QLFC Submission for Round 7

Keeper for the Chudley Cannons

Prompt: Write a character that expresses their culture through art.

Word Count: 2932

A/N: I can't seem to stay away from fairy tales, haha. Also, our team challenge this round was to write about one of our favorite things, and one of mine is playing the violin/fiddle (they're pretty much the same). Bluegrass is an amazing style of music, and if you have time, there are lots of jams people have recorded and posted online!

Prince Draco's mother was always sick; his memories of her were filled with a steady stream of healers and hedge witches constantly entering and exiting her rooms, attempting to heal her mysterious malady. Unfortunately, it was all in vain, and one day, shortly after Draco turned seven, there were no more visitors with new potions.

The palace was shrouded, and the entire country mourned Queen Narcissa's passing, but no one more than King Lucius.

After the Queen's death, Draco almost exclusively saw his father at official dinners, where he was distant, cold, and more occupied with his guests. Even Draco's magic tutor, Mr. Snape, saw his father more than Draco did, when he updated the King on his son's progress.

Sometimes, when Draco practiced the pianoforte in the evenings, he thought he heard the click of his father's cane in the hall, but when he looked, there was never anyone there.

When he was fifteen, his father summoned him to the throne room, and Draco went, eager and nervous. A woman stood next to the throne, her hand resting on his father's arm.

King Lucius didn't look at him as he told Draco that the woman, Miss Arina Zabini, was to become his new stepmother. Draco held back tears as he fixed a smile on his face and said how happy he'd be to have a mother again.

Draco did try to convince himself that he would be happy about it, but he wasn't. He didn't understand why his father was replacing his mother, and he didn't like Miss Zabini at all. While stunningly beautiful, her eyes sometimes held a cruel look that made him shiver.

No, the only good thing about Miss Zabini, was her lady-in-waiting, Miss Hermione Granger. He happened across her in the library shortly after the wedding, devouring a volume on Transfiguration Charms. Their friendship fell into place quite naturally, as Hermione was the only other person his age he could talk to. Miss Zabini's footman often escorted her, always looking like he wished to join their conversations, but he obviously knew it was not his station to speak.

Miss Zabini, now the Queen, persuaded his father to make a great many changes — the first of which was dismissing Draco's tutor. Draco was very upset about this, but Mr. Snape left without protest, admitting that Draco was finished with his curriculum, and with a slightly less grim frown than usual, Snape told Draco he was proud of him.

Draco thought that even if he heard those same words from his father, they wouldn't mean as much as they did from Mr. Snape.

The second change the Queen made was marrying him off.

"It is such a wonderful thing to be married," she tittered at dinner one evening, "that I must see Prince Draco as happily settled in his future as I am."

She smiled sweetly at Lucius, who glanced at Draco dispassionately.

"Very well," the King said, and the Queen looked like a dragon with a hoard of gold.

"Draco shall be betrothed."

Draco would have preferred to choose who he was to marry for himself, but he had no say at all, and it was decided that he would marry the Prince of Grimmauld, who was called Harry, when they came of age.

Draco spent a week sulking about this arrangement, until Hermione convinced him to write to Prince Harry.

"It's only polite," she said, cajoling him. "He probably knows nothing about you either, and it will be a comfort to know a little of each other before you are wed."

Draco conceded that she was right, and, still grumbling, he wrote Prince Harry a letter. Much to his surprise, not a fortnight later, he received a response.

Although Prince Harry's penmanship was atrocious, Draco discovered he had misjudged him. Draco had happened to mention that he played the pianoforte in his letter, and as it happened, Harry played the fiddle — an instrument that looked almost exactly like a violin.

Their correspondence flourished from there, and Draco was fascinated by the way Prince Harry described the music of his country, which was called blue-grass. They played together in unstructured and often impromptu meetings, called jams, and there was no printed music or rigid notes. Instead, each person took a turn leading, playing whatever they wished. Although there were traditional pieces for every imaginable occasion — friendship, dancing, new love, marriage, birth, mourning — they let their hearts guide their fingers, so a song was never played exactly the same way twice, and Harry told him that sometimes, when they were all lost together in the joy of making music, magic happened.

It sounded so wonderfully free, and Draco began to wish he was old enough to be married, if only to hear Prince Harry play him a wild melody on his fiddle.

One day, Prince Draco was in the library, hiding one of Prince Harry's letters within the pages of a book on Potions, when Hermione rushed in, panicked.

"I'm afraid the Queen means you harm," Hermione said.

Draco scoffed. "She can't hurt me; I'm the Prince."

Hermione only looked more afraid. "She's got a talking mirror," she whispered, "that she speaks to almost every night. She asks it who is the fairest in the land, and it has always named the Queen — until last night."

"Who did it say, then?" Draco asked, curious. He wasn't surprised at the Queen's vanity; she was always self-obsessed.

"You," Hermione whispered, and Draco was sure he hadn't heard her correctly, but she insisted it was true.

