It is a small room with pale blue walls and a window, curtains closed to the night outside. There are a few stuffed animals on the double bed, a floor strewn with dolls and blocks, and a candy wrapper or two, but all that can be left till morning. Five children sit, more or less gathered around a smiling woman, a woman who has yet to find her first gray hair, but whose deep brown eyes hold a certain ageless strength nonetheless.

Pwease, Mummy! I wanna stowy. The speaker is a very small girl wrapped up in a soft pink blanket. Her red hair goes almost all of the way down her back, and her eyes are the same warm brown color as the woman holding her in her lap.

Me, too! Please! This is another girl, a bit bigger than the first, and with hair the same color but shorter and bushier. Her grin shows slightly crooked teeth, but her grandparents say they will fix that and give her a beautiful smile in a few years. Her mummy smiled funny when they said that, but she couldn’t figure out why.

Yeah, me too. He is a tiny boy, chestnut hair and freckles, wearing new, bright orange pajamas covered in brooms; a birthday present from his daddy. They have some words on them too, but he doesn’t know what they say. Maybe he could ask his big sister; she knows how to read.

All right, one story before bedtime. But you have to be good--no interrupting me.

We’ll be good, don’t worry, Mum, a boy promises, one with untidy black hair and an open, trusting face, sitting on his knees. He is happy because the cousins are sleeping over, which is always fun, and usually when they do, his mummy bakes pumpkin cookies and she even makes sure his big brother doesn’t take all the biggest ones.

I won’t. Thtories are thtupid, says the biggest boy, a redhead with two front teeth missing. He can’t wait for his grown-up teeth to grown in, because he thinks lisping makes him sound like a little kid. Right now he is climbing around his mother, to see if he can jump out at his younger brother and scare him.

Oh yes you will, or Daddy won’t take you flying tomorrow. You don’t have to listen, but you do have to be quiet.

He shrugs. He can be quiet--if his little brother yelps when poked, it’s not his fault.

All right. Now, hmm--I saw that, leave him alone--how about…oh, maybe something from that Muggle book…I’ve got it. I’ll tell you the story of Sn--no. No, I won’t.

The story of snow? the black-haired boy with the green eyes asks, puzzled.

I’ll tell you…the story of Flame Red. Flame Red and the Gold Prince.

Wike my haiw. And Dames’s, and Wose’s too. The little girl holds up a strand of her own red hair, giggling. And youws too, Mummy, youw haiw is wed too!

Well, that’s where we start. Once upon a time...there was a girl with red hair, such a bright red, in fact, that they called her Flame Red. And she lived in a kingdom, where there was--

Was she a princess? the bushy-haired girl demands, intent on the answer.

No. There was no princess; she was just a normal little girl, like you. But there was a Queen, an Evil Queen who didn’t care about anyone or anything except herself. She had a mirror, a beautiful silver mirror set with emeralds, and she always used to ask the mirror who the fairest one of all was. And, well, she was actually pretty ugly, but the mirror always told her that she was the fairest one of all was, because it was afraid that if it didn’t, she’d--if you poke your brother one more time--

Yeth Mum. Thorry, the boy says hurriedly.

The mirror was afraid that if it told the truth, she would become so angry that she’d smash it. But one day, at last, the mirror got sick of lying to her just to keep her happy, and told her that not only was she not the fairest one of all, she wasn’t even supposed to be Queen. There was a little boy who was destined to become the Gold Prince and defeat her. Furious, she put a secret curse on the mirror. Then, she disguised herself as a little old lady and went to the boy’s house, and she gave him a poisoned apple.

The boy took one bite of the apple--

The bushy-haired girl gasps.

And do you know what he did? He spat it right back at the Evil Queen. It hit her in the face, and a bit of the poison trickled into her open mouth. It was just a tiny bit of poison, so it didn’t kill her, but it did put her into a deep sleep for many years, and the little boy was able to escape. Meanwhile, a young, ambitious Minister took over governing the kingdom, assisted by his friend the Wise Old Wizard. The Wizard was much wiser than the Minister was, in fact, and very kind.

But what da dat hafta do wiff Fwame Wed? asks the little girl with long, fiery hair.

Well, around the same time that the Evil Queen fell into that extremely prolonged nap, a little girl was born somewhere else in the kingdom. Her name was Flame Red, because--

Becauthe she had red hair. You already thaid that, says the biggest boy, who had finally begun to pay attention when poison was mentioned.

Right. So, Flame Red grew up in a little old house with six dwarves, whose names were…let’s see…there were…Journey and Burny, and of course, Sterny…

The three smallest children giggle, but the biggest boy protests, That’th not a name!

It is too! argues the little girl with long red hair. Wight Mummy?

Well! I’m telling you those were the names of the dwarves…along with Woozy, Floozy, and the youngest, Goon.

Goon! That’s silly! laughs the boy in the orange pajamas.

What were the dwarves like? asks the dark-haired boy, apparently unfazed by the name scheme.

