Marie-Antoinette

Chapter Two: A contract of ashes and blood

I remember the first time I saw her.

I was in a dim-lit, lugubrious waiting room next to the Minister's office, which was now taken by the Death Eater Rodolphus Lestrange. Sirius had been allowed to come with me this time - or at least he had not been driven back by the Cerberus guarding the golden gates in the Atrium. He was sitting by my side and kept up an uninterrupted flow of insults and nasty remarks about Lestrange and his court of Death Eaters - including Sirius' own brother Regulus - in an attempt to prevent me from thinking about what Lestrange had in store for me this time.

I have to admit I had stopped listening to him after perhaps two minutes of waiting in the half-darkness. Entering that room had re-opened my still very fresh wound, and the memory of the last time I had sat on this hard straight-backed chair had rushed back to me, stabbing me painfully in the chest.

Last time, it hadn't been Sirius sitting next to me. On his chair had sat my beautiful wife, Lily, her face pale with anxiety and lack of sleep, but her eyes dry - for she never cried in front of Harry.

Instead of Sirius, whom I was now watching blankly, I could still see her, perched on the very edge of the chair, her red hair framing her face and falling gracefully on the back of her worn-out black robes, and the vivid-green eyes circled with dark shadows made a striking contrast with her milky skin. She had been twisting her hands, causing her wedding ring to dig into her flesh, until I had taken that hand in mine and given it a gentle squeeze. Then she had looked up at me and smiled - a nervous, helpless smile, only a pale shadow of the smile I knew and loved.

That time, the air had not been full of furious whispers wishing Lestrange's slow and atrocious death; Lily and I hadn't uttered a word, but Harry, on the contrary, had been cheerfully talking to himself, oblivious of the atmosphere heavy with unspoken threats. I could still hear his squeaky little voice echoing on the walls, the sharp tap-tap-tap of his small feet as he ran from one side of the room to the other as fast as his chubby little legs could carry him, holding his broom-toy high above his head and making whooshing sounds with his mouth. At one point he had climbed on the remaining chair - that chair that now stood hopelessly empty in the shadows - and, having finally settled in it, had sent us a toothy grin from across the table.

"Mummy! Mummy! I'm up here!"

My little three-year-old, for whom succeeding in climbing on a chair taller than himself was far more important than all the grown-ups' worries - wars, unfair laws and pure-blood mania...

"That's wonderful, darling..."

Oh, Lily's tearful voice, her painful smile as her eyes suddenly grew very bright... Had she sensed, too, that it was the last time we were together as the Potter family?

The Potter family... That was over now. It had been over since Lestrange had let us in his office - Lily clutching Harry's hand so tight that my little boy was looking up at her with wide eyes - in order to pronounce our sentence, in his most indifferent voice, and with the bored expression he had worn on his face for the occasion.

"In accordance with the new law instituted by the All-Powerful Dark Lord, whose Name is not to be besmirched by common mortals' lips, stating that no marriage should be contracted between pure-bloods and wizards or witches of lesser lineage, I declare that the marriage contracted between James Potter, pure-blood, and Lily Evans, Mudblood, is null and void. The half-blood Harry James Evans, born of the aforementioned union, is to be left in the care of his mother and will not be allowed to bear the name Potter. Any violation of this sentence will be punished by torture and death of the Mudblood and her child, by order of the Dark Lord."

I had wanted to rise. I had wanted to scream. I had wanted to draw my wand and throw at him every curse coming to my mind. But of course our wands had been taken away from us, and a masked Death Eater was standing behind Lestrange with their wand in their hand, ready to strike. I had opened my mouth to protest, to curse, to insult him - anything but stay silent and passively accept our sentence. But then, the Death Eater had lowered their hood, revealing the gleeful, sneering face of Lestrange's wife, Bellatrix - and her wand had been pointed at Harry.