"The mirror is lying," Draco said, trying to laugh it off. "Obviously, I am very beautiful, but the fairest in the land?"

"That's what the mirror said." Hermione looked at him with despair. "I've never seen her so — so full of vengeance."

Draco thought back to when he'd first seen the Queen, and how, in an unguarded moment, she'd looked at him with that cruel gleam. He shivered and thanked Hermione for warning him, but privately, he wasn't convinced that he was in any danger. Surely, he thought, the Queen wouldn't try to harm him over something so petty, and he was the Prince after all.

Two weeks later, however, he was proven wrong.

He was roused in the middle of the night by someone shaking him, and opened his eyes to see two people hovering over his bed by candlelight: Hermione, and the Queen's footman.

"I'm so sorry," Hermione wept as the Queen's footman led him along at wandpoint under an Obscuro and Silencing spell.

They walked for a long, long time, and Draco couldn't tell where they were going. When they finally stopped, and the spells lifted, he saw, to his astonishment, that they were in the Forbidden Forest.

"What is the meaning of this?" Draco demanded, glaring at them both.

"The Queen found out!" Hermione cried, wringing her hands desperately. This made absolutely no sense to Draco, and he looked to the footman for an explanation.

"I am Blaise Zabini, Your Highness," the footman said, sweeping into a bow with a wry smile.

Well, thought Draco, there was a twist. Blaise was the Queen's son, then, and she must have hidden him in order to pass herself off as a maiden for the King.

"What has she told you to do to me?" Draco asked, resigned. Hermione cried harder.

"Well," said Blaise with a smirk, "in exchange for Hermione's hand, she extracted from me a Vow that I would... dispose of you."

"I see," said Draco, lips twitching upwards. It was clear he had underestimated the footman.

"What are you two smiling about?" Hermione demanded. "This is awful!"

"My little lioness," Blaise said smoothly, "don't you see? The Queen did not specifically say I had to kill Prince Draco." Hermione's mouth went round with realization. "So," he continued, "I think I can consider my Vow fulfilled if we simply leave him right here, in the Forest."

And with a gallant wink, the devious footman slid a pack from his shoulders and tossed it at Draco's feet.

"Oh, yes," Draco said, "I feel quite disposed of."

Hermione, drying her cheeks, rushed forward to hug him tightly, and then she and Blaise departed, leaving Draco alone in the Forest as the sun rose.

He found that Blaise had packed for him quite considerately, and even his wand was tucked away inside the pack. For a moment, Draco considered returning to the palace, but he tossed the idea aside just as quickly. The Queen was clever, and he was sure that she had covered her tracks well. Going back might be more dangerous for him than lingering in the Forest. No, it was better to let her think she had won, and then return when she least expected it.

His mind made up, Draco set out to find shelter. After several hours of walking with nothing to show for it, he pulled out his wand.

"Point Me," he instructed it, placing it flat on his palm, "someplace friendly."

Draco had no idea if it would work, as he had only used that spell with specific locations in mind before, but his wand dutifully spun around and pointed firmly in one direction. There was no harm in seeing where it led, Draco supposed, so he set off again through the trees.

At last, he burst into a wide meadow, in which stood the most lopsided, rickety house he'd ever seen. It looked like it might collapse at any moment. Draco went up to the door and knocked several times, but nobody seemed to be home. He meant to wait on the porch, but happening to glance in the window and see a pianoforte in the living room, he couldn't resist casting an Alohomora and letting himself in to sit at the instrument.

He was soon lost in the melody, and closed his eyes to pull the music from memory. When Draco finished the piece, he was startled by the abrupt sound of applause.

Looking up, he saw seven redheads holding brooms and clapping very enthusiastically.

"Brilliant!" one of them exclaimed. "Haven't heard anything played half as well on that thing in ages!"

"Oi!" said another redhead, the only girl of the lot. "I play that thing."

The other six all began to nod vigorously, obviously afraid of some kind of retaliation if they didn't agree that she played very well. Draco, meanwhile, was trying to work out why these seven redheads looked so familiar.

"You're the Weasley Kings!" he cried, interrupting the six boys' stumbling attempts at flattering their sister.

He should've known it as soon as he saw them. The Weasley Kings were a professional Quidditch team made up of the seven redheaded Weasley siblings. They usually did very well on the pitch, despite their second-hand robes and brooms.

All seven of them looked at him.

"Yeah, that's us," said the one covered in moving tattoos of dragons. "What about it?"

"Well," said Draco, with a smirk, "I'm… Daryl, your new financial manager."

The Weasleys were, unsurprisingly, very happy to have his help. Percy Weasley had apparently been in charge of their finances before, but only Bill and Charlie had been willing to listen to him when he told them they couldn't possibly afford the things they wanted. Draco discovered he was very good at manipulating Ronald and Ginevra into curbing their spending, and when he suggested to Fred and George that they develop merchandise to sell to fans — well, money became less of a concern shortly after that.

