Fantastic Beasts and How to Win Their Hearts (4/7)
FANTASTIC BEASTS AND HOW TO WIN THEIR HEARTS: A RETELLING OF BEAUTY AND THE BEAST
by
stereolightning and
starfishstar
SUMMARY:
A man with nowhere else to turn agrees to live forever in a remote mansion that exists in perpetual autumn, his host a reclusive character known only as the Beast. By turns attentive and taciturn, the monstrous lord of the house keeps his dark secrets close to his chest, yet both host and guest find themselves increasingly captivated by one another. But how can a Beast give his heart while he remains a prisoner of his own curse?
A fusion of Harry Potter with Beauty and the Beast, told in seven chapters.
CHAPTER FOUR
The day began, as it always did, with birdsong and soft pink-gold light, and the Beast greeted it by pulling the curtains shut. Always this temperate weather, always the vivid leaves, and a particular quality to the air-a cold, dry hollowness that made voices carry over long distances. Always the apples blushing on their branches, and the sense that the earth had begun to die, to divest herself of leaves and greenness and fruits, shedding all bounty as she walked on towards a naked winter.
The Beast lived in eternal autumn, though the world continued through ordinary seasons outside the grounds of his inherited estate. Autumn, though lovely to look at, was for the Beast a season of piercing regret. The red leaves were reminders of the blood he had spilled; the gold ones, reminders of the golden wandlight that had twined around the face and torso of the Secret Keeper, on the night the wretch had bound up that precious secret inside himself. Twelve years had passed, and still the Beast was ill with horror when he remembered that night. He should have known. He should have known.
And then, on the heels of the unthinkable loss of the two people he loved most, came the curse, flung at him in his failed attempt to take down the traitor who had betrayed them all, and he was made in the space of an instant as monstrous without as he knew himself to be within. He’d fled in despair to this old house, left to him by an uncle, though the younger, human version of the Beast had never had any wish to live in it.
When he’d woken that terrible first morning he was still a Beast, and he found he was no longer able to step further than the garden wall. And he’d grieved, and raged, and howled at the square patch of walled-in sky above the garden, and all the while the grounds of his prison had stayed autumn, and stayed autumn, forever the season of his greatest regret.
The Beast buried himself under his pillows, shutting out the light. He longed for the smell of spring, for summer butterflies, even for winter nights-but he knew he did not deserve them.
He fell into a dream. He was in the house’s rose garden at twilight and there were hundreds of varieties in bloom, yellow, pink, even a perfect black that grew only in wizards’ gardens. These were roses that had not grown here in reality in twelve long years, but in the dream their perfume was heady and strong. The greenhouse, its glass walls rendered opaque by an accumulation of dirt over the years, was visible at the end of the garden, its door ajar.
And Remus was there, amidst the roses. He wore a strange fur cape, too hot for this summery night. His pupils were huge, but otherwise he looked like himself. Remus was a weather-beaten sort of handsome-or, no, not handsome, not in the classical sense, with that slightly over-long nose, thin mouth, strong forehead, and those curiously perfect ears and generous eyebrows. He would not have been a pretty child, but age or heartache had lent him gravitas, and he carried himself well.
“Promise me you won’t follow me in there,” Remus said, his hand waving in the direction of the greenhouse behind him.
The dream-Beast didn’t answer, didn’t know how to respond.
“Promise me,” Remus said, more urgently. “Never go in there.”
“What’s inside?” the Beast asked, at last.
Remus gave a little wince that became a distant smile. He took the Beast’s hand-and it was a human hand, not a paw, at the end of the Beast’s arm. The Beast was not surprised by this; it was a dream, and everything within it seemed somehow unremarkable.
Remus shook his head. The moon behind him picked out the silver at his temples. His grey hairs were slightly curlier than their brown neighbours. He pulled away, but the Beast held onto Remus’ hand.
Remus shook his head again. “Don’t follow me.”
And he kissed the Beast’s knuckles, then walked away, receding through the roses into the far distance of the garden.
“No,” the Beast called. “Wait.”
Remus didn’t look back.
“Wait!” the Beast repeated.
The roses fell, all at once, from their bushes and vines, splattering petals onto the path.
