Book 1: In Search of Lost Memories
Chapter 1: Lost in Landes
?, ?, ?
Something went wrong. And then the storm began.
It was a memorable storm, the sort that gets told through generations. A symphony of thunder and lightning filled the skies with terrible sounds, with black clouds and heavy rain punishing the village below and its surrounding forest. Villagers nervously looked as angry orange smoke from forest fires made its way down the hills toward their homes, bringing a terrible smell.
"This came out of nowhere," a tall, corpulent man said in a daze, his round face pale and frightened, enveloping a shivering girl with his body. Fear seeped into his voice, adding to her terror. "This isn't normal."
"Calm down, Robert," as a thunderous roar made her daughter and husband flinch. "Look for a way out!"
"Can't you just make one?" He asked, gesturing to her wand. She had always been more powerful than him.
Her answer was interrupted by a tree being shattered almost whole by another lightning strike, and fire began encroaching on their clearing.
"If this rain isn't doing it, I don't think I can," the woman said. A gust of wind brought a flame closer, forcing her back. Despite the overwhelming chaos around the woman, nothing rang louder and more clearly than her daughter's yelling.
"Daddy, there's a boy there!" Amèlie cried out through her tears.
"Not now, darling. Daddy's trying to get us out of here," he said distractedly.
"But daddy, look!" She insisted. Robert turned to admonish his daughter when his eyes followed her outstretched finger to see the rough outline of a fallen boy that appeared to be, at most, a few years older than his daughter.
"Oh, so there is," he mumbled. The tree next to the boy caught fire, and his daughter cried out in terror. When she noticed her father was not moving, the daughter yelled.
"Mommy!"
The woman turned at the sound, alarmed by the desperation in the call. Her eyes widened in shock as she followed her finger to see the boy lying next to a burning tree.
"Monique, are you insane?!" Her husband barked as she lunged, racing against the fire threatening to swarm the fallen child. He drew his wand and managed to blow the flames away for long enough for her wife to return unscathed with the unconscious boy.
"See if he's injured," Monique demanded with a warning look as she pulled their daughter towards her.
The boy's clothes were singed and roughened, but he seemed uninjured, albeit unresponsive. He wore a leather satchel over his shoulder and across his body, inside which there was an unopened letter. Robert was about to open it when lightning struck nearby yet again.
"Monique, we need to leave."
"Take the boy! I'll take Amèlie."
He hesitated a moment before grabbing the stranger and putting him on his back.
"Darling, come here," Monique said softly to Amèlie, crouching so that she could climb on her shoulders and then cast a Bubble-Head Charm on each of them. "Now we only have to worry about the flames, not the fumes."
"The flames are a big enough problem," Robert quipped in a quiet voice that his wife pretended not to hear.
"My little moon, we're going to run, okay?" She said to her wide-eyed daughter, who looked at the boy draped over her father with great concern. "You have to be very brave. Can you do that?" She gave her mother a shy nod.
"Good girl! Now, hold on very tightly, no matter what happens, okay?"
"Okay," Amèlie whispered before yelling when the wind blew another flame towards them.
"We need to go now, Monique," Robert said with anguish bleeding into his voice.
They sprinted away as fast as they dared, weaving through burning trees and veils of smoke as dense as curtains, with only the fire and a small Lumos spell to light the winding path ahead.
"Watch out!" Robert cried out as a pine threatened to crush his wife and child. Monique drew her wand and held the trunk back with a spell. Beads of sweat began to form on her forehead, and her knees started to buckle.
"Go through," she managed to say, her voice choked with exhaustion. "Quickly!"
Once past the tree, her husband pulled her away as the tree fell with a deafening crash.
"We can't stop," Robert pushed her forward. She nodded and kept moving despite the burning muscle pains, as her husband tried to calm Amèlie down.
They found themselves on the crest of a solitary hill over which their village appeared on the horizon. Hope inundated their minds before being silenced by another thunder roaring in the distance.
"Apparition?" Robert panted.
"We'd splinch ourselves. We're too nervous. Amèlie is here, I'm not risking it."
"HELP," Robert screamed, casting a Sonorus against his throat to amplify the call, though the storm easily drowned it out.
"I want to go home," Amèlie sniffled against her mother's shoulder.
"We're almost there, little moon," she comforted her through tired exhales. "We can already see home from here."
Amèlie hid her face, too scared to look. From the corner of his eyes, Robert saw a colorful show of bright lights.
"They're fighting the fire!" He exclaimed, raising his wand. Monique snapped into attention, and they began to shoot up flares.
The lights stopped for a moment, making them both feel immense dread. They held their breaths as the seconds ticked by, each longer than the previous, until a silhouette appeared in the sky, zooming towards them. Robert began crying in relief when he recognized a flying broom, and Monique closed her eyes in deep solace.
The outline took the form of a familiar rider soon after. Neither was too surprised to see Auguste Lefevre flying towards them. The burly teenager, with boxy shoulders and curly hair that blew into the wind as he flew at top speed, was the best flyer in the region. But that broom was not his own, and he seemed uncomfortable flying with an older, more fragile model.
"Auguste!" Monique screamed over the sound of the storm. "Take Amèlie!"
The boy grabbed the girl, who wrapped herself around his neck with all her strength.
"Who's that?" He asked, nodding to the boy that Robert carried in his back.
"We don't know!" Robert yelled before adding in a distressed voice, "go!"
Before he flew away, Auguste turned his head and spoke over his shoulder. "Keep the flares up; we'll send more riders."
Monique and Robert took a second to allow themselves to feel relief now that Amèlie was on her way to safety. But that quiet moment of relief was fleeting, and they readied themselves for the following minutes of danger.
"I'll keep sending the flares up. Keep the fires away," Monique decided.
Two long minutes later, Auguste arrived with someone else in tow. Robert's instincts told him to leave the strange boy to his fate, but he overrode them, passing him and his satchel to Raoul Page as Auguste helped Monique up on his broom.
"C-come back quickly, Raoul," he pleaded to the newcomer, incapable of hiding the fear from his voice.
"Be careful, Robert," Monique begged him. He smiled shakily and watched them leave.
Robert felt defenseless, forced to endure a torturously slow couple of minutes, his mind keeping him on the furthest edge of blind panic. A large tree would fall on his head and he wouldn't be able to see it until it was too late, or the smoke would obscure the feeble green lights he was sending up from his wand, leaving him to die slowly, stranded and alone. He fought off the urge to sob as time passed and no one came, dreadful scenarios of slow, painful deaths dominating his thoughts.
When Auguste finally arrived, a savior parting through the dark skies as the storm threatened to swallow Robert whole, his legs almost gave out from under him.
"Sorry for the delay, Mr. Tessier," he extended a hand to the man, who clung to it with the delirium of a desert wanderer coming across an oasis. "I had to find my broom. That first one wasn't going to support your weight."
"It's fine. Let's just go."
The instant his feet touched the ground on the village's main passageway, he was already running toward his family. Auguste went back to help fight the fire, leaving the three of them alone in front of the communal hall.
They held one another tightly in the pouring rain, soaking in the comforting feeling of safety, still fighting against their shock. After what felt fleeting and lengthy at the same time, they went inside.
