Summary: It is a world where appearances and reputations are what make a wizard, and nothing is ever as it seems. Or so it is to Hadrian.
Main Pairing: HPTMR
Warnings: Mature content, sloppy French [fear not though; I will scarcely use the language], different Tom Riddle, slash, AU.
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter, or any recognizable trademarked elements in this story.
*Note that the characters are speaking in French here, despite the inserts of French phrases and such. I will alert you when they change languages [maybe in the future chapters]. We are also in Harry Potter's timeline, except Tom Riddle was born a year before Hadrian.
Edited [02/08/2013]: I've added a lot to this prologue. I realized that I didn't really give anything concrete before, so I edited the whole chapter. Tell me if you enjoyed this revision better. :) Thanks to ulqui's-girl for helping me with my French!
when lights glimmer like diamonds
prologue Hadrian
"It is only shallow people who do not judge by appearances." — Oscar Wilde
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Morning light cuts the darkness in the room by a sliver through the velvet curtains. A slight rustle in downy sheets interrupts the peaceful silence of the atmosphere, indicating the awakening of a dark-haired beauty.
Hadrian opens his eyes, blinking blearily up at the canopy of his bed, before slowly pushing himself up to a sitting position. A yawn escapes his lips, muffled by a pale hand by enforced habit; and he threads slim fingers into fine black hair. He pulls himself out of bed, almost reluctantly, but the nagging importance of the day commands his early rise.
Hadrian moves through his morning ablutions gracefully, not belying the usual sluggish motions of a lesser man in the morning. It was almost with a lazy eye that he chooses his outfit for the day, and yet he still ends up looking immaculately splendid in a navy blue tunic and long gray slacks.
He greets his father and mother pleasantly when he reaches the breezy veranda in which his parents favor to have breakfast in, and sits in a white chair to the right of his father. It was with a resigned expectance that he nonchalantly waits for his mother to speak, all the while placing toast and a splatter of eggs on his plate.
"Hadrian," Mariánne Anaïs Leblanc-Favre starts, a beautiful smile curving her lips, "your Pâpa and I expect you to be a proper host this evening. Do refrain from letting your friends monopolize your attention, est-ce que to comprends?" she continues, a warning tone lacing her voice.
"Oui, je comprends," Hadrian replies complacently, but the slight smirk that hitches up the corner of his mouth contradicts his answer. At this, his mother sighs lightly in fond exasperation, while his father shakes his head in amusement.
"Your cousin Draco will be staying for a few days," Alec Favre says. He pauses to take a sip of his morning medicinal tea, before fixing an amused stare on his frowning son. "Try not to hex the boy while we're gone. It wouldn't do to find him missing an eye or two when Lucius and I return from our trip."
"I won't make any promises," Hadrian returns cheekily, although there is a slight grimace twisting the corner of his lips at the thought of the blond, self-involved brat.
He was related to the British Malfoys by virtue of his maternal side of the family. Hadrian's mother, Mariánne, is the daughter of Draco's grandfather's sister, Viví Malfoy, who had married Marcus Leblanc, his grandfather. Hadrian detests his connection with the British blond teenager, if only for the blond's attitude, and thanks the gods for at least making it so that he takes after his father more than his mother in looks.
Hadrian's English name had come up as a whim for his parents; they had both decided to acknowledge their meager, diluted British blood [his father had a few British ancestors who had married into the French Pureblood family of the Favres] by naming their son in such a way.
The rest of the breakfast remained lovely, until his mother leaves to rouse the house elves into preparing the manor for the ball later in the evening, and his father takes off to the French Ministry to drop important papers he had worked on in his home office.
Hadrian lets out a long sigh at the thought of the evening ball, heavily dreading the frivolities it surely entails. He rubs the bridge of his straight nose, before turning at the sudden 'Pop!' towards his left. He wearily eyes the house elf which had appeared. The creature was clad in a toga held up by a golden rope, fidgeting slightly before straightening its frail body up and bowing at the waist.
"Master Hadrian's clothing had arrived for the final fitting. May Lensy be of assistance to young Master?" the elf says, the stuttering of the normal house elf gone from years of training.
