Harry Potter and the Lament for the Dead

Prologue

France. A cool summer morning, somewhere on the way to Avignon. A white pilgrim-chapel, gleaming in the golden rays of the dawning sun. Inside: A priest and two young nuns, praying in front of a statue of Virgin Mary. The priest walks around, igniting church-candles.

Peaceful silence lay upon the little church. It was early in the morning and the sun had just risen. It was Sunday, and the priest was about to prepare the service. The hosts had been brought by a monk who had accompanied the nuns, but had left for his cloister again. The priest was shepherd to a very small herd; people rarely found their way into the little church, and if they did, most of them were lacking time or had lost their way. The clergyman was always glad to help, but mainly they only found the way back their old paths, never returning to the little chapel in the forest again. Thinking about it, the priest sighed deeply and glanced at the sisters, whose prayers were echoing monotonously between the light church walls. He smiled feebly and turned to light some more candles, thinking about what he wanted to preach today. The liturgy was about a psalm that now fit the priest's mood very well. And though I wandered through the dark valley, I shall fear no harm...

Times were dark now indeed. Several tragic incidents happened over the last couple of months and their origins were never revealed. Had he not been a sensible man, he would have thought of a supernatural cause, but the only supernatural power he believed in was the Lord. There had been troubled times before, and there would be peaceful times following them as they always did. With the help of God, man would get past these doleful days, too. He smiled faithfully and ignited some more candles.

After a short while, the chapel's portal opened with a creak. The priest, who was sitting in the first row with the Bible on his knees, smirked without looking up. Footsteps were heard, hurrying towards the abandoned statue of Mary. The nuns had left a while ago. A female voice started whispering the Hail Mary. The priest turned his head a bit to hear better, but he did not have to listen too long to be confirmed in his expectations.

Two students had been visiting the chapel every Sunday morning before mass, a boy and a girl, and they were always accompanied by the same teacher. All of them had their habits: they all started worshipping the Virgin Mary, first the girl. Praying to the Mother of God took her longer than her fellow student, who seemed to be fulfilling an obligation. Afterwards, she approached the altar, shyly greeting the cleric with a feeble smile, and averted her eyes. Then she yielded to the cross and started praying as if it meant her life. The boy stood a few metres beside her, hands folded, looking down to the floor just like she did, but prayed mainly in silence without kneeling. He finished his prayers always before she did and waited politely until she got up again. Meanwhile, their teacher prayed before the statue of Mary, and when she was finished with it, she got up and sat down a few benches behind where the priest was sitting right now. Sometimes she pulled a rosary out of her robes and started praying to it, but mostly she approached him and they had a little conversation. He watched her from the corner of his eyes as she was making the sign of the cross and turned, greeting him with a smile. He returned it friendly and got up to join her in the aisle.

"Bon matin," he greeted her. "Comment allez-vous?"

"Ca va bien, merci beaucoup," she answered, her fingers running down the rosary in her hand. "Et vous?"

"Oui, ca va." He smiled, glancing back to the altar where the girl kept kneeling, deeply sunken into her prayers.

She was a faithful Catholic from her innermost; at least that was what the priest considered her to be. The girl's voice reverberated between the church walls. It was steady as the driblets of a warm summer rain, amazingly pleasant to the ear. It made him smile.

"Elle voudrait confesser aujourd'hui, si c'est possible," reported the teacher.

"Bien sur," answered the priest and smiled faithfully.

She returned his smile and nodded, sinking on the bench and watching her students praying while he turned to prepare the confessional for the girl. As always, the boy was finished already and waited for his schoolmate.

The priest did not know too much about the two students, just that they were brother and sister, and that their father had died some time ago. Remembering this, he glanced at their teacher. The little he knew about the students, the less he knew about their college or teacher. All he knew about her was that her predecessor had been a man called Guillaume Barree, who had fled the country some twenty years ago. Rumours kept flying that he was killed; others said he got himself into mysterious powers or was their victim. One never found out, and such incidents were good material for long winter nights with the family gathered around the warm fireplace.

