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In the Early 1700's, when the slow rise of Witch Hunters had all those of magical blood hiding in fear of their lives is where the story of Rapunzel begins.
Melanie Hawthorne was not a particularly gifted witch, and this wasn't just because she was a muggleborn. Her parents were horrified that their child, the spawn of the devil, was harbouring this dirty blood and cast her out. Or, that she received poor training, from an elderly warlock who was suffering from some form of memory loss and often forgot that Melanie was even there. No, it was none of this, it was because she hated her magic; she only allowed the old wizard to teach her the little magic he could so that she could control it and go home. Hoping to convince her family that she was not devil spawn, and her blood was their blood.
It did not change their mind, at the sight of her face, her mother screamed in fear and fainted. Her father appeared wielding a working axe and demanding she not dirty the village, and to keep her possessed soul away from them.
She did.
She didn’t even look back when the house collapsed in on itself. She curled her shoulders into her chest and squeezed her eyes shut, if she were to be forced to walk out of the village with her father she would not be seen to cry. Melanie was so focused to trying to hold herself together, that it took her a few moments to realise the piercing wail was her. When she knew she couldn’t hold herself together anymore, she let go completely.
Later, when she awoke blackened a barefoot beside an also black, recently fallen tree, she still dared not glance over her shoulder to whatever might be left of her village.
Ignoring the distant sounds of crying and anguish, Melanie wandered out of the village and along the gravel road leading to nowhere. She must have walked for hours Melanie thought, because she could no longer feel her feet, though they kept moving steadily forward underneath her. After a few minutes the ground became more and more uneven as she neared a large cliff face, this did not surprise her. In this area, there were many cliffs and mountains with beautiful valleys between them, so she walked on. Anytime her thoughts raised sounds and memories of the day to her mind she forced them back down to the pit of her stomach where they buzzed dimly with the threat of breaking free once again. Melanie thought so hard about not thinking, that she soon became quite good at it.
Somewhere along the path that had become a game trail through the mountains, Melanie's mind numbly registered that she'd gone further than most folk dared to go, but she supposed this was a good thing, no one could find her out here. The malignant force, curled and resting in her belly, could do nothing here. So, on she went–her feet faithfully taking her forwards–further and further away from the hurt her heart couldn't entirely hide from. Hours passed, and soon Melanie found herself in a large valley filled with the most beautiful wildflowers to grace the earth deep reds and bursts of blue and violet danced lightly in the breeze. In the centre sat, a small, but just as beautiful, cabin. Melanie knew, without much thought that whoever built this intended it for her, that this was her new home. Surprisingly wide and clear bay windows, much like those of her villages magistrate’s brick and mortar home, sat beside an arching door painted with vines and daisy as her own was. The walls were mismatched – stone from the old tavern and brick from the magistrate and finally, the well-worn wooden panels of the Witch Hunter’s outpost that used to sit outside of the village standing sentry alongside the road in. She wondered if this was an imitation meant to make her easy with familiarity or if they were really remanets of the buildings. But when she touched the front door and there were sparks in her stomach, she did not ask herself the question again.
Within a few days Melanie decided that she would be better off with some protective enchantments, just as a precaution. But as soon as the first spell left her lips, she knew she'd done something wrong. And sure enough, the small cabin began to grow, it grew and grew still higher and higher, and as it did it transformed, becoming a tall brick tower. While it was no longer her beautiful cabin, Melanie found that she loved it even more. Especially, without the front door.
As the years went by, Melanie's hate and bitterness began to change, she no longer hated her magic and what it made her, routine had made her comfortable and softened her memories. She reminded that distant day as the day her parents cast her out, encouraged by the muggles who were terrified to be amongst the devil’s spawn. She now hated them over herself, but more than that, she hated the Witch Hunters who put those ideas in their minds. She vowed that given the chance, she would bring about the downfall of the Witch Hunters, or at least do her small part, to allow her and her kind to live in peace and without fear. But the buzzing in her belly had long since bee silenced, and she knew her promise would not require action. She had no intention to abandon her haven.
