Hermione gets her bearings

If Hermione's suspicions were correct, she was in the story of Beauty and the Beast. Growing up in the Muggle world, it had been one of her favorite stories.

After she'd started doing her research on fairy tales, it was one of the stories she kept gravitating to. She wasn't sure what precisely about the story pulled her in so much, but it always did.

Perhaps since she had grown up feeling self-conscious about her bushy hair and overlong teeth, she'd liked the moral that the story had of not judging someone by their outward appearance.

There were a few different versions of Beauty and the Beast. There was the original, written by Madam de Villeneuve in 1740. A few years later in 1756, Jeanne Beaumont published an abridged and rewritten version of the tale, which was the one that's been popularized the most. There were more adaptations after that, but those two in the 18th century were the most influential, in Hermione's opinion.

Was she really in the fairy tale? Was she still in the same world? Did that mean she was in the mid-1700's France right now? Hermione couldn't help but start to think about all the implications that 1700's France might involve. From the fact that there probably weren't any toilets around to thoughts of the French Revolution.

But, as usual, Hermione was getting ahead of herself.

As she continued eating her breakfast, she thought she might try talking to the wardrobe a bit more.

"I'm sorry, I can't remember if we were introduced," Hermione said to the wardrobe.

"Don't worry, dear. Yesterday was a lot to take in," she said kindly. "My name is Madame de Garderobe."

"Nice to meet you," Hermione said. She wasn't sure whether to give her real name or what her name was supposed to be. In the English translations of the story, the main character's name was always Beauty. She wondered then the person she'd replaced was called Belle, the French word for Beauty. Hermione decided she would most likely be called Belle and decided to think of her as thus until proven otherwise. She wondered if Belle were at Hogwarts and how Belle was doing.

"What kind of enchantment are you all under?" Hermione asked.

"I'm really not supposed to talk about it," Madame de Garderobe said nervously. "It isn't really my place to say."

"I understand," said Hermione. She finished her breakfast in thoughtful silence. Getting up, she realized she wore a simple, yet elegant nightgown.

She walked over to a vanity desk and looked at herself in the mirror. She gasped. Her facial features looked almost identical to hers. Hermione had expected to look different somehow. Perhaps more beautiful. But no, she looked the same. The only difference was her hair. Her hair was sleek and smooth. Just like it was whenever she applied Sleekeasy's Hair Potion. In Hermione's opinion, that was an excellent thing. She felt more attractive when her hair was in control.

"Would you like to change into something different?" Madame de Garderobe asked. "I have several dresses here that would fit you and I could whip up more in a jiffy."

Hermione walked over to Madame de Garderobe's open doors and looked at the dresses hanging. She supposed that women did not wear trousers in this time period. The dresses looked long and much more formal than she was used to, but she opted for a light red and pink dress.

She went behind a privacy screen and took off her nightgown. She laid it over the top of the screen, not sure what else to do with it. The undergarments she wore were not at all familiar to her. She took those off too. Standing there naked, Hermione wished she could take a shower, but figured that wouldn't be available to her. She'd have to ask about a bath later. For now, she was eager to learn more about her circumstances and look around the castle. After some examining, she figured out how to correctly put on her new undergarments and the dress.

As she stepped out from behind the privacy screen, Madame de Garderobe exclaimed, "Beautiful! Just beautiful! It makes me so happy to finally be able to dress someone again."

No one called Hermione beautiful. Not even Ron, her boyfriend. Thinking that the wardrobe likely didn't get out much, Hermione smiled at her and accepted the compliment. "Thank you. I'd like to look around the castle now. Do you think that's okay?"

Madame de Garderobe said, "Of course! The master said this is your home now and you may go anywhere you like except for the West Wing." She paused a moment, thoughtful. "Though I suppose you already broke that rule last night so maybe it doesn't apply anymore. Still…it would be best to keep away from there."

Hermione was intrigued by this "West Wing" that she'd already apparently been to. She wanted to ask what's in there, but that might sound foolish if she'd visited it already.

"Why is the West Wing forbidden?" Hermione's natural curiosity prompted her to ask.

"Because the master forbids it," the wardrobe said simply, as if that explained everything. "He would see it as a violation of the agreement the two of you made for staying here."

If Hermione remembered the story right, and she was rarely wrong when it came to recalling details from a book, Beauty took the place of her father who had been imprisoned for picking a rose from the Beast's garden. Being imprisoned in a castle didn't sound like much of an agreement. She wondered what would happen if she went to this West Wing.

But there was a whole castle to see and she wasn't in a rush to see some forbidden area. Even though Harry and Ron's influence had softened her rule-following ways somewhat, she still liked to have a good reason to break rules.

Hermione thanked the wardrobe again and opened the doors to her room to continue the day's adventure.