Chapter 5

###Here are the links to the original fairy tales abused in part two.###

The Little Match-Seller: http://hca.gilead.org.il/li_match.html

The Little Mermaid: http://hca.gilead.org.il/li_merma.html

The White Wolf: http://sylvanawood.livejournal.com/*707564.html#cutid1

(The last one is my own rough translation since I couldn't find an English version of that fairy tale on the web.)

Fairy Tales 2: Hermione Sleeps

Chapter 5

"You can be glad that you've recovered so well, after such a short time."

"You call two years a short time? Not very accurate, if you ask me," Snape sneered.

"Spare me your sarcasm, Severus. That won't affect me. You will do what I ask of you, otherwise you don't need to show up here any more. If you want to help Hermione, then you'll listen to me. Otherwise, I'll ask someone else."

"And whom will you ask? You need someone who is skilled at Legilimency. This is an obscure art that isn't widespread, even among Healers."

"I can always ask Draco Malfoy. He and his family are in Hermione's debt."

"Ever since Hermione was tortured in Malfoy Manor, Draco has felt he owes her something. He would gladly try to help her; he has changed considerably, Severus. You can be proud of him."

Snape glanced at Poppy with a thoughtful expression. "Granger was tortured? I didn't know that."

"Lestrange did it. You know how she was."

"Yes," Snape said simply and looked at the sleeping Hermione. Poppy thought that she had never before seen so much compassion in his eyes. But she also knew that any comment on that would only provoke him into fierce antagonism, therefore she was silent.

"I shall do as you wish, Poppy. Then I'll try again to help her. I owe her that."

"I'm sure she would see that differently, but I am glad that you'll do it, Severus. Draco is a Legilimens, but you are the more experienced, by far."

Snape nodded and went back to his own bed.

Three days later, he felt strong enough to try again. After Poppy had explained to him in detail what Hermione had tried to do to wake him up, he decided to gradually prolong the times he was spending in her mind. Before he would go in, he'd take a strengthening potion to prevent him from getting too weak to wake up again. The manipulation of dreams seemed to cause a huge drain of magical energies, thus he wanted to be as well prepared as could be.

In the meantime, Hermione found herself in a very odd environment.

The Little Mermaid and The Prince With the Big Nose

Hermione was no longer a witch; she was a princess. However, her parents weren't the rulers of just any odd kingdom, they were the rulers of the merpeople who lived deep down on the bottom of the sea.

To be precise, her father was the ruler; her mother had died already. But Hermione now had a grandmother and five sisters. She lived happily as a mermaid in her father's palace.

The merpeople in the ocean were remotely related to the merpeople who lived in the Black Lake at Hogwarts, but the two peoples didn't have very much in common.

Hermione's people lived very comfortably, surrounded by all the riches the ocean could provide. The merpeople were proud and beautiful, and the most beautiful of them all was Hermione.

In general, life under water was rather similar to life on land, even if there were a few differences.

On the bottom of the sea, there were grass, trees and flowers. The branches of the trees swayed in the waves just as the branches of land trees sway in the wind.

The water was clear and blue. High above the sun shone like a red flower. From time to time, the sun was clouded over when either whales or the ships of the landpeople were passing by.

There weren't any birds under water, but many fish in brilliant colours, big and small, were swimming about merrily, and sometimes they swam through the windows into the palace and let the princesses feed them.

Hermione and her sisters loved flowers and gardens, and each of them had an area in the palace gardens where they could do what they wanted.

Her sisters planted the most beautiful and magnificent flowers, but Hermione wasn't content with just flowers; she wanted to have something different. She had always been different from her sisters; she was a quiet, thoughtful child who liked to read and think.

One day Hermione found the marble statue of a boy. It had fallen to the bottom of the ocean from a shipwreck. Everything that had been in this ship had rained down on the merpeople. This usually happened with all the shipwrecks. The sailors, however, only arrived dead, because the landpeople weren't able to breathe under water.

Hermione loved the marble statue. She never tired looking at it. She positioned it under a tree in her garden and often sat there thinking about the landpeople. She had read what she could find about them and even asked her proud grandmother about them.