The unknown boy they had found was lying down on a wooden bench in the hall, the other villagers who had sought shelter there looking at him strangely. Maurice Veron, Monique's older associate in the local clinic, examined him.
She leaned closer to her husband's ear so their daughter didn't hear her. "Maurice looked over both of us. Amèlie is fine. He's just a bit shocked. I had a mild case of exhaustion, so I took a sip from a Pepper-Up just to stay alert. I've saved some for you as well."
"Thank you. I think I'm fine too."
"I'm going to help Maurice," Monique said.
"No!" Amèlie protested loudly, shaking her head in denial, her teary face hidden behind a veil of shifting brown hair. She tried to stop her mother from walking away, but Monique gently refuted her.
"Mommy needs to take care of the boy you saved in the forest. Stay with daddy for a bit, okay?"
Amèlie sniffled and sulked but let her father pick her up. Monique watched as her husband led her away, bobbing her up and down on his hip to relax her, though she thought it was as much for his benefit as for their daughter's.
"How is he doing?" She asked Maurice as she approached.
"I have no idea," he admitted, openly bewildered. "I can't get a proper read on him."
"How come? Are the spells not working?"
"They are, but they're behaving strangely. Try them yourself."
She pointed her wand at the boy's chest and murmured a medical spell, the resulting light a weak green.
"What?" She asked aghast before holding the boy's wrist and measuring his pulse. "But green means—"
"And yet, he's not dead," the man threw his arms up in frustration. "His heartbeat and breathing are fine, and he doesn't seem to be in a deep coma either, just unconscious."
"There was a satchel with him?" She demanded, looking around. Maurice bent over to pick it up and put it between them.
"What's so important about it?"
"A letter," she explained in a vacant voice before exclaiming victoriously that she had found it. Maurice picked up the leather bag and put it on his lap to see if there weren't any other clues about the boy.
She opened the letter. It was short, written in black ink using an elegant script that wouldn't feel foreign in a wedding invitation.
'His name is Harry Potter. He doesn't remember much. Please help him.'
"There's nothing useful here except for…" She trailed off after seeing a horrified expression on Maurice's face. "What is it?"
He silently raised a silver necklace, its pendant shining brightly against the hall's dim lighting. As soon as its shape became clearer, she sucked in a sharp breath.
"What is that boy doing with a necklace bearing the symbol of Gellert Grindelwald?" Maurice asked in a quiet but scandalized whisper.
"How would I know? I just found him passed out in the middle of the forest! I couldn't just leave him there."
"He could be the son of an acolyte," he suggested, but she shook her head.
"He looks too skinny and frail to be the son of an acolyte. And what would one of them want here, anyway? His name also doesn't match up."
"His name?" He asked, and she passed the letter to him. "That's strange. Potter sounds like an English name."
"I thought so too," she dithered for a second before asking. "Maurice, what do we do?"
His answer was cut short by a commotion behind them. A loud argument was breaking between two men and their entourages, making Maurice and Monique groan quietly.
"This is a sign of judgment!" Symphorien Marceau boomed, his old voice sounding coarse and guttural, with the dramatic pauses between the words making him sound more like an old prophet than the retired scholar he was. "The skies were calm one second and lighting up in horror the following. We must learn from this event!"
"It's just a strong storm, you blithering idiot," André Fraise responded dismissively. He was a much younger man, cynical and confident despite occupying a modest position as a recently graduated office clerk in Paris. "All we learned is that wood burns. It's a storm, nothing more."
"My child, you know nothing of the ways of magic if you think it cannot produce a warning such as this during these wretched times."
"A warning of what?" Robert asked with some creeping anxiety, to Monique's enormous dismay. Her husband had been one of many in Landes to be dragged into their collective orbit, often looking at the older of the two with undisguised admiration.
"That we have strayed from the path of righteousness and have forgotten the dues we owe to magic," Symphorien replied gravely, some people in the room nodding in approval. "It is all-knowing and omniscient, sensing our ill intentions and malevolence, and it has punished us for them."
"Not this nonsense again," Maurice sighed.
"Always the showmen, these bastards," Monique murmured in agreement.
"Magic has no intrinsic morality! You're just as senile as ever," Fraise contested, making the hall jeer in agreement and insult alike. Symphorien ignored him, turning to the room with his arms raised and asking in a pleading tone.
"Friends, have you sensed some great change today? Perhaps something new or unexpected? A loved one performing some obscure and unexplained deed, or a stranger roaming through these lands?"
Robert's eyes went to the unconscious boy, and the attention of the entire hall soon followed.
"Who is that?" Fraise asked with a furrowed brow.
"We found him in the forest during the fire," Robert explained. Symphorien came closer, forcing his beady black eyes to focus, making his already grave face look much more severe.
"A boy? He is young, too young to be here alone. Does anyone here recognize him?"
People shook their heads, suspicion blossoming in their expressions. Monique saw that Robert was being swayed by the mood in the room and intervened before it solidified into something more.
"There was a letter with him," she explained. "His name is Harry Potter."
"An English name," Symphorien mused. "There was someone with that family name working in their government a few decades ago, during my time there. Was there anything else in his possession?"
"Only personal belongings, hidden away in his bag," Maurice grumbled back. "Wand, clothes, a cloak, and a necklace. Nothing for you to be concerned about."
"A necklace he wasn't wearing?" Fraise questioned in a strangely suspicious, almost knowing tone. Before Monique could question him, Maurice was already rushing out an answer.
"It's nothing relevant."
"You're being far too defensive. What is it?"
"It's a necklace, Fraise," Maurice mocked the younger man. "You wear them around your neck."
"Show me the necklace, then."
"He is my patient, and you have no authority over me."
"This is a matter of great importance to the community as a whole," Symphorien argued, noticing that André seemed unusually keen at that point. Unwilling to let him take the initiative, he pressed. "We need to verify this boy's identity to ensure he is not the origin of this terrible storm."
"Boys do not cause storms," Maurice replied like he was correcting a child.
"But magic does, and this boy has mysteriously appeared, presumably hundreds of miles from his home, with no adult supervision, in the middle of a magical forest. Something is afoot."
"The necklace, Veron," Fraise demanded.
"This is ridiculous!" Monique cried out, with her jaw clenched tightly in anger. "This boy needs medical assistance, and I will not have his treatment impeded by your squabbling."
"Is the necklace connected to his health?"
"It might be! We couldn't evaluate him properly before you two burst in with these discussions that no one cares about."
"That no one cares about?" Symphorien asked with a raised eyebrow as Fraise sneered at the woman. "We must seek the correct path to ensure that our community thrives in these dark times. It is the most important duty in all our lives as citizens of Landes."
"The necklace, Veron," Fraise continued to demand with increasingly inconspicuous implications of violence in case of persistent refusal.
"Will you back off if I show you the damn thing?"
"Maurice!" Monique protested with a scandalized glare, to which Maurice responded in a weary voice.
"These two won't shut up until they have it, and we have work to do."
