InsaneJournal

The Fountain of Fair Fortune
Title: The Fountain of Fair Fortune
Author: shocfix
Words: 1381
Rating: PG

Well, I seem to be writing one of the Tales of Beedle the Bard.

I have no idea why.

And I have no idea where else to post it, either… could I give myself permission to post it at hp_funnyfest???

Anyway.

This is dedicated to Ronald Weasley, for ten years of being more adorable than I am able to cope with, and for having heard of the stories, when Hermione hadn’t.

And, as the version of the Tale of the Three Brothers his mum had always told him varied slightly from the original, in Hermione’s book, so this is the version that Molly always told him, when he was small.


The Fountain of Fair Fortune
Once upon a time, long, long ago, there lived a very plain Princess.

No matter how many times her mother, the Queen, told her that she was pretty, it didn’t help.

In fact, it made things worse.

“You have to say that,” the Princess moaned. “You’re my mother!”

The Queen glared at the King, indicating with a nod of the head born of a twenty-year marriage, that he must say something.

“Come now, dumpling,” the King said. “Looks aren’t everything, not when you have such a splendid dowry!”

“Dumpling!” wailed the Princess, running from the room.

She cried all the way down the gallery of family portraits, where dead Kings and Queens looked down at her past a collection of rather unattractive noses and weak chins.

All except for King Edwy, who was too cross-eyed for her to be sure what he was looking at.

The Princess wiped her nose on her sleeve – for this was before handkerchiefs had been invented – and mounted the spiral staircase to her tower bedroom.

“Why, madam!” her maid said, dropping an armful of kirtles in a coffer. “Whatever is the matter?”

The Princess sniffed and looked at her maid, through tear filled eyes.

Her maid was very, very pretty, and the Princess had always thought that this was totally inexplicable – for this was before genetics had been invented – and unfair to the point of treasonous – for this was well after treason had been invented.

“My father, the King, sent my portrait to the Marchese Pallavicino-Mossi and to the Prince zu Löwenstein-Wertheim-Rosenberg and to the Graf zu Schaffgotsch gt Semperfrei von und zu Kynast und Greiffenstein, and none of them have offered for my hand, even though my father, the King, offered half the Kingdom as dowry.”

The maid sighed.

Even though genetics hadn’t been invented yet, she had spent the last three years trying to minimise her mistress’s shortcomings on the nose, chin, eyes, complexion, hair and figure fronts, and she wasn’t hugely surprised.

“But I’m sure madam wouldn’t want a husband who only wants her for her dowry,” the maid said, soothingly – because this was after adverbs had been invented. “I know I would prefer a suitor who had proven himself to win my hand.”

She tried not to think of the castle goatherd, who had strong thighs and sparkling eyes and long-fingered hands that could whittle a hairpin out of a bone in a twinkling of those lovely, blue eyes.

“P-proven himself?” the Princess sniffed, sitting down at her dressing table and looking mournfully into her spotted mirror. “Proven himself, how?”

“By… going on a Quest,” the maid improvised wildly, taking up a comb and freeing her mistress’s hair from its snood. “By bringing back something Magical from a Faraway Land, to prove his worth.”

She combed carefully, mindful of the sparse nature of her mistress’s mousey brown hair.

“A Quest,” the Princess said dreamily, her eyes going out of focus as she gazed out of the window, and making her look disturbingly like King Edwy. “But what for?”

“For…” The maid cast around frantically for something Magical from her nain’s stories. “For a Goblet of Water from the Fountain of Fair Fortune.”

The Princess turned wide eyes on her maid.

“The Fountain of Fair Fortune?” she breathed.

“Yes,” the maid said, nodding encouragingly. “Whoever drinks from the Fountain of Fair Fortune will be as beautiful as the Morning Star.”

This was well before the Morning Star was a Socialist Newspaper.

The Princess smiled broadly, blew her nose on her sleeve, and flew back down the stairs to talk to her father, the King.

