Kristin was able to find her father before any harm could befall him. She considered this a miracle and helped Arthur back through the woods to their cottage at the edge of Hogsmeade. She got him safely inside, put him straight to bed and began tending to him.
In the morning, after a few hours of sleep, she left her slumbering father and returned to the village. No one seemed to have realized she had been gone for nearly half a month, and life went on as it had the day her father left for the Ministry. She fell into some sort of depression, falling back into the same old, same old. That's what had intrigued her about life at the castle—there was something new to discover everyday.
But she put the thoughts of the castle—and Severus—far from her mind as she hurried to the nearest mediwitch. She hoped this one would help her father, since flooing St. Mungo's always cost more for distance traveling. Luckily, the mediwitch was willing to help Arthur, and for an affordable price, too.
Kristin and the mediwitch hurried from the town. Before leaving, Kristin noted she saw Peter on the street, but thought nothing of it. After all, he wasn't the one interested in her—his crazy friend who couldn't get it through his thick skull Kristin didn't like him was. But she didn't notice Peter slip into Madame Rosmerta's.
The mediwitch had left the cottage before nightfall. She said Arthur hadn't been fully recovered when he went back out into the bitter cold and his illness had struck with a vengeance. She prescribed some potions to help the man and left it to his daughter to brew it. The mediwitch, though, immediately administered a pre-brewed potion and stayed to make sure it took effect.
Now, at nightfall, Kristin sat brewing her father's medicinal potions, remembering the times she kept Severus company. She wished he was there in the cottage with her now, just so she could have somebody to talk to.
But her father was stirring, startling her from her reverie. "Papa?" she asked, rushing to his side. She sat down on the side of his bed as he sat up.
"Where—where am I?" he asked, slightly dazed. Probably an after effect of the potion.
"We're home," Kristin said. "In our cottage near Hogsmeade." She added that last part in just so that her father didn't think they were still living near London.
Arthur's daze finally seemed to lift as he looked at his daughter. "Kristin? You're back!" he said triumphantly. He hugged his daughter with whatever strength he had left. "How did you escape?" he asked, suddenly aware what her presence meant. "Tell me everything!"
"Papa, calm down! You were terribly sick and I think the mediwitch would kill me if I got you all excited," she said, pushing her father back down onto the pillow. "Besides, I didn't escape. He let me go."
Arthur, refusing to go down, sat back up. "That monster just let you waltz right out of his castle?" he asked, a darkness coming over his face.
Kristin, realizing her father wouldn't lie back down, sighed. She also thought it odd her father chose to use the word waltz after the previous night. "Well, in all honesty, yes," she replied. "But he's not a monster. He's really kind deep down—he let me go to save your life!" Kristin explained.
"What?" Arthur cried. "How would either of you know I was sick and lost in the woods?" Kristin sighed and went over to her pack. Inside sat her favorite book—untouched from the time she left the cottage—and the mirror. She picked up the mirror and brought it over to her father.
"Severus—the Beast—noticed I wasn't happy," Kristin said. Wait, that really wasn't true, she thought. I was happy, I was just missing you. But she continued on, too late to change her choice of words. "And when he asked me why, I said it was because I wanted to see you. So he gave me this and I was able to see you in the woods."
She handed the mirror to her father, knowing enchanted muggle objects intrigued him. But he didn't focus too much on the mirror at that point. "He just noticed? What he was up in the North Tower one day, noticed you looking sad and asked his prisoner why?" Arthur said, still seething with anger.
"No, no," Kristin stammered out. "I wasn't in the cell you were. I wasn't in a cell at all—I guess the castle staff convinced Severus to put me in a bedroom in the castle. And he noticed my sadness when—when—" Kristin didn't know what to say for when. When we were sitting out on the balcony and I was pretty sure he was going to confess his love for me? Or was that last part just some wild part of my imagination fueled by my books? But she had to continue and settled on a good answer to when. "When we were eating dinner together."
"You ate with that creature?!" Arthur was beyond livid. "How were you to know you weren't dessert?"