"We must decide the appropriate course of action, and to that effect, I cannot make any promises as to what our decision will be until after we see the necklace," Symphorien said in a political voice that did not fit him. Fraise was silent, furtively examining the boy in the middle of the commotion.
"No. You're going to get the necklace and leave, or I'm going to banish both of you away," Monique warned him, raising her wand.
André Fraise, not one to respond well to any threats, replied in kind, and those present stilled for a second before either stepping away or drawing their wands. Robert pointed his at Fraise's back, putting their daughter behind him.
Symphorien sent admonishing looks to the people in the hall, who one by one sheathed their wands with shamefaced expressions. Monique was relieved that Robert was one of the few who still had his wand out, despite his deference towards the older man.
"André, please put the wand away," he instructed calmly. Fraise didn't seem pleased by the prospect but conceded with an irritated snarl. Symphorien then turned to Maurice with an expectant look.
Knowing there was no avoiding the issue, he unceremoniously threw the pendant to the man, hoping — but not expecting — that the resulting drama would be short-lived.
Symphorien dangled the necklace between his fingers, running his hand through its length until it unraveled, its pendant spinning slowly. His erstwhile stoic face transformed with inhuman speed into burning fury as soon as he recognized its symbol.
"There is no mystery here. His intentions are clear, and he is to blame for this storm," Symphorien spoke grimly, closing his fist firmly around the pendant, as though he feared that the mere sight of Grindelwald's symbol would corrupt those who saw it. Many in the room, including Robert, looked at Harry with evident distrust after hearing his words. André continued to study the boy quietly, with the muted excitement of someone discovering a particularly enticing bargain in an afternoon stroll through a flea market.
"Now, leave us be, Marceau," Monique spoke firmly.
"Leave you be? I think not. This boy is a threat to us all. He carries his symbol! There is no clearer sign of evil intent. He must be banished away."
"He is a child," Monique snarled, losing her grasp on her patience. Seeing her husband's dismayed reaction to her proclamation fueled her anger further, and her voice turned heated and confrontational. "And he is under my care. You will leave."
"I have a duty to—"
"You have a duty to let me do my job, or you will find out tonight if people really do turn into magic when they die."
"Let them treat him," André spoke calmly. There was a scheming tone in his voice which made Monique's hairs stand on edge. "We'll call the Ministry in the morning."
"Surely, you do not intend to let this boy stay?" Symphorien asked, appalled. "If there is one quality to be found in you, it's your zeal towards this community, misguided though it is."
"He deserves a chance to be reunited with his family. And if he has no family… Well, we'll see what course of action the Ministry thinks best."
"He cannot be allowed to stay in Landes!" Symphorien cried out, his voice echoing like a preacher's in the quiet hall. Whispers and nods of consent rang through parts of the crowd, nefarious plans hatching up in some of their minds. "We will only know doom if he remains."
"Enough with this discussion," Monique commanded. "I have a patient to care for. Leave."
André grabbed the elder's arm and pushed him gently away. Though there was no force in the gesture, it still embittered the air around them.
"Between you and the boy, we will all fall deeper into chaos and destruction," Symphorien said as he smacked Fraise's hand away and turned around. "I, however, will remain faithful to achieving harmony in this community."
He left without glancing backward. André stayed for a few more seconds, examining the boy intently before taking his leave.
"You shouldn't have shown them the necklace," Monique turned to Maurice as soon as he finally stepped away.
"They would have taken it regardless. And honestly, I am also suspicious of that necklace. Calling the Ministry isn't a bad idea."
"Is everyone in this village insane? This boy is ten, maybe eleven! He has a letter that says he's an amnesiac. What can you possibly fear that much?"
Maurice stared at her before asking in a soft, languorous voice. "How old were you when the Muggle Great War began?"
"Eleven," was Monique's confused answer.
"I was thirty-one. You see, most people around here think that Muggle wars don't affect magicals, but they're mistaken. There's always some wizard wandering around where they shouldn't. There's always a Muggle in-the-know, maybe a general or colonel with a magical child, sibling, and cousin, and they ask for things. A ward. A healing potion. Some divination, perhaps."
Maurice looked away for a few seconds, lost in remembrance. He rarely spoke about his life before Landes, and Monique couldn't help but feel intrigued.
"War does terrible things to men. You would think that treating injuries during wartime was more or less similar to what we do daily, but it's so different. Even I didn't know there was so much blood in a body," he whispered, his eyes glassy and unfocused, their attention drawn away to an unfathomable abyss only he could see. "And even in-the-know Muggles fail to see that magic has its limits. They treat it as a failsafe, a last resort, and you have not seen fury until you've seen a desperate Muggle confident that you are lying about not being able to their wife or child."
He recovered his focus, and his blue eyes all but threatened to pierce Monique when he looked back at her. "I don't fear the boy. I fear the destruction he could bring. Grindelwald has been talking about an incoming war for years, and I have no intention of living through another one. I've seen more than my fair share of horrors."
"Surely, you don't actually think he's a seer?"
"Seer?" He scoffed. "Monique, he doesn't need to be a seer to know war is on the horizon because he'll just create one. He doesn't see wars in his dreams; he's planning one out."
"And how does that connect to the boy? It's just a necklace."
"It's not the necklace. It's the symbol. Don't you think he'll be curious if news reaches him that an unknown boy from another country appeared in France without any memories, with a necklace bearing his mark?"
"I figure people like him have more urgent things to deal with," she countered, shaking her head. "I hardly think he'll care. If he even hears of it."
"No, I'm sure he will look into it," Maurice said with enough confidence to raise several questions in Monique's mind. "And if the boy is in Paris when he does, then it's all the better for everyone here."
"Maurice, this is a child! He doesn't look older than eleven! This is absurd!"
"And Amèlie is eight. If harm were to come her way, you'd make the same decision as me."
"Harm won't come all this way because of a damn necklace!"
"The ego of men like Grindelwald motivates them to do far worse atrocities for the sake of much smaller things. I am not taking any risks."
"We must always protect the patient," she insisted.
"I am a healer by trade, not by affectation," he leaned forwards to make his point clearer. "I want to retire far away from war, far away from politics, to somewhere peaceful and quiet. If that requires sending an unknown boy with an ominous necklace to the far corners of this planet, I will do it without hesitation."
"But Maurice—"
"Enough," he interrupted her. "Weren't you so eager to fulfill your obligations as a Healer? We'll take care of the boy for now. Tomorrow, the Ministry will be here, and they can decide what to do."
Landes Communal Hall, Landes, France, ?
Two bleary emerald green eyes slowly creaked open as an ungodly headache pounded away between them.
The world surged as an enigma, a dark dawn, a thick fog that permeated everything. Vague outlines could be seen, but they were so blurry that it was difficult to be sure if they were anything more than static on an ever-shifting canvas.
Slowly, those vague forms took some loose contrasts against the background, though they often seemed translucent or amorphous. Confused recollections would bubble to the surface: a redhead friend, brave and stalwart; a clever girl with a demanding but loving tone; an old, wizened man that mostly spoke in serene platitudes. They faded and returned at will, leaving behind only whispers.
