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The translucent little man was lecturing them again.
"And so you see, in 1612 during the first Goblin uprising, there was a coalition of magical creatures including the Goblins, the Centaurs, the Vampiric races and of course, the Veela," he drawled.
Granger's familiar hand shot into the air. Draco groaned internally, slumped further into his seat and laid his chin on the rough wood of the desk. His mother would scold him if she ever saw such poor posture, but his mother wasn't there.
"Sir," Granger trilled in that repellent voice of hers. "I have a question about the Veela. All it says in my Care of Magical Creatures texts is that they are most populous in Normandy. I want to know when the first records of them appear in the history books."
He watched the back of her head. The way her hair spiralled into chaos, with no sense of order or consistency but for the deep chestnut colour. Dimly he registered that Binns had stopped talking. He was looking at Granger as though he couldn't quite believe a student had interrupted him to ask a question.
"Well, the Veela are believed to actually have originated here, in the British Isles. In the age of Merlin. They can be traced back to the daughter of a King of one of the old Kingdoms — the Princess Vela. The Princess Vela was said to have the power to shed her skin and take on the form of a bird. She wed the King of Normandy and their descendants eventually became known as the Veela." Binns trailed off and offered Granger a dusty blink. She nodded politely.
"That's not the whole story," Draco heard himself say loudly. His voice echoed around the classroom and he winced as everyone turned to stare at him.
Pansy, who was chewing gum, popped it loudly beside him. Theodore Nott looked amused. Ronald Weasley looked constipated, he was frowning so hard.
"Yes?" Binns prompted, hovering in a half-circle, oblivious as to the direction the voice had come from.
"The true origin of the Veela isn't in any book you'll find at Hogwarts," Draco explained and he found himself glancing in Granger's direction. She looked intrigued, not that he cared.
"I have a text that pre-dates the Knights of the Round Table," Draco announced proudly. "None of that 'edited for muggles' rubbish either. It contains the true stories of Merlin and it also tells of the very first Veela."
He stopped, his mouth clapping shut realising that he had the classroom's full attention and perhaps had already said too much.
"Well," Granger called out from the front of the classroom. "Go on then— tell us the story."
"Now hold on children," Binns interrupted. "I think I know this one and I believe it to be apocryphal and—"
"Do you want to hear it?" He was looking at Granger and she returned his gaze, nodding slowly.
For a moment it felt like there was nobody else in the room.
He told himself that it was the feeling of knowing something that she didn't which made him do it. He launched into the story, aware of the deep brown eyes that were fixed on him.
"This is the story of the Fisher King, the very first Veela that ever walked the Earth…"
The pale king sat on his throne. The sun streamed through the long window behind him, catching on the gold in his crown and the ash in his hair, making them gleam. It gave him a regal aura but it did not disguise the truth.
The King was fading.
Pallid and weary, he sat slumped forward, resting heavily on the arm of this throne. Vitality leaked from him, his once sharp edges blurring as the gathered courtiers watched on.
"Your King has been cursed!" the Seneschal announced.
It had the gravity of a thunderclap. A shocked murmur rippled through the hall.
"He was struck by our enemies" the Seneschal continued, "and by day he grows weaker and so do his lands. The crops have failed and the trees are dying. This is the work of the Curse and we must—."
The King raised a hand, almost translucent in the sunlight and the crowd grew still. The Seneschal bowed his head and fell silent.
"I can speak," he rasped. He looked up and slowly cast his gaze around the room, his storm grey eyes taking in every detail. Assessing his subjects and their reactions to the news.
"I can hide this from my loyal subjects, no longer," the King announced. "The Curse drains my body and my kingdom alike. By night, I become something ungodly. A creature with wing and claw. I am driven out, to roam across the lands, which thrive only in the darkness. When the sun rises, I return to this body and the land withers again."
Whispers broke out again, sharp with fear. Once again, the King lifted his hand and patiently waited. When it was quiet again, he resumed speaking.
"There will be a reward. Gold from my coffers and—" he shot a look over at the Seneschal who frowned but nodded sternly, "— a marriage alliance. My hand and a seat beside me to the family that breaks the curse."
And so the days and nights passed. By dusk, the man became bird. By dawn, bird became man again.
