Hermione could get used to having breakfast in bed. Once again, Mrs. Potts came in with a delicious breakfast tray. Hermione luxuriated in the experience.
But quickly, once she'd finished her food, Hermione realized she didn't know what to do.
She always had things to do. At school she had homework to do, essays to write, exams to study for, and, of course, reading. Hermione hadn't found a book so far in all her explorations around the castle. What she wouldn't give to read something. To learn about her predicament. Hermione supposed books weren't as common in this time period.
The Beast still wasn't talking to her. But at least he hadn't kicked her out yet, Hermione supposed.
Hermione decided to wander around and see what she could discover.
After chit-chatting with Madame DeGarderobe and donning a green dress, Hermione heads out of her room and begins to aimlessly wander.
Hermione retraced her footsteps and found herself back in the grand entryway to the castle. She stood in the center and looked around for a few moments, trying to determine where she hadn't been yet. She noticed a flight of stairs leading up to the left that she felt certain she hadn't seen before. Hermione took off in that direction.
As she reached the top of the stairs, she beheld a hallway to her left completely smashed apart. Portraits ripped. Statues destroyed. Rugs and curtains torn to shreds. At the end of the hallway, was a set of double doors with a large golden doorknob. She couldn't make out the precise shape of the giant doorknob from her position.
Tearing her eyes away from the destruction, Hermione looked to her right and saw a door and a beautiful painting of flowers that had been left untouched. Hermione wondered why this area had escaped destruction.
Feeling an overwhelming sense of curiosity, Hermione turned the handle on the door. To her slight surprise, it opened and she entered to find a beautifully decorated room. The decor reminded her of the room that she stayed in, tastefully designed yet also grandiose. Overall, Hermione felt a sense of feminine energy as she peered into the room.
Hermione took a step forward into the room but then felt a malevolent presence behind her and spun around. The Beast stood behind her baring his teeth. Hermione stood her ground, though inwardly her heart picked up speed.
"What. Are. You. Doing. Here?" the Beast said through gritted teeth, hardly getting the words out.
"I was exploring," Hermione said. "Lumiere and Cogsworth showed me around yesterday, but I realized I hadn't come here before."
"Because I forbade you to come here," the Beast said angrily. "I let you go where you please except for the West Wing. And again, you broke my rule."
"I never broke your rule," Hermione reminded him. "And I didn't know this was the West Wing."
"YOU–?!" the Beast said furiously. Perhaps he'd forgotten for a moment that Hermione wasn't Belle. "GET OUT OF HERE!" he roared.
Hermione didn't need telling twice. She scurried past the Beast and made her way back to the entry hall. She went into the parlor she'd been to before and collapsed in an armchair, breathing deep. Hermione didn't consider leaving the castle. Where would she go? She needed to figure out her situation.
Mrs. Potts appeared on her cart, which was laden with some small cakes, a bowl of sugar, and two teacups. "Everything okay, dearie?" Mrs. Potts asked.
"No," Hermione said. "I went exploring this morning and apparently went to the West Wing without realizing it. Your master was furious and yelled at me to leave."
"Tut, tut," Mrs. Potts said. "He really does need to learn to control his temper." She poured some steaming tea into a teacup. The other teacup jumped onto Hermione's lap. "Chip!" Mrs. Potts cried. "Be polite."
"I am!" Chip retorted to his mother. "She look like she needed a hug." He turned to look up at Hermione. "I'm sorry I can't actually hug you." He nuzzled against her hand.
"It's all right," Hermione said, touched. "I appreciate the thought."
Mrs. Potts smiled at them and sent the teacup full of tea to slowly float towards Hermione, who caught the full teacup. She wrapped her hands around the cup, the warmth comforting her.
"Could you tell me about this place?" Hermione asked. "We're in a castle. Does that mean that your master is royal?"
Mrs. Potts studied Hermione. "I suppose since you know about the enchantment, I can tell you. It seems that nothing is stopping me like it did before." Mrs. Potts looked out towards the door in the direction of where Hermione had come from. "The master is a prince. His father was also a prince before him. They're distantly related to the king of France and their family has had this territory for centuries."
"How large is the territory?" Hermione asked out of curiosity.
"It's mostly agricultural land," Cogsworth said, appearing from the doorway, followed by Lumiere. "Rich and fertile. A prize worth holding onto, the master's father always said."