Eventually, his sight returned in good enough condition that he noticed there were two sets of eyes looking down at him. The first pair was of a strangely gripping blue color, one that held some shrewdness and patience. They spoke first. "I think he's back," were the words, though there was no mouth uttering them, only a shadow.
"Not quite," the other pair returned. They were brown and appeared more concerned than the blue ones, though they had a similar dignity about them. Again, only a muddled blur produced the sound, with no mouth or lips visible. "But good enough for a Pepper-Up, I reckon."
"Are you sure?"
"Yes."
"You apply potions too liberally, Monique," the larger mist, that of the blue eyes, said in a disapproving tone as it moved to grab something colorful. "Our patients are liable to get addicted if you're not more careful."
"They only get addicted when you don't select the ingredients properly," the smaller mist, that of the brown eyes, replied with a hint of amusement, "and I'm a better herbalist than you."
Something touched the boy, opening his mouth slightly. Then a liquid was poured down his throat, beginning a warmth that spread through his entire body. Dry coughs ravaged him, making it difficult to breathe, although neither of the figures looming over him seemed surprised or alarmed by them.
The world gained colors and shapes with greater definition, allowing him to assign both pairs of eyes to a man and woman respectively, the former appearing at least a couple of decades older than the latter. She spoke first, with a careful and measured voice that failed to match her open and friendly face.
"Hello," she greeted him. He tried to reply, but opening his mouth and drawing a breath made his body shake with coughs again. "Don't try to speak yet. You need some rest, even with the potion. You had quite the ordeal."
"That's one way to put it," the man agreed, his flat and aloof voice more in tune with his austere expression. "We are both healers. My name is Maurice Varon, and this is Monique Tessier. If you can understand me, can you blink once?"
He blinked, and it was more difficult than he expected.
"Excellent. From now on, if you don't understand something, blink twice. Understood?"
He blinked again, and Maurice nodded in satisfaction.
"Do you know where you are?" Two blinks. The woman wrote something down on a notepad. "Do you remember your name?"
He took a second to process the question. He heard many people call out the name 'Harry' to him in his memories, as fuzzy as they were, so he imagined that must be his name. He blinked once.
"Good. You had a letter on you identifying yourself as Harry Potter. Is that correct?"
Blink. Another line was written.
"Very carefully, try to move your head. Blink to confirm you understand, please?"
He blinked and then set about rotating his head slightly. Dizziness took over his senses, the walls bled into the ceiling, the ceiling sank into the floor, and the floor folded into itself in a kaleidoscope of paradoxes that made his headache return in full force.
"Stop," Monique instructed him sharply, positioning his head back into place before handing over the notepad to her counterpart, who jotted something down. Something poked him in the thigh. "Did you feel that, Harry?"
The exercise repeated itself for the next few minutes, with touches distributed all around his body. Harry blinked once every time as he sensed each touch with clarity, even as he fought against the headache for control. The healers seemed pleased with every blink.
They engaged in a brief albeit fierce debate between themselves, with Maurice looking pleased with the result. He retrieved a long wooden stick from his pocket, presenting it to Harry by holding it on its thinnest end.
"Do you recognize this?"
At first, he did not. But he remembered a feeling of belonging and wonder, brought by the touch of a wooden instrument just like that one some time ago. Some other memories untangled themselves in a slow dance that seemed to take hours as Harry fought for every detail he could muster before it was all lost to the fog again.
There was a castle in his mind, a damp but lively place, and a large man with a bushy beard revealing to him that his parents were special. Parents that he hadn't known, but who had gifted him with control over magic. He was a wizard.
He blinked once. Monique seemed relieved by the recognition, but the news had brought some strange suspicion to Maurice as he studied the boy in cold, still silence.
"A final question, Harry. Can you tell us your most recent memories? Before you arrived here?" She asked.
He gave it a cursory try but gave up as soon as that piercing headache threatened to reappear. Two blinks. Some hope drained out of Monique's face, but she seemed more resigned than surprised by the answer.
"It's normal for people to experience some temporary memory loss after a traumatic event," She said in a calming tone that relaxed him slightly, even though there was still no mention of whatever trauma he had gone through. "There's no reason to believe that it won't come back to you shortly. For now, you can rest, and we can talk more tomorrow."
"I have a question before we let you off," Maurice said grimly, surprising Monique. He turned the notepad around to show a symbol of a circle contained by a triangle cut in half by a straight line over its horizontal axis. "Do you recognize this symbol?"
"Maurice!" Monique cried out in a scandalized tone that the man ignored. Harry looked at the drawing but didn't recall ever seeing it before. Two quick blinks. The man leaned back in his chair pensively as the woman glared at him, although he seemed too lost in his contemplations to notice it.
"You can rest for now. We'll give you a potion to help you sleep," Maurice eventually said. "Tomorrow, some people from the Ministry will come from Paris to discuss some things with you."
Harry felt confused. Paris? He had never been to France before. He didn't even speak French. Or at least, he didn't think so. How did he understand their words? He thought he was English.
Before he could protest, another liquid was poured down his throat, this one going down much more smoothly. As it passed through his body, he could feel he was losing faculty over himself, conceding ground to a cozy, comfortable sense of sleepiness. As he was about to fully fall asleep, his ears picked up on the beginnings of a heated argument between the two healers.
Village of Landes, Landes, France, ?, the next day
Waking up the following morning felt less cumbersome for Harry, though it was still confusing. He wasn't in the hall anymore, having been taken to a more comfortable bed overnight. He looked around, moving his head as slowly as he could, and was relieved to note that the movement didn't come with that excruciating headache from the previous night, even if he still felt sore all over.
The room around him was bland but purposefully so. It was painted entirely off-white, with a windowless wall to his right, a light green curtain to the left that shared its color with his bed, and another wall with no decorations in front of him. His only companion was a wooden nightstand, atop which rested a ticking clock and a small yellow potted flower.
As soon as Harry looked at it, its color changed to a light blue and it grew several inches, like a turtle peeking out of its shell. Its petals curled into the shape of a cone, and it began making a noise resembling large stones falling into water from a great height. After a few seconds, it receded into its diminutive frame as a bewildered Harry stared on.
Monique peeked around the curtain, summoned by the call. "Hello, Harry," she smiled. "How are you feeling?"
"Fine," he said, coughing as his vocal cords strained under the effort. She frowned, summoned a vial of yellow liquid, and asked him to open his mouth. She poured the liquid into his throat and asked him to wait ten seconds before speaking. "I'm fine."
"Just to be sure, I'm going to perform some tests."
She kept prodding his body and taking notes on Harry's responses. "Are your memories any clearer than yesterday?" She asked after the physical examinations ended, and she reassured him that he didn't have any lasting injuries.
He concentrated, trying to gain a firmer grasp on those smoky wisps of memory from the previous night, but only felt confusion and dejection when they refused to cooperate. The headache didn't come as it had before, but the blank felt just as frustrating. Seeing him struggle, she stopped him gently with a touch.
"It's not uncommon for your head to be a bit clouded for a few days. Your memories should come back eventually."
"Is there a way of knowing when they'll come back?" He asked in a small, afraid voice. He frowned after hearing his timber. He thought his voice was deeper than that.
