A Blanket Ban on Beedle
"Just think about it!" His Herbology Professor urged. "A Christmas pantomime! It's a tradition!"
Armando Dippet sighed nosily. "Very well, very well then…I'm not opposed to the idea, but what will this pantomime be?"
Herbert Beery beamed like a boy on Christmas morning. "It will be traditional of course! A classic story, we will be doing a pantomime of one of Beedle the Bard's!" He declared, snapping his head up and puffing out his chest, holding the pose for a moment too long.
The Headmaster blinked. "Oh well then, I suppose that should be fine…but which one?" He inquired in that feeble voice of his.
"The Fountain of Fair Fortune of course." Professor Beery spoke, his voice suddenly gone tender, his eyes closing for a brief moment as he probably remembered a time when his mother had read him the story(a person has a motivation for everything, you know, it's the first rule of acting!). "It's a favorite and it will encourage better relations with muggles and our own muggleborn students in these dark times." He asserted vigorously.
"Oh, very well, I suppose so…you'll be in charge then, Herbert…and have it ready for Christmas," Headmaster Dippet vaguely ordered as he shuffled off.
Professor Herbert Beery was the Herbology teacher at Hogwarts and was a future professor at W.A.D.A. (Wizarding Academy of Dramatic Arts). Until he got there though, you could be assured he would take all pride in Hogwart's first Christmas Pantomime and it's first theatrical production ever.
A week later, when the students returned to school and at the end of his "Beginning of the School Year" speech, the Headmaster finally got to mentioning, "And this year, Professor Beery will be directing a production of 'The Fountain of Fair Fortune', auditions to held in two weeks," before he moved on to Quidditch trials, but Herbert beamed as if a mob of reporters were there to excitedly announce that he had been announced the World's Greatest Director.
Professor Beery bounced all the way through his lessons in those two weeks and he offered house points to whoever could finish the line and no homework to anyone who showed up auditions.
The first auditioner was a Hufflepuff girl, a Fifth Year. Herbert had them come in one by one so he could have them audition privately. The moment she closed the door, Celestina spun around and broke out into tap dance and then she opened her mouth and began to belt it out.
"I've always wanted to be a star
I've always wanted to sing and shine!
So I'm willing to go far
If it gets me what is mine!
I'm gonna be the one on the stage
The one you clap for when she comes out—"
"STOP!" Professor Beery shouted as Celestina let out a high pitched note and shattered one of his plant pots. "Stop, stop, oh, you stopped." He said weakly as he got off his knees, holding the bedraggled plant, spilling dirt everywhere as the Hufflepuff smiled sweetly. "Yes well, Celestina, we are putting on a play—not a musical of any sort so no dancing or singing will be needed, thank you. "
Celestina's smile crumbled. "Just you wait!" She yelled as she stomped her metal shoes to the door. "Wait until I've graduated from W.A.D.A. and become a singer, you'll see!"
"Thank you Miss Warbeck!" Herbert called out after her. "Oh well…next!"
The auditions continued like that, although nobody showed up with tap shoes and an original song. Most of his students read lines from a script with him, although Miss Moon of Ravenclaw and Mr.'s Diggory and Macmillan both of Hufflepuff presented Shakespeare monologues.
"Will cry for vengeance at the gates of Heaven!" the girl cried out, her face betraying the bitter intensity that her character's might have assumed. Herbert Beery clapped delightedly.
"Astounding!" He declared as he scribbled some notes next to her name. "Yes, well done, Miss Moon!" The fair skinned girl broke her concentration and smiled as she swept out of the room, her waist-length hair following out behind her.
Professor Beery sighed as he went over his notes. All the auditions were done and he didn't know who he'd put where yet. Maybe he should have call-backs. Herbert's head bowed back over his papers and he mused over them more.
