~*Ma Petite Lionne*~ (1)
Prologue: Commencement (2)
Hi! Anyone wondering what the numbers up there are? Well, every time I speak French in this story (and that will be mightily often as the main character speaks not a word of English at the beginning) or refer to French culture I will give you a number… at the end of the chapter, look for that number in the footnotes, and you can have a translation! Makes things easier for those of you not blessed with the gift of languages. *blush* I don't want to scare you away with the many phrases in French and culture shock, yet I feel the main character's native land and language must figure heavily into the plot for it to give the full effect! So enjoy yourselves! The story will be told in flashback, meaning this prologue actually takes place near the end of our tale, which means from this point on I will utilize past tense, and not present… the rating is for language (much of it in French) and violence… I shall attempt to write a story with no romance in it, at least not directly. Bonne chance! (3)
Disclaimer: Harry Potter is the brainchild of the magnificent J.K. Rowling. Gabrielle is her brainchild too, I suppose, but she only just mentioned her. I only borrowed her and expanded on the subject…
"It was your eyes that gave you away, you know," he says softly, his snakelike face giving a hideous attempt at kindness. "Such little girls do not have such ancient eyes." I squeeze my eyes shut and press my lips tightly together before I can retort, telling him I'm not a little girl. Before when I said so I was laughed at gently and tucked into bed with a glass of warm milk and an innocent kiss to dream the sort of golden dreams only little girls are blessed with. Now I am truly no longer a little girl. It is his fault; he has stolen my childhood.
"Won't you say anything?" he asks, anger slipping in between his slick words. "Come, beg me again. If you do, I might let you die painlessly… maybe." I press my lips and eyelids closer together, though it doesn't stop a tear from slipping out and falling from my cheek like a diamond in the dark, damp room. If there is one thing I learned in the past year, it was how to die with dignity. I wonder how long he will play with me before he snaps me in two; I wonder how long before he discovers he will not snap my spirit.
"Are you deaf, you stupid child? Do you wish to die screaming?"
I keep my eyes closed. It is better than looking at his horrible, emotionless eyes, ruby eyes that only light up with fevered feeling when something dies. I shake my head furiously, feeling him try to slip his ice-cold control like a net over my mind. It is strange that he is spending so long on one little girl. The first time, he didn't bother playing nearly as much. I have changed.
He has changed too.
I hear him curse softly, and dare to slit one eye open just in time to see him raise his wand. I have heard the words before, and brace myself for the unbelievable pain that comes with them. Still, I can't help myself and I scream, my young, high-pitched voice reverberating off the stone walls. I want to die.
The pain ends as abruptly as it began and I look up through one teary eye. The other has swollen shut, and in the moments between the intense pain I find the constant dull throbbing even more horrible. I don't think he guesses that a black eye can hurt more than the Cruciatus Curse, but it was not he that blackened it, and the pain is different. This pain is real, and I hold on to it, because I love the one who caused it.
"Tell me," he hisses.
Again I shake "no", my once-neat gilt pigtails a frizzy, bloodied mess about my head.
I am prepared this time, and still I scream. I wonder, if my sister saw me now, whether she would say I am a childish crybaby. I wonder with a mind that is oddly detached from the horrors that my body is experiencing whether I will lose consciousness soon, and whether he will wait for me to wake up before he begins again. Even as I heave to bring up food which I have long lost to the cramping in my stomach, my mind grows stronger as my body dies, and I remember.
I remember especially, one day, waking up wet and confused in the middle of a lake, and concerned green eyes, and a boy asking me if I am all right in a language I don't understand.
"Tell me!"
I remember endless rain, and a place of so many colors it does not seem quite real. I remember laughing so hard my sides ache, and rolling in the wet grass, clutching at a badly cramping stomach from all my laughter, and wonder if it is really so different.
I remember waking up from the horrid green-tinged nightmares and being cuddled in my mother's arms as she assures me I'm all right.
I remember bright green eyes, his, and hers, and the ones I see when I look in the mirror.
There is a reprieve from the pain and I look up.
"Why won't you speak? Do you not understand me saying I shall kill you?"
I would not have understood a year ago, but I do now. Still, I say nothing. He takes this to mean yes and switches into my native tongue, the beautiful words marred by his hissing pronunciation. "Tu mourras bientôt, ma petite. Dites-moi maintenant, et la douleur va finir. Alors?" (4)
I shake my head again, feeling as though my brains are rattling around in my head, refusing to open my mouth lest I spill out everything I promised myself I would not say. It will not be so very much longer, and I am nearly at a point of no longer caring. I have heard people are driven mad by this, and wonder if I retain my sanity.
He is angrier still now, angrier than he was five minutes ago. His fury escalates by the moment.
It is funny how differently this began, how I shrugged it off as yet another soft dream from my childhood, somewhat blurred around the edges, and allowed Fleur to calm me down with a song sung in a surprisingly husky voice. I remember that song; it was a song about a little bird being held by a cruel tormenter, and in childhood I had found it soothing.
It is funny yet sad, and I begin to cry tears of helplessness as I remember the words even as I writhe on the ground. "Alouette, gentille alouette; alouette, je te ploumerais…" (5) But it hurts, oh, it hurts badly to be divested of one's feathers. I do not know why I smiled and drifted off to sleep to it that night, instead of asking for a kinder song.
Children are the cruelest of creatures.
"PARLE!" (6)
I am snapped back to the present and I am unable to help myself. My mind is tired, and I can no longer fight his direct commands. I look up at him from one eye, touch my small fingers to the other which aches now that the horrible cramping is gone, and I open my mouth. "Non." (7)
My name is Gabrielle Lys Delacour.
This is my story.
Footnotes:
(1)My Little Lioness
(2)Beginning
(3)Good luck!
(4)"You are to die presently, my little one. Tell me now, and the pain will stop. Well?"
(5)"Skylark, skylark, pretty skylark; skylark, skylark, I shall pluck your feathers." Ironically enough, this really IS the opening phrase for a French children's song. I was appalled when I first heard it, but now I guess I understand. After all, the baby at the end of "Rockabye Baby" falls from a treetop to very likely break his little neck, yet American mothers sing it to their children…
(6)"SPEAK!"
(7)"No."
That's it! Read and review, please! Flames are accepted, believe it or not. I'd rather have constructive criticism than no comments at all, so if you didn't like it, by all means tell me! I'll attempt to better it next time around!