I.
Éponine Thénardier was almost sixteen when she first met the infamous Inspector.
It was a chilly Saturday night and she walked home soaking wet because some fancy carriage scattered all the water from the street at her. She ran home with an unnatural speed to change, though she knew that her father will be probably furious knowing she couldn't rob the priest on the Rue Centime and that instead of pick pocketing, she visited Marius in the ABC café.
She is relieved when she sees the house with warm light inside and prepares herself for the eternal lecture and possible beating. But instead of having a mad frown on his face, his father has a fake smile and a honeyed voice on.
"Come, 'Ponine," he starts, then pauses. His eyes flash with anger as he sees his daughter's destroyed clothes, and Éponine can tell he forces himself to continue " My poor darling, come, sit by the fire before you catch a cold!"
She is so confused that she doesn't fully realize that there is another person in the room until she finally looks around. The minute Éponine does that, her heart almost stops from the fear.
Near the fireplace, still as a statue, sits the man who is feared by every one of the thieves in Paris. Inspector Javert started to examine her with his steel-colored eyes which seemed to burn a hole in her head.
She shivers and breaks the eye contact.
"Monsieur L' Inspecteur is here to ask about Cosette." Éponine is surprised to find her mother in the corner. "Would you care for a drink, perhaps, sir?"
Javert dismissed the wine with the motion of his hand and turned to Mr. Thénardier.
"I am more interested in the man who took your foster daughter some years ago. Did he tell you his name or profession?"
Monsieur and Madame Thénardier exchanged a worried look. Of course they didn't, thought Éponine. The man who came had money, that's what mattered.
"He… he didn't," said her mother finally with such imitated humbleness, that Éponine wanted to throw up. "He seemed like a wealthy gentleman, sir, and looked completely trustworthy."
A sneer appeared at the corner of Javert's mouth.
"I see. So you gave the child to a stranger without knowing anything about him in order to gain some profit. How clever."
The sheer sarcasm seemed to hit the Thénardiers in the face and seemed to shrink them several inches.
The policeman stood up. Éponine roughly compared her height to the man and concluded that she would be able to reach his shoulders.
"'Ponine!" shrieked her mother suddenly. "Go and accompany the Inspector 'till he reaches the end of the road!"
Her mother's word could be deciphered as: Go and try to get some information out of this bastard. Now.
She seriously doubted he would even talk to her.
"There is no need for that." Javert said sternly, more as an order than an option. He looked at Éponine for the second time. He had a small smile on the corner of his hard-lined mouth that didn't quite reach his eyes. "The Mademoiselle should change before she gets ill."
She realized what he was referring to, and blushed furiously.
When he left, she didn't get beaten by her father who seemed to forget completely that she didn't even bring home money. He seemed crazed as her mother lectured her to avoid that Inspector.
"So' of a bitch like that cannot be reasoned with, 'Ponine, "he said. "Want to see you suffer 'till you're dead."