"I'll be fine, thank you," Hadrian says, almost smiling at the excited floppy ear-twitch the elf gave at his expression of gratitude. "I will be calling you if Mistress Beaumont will still need to adjust my dress robes. You may go."
The house elf pops away. Hadrian was left to ponder random, fleeting thoughts by the veranda, and he momentarily longs for the school year, which is still a fortnight away. After a while, he goes inside towards his rooms. He has a long day ahead of him, and he wants to look wonderful for the celebration that night.
He enters through his room's oaken doors. His eyes immediately catch sight of the tailored dress robes fitted snugly on a partial mannequin to the side of the seldom used boudoir.
He moves to a section of his room walled on three sides by mirrors, takes off his clothing and lays them neatly over a wooden bar. With a wave of his hand, the dress robes disappear from the mannequin, then reappear floating to the side of him. He reaches his hand out and tugs the fitting black slacks over his long legs. He then slips into the silken dress shirt, idly buttoning up and covering his leanly muscled chest. Next were the white-lined vest, and the long-sleeved coat that fit his upper body and gave the width of his shoulders a commanding cut. The coat flared out by his hips, coming short to his knees.
Hadrian looks appreciatively at the design of his robes. It was in muted colors but rich fabrics, sewn to highlight his figure and his status, and not outlandishly. It was another impeccable reason to thank the renowned seamstress with a token.
With a wave of his wand, the robes appear back on the mannequin. He slips into his previous clothes as his mind drifts to the ball in the evening.
The ball was just a façade, Hadrian knew. It was more of a gathering of the most powerful figures in wizarding France; a place for building allies against the rising Dark Lord.
A Dark Lord. Hadrian chuckles mirthlessly.
It was an inconceivable thought, because France is a Light-dominated nation, but there it is, real and in the now. The wizarding world has not had a Dark Lord in more than half a century. After Grindelwald's imprisonment, after the war that broke out, no one, from all sides, dared to break the peace that European leaders pushed hard to maintain.
They are in the precipice of a war, and France would not be the only one affected. Whispers of a rising Dark Lord came from the dregs of France's society late last year. No one important paid any attention to them, because an aspiring Dark wizard from the underground is doomed to fail. Should have been doomed to fail. But this particular wizard did not.
Seemingly random murders of known families began to happen, and then lesser known ones'. They started this year's January, when Hadrian just came back to Beauxbatons from winter break. The people began to panic. There were no magical traces left in the scenes of the murders, but all the bodies showed no signs of treatment under muggle means.
The French Ministry is chasing the tail of a very cunning wizard. All the months of searching and investigating proved futile, and now a call for foreign intervention is laid on the table, when the Ministry previously thought itself capable of capturing the elusive Dark Lord.
The man's real name remains unknown up to this day, but the common people call him Seigneur Noël. It was with a twisted sense of irony that the man was named that, and for some fitting reasons. The Dark Lord became known during Yule, a time that muggles traditionally call 'Christmas'. He was named a very Light name, when he is Dark.
The high society, however, turn their noses away from the name. They refuse to bestow a regal name upon a man who was threatening the balance of France's peace, and simply refer to him as the Dark Lord. Hadrian inwardly agrees.
His thoughts turn to his friends, and then his not-friends. Hadrian's mouth twists into a frown at the reminder of his other batch mates who are attending that night's ball with their parents. A haughty group of rich purebloods who think they are better than most, but are truthfully immature, spoilt teens who hide behind their family's fortune and name outside the marble Palace of Beauxbatons.
'Draco would fit just right with them,' Hadrian thought wryly.
Shaking his head, he travels to the library. He needs a good book or two to read through the morning and the afternoon till he has to prepare for the ball.
His stack of books on animagi is still on the stand next to a red, wingback chair. Hadrian has been entertaining the idea of having an animagus form since the start of the year, but between his studies and Quidditch practices, he wasn't able to start in school. So he made good use of the last half of his summer and has been reading. He was still on the stage of meditating, but a shadow of the animagus has already taken form in his mind. With a bit more practice, the form will show completely and he can start the transition.
Settling comfortably into the armchair, he opens the book on top of the stacks and reads where he left last.
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French Translations:
…est-ce que tu comprends? Do you understand?
Oui, je comprends. Yes, I understand.