Kristin chased the perverted meaning she stuck to the word dessert from her mind and focused on the one her father meant. "Because he's not a cannibal," she said, quite flatly. Her father just laid among the pillows his daughter had surrounded him with, still spewing quite noisily about Severus.
"He's a monster and an oddity. He locked me in a cell in a tower—wouldn't that be what his dungeon was for?" Arthur asked, still hurt over the fact he had been a prisoner.
"No, he uses the dungeon as his own personal rooms," Kristin replied. When she heard her father gasp, she realized she had said it aloud. He wasn't supposed to know that! If he thought Severus was going to eat her when she told him about the dinner, what would her father say now that he knew his daughter had been in the Beast's private quarters?
Arthur's face was white as he spoke to his daughter. "You were down there? Was he there?"
"Yes," she stammered out. Defining moment: tell her father the partial truth or the whole truth? "It was forbidden, but I still managed to end up in there. And he would sometimes let me down because he needed my help with his potions."
"Were you alone? Together?"
Kristin didn't know what to respond to this. Most of the times she and Severus were alone in the dungeons, but there were the various times Mrs. Weasley popped in to check on the two. Did she tell her father yes, we were alone; no, we weren't alone; or yes, but occasionally someone popped in. And would she admit she had been in his bedroom alone with him? Her father would go off and she would never get to explain that it was just long enough to get the mirror and that nothing had happened.
Her pause was making Arthur more agitated by the silent minute. "Well, Kristin, were you?" he pressed further.
But Kristin was spared the answer by a knock on their cottage door. She got up, praying it wasn't the mediwitch—what would she say if the witch wondered why Arthur was all worked up? My father thinks some Beast did something perversely wrong with me and yes, I mean an actually Beast.
Kristin opened the door a crack to see Mister Moody standing outside. She gasped, knowing full well what the man ran. She slammed the door immediately and rushed to her father's bedside.
"Papa, did you tell anyone about Severus?" she asked him.
"Who?" Arthur asked, confused. "And who was at the door."
"Severus is the Beast, Papa. Now answer my question. Did you tell anyone about what you saw at the castle?"
"Yes, I did." Arthur looked at his daughter, rage subsided. "I needed to rescue you, but knew I couldn't stand up to that monster. So I asked Sirius for help—he's a nice young man interested in you—but everyone just brushed me off."
"Oh they didn't brush you off," Kristin replied. "They think you're crazy! And Sirius isn't a nice young man, he's a creep. He's probably the reason why Alastor Moody is standing on our doorstep!"
Arthur sat up even more than he did when he was interrogating his daughter. "What? Alastor Moody, as in the curator of the Hogsmeade Institute for the Crazy? Oh, maybe it's not for that. Just go and ask him what he wants."
Kristin, concerned for her father, got back up and went to the door. Moody was still standing there. "Um, hello," she said. "May I help you, sir?"
"Yes, I'm here in regards to your father," the man replied, in a voice that would spook even a ghost.
Kristin stepped up closer to the man, to show she wasn't going to yield to his request. "My father is not crazy," she defended.
"I'm afraid your neighbors think otherwise," Moody said, stepping aside. Kristin could now see his wagon and that it was surrounded by all the villagers. Peter stood out foremost in the crowd, Kristin noted as Moody continued on. "They believe he needs proper care."
"Like you're going to give it to him! And why do they think he's crazy?" Kristin demanded.
"We all heard him raving in Madame Rosmerta's," Peter said. "He was going on and on about some Beast having you trapped in a castle."
Moody smiled. "So, you see, my dear, your father does need care for his condition," he said.
"My father's condition is the fact he is a physically ill man who is being slandered against by his own neighbors!" Kristin yelled, pulling out her wand.
"Expelliamus!" Moody yelled. Kristin's wand was yanked from her hand and held onto by the man. "Now, if you don't mind, we need to get your father. Excuse me." With that, Moody pushed his way into the cottage.
Kristin looked over the side of her stairs to see Sirius in the shadows. She ran up to him and demanded, "Tell them that this is all a big misunderstanding! I know you are behind this some how!"
Sirius shushed her. "Of course this is all a big misunderstanding, but how dare you insinuate that I planned this!"
