crossoverfic | Fairy Tales - Chapter 2

Title: Fairy Tales
Chapter Title: 2. Storm Moon
Author: Perceval
Fandoms: Multi
Genre: Fantasy
Rating: R
Warnings: A little light, but not graphic, femmeslash.
Disclaimer: Same as the first, plus His Dark Materials created by Philip Pullman.
Chapter Summary: Lady Fate holds a meeting with some of her closest friends and allies, as they prepare for hostilites with the Ministry of Magic.

Chapter 1

Chapter Two

Storm Moon

"The joy of life consists in the exercise of one's energies, continual growth, constant change, the enjoyment of every new experience. To stop means simply to die. The eternal mistake of mankind is to set up an attainable ideal."

-Aleister Crowley

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March 22, 2008, Devon

The Daily Prophet sat on the table, with the headline of the previous night's massive storm, tropical in it's intensity, the kind they rarely saw in Devon. Now, one may wonder why a thunderstorm in Devon would make the front page of Wizarding Britain's sole daily newspaper, even one as unusually intense as this one. The reason was it was a very contained storm, hitting the area around the town of Ottery-St-Catchpole. Just outside of town was the Weasley family farm, the center of the most prominent and respected family of the British Wizarding world.

The Weasleys hadn't always been the British Wizarding world's most prominant and respected family. Oh, they were loved and respected in some circles, but hated by what had been the elite families like the Blacks and Malfoys. The outcome of the Voldemort War a decade ago had changed all that.

The Burrow had been the only building in the area that suffered any damage. There had been no serious injuries, just a few cuts and bruises from broken glass. First, the "unnatural" storm hit. Then, the windows were blown inward. It was as though it was deliberate, that the storm had directly targeted them.

It was decided, the Daily Prophet reported, that the Dark Lady Fate was making a statement. During her rise to power over the last five years, she'd come into conflict with the Weasley clan, especially the great hero of the Wizarding world, the Man Who Killed Voldemort, Head of the Auror Office, the leader of the Crusade against the Dark Arts, Harry Potter.

"Her army may be growing," Minister for Magic Minerva McGonagall stated, "and it is, without doubt, one of the most dangerous forces we've ever faced, with Wonderland, and who knows what other fairylands behind her. But, Albus Dumbledore defeated Lady Fate's great grandfather, and Harry Potter defeated Lord Voldemort. Wizarding Britain has always faced the darkness, and it has always prevailed."

Harry Potter couldn't be reached for comment, but his wife, Ginny, could. The Prophet quoted her as saying "Harry will beat them! For what they've done to us, for what they've done to our family!"

The Prophet was certain that Harry Potter would, once again, see the Wizarding world through these dark times.

Lady Fate sighed. She took out a parchment, and wrote the Daily Prophet a note saying that she had never once called herself the Dark Lady Fate. While she appreciated that they'd stopped calling her She Who Must Not Be Named, as the Minister had instructed them to quit doing, she asked that they, in the future, please just call her Lady Fate, or even her real name.

She wondered if Harry still called her Luna, privately.

She sent the note off with an owl, much to the amusement of her companions in the room. There was her godmother Alice, Queen of Wonderland, with blonde hair and an adult, today; and the one who brought the previous night's storm with her arrival, Dorothy, formerly of Kansas, USA and now Princess of Oz, with her companion of a century, the beautiful Queen Ozma. Dorothy was usually blonde, but today she had dark hair, Luna assumed to distinguish herself from the other petite blondes in the room. Ozma was tall, with the traditional large red poppies in her jet black hair, matching her red dress. Luna had been inspired to wear a large yellow sunflower in her hair to match her yellow dress at the wedding of Bill and Fleur, years before, by Ozma. Finally, there was who Luna considered her most important teacher besides her mother and Mary, Andromeda Black-Tonks, and her daughter, Nymphadora Tonks-Lupin, witch and former Auror, and, save for Luna, herself, the final student of Luna's mother.

"Still think it should be me doing this," Dora said. "It'll get violent, and you just got into town."

"I want to," Dorothy insisted.

Dora laughed and said, "We know you're always looking for a fight, but Ozma..."

"I'm more than capable of using force..." Ozma protested.

"I know. I read the histories. I just think... Considering who this is, it's a bit personal..."

Dorothy shrugged. "Never said it wasn't."

To which Andromeda replied, "And we know Lady Fate loves irony. Picked that up from her mother, I suspect."

Dorothy and Ozma were being sent to shadow and bodyguard one of Andy's favorite proteges, one she'd taken a noticeable delight in collecting. The young woman was gifted, brilliant, ambitious, cunning, very driven, completely devoted to the cause, everything Luna sought in her recruits. The young woman was bringing very important records, and the Ministry was certain to send an Auror squad to intercept her.

Dora asked, "Do you think Harry will lead the squad, himself?"

Luna looked slightly sad. "He might insist, even though he's supposed to delegate. He's feeling very angry now, I think."

"Maybe McGonagall will hold him back because of that."

"Maybe... I'd hoped he'd be with us."

Dorothy asked, "Why isn't he?"

"We're ruining his dream life."

"How?"