I had stayed silent. I had obediently risen from my chair when I had been dismissed. I had taken Lily and Harry out of the office, only to be stopped in the corridor by another Death Eater, who had announced to me that he had been ordered to take Lily to a village especially built for Mudbloods.

"Let me at least say goodbye to him -"

"Mum! Wait for Daddy!"

"Quiet, boy! Miss Evans, follow me at once, please."

"Daddy! Daddy! Come on!"

"Miss Evans, if you don't make him shut up I will!"

"Shh, Harry, you m-mustn't -"

"Daddy! Daddy! Daddy...!"

But they had been taken away.

My wand had been given back to me, and Lily's wand had been snapped in two before my eyes. Mudbloods weren't allowed to use magic.

I still don't know how I survived the following week; I barely slept, having lost the habit of sleeping alone, and I had to restrain myself from calling "I'm home!" every time I entered our house. No one was waiting for me there anymore.

After three days, I found myself unable to stand it anymore; I locked the house and came to live with Sirius. He had scarcely left me alone since.

And here he was, with me, a week after Lestrange had casually shattered my life with a few words, in the very same room where Lily, Harry and I had been a true family for the last time.

My eyes shifted away from Sirius to rest on the empty chair facing us, that chair on which Harry had been scrambling up a week earlier.

But it was no longer empty.

She was sitting there; she had entered the room without any of us noticing, silent and swift - merely another shadow in the dark room. The quavering light of the candle caught in the folds of the blue silky material of her robes. I remember focusing on those robes: they were displaying a surreal aura, speaking of books and parchments, of detentions and carefree days, as if this lonely figure was an apparition from a faraway past - familiar and yet strange.

She was removing the hairpins from her hair, and the corner of her mouth twitched now and then with a slight wince of pain. I studied her features carefully, stocking the information in a corner of my mind, a habit acquired after years of fighting in the dark against Voldemort's army. She had a rather pleasant face, but not one to stand out in a crowd. Everything was moderate in this face, to the point of being dull. Her hair was fine and of that light-brown shade that is so commonly seen - not really dark but not quite fair; nothing in the like of the thick hair of that triumphant auburn colour I knew so well...

Her plait finally fell and she let out a sigh of relief. That plait hanging down her back accentuated the schoolish aura I had detected earlier, and I was now almost certain her outfit was a school uniform. She couldn't have been older than fifteen or sixteen.

I remember thinking that frail apparition was like a breath of fresh air in the gloomy room, in that atmosphere heavy with sad memories of the past and dread of the future. As I looked at the unknown teenager gathering her hairpins in her lap and smoothing down her robes, as if it mattered that much, in that time of bitter defeat, to be caught tousle-haired and scruffy-looking, I had the feeling time had suspended its course - for one short, dreamy, blissful moment.

She suddenly raised her head, probably feeling our gazes fixed on her, and I was startled by the sight of two extraordinary eyes - big eyes of a soft sky blue colour, without any fleck of grey or green in them; eerily perfect, but at the same time, strangely lacking of that sparkle I had gotten used to seeing in other eyes, in far more beautiful, lively, perfect eyes... Only, those eyes had been green.

***

"Hello..."

The man with long hair jumped slightly, as if he hadn't been expecting me to be able to talk at all. He quickly regained his composure and shot at me a cheerful:

"Hello yourself! Did you get lost, or something?"

As I had expected, he was probably wondering what I could possibly be doing there, but otherwise I was pleasantly surprised by his tone of voice. True, he was a little condescending, but at least his gaze was friendly and warm - quite a nice change from all the amused glances I had received from Lestrange today.

"No, I didn't get lost, thank you for your concern," I answered slowly, careful not to trip on my words. "Do... erm... Do I look that much out of place?"

"Well, to tell the truth, yes, you do," he said with a short laugh. "Not that I'm complaining, though. You are a nice change from all these bloody penguins pacing up and down the corridors in their Death Eaters uniforms. Foreigner?"

