The Beast abandoned his chambers and stalked outside, where a few hours spent storming around the castle courtyards helped improve his mood slightly. He knew that Hermione was probably his best and only chance of ever regaining his humanity, but he didn't have the first idea of how to go about winning her love. At the moment, she didn't even like him. He paused by a small pool in the gardens, glowering at his own reflection. Irritably, he dipped one shaggy paw into the water to shatter the image, then lifted it, dripping, to clean the dirt off of his nose.
Hermione sulked by her fireplace for awhile, missing Harry and wondering about this strange new life she had accepted for herself. Certainly she was comfortable; she'd never lived in such a grand room, or been anywhere near a castle before tonight. The food at her dinner had been excellent. Everything about the place was perfect, in fact, except for her host.

She considered the Beast briefly. Logic, which was ever Hermione's friend, told her that unless she wanted to remain in complete solitude for the rest of her life, her only choice was to learn to tolerate the creature's presence. He'd been relatively pleasant at dinner, seemed anxious for her comfort, and as far as hideous beings went, he wasn't that awful to look upon. There had been something curious about his eyes, the one attractive feature he possessed; something untouchable seemed to rest in their depths, a kind of ancient longing for...what? She shook her head. She had no patience for mysteries, not tonight. Whatever the Beast's secret was, he was well pleased to keep it and she would simply learn to coexist with him.

He did say she could go wherever she liked, except the third floor. What was on the third floor?

She shifted restlessly in her chair. If only she'd known what she was coming to when she'd left home, she would have brought one or two of her favorite books along for company. Suddenly Hermione brightened -- surely, somewhere in this gigantic castle, there would be a library! There had to be at least one book in some dusty chamber someplace. She would go and find it.
Hermione might have walked for hours, she had no idea. She'd climbed up and down so many stairs, she didn't know where she was or how to get back to her tower. Everything she passed was beautiful -- ornately framed paintings, elegant statuary, handsomely carved furniture. But not a single bookcase seemed to be rotting in a corner.

It is more likely than not that she was merely lost when she turned the handle on the door to the third floor chamber.

The room in which Hermione found herself was a total disaster. Things were overturned, smashed, disheveled. Cobwebs dangled here and there throughout the dusty chamber. More than once, as she walked through the room, she almost tripped over a broken chair or table.

There was one picture hanging on the wall. It had probably been a fine painting at one time, but it apparently had fallen victim to a massive tantrum of the Beast's, for enormous claws had viciously shredded the canvas. She strained to view the remnants in the darkness; she could make out most of the face of a young man, freckled and red-haired, with bright blue eyes and a slightly prominent nose. Hardly a comparison to Draco in the looks department, she supposed, but there was nonetheless something rather appealing about the face -- or rather, what was left of it.

She turned in the direction of moonlight filtering through a window, and gasped. There was one piece of furniture in the whole room still intact, a table. A small hand mirror lay on the table beside a glass dome. She approached it with caution and curiosity. Under the dome was a magnificent rose, gleaming in the moonlight, the blossom as red as rubies. She'd never seen a lovelier flower. True, a few petals lay scattered on the table; it was wilting slightly, she observed, and she wondered how it managed to be growing there at all. She stood and simply admired it for a moment; then, with more nerve than she would have thought she possessed, she picked up the dome and lifted it off of the rose. Setting it aside gently, she moved her hand to touch the flower.

A shadow fell across her. Looking up, she wondered how long the Beast had been in the room with her. She backed away slowly, horrified by the expression in his eyes.

He didn't speak right away, but seized the dome and put it back into place, still glaring at her. "I told you not to come here," he growled in a low tone. "Why did you come here?"

"I - I'm sorry, I -- "

"Do you have any idea what you could have done?" He was beginning to shout, and it scared her. She continued to back away and he abandoned the rose, moving toward her, shoving aside the broken furnishings in his path.

"Please, stop!" she cried.

"Get OUT!" he bellowed, smashing the nearest chair frame for emphasis. She fled, and he suddenly stopped shouting.

"Oh, no," he muttered, dropping his face into his palm.
Hermione, blinded by panic, managed to find her way down to the main foyer. Still imagining that the Beast was right behind her, she dashed out into the cold. There was a small paddock in a side yard, where the castle's invisible servants had stabled her horse for the night; she didn't stop to wonder at this, but hauled herself up onto his back and galloped him out of the gate.

The woods were thick with night, the light of the moon barely filtering through the darkness. She had no idea where she was, or where she should go; she chose a path at random through the trees. She reined in sharply, trying to calm down enough to get her bearings, when an acrid smell reached her nose. Turning slowly in the saddle, she saw a massive shape moving closer.

A troll.

She was trapped. The horse was wild with terror at the sight of the foul creature, his whinny so shrill it was like a human scream. He reared back on his hind legs repeatedly, and Hermione slid to the ground. The horse continued rearing, his reins tangling around low branches, and Hermione jumped up to try and calm him. The troll edged closer, a heavy club gripped tightly in one hand. She watched, horrified, as he neared her and lifted the club.

