FicWad

AN: Hiya, guys! Sooo... there's probably a very good argument on why I shouldn't be writing and posting this but I've had way too much fun to stop now so... Here it is. Hope you all like it and please review and follow if you do. Also I don't know anything, I just like to sometimes pretend I do.
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Chapter One: An Unfortunate Beginning

There was not much to be said in the early morning of August 30th between the Deschamp family. Maybe a much more accurate way of putting it would be that there was not much that could be talked about between the Deschamps while they were sitting at the worn tables of the Leaky Cauldron. And that - although he would never say - was exactly why Mr. Deschamp had decided to place his two daughters and his lovely wife in the inn at all.

"This place is a pigsty," Annabelle, the youngest Deschamp murmured in french with a morbid sort of praise as her eyes swept over the high ceiled tavern. Dusty lamps hung from the beams, suspended above the heavily marred long tables below. Eying the blackened marks that colored the fireplace, Annabelle's lips curled down in disdain.

There was much that the Deschamps already disliked about England even though they had only stayed a week in it's cramped cobblestone streets. Even Mrs. Deschamp was straining to keep her usual, placid smile in place as a red-headed boy in billowing robes came down the stairs at a run, the wood beneath his feet giving a weary groan. They looked as if they would fall apart with the next downpour.

"That is…" Mr. Deschamps startling amber eyes flicked quickly to the door as a pair of witches roared inside, cackling about some wizard or another that they had bewitched to think himself a toad. Mrs. Deschamp's smile faltered even more and Annabelle gave a smirk. Quickly, Mr. Deschamp regained himself. "That is very unkind of you. England - England is very… very…"

"Quaint?" Mrs. Deschamp tried to help, squeezing her husband's much beefier hand in a sign of outward support.

The oldest and youngest Deschamp daughter shared a significant look of disbelief.
"I refuse to go, papa," Clara, the oldest of the Deschamp daughters said, her voice low and clear as she held her parent's gaze steadily.

A tick in Mr. Deschamps jaw went off. "We will not talk about it here, Clara." There was a slight pause as he sipped at a cup of tea, Annabelle eying the chipped rim with distaste. He didn't glance up as he set it down in its saucer carefully. "But you will go."

"I will not go to that horrid school-" Clara whispered viciously, leaning forward as her amber eyes lit to a fearsome gold, her slender fingers digging into the wood table.
"Ssshhhh," her father hissed reproachfully, glancing around as some of the patrons turned to glance curiously at where they were seated. He gave them a fake smile, nervously patting Mrs. Deschamps hand as she did the same, flashing a startling display of pearly teeth. His eyes cut back to his eldest daughter as Annabelle, tipped her head in the direction of the nearest, staring witch, waving delicately until he spluttered, turning away. "We will not draw attention to ourselves in this manner."

The sad truth of the matter was that they were drawing attention - just not in the way that Mr. Deschamp was so worried about.

Coming from a long line of gardeners, Mr. Deschamp was made of stockier constitution than his wife. His arms flexed menacingly beneath his robes and his handlebar mustache was much to glossy to not draw attention to the squareness of his jaw and the slight crook in his nose that came from being broken various times. Far from sitting behind a desk, the Frenchman looked like he should be in the care of some sort of dangerous business like wrestling hippogriffs or hunting down dark wizards.

It was an almost comical contrast to the willowy Mrs. Deschamp, her features delicate and her skin alabaster, contrasting sharply with her husband's sun-tanned hue. Wild, blonde, almost white curls framed an angular face with wide, forest green eyes and full lips. The tips of her ears peeked from beneath the wild mass as she reached a slender hand up to push it back, their tips oddly pointed.