"Yes, I'm French."

God, how I hated my accent.

"Are you on holiday?" he asked again, leaning forwards and putting his elbows on the round wobbly table as he eyed me. "Do French students have holidays besides the Christmas and Easter holidays?"

I felt myself blushing again. Of course, he was thinking I was still at school.

"I'm no longer a student," I mumbled.

"You're not?" exclaimed the other man, who hadn't stopped surveying me all this time with a strange expression on his face.

I looked at him in surprise.

"No, I'm not."

"Weird," he commented while leaning back in his chair. "I was so sure you were wearing a uniform."

"James, mate, you're being rude," said the long-haired man casually. "Miss, I'd like to introduce you to my friend James, famous for his spectacular lack of taste as far as feminine clothes are concerned. Well, except when he's picking something for his wife. Then -"

He stopped abruptly and closed his eyes for a second, as if he expected the ceiling to fall on his head. He then shot a sideway look at his friend, whose face had suddenly darkened as he had cast his eyes downwards, the weary and mournful look back on his features.

"Actually you were right," I said hastily, wanting to disperse the awkward silence threatening to settle once more. "I'm wearing my Beauxbâtons uniform. That was the most convenient outfit for travelling. I'm just out of school, I interrupted my seventh year," I added as an explanation.

The long-haired man raised an eyebrow at me.

"That boring?" he asked with half a smile.

"Family problem," I said evasively. "I have to see the Minister about it."

This had the advantage of pulling the bespectacled man - James, I thought, but even in my own head I wasn't comfortable with calling an unknown adult by his first name - out of what must have been depressing musings.

"You have to see Lestrange?" he repeated with a doubtful expression.

"Well, yes," I said warily. "He was the one to pull me out of Beauxbâtons, and he came to fetch me in Paris."

"He what?" both men said, abruptly straightening in their chairs.

"Why would he bother to go to France and fetch... a teenager?" said the man called James. Then, shaking his head with disbelief, he added, "That doesn't make sense."

"Being rude again," said his friend in a singsong voice and with a forced idleness, as if to conceal his own surprise at my words. "People don't like it when you're talking as if they weren't in the room, Prongs. By the way, my name's Sirius," he added with a smile in my direction. "What's yours?"

I opened my mouth to answer, but at that exact moment the door opened behind me and I heard the sentry's bored voice calling:

"Potter, the Minister will see you now. The French girl is going with you. Black, you're staying here."

Potter?

James Potter?

It couldn't be him. That was just impossible. That man was at least ten years older than I was, and from what I'd just heard, he was already married. It just... couldn't be.

"Miss? You're supposed to follow me."

I raised my head to find James Potter standing beside me, towering over me from the top of his tall and thin stature. I nodded dumbly and rose, my gestures as mechanical as a sleepwalker's, and followed him out of the room. Just before closing the door, I looked back, almost longing to dash back into the gloomy room and hide there, away from Lestrange and his machinations. Black - Sirius Black, I remembered - was still sitting there, visibly confused; when he caught my eyes, however, he managed to send me a wink and a reassuring smile. I didn't have the time to answer him, though - a second later a hand clenched around my bruised arm again and roughly pulled me away from the door, which promptly shut in my face.

"Merlin, did they choose the dumbest?" muttered the sentry angrily as he shoved me in the direction of the office.

The comment didn't even sting. It was as if I had been anaesthetised - my mind was still struggling to take in the shocking bit of information about the bespectacled man's identity, and anything else was just slipping through my head without reaching me.

We were let into the office; it was a large, high-ceilinged room, whose walls were covered with black hangings on which was painted a strange and ominous symbol: a skull, and a serpent descending from its mouth and coiling up around itself. The skull and snake were of that dark shade of red, almost brown, that blood takes on when it's drying, but the snake's eyes were bright green and they gleamed like emeralds in the darkness. Though the air was completely still, the hangings shivered from time to time, and the slow rippling of the heavy and dark fabric gave me the feeling that the snake was alive and moving.

