The pallet didn't revert, but Harry honestly wouldn't have thought about it if Lord Prince hadn't shown back up in his garden a few days later. He had the same disgruntled look on his face that he'd carried out of the forest. Harry studied him with curiosity from a compost pile that he was raking. "Did you not manage to gather enough lilies for your potion, my lord?"

"I want to know why you did what you did."

"Because you asked me to." Harry wondered for a moment if brewing potions led to memory loss. It wasn't as though he'd ever stood over one and inhaled the fumes to know.

That got him an impatient scowl from Lord Prince's direction. "People want rewards."

Harry shrugged. He thought about the reason he'd come to the garden in the first place, in the hopes of finding a powerful plant that could end his curse. But as the years had passed away, that had become less important. He was content here, and since he was acting in the place of a lowly servant that people expected to be dirty anyway, the sneers were less frequent.

"Tell me what you want."

Harry concealed a smile as he thought about it. It was possible that Lord Prince was a good enough brewer that he could grant part of Harry's request, and if not, then the challenge should keep him occupied and keep him from bothering Harry. "You might have noticed how ugly I am, sir. Could you brew a potion that would give me a more handsome face to look at in the mirror?"

Lord Prince took a long step closer. "You're mocking me?"

"Why would I be, my lord?"

"Because you must have noticed my looks are hardly the best. If I could brew a potion to make someone more handsome, why would I not have made it long ago?"

Harry blinked. "You're hardly ugly, sir. And I thought that maybe you could and you just had better things to do."

Silence. Lord Prince stared at him with those raised eyebrows again. Harry wanted to turn away and go back to his compost, but he had the feeling that it would ruin something delicate and slow if he did. So he held still.

"It would not affect the way you look in other people's eyes," Lord Prince said finally, his voice low and thoughtful. The challenge seemed to have caught his attention, which was all right with Harry as long as it sent him away to his cauldron. "But to cast an illusion of yourself in the mirror? That I could do."

Harry nodded. Why not? It sounded like an interesting project, and if he could help out with his knowledge of plants, then he would feel like he had made some contribution. The garden was his home and he was always happy to be there, but he did enjoy the thought of expanding a little beyond it.

"Are you under a curse?"

Harry blinked and looked up from the water barrel, where the floating image of his face was a twisted monster's, with tusks and warts on every feature. "What? Yes, my lord."

"And you could not have mentioned this?" Lord Prince was glaring at him in displeasure.

"It's the sort of thing that I forget about, sir," Harry said, with a slight shrug. He stood up and brushed some of the dirt off his sleeves. "I've been under it since I was born. It made everyone but my parents despise me, and think of me as dirty."

Lord Prince stiffened the way he did over odd things. Harry just dealt with it by thinking that he was a noble and they were odd like that, the same way you may have dealt with a dragon by thinking it was on its way to eat someone in the next country.

"I have been influenced by a curse?" Lord Prince sounded displeased.

"I don't know, sir? You've treated me decently. You let me go with you to find the moonborn lilies, and you're trying to help me with my reflection."

"I offered that because I was disgusted—" Lord Prince cut himself off. "How is this curse to be broken?"

"The usual way, sir."

"True love's kiss?"

"Yes, sir."

"But the curse turns everyone away from you and prevents anyone from falling in love with you," Lord Prince murmured. "Ingenious."

Harry looked hard at him for a moment. He didn't like the idea that Lord Prince would praise the curse that had destroyed his life. But Lord Prince only stared back at him, and Harry held back a sigh. The man really wouldn't see anything wrong with doing that, and would probably be disgusted if Harry asked him to stop.

Nobles were different.

"How do you intend to break it if everyone is too revolted by you to come close to you?" Lord Prince asked.

Harry shrugged. "I was thinking that I probably wouldn't break it. The life I have now is superior to the one I used to have, where people sneered at me and even some of my relatives snickered behind their hands. My parents gave me my life and then released me into the world to pursue happiness. I have that."