"I say Herbert, how is the show faring?" Horace Slughorn asked interestedly, his double chins wagging. "Have you found our leading ladies and their main man? I could put in a good word for them with William Hathaway—director and Head of W.A.D.A., always searching for the next big star—and they'd get a full scholarship." Herbert sighed, but good-naturally. Perhaps Horace could put in a good word for him…
"Horace, my old friend," Herbert offered with a pat on the back to remind Horace of his friend the Herbology Professor who loved the stage, oh please mention that to Hathaway! "I've found talent all right—I just don't know who should be who." He confessed as he leaned back in his chair.
Slughorn smiled as he snatched up Beery's notes. "Why don't I take a quick look and see…two heads are better than one after all!"
Horace Slughorn puzzled over Herbert's notes before he frowned, his mustache rounding so each tip touched the other. "Why have you thrown out the idea of making Mr. Black our Sir Luckless?" He asked curiously as he wrote something that looked suspiciously like scribbles over Diggory and Macmillan.
"I'm not going to lie, Horace, but Alphard possesses no acting ability and I don't think he took it very seriously while—"
"Ahh but Herbert!" Horace interrupted as he wagged a thick finger at him. "Mr. Black is currently courting Amalthea Selwyn and you have her here down with Misses Moon, Hornby and Rosier for the part of Amata and you and I both know the story well enough to know that Sir Luckless and Amata fall in love by the end of the story!"
"Yes they do but—"
"Picture it Herbert! What a connection they'd have onstage, how much more realistic and dramatic it would make you show!" Herbert stood up then and took back his notes, which he stared at and made a few more scribbles on.
"Well, that would be true…and I do want my cast perfectly in tune. And I suppose that Miss Hornby, if she were to play her, then that would be more dramatic, from sickness and ugly to health and beauty while Miss Moon could be…"
The Fountain of Fair Fortune
Cast List:
Asha……………Olive Hornby
Altheda…………Cynthia Moon
Amata……………Amalthea Selwyn
Sir Luckless………Alphard Black
Narrator………… Ian Macmillan
The morning the cast list was posted, several girls bore red eyes and crumpled handkerchiefs. Poor homely Myrtle Clearwater was glaring through her tear-streaked glasses at Ravenclaw towards a preening Olive Hornby.
"Is everyone here? Settle down, settle now, Alphard please refrain from touching your cast in such a manner even if Miss Selwyn is your girlfriend." Professor Beery babbled. Alphard and Amalthea pulled apart from each other with a disgusting squelch that sounded similar to a frog's ribbet.
"Now then," Beery began eagerly. "For our first practice, we'll just read the play I have written out of the story, block it—"
"Block?" Olive Hornby interrupted as she thrust her short neck and rather large chest out as if she wanted to prominently display it.
"Block is a theatre term meaning to stage or to plan out where you might walk or move to, if you should pick up a prop there or what else, Miss Hornby." Professor Beery explained brightly. "Now everybody take a script and we will start with you, Ian."
Ian Macmillan opened to his page and began to read with as much expression as possible, letting his voice fill with power and radiate as it rose. "High on a hill in an enchanted garden, enclosed by tall walls and protected by strong magic, flowed the Fountain—"
"Less emotion please, Macmillan, you are only a narrator not a knight speaking to his lover," Herbert sang out. Ian twitched painfully and continued on.
"…Three witches, each with her burden of woe, met on the outskirts of the crowd and told one another their sorrows as they waited for sunrise." There was a significant pause. "AS THEY WAITED FOR SUNRISE," Ian repeated himself with a shout. There was no reply.
"It's your line, Miss Hornby," Beery hissed through gritted teeth. Olive's head jerked back from Alphard to her script, her blonde hair settling perfectly in place.
"I am Asha and I suffer umm, grievously with illness that no Healer could heal, no potion could cure. I hope that the Fountain might banish my symptoms and grant me a long life," she read, wrinkling her nose and batting her eyelashes. The Ravenclaw witch next to her continued on smoothly, needing no prompt.
"I am named Altheda and I was robbed of my home, all my gold and worst of all, my wand by an evil sorcerer. I came seeking the power of the Fountain to relieve me of my poverty and grant me back my powers." As she finished, she nudged Amalthea, who jerked herself out of Alphard's grasp in surprise before she read off her line.
