Fraternisation

Chapter 1. The Skull in the Sky

Someone was screaming, somewhere far away. Beneath the screams, there was chanting, and the rumblings of many feet moving in the same direction. It was getting louder...

'Jacques! Jacques!'

He awoke with a start, thrown from the heavy warmth of sleep into mayhem. The covers were being dragged from him, exposing his pyjama clad body to the bite of the cold night air, and all around him was noise and movement. Shadows billowed across the canvas of the tent, which was backlit by an unnatural orange glow.

'Come on, wake up, we have to go! Come on!' He recognised the voice of his sister. What was she doing there? Angelique was pulling at his hand, nearly dragging him out of bed.

'What's going on?' he asked, managing to sit up and find his wand.

Angelique's familiar face looked strange in the shadows cast by the flickering candlelight. 'Some sort of attack - oh Jacques, hurry, we have to get out!'

Spurred on by his sister's urgency, he stumbled to his feet, and followed her out of the tent. Emerging into the chilly night, the noise sounded much louder. There were screams, and jeering, and the intense crackling of a big fire. Flashes of green and gold rent the blackness of the sky, and a sullen red glow was visible on the horizon behind the tents. The noise and excitement could have been part of a rowdy celebration, but something told him that it wasn't. An edge of fear to the screams, a tense sensation in the air, spoke to his primordial instincts.

Tents loomed up above them, making irregular silhouettes. They obscured the source of the commotion, but whatever it was, everyone was scared by it. Around them, witches and wizards of all ages and nationalities and in various stages of undress were also hastening away up the hill. Their faces were confused and frightened, glancing back over their shoulders as they ran.

Jacques stumbled after his sister. 'But where are we going?' he panted.

'I don't know, somewhere... wherever the others are... this way!' Angelique kept hold of his hand, and he found himself being pulled along after her just as though he was still a small boy, not a fifteen year old. She led him on an erratic course through the tents, past overturned cooking pots and the odd discarded item of clothing. He saw someone's money-bag lying forgotten in a clump of grass and stopped from instinct to pick it up, but Angelique tugged his arm. 'Come on, come on!'

A great whoop went up behind him, and the fleeing campers all put on a fresh spurt of speed. The mocking cheers and screams were getting closer, and he could hear crashing as tents were trampled by what must be a mass of people. A gust of wind brought the scent of smoke to his nostrils. Every time he tried to look back, Angelique squeaked and pulled frantically on his hand.

'Why are we running away?' Jacques asked, managing to draw alongside his sister. The chill of the air and the cool dampness of the grass beneath his bare feet had woken him up sufficiently, and he no longer wanted to be dragged along like a stubborn toddler.

She kept hold of his hand, and looked at him, eyes wide and frightened. 'I don't know. Madame woke us all up, and told us we had to get away, but it was all very confused, and we lost sight of her, so I came to find you... here's the others!' Her voice was higher pitched than usual with a mixture of fear and relief.

Lucie Renard, the Head Girl, grabbed Angelique's arm as they puffed up to the small group. 'Serdaigle,' she snapped, eyes cutting a brief, contemptuous glance at Jacques. 'Where in Merlin's name have you been? Do you think this is the time for dallying?'

'I had to get Jacques, I couldn't see him!' panted Angelique, recoiling slightly.

A burst of sudden bright light erupted behind them, accompanied by a particularly loud cheer and the acrid smell of burning. They all wheeled round to see a tent a few rows down the slope ablaze. More were burning further back. In the flickering light, a great crowd could be made out, advancing upon them.

Plucking at Angelique's sleeve, Lucie hissed, 'Did you see Madame Maxime anywhere?'

'No - why? Isn't she here?' Angelique clutched more tightly at Jacques' hand.

'No,' replied Lucie shortly, followed by a strangled squeak. The mass of people - whoever they were - had moved closer and were now visible in the light from the burning tents. Jacques' breath caught in his chest as he saw that some of them were wearing sinister expressionless masks and strange stiff robes. They were chanting and cheering, setting fire to tents and threatening terrified campers too slow to run. The night echoed with their cruel raucous laughter.

But the most terrible thing was not the hooded figures, it was what they were centred around. High in the air, about sixty feet above the ground, were people. Not on brooms, but hanging in the air, twitching and spinning like grotesque puppets. A man wearing Muggle nightclothes, two terrified children, and an upside down woman with her knickers exposed. They were completely at the mercy of the hooded monsters.

