Content Harry Potter Miscellaneous
  • Previous
  • Next

Hermione rubbed the fabric of her sleeve between her fingers, idly noting the fineness of the weave, and listened to Gilles’ description of how the adventures of Gaubert and Leticia began. She could almost see them now, walking towards the ship which would carry them to the sun. Gaubert had made a joke, a horrible joke, and Leticia was half laughing and half scolding him, wearing an expression Hermione knew she wore quite often, when she was with Harry and...

When I’m with my friends, her mind amended smoothly, and she chuckled a little under her breath without knowing quite why. Kargin, hearing the sound, turned his head to look at her, and she smiled at him, then flicked her gaze towards Gilles. Kargin inclined his head in understanding, then smiled back, and Hermione felt her cheeks warm a little at the regard in his blue eyes.

Story. Listen to the story.

She turned her attention to Gilles and let his deep, smooth voice lull her mind into quiet, almost as though she slept in waking, listening intently to the tale of long ago, of two worlds made one.


And so it was that Gaubert and Leticia left the shores of Narnia and sailed outwards aboard the fine craft Gryffin towards the world’s edge, hoping to find the fireflowers which grow in the valleys of the sun and thus cure the barrenness of the Queen of Narnia. After three days’ sailing, they came within sight of Terebinthia, a Kingdom all its own, which had long been allied to Narnia, and made port there at sunset and were most pleasantly greeted there by the King, a widower, and by his lovely daughter, the Princess Hestia.

Leticia debarked from the ship first, on the arm of the ship’s captain, Ignatius, with whom she had become good friends, and made her curtsey to the King and Princess, and they returned the favor graciously, as to any lady of their own land. Gaubert next set foot on the plank, his shoulders square and his head high, but then his eyes fell upon Hestia, and he stood in his place as though struck by lightning.

For Princess Hestia was named by her people the Star of the Evening, and indeed the golden light of sunset was kind to her this night. Her hair glowed like the banked coals upon a hearth, as rich an auburn as Leticia’s but framing her face in soft curls, and that slim oval face held two eyes of the same blue as the darkening evening sky, eyes fixed upon Gaubert with much the same awe that he knew must be on his own features at this moment. And his heart despaired within him, for she was born of royal blood and as far above him as the sun above the earth.

But his doubts whispered hope in his ear, for did he not plan to reach the very sun upon this voyage? Surely the man who could do such a great deed would be considered worthy of the hand of a princess. If she were not yet married. Oh, please, great Lion, Gaubert prayed fervently, possibly the first great prayer of his life, let her not yet be married!

Thus was the first meeting of Gaubert the warrior and Hestia, called Evenstar.

In Terebinthia they stayed some days, more than they had intended, for the shipwrights of that land examined the Gryffin and proclaimed a round dozen ways in which she could be made better with relatively little work, and Ignatius, after consulting with Gaubert and Leticia, ordered it done. The captain spent his idle time in playing chess and riddling with Leticia, and comparing tales of the two lands from which they came. Gaubert, of course, sought the company of the Princess whenever it could be had.

“There is something you must know about me,” Hestia said one night as they walked in the rose garden.

“I will listen without fear,” Gaubert pledged.

“All we folk of Narnia have magical blood in our veins. We seem human, but we have interbred with many other kinds of creatures, those who began here, whom Aslan did not bring out of other worlds but created in this place, and as a result, we may be...” Hestia blushed. “We may be older than we seem.”

“Ah,” Gaubert said, but did not elaborate for a few moments. “How old then may you be, if you will allow me to inquire, Princess?” he said after that time. “Please, if the question is too forward, do not hesitate to send me away.”

“The question is not too forward. I had hoped you would ask.” Hestia sighed, then lifted her head to meet Gaubert’s eyes. “I am some five-and-thirty years in age, my friend. I know that you are much younger than I, and that even friendships such as ours are laughed at, to say nothing of...”

She broke off, but Gaubert found himself heartened. “Princess—”

“I make you free of my name,” Hestia interrupted, turning away. “Please, use it.”