"I'm sorry, but there isn't. It could be tomorrow, it could be next week."
"And it could be never."
"That is always a possibility," she admitted freely. "But optimism costs us nothing, and the odds are in your favor. Some people specialize in taking care of the mind. One of them is coming here to talk with you."
"Can't you do it instead, right now?" He asked hopefully, but she shook her head.
"I'm afraid it's beyond both me and Maurice. Do you remember Maurice from yesterday?" He nodded, and she wrote that down too. "Well, neither of us is qualified in the field. But when we asked the Ministry to come, we asked them to send a specialist. They do great work, and I'm sure they'll help you."
The reminder that the Ministry would see him made Harry recall something else from the previous day with a great deal of alarm. "And we're in… France?"
"Yes," she said slowly. "We are in the magical community of Landes, in Gascony. Do you know where that is?" He motioned that he didn't. "It's in Southern France, near the Atlantic Coast."
"I see," he spoke weakly, dread creeping into his stomach. "A-am I speaking in French?"
"You are," she confirmed with a neutral countenance, though Harry saw her eyes glaze over as she pondered his situation. "Is that strange?"
"I don't know French," Harry explained wearily. "I th-think I'm English."
"You do have an English name," she reasoned calmly, though that speculative look hadn't left her yet.
"Is it normal for people to be able to speak another language out of nowhere?"
"I'm not a specialist, Harry," she lamented, though the evasion didn't fool him. "Maybe you can ask the man from the Ministry."
They stayed in silence for a few seconds before another doubt popped into his brain.
"What day is it?"
"July 5th, 1936."
Harry felt his head swim. The air in his lungs fled in a startled gasp, as though he had been gut-punched, and his throat constricted to fend off a rising wave of nausea. The woman was calling his name, but he couldn't heed her attempts at catching his attention over the sound of the blood rushing in his ears. His heart was beating too fast, its uneven rhythm creating a searing pain behind his sternum. Every breath came with increasing effort, ever quicker and ever shallower, sending him down a spiral.
He wasn't sure from where he was, but he was sure it wasn't the 1930s, and the thought was steadily directing him toward complete hysteria. Something entered his mouth forcefully, and he felt his muscles relax, though it still took several minutes for him to recover his bearings.
"You are going to consume all of my potions if we keep going through them like this, Harry," the woman said jovially, in a naked attempt to distract him from the panic attack. When he began fidgeting nervously, she continued in a more appeasing tone. "Trust me, it's fine. It'll just mean a walk to the forest to get some more ingredients."
Monique grimaced at the mention of the forest, and Harry tried to decipher its relevance. She smiled sadly when she noticed his puzzlement. "You don't remember the fire, do you?"
"Fire?"
"Let me get Maurice. He wanted to talk to you about what happened last night. Wait here for a few minutes. If something happens and you need help, just look at Flore," she pointed to the flower, "and say my name. You remember my name, right?"
"Monique Tessier."
"Excellent. Wait here."
She left, and Harry stared at Flore, which had turned slightly to face him. "How do you work?"
Its petals rustled as if in a giggle.
"Great," he mumbled moodily. "Even a plant gets to mock me." The flower turned fiery red. "Ergh. Not a plant?" The tentative question made it turn a calmer scarlet. "Should I've said flower instead?"
It returned to its usual shade of yellow. "You're rather clever, aren't you?" Harry whispered, impressed. It turned green for a second before returning to its original hue, prepared to call for Monique if it was needed.
She soon returned to the room accompanied by Maurice, who looked amused at Harry's admiration of Flore. "I'm guessing you've been introduced already?" He asked as he entered.
"It turned red when I called it a plant," Harry said somewhat sheepishly. The man snorted, glancing at the potted flower.
"That is the vainest piece of cellulose in France." The flower turned red again, but Maurice didn't seem preoccupied with its irritation. "Monique told me you were physically fine, but that you seem to be confused about where and when you are?"
Harry nodded, expecting to be dismissed as insane. However, the man only acknowledged the point with a measured nod and then calmly began speaking as though he was running through a well-rehearsed speech. "You just woke up, so the confusion could be some consequence of head trauma. I wouldn't worry about it until after your consult with the Ministry."
"Maybe," Harry conceded with skepticism. The tranquil response came too easily, too calmly. He remembered how the man was suspicious of him the previous day. "What happened yesterday?"
"Before we get into that, I have a more important matter to discuss," Maurice said. "Do you remember the symbol I showed you?"
"Maurice," Monique warned him. He looked at her in attempted appeasement but turned expectantly to Harry nonetheless.
"I remember."
"You said you didn't know the symbol, correct?" Harry nodded. "The symbol belongs to a wizard called Gellert Grindelwald. Do you recognize him?"
"No," he said after some deliberation. Maurice looked on with suspicion and disbelief, irritating his patient. "I don't remember much of anything, you know. Why would I remember a name?"
"That isn't just a name," Maurice answered with an impatient hiss, wearing a look that did not fit him. "That is the name of the most dangerous wizard alive, someone who has been waging war on the wizarding world for more than a decade and whose symbol you were carrying in a necklace last night."
Harry recoiled in fear at the healer's intensity and surprise at his revelation. He continued. "The Ministry workers coming here will be rummaging through your head. I advise you to be honest."
"I'm not a liar," Harry replied through gritted teeth.
"I'm not calling you a liar. I'm offering some advice. Anything to do with this man is going to be very contentious."
"What's so important about all of this? It's just a necklace."
"This is not about the necklace, this is about the man."
"But I don't even know who he is!" Harry claimed, indignant by the implied accusations.
"The Ministry may not believe you," Maurice replied grimly.
"But we do," Monique added quickly, with a fierce glare aimed at her coworker. Maurice did not react to her, keeping his eyes on him.
Harry could feel that headache threatening to return. "If these Ministry workers look into my head," he said slowly, not yet wholly accepting the invasion of his privacy even if he recognized that it may help him regain his bearings. "And they see that I'm being honest, will everything be fine?"
"It's hard to say, with Grindelwald being the subject," Maurice said. Monique looked away, conceding the point, and Harry's heart sank. "We have good reason to be wary."
"Regardless," she interjected, forcibly changing the subject. "For now, your focus should be on restoring your memories. I'm sure your parents must be missing you."
"I'm an orphan," Harry spoke quietly. "I remember that much."
For the first time since he arrived, Maurice looked sympathetic, with Monique seeming both horrified and chagrined.
"I'm sorry to hear that, Harry," he replied respectfully, without prying further. Harry appreciated the sentiment with a small nod. "Well, you must have family or caretakers, anyway. The Ministry will try to find them for you, in France or elsewhere."
"I see."
"I have a question, Harry," Monique cut through in the ensuing silence. "Do you remember how old you are?"
"No," he answered immediately. That had also been weighing on his mind. He had the impression he was older than his body looked, and his voice sounded off, but amid so many uncertainties, that one ranked low.
"Have you been schooled in magic?" She asked. "You do have a wand, after all."
"I don't remember anything clearly about that," Harry lamented quietly. "I think that I was taught some things, but I'm not sure."