Besides the mass of panicking magic folk running from the marching group, there were a few wizards heading in the opposite direction, shouting purposefully to each other, wands aloft. They were presumably the luckless officials who had to do something. As he watched, one of them shot a curse at the marchers, and was immediately hit by a volley of three Stunning Spells in return, throwing him back several metres.

Lucie had gone the colour of sour milk, but she attempted to retain her self possession. 'Right... we had better not look for Madame. We should get as far away as possible.' Her eyes searched desperately for a hiding place. 'There - that wood. Come along, everyone into the wood!'

After a minute of milling around and staring at the approaching crowd, the message got round the little group of lost students, and everybody headed into the copse. As soon as they were within the trees, the sounds of the riot became muted and seemed much more distant. They sped along a path further into the heart of the wood. The ground was rough and littered with painful pieces of twig and stone that felt unbelievably sharp under bare feet.

The older students cast Lumos spells, but even in this dire situation, instinctive obedience to the Decree for the Reasonable Restriction of Underage Wizardry prevented the others from using magic to help their predicament. They all trooped along, casting nervous glances over their shoulders, bumping into branches in the semi-darkness. Jacques couldn't see anyone else of his age amongst their party, and he hoped that his friends Philippe and Nicolas were all right.

They came to a halt by unspoken consensus in a small clearing some way inside the wood. Muffled shouts and the occasional loud bang penetrated from the campsite to remind them of the danger outside. Lucie looked around. 'We should wait here for Madame,' she announced to the little group.

'No, it's too dangerous, we should keep going further into the trees,' one of the boys argued.

'No!' cried a fourth year with pigtails, clutching at her friend in fear. 'It's dark and we don't know what might be deeper inside the wood. If we go in too far, we might get lost and separated, or be trapped and unable to get out.'

Everyone began to clamour with different ideas and frantic guesses as to the whereabouts of Madame Maxime. Lucie and about half of the other students believed that they should wait where they were, since there were quite a lot of other wizards around, and hope that their teacher found them soon. The rest all argued that they should try to get as far away as possible from the rioters.

A loud bang from behind them made everybody jump and several, including Angelique, scream. Jacques put a protective arm around her, and told himself that he was shaking from the cold alone. 'Shouldn't we go and try to help?' he whispered to his sister. Voicing such an opinion too loudly amongst his fellow students would be foolish.

Angelique turned to him, her face close to his. He realised all of a sudden that he had caught up to her in height. 'Don't be so silly, Jacques,' she hissed back. 'We don't know who's doing it or anything...' Something caught her eye, and her face lit up. 'Look!'

Jacques turned to see where she was pointing. Three teenagers were making their way along the path, conferring in low voices. It was hard to make out features in the dark, except that one wore glasses and one had a lot of bushy hair. Angelique stepped forward quickly. 'Ou est Madame Maxime? Nous l'avons perdue...'

They stopped and the tallest of the three said, 'Er... what?' in a language that was unmistakably English.

'Oh.' Angelique turned away in her disappointment. ''Ogwarts,' she replied to Lucie's questioning look. The Head Girl rolled her eyes and returned to the quarrel, insisting that Maxime could not be far away. Angelique and Jacques did not participate; their opinions would not be listened to. People like them kept their heads down and hoped to remain unnoticed.

There was a series of bangs, louder and closer than before, bringing renewed vigour to the pleas of those who believed that they should travel further into the wood. They found themselves edging along the path anyway, by instinct, along with the other bemused witches and wizards.

Holding hands for comfort, Jacques and his sister followed the rest deeper into the trees. It was surreal, walking along in the darkness, dressed only in pyjamas. Rather like something out of a dream, or a nightmare. The screams and bangs behind them hardly seemed real, especially as they faded away to be replaced by the rustling of the trees. It was almost peaceful.

It seemed they had left the riot behind them, and the group began to calm down and slow their pace. Jacques smiled nervously at Angelique and opened his mouth to say something, when the darkness ahead of them was ripped open by a blinding green light that shot from among the trees. Everyone yelled and clutched at each other, staring horrified at the sky.

The green light diverged and split into a thousand small, sparkling stars, which floated with eerie purpose to make a shape. A giant skull, with a snake lolling from the mouth, filled the sky above of them. Frozen with fear and incomprehension, they could do nothing but gaze in terrified fascination as the skull rose higher and higher above the trees, expanding to cover the horizon. An unnatural light radiated from it, turning the faces of the students a sickly green.

After a few moments of deadly quiet, new screams could be heard, shrill and edged with true panic, erupting from the wood all around them. 'What is it?' asked Jacques eventually, when he could make his voice work. His throat felt tight and his mouth was dry, and he wanted the toilet very badly.