"You do not."

Harry just looked back at him. He wasn't going to disagree, since Lord Prince could be trouble if he wanted to, and someone knowing about the curse wasn't enough to prevent them from being influenced by it. His siblings had known all their lives what had happened when he was born, and they thought he was ugly and dirty anyway.

"You began to work on a cure, and you left it unfinished. How could you be happy?"

Harry bit his lips to keep from smiling. It seemed that Lord Prince was different from some other nobles in possessing a work ethic, at least. He inclined his head. "If my lord wishes to aid me, then perhaps I would have a chance."

"I cannot believe that you would set out to break the curse and give up. Yes, I wish to help you."

"I am grateful, my lord."

Lord Prince looked sharply at Harry to see if he was making fun of him, which he always did, but then nodded. "We shall begin tomorrow."

And what storyteller can retell those exact days, golden and green with the most brilliant summer weather it had ever been Harry's fortune to experience, with two heads bent together over the water barrel and the potions cauldron and the bed of flowers were Harry's roses grew wildest and richest for him?

Potions was less smelly than Harry had thought it would be, although he still sneezed several times. Lord Prince always had him sneeze away from the cauldron, simply frowning at the first results that appeared, as if he always expected something else. Then he would nod and scribble down a long notation on a scroll of parchment that never made any sense to Harry.

"You are patient," he remarked one day, when Harry was scattering rose petals in a silver basin that Lord Prince had brought from his castle, wherever it was.

Harry looked up, shoving his tangled hair behind his ear. "What do you mean, my lord?"

"Many of the—people I know would have expected instant results once they knew I had decided to help them."

Harry shrugged. "You have to have patience with plants, sir. That's probably part of the reason I was always drawn to them. The curse taught me to be patient." He finished scattering the rose petals and then spread his fingers. Water jetted from their tips and into the basin, making the rose petals rise.

"There are not many who could do that, either."

"I couldn't handle a wand, my lord. I made them explode."

Lord Prince leaned over and stared right into his face. Harry held still, wishing he could roll his eyes, but deciding it was probably better not to do that with a noble watching him. This was Lord Prince's way. He liked to study things that interested him closely, whether that was a beetle on a rose petal or Harry's face.

"Who are you?" Lord Prince breathed.

"Harry, my lord. The way you said."

"I had assumed…." But Lord Prince didn't say what he had assumed, which might be something wrong for all Harry knew. He eased back and frankly stared at Harry for a moment, then shook his head as though awakening from a trance and faced the basin again. "We will be working on the aural components of the curse today."

Which was shorthand for "I don't know what about you is making me uncomfortable, but we aren't going to talk about it."

Harry hid an amused smile as he stepped up to the silver basin. This was Lord Prince's way, too. And after getting used to silence in the garden for so long, he found that he couldn't really mind.

"My lord? What are you—"

"I wanted to cast a spell without waking you. It seems that I failed."

Lord Prince spoke from behind a stony mask. Harry studied him warily, but he didn't know what he had done to inspire that look. Lord Prince turned away after a moment, to study instead the smoking ring of potion that he had apparently spread around Harry in his sleep and lit on fire.

Harry recognized the smell of lavender, but nothing else. He waited until Lord Prince turned to face him again. "My lord?" he repeated. This time, he wouldn't let what had happened retreat into silence. This was, frankly, more than a little strange, that Lord Prince had thought burning something around him in his sleep would work, and had sneaked into the gardens when he knew Harry wouldn't be awake.

"This is a potion that can expose lies." Lord Prince was frowning mightily at the grass. "Your curse is a kind of lie. It should have affected it. Dissipated part of it. Deceptions being burned off are revealed as greasy smoke puffing from the body." He glanced sidelong at Harry. "But no smoke came up that wasn't from the burning potion itself."

Harry sighed and sat up. "My lord, did you expect it to reveal that I was lying?"

