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Lost in the Tale	By : sappysappysappy Category: Harry Potter > Het - Male/Female > Snape/Hermione Views: 6456 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter, nor any of the characters from the books or movies. I do not profit from the writing of this story.

Chapter List
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Chapter Two - Self Examination

"So, you coming?" Millie asked

"Erm… I don't know. Where are we going?" Sarah asked, stalling.

"The stream. Jeremiah's got fish and chips."

"Tired of the 'haunted' house?" Sarah needled her.

"Stop being so contrary." Millie admonished her in her usual soft almost-whisper. "Everyone knows the house is haunted. No one can make themselves get past the fence. You know it's true. Jeremiah is the first that was brave enough to do it. He said he found something."

Millie's pretty face was full of excitement. Sarah almost sneered. "What about the 'bogeys'? They get in all the time. The rest of us are just cautious, like. The 'bogeys' might have knives and not be very friendly."

Millie took a deep breath. "They're bogeys. Of course they can get in. If you think you can get in anytime you like, prove it. We'll go get Jeremiah and you'll show the both of us how easy it is to do it. There won't be any… vagrants, bothering you now."

"I don't feel like. It's full of ash and smelly."

"You just don't want to admit it is haunted. Admit it!" Millie admonished her in her small little voice.

Sarah bristled. "That's it! I don't want to talk about the House anymore. I'm not coming. Tell Jeremiah I'm not interested."

"But Sarah-"

"I said no. I have better things to do." She wanted Millie to go away already. She was tired of her and Jeremiah ganging up on her. She wished she was by herself and up in her tree already. She was anxious to see if anything changed in the fairy tales book since last night.

"Why? What will you do?" Millie asked suspiciously.

"None of your business."

"Fine! We don't need you." Millie yelled in that high, shrill voice of hers, her face red.

Sarah started to regret what she said. She should have lied and said she needed to help her mother or maybe even go with them and look at Jeremiah's boring find. What would it cost her to pretend she believed the house was haunted like them? She didn't have any friends beside Millie and Jeremiah. She couldn't make them mad at her. The stupid house wasn't worth it. She'll come with Millie and everything will be all right again. She opened her mouth to say something, but it was too late. Millie was already walking away, her skirt shaking from her rapid steps and her back stiff.

Sarah sat on the curb and hugged herself. Well, she got what she wanted, time for herself. She wouldn't let Millie ruin it for her. She wasn't really sorry for what she said, right?

She climbed into her oak and pulled the Bag of Treasures to her. Opening it up, she started going through it and rearranging it again until she gradually calmed down. The coloured pens and pencils mum gave her went to the little pocket. Her collection of acorns and feathers went back to their respective boxes with a new one to each. The pencil drawing of her and Millie as wood fairies that Millie made for her last year went to the bottom of the bag. She'll forgive Millie later and patch things up, she promised herself. The Count of Monte Cristo was placed back in its place of honour in the Bag along with Little Women which she intended to read some time soon. Her beloved Moomin and Gerald Durrell books went in next. Alone in her lap, remained the fairy tales book.

She opened it. The rich golden hued velum pages looked even more splendid today. There were no gaps from where yesterday the pages fell out. It really was magical. Turning the pages she discovered her hopes came true. On the page following her jotted additions the text continued.

Adam Beast woke the next morning feeling subdued. As he quietly performed his morning ablutions, as he dressed without fuss in a colourful garb, as he woodenly ate from the sumptuous meal that awaited him in a silent dining hall and still, as he aimlessly walked the paths of the lovely gardens, the words of the fairy Treesong wouldn't stop plying in his mind.

Why had he killed that ugly beast? Why did he let his stupid gut guide him into folly when a little forethought would have served him so much better? Hadn't he seen the flower behind the Beast's ear? Hadn't he observed how gentle the Beast's demeanour had been, how unthreatening? Hadn't he noticed how placid all the birds and little animals of the garden were at its presence? The same animals who, witnessing his deed, fled and shunned him ever since? Not that those things had been easy to notice yesterday.

The bottom line was: he acted like a cornered rat because he was weak and naked but still, he had acted like a cornered rat. He had done a foul deed and now he was branded with a wretched name. He had done an ugly deed and now faced an oh, so ironically fitting, grim future.

That sanctimonious fairy didn't think much of him. She thought she needed to threaten him into acting like a gentleman. Oh, he wished she was there so he could throttle her. Coercion, Trickery! Such things were beneath him. He knew he would never sink that low. Finding love though, he felt bile rise in his throat. He was sure he would fail at that. Something in his past… somehow that directive tore open an old wound that he couldn't even remember now. Did he even want to? He wouldn't even try to fulfil this 'task'. The whole thing was one of those impossible tests constructed to humiliate you and show you you're worthless. He just knew it. He went back to his bed and lay there for the rest of the day in a high dudgeon.