The priest's eye got caught by the praying girl again. If she was confessing today, she was likely to stay for the service, too. Her brother attended it from time to time, but not periodically, and he didn't give as much heart into it as his sister. The clergyman had never seen their teacher attend one, which seemed funny, but he never asked her why. Of course he had invited her to stay several times, but she had always rejected the offer with the politest apologies. She appeared to be a nice person, so he never pushed her. He, as a Catholic priest, had not the slightest amorous interest in her, but she was good company and used to leave him with interesting impulses concerning theology. Mainly he felt disturbed by her ideas, but somehow he could not stop himself from thinking about them once he started.

The girl rose and turned to face the priest. He nodded, welcoming, and stepped aside to make way, inviting her to the confessional. She gave her brother and teacher a confident smile as she passed the statue of Mary, where she stopped to light a candle. Muttering a prayer for her father, she made the sign of the cross and laid a coin on the donation box beside the slot. Then she entered the confessional. The priest saw her teacher approach the side entrance while the boy went to ignite a candle for the same purpose. He, too, donated a coin and laid it beside his sister's. Then he nodded and approached the side exit.

"On y va!" the teacher told the girl, and a confident "Oui!" came from inside the confessional.

The teacher opened the door, glancing to the outside, and frowned.

"Neige," said the woman, surprised, "en ete?"

Her student bent down, picked some white powder from the ground outside and made a few steps back into the church, frowning at the cold, shimmering icicles. Indeed, it was snow. The young man dropped it outside again and looked at his teacher anxiously. She seemed to consider for a moment, came to a result, and slightly nodded to the boy. He shrugged, muttered a goodbye, and turned to leave. His teacher gave the priest a smile.

"A bientot!" she said and followed the student.

The priest sighed deeply. Snowfall in the middle of summer... things became more and more confusing. But he had no time left to ponder for he had a parishioner waiting for him, ready to confess. He entered his compartment of the confessional and closed the door.

"In nomine Patris et Filii et Spiritus Sancti..." spoke he in Latin, and "Amen" answered the girl.

"Père, remettrez-moi, parce que j'ai -"

But before she could continue, the chapel's portal burst open with such violence that it hit the walls hard.

"Sanctuary!" cried a terrified male voice.

The girl in the other cabin shrieked, but the priest calmed her. "Restez ici, mademoiselle," he instructed her and got up to see what happened.

The church doors were wide open, and the blizzard blew powdery white snow into the little chapel. A few metres farther, a young man had broken down in the aisle. He wearily glanced at the approaching clergyman, his face covered with sweat.

"Sanctuary," he repeated. "I pray you... I'm being pursued, but I'm innocent, I swear to God I'm innocent..."

Then he clutched the hem of the parson's robe in such a beseeching way that the churchman felt compassion for him. The clergyman gave him an assuring squeeze on the shoulder and removed his robe from the young foreigner's hands so he could close the entrance door. The boy's pitiable state made him lock it, too. A sigh of relief told him that he was right in doing so, and he gave the young man an encouraging smile. The boy finally found the strength to get up, and the priest threw solicitous looks to the confessional. A cold ray of sunlight fell through the wooden patterns of its cabins upon the girl's face, telling the preacher that she was peering at them. She didn't make any noise but remained hidden.

"Father," said the young man, still out of breath, "I -"

A hard and sudden knock on the door interrupted him, and the priest raised a hand to silence him.

"What the -?!"

"Hey, you're standing on sacred ground, so don't you dare swear!"

"But who on earth locks churches?"

The priest blinked at the boy, and the terrified expression on his face revealed that the reason for his flight into the chapel stood out there, in front of the locked church doors. The priest considered for a moment, then grabbed the boy's arm and pushed him into the confessional's vacant cabin. He put his index finger on his lips and closed the cabin door again. The boy nodded, his face mirroring fright. Then the priest returned to the main entrance again, unlocking it. He had barely stepped aside when the door flung open already.

