AN: I apologize for the long wait between updates: I have been very busy these past couple of weeks with finishing up my studies. Still busy with that, actually, but I could no longer ignore your pleas to continue.
Besides, it makes for some much-needed distraction ;-)
Please enjoy the next chapter and let me know what you think!
Beauty and the Beast by Mrs Skinner
Translation by SnapeSeraphin
Chapter 8 To be or not to be
He had briefly felt better, when the glass shattered against the door. After the first wave of anger on behalf of her unexpected tenacity had passed however, the agonizing thoughts and the revulsion of having her near him returned full force. What the hell was wrong with him, that he was no longer capable of spreading fear and terror?
He hadn't met the Granger girl very often, but he had always sensed a certain potential for fear in her; an icy look from grey eyes, face distorted with disdain, had done the rest. Alright, so she had still been a child then, inexperienced and easily scared. Now, the look didn't seem to work anymore and unfortunately he couldn't distort his changed face in the same fashion. Sighing, he buried his face in the pillow.
He wanted to be alone. He was unaccustomed nowadays to having people around, much less people afflicted with this damned helper-syndrome like she was.
He recalled once more her more than energetic performance earlier and despite the piercing unease he felt in her presence, he couldn't but admire her spirit and above all her courage. Not many people would have taken it upon themselves to return to the woods after such a harrowing experience and search for their ostensibly injured saviour. She even touched him. Right from the start her gaze lacked the disgust that he encountered so often in the looks of almost everybody he met and who spared only a glance for his deformed appearance. Their horrified looks struck him to the core: he must have been a vain man after all, proud of his good looks. The horrified looks, combined with disparaging remarks had led to him retreating into loneliness. And now there was a young female who was intimidated by neither his appearance, nor his dismissive manner... it was staggering.
His thoughts moved onto the rose, which spend its existence in a remote part of the house, in a normally sun-drenched corner room. He shook his head and pressed his misshapen hands against his temples, as if it would allow him to halt his hopeful thoughts. No, she would never feel more than pity for him. Besides, she was a part of the Potter-trio. If she discovered his true identity, she would turn away from him in the revulsion that his appearance seemed unable to generate. And what was more: the five-year period was all but over: he should bury the tiny spark of hope, just as he had buried all his other hopes and dreams. He was a bastard and didn't deserve anything else. It was a conclusion that had grown in him during the hardships and disappointment of the past years.
Another sigh from the depths of his heart disturbed the silence of the room. In spite of his whirling thoughts – that kept going back to Hermione Granger – he had reached a decision: he would tolerate her presence in his house, be it grudgingly, until he was well again. It's not as if she left him any other choice: she did whatever the hell she wanted to do anyway. But he also vowed that, as soon as he was physically able and capable of looking after himself, he would send her away. In case of her not respecting his wishes in the matter, he wouldn't hesitate to use physical force.
And so it came to pass, that from then on he allowed Hermione to take care of him. She did so admirably: she changed his dressings, very carefully to make sure she was hurting him as little as possible. She actually seemed to like preparing food and bringing it to him. He didn't protest as she started to clean the room from years of neglect, even taking on the filthy windows, so that suddenly he could see the sky from his bed and his lodgings weren't quite so dreary anymore. He assumed she was also cleaning other parts of the house, not in the least because he could sometimes hear all sorts of noises originating from outside his room and because she told him she was trying to revamp the mansion. He submitted to it without comment.
She was often there when he awoke in the mornings and kept him company until his eyes slid closed in fatigue in the evening. He sometimes wondered when she found the time to work or if she didn't have a life of her own, to be wasting almost her entire day with him.
Despite his still dismissive manner, she treated him with care and respect. When he discovered that she, no matter how disdainful and uncooperative his attitude got, never changed hers, he changed his demeanour little by little into something more courteous. It was simply too tiring to remain angry in the long run. The insults and squabbles they participated in were history after mere days and both of them tried their best to sustain their tentative relationship.
