less alluring.
“So did the mermaid find him before he kicked off?” Harry asked.
“Yes,” Hermione said, “she pulled the prince from the wreckage. He was unconscious, and she carefully kept his head above water all through the night, watching over him and kissing his brow.”
Ron grimaced.
“Nice that she kept him from drowning to death, but couldn’t she have just refrained from, you know, molesting him?” he said.
“She’s more than a little forward, yes,” Hermione said. “Reminds me a little of Romilda Vane”
“Reminds me more of Colin Creevey’s brother and the Giant Squid in his first year,” Harry said. “Remember when he fell out of the boat crossing the lake and it saved him?”
“Yeah,” Ron said, looking nostalgic. “I miss old Squiddy. Hope You-Know-Who doesn’t have a thing against oversized sealife.”
“In any case, when dawn broke, she was still pillowing his head on her breast as she pushed them towards land,” Hermione said.
Harry started to cough rather forcefully at that particular image, but oddly Ron appeared to be trying to figure something out.
“Nope,” he finally admitted. “I can’t suss out the anatomy on that one, even with a fishtail.”
“Just go with it,” Hermione said. “At long last they reached a beach with a lovely little church and convent, the bells just pealing to welcome the dawn, and she carefully laid him on the beach, then hid herself near the water’s edge by cloaking her head in sea foam, waiting to see who would come to him and if he would wake.”
“Sea foam as camouflage,” Harry said. “Okay, I can see that.”
“Until a high wind comes up anyway,” Ron said. “So who found him?”
“A group of girls processing from morning services to the school at the convent were walking along the edge of the beach, and one, the most beautiful of them, noticed the prince lying on the sand. She called for help and then knelt beside him, and at once he opened his eyes and began to show signs of life,” Hermione said.
“So he’ll be okay,” Ron said. “Well, that’s nice anyway. The mermaid saved his life.”
“Actually, the prince said the girl had saved his life,” Hermione said.
“What, by not tripping over him?” he said.
Hermione shrugged and nodded.
“Muggles are weird,” Ron said to Harry. “So what’d the seamaid, mermaid, mersea, whatever, do?”
“Well, she went back to her father’s palace below the sea, but she was heartbroken. She began spending all her time in her garden, for she had found a life-size statue of the prince that had fallen from the wrecked ship, and she put it beneath a great tree of coral at the very center. She spent hours wrapped around the statue, longing for him,” Hermione said.
“This girl needs to get a life,” Ron said.
“Yeah,” Harry said. “She’s starting to sound a little creepy.”
“There’s a limit,” Ron agreed. “I mean, when you had a thing for Cho in fifth year, you didn’t actually try to make out with her picture or something.”
“No,” Harry said, “but I’ve caught you sneaking a goodnight kiss to your picture of Cindy Crawford.
Harry was at once pummeled with a sofa cushion, and Ron blushed so brightly his freckles disappeared entirely into the redness.
“The little mermaid refused to tell anyone what was bothering her, but she did speak to her grandmother, asking her about the lands above the water,” Hermione said.
“The same one that stuck painful shellfish on her tail?” Ron asked.
“The very same,” Hermione said.
“Somehow I don’t think that’s going to end well,” he said.
“’Grandmother,’ she asked,” and here Hermione spoke in her usual high falsetto she reserved for female fairy tale characters, “’Do humans ever die like we do?’”
“Argh! That’s it, the prince needs a restraining order pronto!” Ron said, looking honestly terrified. “Of all the things she can ask, that’s her number one pressing question?”
“Do I even want to know why she’s asking that?” Harry said, wondering if he had turned as green as his eyes.
“Oh, it just gets better at this point,” Hermione said, and Harry noted she was actually enjoying this a bit. “The grandmother explained that yes, people died, but they didn’t live as long as merpeople do, who all live to be a hundred years old.”
“Okay, that’s wrong on a bunch of counts,” Ron said. “First off, Dumbledore was human and lived to be over 150, so we’ve got them beat there.”
“Yes, but that’s wizards,” Hermione said. “Muggles don’t usually make it to one hundred, and none of them ever live that long.”
“Fine, Muggles are in delicate health, but every single merperson just collapses in a heap on their hundredth birthday?” Ron said.