A loud, low growl from behind it made the troll pause and turn. Another large shape flew through the air, knocking the troll off balance and wrestling it to the ground. It took several seconds for Hermione's frightened mind to grasp what was happening: the Beast had followed her, and was fighting the troll to save her.

It was a well-matched fight. The troll was larger and perhaps stronger than the Beast, and its club was wicked, but the Beast had claws and teeth and, fortunately, intelligence. The blood of the troll was black, ugly stuff, and the ground was drenched with it by the time the Beast stood up and looked at Hermione. He'd taken several blows from the heavy club, and looked exhausted and shaky; his right arm was bleeding freely.



It took all of Hermione's own wits and strength to get herself, the Beast, and the horse back to the castle. She'd thought, briefly, of continuing in her bid for freedom, but it seemed cruel to abandon the injured Beast after he'd killed a troll to protect her. She stabled the horse as quickly as she could, then guided the Beast back to the foyer, where she made him rest by the fire while she attempted to tend his wounds. It was not an easy task; he didn't want to let her near his bleeding arm with the hot water and bandages she'd found waiting there.

"That hurts!" he snapped, when she'd tried yet again to clean his cut.

"Hold still, and it won't hurt so much!" she snapped back.

"This is your fault. If you hadn't run away, this wouldn't have happened." He glared at her, but he was no longer shouting.

"If you hadn't screamed at me, I wouldn't have run away!" she replied hotly.

He frowned. She had a point, and he didn't want to admit it. "Well, you shouldn't have been on the third floor!"

"Well, you should learn to control your temper!"

The Beast couldn't think of anything to say to that, so he sulked. Hermione took his arm -- gently, he noticed. "Now, hold still," she said, still a little testy. "This might sting a bit." She saw him trying to brace himself for the pain, and setting aside the desire to giggle at his expression, she said simply, "Thank you for saving me."

He looked at her, surprised but pleased. "Uh, well, you're welcome." Again she had the feeling that he would have blushed if he'd had skin.

She still didn't exactly like him, Hermione thought later, but he had his good points. And after having seen the troll, she definitely found the Beast less repulsive than she had before.
Hermione and the Beast discovered, over the next few weeks, that they quarreled. A lot. Usually it was mild. The Beast's table manners were sadly lacking, and Hermione took it upon herself to correct this, which he didn't appreciate too much.

"If I'm going to take meals with you, I expect you to eat properly so I don't lose my own appetite," she admonished him.

"What difference does it make how I eat?"

"The difference is that you don't live by yourself anymore, and I can't stand to watch you shoveling food down your throat!"

The Beast had surprised himself by giving in to her. His big paws had great difficulty wielding cutlery, however, so Hermione had settled for watching him eat as neatly as it is possible to do without knives and spoons. To his immense satisfaction, she declared herself to be quite pleased by the improvement. Perhaps it was for that reason that he continued to try to use silverware.
Hermione was startled to realize that she was growing to rather like the Beast. He was still rough and coarse sometimes, but she could see that he was trying very hard to be more genteel, and his efforts touched her. They walked together often, when the weather was fair, and talked, or didn't. He didn't say much about his past, and she didn't ask, but he found that he was sometimes good at making her laugh. She had a rich, warm laugh, like honey on toast, and when she smiled it illuminated her whole face. Occasionally she smiled at the Beast, for whatever reason, and something in his stomach did a funny turnover every time it happened. She opened up to him a little more, told him about Harry and their dead parents, and he could see her love for them reflected in her deep brown eyes. He would have given anything to have her look at him that way.

Only once did they touch on the subject of the third floor and her discovery of it. The Beast asked her what she'd been looking for when she went into the forbidden chamber.

"A library."

"What's that?"

She goggled at him. "You don't know what a library is?"

He frowned. "Maybe I used to know, but I've forgotten."

Exasperated, she asked, "Do you know what books are?"

"Yes, I think so."

"A library would have lots of them."



Snow began falling across the castle grounds one afternoon when the Beast took Hermione to an eastern wing of the castle.

"I have a, uh, surprise for you," he said. "Close your eyes."

She arched an eyebrow at him, a bit skeptically, but then closed them. He was delighted -- clearly, she'd come to trust him at least a little. He opened a door and, gently taking her hands, drew her inside. "Just wait," he said.

Hermione couldn't see yet, but through her eyelids she sensed the room growing brighter; the Beast moved around eagerly, throwing open drapes which had been closed for years. "All right," he said, "now you can open them."

She did so and gasped at once. Shelves upon shelves of books stood before her, ladders reaching almost to the high ceiling. Gilt bindings winked at her in the wintry sunlight. "I can't believe it," she exclaimed, turning around several times to view the entire library. "It's wonderful! I've never seen so many books!"

"You like it?" he asked hopefully.

"Oh, yes!"

A big grin split his face. "It's yours."

She turned to him, wide-eyed. "You -- you're serious?" He nodded. Impulsively, she caught one of his great hairy arms in a hug before scuttling off to climb one of the ladders to the higher shelves. "How can I ever thank you??"

The Beast stood below her, blinking in a sort of daze. "I think you just did," he said, quietly.



Coming up: The completely pointless and utterly non-sequitir musical number!