you raise me up || harry potter (revamped)

Chapter 9: A Fairy Tale Interlude

⊱ ────── A Return To The Boy And His Mother ────── ⊰

"Tell me another story," the boy said to his mother.

"It is even later," the mother said. "Perhaps another time."

"Please?" the boy said.

So the mother pulled the blankets further up, right under the boy's chin, and obliged.

"I will tell you about the Snow Queen," she said. "It is a tale made of seven stories."

"Tell me the first one," the boy said.

So she did.

There was a wicked hobgoblin, so wicked he was a demon, who created a mirror which reflected everything good or beautiful to be worthless and bad. The other demons, so eager were they to see the reflections of the angels in heaven, flew so high that they lost their grip on the mirror, which fell to earth and shattered into millions of pieces. The fragments, some no bigger than grains of sand, others large jagged pieces, scattered across the world. Some particles flew into people's eyes, some were big enough to use as window panes, and some were used as spectacles. The demon was overjoyed at the mischief he had caused.

"Why did he create the mirror?" the boy asked.

"Because evil does not need a reason, son," the mother replied.

"What happened to the people?"

"That," the mother said, "is the second story."

There was a girl, and there was a boy. They were not siblings, but they loved each other so. They were young and free and happy, and they were neighbors. There were cold winter days during which they could not play together outside as the Snow Queen, a woman made of ice, brought frost to the land. But there were also wonderful summer days, roses to pick, and songs to sing. During one such summer as they sat together, just as the clock struck twelve, the boy cried out.

"Oh, something has struck my heart!" he said. And soon after, "There is something in my eye."

The girl tried to look into his eye, but she could see nothing. The heart was even trickier, for not even the wisest people can see into a heart.

"I think it is gone," the boy said. But it was not gone. For the shards of the mirror had buried themselves in his eye and heart, and made him see all the good and beautiful things as worthless and bad. He became cold and distant, even from the girl whom he loved very much, and said such cruel words to her that she cried and ran home.

The boy knew he was wrong to do it, but could not stop himself, for his heart had turned to solid ice. So guilty but so cold did he feel that he set out to find the Snow Queen on his sledge. She snatched him up on her magnificent sleigh and took him and his sledge away, kissing him on the forehead, and he felt it go through his heart, turning it even colder than it already was.

"Why did he go to the Snow Queen?" the boy asked. "Why didn't he stay to make things right?"

"Because sometimes, guilt is all it takes to harden a heart and turn you to a path of wrongness," the mother replied.

"What happened to the girl?"

"That," the mother said, "is the third story."

The girl wept bitterly for a long time. When the boy did not return, she decided he was dead. But when the sparrows and the sun said otherwise, she began to doubt it herself, and set off to find him. She searched for a very long time. She took a boat down a river, hoping it would take her to the boy, but the river did not know where he was. She asked a bed of roses where her boy was, but they did not know. She asked the lilies and the hyacinths and the buttercups and the narcissus, but they did not know either. She despaired, for she was tired, and her feet hurt.