It’s me, the Beast thought. It’s my curse. It’s followed me here.
And the voice of the traitor rang across the wilting garden from somewhere beyond his sight.
“An Invisibility Cloak!” cried the small, shrill voice. “How remarkable.”
The Beast struggled. He had to go after Remus-and yet, now the traitor was here too, in the garden, he had to find the traitor and punish him for what he’d done, but even as the Beast tried to run, something formless and heavy enveloped him, holding him back, pinning him to the ground. He thrashed against it.
“Your father’s cloak? How marvellous!” The traitor’s voice, Peter’s voice, was emerging not from the dream but from the Beast’s room itself, from the corner where his half of the set of two-way mirrors stood atop a chest of drawers, protected in the shadows.
The Beast flung off the heavy blanket that had tangled itself around his legs, shoved away the remnants of the dream, and raced across the room on his huge, padded paws to seize the mirror.
It showed nothing but darkness-his godson must be carrying its twin inside a pocket of his robes. The Beast’s chest constricted with gratitude to Harry, carrying the mirror as the Beast had asked him to do, even though the boy didn’t understand why his godfather was so concerned with his safety.
He had sent the mirror as a gift when the boy started at Hogwarts. Harry didn’t know the Beast’s true name, nor his beastly form, for he was careful always to speak to Harry from the concealing shadows of his dim bedchamber. Harry knew him only as his faraway, reclusive godfather, living somewhere abroad and quite unfortunately unable to visit.
Voices were indeed coming from the mirror, but that wasn’t Peter’s voice. The Beast breathed in relief, trying to quell the panicked thumping in his chest. It was the voice of a girl, not a grown man, and a voice the Beast recognised at that: Harry’s friend Hermione, the one with a mane of bushy brown hair. He’d caught occasional glimpses of her when Harry set the mirror nearby during study sessions or games of Exploding Snap with his friends in the Gryffindor common room. Precious glimpses of Harry at Hogwarts, safe.
And of course it hadn’t been Peter’s voice in the mirror, that was impossible. Peter was long dead. It was only the dream that had confused him.
“Master,” said a high, small voice, and the Beast jumped.
But it was only a house-elf, bringing strong tea. Perhaps that shrill voice had confused the Beast into thinking he’d heard something that couldn’t possibly be. The Beast set the mirror back down in its shadowy corner.
He took the tea in his clumsy paw and downed it in one, then set the cup back on its saucer with unnecessary force. The elf had brought wedges of lemon, too, on a little blue plate, and the Beast bit into one, craving sharpness after hours of blurry fantasies. It burst between his teeth.
A second house-elf opened the curtains, and the same clear autumn light as always filtered through the tall windowpanes.
#
The real Remus was in the library, poring over three books at once and scribbling notes on a scrap of parchment.
“What are you always reading in here, anyway?” the Beast asked.
Remus looked up. He seemed not to have known the Beast was there, but he wasn’t startled. A gentle smile warmed his features, and something inside the Beast’s chest swooped.
“Books,” he said. “Simply-books.”
The Beast glanced down at the books on the desk in front of Remus; one was a treatise on rare plants, rendered in archaic, tiny print; another was a hefty history of magical Britain from the 13th to 18th centuries, at least 400 pages at a conservative estimate. The third was some sort of pamphlet about wizarding law. All of them the last things the Beast himself was likely ever to pluck off the shelves for a bit of light reading.
“Try to imagine,” Remus said, still smiling, “that you have lived for years on little more than crusts of bread, and you suddenly find yourself guest at a feast fit for kings-that’s what this library is to me.”
The Beast furrowed his brow in consternation. He understood the analogy, of course, but it pained him to realise he could not viscerally imagine what Remus felt, because he had not experienced hunger-of either sort, of the body or of the intellect-as Remus clearly had done. For all his other trials and tragedies, the Beast had never lacked for money, or for the things that money could buy. “I-” he began, then stopped, unsure how to express himself. He had had so little opportunity, all these years, to talk to anyone but the house-elves, and he could feel how sorely he had fallen out of practice.
