Rather than coming across the dilapidated, frothing silver pool of distant memories on my own accord, I am violently thrown directly into a mirage of the Duke's rose garden. Only, it doesn't look like the Duke's garden… it's all decayed and grey, blanketed in a thin layering of early winter snow.
The only color that attracts my eye is at the very center of the garden. It's a single rose, desperately clinging to life, as its birch-like brambles grow from, much to my horror, the carcass of a doe. But not just any doe. When I notice the remaining tufts of red fur still glued onto the skeleton, which has adopted a sort of marble-like quality, I realize that this must be the carcass of the Duchess, trapped in her magical hind form. The Duke's golden arrow remains anchored between the ribs and shoulder blade where her heart ought to be.
The snow makes no sound nor is left marred by feet as I approach the calcified corpse and run my shaking hands across the ribs that have been laced with thorned roots. The rose bush is nowhere near as massive as I've grown to know it-far from, in fact-but the single rose blooming within the hideous mass of tangled brambles glows an ethereal light that soon dies, but then returns like a ghostly heartbeat.
The Duchess's heart? I think to myself, and then withhold a small gasp when a series of boots and high-stacked shoes crunching the snow echoes throughout the garden; they're fast-approaching. I turn and see the Duke followed by his court-the scarred wolf man and his pink-wigged wife, the laid-back, ragged dog man, the stern-faced cat woman, and even the ginger-haired army of servants-all dressed in black, forming what seems to be their own funeral procession.
The Duke's face is worn by several day's of scruff and lack of rest, the sallow skin underneath his red eyes a slight pink hue. He collapses before the corpse of his late bride-or rather, his trophy wife?-with a deadened thump, his hunting coat and breeches becoming engulfed in black as his cloak spills across the snow-laddened ground.
A slow, shallow breath escapes his body as he runs a-gloved-hand across the carcass's rotted, thorn-covered torso.
Oddly enough, the rest of his court seems more bereaved at the loss of their beloved Duchess-the loss of human life-than the Duke, who only seems to be mourning the loss of a potential heir.
The silence brought upon by the dreary winter atmosphere is made all the more heavier by the light snowfall, almost to the point where it's deafening, as the Duke's hardened stare glares upon the calcified corpse and the budding rose it houses.
"Ssseveruss Sssnape…" A whispering hiss then floats from somewhere between the falling snow and descends upon the court, startling them all and making them all look every which way for the voice's source. The Duke's already pale faces whitens even further upon the whispering of his own name.
Through the fogged snow, a great, tall figure begins to emerge, soon then revealing to be a cloaked figure atop a great stag as they begin to approach the Duke and the rotted doe.
The court yelps in fright and all cling to each other, some even beginning to run back towards the castle with hysteric gaits. The Duke, however, remains in his spot, as the cloaked figure's crimson-red eyes are set firmly upon him and only him.
He staggers until he trips backward into the snow, only to continue his desperate, scrambling escape as the stag rears onto its hind legs and gives a great, bellowing scream. A familiar hatred burns in its deep brown eyes, which, too, are fixated solely upon the Duke.
"Ssseveruss Sssnape…" The voice hisses again, the cloak's hood lowering just enough to reveal a snow-white, red-eyed, noseless face of a creature caught between the worlds of man and serpent. His lips curl into a sickening grin, showing a mouth of pointed teeth as he runs a skeletal hand up and down the stag's thick, black neck. "I have heard rumorsss from dear Monsssieur Potter, here, that you," he then gestures to the rose growing from the doe's body, "ssslaughtered hisss bride-to-be without merc'ssy…"
A sudden flash of anger crosses the Duke's once-cowarded features and he glares up at the figure atop the stag. "What?!" He growls boldly. "She was my wife! HE," he crudely points to the stag, who returns such anger with a hateful snort, "stole her from me!"
"SSSILENC'SSE!" The figure snarls, fear forcing the Duke to revert back to the groveling coward he had been moments prior. Mere seconds later, his voice returns to it's sickeningly sultry hiss, "You sssee, Monsssieur Potter came to me sssome odd weeksss ago, pleading I give him a ssspell ssso he can free himssself and hisss beloved from a c'ssertain beastly Duke, ssso that they could live in peac'sse and raissse their child in the sssafety of my foressst…"
My mind reels back to the night of the Duchess and the Gardener embracing underneath the Duke's balcony, then to the mysterious berries the Gardener had procured from a pouch just moments before they had assumed the harmonious forms of stag and hind. This figure-this serpentine thing-must be where such magic had come from!