Draco found he was quite content, living with the Weasleys in the Burrow, until one morning the headline on the Daily Prophet caused him to remember why he was there to begin with.

King Calls Off Search For Son, the paper declared. Prince Harry Refuses To Give Up!

"Oh, how romantic," Ginevra sighed, tracing a finger over the likeness of Prince Harry on the paper.

Percy scoffed. "It's not romantic. It's been almost a year. He's probably dead."

Several of the others groaned, and Bill and Charlie began to berate him for being so pessimistic while Fred and George threw out ludicrous theories about the missing Prince's whereabouts, but Draco quietly snuck outside to escape the speculation.

He'd avoided thinking about his predicament for some time, and he wished to continue to do so, since he still had no idea what to do about it. He enjoyed living with the Weasleys, and he didn't really want to leave, but if Prince Harry was looking for him…

There was movement at the edge of the meadow, and Draco looked up to see an old woman approaching. As she drew nearer, Draco thought that she looked oddly familiar, but he forgot that as she stopped in front of him and opened one hand to reveal a bright green apple.

"Is that for me?" Draco asked her, a bit eagerly. He did like apples, especially the green ones, and he hadn't had one in a very long time. The old woman nodded and moved her hand a little closer, encouraging him to take it; so he did.

"Thank you," said Draco, politely, and took a huge bite, but midway through chewing it, he collapsed to the ground.

The old woman's wrinkled visage slowly melted away to reveal Hermione's devastated face.

"I'm sorry, Draco, but she was going to kill Blaise," she said before Disapparating.

The noise drew the Weasleys out of the Burrow, and upon finding Draco unmoving, their wails of grief echoed throughout the forest.

"Whatever shall we do?" Ginevra asked after they'd moved Draco's lifeless body to the sofa.

"We should inform his family, of course," Percy said, sensibly.

"Just one problem —"

"— we've no idea if he has any," Fred and George said together.

"We'll just ask around a bit," Ronald suggested. "There can't be that many Daryls about."

"Or, you could simply ask someone who knows."

The seven Weasleys all turned at once to see a strange man with greasy black hair and a dour expression standing on the threshold.

"And you're someone who knows?" Bill asked the stranger.

"Indeed," the man said. "My name is Snape, and that is Prince Draco, son of King Lucius."

"Bloody hell," Charlie summed up, succinctly.

Snape lifted one eyebrow in agreement, and then explained that it was unwise to send an owl to the King, because the Queen might learn of it, and she wanted Prince Draco dead.

"But isn't he already dead?" Ronald asked in confusion.

"No, you nitwit," said Snape. "I discovered in the grass outside an apple which he must have eaten from, and doing so has put him under a heavy enchantment, but he is not dead."

All the Weasleys' spirits were lighter at this news, but they fell again when Snape admitted he didn't know how to lift the enchantment. Despairing at the thought that they might never revive their beloved financial manager and Prince, the Weasleys decided to put their considerable magical skills to good use, and together they transfigured a crystal coffin to hold Prince Draco and charmed it to levitate over a garden of beautiful wildflowers.

There was almost always at least one Weasley (or Snape) watching over Draco's coffin, and some weeks later, it happened to be Ginevra, who was coasting her broom in slow loops above him, when a young man sped in on the fastest broom she'd ever seen in her life.

"Is that a Firebolt?" Ginevra yelled at him, and the young man came to an abrupt halt, nearly flying over the handle of his broom when he stopped.

"Yes, it's a — is that Prince Draco?!"

Ginevra immediately moved between him and Draco's crystal coffin. "Who's asking?"

"I am," the young man said, looking at her with wide green eyes. "Prince Harry of Grimmauld."

"Oh," Ginevra said, and she moved aside.

Prince Harry glided up to the coffin on his broom and shed one tear as he peered in at his betrothed.

"Would you mind if I played him something?" he asked Ginevra, who said she didn't mind at all.

Prince Harry pulled his fiddle from his magically extended pack, and, not looking away from Draco, began to play the tune of the love in his heart, pouring his very soul and all his magic into it. The bewitching music floated over the meadow, drawing the other Weasleys and Snape out of the Burrow to hear it.

They were all so enchanted by Prince Harry's music that they didn't notice the first crack forming in Draco's coffin, or even the second, or the third, but Prince Harry did, and when the coffin finally shattered, he dropped his fiddle and swooped down to catch the stirring Prince before he fell.

"Harry?" Draco mumbled sleepily. "Were you playing for me?"

"Yes," Harry said, cradling him closely.

"It was lovely," Draco said, a little more clearly. "You must play for me all the time."

Harry laughed, and then they were surrounded by the seven Weasleys and Snape, all clamoring to see that their Prince was awake and free of his enchantment.

Draco was reluctant to go back to the palace, but the next day brought visitors in the forms of Hermione and Blaise, come to tell him that the Queen was dead, although they wouldn't tell him how it had happened, saying only that she had died in agony.

Then Draco allowed Prince Harry to escort him home, and they made delightfully magical music together for the rest of their lives.