Disclaimer: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. The plot is from Disney's version of Beauty and the Beast and any other things specified, and I'm not making any profits from this fic.
AN: It's been just over five years since I last updated this fic, and it's only thanks to Kite1011 that I even considered the notion of looking back on it. My writing style has changed so much… I wonder how obvious it will be in the following chapters.
And oh, how I miss my beta, Irene. Unfortunately, we lost contact shortly after I last updated. I would hate to ask anyone else to be my beta, after Irene stayed with me so faithfully through the first six chapters, so please excuse any errors you might find in the following chapters. I will try my best to proofread! Also, I was always so appreciative of Irene helping me to put this story into the British spellings. Without her, I'm afraid I've just grown too accustomed to using the Americanized versions, so this is the format that the story will use from now on.
Enjoy!
"Hermione?" Ron called out as he pushed the door open, hearing nothing but its responding creak. "It's strange that she left her door unlocked," Ron muttered to Harry and Ginny behind him. He stepped inside and paused on the threshold, examining the interior.
"I'll check her room," Ginny announced as she made her way down a corridor to the left. "Hermione," she called out. "Tell me you're not still asleep!"
"I wonder if she's ill," Harry mused, striding into the kitchen.
"She would have sent notice to us somehow," Ron countered.
"True," Harry admitted. "But not unless she didn't want us to sacrifice the party plans to come look after her?" Harry paused. "But no, she would have at least told us not to worry." Ron glanced at him, brows furrowed. He had just opened his mouth to say something else to Harry when Ginny emerged from the hallway, her boots tromping quickly on the floor.
"She's not here," Ginny said, forcing her voice to stay light. "She's not in her bedroom, nor the washroom, nor the sitting area." She turned to Harry, looking for an answer, and Ron followed suit. Something isn't right, he thought. Harry steeled himself, and swallowed.
"Perhaps she's outside," he suggested. "In the chicken coop or tending to the horses. Maybe she's just running a little late with her chores, and needs some help."
"She would've seen us coming up the road," Ron said quietly, his mouth hanging open as his forehead creased in consternation. He looked to the back door and sprung toward it without another word, yanking it open and bursting into the backyard. "Hermione!" Ron called out as he ran to the coop. Harry and Ginny followed, nearly running as they ran to and fro around the property, calling out Hermione's name.
"This is silly," Ginny said, coming to a halt. She didn't quite seem to believe herself as she said, "Hermione is probably just buying some supplies for the party—she may already be on her way there now, as we sit around up here like fools." She looked to the sky, squaring her shoulders and searching the clouds. "She has to be." Harry had come to a stop, as well. Ginny whispered, "Where else could she be?" Harry turned to Ginny, watching the way the wind whipped the flaming locks around her worried face, but didn't respond.
Ron came to a stop behind the stables, resting his hands on his knees as he worked to calm his ragged breathing. "I don't understand it," he whispered. "Everything's in order." He stood up, looking toward the cliff where Hermione liked to watch the sunset. Maybe she really is out in town and I'm just being sensitive about what happened yesterday. He sighed and brushed off some twigs and dust that had fallen onto his shoulders, admitting that perhaps they should head into town to see if Hermione might have paid a visit to one of the shops. Just as he was about to round the corner of the stables and head back toward Harry and Ginny, movement from the corner of his eye made him hesitate. On edge, he swung back around, only to find a dark horse trotting through the pasture.
"Oi, Auror, way to scare me to death, you big goat," Ron half-laughed. Then suddenly, the air escaped from his lungs. He stared at the pasture, willing his eyes to make Auror disappear. He didn't notice that Harry and Ginny had caught sight of Ron beyond the stables, and ran to join him.
"What's Auror doing outside?" Ginny asked, confused. "The pasture gate isn't even locked shut." Harry's shoulders grew tense.
"Hermione wouldn't leave Auror out in the night this late in November," he said while Ron continued to stare, fixated on the horse. "She babies them both too much."
"Something happened," Ron whispered. Ginny started.
"Ron, don't jump to conclusions," she said, though her voice sounded shaky. "Perhaps Auror just learned how to jump his stall, or open the door or something and Hermione doesn't even know he's still out here."
"Whatever happened, we'd best put Auror back inside," Harry said as he made his way to the pasture. Ron followed, a look of deep concentration on his face all the while.
As they lead Auror back to the stables, the three noticed that the horse was uncharacteristically cooperative, and even nuzzled the back of Harry's head, instead of playfully nipping his untamed hair. When it came time for Auror to enter the stall, Ginny didn't even have to lure him in with a carrot or oats. Ron shut the gate and locked it, while Auror seemed to watch with interest.