“According to the grandmother in the story, yes,” Hermione said.
“Okay, that’s deeply depressing, but then what happened to the little seamaid’s mum?” Ron said, folding his arms in satisfaction as though he’d found a flaw in one of Percy’s cauldron-bottom reports.
“I… I don’t know,” said Hermione, honestly surprised. “She’s obviously dead in the story, but if the seamaid’s grandmother is still alive, her mother should be as well.”
“Well spotted, Ron,” Harry said, giving him a bow in respect.
“Thank you,” he said, smiling smugly.
Hermione, meanwhile, was chewing on her lip and staring into space.
“Ehm, Hermione?” Ron asked, waving a hand in front of her face. “You still in there?”
“Andersen never stipulates whether the grandmother is paternal or maternal,” she said as though she were talking to herself. “If she’s the paternal grandmother, the father is still alive, so that would be acceptable, though it would suggest the king married a seamaid significantly older than he was, actually older than his own mother. However, it’s never stated whether or not the merpeople age, except, no, wait, the grandmother is definitely described as having gray hair. Now, if she’s the maternal grandmother, then her daughter would have predeceased her, meaning the mermaid’s mother couldn’t have reached one hundred. If so, that means that merpeople live a century unless there’s an accident or violence of some kind, raising the specter of foul play.”
Harry and Ron looked at each other. If they didn’t intervene, this could go on indefinitely.
“Tuna boat,” Ron said.
“Huh?” Hermione said, snapping back.
“She got caught in one of those illegal tuna nets that nab dolphins,” Ron said.
“That’s terrible! I don’t want the little seamaid’s mother to have died in a tuna net!” Hermione said, looking traumatized.
“Okay, okay, no tuna net!” Ron backpedaled, looking to Harry for help.
“Let’s just assume that something happened that the story didn’t cover and leave it at that,” Harry said.
“Fine,” Hermione said, giving a little shudder.
Harry was pretty sure that when this whole Horcrux mess was over, she was going to start a companion group to SPEW that focused on proper tuna harvesting techniques.
“So, merpeople usually live to a hundred years and then kick off,” Ron said helpfully. “Go on.”
“Right,” Hermione said, pulling herself together. “The grandmother went on to say that although humans lived shorter lives, they had immortal souls capable of going to heaven when they died, but merpeople, though they lived longer, just turned to foam on the sea when they died and didn’t have a soul.”
Ron blinked.
“Well, that’s specist of old Andersen,” Ron said indignantly. “Why does he assume the only sentient beings on the planet with souls are humans?”
Harry didn’t say much, but he thought of Sirius and Dumbledore, Mad-Eye and Cedric, his mum and dad, and he hoped Andersen was right on at least half of that.
“Oh, that’s only part of it,” Hermione said. “The grandmother explained that there was a way for a mermaid to earn a soul.”
“Well, that’s peachy,” Ron said. “What’s that?”
“If a mermaid could make a human man fall in love with her and married him, when the priest joined their hands, her husband would give her a soul while retaining his own,” Hermione said.
“Oh, come off it!” Ron said. “Seriously? If she marries some bloke she gets a soul out of the bargain?”
“It’s an anti-Horcrux,” Harry said in a flash of realization. “The husband splits his soul without committing a murder, and that’s why it stays whole instead of being damaged.”
Hermione and Ron looked at one another in shock.
“You’re right,” Hermione said, her voice shaky. “It really does sound like that, doesn’t it? I wonder how Andersen knew about dark magic?”
“Creepy,” Ron said, shuddering. “And here I was thinking the weirdest part of all this was that the story was really, deeply, scarily sexist and treated women like incomplete moral beings without the guidance of a supposedly superior male proprietor.”
Harry’s and Hermione’s eyes nearly bugged out of their heads.
“What?” Ron said. “You were thinking it too.”
“Yes,” Hermione said carefully, “I was. Almost verbatim. I just didn’t think you were.”
Ron smiled beatifically and motioned for her to go on with the story.
“In any case, after the little mermaid’s conversation with the grandmother, one of her sisters eventually realized something was bothering her,” Hermione said.