Angelique shook her head, tears frozen on her cheeks as though she was too scared to even cry. 'Some horrible thing,' she whispered, unhelpfully.

Though none of the students had any idea what the sign meant, it was clearly bad news. Widespread panic had seized the adults in the woods, and a man wearing only one shoe bolted past them screaming, 'Run for your lives!' Whatever the skull signified, it scared those who recognised it enough to drive them straight back the way they'd come, towards the riot in the campsite.

Angelique and Jacques exchanged the briefest of glances before they ran too, crashing through the woods, tripping over roots and each other, jostling with their fellow students. No lit wands were needed now, because the great skull illuminated the whole wood. From all around them other wizards appeared, running from the skull, eyes rolling with fear, shrieking and lamenting in incomprehensible English.

The journey back down the path seemed a lot shorter than before. Breathless minutes later, they were crashing out of the trees into the campsite, which was even fuller of hysteria and confusion. Angelique clung tightly to Jacques as people milled around them, shouting and crying. Many of the tents had been destroyed, and canvas flapped from solitary, drooping poles. Possessions were strewn over the ground, trampled underfoot. Jacques found he was standing on someone's teddy bear. There was a smell of smoke and sweat and raw fear.

How long they stood there, hugging each other, not knowing where the danger was to run from any more, Jacques didn't know. It felt like hours, but was probably no more than minutes. Gradually, the outright panic died down into a low rumble of tension and whispered speculation. It took Jacques' overwhelmed psyche several minutes to register that there didn't seem to be anything happening any more. The skull still grinned down at them, hovering obscenely above the wood, but there were no more bangs or flashes. Just a large number of frightened magical folk, glowing greenishly, in the midst of what looked like a battlefield.

'What do you think that thing is?' Jacques asked his sister again, unable to take his eyes from the starry monstrosity.

Once again, Angelique shook her head. 'Some sort of Dark magic symbol,' she replied, huddling closer to him. Nearby a child was crying, and Jacques, moving as though in dream, picked up the teddy bear and held it out. The little boy took it before his mother could snatch him away, which she promptly did with a frightened look at Jacques. 'I didn't mean any harm,' he said quickly, in French.

Angelique took her chance. 'Eexcuse me, madame,' she said, her accent shot to pieces by the shaking of her voice. 'But what ees zat... thing, zere?' She pointed to the skull, as if any clarification was needed.

The woman eyed them suspiciously. 'Foreign, are you?' she asked, clinging tightly to the child as much for her own comfort as his.

They nodded. 'French,' explained Angelique. Both had been taught English at home, but it was rather hard to find the words of a foreign language when shivering amidst a scene of devastation in fear of your life.

'Oh, French,' said the woman, seeming to soften a little bit. Perhaps she could see that they were just two children, scared and lost, not much better off than her own little boy. She gulped and indicated the skull with a trembling hand, keeping her eyes averted as though she could not bear to look. 'That's the Dark Mark, that is,' she choked out, in a low voice. 'The symbol of,' her eyes darted around, 'You-Know-Who.'

'You-Know-Who?' asked Angelique, baffled.

'Yes, you know, You-Know-Who,' hissed the woman. 'Him. He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, the Dark Lord... thingy.'

The Serdaigles exchanged glances, but didn't like to press the woman any further. At that moment, a loud and familiar voice boomed over the crowd. 'Beauxbatons? All students from Beauxbatons to return here immediately.'

'Madame!' gasped Jacques and Angelique in a relieved chorus, before scrambling away towards the voice.

Their redoubtable Headmistress was easy to spot, even amongst the crowd. Madame Olympe Maxime, clad in a splendid emerald green kimono, towered above everyone else there. Her great height was matched by hefty proportions. Even her hair, fixed in curlers, was voluminous. Despite being many times bigger than most men, Madame never seemed out of place, because her personality was every bit as large as her body.

Right now, she was gathering her scattered students back to her with expansive gestures. A pair of harassed British officials scuttled to follow her imperious orders. Madame wasn't someone you disobeyed easily. As the Serdaigles drew nearer, Jacques was very relieved to see Philippe and Nicolas standing at the edge of the little crowd of students, looking none the worse for wear.

'Jacques!' shouted Philippe, catching sight of his friend. 'Over here!'

'Where've you been?' asked Nicolas, as Jacques picked his way through the debris to reach them. 'Merlin, it's been mad!'

'We got split up from Madame, me and Angelique and some of the others,' explained Jacques. 'Those people were getting near us so went into the woods to hide, but then that... skull thing got cast just ahead of where we were, so we all ran. What about you two?'