Lord Prince twitched, one massive movement that seemed to run up his spine and then back down again. He said nothing, but this time, the silence was of a different kind from the sort that Harry had experienced.

Harry nodded. "I'm under a curse, my lord. I can't use regular magic because I make wands explode. I didn't grow up in the forest. I am good with plants. That's all true. I'm struggling to think of what else I might have said or done that you could have thought was a lie."

Lord Prince turned and stalked away into the night.

Harry lay down again and banished the smoking remnants of the potion by moving his hand along the ground in a wide circle. The night air that came in after that was much pleasanter, and he fell asleep with his head almost hanging out the front door of the gardener's shed.

"The curse cannot be what you said it was," Lord Prince announced one evening a few months later, as Harry was carefully gathering plants and turning over flowerbeds for the frost.

"In what way, my lord?" Harry's words were distracted. He was trying to convince a few flowers to go to sleep, and they didn't want to. As far as they were concerned, there was still sunlight during the day, and why would that mean the seasons were changing? It hadn't got cold enough at night yet to shock them.

"It should drive everyone away and make you repulsive."

"Yes, sir." Harry sighed as a rosebush finally folded inwards and he could feed it magical strength that it would use for surviving the cold instead of growing. He glanced up to find Lord Prince watching him with a pinched expression.

"It does not drive me away."

Harry thought about it, then shrugged. "You wanted my aid in finding the moonborn lilies and then in figuring out the curse. I doubt it was meant to prevent purely straightforward interactions. People can also interact with me to get what they need from the gardens. But they still don't like me, and they snicker behind my back."

"Who does that?"

"The other servants, my lord," Harry said slowly, not understanding the way that Lord Prince was glaring at him now. "Lord and Lady Potter's children. Most of the visitors to the estate, although not Lord Longbottom. He has a good heart. And you are exempted, I think for the reasons that I already talked about."

Lord Prince swung around and stalked off again.

Harry sighed and went back to talking to the plants. Maybe the curse didn't work in the traditional way on Lord Prince, he thought sourly, but it did something, or he wouldn't act like such a strange man all the time.

On the other hand, maybe that was just more proof that Harry shouldn't be trying to get involved with the nobility, curse or no curse.

It was the depth of midwinter when Harry saw Lord Prince again. He had almost forgotten about the man, and he was wrapped in thick blankets, watching the dance of coronas around the stars, when Lord Prince abruptly appeared in front of him and tossed him a blanket that Harry caught in surprise. It appeared to be woven of some thick wool, or wool-like material, and it was warm in a way that made Harry gasp as his fingers dove into it. He only remembered other blankets like that with Warming Charms from his distant childhood.

"Thank you, sir!" Harry grinned up at him and then reached down and back to the pot that he'd put aside in case he saw Lord Prince again. He'd given up on it when the man didn't come to the Potter estate for months, but he was glad to be able to hand it over. "This has the seeds of moonborn lilies for you."

"Moonborn lilies do not have seeds." Lord Prince was standing very still, staring at Harry with those wide dark eyes. "They only grow where magical blood has been spilled. How did you manage to pot them?"

"I went back to the clearing where you harvested them several times," Harry said happily. He dragged the blanket around him and snuggled into it with a sigh. This was much warmer than the others he'd had. "When it wasn't full moon. It's hard to find them when they aren't open, but I managed, and I found out that they do shed small seeds. I had to use my magic to see them, because they're so small. But I found them, and I decided that I would save them for you." He yawned. "Thank you for thinking of me."

Lord Prince said nothing more, and Harry didn't know when he departed, because he almost immediately went to sleep under the warm blanket. But he did think that there was a touch on his hair, fleeting and unsure.

"You mean to say that he withdrew it?"

Harry snorted a little when he heard the voices of the young Ladies from the direction of the rose garden. His sisters, technically, Arabella and Rosemary, but he never really thought of them that way. He turned to pick up the watering can. He would come back later and coax the roots to accept water, since this was a rare week when neither rain nor snow had come.