“Then I must be Gaubert to you, my friend.” Gaubert drew a deep breath, savoring the sweetness of the name, then summoned the courage which served him on the battlefield and found the words he needed. “Hestia. In the world from which I come, there is also magic. Some are born with the ability to use it, while others are not. I come of that first kind. We are no better than those who have not magic, but we are different, and it would be folly to pretend we are not. We see things that those without magic cannot see. We heal more quickly. And... we live longer.”

Hestia turned back sharply, half a question hovering on her lips. Gaubert shook his head. “I am no older than I seem, my lady, Hestia. Twenty years, no more, have passed since my birth. And I am the son of a country knight, a man of limited means and endless wonder at his child’s strange gift. I dare to dream great dreams, but I have no knowledge of whether they shall ever come to pass. Still, I dare. As I have always dared. As I dare now.”

And, suiting action to word, he stepped closer to Hestia and laid his lips lightly against hers, and so the Princess of the Sunset Star first kissed he who sailed upon the Gryffin, he who dared.

When the Gryffin sailed again a fortnight later, Hestia farewelled it herself. In her ringing voice, she told her people that Aslan smiled upon this expedition, and that fair winds should carry the ship to its destination and bring it home again. Her first husband, as all knew, had died upon this same quest when his ship was overtaken by foul weather, but such would not come to these folk.

“But before they return to Narnia with the fireflowers to heal the queen of that land,” she proclaimed, “they shall come here, to our Terebinthia, for with my father as witness, Gaubert and I have sworn an oath upon the Lion’s Knife. If he shall succeed in his quest, and bring a fireflower here to me with his own hand, then I shall place it in the center of my bridal bouquet, for his wife that very day I shall become.”

It seemed, to Gaubert at least, that the words of his beloved had some power over the world around them, but practical Ignatius said merely that it was the season. Whichever of them was correct, the Gryffin fairly sped on her way eastward, finding small islets here and there on which to take on fresh water and provisions, but ever pressing east, towards the sun’s rising each morn.

And then one day Leticia awoke with a look of wonder and glory upon her face, and sang for joy as she stepped out into the sunlight, for Aslan himself had spoken within her dreams that night. “We are very close, my friend,” she said to Gaubert. “But we two alone must go now, and hurry. Tomorrow is the day Aslan has set for our trial, and if we are not in the proper place when the sun rises into the sky, we will not be allowed to try again.”

Gaubert smiled and stretched his arms, which held within them the strength of a man warrior-trained all his life and toughened by the sea over these last weeks and months. “We will not fail,” he said simply.

“We await your triumphant return,” Ignatius told them, and called out orders for the small boat, the Raven, to be stocked with two days’ supplies. When it was done, and Gaubert and Leticia safely aboard, the Raven took the water off the Gryffin’s port bow, and the two friends raised the small sail. All day, they watched their shadows shrinking behind them and growing before, skimming on the surface of the water as though they were their own boats, and as the sun sank beyond the distant forests of far-away Narnia, the wind died down and the Raven slowed almost to a halt.

“Aslan would not lead us falsely,” Gaubert said. “We have arrived.”

Leticia dipped her finger into the water and tasted it. “We have,” she said with a soft sigh. “Here.” She held up some for Gaubert to drink, and he did so and sighed in his turn, for the water of the sea here was not salt but sweet, and strong as any wine or mead.

“It is his gift,” the warrior murmured, “to make us strong for what will come.”

“Yes,” Leticia agreed, and then was silent, listening to the song of the night around her. That same moon, she remembered, gazed down upon Beatrix and Regulo. She hoped their quests went well, and that they had found new friends and, perhaps, new loves as she and Gaubert had. Though, to be fair, Ignatius was not her love. A dear friend, yes, and that always, but she found within herself no spark of passion for him. Of course, marriages had been made of far worse, but she had always hoped...

Between dreaming of an ideal man, thinking fondly of her dear friends, and thinking of what she must do in the coming day, the night passed quickly. At the first sign of light beneath them, Leticia shook Gaubert, and he came awake almost instantly, his breath catching as he recalled where they were and why. Leticia set her hand to the tiller, and Gaubert prepared to raise the sail, but a moment later they discovered that there was no need.

The sun rose from directly beneath them, lifting the Raven from the sweet sea in a rush of water.