Remus marked his spot in one of the books with a finger, and turned his full attention to the Beast, upper body swivelling in his chair to face him more fully. He said, “Or-imagine that you have lived for years denied the company of like-minded others, bereft of good conversation, of laughter, of any sense of camaraderie with any being outside yourself. And then imagine-finding that again.” His eyes caught the Beast’s, and held.
“I-” the Beast said again, and again was at a loss for words. He reached out and traced the edge of one of the books, just to have something to do with his monstrous body other than be the subject of Remus’ gaze. “Yes,” he finally managed. “Yes, I have experienced that.”
Briefly but vividly, he recalled the sensations of his dream, Remus’ lips brushing his knuckles. No-the real Remus would never do such a thing. Not to a Beast.
Remus’ hand shifted, across the page and to the edge of the book, where the Beast’s massive paw rested. Little finger brushed littlest claw, and the Beast felt all the air sucked out of his chest, his eyes involuntarily fluttering shut for the space of a heartbeat. For that single heartbeat’s length, his mind allowed him the bliss of returning to his dream.
Then his eyes snapped open, and he saw Remus’ pale, strong hand, resting on the old book beside his own grotesque paw. The Beast snatched the offending limb away, mortified at his own ugliness.
He threw himself into motion, pacing away across the room, trying to disguise his discomfort. “How do you plan to spend this day?” he asked, brusque.
There was a confused pause from Remus at the desk, then he said carefully, “I thought I might explore outside a little more. Are there-other outbuildings I might not have seen yet?”
The Beast remembered the greenhouse of his dream, the greenhouse where Remus had kept some secret. “Why?”
“I-no reason. Curiosity.”
“You’ve seen all the buildings here. There’s nothing else.”
“And...outside the grounds? Are there towns or any other buildings near?”
“You wish to leave.” The Beast had reached the far end of the library; full of restless energy, he had no choice but to turn and pace back towards Remus.
“No! No, I know I can’t leave. I don’t mind. But if I ever needed to go just slightly beyond the grounds, for a short time, do you think it might be possible…?”
Would it be? It had never been possible for the Beast, but perhaps the bounds of the curse might prove laxer for his guest. Remus, clever Remus, would find a way to leave him. Having him here, his conversation and warmth and wit, had been a dream too good to be true.
“Come with me.”
Remus’ voice spoke very close to the Beast’s ear. The Beast hadn’t even seen him get up from his chair. But he had done, silent as a cat. He was standing so near.
“Where to?” the Beast asked, his voice gruff. “The whimsical world of wizarding law?” He gestured one hand at the pamphlet Remus held, and Remus snorted.
“No. Outside. Just-the grounds.”
“You want a tour?” the Beast asked doubtfully.
Remus’ eyes danced. “If you’d be so kind.” He was still standing very close. “A house like this, I’d imagine, has many secrets. I’ve seen parts of the grounds, but I’m sure I haven’t seen it all.”
The Beast nodded. That was true enough. And he needed to move, because standing so close to Remus in the quiet of the library was throwing him into a turmoil. It had been so long since anyone had looked at him like Remus did, and surely Remus’ look didn’t mean what he wished he could hope it might mean.
Men and women both had looked at the Beast like that, in the long-ago days before he was a Beast. They had gazed at him with fascination, admiration, and the Beast had laughed and claimed the joy of their company for himself whenever he liked. But that had been when he was a beautiful youth. Beautiful and shallow, unaware of what he had. No one would look that way at a Beast.
“We can go out this way,” he hurried to say, crossing to the nearest bookshelf, fleeing from Remus’ disconcerting gaze. He tapped the red leather volume about dragons in just the right place, inside the swoop of the “g”, and the entire shelf retracted into the wall, spun, and revealed a spiral staircase.
“There’s a secret passage?” Remus asked, sounding amused.
“Of course there is,” the Beast said. “It’s a house, isn’t it?”
Remus smiled. “You seem to be labouring under the misapprehension that all houses have secret stairs hidden in the walls.”
“Don’t they?”
“No.” Remus shook his head. “This is how you get around without being seen, isn’t it?”
The Beast shrugged. He hadn’t shrugged in years. “I know a few muffling and concealment charms, too.”