“Big clue there was little sis trying to jump a hunk of granite,” Ron mumbled out of the corner of his mouth to Harry.
“Finally she confided in one of her sisters, and that sister told the other five, and then the sisters told their most intimate friends who told only their very closest acquaintances,” Hermione said.
“And by that time, the secret had warped so much in the telling that everyone thought kid sister had eloped with Stubby Boardman and was plotting to take over Bulgaria,” Ron said.
“Considering the rumour mill at Hogwarts, that wouldn’t be unlikely, but as it happened one of the other mermaids knew where the prince lived, in a castle built right beside the sea, and the little mermaid followed her there to see what had become of the prince,” Hermione explained.
“I suppose dropping in once to see if the fellow’s all right after that many hours unconscious is fairly reasonable,” Ron said. “Maybe actually introducing herself.”
“Every night she swam up the canal to the castle, where the prince’s bedroom had a balcony over the water, and she would rise out of the ocean, her arms raised beseechingly, hoping to catch the smallest glimpse of him from the shadows,” Hermione said.
“And we’re right back in the land of Deeply Disturbing,” Harry said. “She peeps in his window? Isn’t that illegal?”
“Really, it’s not all that different from Romeo standing under Juliet’s balcony window and eavesdropping on her,” Hermione said.
“Yeah, but he only did that the one time, not every night, and he was honest about it and owned up to the fact he was there after a bit,” Ron said. “Besides, I always sort of suspected she knew he was there anyway. Who wanders onto a balcony and starts blithering to no one about that really cute boy she just met and how much she hopes he asks her out unless she thinks he’s standing there hiding in the bushes?”
Hermione blinked. Harry blinked.
“What?” Ron asked.
“I thought you said earlier you didn’t know anything about Shakespeare?” Harry asked in complete disbelief.
“Okay, so I read that one once,” Ron admitted sheepishly.
“Closely enough to have come up with staging directions and motivations for the sequence of dialogue in the balcony scene?” Hermione said, narrowing her eyes.
“I got bored one day when we were shut in during that freak snowstorm in Cornwall three weeks ago, grabbed a book out of your beaded bag and started reading,” Ron said.
“You brought Shakespeare on a Horcrux hunt?” Harry said, refocusing his look of bewilderment on Hermione. “What for?”
“It’s Shakespeare,” Hermione said, looking unruffled. “He’s appropriate for any situation.”
“So, anyway, the little stalkermaid is floating about, staring in the prince’s bedroom window at night and generally behaving like she’s gone right round the twist,” Ron said, obviously trying to move on from his perusal of the romances of the bard. “Then what?”
“Her father, the king of the merpeople, threw a party,” Hermione said.
“And she plucked up the courage to ask the prince?” Ron said, brightening.
“No,” Hermione said. “Besides, how would he go to a party at the bottom of the ocean?”
“Bubblehead charm?” Harry suggested. “Gillyweed?”
“Partial human transformation into a really stupid looking shark/man?” Ron mumbled almost inaudibly.
“All right, so there are ways,” Hermione huffed, “but not if you’re a Muggle.”
“Scuba diving gear?” Harry said.
“Fine! So there are ways even if you are a Muggle, but not in the 1700s or whenever this is bloody well supposed to have happened!” Hermione all but screamed, then paused. “Well, aside from diving bells, but they wouldn’t solve the problem of the massive water pressure at that depth. In any case, no, she did not ask the prince to the ball!”
“Fine,” Ron said. “She was too scared to ask him. Whatever.”
“Yes, because it’s so easy to ask the person you fancy to go to a ball,” Harry said, sarcasm in his tone.
“Well, you eventually got up the nerve,” Ron said as though he were trying to make Harry feel better.
“Not him, you idiot,” Hermione said, snorting. “I believe he meant you.”
“I… what?” Ron said, suddenly looking cornered.
“Wasn’t it Harry who ended up getting Parvati to ask Padma to go to the Yule Ball with you?” Hermione said. “If he hadn’t, you’d have been stuck up in Gryffindor Tower alone, what was the phrase you used in regards to me, ‘crying your eyes out’?”