They had come to a silent agreement: she was allowed to tend to his wounds, however she never mentioned the fight with the wolves. He, on the other hand, never asked her about her family or other subjects pertaining to her life outside of his house; he supposed she would have liked to tell him more about herself, but then he would also have to reveal more about himself and that was absolutely out of the question. In the beginning, she had told him she was a teacher, living alone and that she didn't have a lot of friends. He was surprised that she, as one of the heroes of the war, hadn't pursued a promising career, but instead lived here, far away in the Muggle world. She didn't seem to stay in touch with Potter and company and, what surprised him most, she never used magic. He had searched through her backpack, which she usually left in his room when she went to the kitchen and there was nothing there, no wand, nothing at all magical in origin. She used the stove for cooking, heating it with firewood instead of just preparing his food by magical means. It gave him something to think about, but the solution to this little riddle wasn't so easy to come by and it wasn't as if he could ask her.
After a couple of days, Malfoy's wounds had started to heal and with that a certain helplessness took control of him. He wanted to get up, more specifically he wanted to go to the room with the rose and check if everything was alright. He had a suspicion that, seeing that the allotted time-period was rapidly elapsing, she wouldn't make a pretty picture. Surely she must have started to wilt by now...
Not knowing was worse, though, so he tried to get out of bed a walk a little way. After a couple of failed attempts, he postponed the hated, fateful trip to a later time.
Hermione of course noticed the former wizard's distress and decided to help him battle his apparent boredom. She had made regular tours of the house, during which she had also found the tower room where, unknown to her, Lucius kept his rose. On discovering that the door was locked, she had forgotten all about it. More importantly, she had found a sort of library: she had stood in the enormous room with her mouth hanging open in obvious amazement, as she took in the walls covered in bookshelves, filled with antique books. Time and the omnipresent dust had ensured that some of the books that she pulled from the shelves crumbled to dust in her hands. Others had become damp enough for the pages to stick together, or for the print to become completely illegible because of the water stains. She had kept on looking however and in the end had stubbornly unearthed a row of books which might actually still be read after she had cleaned off the dirt and grime that had been collecting on them for years. She was pleased to see that there was a substantial collection of Shakespearian publications. Being completely enamoured with the bard's work, she decided to read a little to the unusual man who was brooding away in his bed upstairs.
One very dismal afternoon, when it rained without pause and Hermione had decided to wait a little while longer, so as not to arrive home completely soaked, the time was ripe. Holding a book in one hand, she appeared at Lucius' bedside. The former wizard had turned his head towards the window and was morosely watching the raindrops as they spattered against the window pane and ran down the glass in little streams.
"Are you counting raindrops, or are you spending your time brooding again?" Hermione asked as she sat down in her usual spot: the chair next to Lucius' bed, where she sat as she watched him eat. With concern she considered the sunken cheeks in his pale and decidedly bleak-looking face. Despite the fact that he was doing better, he was far from being healthy.
He didn't look quite so intimidating or hideous anymore, she suddenly realised. After she had had to look at him and touch him repeatedly these past couple of days, her disgust caused by his misshapen body and hideous face had fallen by the wayside. She had touched his skin and it felt warm and alive. She didn't find his spidery, bony fingers with the long nails so repulsive anymore either. Regularly when she suspected he was in pain – the stubborn man not uttering a word about it of course – she took one of his hands in hers she and it was also warm, a little rough maybe, but not unpleasantly so. When they had a conversation, which didn't happen very often, his voice fascinated her. He didn't tell her anything about himself, what he did before, how he ended up here, whether or not he had family...nothing at all. They only exchanged meaningless trivialities. Likewise, he never inquired after her own life – not that she would have had anything noteworthy to report; it just continued on without much meaning, the only thing that had changed was that Michael was paying her even more attention than he already had. She had to tell him no all the time.
He was curious what occupied her time so much that she couldn't even afford to go and have a coffee with him. Despite that fact that she had liked him at first and he undoubtedly was pleasant to look at with his well-trained body, he was starting to become difficult and pushy. She didn't want to tell him what it was that caused her to leave as soon as her lessons were done, despite the distinct impression that he wouldn't allow her to evade him indefinitely. Once or twice she even thought that he might be following her...which was of course nonsense. Why would an attractive guy like that follow her around when he could get all the females he wanted? Females who, in contrast to her, would be overjoyed with him paying attention to them?