He led Remus through the passage, which opened onto what had once been the rose garden, and which was now home to two fairy rings and a family of rabbits. The Beast pointed out objects of interest, when he thought of them, but mostly Remus did the talking. Remus asked a lot of questions-how far was the nearest village (twenty miles), how many house-elves lived in the house (four, one of them quite elderly), were there other secret passages leading out (yes). He wanted to find a way out of the cursed grounds; his line of questioning left no doubt. And yet, the Beast could not begrudge him the answers to his questions, even if each one might bring him a step closer to leaving forever. He would enjoy Remus’ company as long as he had it, and try not to mind too much how soon it would surely end.
“What about that?” Remus asked, pointing to a brass statue, mottled with verdigris, of a very young, very shirtless Merlin conferring with an owl. “Does that have a secret passage under it or something?”
“Him?” the Beast said. “No.”
Remus considered the statue. “Muggles have a similar one, of Perseus, holding the head of Medusa. Same pose, almost exactly.”
The Beast watched Remus’ eyes travel up the dark metal body, over the well-defined muscles of its neck and torso and legs.
“We could draw a map,” Remus said. “Of this estate. A magical map.”
“Why?”
“So we could see people’s comings and goings. Have you ever used a map like that? You can charm a parchment to show people as well as places. Anyway, magicartology is a fascinating hobby. And you have at least ten books about it.”
“No one comes near here, except those who are lost. Besides, I can hear for miles, with these ears. I can hear the dormice in the fields over there.”
The Beast stopped himself. He never discussed his monstrous form, or its peculiar quirks, with anybody. But Remus did not look alarmed, or ashamed. He was gazing at the Beast with a warm, almost sage expression.
“What else can you hear?” Remus asked.
The Beast considered this a moment, then closed his eyes and listened-really listened, to the diffuse music of the world. He heard the family of rabbits hopping through dry leaves; the tinny, hollow plinking of a broken charm somewhere in the vicinity of the motorbike; two house-elves polishing glass and silver. The thudding of a human heart.
The heartbeat quickened.
The Beast opened his eyes. For one hopeful fraction of a second, he imagined he would see Remus still looking at him, with warmth and understanding, and maybe even something more.
But Remus was looking at the gap in the garden wall, out at the world, where spring was emerging, in a thousand shades of green.
( continue to CHAPTER FIVE)
by
stereolightning and
starfishstar
SUMMARY:
A man with nowhere else to turn agrees to live forever in a remote mansion that exists in perpetual autumn, his host a reclusive character known only as the Beast. By turns attentive and taciturn, the monstrous lord of the house keeps his dark secrets close to his chest, yet both host and guest find themselves increasingly captivated by one another. But how can a Beast give his heart while he remains a prisoner of his own curse?
A fusion of Harry Potter with Beauty and the Beast, told in seven chapters.
CHAPTER FOUR
The day began, as it always did, with birdsong and soft pink-gold light, and the Beast greeted it by pulling the curtains shut. Always this temperate weather, always the vivid leaves, and a particular quality to the air-a cold, dry hollowness that made voices carry over long distances. Always the apples blushing on their branches, and the sense that the earth had begun to die, to divest herself of leaves and greenness and fruits, shedding all bounty as she walked on towards a naked winter.
The Beast lived in eternal autumn, though the world continued through ordinary seasons outside the grounds of his inherited estate. Autumn, though lovely to look at, was for the Beast a season of piercing regret. The red leaves were reminders of the blood he had spilled; the gold ones, reminders of the golden wandlight that had twined around the face and torso of the Secret Keeper, on the night the wretch had bound up that precious secret inside himself. Twelve years had passed, and still the Beast was ill with horror when he remembered that night. He should have known. He should have known.
And then, on the heels of the unthinkable loss of the two people he loved most, came the curse, flung at him in his failed attempt to take down the traitor who had betrayed them all, and he was made in the space of an instant as monstrous without as he knew himself to be within. He’d fled in despair to this old house, left to him by an uncle, though the younger, human version of the Beast had never had any wish to live in it.
When he’d woken that terrible first morning he was still a Beast, and he found he was no longer able to step further than the garden wall. And he’d grieved, and raged, and howled at the square patch of walled-in sky above the garden, and all the while the grounds of his prison had stayed autumn, and stayed autumn, forever the season of his greatest regret.