“Oh,” Ron said, looking as though somehow he’d been let off the hook. “Well, if you want to get technical about it, yeah, though I don’t think I’d be doing much weeping.”
“So the little mermaid was called upon to sing at the ball, and she was judged to have the most beautiful voice of all the merfolk, who of course had voices far lovelier than any heard on land,” Hermione said.
“So, out of desperation for her one true love, the little mermaid wins a singing competition?” Harry said.
“That’s odd,” Ron said, smiling, “but at least it’s healthy. She went out and got some other interests to take her mind off things.”
“Then later than night she ran away from home to make a deal with the Sea Witch so she could win the prince’s love,” Hermione said.
“So not so much with the outside interests then,” Ron said. “I’ve got to hand it to the kid on one thing, though. She’s tenacious.”
“The Sea Witch lived on the other side of a horrible collection of underwater polyps that tried to grab anything that went past, strangling them to death, so the little mermaid decided the best plan was to—“
“Go home,” Ron cut in.
“Probably, but she decided to propel herself through the field as quickly as possible, hoping they wouldn’t grab her. She rocketed forward with all her strength, and the polyps reached out their horrid tentacles towards her, but they couldn’t catch her. She saw all sorts of things they were holding, skeletons of fish and people, and even a mermaid,” Hermione said.
“Hey! Maybe that’s her mum!” Ron cried as though he’d solved the world’s greatest mystery.
Hermione considered for a moment, then said slowly, “Possibly.”
“Yeah, and she didn’t turn into foam on the water, either,” Harry said. “What’s up with that?”
“Yeah, Gran’s story seems to be full of some pretty gaping holes,” Ron said.
“I… I don’t know,” Hermione said, throwing her hands up in despair. “Even if the grandmother’s story isn’t full of holes, Andersen’s is at any rate.”
“Yeah, but then so are all of the rest of them,” Ron said reasonably. “They’re still a decent way to pass the time. What else are we going to do? Shadow puppetry on the tent wall?”
Harry tried very hard to school his features into an expression that would be worn by someone who hadn’t been trying to create the silhouette of a Hippogriff next to the kitchen sink three hours ago.
“Fine, well, when she got to the witch’s house, the old woman already knew why she had come. ‘So, you want to go ashore to win the prince’s heart, do you,” said the witch,” Hermione said, providing the witch with a suitably crackly voice.
“So, what, the witch is a Legilimens?” Ron asked.
“Perhaps,” Hermione said, considering. “It would explain a lot. Then she went back to feeding her pet toads with sugar cubes from her mouth.”
“Eugh!” Harry and Ron chorused together.
“That is just plain unsanitary!” Ron said, shuddering.
“Yeah, even Neville never did that with Trevor,” Harry said.
“Be about the only way he’d ever get a kiss, though,” Ron said with a snort.
“I think you’re selling Neville short,” Hermione said primly, looking very offended. “There are lots of girls who think he’s quite wonderful.”
“Oh, come off it,” Ron said. “Neville’s an alright sort as far as he goes, but seriously, I think Colin Creevey might be able to beat him up.”
“Why do boys always assume girls choose the attractiveness of boys based on whom they’re capable of besting in physical competition?” Hermione said, highly annoyed. “Why on earth would anyone even want to beat up poor Colin?”
“Cause they can?” Ron offered lamely.
Harry heard Hermione muttering some choice words under her breath about the fate of humanity based on the relative morality of adolescent males, but a moment later she continued the story.
“The Sea Witch agreed to help the little mermaid get a pair of legs so she could walk about on land,” Hermione said.
“Okay, well, that’s nice enough,” Harry said. “At least this story has a positive portrayal of witches in it.”
“Leaving out the whole toad-sugar-cube-kissing thing,” Ron added.
“Not exactly,” Hermione said. “Her payment was to be the best thing the littler mermaid had.”
“Her crown?” Harry guessed.
“Her multiple painful oysters stuck on her tail?” Ron asked.
“Her… mermaids don’t really seem to have a whole lot of possessions,” Harry said.
“No, her voice,” Hermione said.
“Um… seriously?” Ron said. “The Sea Witch wants to make her have chronic laryngitis?”
“No, she wants to cut out her tongue,” Hermione said, looking rather green herself.
