The Marauders: Year Three | #Wattys2016

The Stag in the Forest

The Stag in the Forest

Lily stared at the stag as he stood there at the edge of the clearing, blinking at her, frozen in his stance, timid. Slowly... he took a step forward. He seemed almost wobbly on his feet, like he wasn't entirely sure he knew if he could take the step. "It's okay," she breathed, the tears still slipping from her eyes. She sniffled, "It's alright, I won't hurt you."

The stag took another step. She could see the round black nose on his face was moist and wiggling ever so slightly as he breathed. His antlers were a little stuck in the brush and he ducked them and tilted his head to free the big bony things. Freed, he took two more steps toward her and his form came into the circle of moonlight she was standing in and the light flashed on his fur, making him almost appear white, as he'd looked in all her dreams.

Suddenly, she was crying for a whole other reason.

"I've dreamed of you," she whispered thickly, and she held out her palm like she'd done in her dreams and the stag neared and he lowered his majestic neck down to bring his snout right to her palm and sniffed her hand gently. His breath was warm and she could barely believe that it was really happening. Surely she would wake up back in her dormitory at any moment. "Hello," she whispered. "I'm Lily Evans." She smiled and the stag softly slid it's nose beneath her palm, nodding so that her fingers slipped onto his face. She giggled, his fur surprisingly softer at his nose than she would have expected. Not that she'd ever really expected to touch a stag in life, but in all the times she'd thought about her dream, she'd never once expected his nose to be soft.

The stag moved his head from her hand and tentatively moved so he was sniffling toward her face and she laughed at the sound of his nose and the way the nostrils sort of flapped and he softly licked her tears. Lily closed her eyes lightly and and giggled at the way the stag's tongue sort of flickered like a hummingbird's wings. When he stopped, he stepped back and stood in a way so that he was bent down, staring into her eyes. "Thank you," she said.

The stag's eyes seemed to sparkle.

Gently she reached up and ran a palm over the sides of his face, the fur grew thicker there as she slowly moved her hand closer to his neck and shoulders. He was the most beautiful creature she'd ever seen. The stag watched patiently as she stood up slowly and bit her lip and softly ran her hands down to his shoulders, stroking the thicker fur. "I can't believe you're real."

The stag blinked at her and she smiled, thinking that she'd seen those eyes before somewhere... they were just so gentle and so loving... She supposed she'd seen them in her dreams.

"You're a bit of a hero, you know, coming when you did. I had a broken heart and you've managed to pick up the pieces a bit. I'll bet you've never had a broken heart. You're so wonderful that I bet you're probably the king of all the does." She laughed at the thought of it. "Am I right? A total womanizer, I'll bet."

Lily kept stroking the stag's neck and he made a funny honking sound that came from deep in his throat that sounded sort of like a laugh and Lily laughed, too.

"Oh you think that's funny, do you?" she asked. "Well, that is just like a boy."

She sighed, "So long as you respect your doe, that's what's important. Don't go... picking at her brains and slipping her love potions and the like and your doe won't go running off into the city and meet some handsome man like this but in reverse. It's good advice for any stag to live by." She smiled sadly. "That's what's happened, you know, what's why I'm crying. My friend's betrayed me, and there's this other boy that's going to gloat all about it tomorrow because he told me and he was right..." she sighed and looked down at her hands on his fur. "It hurts enough that it happened without him gloating he was right."