"Well, that's odd," said Harry, scratching the back of his head. "What do you think is up with him?" Ginny shrugged. Harry looked behind her and asked, "Where did Ron go?"
"Ron?" Ginny turned around. "I think he went outside."
And sure enough, Ron was standing near the gate of the pasture, with his hands in his pockets, and his face turned grimly toward the forest.
"Hermione went into the woods last night," he stated plainly when Harry and Ginny arrived. His face betrayed his calm voice. "I just have this feeling."
Harry and Ginny looked at one another, perplexed. Harry opened his mouth to say something, but he then felt Ginny's fingertips on his arm. He looked to her, and she gently shook her head. He turned to Ron's back once more, and then gazed upward at the expanse of trees before him.
"Let's check the town first," Harry said at last. "We'll ask around." He looked at Ginny, who was now examining the forest with trepidation. "If we can't figure out where she is from the townspeople, then the forest is the first place we'll look."
Ron said nothing, but continued to glare at the path among the trees.
"Blast," said Hermione under her breath as she closed the bathroom door behind her. She turned her head to the side and listened as Parvati and Lavendar's giggles continued on through the wood. At this rate, I'll never get another chance to look at that diary.
Hermione had been trying to sneak another peak at the book all afternoon, but had not yet been able to find herself alone. What with Lavendar and Parvati barging in to share gossip every ten minutes and Blaise and Dean constantly checking in on her every so often, Hermione was sure that she would only have enough time to think of the diary before she was interrupted again.
With one hand still on the handle, she fell against the door, resting her head on the molding and trying to get a grip on her swirling thoughts. It was Tom Riddle who made the great betrayal, Hermione mused as she bit her lip. But what happened? He was looking for the aid of a witch? Did he ask her to cast this spell on them? Hermione turned to the window. But McGonagall said that a gypsy placed the spell over the castle… are they the same thing? Riddle intended to kill the Prince, not transform him. Where did all of the people go? What happened to the King and Queen? She bit the inside of her cheek, desperately wishing to go back and snatch the diary up from underneath the floorboard.
"What a horrible man," Hermione whispered, thinking of Riddle. "He was against them from the very start… and they must never have even suspected." She ran a hand through her curly mane, knowing with certainly that her dressers would be highly distressed to know that it had already fallen out of the neat bun they had so meticulously created for her. "The Prince must have been devastated." She looked up to the ceiling, as if she might be able to sense the Prince's whereabouts, and examined the tiles with sad eyes. "He'd be even more devastated if he knew about this diary." Hermione tensed, suddenly worried.
What if he found out that I had found this evidence? And that I was reading all of the traitor's dark secrets? After that single encounter that we've shared, I doubt he would hesitate to take his anger out on me... Hermione gripped the door handle even more tightly. "What do I do?" she mouthed. "Do I tell Blaise or Dean? Even McGonagall doesn't speak his name…" She rested her eyelids, suddenly exhausted. "It won't do them any good to tell anyone about it, not yet," she told herself quietly. "It won't change anything that's happened, and it will only get me thrown in the dungeons… or killed… or brutally mauled." Hermione swallowed and pressed the heels of her palms into her closed eyes. "No one can protect me here," she whispered. "I have to protect myself." She slid her hands to her temples. "The servants can be as nice to me as they like, but they have no control over the Prince's decisions… I'm still his prisoner here." Her hands dropped to her sides, as the realization finally started to sink in. "I'm a prisoner," she repeated.
She felt her body slid down the door and she hit the ground with a dull thud, her hands falling limply into her lap. Her eyes were aimed toward the bathtub, but they saw nothing but a hazy mesh of colors. She was trapped in that castle, regardless of her newfound pleasant acquaintances or the luxury in which she slept. It did not matter how seasoned the potatoes were or how free she was to roam about certain areas of the castle for she was a prisoner, and just that morning before the diary had distracted her, she had been planning to escape.
"How could I have almost forgotten," Hermione mouthed disbelievingly to herself, as she sat crumpled on the bathroom floor. "I was so captivated by that awful diary that I wasted precious time—time I could have used to learn the castle layout." She shook her head, angry with herself. "And I never even found the materials for that map!" She tapped her fingers on the floor tiles. "I've been nothing but careless since yesterday. With the map, with the forest, with Auror—" And that's when the true weight of her situation came crashing down on her.
She had no idea what had happened to Auror. After all that happened in the forest the night before, everything that she had done to find him had been in vain, and now she was paying for it. She desperately hoped that he found his way back to her property, but she knew that there would be no way to know for sure until she returned home. But why on Earth didn't I just think like that before and prevent myself from getting into this whole mess? Auror is capable and intelligent—why did I worry so much? Hermione sighed. Even as she berated herself, she knew that she would never have been able to allow Auror to go into the forest's abyss without some attempt on her part to bring him home; he meant too much to her. She laughed, mirthlessly, and asked, "Do you know what you're doing to me, Auror?" She scoffed, and continued. "I just hope that someone finds you when you bring your sorry hide home and has the patience to lure you into the stables—"
Ron. Ron and Ginny and Harry.
