Thank you very much for the very kind review for first chapter, very helpful! And the follow, yay :)
I don't own anything recognisable, unfortunately!

The doctor had left Christine by herself in the house for half an hour while he attended the patients waiting back at his workplace. He, not being a man who had children himself (and therefore did not know the responsibility one should take with an abandoned seven year old), told her to pack a suitcase of her favourite belongings.

Christine looked around their little house. She began in her room. She could not take her bed; that was too big, and of course there'd be a bed wherever she was to go. She had no idea which clothes she was to take; was she going to a grand house or a house like hers? And she most certainly did not have room for all three of her dolls.

She began to work herself up. She ran her fingers through her hair, tugging it, almost as if this action would give her the remedy to her unmentionable grief. She shut her eyes tightly, praying that when she opened them she would be back on her father's lap, and this would just be an awful, awful dream. And awful it was. When she opened her eyes again she was in her room, in the same situation she was when she closed them. She looked up to her ceiling as if it were the heavens.

"So much for the Angel of Music!" she screamed, "Where are you? Where are you when I need you?!"

She took flight; she left all her belongings and sprinted down the stairs. She didn't even bother to put her shoes on, or her coat. Her glance happened to rest on her father's violin sitting in its grand velvet case by the piano. She quickly grabbed it and wrenched open the door. She then darted down the stone steps on to the street, leaving it flapping in the breeze behind her.

She wandered as an aimless urchin for days. She had no idea where she was headed; just that she was following a long, long road. She would sleep in barns and porches and occasionally shivering in the cold outdoors. She would steal fruit from stands in markets to eat, and she would drink stagnant water from the puddles in the road. Because of the intense winter, the fortnight she was homeless passed as a blur. The occasional kindly villager would take her in for the night, but she would always escape by morning, and she would never say a word to anyone; she pretended she was entirely dumb.

Her feet were calloused and sore from her lack of shoes, and as her dress had perished days ago she wore a small pair of breeches that a washerwoman had dropped in one of the towns Christine had passed through on the journey. Her hands and legs were grubby and had a layer of scum and dust from the road on them. She wore a dirty, torn, off-white rag for a shirt and her usually beautiful flowing locks were a mass of matted tangles. Her face was pale, her lips were constantly blue and her eyes ceased to sparkle with energy like they did before she had left her home.

On the final day of her journey, she reached the end of the long road she had taken out of Remigny and she saw a sight that she had not seen for years. An enormous stretch of water was sparkling, glimmering and dancing in the dawn light: the ocean. She felt fresh for the first time since her father's death. It brought back happiness and comfort as she had visited the seaside before with her father. For the first time since, when she thought of her father she did not feel the stabbing pain that she was so used to.

She felt an uplifting surge of hope as she approached the little town. Happy laughter and chatter was in the background as she pottered past some little houses, a bakery and a butcher's. The place was filled with unfamiliar faces and the mesmerising sight of the sea gave her a sense of a new chapter; a new beginning. Her glance happened to rest upon a fruit stand. Her eyes were locked on to the fat, round, crisp, green apples and the ripe, crimson, juice-ridden strawberries. She approached with caution, and the stood surreptitiously next to the picturesque nourishment. Her eyes feasted on her target as she moved in to snatch the fruit when a calloused, rough hand caught her arm.

"I don't think so," growled the voice in a harsh accent, "no thieving urchins welcome 'ere."

"I'm sorry, Madame, I'm just so hungry-"she pleaded desperately, her eyes gazing innocently up at the woman. Her orange hair was straggly and was splayed out in random tufts, her grey eyes were full of venom and her fat nostrils were flared in anger.

"To the police with you, I think. This ain't the place for children of bandits," the woman began to drag Christine in the direction of the officer twenty metres up the hill. Upon the woman insulting her father, she felt a pang of rage hit her.

"My father was an honourable man. He played in prestigious opera houses, actually," she retorted.

The beastly woman dragged Christine up to her height and stared right in to her face.

"Do you think I-"

She was abruptly interrupted by an icy voice over the top of hers;

"Danielle, what are you doing? I'm terribly sorry; my daughter must have only been looking at your apples closely. She has been nagging me all day to look at them,"

Christine turned to look at the owner of the voice, frowning.