Minor princes, dukes, grafs, counts and margraves came from far and wide, when the news spread that the King was offering half his Kingdom, plus his daughter’s hand in marriage, to whoever could return from the Fountain of Fair Fortune with a Goblet of Water.

It seemed the prospective suitors could overlook the Princess’s lack of profile, if they needn’t marry her until she had drunk from the Fountain, and the Princess didn’t mind so much about the dowry thing, not now that it was a traditional part of a Quest, and she’d be Beautiful, once she had drunk.

The Princess’s maid stood behind her chair, and only she noticed that the goatherd’s elegant eyebrow arched with interest as he listened to the King’s proclamation.

The Questers set out.

Stories filtered back to the inhabitants of the castle; stories of Prince Rupprecht being set upon by trolls under the bridge over the River Lee; stories of Duke Geza vanishing into a forest full of spiders; stories of Count Stefan being baked in a pie in a gingerbread cottage.

No stories of a goatherd with sleepy blue eyes and red hair.

The Princess sat by her window, watching the empty road curving towards the mountains and sighed over the rumours that Graf Heinrich had been buried under an avalanche. It was really far more satisfying having questing suitors dying for her, than returning her portrait with insincere words of apology.

She really must see that her maid was well rewarded for such a fabulous idea.

It wasn’t until the following spring that a figure was seen to trudge down that road from the mountains, and the castle’s inhabitants were gathered in the courtyard by the time he walked under the portcullis, clutching a wooden Goblet between his outstretched hands.

His hood was raised and his clothes were plain and dusty, but the Water in his Goblet sparkled and shone and all eyes were on him as he knelt before the Princess and offered her his prize.

Her hand shook as she reached for the Goblet and she tried to peer under the hood to see the face of her successful suitor, but he bowed his head and she raised the Goblet to her lips and drank the cool, clear Water, that had stayed clear and cool throughout his journey over rivers and seas and through forests and snowstorms and mountain passes.

The Water cooled her parched mouth and soothed her racing heartbeat; it spread to the tips of her fingers and the ends of her toes.

“Madam,” a quiet voice said at her elbow and she turned to find her maid holding out her old, spotted mirror.

The Princess took it and looked tentatively into it.

The face that looked back at her had large blue eyes, high cheekbones, a charming tip-tilted nose, strong, white teeth, all surrounded in a cascade of chestnut hair.

“Oh!” she whispered. “Oh, my goodness.”

“Arise, good sir,” the King said. “You have truly returned from the Fountain of Fair Fortune, and all that you desire is yours.”

The Quester stood, his head still bowed.

“May we see the face of our future son-in-law?” the Queen said.

“All that I desire?” the Quester asked quietly, but his voice carried to the farthest corners of the courtyard.

“Half my Kingdom, and my daughter’s hand in marriage,” the King confirmed.

“Ah, but that is not what I desire,” the man said, pushing back his hood to reveal smiling blue eyes and shaggy red hair. “I’m glad your wish has come true, your Highness, and I hope, in your happiness, your Majesties, that you could grant my slightly less ambitious desires.”

The King frowned at the strangely familiar face before him. He couldn’t quite place him, perhaps he was one of the younger sons of the Graf von Enzenberg zum Freyen und Jöchelsthurn.

“And what is your desire, young man?”

The Quester held out his hand to the Princess’s maid, whose eyes were huge in her pale and very pretty face as she stepped forward and placed her hand in his.

“I would be more than happy with a farm on the South Ridge and the hand of this young lady,” the goatherd said, smiling down at her.

So the maid married her blue-eyed goatherd, and they raised goats and red haired babies on their small farm.

And the Princess with a Fair Fortune and a Fairer Face married a pretty, yet empty headed prince and ruled over her father’s Kingdom.

Where, unfortunately for her, even though genetics hadn’t been invented yet, she still couldn’t fight them, and her babies all had rather weak chins.

And a squint.