"It is boring," Lumiere complained. "But it is home. Zere is only one small village. Everything else is scattered farms and estates."
"Farms that yield bountiful produce. Healthy animals that feed us and provide excellent trade opportunities," Cogworth commented.
"We used to have such parties and gatherings here!" Lumiere said. "We were at ze center of everything."
"What happened?" Hermione asked.
"She came and cursed us," Lumiere said.
"The enchantress?" Hermione confirmed.
"Oui," Lumiere said. "She came one night disguised as an elderly woman."
"The master was repulsed by haggard appearance," Cogsworth said primly. "She was rather dirty and got mud all over the floor," he added.
"The master wouldn't let her in," Mrs. Potts said sadly. "We would have taken care of her and he wouldn't have had to see her. Unfortunately, he answered the door."
"Then she turned into a beautiful enchantress!" Lumiere exclaimed. "She proclaimed that as he 'ad 'no love in his heart' and until he could love and be loved in return, he would be stuck as a beast."
"She had warned him not to be deceived by appearances," Mrs. Potts commented. "So he must find love that can look past his appearance."
Hermione nodded. That fit alongside her understanding of the tale's moral and lesson. The details she just heard helped deepen her awareness of this particular variation of the story she found herself in.
"I appreciate you telling me this," Hermione said. "Anything you can tell me would help me break this curse." She sighed. "I just wish your master would talk to me."
"Don't you worry about that," Mrs. Potts said. "He'll come around."
"I'm not so sure…" Cogsworth said. "He's very stubborn."
"We'll make him see sense!" Lumiere said. "We have to."
"Well, we can't do any cursebreaking on an empty stomach," Mrs. Potts proclaimed. "Lunch will be served in an hour!" She looked over at Cogsworth and Lumiere. "Make sure the master comes. Come along, Chip."
Chip looked up at Hermione from his spot on her knee and said, "Bye!" He hopped back onto the cart, which wheeled him and his mother briskly away and out of the room.
"I must inform the master," Cogsworth said.
"I'll go with you," Lumiere said. "We must make sure he actually comes to lunch."
"And you think I'm not up to the task?" Cogsworth demanded.
"I think you might not be able persuade him the way I can," Lumiere said.
"Oh very well," Cogsworth admitted. "Let's go."
Hermione was left alone once again. With nothing to do but wait.
She found this waiting extremely uncomfortable. She was left alone to her thoughts, which she desperately wanted to avoid. She didn't want to think about Ron's reaction that she'd left the world entirely. She didn't want to think about how many people she'd inconvenienced with her antics.
Instead of thinking about those things, she thought about the dream she'd had the night before. What Belle had told her about being able to do magic. What did that mean? She'd heard of wizards who didn't need wands to do magic. But Belle had used Hermione's wand to cast spells. Did more primitive wizards and witches have the ability to cast without using spells?
Hermione had come across a book from Professor Dumbledore's collection that mentioned several students who'd come to Hogwarts in their fifth years and possessed the ability to see ancient magic. Could Belle possibly have this ability?
As far as Hermione understood from what she'd read, those students still needed to learn spells to do magic. They'd had prodigious ability and had been able to learn fast, but they still had to perform normal magic using spells. They could harness the ancient magic to do wonderous things, but it didn't sound like that was what Belle was doing. Belle was doing normal magic without spells. How was that possible?
Hermione wished she had access to a library. Or could talk to someone that might know. Perhaps if she truly could not get the Beast to cooperate, she'd have to leave. And go where? To Hogwarts? That would be extremely far and hard to get to given that she had no means to travel. For one thing, she had no money. For another, she didn't know how things operated in this time period.
Besides, she didn't really know exactly where Hogwarts was. Of course, she knew it was in Scotland, but she'd always taken the train to Hogwarts. It was unplottable on any maps. Trains hadn't been invented yet, so students must still be finding their own way to Hogwarts as they did before the Hogwarts Express became the way to get to Hogwarts.
There's always Beauxbatons, Hermione mused. But again, I don't know how to get there. And I'm facing the same logistical issues.
No, Hermione's best bet was to get the Beast to cooperate. She could do this. She'd remind him that his options were limited and he didn't have much time if she had to.
It had to work.
There wasn't another option.