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bookishwenchSurprisingly, another one of these popped up fairly quickly.
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
Fic: The Little Mer-(eally-Deeply-Disturbing)-maid
Author: Meltha
Rating: PG-13
Feedback: Yes, thank you. Melpomenethalia@aol.com
Spoilers: Through the series.
Distribution: If you’re interested, please let me know.
Summary: Hermione is still telling the boys fairy tales, this time “The Three Little Pigs.”
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 Three L(acking-in-Any-Sanity)ittle Pigs
For once it wasn’t raining, but the wind was more than making up for it. Hermione had Apparated them to a moor near the Scottish border, and while it was perfectly isolated and therefore very safe, it was also very exposed. They’d needed to cast a Silencing Charm to keep the incessantly gusting wind from all but deafening them, and even now the roof of the tent kept rippling. Harry stared up at the moving fabric, which, although it was now almost eerily quiet, was still very unsettling.
“Hermione?” Ron asked as he threw the Deluminator back and forth from one hand to the other in what was becoming a nervous habit. “There’s no chance the whole bloody tent is going to up and fly off in the middle of the night, is there?”
“Not unless we get stuck in the middle of a hurricane,” Hermione said, but she looked a bit worried. “Granted, the Death Eaters have been known to conjure those at times, but we’re pretty much in the middle of nowhere. I think we’ll be safe enough.”
“If anywhere is safe,” Harry said.
He was feeling in rather a sulky mood, probably egged on by the Horcrux which, as usual, was making everything around it seem worse. Currently it hung around Harry’s neck on its chain, which seemed to weigh far too much for such a little thing.
Hermione looked at him sympathetically, and even Ron seemed to have picked up on the idea that Harry was out of sorts. He screwed up his mouth, seeming to be fishing about for something to break the mood.
“Well, it’s getting to be about that time again, I think,” Ron said, turning to Hermione expectantly.
“Time for you to complain about my potatoes again?” Hermione asked with false innocence.
“Ehm, no,” Ron said, though he snuck a guilty look at Harry. In all honesty, as much as it was a treat to have potatoes, Harry had been hard pressed to identify them as anything other than rocks after they’d come off the stove.
“To expound on how hungry you are?” she suggested, smiling a tad too sweetly.
“No, I’m full up,” Ron said, though Harry suspected that might be because the potatoes were laying like a brick in his stomach.
“To tell me for the umpteenth time that my hair is a frizzy disaster?” Hermione said, and Ron actually winced. “I believe your last comparison involved the Whomping Willow and a direct lightning strike, didn’t it?”
“Actually, I just wanted one of your lovely, daft, highly amusing stories, Hermione,” Ron said, trying to look charmingly hopeful. Harry had to hand it to him; it might be annoying as sand fleas in his socks to have to watch Ron practicing faces in the mirror every time Hermione was out of sight, but he really had gotten this one down pat, as Hermione’s reaction showed.
“Well…,” she said, looking uncertain. “All right then, especially since you’ve reminded me of one by something you said earlier.”
“Did I?” Ron said, brightening. “Something about a tree that gets struck by lightning?”
“No,” Hermione said, sighing in frustration, then muttering something that sounded a good deal like, “I swear I’m going to chop the whole lot of it off when we’re done with this wretched business.”
“So, what then?” Harry asked, hoping that she this would be one of the more insane stories if for no other reason than to distract him. Weirdly, the Horcrux never seemed to bother him so much when she was telling them a particularly bizarre fairy tale.
“Oh, you’ll see soon enough,” Hermione said, and she looked a bit less annoyed. “Once…”
“…upon a time,” Ron said, settling into a cushion and looking as attentive as a kindergartner during story time.
“Yes,” Hermione said, and she nearly laughed, which was a good sign. “There lived a mother pig who had three piglets.”
“Is this going to be a talking animals story again?” Ron asked.
“It is,” Hermione said, as though daring him to find fault with that. “Why?”
“Oh, that’s fine,” Ron said, smiling. “It’s just I like to be prepared for the particular flavour of crazy that’s on the menu. Makes it a bit less of a shock.”
Hermione raised an eyebrow at him, but continued on.
“The three piglets, all brothers, got along with one another splendidly, but while the first and second brothers were inclined to be lazy and think of pleasure before work,” and here Hermione seemed to give Harry and Ron a rather accusatory look, “the third pig worked hard, studied, and waited to play until after his toil was done.”
“What kind of ‘toil’ does a pig have to do?” Ron asked, drawing air-quotes around the word. “He had to put in so many hours a day at mud wallowing school?”
“Or maybe he needed to polish his trough and practice oinking?” Harry said.
Hermione looked back and forth between the two of them, then shrugged.
“I don’t know,” she admitted. “Whatever it was that pigs do as work, the third pig did it and the other two didn’t.”
“Fair enough,” Ron said. “We’ll sweep it under the rug, then. Carry on!”
Hermione sighed again, and Harry spared a moment to think that her lungs really must be getting very strong from doing that so often, but she sallied forth once more in a moment.
“When the little pigs had grown up, the mother pig told them it was time for them to go out into the world and make their living,” Hermione said.
“As what?” Ron said. “Accountants?”
“Well, that would be fitting if they were piggy banks,” Hermione said with a grin, but it seemed to go over Ron’s head. “Pilots, then? You know, ‘when pigs fly’?”
Ron looked at Harry with concern as though he thought Hermione might have finally cracked from the stress.
“Never mind,” she said. “They were pigs that walk on their hind legs, talk, and wear clothes. Maybe they really were going to be accountants or clerks or something. Anyway, the three little pigs walked off into the great big world together.”
“What about the mum?” Ron asked.
“She stayed at home,” Hermione said.
“And was there a father pig, by any chance?” Harry asked.