A tall middle-aged woman, still with the essence of beauty left over in her face was standing domineeringly over Christine's stout persecutor. She was dressed entirely in black, her long skirt and bodice both covering and complimenting her figure at the same time. Her lips were a dark red and her eyes a piercing grey. Christine was automatically intimidated by this woman, but there was something kind and motherly in her eyes that drew her to the strange woman immediately. Her black hair was scraped back and arranged in to a horizontal plait over the top of her head. The little girl looked at her confusedly, why was she calling her Elodie? And why did she refer to her as her daughter...?

At the woman's authoritative entrance she dropped Christine.

"I'm terribly sorry, Madame," she apologised, "I mistook your daughter for an urchin..."

"She was dressing in these clothes as she was playing in the garden all morning and then we had no time to change before we came to the market,"

Immediately the woman's face changed from suspicious and crinkled to honoured,

"Of course Madame, I'm incredibly sorry to suggest-"

"No harm done, Madame." The woman nodded and gestured to Christine to follow her. In awe of her saviour she did. She followed her round a corner. This road was slightly less busy and people were generally minding their own business. The lady turned abruptly which made Christine jump.

"Tell me your name, child." She demanded softly, but firmly.

"Christine Daae, Madame," she would not pretend not to be mute now; she would not dare.

"I knew it. Follow me." The woman took flight. Christine had to hurry to keep up with her brisk stride. They walked along the high street and in to a block of apartments. They travelled up three flights of stairs, Christine, being exhausted from her journey was out of breath when they reached the top. A large iron key was inserted in to a lock and the door swung open. Christine found herself in a relatively large room with the wallpaper peeling off. There was a table and two chairs and a kitchen with only two worktops, an oven and three saucepans hanging on the wall. The woman turned to look at Christine intently.

"I am Madame Giry," she told Christine slowly, "you are probably wondering why I brought you here?"

Christine nodded, her eyes not being able to leave the lady's face.

"It all started when you weren't born yet. I was in the corps de ballet in a grand Opera House in Paris, and so was your mother. She kept receiving notes from an admirer, from which turned out to be the most esteemed violinist in all of Paris, who had just joined the orchestra. Your mother and father were married very soon afterwards, and were completely in love with one another. They struggled to have a child as the two children they were going to have both died before they were born. This made them very sad, but exactly ten years after their marriage you were born. Unfortunately due to your mother's little body she was unable to take the pressure of a newborn child, and she passed away. I was there when you were born, and she whispered to me to be your godmother, and if anything were to happen to your father I was to take care of you and take you in. On the way back to my husband in Paris my heel was run over by a cart. I was in extreme pain and the recovery took three months, and I was told I was never to dance again but could teach. And I continue to teach at the Opera House to this day. When I heard the awful news about the most prodigious violinist to ever grace the orchestra pit with his playing had passed away, I knew I had to come and find you. A despairing doctor had told me that you had taken flight, and I followed you, begging directions and asking if anyone had seen you. I followed you along the entire road half way from Remigny to here. I knew it was you straight away because you, my dear, are the spitting image of your mother, God rest her soul. And I'm so, so terribly glad that I've finally found you."

There was a slight pause before Christine found herself slamming in to this woman's arms. She cried and cried and cried in her arms for what felt like hours, and Madame Giry just rocked and rocked and rocked her.

Christine's nose sensed a cool breeze and a pricking chill was penetrating her face. Her eyes were shut, but she could hear the repetitive sound of carriage wheels on a cobbled street and the clop of horse hooves in the background.

Her senses waking her, she snapped open her eyes. She felt strange, a sleep with no dreaming or interruptions. She was indeed in a carriage. She looked to her left, outside the window. A low mist hung in the air. It must've been morning as the glittering dew was only just settled outside and the light was the fresh sort of a new day. The black leather walls hung over her and as the shivered and warmed her gloved hands against each other she noticed a woman dressed in black and staring at her sitting in the opposite corner of the carriage. Madame Giry, Christine remembered, the lady who knew my mama and papa.

"Good morning, dear," Madame Giry breathed in her husky voice, "I trust you slept well, seventeen hours it was,"

"I was rather tired," Christine nervously suppressed a smile. She had been rather bold, crying in this woman's arms. Madame Giry did not seem to mind but it was a strange concept, if she thought about it. But she was filled with a feeling that consumed her mind; no, not grief as she'd know if it was after the past two weeks of it. It was relief. This lady was her safe haven, she was to offer Christine an environment of the creative nature she was used to, and she could be close to her mama and papa as Madame Giry had known them both. And she was ecstatic that her mother and father had loved each other so much that they were married almost immediately.

"Where are we headed, Madame?"

"Paris," she replied.