Obedient Heart | J. POTTER

pro. | once upon a time

Let's cut right to the chase. This story is not like your typical fairy tales where girl meets boy, they both fall in love and live happily ever after. No, it's not. Because this is real life where the universe likes to play cruel tricks on you and make it damn near impossible to ever be even remotely happy.

If there was one thing that Olivia Abbott knew for certain, it was this: Fairytales don't happen to real people. Even if you have magic and live in a world where there are creatures muggles could only imagine when reading a story of Princes and Princesses. Even when you could snap your fingers and make things appear in midair.

Fairytales did not exist.

It was a fairly simple concept to grasp but had you asked Olivia before she was eight years old if fairytales existed and if she would meet her Prince Charming and live happily ever after, she probably would have said yes.

But she was naive before then and she had no idea that she wasn't like most people. And not in the 'I'm not like other girls' sort of way but in a 'I literally can't say no to anything anyone requests of me.'

And it was all Pandora Lovegood's fault.

In the Wizarding World, it was a tradition to grant a gift, magical or otherwise to a newborn child, whether it be something they could use at birth or later on in life.

While Olivia's mother, Arabella Abbott, was settling her down to bed, Pandora Lovegood appeared claiming to have the perfect present for the child.

Arabella was hesitant, and with good reason. It was common knowledge that Pandora had a tendency to play with magic and not do a very good job at doing so. Ignoring the women's protests, Pandora cast a spell on the young girl, executing the soon to be long strand of things that Olivia Abbott never wanted but wouldn't have a choice but to endure.

Olivia had been cursed - sorry, gifted - with obedience. And it was all Pandora Lovegood's fault.

But Olivia didn't know that.

In fact, Olivia Abbott had no idea that she was physically - or magically - forced to obey everyone's orders. She had no idea that the reason she was so willing to help and had a tendency to take what people said to do a little too seriously was because when she was first born, an amateur witch cast a spell on her.

In Pandora's defense, the spell had worked. It just wasn't a gift. Not even a little bit.

It wasn't until the age of eight, when Arabella left Olivia outside Florean Fortescue's Ice Cream Parlour with a Chocolate Strawberry Peanut-Butter Sundae so she could run to Gringotts and a boy her age by the name of James Potter approached Olivia with a mere suggestion, that Arabella realized that it would be impossible to hide her daughter's curse - or gift - from her forever.

Now, for the sake of transparency, James Potter had no idea that Olivia would actually do what he told her to. In fact, he had expected her to play it off as a joke. But instead, she did exactly what he had requested and he was too shocked and too late to stop her.

Olivia stuck a spoonful of her ice cream into her mouth, humming in satisfaction. There was a large chuck of peanut butter in that bite and she loved peanut butter. The day was hot so the cold ice cream made it all that more bearable.

Besides, ice cream to an eight year old was catnip to a cat.

"Hi!" a boy greeted Olivia eagerly, licking his ice cream cone. She looked up from her own bowl of ice cream, her legs swaying back and forth. She was too short and her feet didn't quite meet the ground just yet. Her head cocked to the side slightly as he continued, "I'm James!"

"Olivia," she smiled at the boy. She had never seen him before and while her mother had warned her about strangers, there was no way a boy who was probably her age could inflict any real harm. "I'm not supposed to talk to strangers."