“He’s never mentioned in the story. It’s implied that the mother pig is a widow, though it’s never really said outright,” Hermione said. “I suppose it would be a bit of a lonely life for her, what with the piglets all grown and out in the world on their own.”
“Yeah,” Ron said, frowning. “Reminds me of Mum. I kind of wish she still had one or two little ones at home for company’s sake. She’s got to be climbing the walls by now, worrying about the lot of us and not having anyone to take her mind off it.”
Hermione looked at him kindly, and Harry noticed she put a hand lightly on his arm.
“There’s always your father, you know,” she said consolingly.
“True,” Ron said, looking up at her. “But by now, she’s probably hen-pecking him to death. You know how women are.”
Hermione’s hand was suddenly very absent from Ron’s arm, and she seemed to have managed to move as far from him as humanly possible while still remaining on the couch. Ron looked a little confused, and Harry just shook his head at him. At this rate they should progress to their first kiss somewhere around the twelfth of never.
“At any rate, the three little pigs—” Hermione began when she was suddenly interrupted.
“Wait, I thought you said they were grown up now,” Ron said.
“Yes, I did,” Hermione said, and Harry noticed she was closing her eyes and appeared to be steeling herself for the worst. “What’s wrong with that?”
“You said they were three little pigs,” Ron said. “How can they be little if they’re grown? Are they mini-pigs or something?”
Hermione appeared to be in danger of rubbing her nose right off her face out of frustration by the time she said, “Ronald, the story is called ‘The Three Little Pigs.’ They are full grown pigs, yet they are still little. If you want to infer from that the pigs have some species of dwarfism, I shall not say thee nay, but for the love of Merlin, just go with it!”
“’I shall not say thee nay?’” Ron mouthed to Harry, looking rather alarmed, before continuing in a very even, calm tone to Hermione, “Alright, then, the little pigs are grown up big pigs that are still little. I can handle that. Ehm… can you?”
“YES!” she hollered, then caught herself, shook her head vigorously, and sighed. “Sorry. At any rate, the three pigs of whatever relative size struck out on their own. The first little pig, who was quite lazy, decided to build his house of straw.”
“Makes sense,” Ron said. “After all, the barn they were living in probably was full of the stuff, so he’s used to it.”
“Yes, but the problem is it’s a house made entirely of straw with no barn attached,” Hermione said. “It’s just a cottage made of straw, walls, doors, roof and all.”
“So?” Ron asked.
“So how strong do you think that’s going to be?” Hermione asked, sounding remarkably like Mrs. Weasley.
“Oh,” Ron said. “Hadn’t thought of that. I bet it was right cheap though.”
“Probably,” Hermione said, “and it was almost undoubtedly fast to build.”
“Well, now, I’m not so sure about that,” Harry said, breaking in. “I mean, really, it seems like it would take kind of a long time to make a house entirely out of straw.”
“Yeah,” Ron chimed in. “Think how long it would take to plait it all together and figure out how to put in the floor plan and so on.”
“You’re over-thinking this,” Hermione said. “It’s not like he was making a creation by Frank Lloyd Wright or something.”
“Who?” Ron and Harry asked.
“He was an architect of the early to mid twentieth century who specialized in the Arts and Crafts movement and revolutionized much of modern building,” Hermione rattled off automatically. “The point is supposed to be that the lazy first little pig didn’t do his homework and wound up getting Ts on all of his NEWTs… I mean, he didn’t do what he was supposed to and built a very weak house.”
Hermione blushed crimson at her slip but plowed on gamely.
“The second little pig, who was nearly as lazy as the first one, built his home of sticks,” Hermione said.
“Well, that’s a bit better,” Ron said. “I mean, isn’t it?”
“Structurally speaking, wood would indeed be stronger than straw since straw is technically a form of grass, and trees obviously have more structural integrity than grass would, but the point is he just picked up a bunch of random sticks off the ground, shaped them into something that looked a little like a house, and called it a day so he could go outside a play,” Hermione said. “He still made a very poor job of it.”
“I’m starting to think this story’s moral is something about having fun being a bad thing,” Ron said to Harry with a grimace of distaste.
Hermione rolled her eyes, but continued on.
“Finally, the last little pig, who was industrious and clever, built his house out of bricks,” Hermione said.
“How?” Ron asked.
“What?” Hermione said, staring at him blankly.
“How did the third pig get hold of bricks? I mean, straw and sticks, you’re likely to find those just lying about, yeah? But you’re not going to find bricks just sitting there. Did he apprentice himself to a bricklayer who was really open-minded about hiring runty pigs or did he just steal a load of bricks or what?” Ron asked.
“How would you even go about stealing a load of bricks?” Harry said, looking at Ron.
“I suppose he could have made off with a lorry full of them,” Ron said shrugging. “He can walk, talk, and build a house out of bricks, so I’d guess learning to drive wouldn’t be too outside his abilities.”
“This took place long before lorries were invented,” Hermione said, but Harry could tell from her expression that she was actually trying to figure this out. “However, I suppose he might have stolen a cartload of bricks from an unwary mason, though that undermines the story’s idea that hard work is important in life by having the pig become a dishonest thief in order to do honest hard work. On the other hand, he might have simply come upon a crumbling ruin of an old brick house and taken the bricks to the place he’d chosen for his home on a brick by brick basis, which would underline the theme of hard work as that would be particularly bothersome… though it would also suggest he’d have to sleep out of doors with no protection at all during the building process, which isn’t very intelligent of him. Still, it’s a decent solution that doesn’t involve stealing and would even suggest the importance of recycling in modern retelling. Yes, I suppose that would be the most logical solution and the one most in keeping with the spirit of the original.”
Privately, Harry wondered whether the pig could simply have used Hermione’s potatoes instead of bricks and gotten the same result, but as she was finally smiling again, he decided it might be wise to hold his tongue.