Harry looked back and forth between the two of them, trying to decide who was in danger of getting sick first. Personally, he was feeling more than a bit nauseous himself. He was also starting to wonder whether the Dursleys might not have done him a bit of a favor by saying he couldn’t read fairy tales.
“That is just plain repulsive and makes no sense at all!” Ron finally spat out. “Blech! I mean, what’s she going to do, make a necklace out of it or something?”
“No, she wanted to put it in the potion with the rest of the ingredients,” Hermione said.
“That’s just… okay, there’s dark magic, and then there’s bloody freaking pitch black dark magic, and then there’s this!” Ron yelled. “I hope the kid wised up, went home, and married some nice Hinkypunk or something.”
“No, she agreed,” Hermione said, “even after the witch warned her that the potion would make it feel as though she were being cut in two with a sword and that every step she took would be as though she trod on razor sharp knives.”
“Mental,” Ron said, shaking his head sadly. “That’s not even funny anymore. She’s just plain sick.”
“She also warned her that on the morning after the prince married someone else, the mermaid’s heart would break, and she would at once turn to foam on the ocean, disappearing into oblivion with no soul and no hope of an afterlife,” Hermione added.
“This is not a good deal,” Ron said. “This is a very, very bad deal.”
Harry nodded numbly. Granted, though, most of Hermione’s stories usually ended happily for the main character, so perhaps things weren’t as bleak as they seemed.
“I quite agree,” Hermione said. “However, the little mermaid took the potion from her, rose to the surface, lay down on the beach, and then drank it down. The Sea Witch had been true to her word, and a pain as though a sword were slicing her in half burned white hot through her body until she passed out. When she awoke, still in pain, she found she had two of the loveliest legs in all the world.”
“Great, so she’s Betty bloody Grable,” Ron said. “Has someone forgotten to tell her that in the 1700s women didn’t go around with their legs visible anyway?”
“Betty Grable?” Hermione said, looking startled.
“I have layers,” Ron said. “Besides, Dad always fancied her. He’s got a picture of her in his workshop next to the poster of all the different kinds of plugs.”
“I’ve never seen that in there,” Hermione said, frowning as though she were trying to recall the layout of the room.
“Of course not,” Ron said, grinning. “Dad’s not dumb. It’s bewitched so that anyone with two X chromosomes only sees a gardening calendar. Mum would have kittens.”
“Well, regardless of your father’s appreciation for Miss Grable’s appendages, you’d normally be quite right about the cultural taboos regarding exposed legs in public during this era,” Hermione said. “However, when the mermaid awoke, who was standing over her but the prince himself, checking to see if she was alive. Embarrassed, she covered herself in her long hair.”
“Yeah, that’ll work,” Ron said to Harry. “Not unless she was that parsnip bird.”
“Rapunzel,” Hermione corrected him automatically. “In any case, the prince asked her kindly what her name was and what she was doing there.”
“Kindly, huh? He finds a naked girl on the beach and wants to know her name and address. I’m not thinking he’s qualifying for sainthood from all this completely unselfish kindness,” Ron said with a snort.
“Point taken,” Hermione said, blushing a bit. “However, the mermaid couldn’t speak, so she tried to tell him with her eyes all that had happened.”
“How’d that work out for her?” Ron asked mock-seriously.
“Not too well. The prince had no memory of the mermaid who had saved him, but he decided to bring her back to the castle and have a page’s outfit made for her. She soon became his favorite of all his servants, and she followed him everywhere. She even slept outside his bedroom door on a cushion he had made for her,” Hermione said, rolling her eyes.
“So… she’s his pet?” Harry said.
“It looks like it,” Hermione said. “He called her his ‘dear dumb child’ and she used to go on expeditions with him and his other servants and slaves and courtiers up into the hills around the castle, but all the time she was still in pain. Occasionally her feet would actually start to openly bleed on the ground, but she made light of it and tripped on gaily, so no one thought anything of it.”
“He just… let her bleed all over the rocks?” Ron asked. “Didn’t he maybe think of calling a doctor?”
“Apparently not,” Hermione said.
“Talk about self-absorbed,” Ron said. “This guy makes Draco look like a sensitive soul.”