Arabella's teary voice answered before Harry could move much further away. "I don't understand it! I thought Lord Prince was in love with me!"

Harry froze, feeling sharp tingles race over his body like the exploring legs of fleas. He swallowed. He had thought that Lord Prince only visited the Potter estate to try to figure out the curse and find plants.

Of course it wasn't the case. Of course Lord Prince had been here for other reasons. Of course. Harry closed his eyes and memorized the metal handle of the watering can where it pressed into his palm. He had to remember his place. He had to remember that he was just a servant to everyone, even if some people were nicer about it.

"But you weren't in love with him," Rosemary said, sounding confused.

"Of course not! Who could be? He's so ugly!" Arabella sniffled, and made a sound like plucking a twig. Harry hoped not. "But he's powerful, and it was wonderful having him interested in courting me. It made Heir Malfoy jealous. And why did he withdraw? He won't even give a reason."

Harry turned away, shaking his head, as their conversation went on to other things. He would probably never understand the women who should have been his sisters, or the men who should have been his brothers, because of things like this. Why would someone want a person courting them who they thought was ugly?

Not that Harry was ever going to know what it was like to have someone courting him.

And it made his own half-realized idea that Lord Prince had come to the Potter estate to see him all the more ridiculous. Harry should have remembered that he was only a gardener, as Lord Prince had named him.

Well, he would live up to that name.

Harry went to water the plants, and to tamp down dirt over his heart.

"Harry."

Harry woke up slowly, and stared at the man kneeling down in front of his pallet. It took him long minutes to recognize Lord Prince. He had been so sure that he would never see him again once he had known that the man was courting Arabella and would have no reason to return when he'd withdrawn.

Still, there was no reason not to be polite. It wasn't Lord Prince's fault that Harry had believed something stupid. He straightened and nodded. "Hello, my lord. Did you have a question about the moonborn lily seeds?"

"I want the answer to a question."

Harry half-relaxed. Lord Prince was as demanding as ever. He hadn't changed. Maybe they could still work on potions and combating the curse together. "Yes, my lord. Which one?"

"Are you the son of James and Lily Potter?"

Harry tensed up again. Then he raised his head. He wasn't going to deny it. Maybe Lord Prince had suspected it already and this was one reason he had reconsidered his suit for Arabella's hand. He didn't want to be connected to someone who had a gardener for a brother. "Yes."

"And yet you never said anything. And you live in the garden and tend the plants…"

"I once thought that I might discover some kind of natural magic that would combat the curse," Harry admitted. It was odd to say the words when he hadn't even thought about them for years. "And I wanted to live on my own and have some freedom. Being despised by my siblings and tutors got to be too much."

"But your parents?"

"They were the only ones unaffected by the curse. They didn't want me to do this, but I told them I had to, and they were wise enough to let me."

"Or careless enough. I never would have believed it of Lily—"

Lord Prince cut himself off, but Harry had heard the words. He stared at the man. "You knew her? Did you live in the forest with her?" But that couldn't be, he thought. Lord Prince had acted as though he barely understood the forest.

Lord Prince leaned back, ripples of shadow coursing across his face, and inclined his head sharply. "When we were children. I left and traveled the world and learned the kind of magic that focuses more on crystals and potions. I returned when I heard that she was married. I thought—it does not matter what I thought. Selfish thoughts."

"You thought you could win her away from the man she married."

Lord Prince snapped his head around, and stared again. Then he said, "You are not withdrawing."

"It was obvious when you mentioned that you'd been children together and then you came back when you heard she was married."

Lord Prince said, "That is less significant than the fact that you can continue to look me in the face and speak to me as if I mattered. But you do not know what I did next."

"You decided to court my sister Arabella."

Lord Prince considered him carefully. "I know that you have the magic of plants and that you cannot use a wand," he murmured. "But are you also a Seer?"

