FAIRY HARRY (Patreon)

HIIIIIIII :D THIS IS JUST A LIL IDEA THAT'S BEEN STICKING IN MY HEAD SO I WANTED TO WRITE IT DOWN!! IF YOU GUYSSS are interested in more of this, then I'm willing to write it :-)) Just let me know!!

SORRY THIS TOOK SO LONG. It was supposed to be posted a little earlier, but I fell asleep in the middle of writing it!! I'm sorry!!! I didn't know I was that sleepy, so I shouldn't have been lying down midtype.

I HOPE YOU LIKE THIS AND KINDA SEE WHERE I'M GOING WITH IT!! YOU KNOW I LOVE A LIL MAGICAL REALISM!

OKAY LOVE YOUUUU!!!

(2.4k+ words)

i.

A bunny was caught in a trap. 

Y/N shouldn’t have been as deep in the forest as she had been. And normally, she is immune to dumb horror movie shit like this; straying away from the trail was never something she’d ever felt the urge to do. It was just a little, well-traveled path that she and her friends walked together all of the time, man-made, with signs talking about how far you are from the starting point, what nature-y things you’re about to stumble on, if there were deer common in the area – things like that.  She’d passed by at least 10 people in this trip alone, so it wasn’t like it was some deserted mountainside that she ignored legends and lore about. 

Her friends were supposed to go with her today, but Adam rolled his ankle after getting out of the shower this morning, and Niall had one too many drinks last night and needed to sleep for – what he determined – three thousand years. That’s okay, though; she didn’t mind walking by herself. She could put her headphones in and maladaptively daydream her little heart out. 

Which is what she had been doing. Along a winding part of the path, uphill, Y/N had been hoofing it to a playlist of Britney Spears' lesser-known but still equally iconic hits. Sweat had started to bead at the back of her neck, and she was regretting not eating a bigger breakfast because now she was starving, but she’d satiated herself with the promise of food afterward. She’d splurge on something big and delicious, she decided – it’s early enough she could get a huge bagel sandwich or something. 

Y/N was deciding what she wanted on it when the song slowly got quieter at the end, and then there was silence before the beat started in the next – the buffering of her phone trying to find wifi. And in that quick, brief little moment, she heard it – a little squeak. A squeal, almost. Enough for her brows to furrow and her thumb to hit pause before the next song could pick up. Y/N hears it again, a squeal, a squeak, and something in her chest yearns for her to go investigate. 

It’s stupid – she really shouldn’t – but from the direction it’s coming, there’s a beaten, dirt path like it’s been travelled before. An arrow on a sign points in the general direction of it, the history of a stream written onto some sort of plaque. It isn’t like it’s some undiscovered part of the trail; it just is slightly unofficial, because the dirt path leads to the left instead of the right. If it didn’t sound like an animal in pain, then Y/N would have ignored it, but it did, and she knew that people thought it was funny to leave out traps to catch squirrels in the area (the squirrels were outrageously fat, so it did make for an interesting and funny picture, and from what she knew, people usually let them out afterward, but it was still needlessly traumatizing for the squirrel). In her head, she imagines an old trap that someone set up and forgot about, now housing a sad, helpless little (or maybe not so little) squirrel trying desperately to get out. And Y/N was going to have to find it and help him, or this would haunt her for the rest of the week. 

So she went further in, she followed the path, the crying and squealing got louder, and Y/N held her breath, hoping not to see something getting eaten. That would really fuck her up. She’s careful and quiet on her feet as she finally peeks around the trunk of a huge tree, the silver glint of a trap catches on the light pouring through the tree branches and leaves. It’s in a grassy area, with plenty of foliage that any little creature could have gotten tricked into it. Which is why she isn’t too shocked to see a bunny instead of a squirrel. 