“The river!” Gaubert cried, pointing to starboard. “Hurry!”

Leticia saw the danger—the water of the sea was flooding away from the sun’s flaming surface, in a moment their boat would be afire—but what river did her friend mean?

And then she saw it, and steered swiftly for it, and the Raven’s prow found the fiery water just as the last of the sweet seawater steamed away from around her. She shuddered a little, but held firm.

“Strange,” Gaubert said in a hushed voice, looking around. “Like a tiny world of its own.”

“Not so tiny,” said Leticia. “It must rise very high in the sky, to look so small from where we stand on the earth.”

“Indeed.” Gaubert stiffened. “The fireflowers, Leticia—there, on the banks!”

Leticia followed the line of his finger and smiled. There, indeed, on the banks of this otherworldly stream, blossoms nodded their heads, just as they might on the verges of any brook she had known. But these blossoms had petals in the shape of yellow flames and hearts as red as any coal, and they flickered in the wind passing over them. If any bloom were to be called a fireflower, this would surely be it.

“We must pluck them quickly, so that we can return to the sea before the sun has risen completely,” she said. “Be ready with the sail, for the current may carry us past before we can pick what we need.”

“I shall.” Gaubert busied himself among the lines, and Leticia set her mind to her task. Now, now of all times, she needed every bit of lore Ignatius had taught her, and she let her world narrow to keeping the Raven within her control but moving closer to the bank. Closer and closer yet—the flowers were almost within her grasp—she released the tiller with one hand, leaning out to try to pluck one—her fingers brushed its stem—

The Raven’s keel struck bottom with a jar, and Leticia lost her balance. With a cry, she tumbled from the boat and landed among the fireflowers.

Her hair and her gown ignited instantly, engulfing her in fire. She screamed and beat at the flames with her one free hand, but succeeded only in setting her skin alight as well, which made her shriek in earnest. She had never before known what pain was, her whole body was a mass of it—

Her eyes, swelling shut from the heat, fell upon what her right hand still held loosely clenched.

Leticia!” came the roar from nearby, and arms went about her just as her hand rose to her mouth, placing the fireflower between cracked and bleeding lips. She felt herself lifted from the ground, a new wave of pain springing from the places where she was touched, and then blessed darkness fell over her, and she knew no more.


Gaubert laid Leticia gently on the rear seat of the Raven, shaking in fear. The flowers, the grass around them, even the surface of the sun itself had burned her. He had seen folk burned over most of their bodies before, when fires raged out of control or houses took flame in the middle of the night. Usually they lost their sight. Often they died. She would need salve, soft bandages, a cool place to lie—

He forced himself to stop and breathe deeply. Panic could kill them both as easily as the fire nearly had. He must think clearly.

And to his clear mind, the first thought that came involved not Leticia, but him.

The fire of the sun had not touched him.

He had turned at the sound of Leticia’s cry and the jar through the Raven, turned to see her topple from the boat and land among the flowers. And then her hair, her beautiful hair that looked like flame itself, and the gown, the lovely red satin that Hestia had given to her, ‘for we look like sisters and like sisters we should share,’ flaring up about her, and her screams—

He had thought of nothing but her, and that he must get her safely back to the Raven. He had anchored the boat in place with his wand, leapt ashore in one bound, gathered her into his arms, and clambered back aboard, trying to keep from jarring her too greatly.

Through it all, the fire had not hurt him in the least.

Shaking with excitement, he turned back to Leticia. Perhaps, with this newfound power, he could call the fire away from her, keep it from doing new damage—

But he was too late, though not in the usual vein of that phrase. Leticia lay before him, but her skin was as white and clean as though she had just risen from a bath, and her hair grew again as thick as before she had fallen, if not as long. Her chest rose and fell to a regular rhythm, and a faint smile lingered on her lips.

“Praise the Lion,” Gaubert whispered, falling to his knees beside his friend. Her pulse beat beneath his fingers, and he could find no sign of burns on her at all.

A sudden lurch beneath him reminded him of his purpose. “Forgive me, Leticia, but I must hurry,” he said, and rose. The bow line in one hand, he again leapt to shore, and drew a long breath of wonder when the flaming ground once more felt only pleasantly warm beneath his feet. Swiftly, he gathered as many fireflowers as he could hold in his hand, and his hand was a large one and strong. Then he returned to the Raven, laid the flowers gently upon a piece of canvas, and commanded them not to burn it.

