Title : Another Story Must Begin…
Author : loonie_lupin (ff. net) – Lisapahud (ao3)
Fandom : Les Misérables (book + 2012)
Characters/pairings : Valjean, Javert, Cosette, Marius (+ appearance by others)
Résumé : Montreuil-sur-Mer. An old gypsy woman curses Javert. Everything changes but there are some things which are destined to happen, one way or another…
Disclaimers : All recognizable characters and settings are property of their creators. Nothing belongs to me. I'm only playing around.
Notes : The French version of this fic is already up under the title of 'Ici commence une autre histoire'. If you're able to read French, I would suggest going to that version, as it is my first language and, therefore, it is probably better…
As this story is already written in its entirety, I'll post a few chapters a day. I just have to proof read them once again before posting…. If some mistakes remains if you mean more than one mistake, you write that without an s) and you see them, don't hesitate to keep me informed.
My thanks to Nurzubesuch who beta-read the story. All errors remaining are mine.
Another Story Must Begin…
Prologue
Sounds were the first element which came back to him. He could hear people in the distance, children mostly, being unruly and loud and Javert had half a mind to go there and find the parents to tell them off about it and demand they make their children behave, lest they wanted to be arrested for noise pollution. Of course, it may have very well been his headache talking.
He felt as bad as the first and only time he had allowed himself to indulge in too much alcohol. The wakeup call had been as bad as today and had prevented him to perform his duties to the best of his abilities, or so he felt. Therefore, he had sworn off getting drunk. Now, he only authorized himself one glass of wine, here and there, not regularly and only if the occasion called for it.
With that in mind, he could say with absolute certainty that he hadn't been drunk the night before and that what he was feeling right now was most certainly not a hangover.
He tried opening his eyes and, even though the light blinded him, he was able to adapt quickly as he was protected against the harshness of the sun by the immense wooden boxes all around him. It didn't take Javert long to work out that he was on the docks. He had, however, no idea of how he had come to sleep in such a place as this.
The very first action to take, however, was not to wonder about how this miserable situation came about but to hurry going back to his lodgings and change clothes before anyone stumbled upon him. His reputation in town would be forever changed and not for the better. He rapidly sat up and, not caring about the slight bout of vertigo which took over him or the flash of pain throbbing in his shoulder, he climbed to his feet. This was when he realized something was definitely wrong with the situation, something more than his apparent need to take a nap on the docks.
These boxes were not supposed to be that big. Or, more important he wasn't supposed to be that small. As his perspective once on his feet had shifted from the usual, he looked down towards himself and realized, with a sense of detached horror, that his body was now the body of a child, a small child of about six of age, if he cared to remember his own youth and the rate at which he had grown.
He must be dreaming. That was the very first, very understandable, thought that crossed his mind. However, the still sore state of his head, as well as the piercing pain in his shoulder which seemed to come from what appeared to be a knife wound – small but deep – negated this line of reasoning. He wouldn't be in so much pain if he really was in a dream.
Javert, as the realization came to him that he was indeed, at the present moment, a child felt the beginning of a panic creep into his chest. He closed his eyes to help battling it off and pushed it back down as it was clearly not the moment to let such pitiful emotions compromise him and prevent him from thinking clearly about how this condition came to be. The tide of panic receded and he reopened his eyes, calm and collected. His mind wandered back to the night before.
He had headed to the docks after having heard a persistent rumor that a clan of gypsies had established their camp there. The honest citizens of Montreuil were distrustful of them – Javert would have been the last one to blame them for it – and there had already been several accusations of thievery. Considering this, he could not possibly allow them to stay there any longer. Those who had stolen from the citizens would be spending some quality time in his cells and the rest would have to disperse or face the same fate, on the charge of having refused to follow an order given by an agent of the law.