It stills, as if it senses her, and then hops. Its poor little head hits the top of the trap when he turned to look at her, then away, then at her again, like he was panicking. Y/N has never seen a bunny move so erratically before. She doesn’t study bunnies by any means, but usually they are still, and then they run. They twitch their little noses and eat clovers. They’re usually a more mousy, grayish brown color when they’re wild like this, but instead, this one is a muddier, deeper brown – richer, even. Y/N has never seen a bunny this color out in a front yard or at a park. Had it run away from home? 

“It’s okay, baby,” Y/N’s voice is as soft as she can make it, walking slowly toward the cage. It pauses, ears twitching like it was registering what she was saying, “I know, you must be so scared, but it’s alright. I’ll get you out of this silly trap, okay? But I have to get a little close to do so.” 

Its ears twitch again, then its nose. Y/N pockets her phone, then finds a stick lying around nearby. She knew that with these single door traps, there was a locking mechanism that she had to depress, and the door would snap open. Y/N had let a few squirrels out like that one time, when she found out her neighbor was taking them to be killed rather than releasing them back into the wild somewhere. So she’d been letting a lot of squirrels free for a long while, before the squirrels eventually learned to stop building their nest near that house, but also learned to dodge them when they zip out of the trap, scared.

This bunny acted much differently from the squirrels. Maybe bunnies were smarter?  Y/N isn’t sure. She just knows that usually they’re bucking and jumping and thrashing the whole time she walks over to let them out. Now the bunny practically lets her get right on top of them without so much as making another peep. From close up, it didn’t appear to be notably injured or anything. Which meant it really had just been screaming for help, the poor thing. 

“Sweet baby,” she murmurs, “I’ll get you out, and you can eat as many clovers as you want! Let me just click this button, and you’re free to roam.” 

She uses the fatter end of the stick to depress the mechanism, which swings the door open, and the bunny darts out from it. But instead of darting deeper into the forest, it merely turns to face her. Y/N is a little stunned, but still smiles at it all the same, “Good luck, little bunny,” she murmurs, before starting back on the trail. As she was walking away, she heard a rustling behind her, though. And when she stopped walking, something hit the back of her foot. 

Y/N turned around to find the bunny. With brows raised, she felt like she made eye contact with the creature again. “Oh?” She tilted her head, “Are you okay? What do you need?” 

But it says nothing because. . .well, he’s a rabbit, of course. Y/N starts to walk again, and when she starts to walk, so does it. When she stops, so does it. 

Weird. 

Well, there’s nothing wrong with having a little trail buddy.  

                                                                      .                             .                            .

Something is weird about the little bunny. 

It walks with her all of the trail, which is a little weird, but she gets a cute video and doesn’t think anything of it. Then it follows her all the way back to her flat building, which. . .uh, okay. Yeah, sure, maybe it just thought she smelled nice? She leaned down cautiously and let it sniff at her fingers, thinking that if its curiosity was satiated, it might lose interest and go home. Surprise, it doesn’t, but it doesn’t follow her to her door either. It stays in the grass, nose twitching as Y/N walks inside, waving goodbye to it. 

But when she leaves later that day to go to the grocery store, the bunny is still there in the yard. Y/N is equal parts enamored and completely sketched out by the thing. It follows her to the car, but doesn’t go any further than it could comfortably hop. When she comes back home, it’s waiting for her, still in the yard, and patiently hops her to the door. 

It’s there in the morning again, waiting for her to open the door, then in the evening, and when she checks in the morning, it’s there at night too. Do bunnies imprint on humans like ducklings will? That’s what she wondered, if that was the reason that it was following her. That’s the only reason she could come up with, really. Google otherwise was not helpful in explaining it, besides saying that it seems like she has acquired a new pet. Niall and Adam aren’t much help either, besides a, “Hmmm, weird. Maybe it’s your soulmate? Y’know, there was this story I read once where the other half was an animal until they met their soulmate, and then they turned into a human so –” 

It wasn’t until the weather was bad, an intense storm bubbling and brewing beneath the clouds, that Y/N had stuck her head out of her flat. “Bunny?” She called out, “Do you want to come in? The weather is bad?” She’d look like a lunatic if not for the brown little bunny hopping into her line of sight, then jumping their little way through the threshold of her home. It trembles a little, like it’s getting used to the temperature change, but then she swears it looks up at her again. Waiting for a command almost. 