And they obeyed.

His hands trembling with joy, Gaubert sailed the Raven across the lake of the sun, into the river that fed from it, and down the sun’s curving side to where it was just leaving the sweet sea. A wave of a wand, and the boat and its occupants were safely landed in cool waters again, and Gaubert seated himself upon the deck of the Raven and watched the sun rise above him. Curious, he lifted his hand and called with his mind.

A tendril of fire lifted from the surface of the sun and streamed down to him, twining about his hand like a curious and friendly snake. Gaubert laughed aloud and held his hand aloft, silently ordering the flames to take a certain shape, though his eyes were blurring so that he could not see it properly.

And so the first thing Leticia saw when she awoke was her dear friend, standing before her, weeping for joy and holding a flower made entirely of flame.


“Yes!” Meghan shouted, jumping up from her seat on the ground. “Yes, yes, yes!”

“Princess, calm yourself,” Garnet reproved gently, but she was smiling. “It is a wonderful story, is it not?”

“How did she heal like that?” Draco asked. “Was it the fireflower?”

Ilana nodded. “The fireflowers of the sun have great powers both to heal and to harm,” she said. “The cordial by which we know them best takes the harm from them, but Leticia was desperate enough to endure the harm so that she might gain the healing. And that gave her a power of her own.”

“What power?” Hermione asked, but even as she spoke, she knew the answer. “She could heal, couldn’t she? Because she swallowed a whole fireflower, because she took all of it, everything it was, she got its power. The power to heal things.”

“She did,” Ardan said, smiling. “You have a rare mind, Hermione.”

“Thank you.” Hermione ducked her head and thought very hard about cold things. Winter, a hundred years of winter and never Christmas, go away you dratted blush go away...

“When Gaubert jumped out of the boat, what protected him?” Harry asked from outside her range of vision, which currently included several blossoms on the carpet and part of her own gown. “You said he was only thinking about Leticia. Is that why? That he just didn’t think that the fire should burn him, so it didn’t?”

“In part,” Caelin answered. “If he had been trying to think of other things, to forget that the sun is fire and burns everything it touches, then he would never have succeeded, for he would have been thinking of himself above all. But all his thoughts were for another, for her welfare and her salvation, and thus the flames could not touch him and he passed through them unharmed. And so he ever would, all his life after.”

“Wait,” Draco said skeptically. “Are you trying to say this Gaubert could touch fire? Without doing any kind of magic beforehand, just touch it and not get burned?”

“So he could,” Ardan said. “And so can all his descendants in whom his power lives waking, to this day.”

Draco made a skeptical noise in his throat, but did not comment further.

“Ahh,” Gilles sighed. Hermione, deeming her blush under sufficient control, looked up to see the black-haired king setting down his teacup with an air of satisfaction. “Excellent as always. Now, shall I finish the story?”

“Yes, please!” Meghan said, sitting down again just at Gilles’ feet. “Did Gaubert and Hestia get married? And what about Leticia and Beatrix? Did they ever get married?”

“Patience, little Princess, patience,” Gilles laughed, ruffling Meghan’s braids. “One thing at a time. Yes, Gaubert and Hestia were indeed married, for he carried a fireflower to her with his own hand, as he had promised, and she set it in the center of her bouquet as she had promised, and they were married before the great painting of the Lion in the Hall of the Kings of Terebinthia that same day, ten months from the day they had sailed from that harbor. Hestia wore a gown of red embroidered with thread of gold, and her little son Emrys carried her train behind her, and Gaubert slid a ring of gold upon her finger and kissed her lips before her father and all her people...”


And so the Gryffin sailed home to Narnia with two more passengers than she had left, and with the potion which Leticia had made safely in its flagon in Ignatius’ cabin, though she said that she thought the power in her hands could do the work as well or better.

“Keep it in reserve,” Hestia advised, “in case your concoction does not work.”