Each day brought new remedies and theories. Potions and prayers. Poultices and runes carved into bones. None worked and the King waned, as did his Kingdom. The castle was at last visited by the local Bishop who prayed over his body, which was becoming more frail with each day.
"You must seek the Holy Grail," the Bishop told him, wafting heavy incense and smoke over the King's tired frame. "That is the only way."
And so the King's knights were sent off questing, in search of the Grail. Some went to the Holy Lands, some to Rome and still others sought out that veiled land of Avalon.
Week after week, the Questers returned, often with impressive relics, but never with the cure, and the King and his Kingdom grew weaker. The land grew barren: fields of dust slowly crept over the land where before there had been fruits and flowers. There was nothing to sustain the people, and so many of them left.
The King's bones grew more brittle and so did his lands. His courtiers left him one by one. Only the most loyal remained. Each night, he threw himself to the mercy of the stars and ruled over a land that was only awake in darkness.
Only the old Seneschal remained loyal to the King and stayed by his side. He continued to send out envoys and he read every book he could find, from every Kingdom and beyond. He gathered wisdom and he also gathered whispers.
One day, the whispers spoke to him of a girl in a neighbouring Kingdom. A hedge witch spawned from non-magical blood. The whispers spoke of her cleverness and of how she had aided a great hero to dispense with a cursed demon. She could read — in itself a sin— but she was under the protection of another King and was an exception. The whispers claimed that she knew the old texts better than anyone.
"Bring her to me," the Seneschal ordered.
They brought the girl, bound and unamused. They'd plucked her from their neighbours castle, right out of the library.
Clearly the girl wasn't valuable enough for it to truly cause them trouble when her disappearance was discovered. She was a hedge witch only, not the daughter of nobility. Her disappearance might be spoken of for a day or two but nobody would come looking for her.
The two brutes he'd hired to get the job done wrestled her up the length of the throne room and spat her out at his feet. The Seneschal saw a cascade of the wildest, most unkempt brown hair he had ever seen. Two eyes peered out at him from behind that curtain.
"Do you speak?" he asked the creature.
She was dressed in plain, serviceable garb. Well-made but drab. The hem was torn and dirty.
"Of course I speak," the hedge witch replied. "Whether I have anything to say is another question."
Her voice was surprisingly sweet. He gestured for the man on her left to pull her head back and when he did so, her face was revealed. A lovely, heart shaped face with large brown eyes, like a doe. A purple bruise was swelling above one of them. She had clearly fought her captors.
"I hear you have many things to say," he replied. "Things that would have gotten you killed had you not found favour with the King of Mercia."
The girl started to laugh. "I've heard this cursed Kingdom has become fanatical in its adherence to the Church — sending knights off to hunt for an item that probably doesn't even exist and certainly won't lift any curses. Is a woman who can read truly so sinful? Just go ahead and kill me, I'd still make the same choices all over again."
The Seneschal sighed. "I don't want to kill you, girl," he said, crouching down to look her in the eye. "I want you to help the King."
So the Seneschal took her to the King's chambers. She gasped when she saw him, asleep in his bed, his long blond hair fanning out against his pillow.
"But, he's so young," she whispered.
"Yes. Not yet twenty five," the Seneschal admitted.
"My age," she said and the Seneschal could tell her curiosity was already piqued.
The King stirred slightly but did not wake. He had taken to spending his nights conducting his own, endless searches for a cure. But he was alone with the stars and unable to interact with anyone — there was only so much he could do in his bird form.
In his human form, asleep as he was, he looked aged and sunken. The Curse carried a heavy price and the King was forced to bear much of it.
"And you say that he transforms only at nighttime," the Maiden clarified.
"Yes girl, as I told—"
"Address me respectfully," she snapped.
"Pardon?"
"I am the Maiden of the Heroic Triad, as you know. It's why I'm here — is it not?"
"It is," the Seneschal admitted. "I have read widely. I have read of curses both great and terrible and small and domestic. I have never found a curse that could turn a man into a bird at sundown every night. I had hoped you might have knowledge that I do not possess."
The Maiden glanced over at the window. Twilight was descending on the castle.
"I need to see a transformation," she said firmly.
"He won't like it," the Seneschal warned.
"No," she agreed. "I expect he won't."