Melanie often ventured out of her beautiful tower to find the rare herbs that grew all over her lovely Mountains, she no longer cared whether the villagers saw her gathering them when her need brought her closer to them, nor did she care whether she was the subject of their ghost stories. that after, all was what kept her safe.
One day, while bored, she had traded a book on potion making for some of her sewing skills with a rather ragged looking house elf seeking a new master. Not her, she could sew his apron holes with her mudblood fingers, but he would only serve those pure of blood. She considered refusing him for his words but looking at his mostly missing and mangled fingers she agreed.
Melanie had never exceeded in the art of spell casting and now found her niche in potion making instead. As each successful potion was made, she became happier and happier, not bothered by her inability to create the more difficult ones, what would she need those for?
Several years passed silently before her joyful days of solitude became numbered and her vow was soon given the opportunity to be tested. The Witch Hunters became more thorough in finding and persecuting those of magical blood. Two new, but ruthless recruits, Rapunzel and her brother Zeldan, desperate to prove themselves worthy of the Witch Hunters and their father’s glory, made a bet. Rapunzel would go east, towards the mountains hunting for a witch whose name she heard in that of a ghost story told by some of the villagers. Her brother would go west looking for an old warlock who had been careless in hiding his magic and had been seen by the villagers, who were quick to report it.
As Rapunzel searched each mountain pass and each valley, Melanie heard of her approach while hunting for herbs near the village. Melanie decided the day she created he first perfect potion she would honour her promise and began to prepare for her arrival, she read through her potions book for a concoction that would allow her to safely get the truth from her, though she did not yet know what she would do with the information she got.
Eventually, she found the perfect recipe, it was called: Veritaserum. Yet it looked impossibly hard to create and would need many ingredients she did not have. But Melanie refused to let that stop her as she patiently awaited Rapunzel’s arrival.
When Rapunzel arrived, she found no door or stairs, and unsure of how to proceed, she circled the tower. She looked up, and there she saw a large, floor to ceiling window and she called out,
"WITCH! I know you're up there! Foul creature, come and find your justice!"
The moment Melanie heard the call, there was suddenly fire in her stomach.
But she would be in control this time.
With a sharp pull from her abdomen, Rapunzel suddenly found herself transported to the top of the tower, she was sitting in an uncomfortable wooden chair with her arms and legs bound in enchanted chains. The single room was dark, and she could see nothing in the gloom. However, she felt a second presence and new she was not alone.
"Witch, you dare keep me chained like an animal? You of such foul blood should be in my place." Her words were venomous but could not disguise a slight tremble by the end. At her words Melanie's long subdued anger rose up once again at the insolence of this young girl before her. But in her years of solitude, she had gained great patience. So, she answered calmly,
"Be that as it may, you are the one who is chained, and you are the one who will suffer for your crimes. You will also be the one to help me bring justice to those who so mercilessly murder my brothers and sisters."
At this Rapunzel screamed in absolute fury, it echoed against the stone was and only ended when her throat began to burn, and when she stopped Melanie had left. The walls of the tower rumbling only slightly.
A full day later, Melanie returned, she had finally gathered all of the ingredients for her potion. The rays of early morning sun shone through the large window of the tower illuminating the slumped from of Rapunzel in the chair. Melanie set about preparing her potion, it would take at least two weeks to make. She made no move to keep her actions quiet and soon Rapunzel awoke. Tired and sore from sleeping in the chair she made no comment at the reappearance of the Witch and instead glared at her back.
After almost an hour, Melanie began to question her, but Rapunzel refused to answer and remained silent. This became a habit over the next two weeks. Melanie would ask the same questions each day, and Rapunzel would stay silent, glaring at the Witch and wondering what potion required the maker to spark and darken. When the final and perfected potion was completed, Melanie poured it into a cup and brought it over to Rapunzel. She refused to drink at first, but when Melanie cut off her air, she was forced to swallow some of the sickly-sweet liquid. Melanie stepped back and slowly asked her usual questions, but stopped when Rapunzel looked up, her face contorted in pain.
Hair was beginning to grow unnaturally fast from her head. In a matter of minutes Rapunzel's dirty blond hair had covered most of the towers floor. Just as suddenly as it had started, it stopped. Melanie couldn't understand what she'd done wrong. She looked back at Rapunzel, who had fainted and decided that she must go and re-collect her ingredients.