The days passed listlessly. Adam Beast made half hearted attempts to explore the palace and its grounds but soon tired of them. His purpose, to find faults in this place and ridicule them to his heart's content didn't give him great satisfaction. The palace was too bright and airy. No one could comfortably live in it. The countless frescoes of frolicking gods and goddesses on the walls and ceilings were a tad lifeless for his tastes and definitely too repetitive. The abundant use of gold and gilding everywhere was beyond ostentatious. And the garden was obviously unnatural. Flowers bloomed without regard to their divergent seasons; rot and disease were utterly absent. It was too perfect. Not a garden at all but a rosy dream-garden. Only fairy-magic could account for it. But… at the root of all his complaints there was, he soon realized, a snake of deepest envy. Envy that this ethereal beauty surrounding him on all sides would never be his. And this truth robbed his criticisms of their bite.

Gradually, his thoughts returned to the fairy's words and the task she set for him. With such a magnificent palace at his disposal, surely it wouldn't be hard to entice some penniless peasant girl to his side? Compared to that Beast, his chances of accomplishing that were surely infinitely better. It would be a marriage of convenience of sorts, true. But the utter loneliness of this place was too oppressing to bear alone. Nothing broke the silence but the tap of his steps, the sigh of the wind, the beat of his heart. No one met his eyes but cold, inanimate paintings. No one acknowledged him. No human soul ventured into this place. The invisible servants ignored him. The animals shunned him. Even his memories were stripped from him. He needed human contact. And yet, he was drawn to this place, to its loveliness. A jill would solve his dilemma. She would fill the silences of this place, she would force the aloof servants to acknowledge him, she would appease the fairy and break the curse she snared him with, she would give him this palace. Maybe one day such a girl would even learn to love him. It wasn't that unlikely, was it? He was not a difficult man to get along with, he felt. He had his quirks and faults like any other man but he was not without virtues either. But could such virtues overcome an unhandsome visage?

He found himself standing before the pond where he first washed himself clean. He bent on his knees at the edge of the pond and examined himself. Reflections did not lie. His brow tightened, his lips compressed. He did not like what he saw. His image in the clear waters of the pond showed him with crystal clarity just how ugly he was. He was thin as a scarecrow and beak-nosed like some vulture. He was greasy-haired and ghost-pale like some slimy chthonic abomination of the deep dark and his eyes! They were blank as an empty meadow and dark as wells. When he stared at them, the nothingness stared back. If the eyes were the aspaklairs to the soul, he was a man without a soul. His cruel, thin lips promised that no abomination was beyond them. His long, tapered fingers were eager, like snakes, to poison and destroy. He was a repulsive, ugly man. His eyes misted with tears and he turned his back on the sparkling pond. It was lies, all lies.

To hell with it all, he thought. To hell with it. He started walking. Round the palace he went and down the avenue leading from its front gates to the forest beyond. As he passed beneath the branched, he began to shiver. Then he began to curse. He had reached the boundary of the enchantment. Beyond, a different world faced him. The forest was cold. Deep snow covered the ground and branched. A merciless wind howled around him, freezing him to his bones. The path became narrow and uneven. In the distance he could hear the wails of hungry beasts. He couldn't face this. He was clad in light, colourful clothes and his feet were bare. He had forgotten in the pleasant palace where there were no sharp rocks or harsh winds or coldness how unprepared he was for the bigger world.

He could not escape. Not like this.

Sarah put the book down. What was wrong with Adam Beast? He wasn't making it easy for her to like him. He didn't like her. He said he wanted to throttle her! Sarah touched her throat. It was weird having a character in a book threaten you, even if it was only her alter ego being threatened. But, she consoled herself, Treesong was a powerful fairy and he couldn't do a thing to hurt her. Sarah humphed. He'll just have to face his troubles like a hero and not try to blame them on her. She'd done nothing wrong. He was simply too touchy. And morose. That was his problem, she decided. He was taking everything much too seriously. Well, she was sure everything will turn out well in the end. Pretty sure.

She wondered why his reflection in the pond looked so horrific. He didn't sound that bad yesterday. She didn't think so. It couldn't be his inner character or his past either. Neither of them was that horrible no matter how caustic he was right now. There was gentleness in him and his past was merely sad, not cruel. She couldn't make sense of it.

In any case his story was starting to grate on her. She held the book to her heart and whispered, "I wish that next time I open you the tale will be about someone else. How about Belle and her family? I'd like to read their story now."

She put the book back in the Bag and left her tree.
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Lost in the Tale