“Or he stole the bricks,” Ron said with a shrug. “Six of one.”
“In any case, the third little pig built himself a very fine house of brick,” Hermione said, as though she were convincing herself to ignore Ron’s comment out of sheer willpower. “The two other little pigs laughed at their brother, saying that they got to play all day long while their brother worked at things they thought weren’t very important, and they called him foolish and boring and a lot of other mean things, but he was still very satisfied that he’d done a good job of his task.”
Ron shot Harry a look that suggested he was seeing through the paper-thin analogy Hermione was making, but to his credit, he kept mum.
“Not long after, a big, bad wolf came prowling through the forest. He was very hungry, and he had smelled the tempting odor of pork floating towards him,” Hermione said.
“He smelled pork? Okay, I can go with the idea that he smelled pigs. They aren’t that hard to smell, really, but pork? Had the pigs taken to very in-depth sunbathing or something?” Ron asked.
“Then he smelled pig,” Hermione said through gritted teeth. “Better?”
“Much,” Ron replied, sitting back against the cushions with a satisfied air.
“The wolf came to the house of the first little pig, the one who had built his house out of straw. He walked up to the front door and said, ‘Little pig, little pig, let me come in!’” Hermione said, giving the wolf a gravelly voice that sounded rather like he’d had a bit too much Ogden’s. “The first little pig replied, ‘Not by the hair of my chinny-chin-chin!’”
“The hair of his chinny-chin-chin?” Ron said slowly with a tone of deep disbelief. “Seriously?”
“Pigs actually do have hair on their chins, being mammals,” Hermione said, putting her hands on her hips. “It’s not totally ridiculous, and it completes the rhyme.”
“I mean, at least the pig is smart enough not to let the wolf in, I suppose,” Ron admitted, “but there’s got to be a better rhyme that ‘chinny-chin-chin.’”
“Go away or I’ll throw you in the bin?” Harry suggested, mimicking the tempo Hermione had used.
“Not bad,” Ron said appraisingly. How about ‘Get away from me, you stupid has-been!’”
“Back off or I’ll hit you with a rolling pin?” Harry threw in.
“Stop it right now or I’ll kick you in the shin?” Ron added.
“Leave or you’ll need to alert your next of kin!” Harry said, starting to really enjoy himself.
“Desist at once or I’ll whack you firmly over the head with my hardcover copy of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn!” Hermione said triumphantly.
Harry and Ron stared at her.
“Not that it’s a very thick book,” she mumbled in embarrassment. “I suppose Encyclopedia Britannica would be more effective, but it’s the only one I could think of that rhymed.”
“You think the issue with that one was the page count?” Ron said.
“It was either that or a reference to Anne Boleyn, but that seemed historically insensitive,” Hermione said giving a little shudder. “In any case, the wolf replied with ‘Then I’ll huff, and I’ll puff, and I’ll bloooooooooooow your house in!’”
Hermione really had gone for broke with the wolf’s voice on this one, trying to make it as creepy as possible while at the same time nearly passing out from how long she extended the o in blow.
“Wait, is this a relative of the talking freak wolf in ‘Moderately Sized Sun Bonnet’?” Ron asked without sounding the least impressed by Hermione’s acting skills, which had almost rendered her unconscious.
“What?” she asked. “Oh, ‘Little Red Riding Hood.’ No, I… hmm. I suppose he could be. Of course, wolves show up fairly often in fairy tales as villains, but still, they do have quite a lot in common, don’t they?”
“Including breaking and entering,” Ron said, nodding. “Rather, really, attempted breaking and entering for this wolf, because that couldn’t possibly work, blowing a house down.”
“Oh, but it did,” Hermione said off-handedly as she was still apparently considering the question of the related wolves.
“The wolf blew the house down?” Harry asked.
“Yes,” Hermione said.
“With TNT, right?” Ron said.
“No, he just took a deep breath and blew all the straw away,” Hermione said. “The little pig hadn’t worked hard enough at building his home, so the wolf was able to destroy it just by breathing on it.”
“That’s either some seriously shoddy craftsmanship… er, craftspigship, or a wolf with one very good pair of lungs,” Harry said.
“That’s not possible, though,” Ron said, looking at Harry. “You can’t just breathe on a house, even a straw one, and make it blow away.”
“Actually, it’s stated that the house blew in, not away, which might not take as much pressure,” Hermione said. “As for the average air pressure of a wolf’s breath, I don’t know off the top of my head, but humans can blow at as high as 2.8 pounds per square inch if they’re in very good physical condition. One would assume that the writer of the original story must have been familiar with wolves howling, and the noise is really rather stunning. It can travel miles away under the right conditions. The storyteller must have come to the conclusion that a wolf would generate a tremendous amount of air if it concentrated its breath in one place, which, while faulty in practice, does make some sense on a metaphorical level if not a scientific one.”
Ron paused, looked at Hermione for a moment, then turned back to Harry and said, “You can’t just breathe on a house, even a straw one, and make it blow away.”
“Right,” Harry said, patting his arm. “You can’t. But this is a story.”
“Story,” Ron said to himself, as though cherishing a final shred of sanity. “It’s a story. And Hermione knows about the psi of human breath and the audible distance of wolf calls at the drop of a hat. That at least I can believe.”
“In any case, the wolf blew in the straw house, and the first little pig was left standing there with no defenses at all,” Hermione said. “Then the story goes one of two ways. In one version, the pig runs quickly next door to the second little pig’s house. His brother lets him in then bolts the door before the wolf can get inside.”
“He bolts the door on his sloppily made house of sticks?” Harry asked.
“It’ doesn’t really take all that much to make a bolt beside a few sticks anyway,” Hermione said defensively.
