Alright, so the prologue is going to be slightly boring, as a warning. I know everyone hates those repetitious sentences and events that they already know happened, because they watched the film! But I really felt like I needed to write this, just to help everyone get a handle for the character, including myself. I wrote this entire thing in a single sit-down of about three hours, so its probably not going to be great. Chapter one will be up soon, and I promise it will be more interesting, but I really do stress the fact that despite it's probable boring-ness, you need to read the prologue. Madame Giry's name is not given in the film, so I "borrowed" the name of Antoinette from The Phantom of Manhattan. Aside from that, however, this fic is based entirely off of the 2004 movie. The grey bars indicate a change in time/scene.

She walked away from the sobbing Carlotta and the hysterical mob around her, her face tilted up towards the darkness of the beams near the ceiling, looking for him, for the white piece of paper she knew would come floating down—and there it was, his seal in red wax holding the envelope closed. Antoinette closed her eyes for a moment, regret, resignation and more than a hint of fear causing her to pause for a moment before picking up the envelope.

A few feet away Carlotta was making an irate departure, followed swiftly by the departing footsteps of a no doubt relieved Monsieur Lefevre. Andre and Firmin gazed around wildly before setting their gazes on Reyer.

"Senora Guidicelli, she will be coming back, won't she?" The conductor turned away with a helpless sound. Antoinette raised her brows.

"You think so, Monsieur?" She asked, intending the question to be rhetorical. She then continued, "I have a message sir, from the opera ghost,"

"Oh God in heaven, you're all obsessed!" Firmin exclaimed.

She ignored him. "He welcomes you to his opera house—"

"His opera house?" Firmin interrupted.

Yes, his. And your life will be much easier if you accept that now, she told him silently. Aloud, she finished her sentence, "and commands that you continue to leave box five empty for his use, and reminds you his salary is due." She couldn't help the small twitch of her lips as she handed the letter over to Andre.

"His salary!" Firmin exclaimed.

She looked at him innocently, "Well Monsieur Lefevre used to give him 20,000 francs a month." She flipped her long dark braid over her shoulder.

"20,000 francs!" Firmin gasped.

Antoinette was beginning to wonder if he could speak a word of his own. She didn't let the thought show, however, just continued to keep her expression innocently interested, "Perhaps you can afford more, with the Vicomte as your patron?"

"Madame, I had hoped to make that announcement public tonight

when the Vicomte was to join us at the gala But obviously we shall now have to cancel as it appears we have lost our star!" Firmin shouted.

"B-but surely there must be an understudy." Andre stammered.

"Understudy? There is no understudy for La Carlotta!" Reyer was shouting as well.

"A full house Andre, we shall have to refund a full house!"

Antoinette had known this moment was coming. Perhaps, had she been asked, she would even have known before the rude interruption of Carlotta's performance. She took a breath.

"Christine Daae could sing it, sir." She felt Christine, standing behind her, turn swiftly.

"What, a chorus girl? Don't be silly." Andre muttered.

She resisted the urge to roll her eyes. "She has been taking lessons from a great teacher."

"Who?" Andre asked.

"I don't know his name, monsieur." Christine said softly.

Erik…She knew. She halted the thought, and put her arm on Christine's shoulder.

"Let her sing for you, monsieur. She has been well taught."

They agreed, at last, and Christine timidly walked to the front of the stage.

As she sang, the way Antoinette knew she could, she felt her heart swell, both with pride for Christine, and a certain sadness. She glanced at Andre and Firmin, and smiled. There would most certainly be a performance tonight.

That night, after the performance, she helped Christine into her room.

"You did very well, my dear." She stated, then looked at the young star's desk. She saw the red rose, with the black ribbon tied around it. She wasn't surprised, and she calmly went to pick it up, turned, and gave it to Christine,

"He is pleased with you."

A small, dark knowledge passed between the two women as their eyes connected. They both had one very big thing in common. Beyond their personal knowledge and subtle fear of the true Opera Ghost…they both were obsessed with him, in their own different ways. She walked out the door, but waited just outside the threshold. And after everyone left, she saw the dark figure reach out and lock the door. Her eyes met his. Don't hurt her, she wanted to beg, but she couldn't find the breath to speak, and less than a moment later, he was gone.

Hours later, she went in search of her daughter. Knowing Meg's troublesome habit of allowing her curiosity to lead her into dangerous situations, she moved towards Christine's room, ignoring the thought that perhaps her own curiosity was guiding her in the moment. She found the open mirror, and hesitated only a heartbeat before she stepped into it. Her steps were sure, this was far from the first time she had walked these dark, damp tunnels. She found Meg quickly, and silently led her out, back into the Ballet Girls dormitories.