"If I give you your wand back..." she was suggesting before trailing off when Maurice looked at her with a prohibitive look on his face.
"You'll get your things back after you speak with the people in the Ministry," he said.
"Well, why don't you walk around the village, then," Monique spoke soon after.
"Monique, he's—"
"In need of exercise, I agree," she said with a bland smile that did a poor job of hiding her anger.
Maurice didn't seem pleased and still looked at Harry with clear suspicion but conceded the point. "As long as you stay with him, I'll stay in the clinic."
"My daughter wanted to talk with him, anyway."
"Ah, that's why you want him out of here."
"It's hardly the only reason."
"Whatever you say, Monique."
"I'm sorry," Harry interrupted them. "But what should I do?"
"You can stay here or you can walk around with me for a bit around Landes. Which would you prefer?"
Harry motioned he wanted to leave, swooping his legs over the side of the bed. The first steps were faltering and pained, but it was still better than staying in bed, agonizing about his situation. He needed to move, to confirm that this wasn't all a prank or a bad dream.
"You're moving better than I expected," Maurice said, halfway between impressed and suspicious.
"I can deal with pain," Harry grumbled, though he soon frowned in confusion. Where had that come from? Before he could ponder the question, they were leaving the clinic.
The view that greeted him outside was a strange but charming one. There were rows and rows of the same species of thin and wily trees as far as the eye could see in all directions, making the village seem insular despite there being no water in sight. To one side of the town was a solitary hill with large patches of burned ground and dead stumps. It was a heart-wrenching sight, bathed in that fearsome awe that only nature can provide. Even now, after the fires were gone, a thin smoke seemed to rise from the spots through which the fire had passed, giving them an ethereal, ghostly feeling that deeply disturbed Harry.
"That was where you and I were rescued from the storm," Monique explained in a soft voice that seemed stuck in the past.
"We were on that hill?" Harry asked. He tried to play out the scene of a massive fire raging through it in his head but failed to do so.
"Beyond it. Amèlie, my daughter, likes to take picnics in a clearing with a nice view of a small stream. So my husband and I suggested we go there."
"And then it started raining?"
"Calling it rain is like calling the ocean a lake. I don't think I've seen a storm as large as that," she commented as she searched through her memories. "And it was all so sudden. We were caught so off guard we couldn't even apparate."
Harry felt uncomfortable. Something was telling him that he was connected to the storm's sudden arrival. He had no way of knowing how, but he was certain he was to blame for it.
"Amèlie found you when we were running back here," Monique told him. "Last night, she really wanted to talk to you."
"She did?"
"There aren't a lot of children in Landes, I'm afraid. And she's a talker," she grinned fondly. "Would you mind spending some time with her? She's a bit younger than you, but she's very sharp for her age."
"Of course not," Harry agreed quickly.
Monique smiled fully, which made her seem much younger. They went back to their slow walk, but even that small amount of exercise made Harry feel winded. He asked to lean against the small wooden fence that marked the outline of the clinic, and she waited without complaint, looking at the people nearby, all of whom eyed Harry as they passed.
Most only seemed curious, and he felt like a zoo animal under their gaze, their eyes always darting away whenever he faced them. Others bore stronger emotions. Some looked suspicious and contemptuous. A minority were receptive, with a few smiling and waving at him as they walked through, to which he responded as pleasantly as he could. However, for every receptive face, there were five displeased ones, and for the boy suffering under their judgment, they felt like fifty.
The most hateful look he received was from an older man who had stared at him across the street, but Monique stopped him with a stern look.
"Who was that?" He asked.
"It's no one," she said with a fixed smile.
Before Harry felt rested enough to continue walking, a strong, barrel-chested teenager passed by on a jog, and Monique waved him down, breaking his focus.
"Hello, Mrs. Tessier," he greeted her politely, his voice perfectly even despite being covered in sweat.
"Auguste, I'd like you to meet Harry. He just woke up," she stepped back, revealing the boy who had so far been hidden from view by her frame. "Harry, this is Auguste Lefevre. He was the young man who rescued us all yesterday."
The teenager's eyes lit up and he smiled warmly. Harry was surprised to see how white his teeth were, though a few of them seemed a bit bent and loose in his mouth. "I'm glad to see you're awake. You looked pretty out of it yesterday. Harry, is it?"
"Yes, sir," Harry greeted nervously, extending his hand.
Auguste seemed amused by the formality and took it for a handshake so tight that it almost crushed Harry's fingers, though he insisted on not showing any signs of pain. "Don't call me that, I'm not an adult yet. Call me Auguste, sir," he quipped with a joking grin. Harry broke into a small smile of his own, taken by the teen's easygoing tone.
"Thank you for rescuing me, Auguste."
"It was the least I could do," he dismissed. "You should thank Amèlie. After we rescued her and her parents, she kept pestering us all about you."
"She's a curious girl," Monique added.
"I'll be sure to thank her."
"That's good to hear. I'm glad to see you up. Hopefully, the Ministry will find your family soon."
"You know about their visit?" Monique asked, surprised.
"André and Symphorien kept arguing about it once you left with Maurice to take care of him," he explained with a sheepish smile. Monique closed her eyes to rein in her temper, but it was clear to Harry that she was angered by the news.
"Of course they did," she sighed.
"You know how they are," he shrugged. She nodded, and he looked at Harry. "I'm going back to my running, but if you need someone to show you around when Monique is busy, I'll be more than glad to chaperone you."
"Thanks," Harry grinned before shyly adding. "If you don't mind, why are you running? That seems…"
"Strange?" He smirked, and Harry nodded. "I'm trying to become a Beater for the French National Quidditch Team, and you need endurance, stamina, and strength to play the position. I want to be in top shape," he explained proudly. Seeing the glimmer of understanding dawn in the boy's eyes, he asked. "Do you play Quidditch?"
"He doesn't remem—"
"I do," Harry interrupted Monique before glancing apologetically at her and turning his attention back to the teenager. "I think I played Seeker. I remember flying after the Snitch."
"You think you played Seeker?" Auguste questioned.
"His memories are a bit disorganized after yesterday," Monique explained, and his eyebrows flew up to his hairline in surprise. "There's a joke somewhere about boys only caring about Quidditch, but I won't make it," she added wryly.
"Just means he has the right priorities in life, Mrs. Tessier," he smiled mischievously, making her chuckle. "Quidditch isn't about life or death. It's more important than that."
"Go back to your run before you infect him, Auguste. He's far too weak to be flying for now anyway."
The teenager laughed, said goodbye, and ran into the distance toward the unburned half of the forest.
"He's a good kid," Monique spoke. "It'll be great to see him making it in Quidditch. Maybe it will help the people here unite behind a common cause, for once."
"You think he'll make it?" He asked, taking note of her last comment.
"I know he will," she replied. "He's already been noticed. It's just a matter of time, now."
Monique seemed wistful as she spoke, though Harry did not know why. "Do you want to leave here too?" He guessed.
"No," she quickly answered. The decisiveness and speed of the answer gave away the impression it was a question she had posed herself many times. "My goals and wants are here, in Landes. This is a unique place."
"How so?"