Lestrange was reading a wad of parchments covered with words written in green ink, while he sat behind a huge desk made of dark oak and decorated with carvings and gildings. Behind him stood a tall and slim silhouette, cloaked and hooded, their wand drawn and obviously ready to be used. Whoever was hiding behind the black hood didn't make any comment at our entry; Lestrange himself didn't look up when the door shut behind us without a sound, and we stood there in front of him like two defendants in front of their judge.

Mr. Potter gave an impatient cough, and Lestrange, alerted by the sound, raised his head at last.

"Ah... Mr. Potter, Miss de Syrnac," he said coldly. "This will have to be quick, I have a busy schedule. Miss de Syrnac, you already know what I'm about to tell you; Mr. Potter doesn't, but this will be put right in a few minutes."

With those curt words, he pushed aside the parchments he had been reading and seized his wand, which had been lying on a dark red velvet cushion next to his right hand. He waved it around for a whole minute, his eyes half-closed, and a flow of old incantations came out of his mouth. The hangings fluttered more forcefully than before as the enchantment blew like a cold breeze around the room. I started shaking uncontrollably; Mr. Potter was pale, and beads of sweat had formed at the edge of his dark hair. Even the people standing behind the desk shifted uneasily as the cold wind brushed past them.

Then, in the wake of Lestrange's wand, there appeared what looked like a wisp made, not of smoke, but of dark ash. The ash was dancing, rippling and twirling in the air, and finally it seemed to condense until it formed a single sheet of black parchment, so thin it looked like it would crumble into dust at the lightest touch.

The parchment made of ashes hovered above Lestrange's desk for a few seconds, before fluttering down with the graceful nonchalance of a dead leaf and landing on top of the desk. Every eye in the room had been following its course.

The masked figure behind Lestrange approached the desk to peer with obvious interest at the thin black parchment, spread on the smooth oak surface. As if drawn by invisible strings, Mr. Potter came closer too, until he was standing right in front of the desk. I followed.

Lestrange delicately brushed the parchment with the tip of his wand, and words written in bright red ink suddenly appeared on it.

"A magical marriage contract," he explained as he leant back in his chair, sounding very pleased with himself.

I suddenly realised my mouth had gone very dry. Was I to marry James Potter right here, right now? No talking beforehand, no ceremony? I closed my eyes and my head started to spin. My ears were suddenly filled with an odd hissing sound, and I felt completely empty. When was the last time I had eaten anything?

No. I mustn't faint. Not now. Not in front of them.

"A marriage contract?"

Mr. Potter's tense voice cut through the fog that had started to drown my thoughts.

"What do you mean, Lestrange? Just last week, you -"

"What I mean is simple. It is the Dark Lord's wish that you shouldn't let your family name disappear. It would be a shame; the Potter family is a very ancient wizarding family, and the purity of your blood is enough to give you and your descendants a selected place in the Dark Lord's inner circle. Therefore he asked me to find you a suitable wife, which I found in the person of Miss de Syrnac."

"Her?"

Humiliation burned my cheeks. Of course, he was right; this was ridiculous. But nevertheless, the way he had said it was as insulting as Lestrange's most scornful look.

"Yes, Potter, her! You and Miss de Syrnac are to sign here, at the bottom of the parchment -"

"What's your problem, Lestrange? Was that schoolgirl the only one you could find?"

"Miss de Syrnac is from a very ancient family, she's of age, and she won't give you any trouble. She's likely to do anything you want her to."

"Enough."

It was weird to hear my own clear voice resounding in the middle of the loud argument between the two men, both speaking much more loudly than me. But if I was surprised by my own boldness - any other time, I would have stepped back in the shadows and tried not to draw attention - it was nothing compared with the shock I experienced when both men fell instantly silent, and turned to me expectantly.