The transformation began just as the final glimpse of the sun sank below the horizon. A terrible twitching began and then, the King seized, sitting bolt upright.
Storm grey eyes blinked at the woman. "Who is she?" he demanded to know.
But he was silenced by his own screams, torn from his throat, as quills ripped through his skin like razor blades, exploding outwards like a ripple across the surface of a lake. The Seneschal looked away but the Maiden did not flinch.
When the transformation was complete the creature stalked over to them.
"A Kingfisher!" the Maiden pointed out, unhelpfully.
For the King was now half man and half bird. He was a creature of contradictory proportions, with sharp talons and a pointed, bird-like face but his torso was a cloak of soft looking feathers — a tapestry of orange and cerulean blue. Each plume was perfectly formed and gave the appearance of being both sharp and terribly, wonderfully soft — a trove of precious gems, grafted onto his skin.
The Maiden turned to the Seneschal. "This is the terrible curse then? Some feathers?"
The King bristled, his feathers standing to attention. "You should be bowing to your King."
"Apologies, my King," the Seneschal intercepted quickly. He shot a sidelong glance at the maiden who, when prodded, gave a limp curtsy.
"This is the Maiden of Mercia," the Seneschal explained. "One of the Heroic Triad. The one responsible for the plot that killed the cursed monstrosity the stories speak of."
"And you thought she should come here and kill this cursed monstrosity?" the King snapped, gesturing to himself with a nod of his head.
"Don't be so presumptuous," the Maiden responded tartly. "I wouldn't even be wasting my time with you if Mercia wasn't also suffering from the impacted trade routes. I'm willing to try to help lift the curse, but I want assurances that I'll be returned safely to my Kingdom and to my friends."
The King sighed impatiently. "I don't have time for this." He turned from them, went to the large window and leapt out.
The maiden gasped and ran to look out.
A dark shadow swept across the turrets and the roofs below.
The Maiden was in the King's room when he woke again. She had drawn a chair close and studied him while he was unconscious.
"My goodness, you really do like to sleep all day long — don't you?"
"So would you," the King rasped, "If you were relegated to this body during the sunlight hours."
She shrugged. "I don't preoccupy myself with my physical form. The mind is what carries importance for me."
The King noted her rough and worn dress, as well as her wild hair that was not properly groomed. He would have sneered, had he the energy for it, but even he would admit that she had a lovely face and very intelligent eyes.
"You are a hero, or so they say," he stated, curiosity overtaking his innate desire to conserve energy.
"So they say," the woman confirmed. "If being able to read and think is heroic, then I suppose I am."
"Most women can do neither of those things."
The woman tilted her head and met the King's gaze. "How little you know about women, your majesty."
He was about to remind her of her place and lash her thoroughly for her impertinence but his brain was a foggy haze and she was speaking again before he could make up his mind what to do and in which order.
"What remedies have they tried?" she was not speaking to the King.
"There have been a number of brews that claimed to be the Alkahest," a deep voice explained. It was the Seneschal, who strode into view from another side of the room. "None of them worked, of course. Several false grails were produced. A philosopher's stone was procured, to no effect. One of our knights even brought back the Spear of Longinus and we bled the king with it — that just made him weaker."
The maiden scoffed. "Of course it did. As I said, no relic is going to lift this curse."
"And what, pray, will lift this curse?" the King whispered bitterly. "My Kingdom is nearly dead as I am nearly dead. I die a little more with every rising of the sun."
The woman smiled slyly and then glanced over at the window. "That is exactly what I would like to test."
She had them bring in black cloth. Yards and yards of it.
Then, she had the few remaining servants set to work, covering the windows and any nook and cranny that could possibly let in light. They realised her plan belatedly and avoided each other's gaze as she worked, embarrassed by their lack of foresight.
"What good will it do though?" the King demanded to know. "It won't change anything."
But when the last ray of sunlight was blocked from the room and the lanterns were lit, the King began his transformation.
When he stood before them, bedecked with jewelled feathers and perhaps more Kingly than he had ever looked as a human man, he stalked over to the maiden as she celebrated her success.
"So your theory was correct. It is the sunlight that keeps me locked in my weak human form, but all you have done is given me extra time in this body. You have not broken the Curse."