The Beast buried himself under his pillows, shutting out the light. He longed for the smell of spring, for summer butterflies, even for winter nights-but he knew he did not deserve them.
He fell into a dream. He was in the house’s rose garden at twilight and there were hundreds of varieties in bloom, yellow, pink, even a perfect black that grew only in wizards’ gardens. These were roses that had not grown here in reality in twelve long years, but in the dream their perfume was heady and strong. The greenhouse, its glass walls rendered opaque by an accumulation of dirt over the years, was visible at the end of the garden, its door ajar.
And Remus was there, amidst the roses. He wore a strange fur cape, too hot for this summery night. His pupils were huge, but otherwise he looked like himself. Remus was a weather-beaten sort of handsome-or, no, not handsome, not in the classical sense, with that slightly over-long nose, thin mouth, strong forehead, and those curiously perfect ears and generous eyebrows. He would not have been a pretty child, but age or heartache had lent him gravitas, and he carried himself well.
“Promise me you won’t follow me in there,” Remus said, his hand waving in the direction of the greenhouse behind him.
The dream-Beast didn’t answer, didn’t know how to respond.
“Promise me,” Remus said, more urgently. “Never go in there.”
“What’s inside?” the Beast asked, at last.
Remus gave a little wince that became a distant smile. He took the Beast’s hand-and it was a human hand, not a paw, at the end of the Beast’s arm. The Beast was not surprised by this; it was a dream, and everything within it seemed somehow unremarkable.
Remus shook his head. The moon behind him picked out the silver at his temples. His grey hairs were slightly curlier than their brown neighbours. He pulled away, but the Beast held onto Remus’ hand.
Remus shook his head again. “Don’t follow me.”
And he kissed the Beast’s knuckles, then walked away, receding through the roses into the far distance of the garden.
“No,” the Beast called. “Wait.”
Remus didn’t look back.
“Wait!” the Beast repeated.
The roses fell, all at once, from their bushes and vines, splattering petals onto the path.
It’s me, the Beast thought. It’s my curse. It’s followed me here.
And the voice of the traitor rang across the wilting garden from somewhere beyond his sight.
“An Invisibility Cloak!” cried the small, shrill voice. “How remarkable.”
The Beast struggled. He had to go after Remus-and yet, now the traitor was here too, in the garden, he had to find the traitor and punish him for what he’d done, but even as the Beast tried to run, something formless and heavy enveloped him, holding him back, pinning him to the ground. He thrashed against it.
“Your father’s cloak? How marvellous!” The traitor’s voice, Peter’s voice, was emerging not from the dream but from the Beast’s room itself, from the corner where his half of the set of two-way mirrors stood atop a chest of drawers, protected in the shadows.
The Beast flung off the heavy blanket that had tangled itself around his legs, shoved away the remnants of the dream, and raced across the room on his huge, padded paws to seize the mirror.
It showed nothing but darkness-his godson must be carrying its twin inside a pocket of his robes. The Beast’s chest constricted with gratitude to Harry, carrying the mirror as the Beast had asked him to do, even though the boy didn’t understand why his godfather was so concerned with his safety.
He had sent the mirror as a gift when the boy started at Hogwarts. Harry didn’t know the Beast’s true name, nor his beastly form, for he was careful always to speak to Harry from the concealing shadows of his dim bedchamber. Harry knew him only as his faraway, reclusive godfather, living somewhere abroad and quite unfortunately unable to visit.
Voices were indeed coming from the mirror, but that wasn’t Peter’s voice. The Beast breathed in relief, trying to quell the panicked thumping in his chest. It was the voice of a girl, not a grown man, and a voice the Beast recognised at that: Harry’s friend Hermione, the one with a mane of bushy brown hair. He’d caught occasional glimpses of her when Harry set the mirror nearby during study sessions or games of Exploding Snap with his friends in the Gryffindor common room. Precious glimpses of Harry at Hogwarts, safe.
And of course it hadn’t been Peter’s voice in the mirror, that was impossible. Peter was long dead. It was only the dream that had confused him.
“Master,” said a high, small voice, and the Beast jumped.