Each daughter took after different aspects of their parents. While both were willowy, Annabelle bordered on looking too frail and breakable while Clara's body seemed to hold a quiet strength. The eldest daughter had inherited her father's striking amber eyes and bronzed skin while her sister took more towards their mother. The only thing that Clara seemed to have taken from Mrs. Deschamp was the wild, tangle of whitish curls and her delicately pointed ears which infuriated the girl to no end. Forget putting it up in a bun or anything other than perhaps a braid - it would all escape within the hour anyway.
But there were other things that separated the sisters. Clara's eyes wandered to the dark circles weighing down her sister's emerald eyes, watching in silence as her shoulders shook in a barely contained fit of coughing.

"Don't mind me," Annabelle wheezed out, turning away to clutch at the tabletop as she hacked. "Just getting rid of a lung."

"Ici," Clara whispered, pushing a glass of water to the waiting hands of her sister. Squaring her shoulders, she turned back to her parents who both looked pensive and resigned. "You cannot expect me to go to this - this place with just a word of warning a few days before the beginning of term!"

"Everything has already been arranged," Mr. Deschamp said immediately as if he were expecting this response, dragging his eyes away from his youngest daughter who had slumped tiredly back into her seat. "Beauxbaton has been notified-"

"What?" Clara hissed.

"We agreed that we wouldn't tell her that," her mother whispered venomously, pinching her husband's arm in reprimand as he gave her an apologetic glance.

"So you're telling me that all of this was planned - what? Weeks in advance?" With every word, Clara's rage grew, her wand suddenly weighing very heavily in her robe pockets.
"See? I told you this would happen if we mentioned that bit," Mrs. Deschamp whispered grumpily, shooting a final glare at her husband as he sighed.

"Well, obviously there was some advanced notice about my transfer to the Ministry of Magic," he grumbled, highly exhausted from the added effort of placating another female.

"How much advanced notice?" Clara questioned and Annabelle snickered under her breath, watching from beneath her lashes at the ongoing storm.

Mr. Deschamp's mustache twitched as he considered his next words carefully. "A few months."
"Months?!" Clara roared, drawing the attention of nearly the whole tavern. Nervously, Mr. Deschamp glanced around, giving what he hoped to be a dismissive wave of his big hand.

"Nous ignorer," he laughed before whirling back to his daughter. "Calm yourself before you make a spectacle of us all."

"Oh yes," Annabelle whispered sardonically, catching the gaze of a boy two tables down with a mess of thick, black hair and smudged, circular glasses as he stared curiously up from his porridge. "We wouldn't want to draw attention to ourselves."

The youngest Deschamp was all too aware of what they must looked like - the four of them so obviously French in both their manner and language. Their robes were trimmed in a silver, sparkling like stars from the depths of their midnight blue robes. Far from looking like traveling wizards and witches, they looked like the rich merchants that they were.

Pure bloods to the last drop running through their veins, the Deschamps knew exactly what it meant to have worked from the bottom up. Before the first headmistress was even a twinkle within a witch's mind, the Deschamps had already cared for the ground that Beauxbaton was built from. They planted the first fields of lavender. They nursed the first alder tree from the depths of winter all the way through the changing of the seasons - year after year until they had finally risen from mere gardeners to merchants and then finally into the Ministry of Magic.

That was why it was so hard for Clara to wrap her head around the fact that they were throwing it all away to move to - to some - Clara snarled, shooting her parents a stare of utter loathing.

All she knew was Beauxbaton. She had grown in the shades of the alder, stared up at the clear, warm sky through their leaves. When she closed her eyes, she could perfectly see the smooth walls of the chateau, the sky pinkening behind it as another day ended and she walked with her friends to her home. She loved Beauxbaton like she loved her small, little home with the garden in the back and the front porch with it's herbs and heavily cushioned chairs in the front.

Now, with the suddenness of a striking storm, her father had sprung their move to England and her subsequent transfer into Hogwarts - a school that Beauxbaton had held a warm rivalry with for years now.

"How could you -" Clara stopped abruptly, her eyes falling to the table and her brows furrowing as she tried to properly phrase her anger. Finally, taking a deep breath, she met her father's quickly softening gaze. "You've ripped away everything from us so casually - I don't understand -"

Blinking rapidly, she turned her gaze back to the table once more as she felt an uncomfortable burning in her throat.