"Harry told me and Hermione the dream he had during his nap after Voldemort fell," Luna remembered. "Well, he told us after he got over the shock of seeing Dora alive... He'd dreamed it was nineteen years after that battle. He was happily married to Ginny, while Hermione was married to Ron. They had kids with very strange names, and were seeing some of them off to Hogwarts. And his scar hadn't bothered him for nineteen years. Oh, and his old school rival's hairline was receding. All was well."

"Complete with the white picket fence?" an amused Alice asked.

"Yes, and probably a dog. Named Snuffles."

"Sounds boring," Dorothy said, dismissively.

"Well, he'd had a difficult time of it up to that point, and had spent much of it fighting for his life."

"So had you. So had I."

"Yes... But, after he thought he'd fulfilled his destiny, he just wanted a normal, what he thought an ideal, life. Quiet, with the people he'd come to see as his family, the wife, the children..."

"Like I said, boring."

Ozma took Dorothy's hand, which seemed to soothe the woman's irritation momentarily, and said, "He did become an Auror, though, like Nymphadora."

"Yeah," Dora said with what, in previous years, had been known as the Patented Black Smirk. "But he thought it was just gonna be, y'know, keep the peace, track down and arrest the occasional dark witch or wizard... Nothing major..."

Andy added, "I tried explaining to him that just because Voldemort seemed to be gone didn't mean our culture was now the Land of Milk and Honey, that Voldemort wasn't the disease, just the symptom, that everything that made Voldemort was still in place, that we needed to deal with the causes of the disease, not just treat the symptoms when they were flaring up, badly. But..." she trailed off.

Luna said, "Yes. He was content with the status quo, as long as no one was trying to kill him."

Dorothy frowned. "Not with the brownies being enslaved, I hope..."

"He owns a 'house elf', as they call them," Luna informed her.

Dorothy was genuinely shocked. "WHAT?!!"

Dorothy Gale looked young, but she had spent over a century crusading against injustice and repression. Wherever she encountered it, she fought it, and had been doing so since she was seven. She'd known that many heroes throughout history had been slave owners, but couldn't believe that any true hero and freedom fighter in modern Britain could be so unenlightened.

"OK, fine! I didn't want to hurt 'im, before, but now..."

"I still don't want to hurt him," said Luna.

"You just said he's a slave owner!"

"He really doesn't know any better."

"How can he not know better?!"

Luna paused, and said sadly, "He chooses to accept what's considered 'conventional wisdom' in that culture."

Andy added, "It's the way things have 'always' been done, so why change things?"

Alice felt her goddaughter's pain. Luna had loved Harry Potter, Alice could see that. She still cared for him, and hated having to fight him. It was a pain Alice knew, seeing so much in that boy, and the disappointment. Like Alice had felt with...

Alice broke her silence. "The brownies aren't human, so despite their obvious intelligence, they're not accorded 'human' rights. They're considered magical 'beings'. Like most of us in this room."

"That's the Ministry of Magic for you..." said Dora.

Luna said, "I don't enjoy being called a 'Half Breed', myself. But... Harry had been through Hell, all his life, even before Voldemort returned. The relatives who raised him... They're how he judges everything outside the Wizarding culture. He wanted something normal, something safe, where he'd be loved. It became his dream. It was... easier for him to just accept things the way they were when no one was trying to kill him."

"He wanted entropy," said Alice.

Dorothy grumbled, "We've all had it rough. That's why we keep up the fight."

Ozma recognized the familiar light in Dorothy's large, turquoise blue eyes. She'd seen it so many times.

She loved it.

"While they don't know of our presence, yet," she said, "Why do they not mention Avalon when listing the Fairylands aligned against them?"

Alice answered, "They've declared us the enemies of God. Acknowledging Avalon complicates things."

Dorothy scoffed. "OK, I can see why they'd say that about Lyra, even though that wasn't the Creator... How many times do we have to tell people that... or even me. But Alice?"

Ozma added, "But, Avalon is as important to their history as ours. How can they avoid acknowledging it?"

Luna said, "It's very inconvenient to the Powers That Be, right now."

"Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain," Dorothy quoted from a movie she'd seen and long taken issues with. She liked that line, though. "They're pulling the wool over their own eyes."

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So, they shadowed the young woman they were guarding. Sure enough, they spotted an Auror squad intending to capture her.

"Anyone you know, Robin?" Dorothy asked their companion.

Robin was a quite attractive Fae from Avalon. With his features, like so many of his kind, he could be described as beautiful, but deadly. His hair was long and blond, his eyes large, green, merry, and quite intelligent. He had with him his bow and quiver, which which he was extremely skilled. His clothes were a dark green leather, and quite form fitting, to the point the ladies recognized that nature had been very kind to him. While he wasn't Dorothy's type, she had to admit...

"Yes," he answered. "The leader, with the glasses, is Harry Potter. The ginger haired..."

"Hmm?"

"Sorry. The red haired one is Ronald Weasley, his closest friend and heterosexual life partner. The brown haired woman is Ronald's wife, Lavender. The rest... I don't know."

"Redshirts," Ozma answered.

"I see what you do when you're not governing Oz," Robin said, amused.

"And I worried she wouldn't take to my native culture," an equally amused Dorothy added, before she and Ozma shared a pre-battle kiss.

"It's showtime, you two," Robin said. "Besides, you're making me jealous. Here they come..."

The Aurors moved to intercept their target. Dorothy and Ozma raised their fairy wands. Dorothy wondered how Hermione would react to the identity of her rescuers.

This was going to be fun.

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