Buquet was there, and, as always, flirting with, and groping at, the girls. On his first day at the Opera House, he had grabbed at her. With voice and hands, she had let him know she was not interested. He now respected, and, she suspected, feared her. He kept his flirting with the girls under her eyes mostly harmless, knowing that she wouldn't hesitate to stop him if he got out of hand. Tonight however, as she listened to his words, she shook her head, the uncomfortable warmth of anger settling in her chest, accompanied by fear, as it always was whenever something about him came up.

Yellow parchment? Her thoughts echoed his words, and a bitter laugh rose in her throat, but she squished it down. His skin was pale, only slightly darker than milk, and although she had only touched his hand once, years ago, as a child he'd had skin like any normal person. She turned to the disgusting, stupid man, pulling away Tabitha, the girl he currently had in his grasp. The girl moved away without a word.

"Those who speak of what they know find too late that prudent silence is wise," She sang to him, gazing warningly at the girls, before turning back to Buquet,

"Joseph Buquet hold your tongue!" She slapped him, for a moment letting all of the anger and worry she had been bottling up escape—how dare he?— she lifted the noose from his grasp, and quickly threw it over his head,

"Keep your hand at the level of your eyes!" She hissed, tightening it around his neck, and waiting a moment before releasing it. She then walked out of the room without another word.

Later, after Christine had returned and Antoinette had settled the girl in the Ballet Mistress's personal room—she wouldn't sleep in her own, and Antoinette didn't need her to speak the reason— it was more notes. More drama from Carlotta. And again, Antoinette tried to warn them…they could not beat the Phantom. He was a genius, and he had no grip on reality. There were no morals or societal restrictions to keep him from getting what he wanted, she knew. She cursed the fact that she hadn't pulled Christine away the first time she had heard her speaking to the Phantom. She cursed herself for not stopping the disaster before it had happened. She cursed the day she had hidden a poor, beaten boy from the mob chasing after a murderer. Yet at the same time, a small part of her, that she very quickly crushed, blessed it.

Joseph Buquet was dead. Antoinette wasn't sorry, but she was very, very afraid. Not even Christine had spotted him, standing high on a bridge across the top of the stage. Only she had caught his eyes, and seen the cold, emotionless expression on his face, before he whirled into darkness, and she ran to the hysterical girls, trying to calm them, even as her own heart threatened to fall out of her chest. She prayed he did not see Christine and Raoul run up to the roof. But deep down, she knew he saw everything.

At the masquerade ball, she stared at the faces around her. All of them smiling, carefree. She had a similar expression on her face, it was not hard to do. Almost all her life here, she had been pretending ignorance. It was easier for her now to pretend she knew only as much as everyone else, and cared even less, than it was for her to show her true knowledge…and emotions. In truth, she had her own emotions so hidden, she wasn't quite sure what they were anymore.

Still, she felt very little shock when he appeared, his normal black replaced with scarlet. Her heart ached as he sang quietly, his eyes boring into Christine's. She found herself wishing that somehow they could have a happy ending, though she knew they would not. That disaster beyond imagining was just around the corner. And so she was the first to act when both the Phantom and Raoul disappeared beneath the floor. She raced down the hidden passage to the empty space below. She heard Raoul slashing with his sword, she saw him in the small pool of light the bars of the trapdoor allowed, reflecting off the mirrors. At first she was as confused as Raoul, seeing the multiple reflections. Then she felt her arm brush cloth.

She froze, then tilted her head sideways, and caught a glimpse of scarlet cloth, and a white mask with dark cloth around the eyes. Blue eyes, that caught hers, like they always did, sharp and piercing, and containing a strange sort of emotion that rose in them whenever they saw her. She suspected it was an expression that was mirrored in her own face. Although it seemed half a lifetime before anything happened, in reality it was a mere moment before the Phantom dropped the rope he held in his hand—she hadn't even realized he was holding it, she thought with dismay—and ran down into a small tunnel, vanishing into the shadows.

Raoul was still frantically slashing at the darkness, at the rope near his head. She slipped behind him and grabbed his shoulder, leading him out, away from the hysteria on stage. They rose from another trap door that led into the dormitories. She began to walk away, but he chased after her

"Madame Giry"— She sped up, her heart racing as she attempted to get away from him before he could ask any questions. "Please, I know no more than anyone else," She spoke without turning her head, the lie she had so often repeated tasting bitter on her tongue for the first time in years.