“Yeah, I think even Dudley would have at least told somebody else to call the hospital, even if for no other reason than to keep her from ruining his carpet,” Harry added.
“But she could still walk, even with the knives and daggers and needles and pins and red hot pokers or whatever it was in her feet?” Ron asked.
“She not only walked but she danced as well. In fact there’s a ballet version of this whole story,” Hermione said. “The prince held a ball one night, and he applauded one of his servants for singing particularly well, though the mermaid knew her own voice had been far sweeter. However, when the band began to play again, she danced before the prince, as light as a bubble on the wind and just as graceful, and she was regarded as the most beautiful of them all.”
“I see,” Ron said. “You know something, ‘Mione? This is one seriously messed up story.”
“Yes,” Hermione agreed. “However, the little mermaid had hope, for the prince told her that she with her ‘speaking eyes’ was dearer to him than anyone else in the world, and that if he had his own way, he would marry her rather than any other girl.”
“Right, because dancing and bleeding are key parts of all relationships,” Ron said. “Speaking of speaking eyes, did she learn sign language or anything?”
“No, there’s no mention of that in the story,” Hermione said. “Sign language existed in Denmark at the time this was written, though it wasn’t widely studied, but Andersen doesn’t bring that into the story at all.”
“So no conversation, not that she could have even introduced herself, what with the lack of a name,” Ron said, snorting. “Granted, they’re on fair footing there since he doesn’t seem to have one either.”
“However,” Hermione continued, “the prince’s parents thought it was high time for him to marry and insure the lineage would continue, and his marriage to a princess had been contracted at birth.”
“That doesn’t bode well for our little bloody-footed princess,” Ron said, looking serious.
“Wait, how old is he supposed to be again?” Harry asked.
“About sixteen,” Hermione explained. “Again, it’s quite young, but if Edward VI had managed to marry and produce at least one child by his death at age 15, the whole mess between Mary I and Elizabeth I could have been avoided.”
“Mary the first what and Elizabeth the first what?” Ron asked.
“Queen,” Hermione said.
“How could they both be the first queen?” Ron asked, looking completely confused.
“No, just the first queen named Mary and the first queen named Elizabeth,” Hermione explained.
“Of England, I take it?” Ron said.
“Well, there were a few queens named Mary in Hungary, but yes,” Hermione said. “At any rate, both of them were daughters of the previous king by different mothers, and they went back and forth over who was supposed to be queen after their only brother died.”
“Right,” Ron said, looking bored. “So they married ‘em off young to keep the monarchy going or something. Let’s get back to nameless bleeding girl and nameless narcissist prince.”
“At any rate, he told the princess that his parents wouldn’t force him to marry the other girl,” Hermione said.
“Bully for them,” Ron said.
“Quite,” Hermione agreed. “For the time, they’re actually very open-minded. The prince told the little mermaid, ‘O, there is but one other lady in all the world who could capture my heart, and as it is not she, I would as well have you.’”
“And who might that be?” Harry asked.
“Well, the prince and his parents went to the seashore to greet the young princess, you had been away at a convent school,” Hermione said.
“Wait,” Ron said, frowning. “Convent school? You can’t be serious.”
“You’ve picked up on it,” Hermione said, nodding approvingly. “The girl who disembarked from the boat was indeed the same girl who had found the prince lying on the beach after the mermaid had saved him.”
“The same one he claimed had saved his life by not tripping over him?” Harry said.
‘The very same,” Hermione said, “and it turned out she was the only other girl he had ever thought he could love. Overjoyed, he enfolded his blushing bride into his arms and declared himself the happiest man in the world, insisting the wedding take place at once.”
“Yowch,” Harry said, wincing.
“He didn’t exactly ask her if she was willing to marry him, now did he?” Ron said. “Bit overconfident, isn’t he?”
“All things considered, it sort of fits with his character though, doesn’t it?” Harry said.
“Very true,” Hermione said, beaming at both of them for their realization. “In any case, the wedding was held that very day upon the same ship that had taken the princess to the harbor, and the little mermaid stood as maid of honor during the ceremony.”
“Okay, that’s just plain mean,” Ron said. “Were her feet bleeding as she walked down the aisle?”