"Clara, mon lapin," my father whispered, hesitantly his fingers reached out, curling around his eldest daughters much smaller ones. Quietly, he continued. "There are many hard times to come. Horrible, wicked things. I want you to be safe. I want you both to be safe."

"But - Hogwarts?" Clara whispered, her voice colored with obvious strain at the thought.
"Just last year a chamber was opened and five students were killed-" Annabelle piped up, sounding vaguely like an old hen clucking away at chicks.

"Killed?" My father reeled back, a look of utter bewilderment crossing his face as he turned to stare at Mrs. Deschamp who merely sighed. "What utter rubbish. Really I don't know how they come up with this - this tripe. Five children? Do they think the Ministry is full of blind, old mad men? Why we would have shut the school down-"
"So they weren't killed?" Annabelle rubbed at her nose.

"Paralyzed," Mr. Deschamp dismissed. "Merely put in a sort of coma for a spell. Missed all their classes - the lucky tykes. Why, I would have given my left arm to have missed Arithmancy for an entire ye-"

"Dear," Mrs. Deschamp reprimanded softly, stopping her husband mid-rant with a reproachful glance.

Looking slightly abashed, Mr. Deschamp cleared his throat, his eyes focusing on his eldest daughter once more.

"I think the point would be that they were put into those circumstances in the first place," Clara said calmly, meeting her father's gaze with a level stare.

"You," he said, smoothing his features out and pressing a comforting hand to Clara's. "You are going to be instructed under the greatest wizard that ever lived-"

"Getting rather ahead of ourselves, aren't we?" Clara heard Annabelle mutter under her breath. Mr. Deschamp ignored her while his wife gave her youngest a stern stare.
"There is no school in the world that is safer-"

"Not to mention one that will give you a better education, mon lapin," her mother added hurriedly.

Except for Beauxbaton, a small voice in Clara's mind whispered dejectedly but she didn't have the heart to say as much under the hopeful smiles of her parents.

"There we are," Mr. Deschamp chortled, taking his daughters silence as agreement. He glanced around, grinning broadly. "And while you are under the care of the wisest-"

"Kindest," Mrs. Deschamp threw in with delight.

Her husband continued on with gusto. "Witches and wizards to ever walk this planet, Annabelle shall be with us, receiving the best treatment that can be bought."

"Yippee," Annabelle grumbled, sulkily sliding further into her seat. The youngest Deschamp wasn't merely dejected about her future under her parents' attentive focus - she was crushed. Since she was old enough to grasp her wand, all she had dreamed of was going to school. Going to school like any other regular witch would. The usual pain in Annabelle's chest constricted until she felt unwanted tears well up which she quickly hid by taken a large gulp of tea.

"What a happy day," Mr. Deschamp beamed and Clara's eyes widened in obvious astonishment at the mere mention.

"What a busy day," Mrs. Deschamp corrected, pulling a rumpled piece of paper from her robes and smoothing it out on the table. Her eyes narrowed as she read over it. "So much to buy - They want her to have an owl, dear. Beauxbaton didn't use owls. How very… quaint. And the robes are rather - well, we must make do."

Their words became a distant drone of rising and falling voices as Clara's eyes fixed on her untouched breakfast - a funny mix of eggs, baked beans and hash browns with a half burnt piece of toast.

"Scabbers!" a red-headed boy with a startling array of freckles dotting his face screamed, racing around tables in search of something.

Clara watched dully, her mind glumly set on the fact that she would be going to this school - this Hogwarts whether she kicked and screamed or went without a fight.

"Bloody hell!" someone bellowed as upstairs there was a crash, sending brick dust raining down on their table.

"Bloody hell indeed," Annabelle grumbled in french, crossing her arms and glaring heavenward.
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Hey! So I hope that you all liked it! I don't really know how active this fandom is so I'm probably going to give it up if no one shows an interest. So, if you like it please review and follow/favorite!