"And I am Amata, and was deserted by my love. Without the Fountain I fear my grief and longing shall never end." She completed before she sunk back into Alphard's grasp again.
"The three Witches pitied each other and agreed that if they be chosen, they'd try to help each other," Ian read on, his Hufflepuff loyalty keeping him to his role as the lowly Narrator although he could have been Sir-Luckless-who-had-yet-to-appear-in-this-show.
Outside of rehearsals and classes, Herbert bothered the other teachers for them to help pitch in. He found Albus agreeable to do special effects in making a grass hill and a working Fountain with a bit of transfiguration and Silvanius Kettleburn offered to find a giant worm for one of the more dramatic scenes of the show which Herbert agreed to as he pictured a flobberworm grown to a larger size.
After a bit of pestering, Marchbanks of Arithmancy agreed to make costumes and Professor Tofty built a revolving wall that Herbert lavished with Devil's Snare after he assured the Headmaster he'd be there to carefully direct the Snare into letting his prey go with both Heating spells and Lumos.
As the next two months passed by, Ian worked harder and harder to memorize the entire show, especially Sir Luckless's part. Alphard showed up to every rehearsal though, accompanied by Amalthea whom during every break would immediately resume snogging each other.
Cynthia Moon proved to be the production's leading lady in her beautiful portrayal of Altheda the wandless, so much so that after the pratice that Horace 'invited' himself to, he promised to call William Hathaway and have him see Cynthia.
"Everybody grab hold and pretend that the Devil's Snare if lifting you over the wall for now," Director Beery instructed. Olive grabbed on to Alphard around the waist, her fingers grasping the seat of his pants as Alphard grinned at her and held Amalthea against his chest in the opposite direction so she wouldn't see Olive and him.
"Very good now…then Ian will speak, Kettleburn's flobberworm appears and then 'PAY ME THE PROOF OF YOUR PAIN!'" Herbert Beery bellowed his cameo line as the Worm's voice.
Right on cue, Olive/Asha burst into loud, fake sobs and fell into Sir Luckless's arms, whom she clung too.
"Very good job, good job my dears!" Herbert Beery exclaimed as he clapped his hands together excitedly. "Well done!" His actors broke their composures as they turned to him. Herbert looked fondly at the scene he had created—the grass hill that moved under your feet and the trickling Fountain, the regal costumes they wore as Alphard pulled off his helmet and the girls all wore old-fashioned dress-like robes in green, blue and red. "Well done!" Professor Beery repeated himself. "Take care of your costumes and be back here tomorrow by three ready to perform!" He announced before setting off out of the Great Hall.
The girls and boys dressed seperately from each other, but Olive and Alphard was done changing and was out the Hall before Amalthea had started. She changed quickly before hurrying off after Alphard.
Olive let out a throaty moan as he nipped his way over her neck, his breath hot—
"Shush," he mumbled. "We don't want to be caught." His tongue sucked and they resumed snogging senselessly.
"Alphard! I thought I saw you—" Amalthea called out as she rounded the corner before stopping dead in her tracks, her voice breaking off as she caught Olive Hornby and her boyfriend necking in the corridor, neither of them noticing her yet.
A moment later, they both realized her presence too late as Alphard was wrenched upward, suspended in mid-air by his ankle as a snarling Amalthea Selwyn glared them down. Nervously, Olive ran off then, mingling with the students up ahead as they shifted into the Great Hall.
"Say, has anyone seen Alphard?" Cynthia and Ian shook their heads innocently as Olive pursued her lips and widened her eyes before shaking a 'no'.
Professor Beery moaned and paced again as Amalthea entered the tent propped up to keep the costumes and props in where they resided.
"My dear girl! Do you know where Alphard is?" Beery begged her desperately, his brow sweating. Amalthea's furiously rosy face twisted into something more neutral with a sinister smile that scared Olive.
"He can't be in the show tonight, Professor." Amalthea replied, her eyes darkening. "He's been hit by some nasty curses and he simply can't go on."
