A/N: This phic has been updated on the 30/06/14, so all grammar mistakes have been corrected, details have been modified… If there are any spelling mistakes left, I'm sorry. I'm not English-speaking but French-speaking, and though I manage well in English, I still let a few mistakes here and there…

So I'm presenting here my OC, I hope you'll like her! And yes, part of my inspirationfor her comes from Elsa in Frozen. Boy do I love that movie. And Elsa is just… gorgeous, don't you think? ;) And, just to make it easy for the ages… Erik was rescued by Mme Giry when he was 9, and she was 16. He left the Opera wen he was 15 (to go to Persia and everything), then came back when he was about 25-26. He's about thirty-five by now. Céleste is 23-25 years old, Raoul is 21 and Christine 19. I don't really like the idea of Erik being 50-60 so… Here you is mostly based on the 2004 movie (sorry…), may it be for the portrayal of Erik, Christine, Raoul, Mme Giry and Meg, though Erik's disfigurement is 25th anniversary-based, his past Kay-based, and Philippe and the Daroga Leroux-based.

Disclaimer (goes on for all the other chapters): I do not own anything coming from Andrew Lloyd Webber's Phantom of the Opera, nor Susan Kay's Phantom, nor Disney's Frozen. Anything coming from Leroux's Fantôme de l'Opéra belongs to the public domain. Coverart by Skylilyart from Deviantart.

I freeze, I freeze, and nothing dwells

In me but snow and icicles.

For pity's sake, give your advice,

To melt this snow and thaw this ice.

I'll drink down flames; but so if be

Nothing but love can supple me,

I'll rather keep this frost and snow

Than to be thaw'd or heated so.

- The Frozen Heart, Robert Herrick

Prologue

In his bare hand, Erik was clutching the engagement ring against his heart. It was all that was left from her. All the music that she used to create in his mind, so he could give birth to it with a bit of ink on paper, was gone too.

It's over, now, the music of the night.

That sentence was just so true. Everything in him was empty. It was even worse than the time where he was mistreated by the gypsies, whipped just for the pleasure of hearing his screams, and seeing the twist of pain which appeared of his deformed face. It was even worse than when he had to please the Shah's mother by killing innocent people. At all these times, he felt so empty. It was like if his soul was gone. It was a terrible feeling. His soul was the only thing that actually convinced him that he wasn't just the monster that the woman who was apparently his mother had shown him once, in the mirror. And at all these times, with the gypsies, at the Shah's palace, he had felt like a beast or a monster, just good to be put on display and to amuse the gallery with cruelty. Really, it was nothing else that that.

But now, right now, the woman he loved was gone. Her voice, so ethereal, was gone also. And now, he just felt more cursed than ever. No one would ever love him. He was born to be alone forever. Maybe he wasn't even a man, like he always tried to convince himself. Maybe he was just a beast, after all. No, not even that. A thing.

Yes, Christine was already quite frightened when she saw her face, her damned curiosity pushing her to unmask him. It was absolutely ridiculous from him to think such a thing, but he had hoped that she would have accepted it. Ignorant fool. He was the ignorant fool. After that came Joseph Buquet. That man always drove him crazy. Drunk, doing… stuff with not very prude ballerinas, terrifying the others and sometimes trying to abuse them when he was quite drunk, causing so much trouble to Antoinette Giry, and especially, too curious for his own sake. That man deserved to die. That was all.

Then Piangi… Well, he was sort of in the way. At first, Erik only wanted to knock him out for a while, just to take his place for the time that he needed it. Everything was just so perfect. The notes of the opera were all well in their place, the casting went just as he expected it to be, and now, he was going to seduce Christine for good, and in the perfect context. Yes, he saw it all with his artistic eye.

But let's just say that for Piangi, instead of knocking him off, he had hit the nape of the neck, breaking it and making him die. That was an accident. The poor man didn't really disserve to finish up like that. Especially that while he was running up with Christine, he could hear La Carlotta sobbing in the most insupportable way.

Talking about those murders… He could hear the angry mob coming up his way, towards his lair. For a moment, he wanted to stay there, and let all those people rip him into pieces. A quick death and all that pain was over. Then he looked around him. He looked at the Punjab lasso who had served to almost kill the fop a few minutes earlier. Then the Christine dummy caught his eye. Really, was he going to finish up like that, that miserably, after all he had been through?

No. He had to make that fop pay for what he did. After that, he could die in peace. He felt inside him that Erik Destler, the man who loved Christine Daaé, who was her angel of music, who wanted simply to be treated like a normal person, was gone. The Phantom of the Opera remained alone. And he wasn't done with his reign of terror.

With an evil smile, he finally got up, still clutching Christine's ring in his hand. With the other, he handled a lever which closed hermetically his lair with a special metal door. Lifting another lever, he caused the water in the underground of the Opera Populaire to gain level. The mob was going to be obliged to go back, or to get drowned.

Yes, the Opera Populaire hadn't heard the last word of him. That was for sure.

"We are so very grateful of all your help, Mademoiselle de Chagny. Your students, I am sure, will regret you very much."

Céleste de Chagny did a quick bow at the mother superior, with a little smile. Yes, she had actually enjoyed teaching for a year in that school, learning probably as much as her students did, though not quite in the same way. It had been a great experience, learning from the kindness and at the same time of the severity of the nuns. But at the same time, she was tired of wearing all those black, grey and brown dresses. She was in for a little more color, in the next few months…

"With all this, Mademoiselle, have you thought of your vocation?"

Céleste lifted her blonde head, taken aback by the mother superior's question. Yes, she had enjoyed her time passed here. But to become a nun was a different thing. She admired those women, who had the courage and grace to give entirely their lives to God and to the instruction of those girls. But for her, do that for the rest of her entire life? It was a sacrifice she wasn't willing to make. She had accepted, with her brother Philippe's pressure, to teach in that school. Their old aunt, in her will, had established Céleste as her only heiress, at the condition she would work for the convent as a teacher. A beautiful dowry and a great marriage were awaiting her if she accepted. And though she felt an inner rebellion which, of course, she didn't show, as usual, she actually took pleasure living with the kind nuns and their students, all so unique in so many ways.

She didn't need to answer. The nun, with a smile, showed that she guessed Céleste's inner thoughts.

"God can call us to stay in the world. And I hope you will do well in everything you do."

Céleste had a little smile.

"Thank you, Mother Marie-Anne."

Later, as the carriage drove through Paris, smoke lifting up in the air caught Céleste's attention. Soon, as she passed in front of the Opera Populaire, she saw that it had partially burned. Gasping, remembering that her younger brother Raoul was a patron there, she promised herself to ask him how all of that had happened.

But she had no idea of the surprise that was awaiting her…

A/N: Yes, this is sort of an alternate ending to POTO. Here, Erik doesn't go to the conclusion that "to love is to let go". For the needs of the story, he actually let Christine go for another reason… You'll see why soon. ;)