Two months later, after weeks of questioning and silent glares, the potion was ready again. Rapunzel, weak after sitting in a chair for the best part of four months with very little to eat, put up a feeble fight. Melanie stepped back and waited a few minutes to see if anything happened, it did, Rapunzel's hair began to grow.
When this happened twice more, Melanie began to feel very afraid, and a clawing began in earnest from within her. What was she to do now? In her last attempt Rapunzel's hair had started to glow a soft gold and small flowers and leaves burst through the strands of her hair.
Melanie fell to her knees and began to weep. But she was stopped when a hoarse laughter was heard, she looked up at Rapunzel, who in turn looked down at her, and said,
"Give up, Witch, you'll never get anything from me,” Melanie blood boiled in anger, she stood,
"You-"
But she was forced to stop, a fit of coughing had overcome her and a buzzing sound reached her ears. She wasn't surprised, both Rapunzel and she knew why. She had spent too much leaning over the cauldron on the fire, breathing in the smoke of the potion and the feeling in her belly she refused to acknowledge was well and truly back.
She was no longer in control.
The potion she had failed to make effectively in months. Purple smoke when it should have been green. Orange smoke when it should have been blue. Sparks when there should have been none.
Her hand felt wet and sticky and she looked down at them, they, and the ground beneath her was covered in bright, red blood. Rapunzel saw this and began to laugh hysterically.
"Your time is coming Witch, and you will be sent back to the hell form whence you came!"
Melanie could do little but crawl over to the wall, laying on the ground trying to breathe. Her lungs felt as though they were constricting. The smoke billowing within her lungs and liquefying when it came against the walls of her body. She was drowning in smoke and she was collapsing in on herself once again. That day again. Not again.
A day later, Zeldan, was heard calling for his sister at the bottom of the tower. "Rapunzel, Rapunzel?!"
Rapunzel was weak, but at the sound of her brother's voice and the chance of rescue, adrenaline rushed through her and she dragged herself, chair and all, across to the window. Her brother, seeing her alive, cried out in joy. Weeks ago, to make room on the floor, Melanie had wound Rapunzel’s hair through the beams of the roof. Now Rapunzel used her feet to push the end of it over the edge of the balcony. As it unravelled it reached the grasping hands of her brother and she called out to him to climb up, calling out to her brother to climb up it before the hag awoke.
After he had made it to the top, he hurried to force off the ropes that bound her. Their magic weakened by Melanie's own weakness, who Zeldan had yet to notice. Once he freed his sister he turned and saw her. Instantly, he pulled a dagger from his waist and stepped towards her. But Rapunzel stopped him,
"Don't bother," she said, "She'll not make another day, leave her to suffer. As I have." And so, they did. Zeldan used his dagger instead to try and cut his sisters hair. But try as he might, he could not cut it.
So, they left the way Zeldan came, using Rapunzel's hair. When Rapunzel’s feet touched the ground at the base of the tower, her hair split, sawing themselves apart when they touched the ground until she was left with hair that hung just passed her ankles, the rest hanging from the tower and swaying with the wind. Slowly the flowers and closets to the ground began to shrivel and brown. As they did, a wailing from the tower began. So loud, so anguished the two were forced to their knees and clamping their hands over their ears. Thick black smoke fell from the tower in waves as it shook, and cracks appeared like spiderwebs crawling up the stem of the tower.
The horse Zeldan had rode here reared up on his hind legs and let out a cry. Zeldan and Rapunzel both had to jumps up and grab his reign to stop him from bolting. Still he dragged them with him several yard away and straining to go further. The tower was crumbling and swirling and screaming. And yet, against reason it was growing smaller – it was being sucked into itself. Until, without warning there was simply nothing. Not even an echo. They were alone and the valley appeared as though untouched.
Zeldan, without a sound, helped his sister onto the horse and the hopped up beside her. They rode it away and past the village. They did not stop, and they answered no questions. But as they passed a young girl saw them, and that was how the story of Rapunzel began, a beautiful princess with magical hair who was kidnapped by an evil Witch, but eventually was rescued by her prince.
But really, it was always Melanie's story.