Casting a nervous look at the skull in the sky, Philippe answered, 'Well, Madame took us all onto the higher ground over there and cast protective spells around us, before she realised some of you were missing. She left us with Fleur Delacour and went to look for you. Then that skull thing got cast. Have you any idea what it is?'

Jacques shook his head. 'Not really. We asked some woman down in the crowd, and she said it was the symbol of a Dark wizard - I couldn't catch his name. Lord something. People seem pretty scared of it, though.'

'Who wouldn't be?' asked Nicolas. 'I mean, it's a fair bet that whoever cast that isn't just some jolly prankster, not to mention those sinister hooded people and what they were doing.'

A handclap as loud as a firework from Maxime was enough to silence the students. 'Now that we have everyone assembled,' she announced, without even needing to raise her resonant voice over the hubbub of the crowd, 'we will make our way back to our tents, which I'm told were only slightly damaged by the British hooligans. Please follow me closely; I do not wish to have to come looking for any more of you tonight. Fleur, Erik, Lucie, bring up the rear and make sure there are no stragglers.'

Thus the Beauxbatons students set off in a wonky crocodile through what was left of the campsite. The crowd was thinning out as people went in search of tents and tried to salvage lost belongings. There was a strong smell of burning in the air as they passed the area of worst damage. It was quite clear where the group of 'hooligans' had made their way through the camp by the swathe of burned or flattened tents.

The Beauxbatons tents had narrowly missed serious damage. The tents to the left had been pulled down and a witch wearing only a nightdress was sobbing as she tried to get her possessions out of the wreckage. Jacques felt a pang of guilt as he walked past her into their large, intact tent. The blue flag, bearing the crossed wands crest of Beauxbatons still flapped on the roof, though the edges were a little bit singed.

Once inside, Madame made everyone sit round on the ground, before performing a quick headcount and charming the flaps shut. The shivering students had subconsciously divided into their usual groups, the pureblood elite in one area, the lower ranked purebloods together, then the blood traitors and halfbloods on the damp ground near the edge. Madame turned from the entrance and surveyed them, then with a flick of her wand, mugs of steaming hot chocolate appeared in front of each student.

'Is everyone unhurt?' she asked, as they gratefully reached for the drinks.

There was a pause, then Fleur Delacour spoke up. 'We are all unhurt, Madame,' she said, glancing around at her fellow students, 'but I would like to know what just happened, if you could tell us.'

Everyone turned hopefully to look at Madame. Their Headmistress seemed to consider this request, then said, 'Very well. You all should know, and it will be in every paper tomorrow morning anyway. Those of you who are taking History of Magic at NEWT level may be aware that Britain has in the recent past had a great deal of civil unrest.'

The blank looks on most of the faces of the students suggested that either no one took History of Magic at NEWT, or that no one listened if they did. Jacques did, however, recall his mother saying that just ten years ago no one would have dreamed of going on holiday to wartorn Britain.

'Some thirteen years ago, Britain was gripped by civil war. A powerful group of pureblood supremacists, led by a Dark wizard calling himself 'Lord Voldemort' brought the Ministry and the country to its knees. The fighting was bitter and there were many losses. Entire old wizarding families were wiped out, and there was widespread murder and battle. The Institute for Further Magical Education, once among the best in the world, was entirely destroyed along with many other British institutions and landmarks. The once famous Pillar of Storge, for example, was razed to the ground - a great loss to the civilised world.'

Jacques sipped his chocolate and sneaked a look around at the others. They were all unusually quiet, partly from shock, partly absorbed in Maxime's tale. He noticed that Celine Barthélemy was holding hands with Luc Alençon and that ultra cool Camille Rocher was biting her nails.

'Although Lord Voldemort ostensibly stood for pureblood rights, his real aim was in gaining power for himself. A Dark wizard of astonishing power, he performed feats of magic as great as they were terrible. By 1981, the situation was desperate. France and much of Europe had been forced to close their borders to British refugees.'

Madame paused for breath and surveyed the attentive students. Erik Viennot, the Head Boy and powerful member of the elite, raised a hand perfunctorily before asking, 'So how did they get rid of this Voldemort?'

An enigmatic smile spread over Madame's face. 'That is the most fascinating part of the story, in many ways. Seemingly unstoppable, Lord Voldemort was at the height of his power in October 1981. He went to kill a family; a young couple and their baby...' Several girls gasped. 'He succeeded in killing the couple, but when he went to kill the child... something went wrong.'

'What?' asked Erik with a hint of impatience, when Madame didn't continue.