What had seemed like a very simple evening had taken another course when he had found the gypsies extremely uncooperative. The tone of the confrontation had quickly escalated. His backups had drawn swords and a skirmish, which he now realized he could not remember the details of, had begun. As there was now no sign of the clan around the docks, and the place looked exactly as it had before they had set foot in town, he was pretty certain that his police force had prevailed. He could not, for the life of him, remember how that came to be.
However, what he could remember in vivid colors was the face of an old woman, maybe seventy or eighty of age, with sad eyes and an air of quiet wisdom about her. She had looked at him, not in anger as most of her people did, not in supplication, but in pity. Her pity hadn't been directed towards herself, though, but towards him and, at the time, he had not been able to comprehend it. To be fair, he hadn't cared about it at all. Maybe if he had, he could have avoided being the recipient of what must have amounted to a curse.
He had seen her lips move, forming a kind of chant, but he hadn't been able to understand the words. Her language, which had once been his so long ago, was now full of mysteries to him, his mind only vaguely recalling the simplest words. The last sentence she had uttered, though, he could remember it being in French.
"You need to learn how to live in a world not made of black and white but countless shades of grey or else, you will be lost forevermore."
It was the very last thing he could recall before his wakeup call and it made absolutely no sense to him. Of course, he was aware that, far from the tarot-reading the gypsies used on unsuspecting citizens, there was a more tangential power within their reach, one that could accomplish real feats but that they rarely used, especially in front of strangers, for fear of being persecuted by those who didn't understand. Had they decided to make an exception in his case, or had that woman somehow realized he already knew?
It didn't matter. The only thing that mattered now was to find a way to reverse the spell because what exactly was he supposed to do with this one and only sentence graved in his mind? To him, it was senseless and he knew the only way he would be able to become himself once more was to find that old woman and force her to cancel her curse.
With that goal in mind, Javert began his trek back to the centre of the town, intending to find traces of where the clan had disappeared to. It was only after several incidents with people almost knocking him over – because who cared about a street kid, a gamin – that the inspector comprehended the reality of the situation: he couldn't go back to the station and use the police resource to find these people because who, in their right mind, would believe him to be Inspector Javert?
He quickly stopped his progression towards the station and flattened his back against the wall, making room for those who walked resolutely around him, ignoring him as he had so often ignored the little kids flocking around in the streets, with nowhere else to go, and closed his eyes.
What was he going to do now? How could he, on his own, find these people? And who would hire a six-year-old child for work, to permit him to earn enough money to keep himself fed in the meantime? These were all good questions for which he had no answer. He hadn't liked his childhood the first time around and he really didn't think he would like it any better the second time. All he knew for now was that he could not stay there. He had to find a secluded place to think in peace, away from the bustling people around him.
He opened his eyes again, intending to run to a shelter, but stopped before he even started. There, clear as day, a dozen meters or so away, his back to him, stood Monsieur le Maire Madeleine, giving alms to the poor of the town. The good mayor, strong enough to lift a cart, limping so distinctly, but so discreet that none of Javert's suspicions could be proved, one way or another. Javert found himself almost smiling, a determined glint entering his eyes.
Maybe this curse could wait a bit before being lifted. He had, after all, all the time in the world to find the gypsies now. Besides, he had no idea where to even begin looking so he would take the time to think about it before acting. In the meantime, if he could do something else he had wanted to for quite some time now but was unable to act upon in his official manner, then why not take the chance?
Madeleine had always kept some distance between them, as if afraid of what he would find, and Javert had never been able to verify if his suspicions of him being Jean Valjean were true because of it. However, now that Javert was not an inspector but just another gamin what reason would Valjean have to be suspicious? Now Javert could get close without Madeleine being on his guard. Maybe this curse was the way to get Valjean to face justice once again.
Note : I was inspired by a few prompts from the kinkmeme, asking for de-aged Javert. I haven't used the other details, so I'm not posting this as an answer (as it would not correspond to the anons' wishes) but I wanted to say the idea came from there.