Her demeanour changed. She went from jubilant to scornful, pointing a small finger in his face. "Are you really so selfish that your form is all you care for?" she demanded angrily. "I have just saved your Kingdom! And all you think of is your own vanity."
The Seneschal realised her meaning first, his mouth slackened with surprise. "I must go," he announced suddenly and quickly he slipped from the room.
"I don't understand," the King said. "You have not lifted the Curse, I am still part bird and part man."
"The true Curse was never laid upon your body," the maiden replied derisively. "It was laid upon your lands. While you are in this form, the land thrives. When you are in your human form, the land withers."
"Yes," the King responded with equal venom, "But the plants need sunlight to survive. The trees need sunlight. Without harvests and trees, the Kingdom cannot survive."
The maiden smirked. "Clearly one does not need wit to deserve a crown."
"How dare you."
"It is daylight!" she barked. "It is day outside in your kingdom and yet you are in your Kingfisher form," she told him bluntly. "The Curse is all but lifted. Your lands will return to the way they were and your people will return, so long as you live out your days in enforced darkness."
The King's mouth fell open. "The land will thrive?"
"Yes, it should. So long as you let go of your human form then yes, the Kingdom can be restored," the maiden confirmed.
When days had passed and the Seneschal confirmed that the land was once again thriving, the question of the Maiden returning to Mercia was brought up.
"You should remain here and marry the King," the Seneschal offered instead.
"Absolutely not," the maiden replied. "You will return me to Mercia, as I requested."
She was speaking to the Seneschal, although the King was present in the room, leaning against the wall and sulking quietly.
"If you'll recall," the Seneschal continued, "The terms were that if the Curse is lifted, the family that was responsible would be given the King's hand in marriage. And your family are the…?"
"A peasant family of unknown origin. Certainly not the kind of family your King wants to marry into."
"Am I really the only person who hasn't forgotten that the Curse hasn't actually been lifted?" the King interjected.
He was ignored.
"He will need a consort to speak for him and go out into the Kingdom when the sun is out. Also, it will be easier for them to accept him as he is now if he is married to a clever and beautiful heroine."
"I don't need false flattery or to be married off to, truly, one of the dullest men I have ever met. I just want to go home," she replied resolutely.
The King's scowl deepened.
"Consider. If you stay, you will have wealth and opportunity. Think of the many, many books you could own. The books you could write! Nobody to tell you what to do — or what you can't do."
The Seneschal was a sly old snake and had chosen his words strategically. They acted upon the Maiden like a spell.
She glanced at the King, a thoughtfulness flitting over her face.
"Just let her go," the King ordered bitterly. "I won't make her join me in matrimony if that is not her wish."
The Maiden seemed surprised at this. She looked at him appraisingly and then turned to the Seneschal. "And all I would have to do is marry him? "
"That is all that would be required."
She seemed to think on this some more, still eyeing the King. "Isn't the whole point of marrying off the king to produce heirs?"
"Yes."
"Well…" here she paused and coloured, "Is such a thing even possible, as he is?"
"It's possible!" the King snapped.
And no more was said on that topic but the arrangements were soon made. The Maiden remained.
They began to call it the Kingdom of Twilight. All of the best craftsmen from across the lands were called in to transform the Castle into a midnight prison for the poor Fisher King.
A month after the Maiden had arrived, the King made his first public appearance in his other form to announce his engagement.
This happened, of course, after a lengthy discussion in which the Maiden stated her terms and then argued for them until she won all of them.
Some of the courtiers were shocked at both the announcement and his appearance. They refused to return to the King's service, calling him ungodly and an abomination. However, more than the King had suspected had pledged their allegiance to him once more.
His future wife continued to prove herself to be endlessly clever and incontrovertibly annoying. Also at times, undeniably lovely. She had the courtiers charmed within weeks.
The Seneschal had been correct, she proved an admirable distraction from the feathers that peeked out from beneath the King's robes.
The Maiden had been busy making plans since she'd accepted her proposal. Plans to reopen trade routes, to invite famous alchemists to the castle, to safeguard various magical creatures that had been hunted to near extinction. Even plans to teach girls to read.
"Never," the King had vowed.
"We shall see," the future Queen had retorted.
Not even a month later the lessons had begun and the King was coerced into scheduled visits to hear the tiny girls read aloud.