“Fine, the second little pig installed a deadbolt in his stick house,” Ron said. “What’s the other option?”
“The wolf eats the first pig,” Hermione said.
“Oh,” Ron said, looking unhappy. “I rather liked him. Let’s go with option one then rather than killing off the anthropomorphic piggy.”
“Fine,” Hermione said with a nod. “The wolf came to the second little pig’s door and said once more ‘Little pig, little pig, let me come in.’”
“Even if he already ate the first pig?” Harry said.
“Yes, it’s the same in both stories,” Hermione said. “I suppose one could read into that the idea that the story also has a moral against gluttony as well.”
“I could eat a pig,” Ron said with a shrug. “Maybe two, if they were little.”
Hermione gazed into the middle distance for a moment, then shrugged as well. “Point taken. Anyway, the little pigs chorused together, ‘Not by the hair of our chinny-chin-chin!’ and the wolf said, ‘Then I’ll huff, and I’ll puff, and I’ll bloooooooooooow your house in!’”
Harry was starting to be concerned that Hermione was actually going to be rendered unconscious if she kept up the wolf’s voice much longer, but then he supposed that might give Ron an excuse to perform mouth-to-mouth, thereby ending the perpetual unresolved sexual tension that was threatening to go nuclear at any moment. In that case, it could be worth it.
“So, did the wolf with the superhumanly huge lungs blow down the house of sticks as well?” Ron asked seriously.
“Yes, he did,” Hermione said. “Just as before, in one version the second pig is eaten, but in the other, the two little pigs run to their brother’s house, and he lets them in and bars the door before the wolf gets there.”
“The wolf must run pretty slowly not to catch them,” Harry said.
“Don’t forget, he’s still recovering from the whale-like exhaling he’s been doing,” Ron said. “I’ll cut him some slack on that as he must be out of breath to start with.”
Hermione appeared to be squinting at nothing, and Ron had to elbow her to continue.
“Oh, sorry,” she said. “I was just wondering what the air pressure of a blue whale’s blow hole would be. In any case, the wolf did come up to the third pig’s house, and once again he said…”
“’Little pig, little pig, let me come in?’” Ron suggested.
“You must be psychic,” Hermione said sarcastically.
“Those Divination classes had to pay off eventually,” Ron said with a wink.
“Well, would you care to guess what might happen next?” Hermione asked.
“I’d wager that the pigs made some reference to the hair on their chins, followed the wolf saying he was going to blow their house in,” Ron said sagely.
“Correct. Except he couldn’t,” Hermione said.
“So the wolf’s breath is finally foiled by something,” Harry said. “Nice to know the story wasn’t being purposely weird.”
“No, the talking wolf who could start his own demolition company using only his own lungs did have his limitations,” Ron said.
“The wolf kept huffing,” and here Hermione blew hard, “and puffing,” and again, “and huffing,” and again, “and puffing…”
“Good way to start hyperventilating, that,” Ron said in some concern.
“No, the wolf didn’t—” she started.
“I meant you,” Ron said, peering at her. “You feeling okay?”
“I guess I am a little out of breath,” she admitted with a smile. “I always wondered why my father didn’t tell this story more often. I think I’ve got the answer. Anyway, the wolf wasn’t able to move the brick house at all no matter how hard he tried.”
“Good, and that’s the end of the story?” Harry asked.
“No, the wolf was still hungry and very determined, and realized that he could get into the brick house through the chimney,” Hermione said.
“Did he dress up like Father Christmas first?” Ron asked.
“No, he did not,” Hermione said with prim decorum, but she seemed to be hiding a grin. “But the third pig, who was extremely clever, had realized that the wolf would try to find another way in, so he had built a great fire in the fireplace and put a large pot of water over it to boil.”
“Wait, I see where this is going,” Ron said. “The wolf couldn’t be stupid enough to jump down a chimney that had smoke coming out of it, could he?”
“He was indeed,” Hermione said. “The wolf bolted down the chimney and landed right in the pot of boiling water, shrieking in agony, and the third little pig clamped the lid down fast before the wolf could hop out again.”
“So the wolf… boiled… to… death…” Ron said, looking ill.
“Would you rather the little pigs had been eaten?” Hermione asked.
“No, but I don’t see why anyone’s absolutely got to die in all these stories,” Ron said.
“I suppose it’s just the way they drive home the moral,” Hermione said. “Because of the third little pig’s dedication to hard work, instead of being eaten, they ate wolf stew for dinner than night, and the three pigs, or the one pig in the other version, lived happily ever after.”
“Wolf stew?” Harry said, grimacing.
Ron thought a moment, then said, “At this point, I probably wouldn’t say no to it as long as the wolf wasn’t talking prior to being popped in the pot, or, you know, wearing a grandmother’s nightgown and bonnet. You’ve got to draw a moral line somewhere.”
Harry and Hermione laughed, and outside the wind continued to blow ferociously. It was growing late, and the silhouette of the full moon was dimly visible through the thin fabric of the tent. Somewhere, Harry thought, Professor Lupin was becoming into a wolf again, and the image unsettled him deeply after the story they’d heard. Harry somehow was more aware of the darkness than ever, of the very thin barrier between them and the Death Eaters who lurked in the night, hunting for prey. Eventually, they turned in for the night, each going to their own accustomed spot and trying to find solace in sleep for a few short hours. But after a few minutes, the silence was broken.
“Um, Hermione?” Ron said from near the couch.
“Yes?” her voice came from somewhere around the kitchen.
“Thanks for, you know, learning how to build a house out of brick and letting us in,” Ron said softly.
There was a pause before she said, in an equally soft voice, “You’re welcome… little pig.”
In the darkness outside, the big, bad wolf with red eyes still roved, but he could not enter the house of the three friends. Somehow, within the insubstantial walls of the tent, Harry felt safe.