But it was only a house-elf, bringing strong tea. Perhaps that shrill voice had confused the Beast into thinking he’d heard something that couldn’t possibly be. The Beast set the mirror back down in its shadowy corner.
He took the tea in his clumsy paw and downed it in one, then set the cup back on its saucer with unnecessary force. The elf had brought wedges of lemon, too, on a little blue plate, and the Beast bit into one, craving sharpness after hours of blurry fantasies. It burst between his teeth.
A second house-elf opened the curtains, and the same clear autumn light as always filtered through the tall windowpanes.
#
The real Remus was in the library, poring over three books at once and scribbling notes on a scrap of parchment.
“What are you always reading in here, anyway?” the Beast asked.
Remus looked up. He seemed not to have known the Beast was there, but he wasn’t startled. A gentle smile warmed his features, and something inside the Beast’s chest swooped.
“Books,” he said. “Simply-books.”
The Beast glanced down at the books on the desk in front of Remus; one was a treatise on rare plants, rendered in archaic, tiny print; another was a hefty history of magical Britain from the 13th to 18th centuries, at least 400 pages at a conservative estimate. The third was some sort of pamphlet about wizarding law. All of them the last things the Beast himself was likely ever to pluck off the shelves for a bit of light reading.
“Try to imagine,” Remus said, still smiling, “that you have lived for years on little more than crusts of bread, and you suddenly find yourself guest at a feast fit for kings-that’s what this library is to me.”
The Beast furrowed his brow in consternation. He understood the analogy, of course, but it pained him to realise he could not viscerally imagine what Remus felt, because he had not experienced hunger-of either sort, of the body or of the intellect-as Remus clearly had done. For all his other trials and tragedies, the Beast had never lacked for money, or for the things that money could buy. “I-” he began, then stopped, unsure how to express himself. He had had so little opportunity, all these years, to talk to anyone but the house-elves, and he could feel how sorely he had fallen out of practice.
Remus marked his spot in one of the books with a finger, and turned his full attention to the Beast, upper body swivelling in his chair to face him more fully. He said, “Or-imagine that you have lived for years denied the company of like-minded others, bereft of good conversation, of laughter, of any sense of camaraderie with any being outside yourself. And then imagine-finding that again.” His eyes caught the Beast’s, and held.
“I-” the Beast said again, and again was at a loss for words. He reached out and traced the edge of one of the books, just to have something to do with his monstrous body other than be the subject of Remus’ gaze. “Yes,” he finally managed. “Yes, I have experienced that.”
Briefly but vividly, he recalled the sensations of his dream, Remus’ lips brushing his knuckles. No-the real Remus would never do such a thing. Not to a Beast.
Remus’ hand shifted, across the page and to the edge of the book, where the Beast’s massive paw rested. Little finger brushed littlest claw, and the Beast felt all the air sucked out of his chest, his eyes involuntarily fluttering shut for the space of a heartbeat. For that single heartbeat’s length, his mind allowed him the bliss of returning to his dream.
Then his eyes snapped open, and he saw Remus’ pale, strong hand, resting on the old book beside his own grotesque paw. The Beast snatched the offending limb away, mortified at his own ugliness.
He threw himself into motion, pacing away across the room, trying to disguise his discomfort. “How do you plan to spend this day?” he asked, brusque.
There was a confused pause from Remus at the desk, then he said carefully, “I thought I might explore outside a little more. Are there-other outbuildings I might not have seen yet?”
The Beast remembered the greenhouse of his dream, the greenhouse where Remus had kept some secret. “Why?”
“I-no reason. Curiosity.”
“You’ve seen all the buildings here. There’s nothing else.”
“And...outside the grounds? Are there towns or any other buildings near?”
“You wish to leave.” The Beast had reached the far end of the library; full of restless energy, he had no choice but to turn and pace back towards Remus.
“No! No, I know I can’t leave. I don’t mind. But if I ever needed to go just slightly beyond the grounds, for a short time, do you think it might be possible…?”
Would it be? It had never been possible for the Beast, but perhaps the bounds of the curse might prove laxer for his guest. Remus, clever Remus, would find a way to leave him. Having him here, his conversation and warmth and wit, had been a dream too good to be true.
“Come with me.”
