Povestea are un sfârșit fericit.

Because -a at the end is the Romanian definite article attached to the noun.

• poveste = story / a story
• povestea = the story

Romanian usually puts the definite article at the end of the noun, unlike English, which uses a separate word like the.

So Povestea means the story.

Are means has.

It comes from the verb a avea, which means to have.

In this sentence:

• Povestea = the story
• are = has
• un sfârșit fericit = a happy ending

So the structure is very close to English: The story has a happy ending.

Also, even though are looks like the English word are, it is completely different. In Romanian, are is a form of to have, not to be.

Un is the Romanian indefinite article meaning a / an.

Here:

• un sfârșit = an ending / a end in a literal sense, but naturally a happy ending when combined with fericit

Romanian uses:

• un for masculine and neuter singular nouns
• o for feminine singular nouns

Since sfârșit is a neuter noun, the singular article is un.

Because fericit has to agree with sfârșit.

Sfârșit is a neuter noun. In Romanian, neuter nouns behave:

• like masculine in the singular
• like feminine in the plural

So in the singular, the adjective takes the masculine singular form:

• un sfârșit fericit = a happy ending

Compare:

• o poveste fericită = a happy story
  Here poveste is feminine, so the adjective becomes fericită.

In Romanian, adjectives often come after the noun.

So:

• sfârșit fericit = literally ending happy

This is the normal Romanian order in many cases.

English usually puts adjectives before the noun:

• happy ending

Romanian usually puts them after:

• sfârșit fericit

Sometimes adjectives can come before the noun in Romanian, but that often changes the tone or emphasis and is less neutral.

The basic word order is Subject + Verb + Object/Complement:

• Povestea = subject
• are = verb
• un sfârșit fericit = object

So it follows a very familiar pattern for an English speaker:

• The story
  • has
    • a happy ending

Romanian word order can be flexible, but this version is the most neutral and natural.

Sfârșit literally means end, but in many contexts it can also correspond to English ending.

So:

• un sfârșit fericit literally = a happy end
• natural English = a happy ending

Romanian often uses sfârșit where English prefers ending.

A rough English-friendly pronunciation is:

po-VES-tya A-re un sfur-SHEET feh-ree-CHEET

A few helpful notes:

• ș sounds like sh
• ț would sound like ts, though it does not appear in this sentence
• â is a special Romanian vowel with no exact English equivalent; the closest rough shortcut is something like a tight central uh/i sound
• c before i in fericit sounds like ch, so fericit ends with -chit in pronunciation

So:

• sfârșit sounds roughly like sfur-SHEET
• fericit sounds roughly like feh-ree-CHEET

In this sentence, Povestea is definitely the noun meaning the story.

But yes, the form povestea can also appear as a verb form in other contexts, from a povesti = to tell / to narrate.

For example, depending on context, povestea could mean was telling. But here that is not possible, because the sentence structure clearly shows:

• Povestea = noun subject
• are = verb

So here it can only mean the story.

Yes. Romanian has other natural ways to express the same idea, for example using final:

• Povestea are un final fericit.

That also means The story has a happy ending.

In your sentence, sfârșit fericit is perfectly correct and natural. It is just one common way to express the idea.