Chapter the Thirteenth: In Which Draco is a Princess

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Warning: Friends don't let friends drink and read.

Draco, of course, had no notion of Severus' mastery (or lack thereof) regarding the rescue situation. He lacked the least idea of how many hours (or minutes) he had to prepare. Most of all, Draco had not the wee-est clue what sort of robes one might travel in, as he hadn't left the tower in ten years.

Not knowing what to wear was intolerable.

Draco uttered a heartfelt cry for help. "Wormy! Oh, wretched elf, where are you?"

"Wormy is right beside young Draco," the elf said, in the tone that bespoke extraordinary long-suffering.

"Severus says I am to be rescued today..."

Whatever else Draco meant to say had to wait while Wormy emitted an unearthly howl and danced about the room in a manner somewhat disturbing. It took the elf some moments to, well, return to the moment...where Draco was waiting for him with arms crossed and a glower worthy of his guardian.

"Wormy apologizes for his unseemly show of grief," the elf said convincingly. "Please, Apprentice Draco, to stop frowning if appearance is important, and tell Wormy what is required."

Draco's face immediately assumed a wide-eyed blankness to relax any lines from his features. "I must be ready to receive my rescuer when he arrives," he explained. "I daresay that ought to have been obvious."

"Begging young Apprentice's pardon, but Wormy is not familiar with rescues. The closest Wormy has got is when Master Severus won Wormy from his old Master in a card game," the elf apologized. "Apprentice Draco must be more specific."

His pointy nose all but twitching with the effort of not frowning, Draco endeavored to think. "Severus said I ought to wear traveling robes. Have I such things?"

Wormy pushed his floppy ears back with one hand as a man might run his fingers through his hair when contemplating a daunting task. "Apprentice Draco has a great many clothes," the elf said, casting a despairing look at the magically-expanded space in the top of the tower, fully one fourth of which was closet. "Wormy will search for something appropriate."

Meanwhile, Draco turned to his best source of information about princes and rescues: his collection of owl-order romances from Sycophant Press. He had to pay more attention to what the rescue-ee was wearing. Draco usually skipped those bits in favor of descriptions of the rescuer...

The elf's voice broke Draco's reverie just as he was getting to the details of the princess' clothes, which the prince apparently had to discuss in order to remove. "Wormy thinks these is flying robes. Also, here is a good cloak, in case the rescue is getting on evening." Wormy laid out a plain, green robe with turned-back brown leather cuffs and a medium-weight black wool cloak on the bed.

"Those won't do at all, Wormy!" Draco exclaimed. He shook his head at the robes, hands on his hips with one thumb stuck in the book to keep his place. "They're... plain and drab! Even...ugly! Are you sure they don't belong to Severus?"

Wormy sighed. "Wormy is not sure," he said. "There was a small washing accident last week, and some of Master Severus' robes may have shrunk. Wormy is sure these is travel robes, though. Is young Apprentice positive they won't do?"

"Quite, quite," Draco said. He consulted the book and pointed out the relevant passage to Wormy. "See, right here: "The prince knew Lady Sophie was ready for him. In her finest robes of sensuous violet silk, layers of dainty pink lace accentuating the line of her heaving bosoms..."

"Wormy does not recommend that Apprentice Draco attempt bosoms, heaving or otherwise," the elf said in barely restrained alarm. "Wormy suggests young Draco play to his strengths and focus on...hair and complexion."

"Oh, well said. I suppose you may forgo slamming your hands in the oven or whatever it is elves do, and put out my... hmm... dusty rose robes with the peach soutache trim. That ought to cast becoming color on my cheeks."

Wormy winced. "Wormy further suggests Apprentice Draco... how to say... some consternation might be happening if young Apprentice is looking too... princess-like at first, and the prince is feeling there is false advertising..." In the face of Draco's blank, stark puzzlement, Wormy gave up. "Wormy means to say, to be trying shades of blue. Blue flatters Apprentice Draco's hair and will not show as much dirt."

