Chapter Text
Once upon a time in a faraway land there was a tiny Kingdom, peaceful, prosperous, and rich in romance and tradition. Here in a stately Manor there lived a widowed gentleman and his little son Cinderharry.
Although he was a kind and devoted father and gave his beloved child every luxury and comfort, still he felt the child needed a mother's care. And so he married again choosing for his second wife a woman of a good, normal family with two sons just Cinderharry's age: Vernon and Dudley.
It was upon the untimely death of this good man, however, that the stepmother's true nature was revealed. Cold, cruel and bitterly jealous of Cinderharry's charm and beauty, she was grimly determined to forward the interests of her own two awkward and fat (big-boned!) sons.
Thus, as time went by the Manor fell into disrepair, for the family fortunes were squandered upon the vain and selfish stepbrothers while sweet Cinderharry was abused, humiliated and finally forced to become a servant in his own house and sleep in a cupboard in the attic. And yet through it all Cinderharry remained ever gentle and kind, for with each dawn he found new hope that someday his dreams of happiness would come true.
Cinderharry woke with the sounds of mice gnawing on the cupboard’s door, and birds chirping and probably pooping around the house.
“Oh no!”, thought poor pretty Cinderharry, “now I’ll have to clean the mess! And I was dreaming such a wonderful dream too… something with weird green lights and a man with red eyes! It was so romantic! I wish it could come true!” and he quickly sang:
♫ No matter how your heart is grieving
If you keep on believing
The dream that you wish will come trueeeeee ♫
And the bird nearest to Cinderharry suddenly exploded for no reason. Huffing at the mess and not in the least shocked (it was a common occurrence), the stunning boy quickly cleaned it up and changed into his day clothes, all the while fending off flocks of birds intent on helping him.
Finally finishing his morning routine, gorgeous Cinderharry looked at the excited mice and asked in a sweet syrupy voice:
“Now Percy, what's all the fuss about?”
“New mouse, ma’am,” the stuck-up mouse answered, “he sustains he is named Ronald.”
“Ron! It’s Ron!” the mouse squeaked. He blushed when Cinderharry picked him up to inspect the weird tuft of red fur sprouting from the top of his head.
“Well, don’t forget to tell him about the cat, Percy!” Cinderharry warned the pompous mouse, “Now I’ve got to hurry! Bye!” and he ran down the stairs in a hurry at a breakneck speed.
“Uh c-cat?” Ron asked worriedly.
“Yep, cat. Lucius. We'll tell you. Mean. Sneaky. Jump at you. Bite at you! Ha! Big, big. Big as a house! Meow! And as white as the most shiny pearl! Meow! The longest lush fur you have ever seen! Meow!”, two identical reddish-brown mice gleefully told a trembling Ron.
“Fred! George! Stop scaring the new mouse! Deary, don’t listen to them! As long as you stay out of sight, Lucius can’t catch and eat you. Because if he does then he’ll first exhaust you by letting you run away for a little, then catch you again, then let you run, then catch you once more… he likes playing cat-and-mouse you see. It’s what happened to my poor dear Arthur last fall… all because he had a weird fascination with human things, and was always trying to figure out how they worked… Oh well! Don’t worry about it child, I’m sure you won’t get caught,” a matronly mouse named Molly patted the young mouse on the head, not noticing that her words had made him tremble in fear even more.
In the meantime, stunning Cinderharry had cooked breakfast, and fed the chicken and Snuffles the dog, who was once again dreaming of chasing Lucius and the neighbour’s pretty she-dog Amelia (who liked bones a lot, and Snuffles always tried to bribe her with them for a date. Sadly, it hadn’t worked so far). Beautiful Cinderharry had also fetched Lucius from his stepmother Petunia’s room to give him breakfast, and gotten scratched on the nose for his trouble. Thankfully, Cinderharry was far too exquisite to be marred for long, and the cosmos decided to magically heal the scratches in less than a minute. Beauty no longer in danger, Cinderharry went upstairs again to bring breakfast to his obese stepbrothers and his ugly stepmother, not noticing that Ron the redheaded mouse had somehow managed to fall in one of the cups, and Lucius was following them, intent on playing his favourite game of cat-and-mouse.
“Good morning Vernon. Sleep well?”
“Hmp! As if you care. Take that ironing and have it back in an hour! One hour, you hear?”, Vernon yelled at Cinderharry, his triple chin wobbling comically. Cinderharry smothered his giggles in his hand and went in the next room.
“Good morning Dudley.”
“Well! It’s about time!”, the blond hippopotamus exclaimed, trying to stand from his bed and failing spectacularly when his fat legs gave out. Cinderharry pretended not to notice his stepbrother’s predicament and went to the next room. His stepmother was soon giving him new chores to do, when a piercing girlish shriek came from Vernon’s room. A redheaded mouse was seen running from the room, but was soon caught by Lucius, a maniacal grin on his cat face.
“Moooother!”, the fat boy came running as fast as his pudgy legs could carry him, “there was a horrible unhygienic mouse in my cup! And it had a weird illness too! It’s hair was” and here he leaned close to Petunia’s ear and whispered fearfully “red.”
Petunia gasped, shocked, and exclaimed “Oh my poor, poor dear Vernindums! What have you suffered! Oh poor dear, what if you have nightmares on this freakishness? Oh my little Ververkins, Mummy will take care of you!”, she squealed, hugging him tightly to her (almost non-existent) bosom, her eyes glistening with tears.
“CINDERHARRY!” she suddenly screamed, “Come back here! IMMEDIATELY! You hear me boy?”
Pretty Cinderharry hurried back inside his stepmother’s room after having saved Ron from Lucius’ clutches (though he almost let the cat eat him, for all the trouble he had caused. The beautiful boy decided in the end that if this ever happened again, he would let the nasty cat have his fun and snack). A crying Petunia, still hugging her humongous son, then proceeded to lecture the attractive lad for an hour on the importance of hygiene and sanitary measures and cleanliness and assigned him one week’s worth of chores due the very next day.
And so, lovely Cinderharry found himself working even harder than usual, all the while cursing (silently! Because pretty youngsters like him never swore!) the redheaded rat and plotting his revenge.