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
Fic: The Little Mer-(eally-Deeply-Disturbing)-maid
Author: Meltha
Rating: PG-13
Feedback: Yes, thank you. Melpomenethalia@aol.com
Spoilers: Through the series.
Distribution: If you’re interested, please let me know.
Summary: Hermione is still telling the boys fairy tales, this time “The Three Little Pigs.”
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.
For once it wasn’t raining, but the wind was more than making up for it. Hermione had Apparated them to a moor near the Scottish border, and while it was perfectly isolated and therefore very safe, it was also very exposed. They’d needed to cast a Silencing Charm to keep the incessantly gusting wind from all but deafening them, and even now the roof of the tent kept rippling. Harry stared up at the moving fabric, which, although it was now almost eerily quiet, was still very unsettling.
“Hermione?” Ron asked as he threw the Deluminator back and forth from one hand to the other in what was becoming a nervous habit. “There’s no chance the whole bloody tent is going to up and fly off in the middle of the night, is there?”
“Not unless we get stuck in the middle of a hurricane,” Hermione said, but she looked a bit worried. “Granted, the Death Eaters have been known to conjure those at times, but we’re pretty much in the middle of nowhere. I think we’ll be safe enough.”
“If anywhere is safe,” Harry said.
He was feeling in rather a sulky mood, probably egged on by the Horcrux which, as usual, was making everything around it seem worse. Currently it hung around Harry’s neck on its chain, which seemed to weigh far too much for such a little thing.
Hermione looked at him sympathetically, and even Ron seemed to have picked up on the idea that Harry was out of sorts. He screwed up his mouth, seeming to be fishing about for something to break the mood.
“Well, it’s getting to be about that time again, I think,” Ron said, turning to Hermione expectantly.
“Time for you to complain about my potatoes again?” Hermione asked with false innocence.
“Ehm, no,” Ron said, though he snuck a guilty look at Harry. In all honesty, as much as it was a treat to have potatoes, Harry had been hard pressed to identify them as anything other than rocks after they’d come off the stove.
“To expound on how hungry you are?” she suggested, smiling a tad too sweetly.
“No, I’m full up,” Ron said, though Harry suspected that might be because the potatoes were laying like a brick in his stomach.
“To tell me for the umpteenth time that my hair is a frizzy disaster?” Hermione said, and Ron actually winced. “I believe your last comparison involved the Whomping Willow and a direct lightning strike, didn’t it?”
“Actually, I just wanted one of your lovely, daft, highly amusing stories, Hermione,” Ron said, trying to look charmingly hopeful. Harry had to hand it to him; it might be annoying as sand fleas in his socks to have to watch Ron practicing faces in the mirror every time Hermione was out of sight, but he really had gotten this one down pat, as Hermione’s reaction showed.
“Well…,” she said, looking uncertain. “All right then, especially since you’ve reminded me of one by something you said earlier.”
“Did I?” Ron said, brightening. “Something about a tree that gets struck by lightning?”
“No,” Hermione said, sighing in frustration, then muttering something that sounded a good deal like, “I swear I’m going to chop the whole lot of it off when we’re done with this wretched business.”
“So, what then?” Harry asked, hoping that she this would be one of the more insane stories if for no other reason than to distract him. Weirdly, the Horcrux never seemed to bother him so much when she was telling them a particularly bizarre fairy tale.
“Oh, you’ll see soon enough,” Hermione said, and she looked a bit less annoyed. “Once…”
“…upon a time,” Ron said, settling into a cushion and looking as attentive as a kindergartner during story time.
“Yes,” Hermione said, and she nearly laughed, which was a good sign. “There lived a mother pig who had three piglets.”
“Is this going to be a talking animals story again?” Ron asked.
“It is,” Hermione said, as though daring him to find fault with that. “Why?”
“Oh, that’s fine,” Ron said, smiling. “It’s just I like to be prepared for the particular flavour of crazy that’s on the menu. Makes it a bit less of a shock.”
Hermione raised an eyebrow at him, but continued on.
“The three piglets, all brothers, got along with one another splendidly, but while the first and second brothers were inclined to be lazy and think of pleasure before work,” and here Hermione seemed to give Harry and Ron a rather accusatory look, “the third pig worked hard, studied, and waited to play until after his toil was done.”
“What kind of ‘toil’ does a pig have to do?” Ron asked, drawing air-quotes around the word. “He had to put in so many hours a day at mud wallowing school?”
“Or maybe he needed to polish his trough and practice oinking?” Harry said.
Hermione looked back and forth between the two of them, then shrugged.
“I don’t know,” she admitted. “Whatever it was that pigs do as work, the third pig did it and the other two didn’t.”
“Fair enough,” Ron said. “We’ll sweep it under the rug, then. Carry on!”
Hermione sighed again, and Harry spared a moment to think that her lungs really must be getting very strong from doing that so often, but she sallied forth once more in a moment.
“When the little pigs had grown up, the mother pig told them it was time for them to go out into the world and make their living,” Hermione said.
“As what?” Ron said. “Accountants?”
“Well, that would be fitting if they were piggy banks,” Hermione said with a grin, but it seemed to go over Ron’s head. “Pilots, then? You know, ‘when pigs fly’?”
Ron looked at Harry with concern as though he thought Hermione might have finally cracked from the stress.
“Never mind,” she said. “They were pigs that walk on their hind legs, talk, and wear clothes. Maybe they really were going to be accountants or clerks or something. Anyway, the three little pigs walked off into the great big world together.”
“What about the mum?” Ron asked.
“She stayed at home,” Hermione said.
“And was there a father pig, by any chance?” Harry asked.
“He’s never mentioned in the story. It’s implied that the mother pig is a widow, though it’s never really said outright,” Hermione said. “I suppose it would be a bit of a lonely life for her, what with the piglets all grown and out in the world on their own.”