"Oh dear. Are rescues very dirty business?" Draco pressed his fingers to his cheek, though not so hard as to leave an unsightly pucker.

"Rescuing involves travel, and travel is being dusty," Wormy said. "Light colors, lace and other trimmings is likely casualties."

"Bother." Draco threw his book in frustration. "In that case, perhaps you ought to fetch something in French Blue or Periwinkle."

"Wormy commends Apprentice Draco's taste," the elf said with a sigh. He located a set of periwinkle blue robes with a darker cloak that were not wildly impractical, and averted his eyes while Draco simply tossed his current garments about the room to don the new ones. This was something of a recurring trial for Wormy, as Severus had not bothered to instill in Draco concepts like body modesty when it was far more pressing to drill proper laboratory procedures into the twit's head. Severus couldn't be arsed about what Draco did in his room as long as he was clothed outside of it.

"Wash and pack those with the rest of my things," Draco ordered as he stood before his three-way mirror, contemplating (despite Wormy's good advice) how to simulate a decollete neckline.

"Respectfully... Apprentice Draco's belongings cannot be packed in one day, even with elf magic," Wormy said, tugging on one droopy bat-wing ear. Just because Wormy was only obliged to obey Severus, it did not mean it was easy for him to refuse instructions from his Master's apprentice. "May Wormy suggest one trunk for now, with the rest to be sent for after?"

"I say, isn't that terribly irregular?" Draco asked.

"Is Wormy's impression that in a regular rescue, one leaves with the clothes on one's back," the elf said. "Also, the 'captor' does not arrange a regular rescue. Logic is dictating that this is an irregular rescue. But Wormy is only an elf, after all."

Draco sat down on his bed with a loud huff. "Oh, very well! But I do hate for things to be irregular! It's too much to bear... Father using me for his advantage...Mummy not wanting me home...at this rate, Severus will probably send an ugly prince, just to be horrid to me!" He (mercifully) forgot about tampering with the neckline of his robes and flung himself across his mountain of pillows, weeping.

"Crying will not help Apprentice Draco's eyes or complexion," Wormy said...gently, as he was a nurturing sort of creature and Draco had been rather shabbily used by the alleged adults in his life. "Wormy advises young Apprentice choose some favorite books and such while Wormy settles the clothes." Narrowing down which books and trinkets to add to the pile kept Draco occupied and tearless while Wormy stowed a week's worth of smallclothes, toiletries, and a handful of Draco's more practical garments in a trunk of modest size, which became a trunk of pocket-size thanks to elf magic.

An unearthly screech startled Draco into dropping a stack of monogrammed handkerchiefs.

"Oh! What is that?"

"That is the sounds of Thestrals feeding. Perhaps the prince is being clever enough to amuse them with food," Wormy said.

Draco gazed out the window in vain for a sight of anyone princely. "I say, what is that rushing sound?"

"That is being the Whomping Willows trying and failing to pluck someone from the sky," Wormy said, relieved that the prince had fed the Thestrals rather than become food. "The prince is being a skilled flyer."

A roaring sound met Draco's ears. "Whatever could that be?"

"That is sounds of a fire spell, to hold the Devil's Snare at bay. The prince is being powerful to cast it silently," Wormy said, actually impressed.

"Dracaena Draco, let down your hair!" came an unfamiliar voice...the first unfamiliar voice Draco had heard in ten years.

Draco clasped his hands together and gave a tiny squeal. Too overwrought to act, he let Wormy fasten the long braid over the hook. "Oh, Wormy! A real prince! Clever, and swift, and powerful, and is it really too much to hope he's handsome as well, with that voice?"

No answer did Draco receive; for Wormy wisely decided that there comes in every fairytale a point when the helpful, mysterious creature makes itself scarce...and allows the protagonists to settle affairs on their own.

Note: Thanks to Sycophant Hex, for having an archive name that lends itself to becoming one of the AU Wizarding World's premier publisher of romance novels.