"Comment est-ce que je peut -" he began, but was pushed aside by a man in a very rude manner.

The man started searching the little church, rushing down the aisle, and kept bending down to check if someone was hiding underneath the benches. The priest watched him, puzzled, as a second man entered, obviously exasperated.

"For Heaven's sake!" he snapped at his partner. "We've been told to act more politely!"

The priest, seeing that the intruder had stopped searching the chapel, turned to face the second man. He crossed his arms and raised an eyebrow.

"Une explication, s'il vous plait."

"What does he want?" asked the first intruder.

"An explanation... of course, of course... hm..." the second man scratched his head thoughtfully, glancing at the priest. "D'you speak English, by any chance?"

"Comment?"

"Um... English, do you..."

The priest smiled graciously and blinked. "Anglais? Si je parle anglais?"

"Yes!" said the man hopefully.

The priest sighed, looking sorry. "Non, je suis desole," he apologised.

"Ah sh- pity, I mean. What a pity."

"What? He doesn't speak English?" asked the first man, surprised.

"No, he doesn't, and I'm afraid my French is very poor," snapped the other man. "Now, let's see... an explanation... Nous, err... looking for! What's 'looking for' in French?"

"What're you looking at me for? I don't speak a single word of this!"

"Right," the man sighed, staring at the floor gloomily. "Looking for, looking for... search?" He glanced at the priest hopefully, who raised his eyebrows.

"Chercher, peut-etre?"

"Yes, nous cherchons... pour, err... boy, a boy... nous cherchons pour un gaston!"

The churchman frowned and blinked, trying to grasp what the Englishman wanted to tell him. Then his face suddenly brightened. "Ah! Vous cherchez a un garcon!"

"Yes, yes, we're looking for a boy," the man said ecstatically.

The preacher had been so lost in conversation that he failed to notice the other man, who had started snooping around again and hereby had reached the confessional. The priest tried to stop him, but it was too late.

"Hah!" he shouted triumphantly. "Gotcha! The perpetrator always feels the urge to confess!"

He jerked the cabin door open, pointing some weird-shaped stick at the person in there, and an aghast scream was heard. Then, after what seemed an eternity to the priest, the person came out of the confessional.

"Bonjour..." greeted the girl with a horrified expression on her face and slowly raised her hands.

The man next to the priest gave his partner a dirty look.

"Idiot!" he snapped and added, pointing at the stick. "Put that down!" Then he immediately turned to the young woman. "Pardon!" he said. "Err... yes. Pardon, pardon, pardon..."

Obviously, he was at a total loss how to express the extent of his remorse in French. Nevertheless, the girl threw anxious looks at them and kept holding her hands up. The man who apologised to her helplessly scratched his head again and turned to the priest. He seemed to be in charge.

"Um... yeah. Le gaston."

"Garcon," corrected the parson automatically and added, gesturing towards the girl, "Son frere etait ici."

The man blinked, glancing at his companion, who shrugged. "I told you, I don't speak any French."

"Yeah."

Guessing that they had no idea what he was talking about, the priest ushered the girl to come closer and repeated, "Son frère." Hereby, he put his hands on her shoulders, trying to explain.

"Frere," the pair's leader repeated, trying different pronunciations to see if he'd find something similar in English, "Frair... frair..."

"Sounds like friar to me," mumbled his partner, glancing around. "Why not? This is a church after all."

"No, no, he doesn't mean friar, it's... brother!" He looked up, smiling happily. "He's talking about her brother!"

"Oui... son frere," repeated the priest and, pointing at the floor in an explaining manner, added, "Il etait ici."

"Her brother," whispered the leader and mimicked the clergy's gesture towards the cold stone floor. His face brightened as he turned to his partner. "Her brother was here!" he translated triumphantly.