For a few months, the future Queen complained a little about the endless darkness within the castle but when the King commissioned for her a lamp that made it easier to read by candlelight, reducing the strain on her eyes, she'd begun to merely smile when people asked if she minded the constant darkness. "It's a minor sacrifice to make if it means the Kingdom is happy and thriving," she would say.
And every time she did, the King tried to echo the same sentiment to himself.
"You still long for a cure that doesn't exist, don't you?" the Maiden had asked him when she'd come upon him staring into a mirror. She'd been uncharacteristically gentle in that moment and perhaps that is what prompted him to answer.
"I do."
She sighed heavily and then resolutely stepped close to him and ran a finger across one of his feathers. He shivered.
"You need to accept this form," she told him. "See the curse for what it really is. Not a blight but..." she gestured to the mirror with her head, "just a spell."
The King turned to her. "How can you accept it so easily? You're to be my wife! I'm an abomination."
"I don't even really notice the feathers much anymore," she said and there was truth in her voice. "In fact, they're rather handsome."
The King looked into the mirror again and tried to admire them. It was difficult.
"I suppose you can keep looking for your Cure," the Maiden told him . "It can't hurt to try for a little while longer. I'll even help."
One morning, soon after, the future Queen was kept abed with a headache and was in a terrible mood. She'd had to cancel the class she was personally teaching for a group of six of the courtiers daughters. Girls that wanted to learn how to read.
She was tossing and sighing in her bedchamber when her ladies maid slipped through the door with a look of shock on her face.
"What is it?" the future Queen asked at once, "Is everything alright?"
"My lady," her servant said, "I've just observed the most astonishing thing. You really should come and see it, if you are able."
The future Queen was weakened by her illness but not so much that she could resist a mystery. With some help, she climbed from her bed and followed her servant down a series of hallways.
They stopped just outside the door to the library.
"Listen," the servant urged.
The future Queen listened at the door.
"No, don't cry Sybilla. There's nothing for it but to practice. Nobody ever learned to read over night," it was the King's voice. He sounded as he usually did: annoyed.
The little girl began to cry harder.
"By the old gods!" the King complained but this time with a little gentleness in his tone. "Is all this water really necessary? Come along now and try again, perhaps I was a bit harsh. Your King commands you to continue to practice."
The little girl sniffled but a sweet little voice began to read. The future Queen pushed the door open slightly and peered in.
The King was surrounded by six small girls, each of them holding a book.
They were her girls.
"I think he saw how upset you were when you had to cancel on them," her servant explained. "He's really quite chivalrous underneath all the posturing and complaining, isn't he?"
It was infuriating how much that moved the future Queen.
"Yes," she responded finally, not taking her eyes off him. "I think he might be."
There was an undeniable change between the couple after that and they were married under the stars, on the next full moon.
Her friends travelled in from Mercia as special envoys and the King of East Anglia sent a magnificent gift, a herd of Centaur for the Twilight Kingdom's reinvigorated forests.
The Queen received the gift and welcomed the Centaurs to their new lands while darkly muttering about creature displacement.
The King saw it for what it was. A slight against him and his Fisher King form. Half man, half bird. Not so different from the centaurs.
"The King of East Anglia is not that witty," the Queen had reassured.
"No, but his advisors are," the King replied bitterly.
They were seated on thrones next to each other, having just performed the ceremony. She looked lovely in a new dress and with flowers in her hair. He looked handsome too and she told him so.
A great feast was carrying on around them. The Queen took a small portion of roast boar and offered it to her husband. He leaned forward and plucked it from her fork neatly and then carried on speaking. "They'll use this against me. I know they will. As soon as my lands are fully restored they'll be plotting to dethrone me."
"They can only do that if they can outwit us," the Queen pointed out. "Which they won't."
He looked at her in that moment and his heart was full of relief. Was there anyone that could outwit her? It seemed difficult to imagine.
"All the same," she continued. "We should shore up your line and produce an heir or two. Preferably sooner rather than later."
The King spluttered.
The Queen stood and looked at him expectantly.
A hush descended on the room and the King felt more scrutinised even then when he'd first appeared before the court in his Fisher King form.
"My wife and I will now retire," he announced to the room and then he followed her out, giving thanks for the plumage that hid the flush rising up his neck.
