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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 FIVE


Over the next few days, Remus worked on the map. What had started as a whim, something diverting to draw the Beast out of his frequent bouts of melancholy, expanded into a project that engrossed them both, keeping them together in close proximity in the library.

Remus was glad to see his kind but moody host enjoying a task for once. And he couldn’t help but think that it wouldn’t hurt, either, to have such a map for his own reference. If they could complete the charms that caused the map to reveal the movements of individuals by the full moon, Remus might be able to keep it close by that night, to be sure there was no one around before he transformed.

The Beast had a quick mind, Remus found, and an inventive eye for magical detail. And when they sat together, bent over the big desk in the library, his host forgot to be so very reticent.

Remus began sketching a rough floor plan of the house on a large sheet of parchment, but the Beast leaned over his shoulder and offered so many suggestions that Remus finally handed the parchment up to him with a laugh. “You do it,” he said. “You’re the one who knows the layout of the house, anyway.”

The Beast seemed embarrassed, at first, to be seen clutching the quill in his massive paw, but when Remus made no comment, he gradually relaxed into the task. He drew with surprising steadiness, sketching smooth arcs and straight lines without the aid of tools. One afternoon, Remus left to check if the actual dimensions of the house’s kitchens matched the way he’d drawn them on the map, and came back to find the Beast sprawled in a large leather chair, writing intently with a parrot feather quill, oblivious to all else.

Remus stopped in the doorway and watched him. There was something about his posture that was almost regal. A careless prince.

He wondered what sort of man the Beast had been, in his former life—a selfless warrior, a rakish gentleman playing at resistance, a loyal friend who lacked self-control? How did someone brave enough to fight Voldemort and his Death Eaters end up hidden away in a crumbling old mansion in the woods?

He wondered, too, at the fondness that warmed his chest, when he watched this man—this Beast—intent at his work. Remus knew better than to allow himself to fall for anyone. Even for a man who was himself also a sort of monster. In certain moments, Remus allowed himself to believe he’d found a rare connection here, someone who liked him for himself and wouldn’t be scared away by the inevitable revelation of his own monstrous form. Someone who—

No. As a werewolf, he posed danger. Did he pose a danger even to a beast who had once been a man? He wasn’t sure, but he wouldn’t take the risk of finding out. For that matter, was he a danger to house-elves? It wasn’t a question Remus had encountered before, not having spent his time among those wealthy enough to keep servants. He must keep his distance, for everyone’s sake.

Remus cleared his throat as he stepped into the room, and the Beast looked up, startled.

“The kitchen dimensions are right,” Remus said, his voice coming out as a bit of a croak. “No need to change anything.”

The Beast kept looking at him, curious, and Remus wished he could ask what he saw. He didn’t dare. He’d already been too forward, too often, more than he should have allowed himself to be. Remus experienced a pang of wistfulness for the itinerant life he’d led before arriving here. It was an absurd thing to think, given how often he’d been half starving, unable to find or keep enough work even to keep himself fed, but he’d grown accustomed to being able to slip away whenever anyone looked at him too closely.

It was a failing of his, Remus knew, wanting to be liked but not quite seen.

He saw his host watching him closely, those next days. It was growing critical for Remus to find a place where he could transform at the full moon, but with the Beast’s attention on him it was hard to slip away to explore. Time and again, he found himself seeking out the gaze of those deep grey eyes, then reminding himself yet again that now was not a time to be seeking connection; now was the time to figure out how he could disappear when necessary. The deep, warm happiness he felt in the core of his being whenever he caught that grey-eyed gaze was surely irrelevant.

Finally, only a day and a half before the full moon, Remus found what he needed: a small cellar that was reached by descending a flight of narrow stone stairs hidden behind a small door at the far end of the kitchens. The door was sturdy wood and it bolted from the inside. Remus would cast every protective charm he knew, making the cellar Imperturbable and soundproof. He would have to make some excuse that evening, tell his host he was feeling unwell and wished to retire to bed early, and then somehow slip downstairs without any of the house-elves seeing him, but he would manage. He hoped to Merlin he would manage.

Over the next few hours, the moon pulled at him, a monstrous tide rising in his blood. The world became fevered, urgent, and small. His hands shook and didn’t stop. He could no longer write nor draw with any steadiness. But he didn’t have to; the physical work of creating the map was done, and all that remained were the spells to animate it. Alone for a moment in the library, Remus bent over the map and whispered a series of incantations—animato, veracia, revelia sempre—and the map became alive with moving dots.