"I didn't insinuate, I flat out accused you of it!"
"Calm down, my dear," Sirius said, placing his arm around her shoulder. "There is a way I can fix it. Just say you'll marry me and I'll call off Moody."
Kristin thought she was going to gag. "Never," she said, through clenched teeth. Sirius pulled away with a huff and walked to where Moody held a squirming Arthur, who was dressed in a white straight jacket. Kristin ran forward, shouting her protests, but the only villager who joined in was the mediwitch, complaining that this wasn't good for the man's health.
Fed up, Kristin dashed inside and darted around looking for something to help her father. That blasted curator still had her wand, so she couldn't hex him into the next century. The only thing she could see though was the mirror, discarded on the floor. It had probably fallen when Moody had wrenched Arthur from the bed. Kristin knelt and picked it up, examining for any scratches or to see if it were broken. It wasn't and it was her only hope.
She returned outside to see that Moody was about to curse her father to subdue him, Sirius ready to help. She was going to prove her father wasn't crazy—sorry, Severus, she thought. "My father isn't crazy!" she yelled, catching everyone's attention. "Show me the beast!" With that, the mirror glowed green, quieting all the villagers.
Sirius was furious. She had refused him again and now was going to prove her father was sane using a mirror? Maybe he should have Moody lock up both of them—Kristin was obviously out of her mind as well. Hadn't the Gryffindor Sisters always said that after the many times Kristin had turned him down?
But what he saw in the mirror...the old man was telling the truth! A monster, a beast, stood staring melancholy out a window. He heard the town gasp as they saw the creature.
"Is he dangerous?" one woman asked Kristin, frightened and holding onto her children.
"Oh, no," Kristin assured the woman. No? This proved even more that she was mad, Sirius thought. "I know he looks frightful." No kidding. "But he's really kind, once you get to know him." She knows that—that thing? And it sounded like she cared.
"If I didn't know any better, Kristin, I would say you have feelings for this freak of nature," Sirius said, coming up behind Kristin.
She turned around and stared him down. "You don't know any better," she retorted.
"He's a monster, Kristin," Sirius pressed further, trying to ignore her earlier insult.
Kristin pulled away from the man. "He's not the monster, Sirius, you are!" she yelled. This pushed Sirius to the brink. He would show her who the monster was!
"Accio, mirror!" he yelled. With that, Kristin's mirror was now in his hand. "She's crazier than her father," Sirius said to the crowd. He loved how they always listened to him with rapt attention. "I've hunted wild animals and this beast is no better. He'll come into our village—eat our children!"
"He's NOT a CANNIBAL!" Kristin yelled, frustrated with the situation.
"He'll destroy our houses! Kill us all in our beds under the cloak of night!" Sirius continued. Merlin, I am good, he thought as the crowd began to pulsate with anger and fear. "I say, we're not safe until his head is mounted on my wall!"
"Kill the Beast!" Peter cried in, standing next to his friend suddenly. This cry unleashed the furor of the crowd and in that instant, they became a mob.
"We will go to the castle and deal with him!" Sirius yelled. "Who is with me?"
With cries of "I am!" coming from the crowd, the men of the village began to swarm towards the castle. Kristin wondered for a moment how they knew to make for the Forbidden Forest, but was stopped when Moody threw her wand back. He too soon joined the crowd.
When everyone had left from their yard, Kristin dashed back into the house. She re-emerged, cloak over her shoulders, wand at the ready and bag thrown across her chest. "I have to go warn him!" she cried. "I can't let them kill him. That would be nice way to repay him for his kindness. Thanks for keeping me in your castle and befriending me. Now here's an angry mob to kill you."
"I'm going, too," Arthur said. "And don't you complain or state health reasons. I almost lost you forever. I'm not losing again!"
Kristin sighed in defeat. "Fine. But we have to hurry so we can beat them with time to spare. Luckily, they're being led by limelight person who would take the long way just to make a dramatic entrance." With that, they left.
A/N: Hey, sorry this took so long...I just moved into college...terribly homesick but trying to combat it by getting involved...this all written, so I hope to update more frequently...Mac