“Let’s hope not,” Hermione said, shuddering. “The prince had told her he wanted her right next to him as the vows were said because he knew she would be happier for him than any other.”
“I hope she kicked him in the bum,” Ron said fervently.
“No, she did not, though she felt her heart breaking, and she knew she must die before the sun rose,” Hermione said.
“This is really sad,” Ron said. “I mean, yeah, she’s a creepy stalker, but that’s just too much.”
Harry had to agree. For a moment, he wondered what it would be like to see Ginny marry someone else, or worse, have to stand best man to the fellow doing it. He shuddered in sympathy.
“Yeah, Hermione, there’s got to be a way out of this one,” Harry said. “There always is, right?”
“Well, sort of,” Hermione said. “That night, after the band had finished playing and the little mermaid had danced to the delight of all the guests…”
“… this girl just swallows pain whole, doesn’t she?” Ron cut in.
“…the little mermaid stood on the deck and looked down into the water, realizing that in a little while she would be nothing but foam. At that moment, her sisters arose out of the ocean in a group, their arms stretched towards her,” Hermione said.
“Finally, the cavalry arrives!” Ron said.
“Maybe,” Hermione said, and her expression didn’t inspire much hope in Harry. “The oldest sister came quite close to the little mermaid, and it was then she realized that her sisters’ hair had all been cut off short.”
“Oh for crying out loud, did the witch from Rapunzel open a beauty parlor or what?!” Ron asked.
“You’re actually pretty close. The sister said that the six of them had all gone to the Sea Witch, and they had traded their hair for a solution to save their sister,” Hermione said.
“Oh,” Ron said, looking satisfied. “That seems like a pretty reasonable fee, all told. So what’s the solution?”
“The oldest sister handed the little mermaid a knife and said, ‘Before dawn, you must steal into the bridal chamber. There, plunge this knife into the prince’s heart. When the blood pours forth, let it flow over your feet, and they shall instantly become a fishtail again. Then you may return to us and live out the rest of your hundred years of life, carefree and happy,’” Hermione explained.
Harry and Ron looked at each other.
“Uh… huh,” Ron said slowly. “There is so much wrong with that statement that I’m not even going to touch it. Just keep going.”
Harry nodded as well, not sure he could find words to express properly just how disturbing the story was.
“The little mermaid took the knife from her hand, and the sisters splashed back beneath the surface of the waves, out of sight,” Hermione said. “Slowly, the little mermaid crept towards the beautiful silk tent that had been pitched on deck, where the prince and his bride were now sleeping.”
“Right,” Ron said, giving Harry a glance. “Sleeping. Sure.”
“Oh, come on, Ron, it’s a children’s story!” Hermione said in annoyance.
“Yeah, a kid’s story about slicing out tongues, walking around on mangled feet, and killing people with knives then bathing in their blood,” Ron said. “Silly me to make it sound sordid in some way by suggesting the prince and his new wife were doing what normal couples would on their wedding night.”
Hermione tipped her head to one said, considering.
“Point taken,” she conceded. “She carefully opened the entrance to the tent…”
“Geez, she really has completed the full course in stalkerhood at this point,” Ron said, making a face.
“…and she stared down at the prince and his bride as they lay sleeping,” Hermione said.
Harry saw Ron actually bite his lip to restrain himself from saying anything. Frankly, even he could have come up with some fairly apt ribald words on that one.
“The prince stirred slightly, then said the name of his bride in his sleep, and stilled again,” Hermione said.
“That was probably a mistake,” Ron said. “I don’t think she’s going to need much more to set her off.”
“The little mermaid raised the knife, ready to strike, but at the last moment she ran from the tent and threw the knife into the ocean, where blood spurted from the surface of the waves,” Hermione said.
“Oh,” Ron said. “Well, that was decent of her. Sounds like she might have accidentally knifed one of her six sisters, though.”
“You know, it’s very possible that’s what’s being implied, though I’ve never really thought of it that way before,” Hermione said, squinting. “Yes, that’s a perfectly acceptable assumption.”
Ron looked so pleased with himself that Harry rolled his eyes in disgust.