The house-elves—who according to the little letters under their dots were called Blinken, Finchlet, Tothby, and Mag—were all in the kitchen, perhaps peeling potatoes at a table, from the way they were positioned. There was Remus’ own dot, in the library. And there, coming down the hall, was an unexpected name, the name of a nearby star. But—that must be the Beast’s true name, then, because there was no dot anywhere marked “Beast.” Remus, already growing foggy, felt an odd pang of sentiment at the sight of the unusual name. Strange to think someone with such a lovely, lyrical name would cast it off in favour of “Beast.”

The moon was coming. He felt it tug at his muscles, ligaments, fasciae. He felt it in the swollen flesh around his teeth and in the aching marrow of his lower vertebrae, the premonition of fangs and tail. He wanted to drink something hot and fragrant and transporting, tea or coffee, but knew that it would only make him more keenly alert, when what he needed most urgently was keep the wolf subdued tonight, keep him quiet, keep him from being found.

The Beast once known as Sirius Black appeared, stooping to fit through the doorway. The familiar sight of him filled Remus with a vague but unmistakable gladness. He could feel already how the moon was dulling his human faculties, tugging them away, and his stomach felt as though it were filled with sharp, heavy stones. But he still knew instantly that this was a person it pleased him to see. His mouth lifted in a smile.

“Hello,” Remus said weakly, then cleared his throat. He must not give any sign that the moon was affecting him.

“S’it finished then?” the Beast said.

“Hmm?”

“The map.”

“Oh.” Remus took a deep breath and smoothed out the parchment. “Yes. Come and see.”

Sirius crossed to the desk. Was it Remus’ imagination, or did his fur look a little glossier, a little less unkempt than it had done before? Or perhaps it was something animal in Remus himself, recognising something animal in the Beast, something no true human being would discern.

“It shows names,” the Beast said.

“Yes,” Remus agreed.

“You never said it would do that.”

Remus tried to remember—was that true? He shook his head. “Is there a problem?”

The Beast’s expression was hard to read. He was staring at the parchment.

“Have I upset you?” Remus asked.

The Beast grunted. “I wondered whether it would show non-human creatures. Now I see it does.”

Remus’ heart jumped. Did the Beast know what Remus was? Or was he referring to himself?

“Sirius,” Remus said.

The Beast’s huge grey eyes flashed.

“Or, or, Beast,” Remus said. The moon had hold of him; his head was hot and muzzy. He glanced out the window; evening was fast approaching. “Only, I don’t feel so well today. I think I might—might take a walk through the garden and then retire early. I don’t think I’ll dine with you tonight.”

The Beast dropped the map onto the table. “You do want to leave. Don’t you.” It wasn’t a question.

“I don’t intend to leave, no,” Remus said.

The Beast had turned those large grey eyes on Remus again, and they were full of some great feeling Remus still could not read. Then the huge black ears twitched, and turned as if to hear something in another room, the way a cat’s might do.

The Beast quit the room all at once and disappeared into the hall, padding away on his huge feet. Remus traced his dot on the map as it travelled all the way to the upper floor of the east wing, to a room Remus knew to be the Beast’s private bedchamber. There the Beast stopped. Remus heard a distant murmur, a conversation too far away to hear. Who was the Beast conversing with? Surely not the house-elves. Their dots on the map were all in the kitchen.

Then, a long and quite human howl. An anguished, horrified howl.

Remus bolted from his chair, map in hand, and followed the path to the Beast’s dot.

“What’s wrong?” he called, then stopped short as he crossed the threshold of the Beast’s own chamber and took in the sight.

A mirror stood propped on a dresser, and three people—three young teenagers—looked out of it. A freckly, redheaded boy; a girl with bushy hair and slightly oversized teeth; and a small, pale boy with bright green eyes, lopsided glasses, and a scar on his forehead shaped like lightning. Remus recognized that last face, of course—what wizard wouldn’t? But why was his host talking to Harry Potter?

“You’re sure?” the Beast was demanding of the children in the mirror. The room was so deeply cast in shadow that the image in the mirror was by far the brightest thing in it. “He calls himself ‘Professor Wormtail’ and he’s missing a finger on his right hand?”