"The landpeople aren't like us," the grandmother told her. "They are ugly. Instead of our lovely fishtail, they have two stumps which they call legs. They cannot breathe under water and don't live as long as we do. You shouldn't be thinking about them so much, child."

But Hermione couldn't stop thinking about the landpeople. When she looked up at the sun, she was full of longing.

The princesses were only allowed to swim up to the surface once they had reached their fifteenth years.

When the first of the sisters turned fifteen, the sisters decided to tell each other what they had liked the most in the world outside the water.

For Hermione it was very difficult to wait, since she was the youngest of the sisters.

The years passed, and Hermione's sisters told her about the world above. They told her how loud the sounds were ringing through the air, how colourful and majestic the fireworks sparkled in the night sky, how the stars glittered, how bright the sun was shining, how very beautiful a sunset was, how merrily the children played on the shore and how anxious the sailors were on their ships during a storm.

Hermione soaked these stories up, and finally, finally, the day had come: It was the day of her fifteenth birthday.

She could hardly wait to get to the surface. After the first few excursions, her sisters had lost interest and found life on the bottom of the sea much better than that on dry land.

Now, however, Hermione was allowed swim up by herself, and with a wildly hammering heart she went on her way.

When she finally reached the surface, she curiously looked around. She saw the blue sky, and how bright the sun really was. She saw a resplendent city on the shore, and the proud ships in the harbour. There seemed to be festivities on one of the ships, it was richly decorated, full of elegantly dressed people and music was ringing out of its cabins.

I shall take a closer look, Hermione thought and swam closer to the ship. She hid her head behind the white crests of the waves; the sea had become rough that night. When she had come close enough, she looked through a window and saw a merry party. In the centre stood a young man with beautiful intelligent black eyes, black hair and a very big nose. The sight of this man made Hermione's heart beat faster, but she couldn't explain why he had that effect on her.

The man was a prince, at least the others called him that. Hermione couldn't stop looking at him.

Eventually she had to turn away and dive for a bit. The sea had become so rough that she couldn't merely drift at the ship's side any longer. She enjoyed the rough sea, and when she came to the surface again, she watched with interest how the landpeople on the ship fought the storm.

Hermione swam at the rolling ship's side and wondered if it would sink. She didn't have to wonder for long, since there was a horrible cracking sound and then the masts, and finally the hull, broke. The landpeople screamed and fell into the water.

How lovely, Hermione thought. Now they can visit us. But no! The landpeople weren't able to breathe under water and they surely would die.

The Prince! Where was the prince? Hermione panicked. She didn't want to see the man die who had touched her heart in such a strange way. Quickly she dove under the surface, swam through the debris and looked for the prince.

There! Was this seaweed or was this his long, black hair? When she came closer, she saw that it was indeed the prince. He had his eyes closed and was unconscious. Hermione carefully supported his head and brought him to the surface where he breathed in, coughing loudly. For a brief moment, he opened his eyes and looked at her.

It wasn't easy for Hermione to pull the prince's heavy body behind her and keep his head above the water at the same time. After a lot of heaving and pulling, she finally succeeded to get the unconscious prince to the shore.

She laid him down on the soft sand at the shore of an estuary, but she couldn't get him very far onto the beach since she couldn't walk with her fish tail.

What should she do now? The prince was saved, but there was no one in sight who could take care of him. Hermione decided to swim upriver and look for other landpeople.

After some time, she found a house with a beautiful garden close to the river. Hermione decided to take the prince there. She placed him under a weeping willow with branches that almost touched the water. She swam a few feet away from the shore and hid behind a stone. She wanted to be certain that the prince would be found.

Hermione didn't have to wait for very long before a young girl came out of the house and found the prince. She was very beautiful, her long, red hair lay across her shoulders like a cloak, and the green eyes were shining brightly out of her pale face.

When the girl saw the prince, she ran over to him. After taking a close look, she called for help. The prince opened his eyes, looked around in confusion and asked, "Did you save me?"

