Once Upon A Time

Once upon a time there was a little girl named Rowena who lived in a cottage by the sea with a woman called Mummy and a man called Dad and a pet cat who went by the name of Bonny, and once upon a time there were witches and wizards and princesses and princes and dragons and castles and they all lived together on the shelves of the little girl's bookcase, and once upon a time everything was happy.

"Read me to sleep, Mummy," the little girl in the cottage asked that night, because the truth was that once upon a time this little girl was afraid of the dark, but Mummy knew how to chase away the bad things - all she had to do was read, and it was like magic.

Mummy sat down on the bed next to the little girl and ran her finger across the line of books lined up shoulder-to-shoulder across the bookcase. "Kings and queens tonight?" she asked her little girl. "Or villains?"

"Kings and queens," the little girl said, because once upon a time she had a secret longing to be a princess.

Mummy pulled a book from the shelf and opened to the first page - and the girl didn't know it until later on, but Mummy wasn't reading the words on the page, no, Mummy was reciting, Mummy knew the story by heart, especially those first four words:

"Once upon a time," Mummy said, and the little girl snuggled up beneath her blankets and closed her eyes and listened to the sea as it thudded against the rocks outside their tiny cottage.

That was how it was, until it wasn't.

There was a night - and Rowena didn't realize it, at the time - when Mummy picked up that storybook for the very last time. She read her little girl off to sleep, and kept reading even after Rowena had faded; she read all the way from Once Upon A Time to The Very, Very End, and then she slid the book back into the bookcase and pressed a kiss into her daughter's forehead.

And then the next night, there was no story.

It wasn't because the mother forgot, or because she didn't love her daughter anymore. It was just that everyone was tired, probably, and the little girl had fallen asleep before she'd gotten the chance to ask for a Once Upon A Time. But it happened, and when the girl woke up the next morning she was no longer Little.

It was later on, after she'd been Big for many years, that Rowena noticed the blonde girl for the first time.

She was out at the well pulling the bucket up by its worn rope when the blonde girl tapped her on the shoulder. "Excuse me?"

Rowena turned. "Yes?"

The blonde girl's face was split open in a gap-toothed smile. "Hi," she said. "I'm Helga."

Rowena hoisted her bucket over the lip of the well and tried not to spill any water. "How do you do," she said politely, dropping a curtsy.

"I've seen you before," Helga said. "You're a - " she looks around and lowers her voice to a whisper " - muggle."

Rowena cocked her head to the side. "A what?"

Helga giggled. "My mum says not to talk to you," she whispered. "But my mum's not home right now."

"What did you call me, just now? A muggle?"

Helga nodded. Her bouncy blonde curls shone like gold. "You can't do magic," she said gleefully. "I've never met one of you in real life before!"

Rowena narrowed her eyes. "What do you mean, you've never met one of us in real life? Magic isn't real."

(Once upon a time there was a little girl who believed in magic, but then her mother stopped reading bedtime stories, and now the girl was all grown up. . . .)

Helga gave her a giant wink. "Do you want to see some magic?" she asked, pulling a long thin stick from her clothes.

Rowena rolled her eyes and crossed her arms. "Fine," she said. "Show me your magic."

Helga smirked. "All right. I will." She drew back her foot and kicked over Rowena's bucket.

Rowena gasped as water sloshed over her shoes. "Why would you - "

But Helga wasn't finished. She raised her stick in the air and muttered, "Auguamenti," and then Rowena screamed because there was water shooting out from absolutely nowhere and refilling the bucket.

"How did you do that?" Rowena asked, and her dark eyes were narrowed in suspicion but her heart was pounding with wonder.

Helga tapped her stick in her hand a few times. "Magic."

"I want to try."

Helga bit down on her lip. "I'm not so sure it's a good idea. You don't know any spells, or anyth - "

"Just let me hold that stick."

"Wand," Helga corrected. "It won't work for you, though. Muggles can't do magic."

Rowena put her hands on her hips. "Then you have nothing to worry about, do you."

