A/N: Special treat, two chapters in one update. As you may have noticed, the pattern of the story apart from the prologue is two chapters somehow connected by theme, switching points of view. Hope everyone is enjoying so far.
He walks through the halls, eager to transfigure everyone seeking him out into...he wasn't sure what. Something tiny and undignified. Ladybugs, maybe. One right after the other, each one desperate and self-involved and oh-so-willing to pay such steep prices. The house keeps silent for him, dark, too, and he can stroll with his hands behind his back and close his eyes for just a moment, taking a break from what feels like constant wheeling and dealing.
A sound from behind one of the many closed doors breaks his meditation, the scraping of something heavy against the wooden floor. Without a sound, he springs to the door and opens it an inch.
Just Belle on one of the high-backed, cushioned chairs, must have moved it when she sat down. Reading. Reading what, he can't tell, but she appears quite absorbed in it, her eyes focused. The rich sound of her turning the page seems to fill the room. So relaxed, so still for once, but then her eyes widen and she slams the book shut with a blush. She sits there stunned for a second before she marches over to the shelf and places the book back, leaves her hand on it, and pulls it out one more time. She's finishing the page, he realizes, about to laugh. Naughty girl, what could have shocked you that much? He didn't recall any smutty books in his meager library, but then his definition and hers might differ greatly. Smirking, he continues on his walk, knowing she'll be coming out and resuming her duties.
"Ah! There you are!" She stops dead in her tracks before turning to face him. "What have you been up to?"
"Dusting." She's a horrible liar. Just horrible. All that blinking and stammering.
"Dusting? That is known for its explicit imagery."
Opening her mouth, she pauses, blushing still, and then matches his smirk. "Only recently, since it had been so good at implicit imagery for years."
He laughs.