She looked at him for some time, as if measuring him up. "I'll tell you later. Why don't we walk around a bit more and get you some exercise?"
He nodded, though with some disgruntlement at the topic shift. He felt he had failed a test he hadn't been given the chance to properly take.
Landes was a quaint place. The houses were built from brick and limestone and didn't vary much, as though they were all built in one go. Every once in a while, a house with more distinctive windows or a differently colored façade would come up, or the construction would turn more spacious to accommodate a storefront, but as a whole, the village was fairly uniform. The most striking exception to that uniformity was a one-story hall with round entrances and a low ceiling that was holding animated arguments which could be heard from outside.
"Is this where I woke up yesterday?" He asked, sensing that he had seen it before.
"It is. It's our communal hall."
"It's very noisy."
"We don't have a mayor, so most people in Landes follow whoever's loudest," she said with pursed lips and poorly subdued irritation. "They're in there, ranting some nonsense about you bringing the storm here," she scoffed.
Harry looked to the ground, feeling guilty. Monique frowned at his silence and seemed to get angry with him.
"A storm can hardly be your fault, now, can it?" She asked him in a rough voice closer to admonishing than questioning.
"It just seems like too much of a coincidence," he shrugged hesitantly.
"Then answer me this," she asked dryly, looking almost contemptuous. "Do you think you are powerful or important enough to summon a storm for no apparent reason?"
"Not really," he responded defensively, taken aback by her words.
"Then, why blame yourself? Isn't that awfully self-centered of you?"
As harshly as the sentiment was expressed, he understood what she meant and nodded. Monique hummed and turned away from the hall.
"Everyone's in a tense mood because of the Ministry visit, but you don't have to worry about that. They always get like this when someone from Paris comes over."
"Why?"
"They're being silly," she shook her head. "Nevermind that, let's go to my home. I'm sure Amèlie is excited to meet you."
The trip to her house wasn't long, but Harry felt more hostility on the way from passersby, many of whom were going towards the hall. A few looked like they wanted to talk or jeer at him, but Monique parried them away with her eyes before they could begin, though it did not keep the glares away.
"Ignore them, Harry. They're just scared from the storm and looking for someone to blame. It will pass."
He nodded and kept walking, but could feel the vitriol weighing him down with each step. The anguish of the amnesia tormented him, and the bitter reception made it much harder to endure. He focused on Monique's welcoming disposition, trying to forget everything else happening around him.
Her house looked about the same as most in the village, but with an expansive garden in which various herbs and plants were being grown. Individual greenhouses dotted the place, with colorful and diverse vegetation inside. Some plants with ominously large and toothy mouths were secluded in a cubicle, locked behind a great metal lock in the furthest corner from the main gate, eyeing Harry hungrily as he made the short trip to the front door.
Monique waved Harry in when he stopped there.
"Excuse me," he said meekly, keeping his head down.
"Don't walk with your head down, Harry," she admonished him. "It will only make everyone outside think you're guilty. Look people in the eye."
"I-I'll try," he promised with a weak grin. She didn't seem fully satisfied but said nothing more.
The house was filled with the sound of animated steps. Harry heard a male voice screaming about not running inside, but the pit pats of feet hitting the floorboard didn't lose any velocity. A small girl came crashing down the corridor and hugged Monique's hip fiercely, making the woman laugh in delight. Behind the girl, the wooden figurine of a bird hovered protectively, trilling at the scene before glowering at the stranger in the house.
"Little moon, won't you say hello to our guest?"
The girl seemed confused for a second, looking up at her mother with big maroon eyes. She followed her mother's nod until her eyes crossed with Harry's. "You're better!" She yelled happily, running over to him and stopping with a skip a few inches away from his feet. "What's your name?"
"I'm Harry," he introduced himself, offering a hand that she took with enthusiasm, starting a handshake that devolved into exaggerated arm movements resembling a wave.
"They didn't want to tell me your name yesterday," she pouted, looking at her mother. It was a briefly-lived sadness, though, as she soon snapped out of it and stared at Harry again with renewed liveliness. "I'm Amèlie, and I'm eight and a half years old! How old are you?"
"I—"
"Harry has some problems remembering certain things because of what happened yesterday, dear," Monique said carefully. Amèlie's eyes widened in surprise.
"You don't even know how old you are?" Harry confirmed it with a gesture. "What if you count your birthday presents? It's what I do when I forget how old I am."
"You forget how old you are?" Harry asked with some amusement.
"It's hard to remember my age when I turn older," she whined a bit. "I was seven for a whole year, and then I'm eight!"
"And a half," he added.
"And a half!" She confirmed with a happy nod. "But that took another half a year. I'll be old like mom one day, and then my age won't matter."
"I am not old," the woman complained lightly, and her daughter smiled in a shockingly indulgent way, almost like the roles were reserved.
"This is Nicholas," Amèlie pointed to the wooden bird, which had landed on her shoulder, continuing to glare at Harry. "He's a phoenix!" As if in confirmation, the bird sang mightily, as much as a wooden figurine could, anyway. Amèlie leaned forward conspiratorially, as though to share a great secret. "On my birthday, he burns away and turns back just like a real one!"
"Really?" Harry asked, genuinely surprised. When the girl nodded happily, he looked at the phoenix with newfound interest. "That's amazing."
"I know!" Amèlie gushed. "Everyone in the village comes to see it, and they all get very impressed."
The bird preened proudly, puffing his chest and sending another trill into the air, this one sounding more vain and self-aggrandizing. Harry couldn't help but think about that potted flower in the clinic and wondered if all enchanted objects in Landes were that hubristic.
"How does it work? And why Nicholas?" Harry asked, cautiously offering a finger to brush against its wooden feathers. The phoenix seemed suspicious at first but seemed to enjoy the caress, to Amèlie's delight. Harry vaguely remembered another phoenix, a real one, that he stroked in that same way before that memory too faded to ash.
"The two questions are connected," Monique said with the sense of gratification that could only come from someone who was always waiting for an opportunity to answer that question. "The phoenix was a gift from Nicholas Flamel when Amèlie was born."
Harry recognized the name, and it summoned a vivid remembrance of a red stone weighing down his pocket. "The Philosopher's Stone?"
"Very good," Monique praised him, surprised. "Yes, the very same."
"Did you study with him?" Harry asked.
She scoffed as though the notion was beyond absurd. "No, I'm nowhere near that smart."
"Mommy is the smartest person in the world!" Amèlie protested vehemently.
"Trust me, darling, I'm not," she spoke to her daughter, running her fingers through her hair lovingly. "Nicholas buys herbs and other ingredients from me. He always liked children, so when I appeared pregnant one day to complete a sale, he insisted on enchanting a toy for her."
"Why does he buy things from you?" He asked as gingerly as he could, afraid to seem insensitive or rude. However, Monique was too thrilled by her association with the great alchemist to notice any implied insult.
"Some species of plants only grow here in Landes. It's why this village was settled here in the first place, hundreds of years ago. I'm just continuing that old tradition," she declared with unmistakable pride, "the garden outside is part of it."
"But the trees all look the same," Harry frowned.