Helga looked incredibly indecisive for a moment, but once upon a time there was a little girl who grew up into a big girl who had no patience and did not like to wait, so Rowena snatched the wand from the blonde girl's hand and began to run toward the woods.

"Come back!" Helga cried. "My wand!"

"No!" Rowena called over her shoulder. The wand felt warm under her fingertips, and it buzzed, as if it were alive, as if it were made of bees. . . .

"Please!" Helga sounded close to tears. She was hot on Rowena's heels. "Come back!"

Rowena screeched to a halt and turned around, breathing hard. "Tell me how to do magic," she said, nose inches from the blonde girl's.

Helga wasn't even out of breath. "Give it back."

"Not until you tell me."

Helga exhaled hard. "You have to say a magic spell," she said. "You have to say lumos, or auguamenti, or - "

"Auguamenti," Rowena cried.

Helga shrieked as a wave of water bowled her over.

"I did it!" Rowena was grinning. "How did I do that?"

Helga got to her feet, eyes wide. "I don't know," she said. "I didn't think muggles could do magic."

"Maybe I'm not a muggle." Rowena looked at the wand clutched in her hand. "Maybe I'm magic."

"How could you be magic if you didn't know you were magic?"

Rowena pushed a lock of her dark hair out of her eyes. "Maybe I'm a princess."

(Once upon a time there was a princess who lived in a cottage by the sea where she read books and did magic and played with a blonde girl called Helga who had a wand.)

Helga looked worried. "Come with me." She reached for Rowena's hand; she pulled away.

"Where?"

Helga pointed to a path Rowena had never before explored. "To see my friends. Salazar Slytherin and Godric Gryffindor. They're magic, too." She started to walk; after a moment's hesitation, Rowena followed. "They'll know what to do."

Once upon a time there was a boy called Salazar and a boy called Godric, and the two of them were funny and brave and rude and brilliant; one of them walked around with a wicked glint in his eye, and the other looked at the first with this admiration that made people think the two of them were in love, and once upon a time they made friends with a blonde girl named Helga and her muggle born friend Rowena, and once upon a time the four of them grew up and moved away from the sea to live together in their very own cottage, and it was there that they taught each other how to do magic.

None of them were royal, but they called themselves kings and queens, and late at night the one named Rowena read herself to sleep and dreamed of castles.

"You know what we should do?" Rowena said one day, and she was addressing them all but it was Helga she looked at.

(It was always Helga she looked at, because once upon a time Rowena believed in a thing called love, which was rarer than magic, but it had found her anyway.)

"Push Ricky into the ocean?" Salazar suggested, shoving Godric good-naturedly.

"My animagus form is a squid, you dolt," Godric fired back, but he was grinning. "I'd just wrap you up in my tentacles and bring you with me."

"We should start a school," Rowena said, and she was still looking at Helga, because that hair was the color of gold and it looked warm and she wanted to touch it.

"A school?" Godric repeated.

"A magic school."

"Why?"

"To teach magic, I'd imagine," Sal drawled, and Rowena smirked.

"Yes, to teach magic. The way you lot taught me. We could - I dunno, pass along our knowledge."

"Merlin, no," Godric said. "Teaching you was a nightmare. You were such a little know-it-all."

"Not everyone's a know-it-all like Rena, though," Sal said. "You could pick your favorites. Just take on the idiotic risk-takers like yourself, and train them to be even more idiotic."

"Who'd you take on, Sal?" Godric asked, raising his eyebrows. "The self-centered prats?"

Salazar nodded proudly. "Yes, sir."

Rowena was laughing. "So Godric takes the idiots, Salazar takes the prats, I'd take the know-it-alls, and Helga - "

"The ones with the pretty faces," Salazar finished smugly.

Helga smirked (Rowena's stomach fluttered). "I'm flattered, Salazar, that you find some's face prettier than your own."

"I didn't say that," Sal said, running a hand through his own locks, and Helga laughed.

"Honestly, though," she said, "which students would I take?"

