Hermione finds herself at the Beast's castle

As light filtered into the room, Hermione stretched her arms and sat up in bed. Opening her eyes, she realized at once that something was different. First, her bed was bigger than back at school. Second, she didn't hear the breathing of her dormmates. Third, she realized that the room looked completely different.

She looked around her. Her surroundings looked fit for royalty. It looked like a room in a castle, but just as she suspected, there was no one else in the room with her.

Or so she thought.

"Ah! You're awaaaake! Good morning!" cried a loud and operatic voice from her right.

Hermione jumped in surprise.

It appeared that the wardrobe was speaking to her. In French. Hermione's French was passably fluent, but she didn't speak it every day either.

She felt like she could understand French better than she could speak it. Her parents used to take her to France in the summer because her father's family was French. Her paternal grandparents didn't speak English so she spoke French with them.

However, it had been some time since she last saw her parents or her grandparents. Ever since Voldemort had risen to power again, Hermione hadn't left England.

Until now it seemed.

Before she could think more about the rustiness of her French, the door to the room burst open.

"She's awake? Excellent," came a voice from a cart seemingly wheeling itself towards her. "Tea?" asked the same voice, which turned out to be a no-nonsense teapot.

A wardrobe had spoken to her in French, and now a teapot was also speaking to her in French.

What was going on?!

Hermione looked closer at the teapot. It was marvelous really. The pot seemed to have the expression and face of a matronly woman.

Not really sure what else to do, Hermione replied in French, "Oui."

A little tea cup hopped over to the teapot, which promptly poured tea into the cup. The teacup hopped over to Hermione.

"Hi! I'm Chip!" the little teacup called to her animatedly as it hopped into her waiting hand. "Want to see a trick?"

The teacup seemed to have the expressiveness and excitement that a small child would have.

"Oui," said Hermione, sensing a child-like energy about the little cup.

Promptly, Chip scrunched up its body and made a straining face. Bubbles appeared in the tea.

"Chip! Don't spill on our guest," chastised the teapot.

Hermione couldn't help but laugh at the proud look the teacup had on its face, which had been just as quickly dashed into abashment by the teapot.

"I didn't spill on her, Mama," Chip said, looking towards the teapot. He looked to Hermione with what seemed to be pleading eyes.

"Chip didn't spill on me," Hermione assured the teapot in what she felt like was passably good French.

"Good. My boy has so much energy," she said in a world-weary way. Hermione noted that Chip was male. She couldn't tell since, as a teacup with a child-like voice, he didn't have any distinguishing features.

The teapot seemed to study Hermione a bit more closely. "You seem a bit different than you were last night."

The teapot cocked her head to the side, or as much as she could given she was a teapot.

"But you must have had quite the fright meeting the master for the first time and having to leave your father in one night. We all think you're very brave. Especially how you stood up to the master like that when you told him you wouldn't join him for dinner. When you ran away, I thought we'd never see you again. But then you came back and held your ground with him. I hope you're starting to see that he can be…temperamental, but he's not all bad." She studied Hermione a bit longer. "After fending off the wolves last night, you must be starving! We'll leave you to your breakfast. There's another cup of tea sitting on the tray there that's not likely to spill on you," she said with a wink.

"Awwwww, I don't want to go," cried Chip. "I want to stay with her. We've never had someone stay with us before."

"No, Chip," replied his mother, "It's time for us to go and do our chores." She looked over at Hermione again. "I'll come back and check on you later."

Hermione removed the tray from the cart and set it up in front of her. It looked delicious. Eggs, bacon, and toast. The cart along with the teapot and little Chip zoomed away and out of the door. Hermione realized she didn't know the teapot's name yet and felt like she should have known it. It sounded like she should have met her yesterday along with this master the teapot spoke of.

Apparently, she was supposed to have had a big day yesterday. What was this about wolves? And standing up to the master?

Hermione felt puzzled and tried to take in all that had been said to her. As she started contemplating all of this, a voice broke her out of her reverie.

"That looks soooo good," the wardrobe said. "I miss eating food."

Hermione jumped a little. She had forgotten the wardrobe was there.

"Oh, I'm so sorry," the wardrobe apologized. "I didn't mean to startle you. I'm sure we all must seem so strange to you."

"It's okay," Hermione assured the wardrobe. "What do you mean that you miss food?"

"Well, we all used to be human before the enchantment. Even the master," she said, while Hermione ate her bacon. "You saw him yesterday. He didn't always look like a terrible beast." She gasped suddenly. "Oh, I don't think I should have told you all that."

As Hermione sipped her tea, she had a huge realization. She couldn't believe it. Her spell had worked.