“Yeah,” Ron said, frowning. “Reminds me of Mum. I kind of wish she still had one or two little ones at home for company’s sake. She’s got to be climbing the walls by now, worrying about the lot of us and not having anyone to take her mind off it.”
Hermione looked at him kindly, and Harry noticed she put a hand lightly on his arm.
“There’s always your father, you know,” she said consolingly.
“True,” Ron said, looking up at her. “But by now, she’s probably hen-pecking him to death. You know how women are.”
Hermione’s hand was suddenly very absent from Ron’s arm, and she seemed to have managed to move as far from him as humanly possible while still remaining on the couch. Ron looked a little confused, and Harry just shook his head at him. At this rate they should progress to their first kiss somewhere around the twelfth of never.
“At any rate, the three little pigs—” Hermione began when she was suddenly interrupted.
“Wait, I thought you said they were grown up now,” Ron said.
“Yes, I did,” Hermione said, and Harry noticed she was closing her eyes and appeared to be steeling herself for the worst. “What’s wrong with that?”
“You said they were three little pigs,” Ron said. “How can they be little if they’re grown? Are they mini-pigs or something?”
Hermione appeared to be in danger of rubbing her nose right off her face out of frustration by the time she said, “Ronald, the story is called ‘The Three Little Pigs.’ They are full grown pigs, yet they are still little. If you want to infer from that the pigs have some species of dwarfism, I shall not say thee nay, but for the love of Merlin, just go with it!”
“’I shall not say thee nay?’” Ron mouthed to Harry, looking rather alarmed, before continuing in a very even, calm tone to Hermione, “Alright, then, the little pigs are grown up big pigs that are still little. I can handle that. Ehm… can you?”
“YES!” she hollered, then caught herself, shook her head vigorously, and sighed. “Sorry. At any rate, the three pigs of whatever relative size struck out on their own. The first little pig, who was quite lazy, decided to build his house of straw.”
“Makes sense,” Ron said. “After all, the barn they were living in probably was full of the stuff, so he’s used to it.”
“Yes, but the problem is it’s a house made entirely of straw with no barn attached,” Hermione said. “It’s just a cottage made of straw, walls, doors, roof and all.”
“So?” Ron asked.
“So how strong do you think that’s going to be?” Hermione asked, sounding remarkably like Mrs. Weasley.
“Oh,” Ron said. “Hadn’t thought of that. I bet it was right cheap though.”
“Probably,” Hermione said, “and it was almost undoubtedly fast to build.”
“Well, now, I’m not so sure about that,” Harry said, breaking in. “I mean, really, it seems like it would take kind of a long time to make a house entirely out of straw.”
“Yeah,” Ron chimed in. “Think how long it would take to plait it all together and figure out how to put in the floor plan and so on.”
“You’re over-thinking this,” Hermione said. “It’s not like he was making a creation by Frank Lloyd Wright or something.”
“Who?” Ron and Harry asked.
“He was an architect of the early to mid twentieth century who specialized in the Arts and Crafts movement and revolutionized much of modern building,” Hermione rattled off automatically. “The point is supposed to be that the lazy first little pig didn’t do his homework and wound up getting Ts on all of his NEWTs… I mean, he didn’t do what he was supposed to and built a very weak house.”
Hermione blushed crimson at her slip but plowed on gamely.
“The second little pig, who was nearly as lazy as the first one, built his home of sticks,” Hermione said.
“Well, that’s a bit better,” Ron said. “I mean, isn’t it?”
“Structurally speaking, wood would indeed be stronger than straw since straw is technically a form of grass, and trees obviously have more structural integrity than grass would, but the point is he just picked up a bunch of random sticks off the ground, shaped them into something that looked a little like a house, and called it a day so he could go outside a play,” Hermione said. “He still made a very poor job of it.”
“I’m starting to think this story’s moral is something about having fun being a bad thing,” Ron said to Harry with a grimace of distaste.
Hermione rolled her eyes, but continued on.
“Finally, the last little pig, who was industrious and clever, built his house out of bricks,” Hermione said.
“How?” Ron asked.
“What?” Hermione said, staring at him blankly.
“How did the third pig get hold of bricks? I mean, straw and sticks, you’re likely to find those just lying about, yeah? But you’re not going to find bricks just sitting there. Did he apprentice himself to a bricklayer who was really open-minded about hiring runty pigs or did he just steal a load of bricks or what?” Ron asked.
“How would you even go about stealing a load of bricks?” Harry said, looking at Ron.
“I suppose he could have made off with a lorry full of them,” Ron said shrugging. “He can walk, talk, and build a house out of bricks, so I’d guess learning to drive wouldn’t be too outside his abilities.”
“This took place long before lorries were invented,” Hermione said, but Harry could tell from her expression that she was actually trying to figure this out. “However, I suppose he might have stolen a cartload of bricks from an unwary mason, though that undermines the story’s idea that hard work is important in life by having the pig become a dishonest thief in order to do honest hard work. On the other hand, he might have simply come upon a crumbling ruin of an old brick house and taken the bricks to the place he’d chosen for his home on a brick by brick basis, which would underline the theme of hard work as that would be particularly bothersome… though it would also suggest he’d have to sleep out of doors with no protection at all during the building process, which isn’t very intelligent of him. Still, it’s a decent solution that doesn’t involve stealing and would even suggest the importance of recycling in modern retelling. Yes, I suppose that would be the most logical solution and the one most in keeping with the spirit of the original.”
Privately, Harry wondered whether the pig could simply have used Hermione’s potatoes instead of bricks and gotten the same result, but as she was finally smiling again, he decided it might be wise to hold his tongue.
“Or he stole the bricks,” Ron said with a shrug. “Six of one.”