I wanted to say that they didn't have the right to talk about me that way, especially when I happened to be in the room. I wanted to let out my frustration at being so obviously regarded as an object, something that had been chosen in a catalogue as one would choose a pet for their child. But I didn't. I was just not ready for the consequences of an outburst; I may have died of shame before I reached the end of my first sentence. So I bottled up my anger, I swallowed my pride, and I hid again behind the smooth placid expression I had worn all day.

"I don't think there's any point in arguing," I said slowly at last, trying with all my might to prevent my voice from shaking. "So if we could - get this over with... It would allow us to avoid wasting more time."

Lestrange nodded, his usual smirk on his lips again.

"Good girl," he said sarcastically, and my blood boiled again with anger, all faintness forgotten. "I suggest you should sign first, then, Miss de Syrnac. Here's the quill -"

He handed me a long black quill, with an unusually sharp point; I seized it and bent over the parchment, ready to sign.

The lines of the contract were oddly blurred, and I couldn't read them. At the very bottom of the parchment, an empty space was waiting for our signatures.

I wrote my full name in that cursive script I had always used at school; even when my essays were poor, my teachers used to say they were worth reading just for the beautiful handwriting. As soon as scratching sound of the quill against the rough parchment had stopped, though, I sucked in a sharp breath as I felt a searing pain in the back of my left hand; and I saw, with a jolt of shock, round, long and elegant letters carved, as if with a scalpel, in the pale skin of my hand. Letters forming the words Marie-Antoinette de Syrnac.

I hated the sight of blood.

And yet, my blood was now shining on my hand, as well as on the black sheet of parchment, in thin ribbons chiselling my name. I grimaced; was that how Lestrange intended to bind me to the Potter family? With a pact signed with my own blood? I had been naïve enough to think those kinds of practices had been long abandoned. It was - well, crude. Almost primitive. As a matter of fact, Lestrange had impressed me so much previously, with his aristocratic manners and his cold courtesy, that I expected something much more refined from him.

I gave the quill to Lestrange and stepped back, covering my stinging left hand with my right. I glanced at the wound and saw it had already healed, leaving the skin red and sore, but rather smooth.

"Potter?" said Lestrange coldly. "I'd rather you would spare me the obligation of hexing you into signing. It would be a waste of time and energy."

Mr. Potter was livid, and his eyes were a scary sight: they were wide open, and burning with such a violent hatred that Lestrange's smirk faded and he visibly tensed, his hand convulsively clenching around his wand. The cloaked figure took a step forward, brandishing their wand, and seemed to hesitate for a minute or two.

Then, to my utter astonishment, they pointed their wand at me and a voice came from under the hood: a horrible feminine voice, dripping with vicious delight and a kind of unhealthy excitation.

"Potter, let's play a game, shall we? In three seconds you will have signed the parchment, or I'll torture the little girl. I can be very inventive, you know. There's not only the Cruciatus Curse. I have been working on a nasty little hex lately, and I'll be happy to try it on your charming little fiancée. You'll enjoy the screaming."

An astounded silence filled the room. All remaining colour had gone from Mr. Potter's face, and even his lips were grey. Was he really taking that woman seriously? She was insane, it was obvious. Only a madwoman would talk about torture with such glee in her voice. And the screaming? How could anyone enjoy hearing screams?

"Potter, sign now," murmured Lestrange, his voice dangerously low but perfectly audible nonetheless. "Or I'll let Bellatrix have her way with the pair of you."

Mr. Potter abruptly grabbed the quill and signed, in a few quick and efficient gestures. His handwriting was neat and narrow; every single letter claimed determination and authority. He barely winced when his skin was cut and he threw the quill on the desk, without even deigning to look at Lestrange.

"Very well," said the latter shortly. "You and Miss de Syrnac are now bound by a magical contract, demanding that you get married tomorrow at this time of the day. The ceremony will take place in the Atrium, and after that you will both be taken to the house that was built for you. A house worthy of your lineage. Now you may go."