Just over a year later the first child was born. A tiny girl with white blond hair and a heart shaped face.
A new tradition had begun. Every year on his birthday the curtains would be stripped from the walls and the castle flooded with light. The King would transform back into his human body, just for the morning. Just to feel the sun on his face. He spent most of that time running gentle fingers across the face of his daughter.
"Have them send a ship to Crete," the King ordered. "My wife believes that if the Alkahest exists, the recipe will be found there."
"That is not what I said, my love," the Queen interjected gently. "I said that there are many treasures and mysteries that can be found on Crete. It's not a bad place to look for the panacea you are seeking."
She took the baby from his weak arms and sat across from him, adjusting her gown and bringing the tiny thing to her breast.
"I wish I had the strength to take you both into my arms."
"You do it often enough with your wings," she retorted.
"It's not the same."
She hummed to the baby gently, "I don't know. I quite like the feel of your feathers on my skin."
A letter arrived, demanding that the Princess Vela be christened at once, that she be married off immediately and that her husband should take the throne as King Regent until such time as they could produce an heir.
"The church in its infinite wisdom," the Queen muttered, placing the letter face down on the table when she had finished reading.
"I should have them beheaded!"
"Gather all the Bishops and religious men here for a feast instead," she told the King decisively. "Take them on a tour of our coffers and our granaries. Show them our farmlands and our forests. Build them a new Cathedral right here, on our doorstep. Then, we shall see what an abomination you really are. Men of the cloth enjoy food and wine and tithes as much as the next."
At first the King was affronted and resistant to do anything of the sort. But, trusting his wife he began to consider. A slow, sly smile spread across his features.
"Yes, I believe you're right my little dove."
The gathering happened a fortnight hence.
"So as I was saying to the King," the Queen proclaimed loudly, raising a glass at her husband and smiling at him from above the rim, "It's so fortuitous that our harvests have been so bountiful as it has long been our dream to build another Cathedral here on our lands.
The Bishop frowned into his glass. "The gesture is virtuous but not welcome while the false King rules."
The Queen placed a hand on her husband's feathered knee and squeezed gently, urging him to restrain himself.
"And pray tell," she replied, and it was so quiet every person at the long banquet table might have heard a pin drop, "Why do you believe my husband to be a false king?"
"His curse is unholy, that is very clear," the Bishop announced, meeting the Queen's eyes unflinchingly.
He was a small, bearded man with severe features and dark eyes. The Queen did not care for him.
"Is it not true, your holiness, that the Gospels speak of divine alteration?"
The Bishop coloured, his eyes narrowing with hatred. "And what would a woman know of the bible?"
The Queen made a show of lowering her gaze demurely. "I am a devout woman, your holiness. My husband reads to me daily. Forgive me, I am uneducated — but did God not restore Nebuchadnezzar when he had proven his humility? And was our lord and saviour Jesus Christ himself not altered and transfigured when he left his human body?"
The Bishop grew quiet and vicious but the other gathered holy men had begun to murmur in agreement. They openly discussed whether the King was truly struck down by a curse for his devious nature or if it could be some kind of holy test for one of God's chosen sons.
The Queen turned to her scowling husband, a sly grin on her face.
"Wife, some day that smart mouth of yours will get us into trouble," he warned.
Trouble found them only days later.
The Bishop and his men came for the Queen in broad daylight. She was delivering alms to the poor with her daughter. They wrenched her from the screaming child and with pitchforks and fanaticism in their eyes, they took her to the square and began to make a bonfire.
"Heretic!" the Bishop cried. "The Devil works through her. We must expunge him with fire! If she is one of God's chosen, she will survive."
The King, locked away in the midnight Castle, handed his other children off to the nursemaids.
"What will you do?" the Seneschal asked. "You cannot go out into the sunlight in this body. Yet, you cannot face them in your human form."
"In times like these," the King responded, already striding across the room to the door, "I ask myself: what would the Queen do?" He opened it and then turned his head and barked at one of the servants, "Fetch me tallow from the kitchens and plenty of it!"
And then he disappeared. The Seneschal followed nervously.
He led them to the Mason's stores where he grabbed a large sack of crushed chalk. Then he headed back towards the kitchens where a fumbling servant was assembling a large bowl of tallow.