“In any case, the third little pig built himself a very fine house of brick,” Hermione said, as though she were convincing herself to ignore Ron’s comment out of sheer willpower. “The two other little pigs laughed at their brother, saying that they got to play all day long while their brother worked at things they thought weren’t very important, and they called him foolish and boring and a lot of other mean things, but he was still very satisfied that he’d done a good job of his task.”
Ron shot Harry a look that suggested he was seeing through the paper-thin analogy Hermione was making, but to his credit, he kept mum.
“Not long after, a big, bad wolf came prowling through the forest. He was very hungry, and he had smelled the tempting odor of pork floating towards him,” Hermione said.
“He smelled pork? Okay, I can go with the idea that he smelled pigs. They aren’t that hard to smell, really, but pork? Had the pigs taken to very in-depth sunbathing or something?” Ron asked.
“Then he smelled pig,” Hermione said through gritted teeth. “Better?”
“Much,” Ron replied, sitting back against the cushions with a satisfied air.
“The wolf came to the house of the first little pig, the one who had built his house out of straw. He walked up to the front door and said, ‘Little pig, little pig, let me come in!’” Hermione said, giving the wolf a gravelly voice that sounded rather like he’d had a bit too much Ogden’s. “The first little pig replied, ‘Not by the hair of my chinny-chin-chin!’”
“The hair of his chinny-chin-chin?” Ron said slowly with a tone of deep disbelief. “Seriously?”
“Pigs actually do have hair on their chins, being mammals,” Hermione said, putting her hands on her hips. “It’s not totally ridiculous, and it completes the rhyme.”
“I mean, at least the pig is smart enough not to let the wolf in, I suppose,” Ron admitted, “but there’s got to be a better rhyme that ‘chinny-chin-chin.’”
“Go away or I’ll throw you in the bin?” Harry suggested, mimicking the tempo Hermione had used.
“Not bad,” Ron said appraisingly. How about ‘Get away from me, you stupid has-been!’”
“Back off or I’ll hit you with a rolling pin?” Harry threw in.
“Stop it right now or I’ll kick you in the shin?” Ron added.
“Leave or you’ll need to alert your next of kin!” Harry said, starting to really enjoy himself.
“Desist at once or I’ll whack you firmly over the head with my hardcover copy of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn!” Hermione said triumphantly.
Harry and Ron stared at her.
“Not that it’s a very thick book,” she mumbled in embarrassment. “I suppose Encyclopedia Britannica would be more effective, but it’s the only one I could think of that rhymed.”
“You think the issue with that one was the page count?” Ron said.
“It was either that or a reference to Anne Boleyn, but that seemed historically insensitive,” Hermione said giving a little shudder. “In any case, the wolf replied with ‘Then I’ll huff, and I’ll puff, and I’ll bloooooooooooow your house in!’”
Hermione really had gone for broke with the wolf’s voice on this one, trying to make it as creepy as possible while at the same time nearly passing out from how long she extended the o in blow.
“Wait, is this a relative of the talking freak wolf in ‘Moderately Sized Sun Bonnet’?” Ron asked without sounding the least impressed by Hermione’s acting skills, which had almost rendered her unconscious.
“What?” she asked. “Oh, ‘Little Red Riding Hood.’ No, I… hmm. I suppose he could be. Of course, wolves show up fairly often in fairy tales as villains, but still, they do have quite a lot in common, don’t they?”
“Including breaking and entering,” Ron said, nodding. “Rather, really, attempted breaking and entering for this wolf, because that couldn’t possibly work, blowing a house down.”
“Oh, but it did,” Hermione said off-handedly as she was still apparently considering the question of the related wolves.
“The wolf blew the house down?” Harry asked.
“Yes,” Hermione said.
“With TNT, right?” Ron said.
“No, he just took a deep breath and blew all the straw away,” Hermione said. “The little pig hadn’t worked hard enough at building his home, so the wolf was able to destroy it just by breathing on it.”
“That’s either some seriously shoddy craftsmanship… er, craftspigship, or a wolf with one very good pair of lungs,” Harry said.
“That’s not possible, though,” Ron said, looking at Harry. “You can’t just breathe on a house, even a straw one, and make it blow away.”
“Actually, it’s stated that the house blew in, not away, which might not take as much pressure,” Hermione said. “As for the average air pressure of a wolf’s breath, I don’t know off the top of my head, but humans can blow at as high as 2.8 pounds per square inch if they’re in very good physical condition. One would assume that the writer of the original story must have been familiar with wolves howling, and the noise is really rather stunning. It can travel miles away under the right conditions. The storyteller must have come to the conclusion that a wolf would generate a tremendous amount of air if it concentrated its breath in one place, which, while faulty in practice, does make some sense on a metaphorical level if not a scientific one.”
Ron paused, looked at Hermione for a moment, then turned back to Harry and said, “You can’t just breathe on a house, even a straw one, and make it blow away.”
“Right,” Harry said, patting his arm. “You can’t. But this is a story.”
“Story,” Ron said to himself, as though cherishing a final shred of sanity. “It’s a story. And Hermione knows about the psi of human breath and the audible distance of wolf calls at the drop of a hat. That at least I can believe.”
“In any case, the wolf blew in the straw house, and the first little pig was left standing there with no defenses at all,” Hermione said. “Then the story goes one of two ways. In one version, the pig runs quickly next door to the second little pig’s house. His brother lets him in then bolts the door before the wolf can get inside.”
“He bolts the door on his sloppily made house of sticks?” Harry asked.
“It’ doesn’t really take all that much to make a bolt beside a few sticks anyway,” Hermione said defensively.
“Fine, the second little pig installed a deadbolt in his stick house,” Ron said. “What’s the other option?”
“The wolf eats the first pig,” Hermione said.