“Yes, but why—” the boy with the lightning scar began.

“No time,” the Beast interjected. “Meet me outside Honeydukes at nightfall, Harry. Not you two. You lot stay in the castle.”

“No way,” protested the redheaded boy.

“Too dangerous,” the Beast said. “Nightfall. Honeydukes. Bring the Cloak, Harry, that will keep you safe. Your friends need to stay in the castle. I’ll explain everything to you then, but you have to be sure to get out without anyone seeing you!”

And with that, the Beast charged away, towards the secret stair behind the tapestry of the fainting hippogriff.

Remus blinked in confusion at the children in the mirror. They didn’t seem to be able to see him in the darkness of the Beast’s room, and they were already turning away from the mirror, conferring amongst themselves. Remus gave the mirror a last, baffled look, then hurried after Sirius, down the secret staircase.

He could hear the Beast darting from one room to another with surprising speed, and he caught snatches of manic sentences. “At Hogwarts. He’s at Hogwarts!” And then, oddly, something that sounded very much like “his finger!”

“Who?” Remus called to the Beast’s huge, dark back, as he finally caught up to him in the garden, where the Beast was charging towards the far gate. “Who’s at Hogwarts?”

The shadows of the trees were long—when had they got so long? Night and moonrise were at Remus’ heels. And ahead of him, the Beast didn’t slow in his frantic dash for the garden gate.

“You’re—leaving?” Remus called. It was growing harder to find words for things—Remus reached for them, but they weren’t complying with his wish to use them, to fit his lips around them. He was quite sure the Beast had said from the start that the curse kept him from going beyond the grounds of the house, but perhaps Remus had misunderstood? Everything was so blurry now, colour leeching out of the world around him as the moon rose inexorably up towards the lip of the horizon.

One hand on the gate, the Beast spun around, an inscrutable but passionate expression pulling at his strange features.

“I’m sorry,” the Beast said softly, his eyes locked on Remus’. “There’s no time to explain, but I’ve got to try. I’m going to force my way out of here if it kills me. I can’t stand by this time, Remus. He’s at Hogwarts. With Harry.”

With that cryptic explanation, and with anguish vivid in his enormous grey eyes, the Beast raised his wand, said “to Hogwarts” with fierceness such as Remus had never heard, and turned on the spot. He spun much longer than Apparation normally required, twisting faster and faster until he became a dark blur. Through it all, Remus could hear the Beast screaming as though his heart were ripping in two.

And then, with a drawn-out pop, he was gone. No sound now but the early evening peeps of snidgets.

It was late evening. Far too late.

Remus bolted back to the house, ran as quickly as his aching, clumsy body would allow through the kitchens, with no time to explain to the house-elves.

“Alohomora!” he called to the cellar doors, wand aloft. He wrenched them open and charged down the narrow staircase.

The moon was so close now. He could smell the way it changed the world, made everything wilder and nearer and fuller. He smelled meat in the kitchen above, bloody and fresh and marbled with fat. But the wolf didn’t want that kind of meat. Not beef. The wolf wanted—no, no.

Remus slammed the cellar doors behind himself and cast a series of protective charms, his tongue stumbling on the words.

His whole body went rigid. His lungs exploded with pain. Fur forced its way through his skin, covering his arms, face and feet, and he fell forwards onto his hands and knees. Holding onto human thought with all he had, Remus shucked off his robes, tearing them in his haste, and tucked his wand away into one pocket.

His bones reshaped themselves inside him, and his scream of pain became a howl.


(continue to CHAPTER SIX)

Date: 2015-10-16 03:14 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] shimotsuki.livejournal.com
Oh, wow. Very exciting chapter! I've been wondering all along how the Beast/Sirius would react on the full-moon night, but now he won't even be there -- because he's tracking down Peter!

I'm really enjoying the characterizations here, especially the way each one is curious about the other but is wary of being studied.

It was a failing of his, Remus knew, wanting to be liked but not quite seen. -- goodness, yes, this is Remus Lupin in a nutshell, all right.

It's also fun to see canon details, like the Map, and the two-way mirrors, showing up in this different context.

Now I'm all on tenterhooks about how Harry will react to meeting his Beast of a godfather -- assuming Sirius actually makes it to Hogsmeade -- and about whether Sirius will be perceptive enough to work out what's going on with Remus and the full moon.

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