'No one knows,' replied Madame. 'Many believe that the Killing Curse bounced off the child and hit Voldemort, but that has never been proven and it flies in the face of all magical knowledge. Eminent magical theorists have argued that the spell used could not possibly have been the Killing Curse, because the body of Lord Voldemort was never found. Indeed, there is no hard evidence that he was killed at all, only that he disappeared.'

A short silence greeted this, then Fleur asked huskily, 'What happened to the baby?'

'He survived,' replied Madame gravely. 'Unhurt, but for a lightening shaped scar on his forehead. I forget the name of the boy - a half-blood, I think. The British revered him as a sort of hero, but the boy was sent to live with Muggle relatives and after the initial excitement he dropped off the international radar. Which was a great shame, as theoretical research would have benefited greatly had we been allowed to study the boy.'

Next to him, Jacques felt Angelique give a little shiver. It was just the sort of romantic, tragic story that she loved. Really, it did all sound rather like some sort of fantasy tale, right down to the banishment to live with Muggles.

'So did the war end then?' enquired Erik.

'In essence, yes. The followers of Voldemort disbanded very quickly and, though some were caught, many others are believed to have covered their tracks or simply melted away. But the British still fear to speak Voldemort's name, referring to him as 'You-Know-Who' or other such euphemisms. The economy and population of Britain have not recovered. 'Ogwarts - the British school - has fewer than half the students it was built for, and many of those who fled the country did not return - hence the numbers of students of British origin at Beauxbatons.'

A pleasant memory of one particular student of British origin made a warm tingling sensation run along Jacques' spine. He barely heard the next part of Madame's speech - something about the economy, tuning back in just in time to hear, 'Ironically, Voldemort achieved the very opposite of his ostensible aims. By destroying pureblood families and undermining the entire infrastructure, he left the post war administration with little choice but to support more Muggle and Muggleborn rights, just to keep society afloat.'

'What does all this have to do with what happened tonight?' demanded Lucie, pouting. She seemed to take the riot as a personal affront.

Madame hesitated for a moment before explaining. 'Those leading the Muggle baiting tonight wore the hoods and robes of the Death Eaters - the supporters of Lord Voldemort. None have been seen since the weeks immediately after his downfall. To eliminate any doubt, that skull and snake cast into the sky was Lord Voldemort's symbol, and was used to mark the sites of his crimes.'

A sudden chill made the hairs on Jacques' neck stand upright. Judging by the expressions of the other students, he wasn't the only one that felt that way. Sensing their unease, Madame continued in a brighter, more upbeat tone. 'Don't worry now, I will let no harm come to you. The riot has been broken up and we shall leave this place first thing in the morning. So I think you should all go to your beds and get some sleep - we will rise early. I must go and speak to the British officials.'

Nobody disobeyed this instruction, and soon everyone was back on the portabunks Transfigured from quillboxes. For some time, the boys' half of the tent was full of the silvery rustle of whispering, as everyone discussed the events. Jacques was still too keyed up with adrenaline to sleep, so he lay awake, listening to the others.

'Of course, this could never happen in France,' Erik was saying from a bunk to his left. Erik was barely even bothering to whisper - in fact, Jacques wondered if his loud strident voice was even capable of a whisper. Erik just wasn't the type to speak softly; he had no cause to. Whatever Erik wished to say, he could say without any fear of reprimand.

'Why not, Erik?' asked one of his sycophants obediently.

'Because, Jean-Claude, the British laid themselves open to it. Look at them, with their Muggle rights and inclusive school! It all ends in tears, that kind of thing. Their society is completely mixed up. No one knows their place in it. The Muggleborns and Muggle lovers get high ideas and start trying to mess things about, then the purebloods are forced to slap them down. Whereas in France, we all know where we stand in society, and can act accordingly. And we haven't had a war for ninety-eight years,' he added smugly.

Laying in the darkness, Jacques wondered if Erik was right. Their society could be frustrating when you weren't one of the elite, but surely it was better than a full scale war with families full of people getting killed. He felt sorry for the British, for whom organising the Quidditch World Cup must have been an exciting chance to prove themselves a recovered country after so many years of war.

Eventually he fell asleep, only to be plagued by dreams of hooded figures and glowing green skulls. Marching men levitated screaming people above them, and when he looked, he saw it wasn't some anonymous Muggles, but Angelique, Philippe and Nicolas. He woke suddenly, clammy with sweat, eager to get as far away from that place as possible.

That night was the first time that Jacques Serdaigle heard the name of Lord Voldemort.

It wouldn't be the last.