Her hands quickly rose to her mouth, but whether it was an attempt to contain her gasp or to help prevent herself from vomiting, she wasn't sure. Suddenly, her stomach was raging in knots, and her head felt light. They would come looking for her, she realized once again. What would they think when she was nowhere to be found?
"Oh, Ron," she breathed. "What will you—what will you…" She held her head in her hands and felt her tears brimming at the corners of her eyes. "What if I don't find a way to make it out of here in time? What if the bank collectors take away my home and Auror and Ronan are sold and the Weasleys pronounce me dead and—"
Hermione gripped the hem of her dress, inhaling deeply and shutting her eyes against her thoughts. She couldn't think like that, not now, or she would surely break down and draw suspicion. She was surely growing all the more conspicuous now, as she sat in the bathroom whispering to herself for goodness knew how long. Hermione was suddenly grateful for the ladies' idle chatter, and knew that it was the only reason she had not been checked on as of yet.
"Get a hold of yourself, Hermione." She breathed deeply and gently dabbed at her eyes, checking to see that no tears had escaped. Gently, she pulled herself up to the mirror, where she inspected the damage. Bracing herself with the sink, she took yet another few calming breaths, and focused on acting out her cheerful demeanor once she returned among the servants. Staring at the mirror, Hermione drew herself up to her full stature, and swallowed. "I will not waste anymore time thinking on this diary or this traitor or this Prince." She looked to the door, and noticed that the prattling had grown louder. "I want to help my new friends, but my true friends need me more." She turned back to the mirror. "I need to escape, and from now on, that will be my full focus. There will be plenty of time to unravel later."
While in Ron's loving embrace? Hermione bit her lips as the voice from the back of her mind suddenly mocked her. She had forgotten about Ron's proposal, and she had no idea from where this awkward reminder had sprouted. What would she say to him when she returned?
"Miss Granger?" She heard Lavender call from the other room. "Are you all right?"
There will be time to figure that out later, Hermione nodded decisively. It won't matter what my feelings are for Ron if I never make it out of this castle.
Without further delay, Hermione made her way into the bedroom, managing a genuine smile as she entered. "I'm fine," Hermione said with as much pleasant conviction as she could muster. "And please, I asked you to call me Hermione." She stopped once she saw the gathering that was taking place on top of her comforter. "What's going on?" She looked around at the assorted bureaus and other objects huddled about her bed, all seeming to bubble with excitement. Lavender was beaming.
"Well," Parvati started suggestively. "It looks like you're in for a lovely surprise!"
"What do you mean?" Hermione cocked an eyebrow, looking curiously from object to object. She tried to stifle the sliver of anxiety that began creeping back into her thoughts.
"Hermione," Lavender began, literally teetering with excitement. Her drawers began rocking in and out of their sockets as she danced around the floor. "You've been invited to dine with the Master tonight!"
Hermione looked to the others, who were all awaiting her reaction with starved looks. Hermione paused, taking a moment to register this news, then smiled broadly and asked, "Oh? Is that so?" Before she knew it, the ladies on her bedspread had begun bombarding her wardrobe plans, hairstyle suggestions, and tips on how to soothe the Master's ego. Hermione nodded appropriately in all the right places, but used this time as an opportunity to organize her thoughts.
She would escape tonight.
AN: Also, I must have forgotten to credit Cynthia Heimel for her quote in the previous chapter. I love this saying and I wanted to incorporate it into the story somehow, for some reason: "When in doubt, make a fool of yourself. There is a microscopically thin line between being brilliantly creative and acting like the most gigantic idiot on earth. So what the hell, leap." Looking back on it now, it really wasn't relevant, but it meant a lot to me, and so I had Blaise use it. I also don't know what on Earth I was thinking with that prophecy. I know it made sense to me five years ago, but now I'm can't make heads or tails of it, so I went back and cut it out. I'll try to rectify this in upcoming chapters, as well.
This chapter is obviously much shorter than the previous chapters. I don't know if this will be the case from here on out, but I've learned from experience over the past few years that pulling out smaller portions of writing is much easier to manage than forcing myself to produce huge bouts of writing one at a time. It helps to keep myself motivated, and as I dearly want this story to eventually be finished, it's quite possible that this may happen.
Please let me know what you think! It's been a long time since I've really gotten into this fic and any suggestions or comments would be greatly appreciated!