The beautiful ones, like he said, Rowena wanted to say. The kind ones. The ones who sit up with you talking all night about princesses and villains and storybooks and childhood and innocence, and the ones who wake up with you in the morning and ask how you slept and whether it's hard to go on sometimes when you know that your own family thinks you're an abomination because you have magic and they don't, and the ones who lean over to tuck your hair behind your ear because they know you hate for it to fall in your face -

"Rena? What do you think?"

"The perfect ones," Rowena blurted.

"Sorry?"

She felt her face redden. "I said persistent."

"Oh." Helga wrinkled her nose. "Persistent?"

"Because you chased me," Rowena said quickly. "When we met, and I took your wand. You came after me. Remember?"

"That hardly counts as persistence," Godric said. "More like selfish."

"More like incapable of sharing her toys," added Sal.

"No," Helga said, and she looked thoughtful. "I think I'd like the persistent ones."

"Settled, then," Rowena said. "I've got the know-it-alls. Godric's got the brave idiots. Salazar has the ambitious little pricks. And Helga takes the hard workers."

(And once upon a time - or twice, or a hundred times, or a hundred times per day - Rowena hid her heart.)

"Helga?" she asked late one night.

The blonde girl in the bed beside her stirred. "Hmm?"

"Do you ever miss the sea?"

The blonde girl rolled over. "Do you?"

Rowena nodded in the dark. There were tears streaming down her face. "Do you ever miss home?"

Helga was silent.

"Do you ever miss your mum?"

"Rena." The blonde girl slipped out of her own bed and climbed into her friend's.

"My mum told me magic wasn't real," Rowena said quietly as their hands found each other. "I just wanted to show her magic was real."

"I know you did. I know."

"I didn't know she'd be so afraid of me."

"Of course you didn't." Helga pressed a kiss into her friend's cheek. "Of course you didn't."

Rowena sniffled quietly. "Will you tell me a story?"

Helga began to stroke Rowena's hair. "Once upon a time there was a princess," she whispered. "Two beautiful princesses who were best friends. Their names were Rowena and Helga, and they lived in a castle, and they loved each other - they loved each other very much - "

"How much?" Rowena asked, and part of it was her playing along and part of it was a genuine question, because once upon a time the know-it-all knew nothing at all about the most important subject in her life.

"Very much."

"I know, but - how much did they love each other, really?"

"A lot, Rena."

Rowena wasn't crying anymore. "How much is a lot?"

Rowena heard Helga swallow. "Well, Princess Helga loved Princess Rowena more than she had ever loved anyone else. More than her other friends. Much more than she loved Prince Salazar and Prince Godric." She groaned quietly. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to bring those idiots into the story. They always ruin everything."

"Helga." Her heart was pounding. "How much do you love me?"

"I - you're my best friend. You know that."

"I do know that."

Silence. Then: "I love you much more than I intended to."

Rowena closed her eyes. "Once upon a time," she whispered, "Princess Rowena wanted to kiss Princess Helga."

Helga exhaled slowly. "Princess Helga wants to know what's taking her so long," she whispered.

They found each other in the darkness, and after that all pretenses were gone.

(Once upon a time there was a home with four brilliant teachers living inside, and none of them were married but that didn't mean that none of them were in love.)

"Hogwarts," Rowena said as she stood atop the Astronomy Tower and breathed in deeply. "It smells like the sea."

The blonde girl next to her smiled and put her hand over Rowena's. "Are you happy?"

"I'm happy."

"Do you feel like this could be - you know, a new home for you?"

Rowena turned to face Helga. "My home is wherever you are."

Once upon a time there was a little girl who grew up to live in a castle, and she didn't even mind that she wasn't a princess, because the woman she held in her arms was more than enough of a happy ending.

Quidditch League, Round 13

Position: Keeper

Word Count: 2,346

Prompt: Write a romance for Helga/Rowena

[Disney Character Competition: Tarzan - write about a muggleborn finding out he/she is a witch/wizard]

[Twelve Days of Christmas Style Challenge: 8 genres (2/8) - romance]

[Last man Standing Competition: Write what you are comfortable writing]