"Jussst yesssterday, Monsssieur Potter had returned to me with one final requessst…" The noseless man spreads his serpentine lips into a another macabre grin and a bright red, forked tongue flickers out to tickle the falling snowflakes. Then, slowly and with daunting grace, he points an accusatory claw at the quivering Duke. "To punish you!"
The Duke's hazel-and-golden eyes widen and his face pinches with fear as he scrambles back in the snow, his breath rising from his lips in spurts of grey, frantic mist. "P-Punish?" He whimpers, swallowing hard. He looks over his shoulder, his eyes pleading for any sort of rescue, but the blatant fear etched into his face exaggerates when he sees that his court is in one chaotic mass of black hurrying back to the castle with a maddening pace.
Sliding off the stag, running his claws across the creature's black mane and majestic antlers, and gliding across the snow in one smooth, slithering movement, the figure approaches the Duke, rising a frightened yelp out of the man, and extends a single talon towards him. "Ssseverusss Sssnape… may your bessstial nature be out asss it isss within…"
A sudden scream of pain tears through the air as the Duke's form begins to malform. Midnight black talons tear through gloves, seams of his coat strain as his back hunches and limbs elongate, and a strangled cough cuts through the scream as leonine teeth replace human ones.
In the distance, towards the castle, a horrendous choir of tortured screams devolve into the squawks of a myriad of animals as the court's bodies begin to twist into various feathered, furred, and scaled creatures. Some animals immediately escape into the forest, away from such madness, while others are left in a frightened stupor among the mountains of tattered gowns, frock coats, breeches, and shawls.
With a snarl, the Duke-now having adopted the Beast's cursed figure-stares up at the figure with sudden, feral hatred while his golden-brown hair and eyes darken into deadened, soulless, greasy shades of black.
The figure chuckles and gracefully steps back as his newborn monster ambles towards him, a mess of slashing talons, gnashing teeth, and torn clothing. He mounts his black steed with another laugh, "Only one willing to love and marry you of their own free will can sssave you-and your beloved court-from your damnation, Ssseverusss Sssnape!"
With another despairing roar, the Beast lunges forward, falling onto all fours as he tries to pursue after the cackling figure galloping away upon the black stag.
The Beast collapses into a pool of black when he stumbles over a torn piece of his cloak, and releases a despairing, bestial wail into the winter air, mingling with the echoing, evil laughter of the hooded warlock and the hopeless cries of his cursed court.
#
The moment my eyes snap awake, I bolt into an upright position with a harsh gasp, startling Papa awake as well.
"Hermoine? Whatever's the matter?" His question is groggy as he reaches to light the candle on the nightstand between our beds as the cottage remains bathed in darkness.
I only continue to stare straight ahead into a dark void filled with the lingering remnants of my dream. The haunting images of the crimson-eyed warlock and the Duke's grizzly transformation rise another shaking breath out of my lungs.
The Beast's hideousness that I've grown to love has been a punishment… and my love for such ugliness could set him free! My heart begins to thrum wildly against my ribcage, and the corners of my lips tickle with the urge to smile. What excites me is not the fact that my affections would be awarded by a handsome face, but rather the fact that the Beast can finally find some sort of peace with his curse being broken.
"I-I must return to the Beast!" I cry, almost laughing with elation, while throwing my blankets aside and onto my confused father. Crookshanks, suddenly comprehending my words, howls in shared excitement and bolts downstairs, only to begin an obsessive pacing before the door.
I don't even bother dressing myself or brushing my hair, instead only retrieving a shawl for warmth, before I pursue after my feline companion.
"What?! Hermoine, no!" He cries after me, but I ignore him.
I take off across the yard after Crookshanks and, together, we mount the anxious mare in a single, unified movement.
"Hermoine!" Papa's figure, still glad in his nightshirt, fills the patio as I spur the mare's sides, causing her to leap proudly over the fence before pacing before the porch. Papa looks up at me with pleading eyes, but there is something that's borderline comprehension deep within those pools of brown. "Hermoine…" He pleads.
I duck my head with a saddened purse of my lips. "Forgive me father," and, with that, I whisper "Take me to the Beast." into the mare's ear, and we disappear into the creeping mist of early dawn.