And four people stood upon the dock at Cair Paravel waving when the Gryffin came into view, and Gaubert and Leticia waved back with joy as they saw their old friends, and Hestia as she saw those she hoped to learn to love. But Ignatius stood like a stone, his eyes fixed on one small figure.

“Lovestruck by my darling Beatrix?” Leticia teased him lightly. “She will never wed, not unless a man could be found who would give his life to our great cause as wholly as she has, and what man would do such a thing?”

“Perhaps,” Ignatius said softly, “perhaps a man very deeply in love, and already used to dedication, would do so.”

And when they stepped ashore at Cair Paravel, Ignatius bowed most deeply to Beatrix, and she, turning from her happy embrace with Gaubert, stood still in wonder at the sight, and then curtsied just as deeply to him in return. Gaubert and Hestia, and Regulo and Therese, smiled at one another, recognizing the signs of the dread illness which had struck them down in their turn. 

Rising, Beatrix shook her head. “I beg your pardon, friends, I must be sunstruck,” she said. “I wish you to meet Sylvanus, who has helped me to learn an astounding new sort of magic and who has been the best of friends to me while I have been away from you.” 

And Leticia turned her head and met Sylvanus’ eyes, and after a few moments Gaubert coughed lightly. “I could be mistaken,” he said, “but it seems to be growing warmer here...”


The listeners all laughed.

“I like Gaubert the best of the four,” Kargin said. “He had a sense of humor.”

“So Beatrix married Leticia’s friend, and Leticia married Beatrix’s,” Meghan said, nodding. “I like that.”

“I’m glad you approve,” Gilles teased, tweaking one of Meghan’s braids. “Yes, they were married, and Leticia’s potion did indeed cure the Queen, and she and the King left the thrones to raise their children. No one could honestly choose among the four friends, as to which should take the thrones, and so it was decided that they all four should rule, and so they did. It was for them that the four thrones, which still stand in our Hall, were made.”

“How long did they rule for?” Draco asked.

“Twenty years,” Caelin said, “and they ruled wisely and well, though none of them were blessed with children. The former Queen, on the other hand, bore two sets of twins, one year apart, male and female both times. When the youngest of them was grown, the four came to Cair Paravel and there took the thrones.”

“Gaubert and Leticia, Beatrix and Regulo, Kings and Queens no more,” Ilana took up the tale, “then revealed to all why none of their marriages had been fruitful. Aslan himself had come to them in their first year of ruling, when they had been successful in devising a magic which would return them to their own world, and asked them if they would agree to remain in Narnia and bear no children until the offspring of the former King and Queen were fit to rule.”

“What did they get from it?” Harry asked. “I mean, other than ruling Narnia.”

“Because they did not bear children,” Ardan said, “they could be returned to the age at which they had entered Narnia without harm. As could their spouses, and Princess Hestia’s son Emrys, who wished to accompany his mother. Nine went forth from Narnia, where four once had come, and I have no doubt that if the great venture upon which those four had been embarked succeeded, that it did so because of the wisdom and knowledge they had gained in their twenty years with us, and because of the unwavering help of those who gave up their entire world for love.”

“Ohhh!” Hermione breathed suddenly. “Is that—it must be!” She was on her feet, her whole body thrumming with excitement. “That’s it! That’s why we’ve come!”

“What?” Harry asked, Meghan a moment behind him. Draco stared at her, though more in honest confusion than his usual hostile amusement.

“Harry, you have—we have—something that we have to do back home. Something important. Someone who’s hurting people, and has to be stopped. Right?”

Harry nodded slowly. “I don’t remember much,” he said, “but I remember that.”

“So that’s why we’ve come here! Because Narnia has a problem, and so do we!” Hermione bounced on her feet, feeling as though she would fly in the next second. “We’ll train, and learn, and fight the White Wizard and win, and then we’ll go home and win there too!”

“And we will help you,” Ilana said, holding out her slender hand.

Hermione reached out and took it, and felt the strength in those slim fingers. “I know you will,” she said. “I know you will.”

“So,” Draco said, leaning back on his hands and looking, for a moment, almost human. “When do we start?”

  • Previous
  • Next

Author Notes:

Ha! It's still 2007 where I am!

Happy New Year to you all, and please review to ring in my 2008 happily!