The girl avoided his stare as he was glancing around proudly. The parson felt as if the girl was peering at the compartment from the corner of her eye, but he could have imagined it, too. As he looked up again, the Englishman smiled at him, awaiting further information.

"Il est parti," said the priest quickly, and pointed at the door through which the parishioners had left earlier.

As the strangers stared at him clueless, he mimicked a walking person with two fingers. The leader, misunderstanding him again, pointed at himself and blinked questioningly, but the priest hastily shook his head.

"Non, non, non! Son frere est parti."

"Does he want us to leave?" asked the other intruder.

"No, no... the boy. He has left."

"Who?" he gasped. "The suspect?"

"No!" said his partner sharply. "Her brother!"

The parson kept watching them, only guessing what they were talking about, but he felt more and more uncomfortable. He released the girl and tried to lure the two Englishmen away from the confessional. The girl slowly sneaked backwards. She seemed to be trying to get as much space between herself and the strangers as possible, but she ended up leaning against the compartment the pursued boy was hiding in, shielding him from curious eyes.

"D'you reckon he's here?" asked one Englishman.

"No, I don't think so," answered the leader.

"We're not looking for a Frenchy anyway."

The priest, who didn't understand what they were talking about, went to the first row, fetched the Bible from the bench and cleared his throat. The Englishmen turned, and he held up the Bible and said, "Je doit préparer l'office." And, to underline his words, he opened the Bible, turned to the benches, and pretended to hold a speech.

"He's got to prepare the service," said the leading Englishman. "I think we'd better leave."

"Figures you're right," growled his partner, bad-tempered. "We've still got to find this boy."

Both men smiled at the priest, and the one who had dragged the girl out of the confessional waved at her with an exaggerated smile. The priest accompanied them to the main entrance and opened the door for them, waving a goodbye as their shapes became more and more distant. Then he sighed deeply and closed the door again, subconsciously locking it again. Lost in deep thoughts, he went to return the Bible to the altar for the service as the girl's voice reached his ears.

"Pere?"

"Oui?" He turned to her, smiling friendly.

"Je vais a retourner plus tard, d'accord?"

"D'accord." He sighed and went up the stairs to the altar.

The girl went back into the confessional to fetch her cloak. For a moment, the priest had the funny feeling that he heard her and the boy whisper, but he could have imagined it, too. They didn't know each other. After all, they hadn't even seen each other properly.

"Salut," said the girl and waved her hand as she left through the side exit like her brother and teacher before.

"Au revoir!" said the priest and laid the Bible on the altar.

When he turned, to his surprise he saw the young foreigner standing at the side exit, staring at the girl with a pensive expression on his face. The priest joined him with his arms crossed, an appreciative smile on his face.

"Ah... la belle de l'etranger, hein?"

"Huh?" The boy blinked and added, a lot more surprised, "You know Bella Lestrange?"

"Comment?" asked the priest as he went over to the donation box.

He took the two silver coins the students had donated and put them into an extra purse. They were of unknown currency, so he had to take the coins to the local jeweller, who always paid him a good price. The amount of silver in these coins was high enough to use it as raw material for jewellery.

The priest smiled at the boy. "Qu'est-ce que vous avez dit moi?" he kindly asked him to repeat what he had said.

"Nothi... rien," answered the boy, and the clergyman raised his eyebrows.

"Alors, vous m'entendez?" he asked and, emphasising again, pointed at his ear, then at the boy, who frowned and slowly nodded.

"Yes. I speak a little French. Err..." He raised his hand to the eyes of the parson, leaving very little space between his thumb and index finger. "Je parle un peu français."

The priest clapped his hands enthusiastically. "Tres bien! Alors, bienvenu en France!" he said and offered the boy a hand. "Vous s'appelez comment?"

The boy gave the priest a confident a smile and took his hand, obviously relieved.

"Je m'appelle Draco Malfoy."