"That's not true!" He ran to catch up with her.

She huffed out a breath, "Monsieur, don't ask." It took all of her self control not to beg. "There have been too many accidents."

"Accidents?" She heard the outrage in his voice, "Please, Madame Giry…for all our sakes."

She looked at his face, and saw the honesty and goodwill there. He was just another man, she had been telling herself that, sure that he would eventually come to the same end as all the others who had upset him. It hit her suddenly, that she was beginning to fall under a sort of spell of his, not at all like Christine's, but…did she really care about those he had killed? How many times had she known, one way or the other, but done nothing, so certain of the eventual outcome? Christine loved the boy in front of her. Was she really, once more, going to stand by silent? That made her as harsh and unrelenting as the Phantom that even now probably watched them.

"Very well." And so she brought him in, and told him the tale, and held back her tears as he walked out the door, leaving her to her thoughts, and to the despairing feeling that somehow, she had betrayed an enormous confidence.

The play he had given them premiered tonight, and Antoinette watched with her heart in her throat as the two people sang on stage, half hiding behind the curtain. She saw his eyes follow Christine's as they rose up to Raoul, with the police man behind him. She tried to make herself forget about the note she had written, detailing Raoul's plan. The note she had left on her desk in her room, sealed with red wax, a red rose with a black ribbon beside it. She tried to forget the relief she had felt when she had returned to her room, and neither envelope nor rose remained. Her eyes were riveted to the two figures on stage. She heard him singing quietly of love, and she watched as Christine caressed his face…then ripped off his mask. She closed her eyes, not wanting to see what would happen next, but then she opened them, forcing herself to face the fact that whatever happened, she now had a responsibility. She had taken action this time, and she had to go through with it. Not even she was prepared, however, when both Phantom and Christine vanished from the stage. She raced through the curtains, past where Carlotta bent over Piangi's stiffening body. She didn't stop running when she heard footsteps racing behind her, nor when she heard Raoul ask where they had gone.

"Come with me, I will take you to him," She gasped out, hearing the fear raw in her voice, "But remember, keep your hand at the level of your eyes!"

Would that save him? She was not sure. She made Meg halt, told her to wait. She met her daughter's eyes—She needed time, Raoul needed time, but she didn't have the time to even say the words aloud. But Meg knew, she realized as her daughter turned away, arms outspread, braced against the mob moving towards them. She couldn't wait to see what happened. Antoinette led Raoul down the stairwell, until the fear consumed her so that she could no longer force her legs to move.

"Keep your hand at the level of your eyes…this is as far as I dare go." She told him. She watched him descend, until he left her line of vision. Then she walked back up the stairs. She heard the group above her, searching for a way through the labyrinth of tunnels. She stayed away from them, taking the passage she had memorized years before, into the Ballet Girls dormitories.

Two months later, Antoinette received a letter in the mail inviting her to the marriage of a certain Vicomte and former Opera star. She resisted the urge to hide the letter as she entered the small house she had bought for herself and her daughter after the decimation of the opera house. He was gone…for good, no doubt. The fact that the hairs on the back of her neck still occasionally rose, or the thought that, once or twice, she had seen the disappearing tail of a black cape meant nothing. Mere hallucinations, left over from years of living near Him. She set the letter on the small wooden desk in her room, next the white leather mask that her daughter had given her, when she had emerged from the tunnels. It was from Meg that she learned the story of what had happened down in the Phantom's lair. She shivered.

"Mother?"

Meg stood in her doorway, her expression cautiously curious. Antoinette felt a surge of love for her daughter. The only wonderful thing that had come out of her short marriage. She had never questioned her too closely about her relationship with the Phantom, although by now everything had come into the light. But Meg had always been aware of the strange connection between her mother and the Opera Ghost, though she hadn't known specifically what it was. The night Meg had handed her the mask, she hadn't asked questions. She had answered her mother's unspoken ones, and left her alone when Antoinette shut herself in her room…

"M-mother…" Antoinette jerked herself from her thoughts at the sound of her daughter's shaking voice. She suddenly realized that her daughter's face was flooded with…fear, or shock. No, both.

"What is it?" Her voice came out sharp, and Meg flinched, then held out her hand.

"I…I went to put some of the old things in the attic. It was stuffy, so I opened up the window. There was nothing there…nothing! But when I was finished, and I went to close it before I left…on the window sill…"

In Meg's outstretched hand was a withered rose, wrapped in a black ribbon, that had a small piece of folded paper, burned on the edges, sealed with red wax. With shaking hands, Antoinette broke the seal. One word was written on the paper.

Tonight.