"It's a very silly forest," Amèlie agreed solemnly. "But there's a very nice part of it!"
Harry looked at Monique, who looked at her daughter with almost smothering fondness. He felt some envy at the sight, but it faded as quickly as it came. "Yes, there is. There's an old part of the forest that is still native, untouched by the Muggles. The Ministry and the French government reached an agreement to plant acres of maritime pine around it for exploration and preservation," she shrugged. "Not much of the old forest remains, but it's very beautiful and extremely useful," she declared, her eyes glowing in that same speculative light he had seen from her before.
"Mommy, why don't we show Harry?"
"I need to go there first, darling," Monique answered with a firm resolve. "On my own."
"Why?" Amèlie whined.
"Because I don't know how the fire affected the plants there." Amèlie deflated a bit, remembering the fire that had terrified her. Monique was saddened by seeing her daughter so distraught and spoke in a more appeasing tone next. "But once I know that everything is safe, I can take you both. But Harry still needs to recover, okay?"
Amèlie showed her a tentative smile, though it was clear that her mind was still troubled. She hugged Monique for emotional support, which her mother eagerly provided. "You seem okay to me," she said to Harry after loosening herself from the hug. "Why do you need to recover? Did you break a bone?"
"No, I'm just feeling a bit weak," Harry explained, though the girl seemed confused about the concept, as though anything less than a broken bone was not a worthy impediment to a great adventure through the forest.
"I broke my leg two times," she responded, making the number sign with her hands before putting a pensive finger to her cheek. "Oh, and I broke my fingers three times, but they were all different fingers."
"I told you to stop climbing the pines," Monique warned her daughter in a slightly irritated voice.
"But it wasn't a pine, it was a different tree," she defended herself. Her mother's eyes narrowed, and she pursed her lips.
"There are no other tree species around the village."
"Yes, there are," her daughter insisted stubbornly. "There's a bunch of them around the old potions store."
"Well, even if there are different trees there, no climbing them either."
Amèlie moodily mumbled something about it not being a pine but didn't speak about the subject anymore. "Are you going to help heal Harry?"
"Maurice and I have done what we could. Now, some people from the Ministry are going to look after him, and we'll see what happens."
"The Ministry is coming?" Amèlie asked, looking distressed. Harry wondered if she too did not like their presence around town, but thought it unlikely considering how young she was. "Does that mean that Angèlique won't be playing with me today?"
Again, Monique seemed forlorn. "You know how she is, dear," Amèlie nodded sadly. "Why don't you play with Harry? As long as you don't run and let him rest plenty," she warned her daughter, whose face brightened at the idea before frowning at the prohibition.
"But running is the best part!"
"I can't run right now, but I'll race you when I'm better," Harry offered.
"I'm the fastest kid in Landes!" She smiled smugly. "If I win the race, you get me an orange."
"An orange?"
"Everyone knows oranges are the best fruit," she declared authoritatively.
"Alright, I'll get you an orange if you win," he conceded, and she beamed happily, already imagining herself eating one.
More slow, methodical steps followed down the corridor, and a man appeared with a furrowed brow. "What's taking you so long?" He called out as he turned the corner. "I've made you some coffee, and it's going to get co—"
He cut himself off as soon as he saw Harry, turning confused before getting visibly angry. Harry wanted to leave as soon as he realized the man was furious with his presence and looked down to the ground in reflex. Upon seeing this, Monique snapped, pointing a finger at him.
"You, look up!" She commanded, and he did so, frightened. "And you, back off!" She demanded of her husband, who looked back in a scandalized manner.
"You heard what Mr. Marceau said last night!" He hissed. "This child brought the storm, and you still bring him into our home?"
"Symphorien is an idiot!" She barked. "You get to listen to him if that is what you want, but he will certainly not dictate how I act in my house."
"This is my house too."
"And we decided on the rules together before that old idiot enchanted you with his nonsense about magic being sentient. You don't even believe him."
"He's a respected scholar," Robert defended the man.
"Nicholas is a respected scholar. Dumbledore is a respected scholar," that name tickled something in Harry's brain, but it faded before he could jump at it. "Symphorien is a lunatic. And even if he were also a respected scholar, you know who else also is one? Him!"
The man bristled at the pronoun, and Harry guessed they were talking about Grindelwald. "And there's the problem. You're not even willing to say his name in front of our daughter," he pointed out to Amèlie, who calmly stood by Harry, watching their discussion. "Certainly not in front of the boy who came into this town with a necklace bearing his mark."
"Enough, Robert. He's just a child."
"Answer me this, child," the man demanded from Harry in a stern, derisive tone. "What were you doing with that necklace?"
"I don't remember," Harry answered firmly, something in that confrontational tone triggering an unyielding part of him.
"We'll see if that holds up to the Ministry," Robert scoffed.
"It will," Harry spoke defiantly. The man's eyes narrowed in suspicion.
"Robert, I said enough," Monique spoke furiously. "You are beyond out of line."
"Are you going to let him hang around my daughter?"
"They are children, and children get to play together," she replied. "Amèlie, why don't you show Harry around the house for a bit? Don't go far. I'll have a word with your father."
Robert tensed, looking ready to make impositions of his own, but Monique was already walking towards him, directing him to another room. He grudgingly passed through the door frame, all while glaring at Harry, a warning clear in his eyes.
"I'm sorry for causing your parents this much trouble," Harry spoke quietly as soon as that door closed and he was left alone with her.
"It's fine," she reassured him. "Mommy and daddy are always like that."
"They are?" He asked, feeling some concern.
"Mommy gets angry very quickly," she spoke matter-of-factly. The nonchalance in the girl as she witnessed that argument had been disconcerting, but she seemed at peace with it. "Want to go to the garden?"
"Sure."
The garden was big, and Amèlie spoke about each plant with a level of care and detail that was completely outside what an eight-year-old ought to be capable of. Maybe that half a year had made the difference, Harry thought.
"Mommy loves plants, and she always brings seeds from the forest," she explained when he asked about how she knew so much, the compliment lifting her spirits. "She shows me how to take care of them, and then we do it together!"
She told him how to water and care for each plant, delicately pruning weeds away from them and petting the ones that seemed more sentient. Their names didn't quite roll off her tongue properly, and she struggled with the ones with more complicated, latinized names, wrinkling her nose and spelling out the syllables carefully, one at a time. "Echi-echina-nacea purpu-rea," she said of one purple coneflower, smiling toothily when she managed to get it all out.
Her favorite plant was very similar to Flora, that flower from the clinic, though it was taller. "They're siblings," she told him when he mentioned the resemblance. He didn't know what that would mean in a floral version of a genealogical tree but felt like Amèlie wouldn't have the answer. "Sometimes, mommy brings Flora here, and they spend the night together, singing."
"Do you like their songs?"
"I don't know," she complained with a petulant pout. "I get sleepy when I sneak down to listen to them."
Harry laughed, and she was about to complain when a voice caught their attention.
"Amèlie," Maurice called from over the fence. "Where is Monique?"
"She's inside, talking with daddy."
"Can you call her for me? The Ministry people have arrived. Harry, can you come too, please?"