Professor Beery nodded solemnly before he tilted his head back and burst into wails.
"Professor!" Cynthia broke in. "Let Ian do Alphard's part too! He knows all the lines and he'd make a much better Sir Luckless anyhow."
Herbert Beery bolted upright and paused before rambling it off. "What a novel idea! Sir Luckless, being both character and narrator! It's Don Quixote-ic! Ian Macmillan," Beery declared. "Get into Alphard's armor, quickly now!"
"Ladies and Gentlemen," Headmaster Dippet said sleepily. "It's my p-pl-pleasure," he yawned audibly. "to introduce our Christmas Pantomime, The Fountain of Fair Fortune.
With a flick of his chestnut wand, the curtains rose upward and vanished, revealing a grand stone wall covered in creeping vines.
"High on a hill in an enchanted garden, enclosed by tall walls and protected by strong magic, flowed the Fountain—" Ian Macmillan the Narrator/Sir Luckless began. The Great Hall was silent, although everyone presented shivered as Amata the Loveless/Amalthea spoke, her voice filled with icy anger.
As the first scene came to a close, the four characters pressed themselves against the stone wall as the Devil's Snare snatched them up and curled tighter and faster around them as Professor Dumbledore quickly whipped out his wand and produced a grass hill that grew out of the wooden floor. Professor Beery crawled in behind the hill and pointing his wand at the creeping tendrils, he shot out a blast of hot air and the actors dropped from the wall on to the foot of the hill.
Professor Ketttleburn, stooped behind the hill, unlocked the cage door with some difficulty due to his missing two fingers on one hand and released the "giant worm" as it slithered up and over the hill towards the actors for the first time.
"Faint Heart! Draw your sword, Knight, and help us reach our goal," Cynthia covered for Amalthea, who didn't say her line. With a slight huff, Cynthia turned towards the hill and realized why Amalthea did not say her line.
An enormous, pale serpent stared down at them and rolling down the hill were three—four red rocks. Cynthia reached out to grab one to use as her prop weapon against the 'worm' and pulled away before she touched it, crying out as the heat seared her palms. "PAY ME THE PROOF OF YOUR PAIN!" Professor Beery demanded behind the hill and wall, a Sonorous charm throwing his voice.
Then, with a blast of sparks and hot dust, the ashwinder exploded. The Wall blew up too and grass burned as the wooden floors began to smoke and students began to scream.
"Pain?" Amalthea screamed suddenly. "I'll show you pain!" She shrieked as she yanked out her wand and turned on Olive.
Olive whipped out her wand and retailated another jinx as one flew by her and bounced off Ian's armour, knocking the Knight off his feet and down the hill as the jinx toppled the wall over. Professor Beery crawled out and stood up in horror as he saw the scene of fleeing students being evcuated by the staff, Sir Luckless rolling down the hill as Amata and Asha duelled.
"My dear girls," he cried out in alarm as he ran up the hill, panting as the hill never led him any closer, both girls continued to duel as they ignored him, poor Cynthia left cringing and ducking as she was caught between them wandless as her character had called for before she petrified still and rolled down the hill after Ian. "Cease—" but that was all he got out before a spell went awry and hit him. His head began to swell and grow, all the better to suit what Olive thought would fit Amalthea's big head.
The few students who had been too homesick to not be moved by the promise of a Christmas Pantomime walked into the Great Hall curiously. The Hall smelled of smoke, Professor Beery's head was swollen; but the only answer they received was from Headmaster Dippet.
"All future pantomimes are hereby banned from Hogwarts."
I got my copy of 'Tales of Beedle the Bard' for Christmas(which was very merry) and loved it, especially The Fountain of Fair Fortune and the notes on it! Although Christmas is over, I couldn't resist making a story out of Dumbledore's notes.
"Will cry for vengeance at the gates of Heaven!" is from King Henry the 6th, Part 1.
All descriptions and lines are from the Beedle book taken directly from Fountain of Fair Fortune.