Potter turned on his heels and strode out of the office; I curtseyed slightly to say goodbye to Lestrange, and by doing so I caught a glimpse of the black parchment. The writing I hadn't been able to read earlier had become suddenly clear when both signatures had been affixed, and I was able to quickly scan the contract.

I straightened up, not wanting Lestrange to think I was spying on him. Lestrange answered my curtsey with a rather offhand bow of the head, and I bit my lip, trying to stay impassive in front of that new demonstration of his contempt for me - me, the schoolgirl, the teenager, the little French girl...

I walked out of the office, and had to force my way through the throng that was pressing itself, even denser that before, against the Minister's door. When I reached the end of the corridor, I found that I wouldn't have to wait for a lift: one had already arrived and two men were stepping inside. I made to follow them, but I stopped dead when I recognized Mr. Potter and his friend Sirius Black. As they turned around, Mr. Black's eyes met mine and his jaw dropped in shock. Mr. Potter, who had been talking to him in frantic whispers a second before, fell silent and turned to look at me as well.

And then, in his hazel gaze, I was startled to recognize the same hatred that had been burning in his eyes when he had been staring at Lestrange a few minutes before. But I thought I also saw, behind that veil of violent loathing, a fleeting spark of terrible pain.

As I stood there, petrified by that hateful look, the grilles slowly shut in my face and the lift started to go down.

I waited in the corridor for the next lift; in spite of the surrounding noise and stifling hotness, caused by the congregation of dozens of human beings in this narrow underground place, I was able to isolate myself in my thoughts. And God knows how absorbing they were.

I could tell I was very likely to be unhappy as Mr. Potter's wife. My future husband clearly hated me - though I had yet to guess the reason of such a violent dislike. He hadn't seemed so hostile in the waiting room, before we had entered the Minister's office. And even then, he had pretty much ignored me, until he had been made to sign the contract.

Why did he hate the idea of marrying me so much? He obviously thought I was too young, and probably not pretty enough for his taste, but even a magical contract such as the one we had signed couldn't force him to live constantly at my side, or to be faithful to me. I knew quite a bit about those contracts: in magical French nobility, marriages used to be contracted in the same way - though the couple never had to sign with their blood, thank heavens. When signing, the husband and his wife only undertook to live under the same roof and bear the same name, and the children born from the wife would be the heirs of the family, whether they were the husband's children or not.

Therefore - even if that black parchment did seem to hold a magical power much stronger than the average contract, and thus wouldn't be as easily revocable - Mr. Potter was to marry me, but he would remain free to come and go as he pleased. I had read enough on the black contract to know he wasn't required to take care of me in any way. He could forget my existence and live a bachelor's life, as long as he came home from time to time - and even then, he was free to spend his time away from me. We didn't even have to share the same bedroom. So why -?

Then I remembered. Mr. Black had let slip in the waiting room that Mr. Potter was married. What had happened to his first wife? Had she left him? Had she died in the war? Did he still love her so much he couldn't bear the idea of marrying another woman?

No, not woman - schoolgirl.

"Oh yes, the little French girl..."

"Does Lestrange think that I have the time to go and fetch schoolgirls all around London...?"

"Why would he bother to go to France and fetch... a teenager?"

"Merlin, did they choose the dumbest?"

"...Was that schoolgirl the only one you could find?"

"...She won't give you any trouble. She's likely to do anything you want her to."

"Good girl..."

"...I'll torture the little girl..."

My lip curled as a bitter taste filled my mouth. They were the ones who had wrenched me away from my quiet life in Beauxbâtons, and they all considered me a child unable to do anything without being told to beforehand. I was sick of it.

And as I stepped into a lift that had finally come to a halt at my floor, in a cacophony of clatters, scrapes and creaks, I decided I would never let anybody look down upon me again.