“Just at that moment, the edge of the sun came above the eastern horizon, and the little mermaid felt her body starting to dissolve. She threw herself into the water, feeling her flesh become only foam on the waves,” Hermione said.
“Wait, she died?” Ron said, really looking upset. “The poor kid actually died?”
“Yes,” Hermione said. “She knew she didn’t have a choice, so she tried to face it as bravely as she could.”
Harry shuddered. He didn’t think he’d be able to handle something like that so reasonably.
“Yeah, but,” Ron said, still looking very sad, “these stories have a happy ending all the time, don’t they?”
“No, not always,” Hermione said.
“That bloody well stinks!” Ron said. “I mean, she was a real weirdo, but I didn’t want her dead or anything.”
“I didn’t say it was the end of the story though, did I?” Hermione said kindly.
“Oh,” Ron said, slightly mollified. “Go on then, though usually there’s not a whole lot that fixes dying.”
“Well, the little mermaid suddenly looked about her and realized that she was still herself, though she wasn’t in her body anymore, and she saw many lovely invisible spirits in the air, and she suddenly realized she had a body like theirs now,” Hermione said.
“That’s… different,” Harry said, not sure what else to say.
“Better than drifting off into nothing at any rate,” Ron said.
“One of the spirits took her by the hands and said, ‘Dear little mermaid, you have proven yourself patient, courageous, and loving, and by your great suffering, you have become like us, the Daughters of the Air,’” Hermione said, using an appropriately misty voice that Harry thought sounded quite a lot like Luna.
“Daughters of the Air?” Ron asked. “Okay, whatever, but I rather thought she was going to be able to go to heaven now or have a soul or something. What’s a Daughter of the Air even do?”
“The spirit told the little mermaid that they brought cooling breezes to those in faraway lands, and that through their good works, they could in time earn a soul,” Hermione said.
“Yeah, kid, because you’ve had it so soft with the tongue amputation and the mangled tootsies,” Ron said. “So she’s what, a breeze now?”
“Pretty much,” Hermione said. “Just then, the little mermaid saw that there was a commotion on ship. They had realized she was missing, and after searching everywhere, the prince and his bride stared forlornly into the sea, thinking she must have drowned.”
“Wow. He managed to work himself all the way up to forlorn,” Ron said, pretending to look impressed. “So what’d the little mermaid do?”
“Well, she made a little breeze to cool the bride’s face, kissed the prince on the cheek, and rose into the air with the other spirits,” Hermione said.
“So how long does she need to work to get a soul?” Harry asked.
“Oh, the spirit told her that it would take them three hundred years,” Hermione said.
“Three hundred years?” Ron said, looking stunned. “Seriously?”
“Yes,” Hermione said. “But then she added that when they invisibly visited a house where there was a good, kind child who deserved his or her parents’ love, a year would be taken off from their time of trial, but when they came upon a bad, wicked child, the Daughters of the Air would cry, and each tear added a day to their wait.”
Ron looked at her for a moment, then blurted out, “So this whole thing is just a blackmail story to get kids to behave! ‘Be good, junior, or you’ll make the poor little mermaid cry and she’ll wind up in Breeze Limbo forever!’”
Hermione pursed her lips together for a moment, then said, “Yes.”
“I… that’s… I… it’s amazing you lot have any sanity left at all by the age of seven,” Ron said, dropping back against the cushions in emotional exhaustion. “That is just completely unreal.”
“Well, at least it got your mind off food for a bit,” Hermione said.
“Too right. I should go to bed, but I’m a little afraid of the nightmares this is going to give me,” Ron said.
“If it makes you feel any better, when Disney remade the film, the little mermaid ended up marrying the prince and living happily every after,” Hermione said soothingly.
“Yeah, I suppose so,” Ron said, still looking uncertain.
When Harry went to bed that night, he couldn’t help thinking of the strange, underwater world he’d seen at the bottom of the lake where the Merpeople had threatened Hermione and Ron. He was glad they couldn’t remember any of it. But as strange and horrible as much of Hermione’s story had been, the thought that haunted him most was the image of the little mermaid walking forward to her death, knowing that the only way she could prevent it was to trade the lives of those she loved for her own.
He didn’t know why, but it gave him chills.
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