Oh, they were nice sometimes, and mean sometimes, but they all got along pretty well, and had a lot of fun overall. But one by one, as she and the dwarves grew older, they each left her to go to work at a mine, where they and other miners dug up rubies, sapphires, topazes, and emeralds every day. Eventually, Flame Red was the only one left at home, and she really wished she could go to the mine. And one of the biggest reasons was that she knew the Gold Prince worked at the mine too--he was even friends with Goon. She had heard the stories of how he defeated the Evil Queen, of course, but she couldn’t wait to meet him.

At last, she was old enough to go off to work at the mine, which turned out to be just as exciting as she had hoped. But not long after she had arrived, she happened to be wandering around one day when she found a small, oval-shaped silver mirror, set with emeralds.

Da miwwuh! cries the littler girl.

Shush! the dark-haired boy scolds.

Flame Red looked in the mirror and, lo and behold, what appeared there was not her own face but the face of someone else--a lady in the mirror, who she could talk to and would talk back to her! She took down the mirror from the wall and began take it with her wherever she went, because the mirror-lady was so kind and understanding--it was like having a friend she could carry around in her pocket.

And then, funny things began to happen at the mine. Other miners were being attacked by someone or something, and no one knew quite what…and the strangest thing was, whenever Flame Red tried to remember where she’d been when an attack had happened, it wasn’t there in her memory. She just couldn’t remember. At first, she told her worries to the mirror, but there was a suspicion building in her mind…that the mirror, her very best friend, was making her hurt people, was controlling her. She wanted to tell the dwarves and the Gold Prince, but she was terrified that nobody would believe her about the mirror; they would think she was attacking people on purpose.

At last, she realized that she simply had to turn herself in, because it seemed like only a matter of time before she actually killed someone, and she could never let that happen. Even if they were furious with her, she couldn’t let anybody die.

But it was too late. Just as she went to tell the Wise Old Wizard, the mirror took control of her completely--it made her hide herself away in a secret chamber in the very deep in the mine, and began to suck the life out of her. For the mirror-lady was truly the Evil Queen in disguise--

But, but, I thought she was sleeping, says the littlest boy.

She was, and she wasn’t, at the same time. She could still think, and control other people. It can only be done with very Dark magic, which only a person like her would attempt. And as she drained Flame Red’s life, she gained more and more strength.

But just when Flame Red was nearly dead, and the Evil Queen almost strong enough to wake up from her sleep and regain all her powers, the both of them were found by none other than the Gold Prince. He fought the Queen, and came thiiiis close to dying himself, but all of a sudden, he figured out what to do. He took the mirror and smashed it, and both he and Flame Red survived. And, of course, the attacks stopped.

Well, if Flame Red had thought highly of the Gold Prince before this, it was nothing to how she felt now that he had saved her life. And yet, as they both grew older, she had to resign herself to the fact that she’d have to give it time, for at the moment, he never seemed to notice her.

Meanwhile, the Evil Queen had another devious scheme for coming out of her enchanted sleep--she would capture the Gold Prince, steal the magic crown her wore and put it on herself, and then kill him. She disguised a sly Dragon as a friendly miner, and he went to work right among Flame Red and the others. His masquerade was so good that not even the Wise Old Wizard realized who he was…but then one dark night he lured the Gold Prince into a forest, caught him in his claws, and took him to the graveyard where the Evil Queen was waiting. She took the Gold Prince’s crown and placed in on her own head. And so the Evil Queen was restored to her powers.

Several of the children shiver. The dark-haired, green-eyed boy and the older, redheaded boy simultaneously turn to stare at the woman, brows creased in thought, as if they have heard something they think has maybe come by their young ears before.

Now, she had wanted to keep her return a secret, but the thing was, the Gold Prince ran away before she could kill him--escaped, and told everyone that she had returned!

Yet the Evil Queen’s plan hadn’t been ruined completely. The foolish Minister, unwilling to believe that there was a threat to the kingdom he ruled, decided the Gold Prince was a liar, and made fun of the Old Wizard for supporting the Gold Prince. And so the kingdom was divided, and those who followed the Minister tried to silence those who knew the truth, and stop them from preparing for war. Even one of the dwarves, Sterny… The woman trails into silence, frowning slightly.

Sterny did what? asks the biggest boy.

He…sided with the Minister, and stopped speaking to Flame Red and the others.

That’s mean! declares the bushy-haired girl, appalled.

Well, Flame Red thought so, too. She was--er, she was pretty mad at him…anyway…but the good thing was that there was a secret army dedicated to stopping the Queen from carrying out her evil plans, an army headed by the Wise Old Wizard. Now, Flame Red, Woozy, Floozy, Goon, and the Gold Prince weren’t allowed to join that army because they were too young, so they created their own army of younger miners, in honor of the Old Wizard. They trained at the mine, right under the nose of the paranoid Minister. Thanks to the Gold Prince’s training, Flame Red became a warrior; a young warrior, but a warrior all the same. And one day, she and Goon and the Gold Prince and three other warriors went to fight the Queen’s Dragon, to stop the Dragon from stealing a certain old scroll. They had to stop the Queen from reading the scroll and learning the truth from learning the truth about the Gold Prince…

What was the truth about him? the bushy-haired girl questions curiously.