Remus’ voice spoke very close to the Beast’s ear. The Beast hadn’t even seen him get up from his chair. But he had done, silent as a cat. He was standing so near.
“Where to?” the Beast asked, his voice gruff. “The whimsical world of wizarding law?” He gestured one hand at the pamphlet Remus held, and Remus snorted.
“No. Outside. Just-the grounds.”
“You want a tour?” the Beast asked doubtfully.
Remus’ eyes danced. “If you’d be so kind.” He was still standing very close. “A house like this, I’d imagine, has many secrets. I’ve seen parts of the grounds, but I’m sure I haven’t seen it all.”
The Beast nodded. That was true enough. And he needed to move, because standing so close to Remus in the quiet of the library was throwing him into a turmoil. It had been so long since anyone had looked at him like Remus did, and surely Remus’ look didn’t mean what he wished he could hope it might mean.
Men and women both had looked at the Beast like that, in the long-ago days before he was a Beast. They had gazed at him with fascination, admiration, and the Beast had laughed and claimed the joy of their company for himself whenever he liked. But that had been when he was a beautiful youth. Beautiful and shallow, unaware of what he had. No one would look that way at a Beast.
“We can go out this way,” he hurried to say, crossing to the nearest bookshelf, fleeing from Remus’ disconcerting gaze. He tapped the red leather volume about dragons in just the right place, inside the swoop of the “g”, and the entire shelf retracted into the wall, spun, and revealed a spiral staircase.
“There’s a secret passage?” Remus asked, sounding amused.
“Of course there is,” the Beast said. “It’s a house, isn’t it?”
Remus smiled. “You seem to be labouring under the misapprehension that all houses have secret stairs hidden in the walls.”
“Don’t they?”
“No.” Remus shook his head. “This is how you get around without being seen, isn’t it?”
The Beast shrugged. He hadn’t shrugged in years. “I know a few muffling and concealment charms, too.”
He led Remus through the passage, which opened onto what had once been the rose garden, and which was now home to two fairy rings and a family of rabbits. The Beast pointed out objects of interest, when he thought of them, but mostly Remus did the talking. Remus asked a lot of questions-how far was the nearest village (twenty miles), how many house-elves lived in the house (four, one of them quite elderly), were there other secret passages leading out (yes). He wanted to find a way out of the cursed grounds; his line of questioning left no doubt. And yet, the Beast could not begrudge him the answers to his questions, even if each one might bring him a step closer to leaving forever. He would enjoy Remus’ company as long as he had it, and try not to mind too much how soon it would surely end.
“What about that?” Remus asked, pointing to a brass statue, mottled with verdigris, of a very young, very shirtless Merlin conferring with an owl. “Does that have a secret passage under it or something?”
“Him?” the Beast said. “No.”
Remus considered the statue. “Muggles have a similar one, of Perseus, holding the head of Medusa. Same pose, almost exactly.”
The Beast watched Remus’ eyes travel up the dark metal body, over the well-defined muscles of its neck and torso and legs.
“We could draw a map,” Remus said. “Of this estate. A magical map.”
“Why?”
“So we could see people’s comings and goings. Have you ever used a map like that? You can charm a parchment to show people as well as places. Anyway, magicartology is a fascinating hobby. And you have at least ten books about it.”
“No one comes near here, except those who are lost. Besides, I can hear for miles, with these ears. I can hear the dormice in the fields over there.”
The Beast stopped himself. He never discussed his monstrous form, or its peculiar quirks, with anybody. But Remus did not look alarmed, or ashamed. He was gazing at the Beast with a warm, almost sage expression.
“What else can you hear?” Remus asked.
The Beast considered this a moment, then closed his eyes and listened-really listened, to the diffuse music of the world. He heard the family of rabbits hopping through dry leaves; the tinny, hollow plinking of a broken charm somewhere in the vicinity of the motorbike; two house-elves polishing glass and silver. The thudding of a human heart.
The heartbeat quickened.
The Beast opened his eyes. For one hopeful fraction of a second, he imagined he would see Remus still looking at him, with warmth and understanding, and maybe even something more.
But Remus was looking at the gap in the garden wall, out at the world, where spring was emerging, in a thousand shades of green.
( continue to CHAPTER FIVE)