Y/N lowered again, bending at the knee and squatting with her fingers held out for it to sniff. It sniffed her, then instantly tucked its head underneath her palm for her to pet. So it must be a runaway pet, she thinks, for it to be so comfortable getting pet by her with how it follows her around. Was it just waiting for her to invite it in this whole time? Did bunnies have lore she didn’t know about? Were they like vampires, where they couldn’t enter for whatever reason without a direct invitation? 

“Poor baby,” she murmurs softly, “Can you not find your home? Do they chip bunnies like you? Do I need to take you to the vet?” It makes a sound close to a grunt, almost like it's saying no before it goes back to an almost soft, honking sound. She is pretty sure that’s the sound they make when they’re happy – that and a vibration of their teeth called a tooth purr. “We’ll find you a home, okay? Or do you want to stay here?” More sweet, soft, pleased sounds and two thumps of its feet. Y/N thinks it’d be way easier if she spoke rabbit or something, but she’s sadly in the dark about what it wants. “I just wish I knew your name.” She sighed softly, using her other hand to scratch her thigh. 

Y/N makes it a little bed in an old shoebox. She warmed some towels and carefully folded them at the bottom of the box, then along the edges, so it was soft and warm. Y/N wished she had bedding or straw to make it a little better, but this is the best she could do on short notice. That, and the leafy greens that she cut up for him, the celery she chopped into tiny, rabbit-bite-sized pieces, and the strawberries that she minced to the best of her ability. She puts them both into one little bowl, and water in the other. Then she made another box, with a singular towel at the bottom, “Um, bunny, this is your toilet box, okay? If you need to go to the bathroom, use this one, but sleep in this other one. Do you – do you get what I’m saying?” 

It stomped its little foot as if it did, and Y/N is just enamoured by the fact that she’s communicating with a domesticated bunny right now. She placed the boxes in her room and built a makeshift barricade around the bottom of her bed so it couldn’t disappear beneath it. She pet him again, before washing her hands, brushing her teeth, and calling it a night. The storm outside was quite loud, rumbling the windows with every crack of thunder, and she kept peeking over the side to check on the bunny. It was curled up nicely in the sleeping bin, the food pretty much eaten through, and its little nose stained sort of a pinkish red from the strawberries. 

“Goodnight, Bunny,” she murmured softly, before thudding her head back against her pillow. 

She guesses she has a bunny now.  

                                                                .                        .                    .

The following morning, Y/N wakes up to a man on her floor. 

She does scream – she can admit that she screams very loudly when she looks over, expecting to see the bunny, and instead sees a man with what appears to be a silken robe on his body. Her scream startles him awake, so he shoots up with wild eyes, looking around before his gaze settles on Y/N. As soon as it does, his shoulders slump with relief, “Oh! It’s just you,” he smiled softly, his voice warm and deep, drawing in a way that she’s never experienced before, “I was worried something was wrong.” 

“Something is wrong!” Y/N cries out, bundling up her blankets around her body – she’d gone to bed without pants when she was with a bunny, not some man, “There’s a random man on my bedroom floor! Who are you? Get out of my house!” 

He pouted his mouth at her, his eyes sparkling... like, legitimately, they’re sparkling in a way that would only make sense in a story or a movie. Some silly fairy tale, not a Wednesday morning before she goes to work. “You invited me in, though?” He told her, like he was reminding her,  “And made me a nice meal, and even a litter box! You’re so kind; nobody has ever offered me a place to pee separate from my bed before. What a thoughtful human.”

Y/N’s lips are ajar, her heart sinking in her chest, “You’re – are. . .are you the bunny?” She inquires. 

The man nods, smiling, “Yes,” he agrees, “That’s only a cover-up though, y’know. But you saved me! No human has ever saved me before. You’re so thoughtful and kind.” 

What? 

What?