She firmly put the blonde sports teacher from her mind and concentrated on the puzzle that was Linus Manley. Manley, who had a deep, pleasant voice that had elicited many a shiver to run down her spine and whose shining, ice-grey eyes captivated her time and again. She had actually caught herself on the verge of drowning in their swirling grey depths. Like before, he looked absolutely revolting, what with all the bandages, covered in healing, pink scars and the messy, greasy gray hair, but she had learned to look beyond the surface and to see the man beneath all that; a man who could be gracious and gentlemanly if he so chose. A man who was undoubtedly intelligent and with whom one could have quite the interesting discussion if he felt like it. She had mentioned some general subjects a couple of times and had noticed that he felt right at home in the world of politics. It was apparent he enjoyed discussing the relations between power, politics and money.
In the evening, after she went home and lay in her bed, thinking, unable to fall asleep as terrible, recurring images plagued her, she saw this man, swinging his bat, pulling his knife, fighting like a madman to keep her from harm. She could still hear his battle cry, coming from the depths of his soul...and she wondered, not for the first time, what those would look like...the depths of his soul. She couldn't help but wanting to know more about him, to look inside the man and not be deterred by his ugly appearance.
Even now, a warm feeling settled inside her heart when she was in his presence. And it wasn't just pity either: she realised she was genuinely fascinated by this complicated, mysterious male.
Lucius had no idea of the thoughts going through his current nurse's head, as he had indeed been brooding rather extensively before she interrupted his thoughts. Now, being addressed by Hermione, he turned his head and gave her a short, penetrating look.
"Both," he admitted in response to her question. She smiled warmly at him and his stomach contracted painfully. She wasn't smiling at him, at Lucius Malfoy; her compassion was for a poor, misshapen man who had suffered from bad luck. The urge to send her away resurfaced. He knew he would inevitably give himself away one of these days, would be unable to maintain the mask he was wearing. Already, her influence on him was making itself known and already he detested the feelings she might awaken inside of him. He had opened his mouth to tell her to leave, but closed it again without uttering a word. At the moment, her company was soothing and almost tolerable.
"I would like to distract you from your melancholy thoughts, if I may?"
He frowned, but remained silent. She opened the book she was carrying and started to read from it.
"What bloody man is that?
He can report, as seemeth by his plight, of the revolt
the newest state."
Malfoy sighed deeply, making Hermione halt her reading and give him a questioning glance.
"Macbeth? Of all the books in the bloody library you chose Shakespeare?"
"Yes, why not? You don't like Shakespeare? Or is it Macbeth in particular that doesn't appeal to you? I could find something else to read, but there is an incredible collection of Shakespeare's works in this house. I daresay it is all but complete.... I like Shakespeare. A little distraction won't hurt you. I'd like to continue reading, if you permit?"
He shook his head in the face of this torrent of speech; for as long as she had been with him, he had never heard her say so much in one go. Impassively, he decided it was probably easiest to simply allow her to continue. After all, he liked Shakespeare too.
So he, reached behind him for his pillow and arranged it so that he was more comfortable. "Alright then, if it means so much to you.... I suppose I should be grateful you didn't pick Romeo and Juliet...."
Hermione raised her eyebrows, but decided to just ignore that last remark: she focused on the text before her.
And so she read and read, until she got tired: the letters were dancing in front of her eyes and her voice was growing hoarse. She had to stop for a moment, to clear her throat and drink some of water if nothing else, as Lucius took the book from her lap. He took a moment to find the spot where she was forced to stop and continued the tale in a powerful voice.
"Hang out our banners on the outward walls;
The cry is still 'They come:' our castle's strength
Will laugh a siege to scorn: here let them lie
Til famine and the ague eat them up."
Now, it was Hermione's turn to close her eyes and savour the fascinating timbre of Manley's voice as he read. From that day onward, it became their ritual that after Hermione had changed his bandages and prepared his food, she sat down next to him and read.
Contrary to expectations, Lucius enjoyed spending his time thusly, as it kept him from brooding and getting mired in melancholy. And often, when Hermione grew tired, he continued reading in her stead.