"Only in the divination of overheard conversations." Harry considered Lord Prince in the low light from his banked fire and the stars. "Why did you decide to withdraw your suit? Were you wise enough to realize that my sister didn't love you?"

"That, and I realized that there would be no revenge in impressing the daughter of the woman I once desired to marry." Lord Prince was silent and still for a moment. "In fact, I had lost the desire for revenge."

"Oh?" Harry could feel the tremble of his own heartbeat. He ignored it.

"Yes. What revenge would be found by impressing a foolish young woman, or one who loved someone else?" Lord Prince turned to face him. "What would be better than returning to the one person I have found who did not think I was ugly, who put up with my gestures and my silences and my stubbornness, who gave me a gift not because he received one but because he wished to?"

Harry's mouth was as dry as unwatered earth when Lord Prince reached out and slid his fingers gently through his hair. It must have felt clumped and greasy against his fingertips, but he didn't flinch. Of course he wouldn't, Harry thought. His own hair must feel the same way to him.

"I would be foolish indeed to turn my back on that," Lord Prince said, and his voice throbbed and echoed in a whisper that beat louder than Harry's heart.

When he leaned forwards and pressed his lips against Harry's, Harry didn't understand at first. And then the lips moved impatiently against his and Lord Prince uttered a serpentine hiss, and Harry did. He grabbed some of that greasy hair that had never seemed ugly to him, and licked Lord Prince's lips experimentally.

The world trembled like a crystal goblet wobbling on the edge of a table.

Harry gasped, and not only because of the heat surging through him. There was magic, tapping on his temples and hissing in his ears and muttering words that he couldn't understand. He thought he saw a flash of green light, and remembered the stories Lord and Lady Potter had told him, about the green light that had accompanied the curse at his birth.

"You are beautiful."

Harry blinked and drew back, staring at Lord Prince. The man was hunched like a vulture, staring at him, fingers working with expressive tightness on his knees. Harry guessed at once what was bothering him, and shook his head firmly.

"If the curse has changed my appearance, it hasn't changed my vision," he said. "You're still the man who was patient enough to keep company with a mere gardener and not let himself be put off by my appearance. You're the one who was clever enough to see through the curse."

"I am a selfish and petty man. Perhaps not the one you waited for."

"I'd given up on waiting," Harry told him simply, not having seen until now how true that was. "I would have dwindled away here among my plants if not for you. I thought I was content, but contentment and oblivion were way too close. You're enough for me, Lord Prince."

And Lord Prince sighed out, and said, "My first name is Severus."

"Severus." Harry remembered enough of his tutors' lessons to guess at the meaning. He smiled as he let his hand rise and trail down the sharp cheeks, the sharp nose, and the curves beneath the sharp eyes. "It suits you."

Severus kissed him again.

The wedding was small, and held in Gryffindor, in the gardens. The only attendants were Lord and Lady Potter, and Lord Longbottom. The other Potter siblings had stayed away, out of embarrassment (as Harry suspected, and as was true), and it wasn't like they knew a lot of other people.

Under an arbor of Harry's beloved roses, Harry Potter and Severus Prince joined their hands and pledged joined magic, joined lives, and joined hearts. Lady Potter smiled with a mist in her eyes. Lord Potter's eyes shone with relief. Perhaps he hated Lord Prince, perhaps there would always be that enmity between him and the man who had wanted to marry his wife and had courted his daughter out of spite, but it was hidden under the soul-deep relaxation that was the end of the curse.

Lord Longbottom applauded, and Lord Prince rode away with his gardener on a black horse.

They had not told the others, but they had a quest to undergo before they settled into bliss on the Prince estate. Lady Potter had not been able to provide a guess at the enemy who would have hated her enough to want to curse her firstborn, and Lord Potter knew of no hereditary enemies, either. They would seek out the source of the curse, be it sorcerer or fairy, warlock or demon, and lay the enmity to rest.

But that is another story as long as the tendrils of roses, and here we lay our tale to rest.

The End.