Hermione had seen enough, she knew that the prince was safe now, she had to go back to her family on the bottom of the sea. After all, she couldn't possibly tell the prince that it had been her who had saved him. He might just as well believe that it had been the beautiful red-haired girl.

After Hermione arrived back home, she was even quieter than before. She longed for the prince with the black eyes who had moved something in her heart that she couldn't explain.

From time to time she swam to the surface and then she always tried to catch a glimpse of the prince, who often stood on the shore and stared out at the sea with a thoughtful expression.

Over time, Hermione became sadder and sadder. She couldn't forget the prince; she would have done anything to be with him on dry land. But that was impossible. She would have to give up her life as a mermaid and would lose everything.

Her sisters and her grandmother wanted to cheer Hermione up. They prepared a magnificent ball in Hermione's honour. Hermione danced and sang – no one had such a lovely voice as she had – but she couldn't really enjoy herself.

At last, when everyone else was celebrating merrily, Hermione summoned her courage and stealthily left the palace. She never looked back and hurried to the coral forest where a powerful witch resided.

"I can help you," said the witch, "but nothing is free. I will have to brew a potion for you - a potion that needs to contain a bit of my own blood. In return, I want your voice as payment. When you drink the potion, you'll lose your fishtail and be able to walk on land. Your gait will be light and elegant as that of a fairy. However, every step you take will be filled with pain, just as if someone forced sharp blades into your legs.

Only a man of the landpeople who loves you truly and deeply can take this pain away from you. Only then can you become one of them. Are you prepared to pay the price?

"Anything, I'll do anything," Hermione said.

"Very well," said the witch and brewed the potion. Then she cut Hermione's tongue out so Hermione could neither sing nor speak any longer.

Crying, because she didn't know how she now could tell the prince that she loved him, Hermione slowly swam to the surface, sat down on a stone on the shore and drank the potion.

Pain stabbed through her body as if she were hacked into pieces by swords. Her fishtail fell off and in its stead she now had two slim beautiful legs.

She was shivering from the pain as she dragged herself onto the shore, however her steps were light and graceful, just as promised.

Exhausted, she sat in the sand and fell asleep. When she woke up, she looked right into the black eyes of the prince.

"You are the one who rescued me, not the red-haired girl. For this, I'll always love you the most." And he kissed her. Hermione closed her eyes and returned the kiss. When she opened her eyes again, she looked into the bottomless eyes of Severus Snape.

"Do you really love me?" she asked, but before he could reply, she lost consciousness again.

Severus softly pushed a strand of hair from her face, sighed and sat up.

"What was that all about?" Poppy asked curiously.

"I almost had her," he said. "She was awake. But it wasn't enough. I'll have to enter her dreams once again.

"Were you able to change anything?"

"She knows the same Muggle fairy tales I know; after all, we both grew up among Muggles. In this last dream, I was able to change the outcome. That freed a big part of her mind. For a moment, she was fully awake, and I think we'll have her back very soon." He scowled horribly. "And if you tell someone that I said this, I shall hex you, Poppy,"

Poppy Pomfrey laughed. "Don't worry, Severus, I'll be so happy to have both of you back sound and sane, that I'll keep all your secrets as if they were my own. You don't need to hide that you're glad to see Hermione getting better. She was so sad when she couldn't help you. I'd almost say that she was heartbroken, but that is hardly possible, is it, when you were both asleep?

Snape thoughtfully looked back at Poppy. "We've spent a lot of time together, even if it was only in these wild dreams. I, ah, don't find Miss Granger quite as insufferable as I used to."

"That's good," said Poppy but thought to herself that these words, from the lips of Severus Snape, could be considered to be a proclamation of love.

"I shall sleep for a few hours, and then I'll try once more," said Snape and stood up from his chair. "When are you free?"

"This evening should be fine. You have almost the whole day to get some rest. I can see that you feel much better; you're not so pale any more, and you look more relaxed. I think that several hours of sleep and a good meal should be enough.

"Then I'll see you later," Snape said and went to his room.