“Oh,” Ron said, looking unhappy. “I rather liked him. Let’s go with option one then rather than killing off the anthropomorphic piggy.”
“Fine,” Hermione said with a nod. “The wolf came to the second little pig’s door and said once more ‘Little pig, little pig, let me come in.’”
“Even if he already ate the first pig?” Harry said.
“Yes, it’s the same in both stories,” Hermione said. “I suppose one could read into that the idea that the story also has a moral against gluttony as well.”
“I could eat a pig,” Ron said with a shrug. “Maybe two, if they were little.”
Hermione gazed into the middle distance for a moment, then shrugged as well. “Point taken. Anyway, the little pigs chorused together, ‘Not by the hair of our chinny-chin-chin!’ and the wolf said, ‘Then I’ll huff, and I’ll puff, and I’ll bloooooooooooow your house in!’”
Harry was starting to be concerned that Hermione was actually going to be rendered unconscious if she kept up the wolf’s voice much longer, but then he supposed that might give Ron an excuse to perform mouth-to-mouth, thereby ending the perpetual unresolved sexual tension that was threatening to go nuclear at any moment. In that case, it could be worth it.
“So, did the wolf with the superhumanly huge lungs blow down the house of sticks as well?” Ron asked seriously.
“Yes, he did,” Hermione said. “Just as before, in one version the second pig is eaten, but in the other, the two little pigs run to their brother’s house, and he lets them in and bars the door before the wolf gets there.”
“The wolf must run pretty slowly not to catch them,” Harry said.
“Don’t forget, he’s still recovering from the whale-like exhaling he’s been doing,” Ron said. “I’ll cut him some slack on that as he must be out of breath to start with.”
Hermione appeared to be squinting at nothing, and Ron had to elbow her to continue.
“Oh, sorry,” she said. “I was just wondering what the air pressure of a blue whale’s blow hole would be. In any case, the wolf did come up to the third pig’s house, and once again he said…”
“’Little pig, little pig, let me come in?’” Ron suggested.
“You must be psychic,” Hermione said sarcastically.
“Those Divination classes had to pay off eventually,” Ron said with a wink.
“Well, would you care to guess what might happen next?” Hermione asked.
“I’d wager that the pigs made some reference to the hair on their chins, followed the wolf saying he was going to blow their house in,” Ron said sagely.
“Correct. Except he couldn’t,” Hermione said.
“So the wolf’s breath is finally foiled by something,” Harry said. “Nice to know the story wasn’t being purposely weird.”
“No, the talking wolf who could start his own demolition company using only his own lungs did have his limitations,” Ron said.
“The wolf kept huffing,” and here Hermione blew hard, “and puffing,” and again, “and huffing,” and again, “and puffing…”
“Good way to start hyperventilating, that,” Ron said in some concern.
“No, the wolf didn’t—” she started.
“I meant you,” Ron said, peering at her. “You feeling okay?”
“I guess I am a little out of breath,” she admitted with a smile. “I always wondered why my father didn’t tell this story more often. I think I’ve got the answer. Anyway, the wolf wasn’t able to move the brick house at all no matter how hard he tried.”
“Good, and that’s the end of the story?” Harry asked.
“No, the wolf was still hungry and very determined, and realized that he could get into the brick house through the chimney,” Hermione said.
“Did he dress up like Father Christmas first?” Ron asked.
“No, he did not,” Hermione said with prim decorum, but she seemed to be hiding a grin. “But the third pig, who was extremely clever, had realized that the wolf would try to find another way in, so he had built a great fire in the fireplace and put a large pot of water over it to boil.”
“Wait, I see where this is going,” Ron said. “The wolf couldn’t be stupid enough to jump down a chimney that had smoke coming out of it, could he?”
“He was indeed,” Hermione said. “The wolf bolted down the chimney and landed right in the pot of boiling water, shrieking in agony, and the third little pig clamped the lid down fast before the wolf could hop out again.”
“So the wolf… boiled… to… death…” Ron said, looking ill.
“Would you rather the little pigs had been eaten?” Hermione asked.
“No, but I don’t see why anyone’s absolutely got to die in all these stories,” Ron said.
“I suppose it’s just the way they drive home the moral,” Hermione said. “Because of the third little pig’s dedication to hard work, instead of being eaten, they ate wolf stew for dinner than night, and the three pigs, or the one pig in the other version, lived happily ever after.”
“Wolf stew?” Harry said, grimacing.
Ron thought a moment, then said, “At this point, I probably wouldn’t say no to it as long as the wolf wasn’t talking prior to being popped in the pot, or, you know, wearing a grandmother’s nightgown and bonnet. You’ve got to draw a moral line somewhere.”
Harry and Hermione laughed, and outside the wind continued to blow ferociously. It was growing late, and the silhouette of the full moon was dimly visible through the thin fabric of the tent. Somewhere, Harry thought, Professor Lupin was becoming into a wolf again, and the image unsettled him deeply after the story they’d heard. Harry somehow was more aware of the darkness than ever, of the very thin barrier between them and the Death Eaters who lurked in the night, hunting for prey. Eventually, they turned in for the night, each going to their own accustomed spot and trying to find solace in sleep for a few short hours. But after a few minutes, the silence was broken.
“Um, Hermione?” Ron said from near the couch.
“Yes?” her voice came from somewhere around the kitchen.
“Thanks for, you know, learning how to build a house out of brick and letting us in,” Ron said softly.
There was a pause before she said, in an equally soft voice, “You’re welcome… little pig.”
In the darkness outside, the big, bad wolf with red eyes still roved, but he could not enter the house of the three friends. Somehow, within the insubstantial walls of the tent, Harry felt safe.
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Date: 2011-10-05 01:42 am (UTC)Really enjoy these stories!