That he had a power the queen didn’t know about.

What power? she follows up.

Love. He could love. But, going back to the night they fought…the six fighters were losing. The Dragon was too dangerous; Flame Red had broken her ankle, and she just couldn’t fight anymore; Goon had been hurt badly too. But at the last moment, the other army of miners, the first army, came to help them. There was a terrible duel that night when the Wizard fought the Queen. The Queen fled, but not before being spotted by the shocked Minister. And the scroll was ripped into shreds; the Queen would never read what it said.

Well, that was the end of the Minister’s reign, but even with the world knowing that the Queen was back and being on their guard, the days were getting darker. The Queen seemed unstoppable; even the mine couldn’t be kept safe anymore. But there was something she did not have, that Flame Red, the Gold Prince, the dwarves, the Wizard and the miners did have. They cared about each other, they were not only fighting for themselves, but for one another, and that gave them the will to protect each other, and the ability to hope. You see, love gave them hope. The Gold Prince fell in love with Flame Red, just as she had falled in love with him so many years ago, and that was how she knew that somehow, they would win. They would live happily ever after.

The bushy-haired girl giggles, and the little redheaded girl smiles dreamily. The oldest boy, however, assumes an utterly disgusted face. He is mimicked by the dark-haired boy, who is guessing that something girly and gross just happened; he recognized his brother’s expression as a reaction to that sort of thing.

Love was why they cared about each other, why they fought for each other. The Wizard’s last act before he was killed was trying to free a boy who was enslaved by the Dragon. Even when, on the day of the wedding of the oldest dwarf, Journey, the Queen took power over the kingdom, Flame Red and the others did not stop fighting. The mine fell under the Queen’s control and became a horrible place guarded by the Dragon, who punished anyone who was found mining any jewel except emeralds. You see, the Queen believed that emeralds were the only beautiful gemstones. But Flame Red and her friends kept standing up against the Dragon and the Queen. They fought back in every way they could.

The Queen only loved her emeralds, because her vision was twisted from looking in the mirror so many times she could not see the beauty in the rest of the world. And that was why, in the end, when the final battle took place at the mine…Well, the dwarf who had left, Sterny, came back to fight with them, because they were his family, and he loved them…And another of the dwarves, Floozy, died fighting for them, because he loved them…And the Gold Prince? So great was his love for all of them that he gave up his life for them. He walked up to the Queen and let her kill him, and even as he died, he thought of Flame Red.

Flame Red thought the anger and the pain would kill her as well, but she kept fighting against the Queen and her Dragon, fiercer than ever before. And all of the other miners fought alongside her. But as it turned out, the Gold Prince’s last act of love was so powerful that the Queen could never win against them no--w; she couldn’t touch them, she couldn’t even kill the Gold Prince when he, to Flame Red’s astonisment and joy, turned up alive and well. From that moment on, the Evil Queen’s powers were gone. Not only was she unable to kill the Gold Prince, when she tried, she herself died.

We won, says the biggest boy proudly.

And of course, Flame Red and the Gold Prince got back together, got married, and lived happily ever after, the woman adds. But you knew that.

Mmm, yawns the bushy-haired girl.

The other children don’t speak; their chests are rising and falling slowly, and their eyelids have fluttered shut. The littlest boy, the one with chestnut hair and orange pajamas, has his thumb sticking halfway into his mouth.

Bedtime, the woman murmurs, gently lifting the little redheaded girl off her lap and letting her down between the two sleeping boys. She untangles the blankets from between the two younger boys and tucks the three of them in, holding up the blanket as the girl with bushy red hair snuggles in next to the others.

The girl mumbles, Night-night, Auntie Ginny. She closes her eyes and smiles, not widely enough to show her crooked little teeth, but contently all the same.

The oldest boy is still sitting quietly, jaw set firmly in an expression of intense thought. He seems to be on the verge of voicing his ideas, so the woman waits for him.

At last he speaks. You’re Flame Red, and Daddy’th the Gold Printhe.

The woman nods in assent, smiling at her intelligent boy. He grins back, and then, abruptly, frowns. That wathn’t a good thtory, he declares, reproaching her. Becauthe--becauthe thtorieth are thuppothed to be made up, and you didn’t make it up.

The woman laughs softly. Everyone makes up part of their own story. You make up some of your story every day, and you make up some of mine, too.

The boy’s hazel eyes flicker up to meet hers, then back down to stare for several moments at his own small body. He raises one eyebrow, as if he doesn’t quite believe it.

Behind him, the tiny redheaded girl breaks the silence by yawning widely and then sighing a few inaudible words into her dream.

The woman rubs the boy’s messy head of red hair affectionately. Goodnight, James.

Night, Mummy. he mumbles, and yawns as well. Then he settles in with the others, managing to fit himself beside the dark-haired boy whose green eyes are currently shut tight. Tugging some of the other boy’s blanket towards himself, he snuggles in warmly, and begins drift off into the depths.

The woman waits a while longer, sitting on the bed and watching the children fondly. By the time that the woman leans down to give each of them a goodnight kiss, her older son is not awake to protest.