There was a great cheer that filtered in from outside and the King flinched. "Quickly!" he barked and then he was dumping the chalk into the tallow and mixing it with his hands until it became a thick paste.
"A screen from the sun?" the Seneschal asked.
The King nodded, "This paste shall be my armour."
The Queen stood proudly on the platform as flames licked at her feet. She had eyes only for her young daughter, who clung to the skirts of a servant and watched on tearfully, crying for her mother.
"Ignorance is your true enemy!" the Queen announced loudly.
The Bishop sneered at her. "More wood!" he called. "The demon must burn for her sins. Then we will burn her cursed husband."
The Bishop had rows and rows of men with him but there were still some people of the city fighting to get through. Others stood around, dazed and confused wondering how the Queen could have ended up in such a state.
"Vela," the Queen called. "Vela, don't look!"
The flames rose higher and the smoke rose in great plumes, making the Queen's eyes water and stealing the oxygen from her lungs.
Through this hazy blur, she saw a figure. Like a great white bird, descending from the heavens. It landed heavily on the platform and then a moment later she felt her bonds breaking and she was being pulled from the fire. When she could gather herself enough, she looked up and she saw an Angel, dangling the Bishop by his feet above the fire. He was surrounded by a halo of light, more holy than anything the Queen had ever seen before.
"An Angel from heaven!" somebody cried.
And then they all took up the call. "An Angel! An Angel!"
And he was an angel. Terrible and beautiful. He beat his large, snow-white wings. He addressed the gathered crowd.
"The Queen is no demon. She has saved this Kingdom from a terrible fate."
And as he spoke there was a sudden, honeyed silence. Every person rocked forward, craning their necks as if eager to be closer to him. Their eyes were fixed on his angelic form, which seemed to glow in the sunlight. They stared as if they had forgotten how to look away.
Finally, someone broke the strange tension. "The Queen has been saved! The Queen is blessed! God saved the Queen!"
"Let him down, husband," the Queen called up in a raspy voice.
And the King showed the Bishop mercy, but only because his Queen asked him to.
In the years that passed after, the Kingdom thrived and enjoyed the favour of the church, and so did its rulers.
It was discovered that the children, each of them uncommonly beautiful with a pale sort of beauty inherited from their father, had also inherited some of his Kingfisher form.
When they grew angry or agitated, wings sprouted from their backs and they took on birdlike features.
But they could walk in the daylight and apart from strange powers they could use to attract and bend people to their will, they were otherwise able to live full, human lives. In fact, their powers made them particularly well suited to rule.
"Vela wishes to travel abroad, to see the world," the Queen told her King.
"Vela is still young and it is dangerous."
"She has it in her mind that she'll become a Quester," the Queen told him with amusement, "And find you a Cure for your old ailment."
The King laughed heartily. "What ailment? My feathers? I've long since given up any desire of being parted with them."
The Queen smiled softly. "So you do finally understand then, that living in this midnight castle is not such a curse?"
"My Kingdom is thriving," the King told her firmly. "Our people are happy, our children are healthy. That is enough for me. And can we really call it a Curse when it brought you to me. It feels like more of a blessing, wouldn't you say?"
The Queen leaned up to place a gentle kiss on his cheek. "I would."
And then he swept her into his side with one of his wings and they continued their walk under the stars.
"So that is the story of the Fisher King and it was always told as a moral story," Draco finished. "The King was supposed to accept his true form all along and eventually he did. He wasn't cursed, he was blessed. And his descendants became the Veela we know today, blessed with strange powers handed down to them from the Fisher King himself."
The class stared at him. Twenty three sets of wide eyes.
"Malfoy," Granger said, "That was…." she didn't finish her story, trailing off.
"If I knew that it only took telling a story to shut you up, I'd have done it more often," he retorted with a sneer.
"You should!"
The class descended into a noisome chatter. Everyone talking at once until the bell rang loudly.
"Class dismissed!" Binns announced.
Draco was already on his feet, striding across the room.
As he passed Granger he looked down at her. Her heart shaped face was crowned by a riot of wild curls. She was looking at him with a piercing intensity. As though she were balancing a question on the tip of her tongue.
He snapped his eyes forward and hurried on, out into the dark halls of the castle, before she had a chance to ask it.