Mostly Void ▷ Theseus Scamander

1 - THE MAN AT THE PARTY

    August 29, 1901

    ANATOLE WAS AN UNHAPPY BOY. He had been unhappy from the moment he was born, according to his mother, who stated that when he had finally stopped crying, some three days after they returned from the hospital, he had donned a constant frown for weeks upon weeks, and they had been almost certain that his face had been stuck in that way and would be the same for the rest of his life.

In a way, they were right. There was seldom a time when anyone in his family had seen him smile. Of course, there were the friends of his father's from the Ministry, and the friends of his mother's from her parties, who claimed that they had seen his son smile all the time, always greeting them at the door, always so polite, but while his parents agreed with them, no one else in the family did.

"He's far too young to be as sad as you say," one of his mother's friends said, all of them gathered in the parlor for his going away party; he was turning eleven, after all, and it was tradition to celebrate when another child in the family was going off to continue the family tradition.

Jean Moncrieff, the oldest sibling, about to enter his seventh year at Hogwarts and therefore deemed mature enough to join in the conversations with the adults, shook his head, trying not to scowl at the woman sitting before him wearing clothes so ghastly and clashing that he could scarcely be in the same room with her, let alone speak to her directly.

"Look at him," was all he said, turning around in his seat to find his brother staring down at the cake that was made for him with an expression so melancholy one would think he was at a funeral mourning the loss of his mother, not a celebration thrown in his honor.

However, the moment he felt eyes on him, he looked up, forcing a smile on his face as he inclined his head towards the table, and while all the women cooed about how polite he was, Jean couldn't help but stare at his younger brother who was back to staring down at his cake, still trying to maintain the tight smile he bore.

    It was a smile that everyone knew well. It was the smile he had practiced in front of the mirror for weeks after his first party when their father chastised him, telling him that he needed to grow up and start smiling and addressing people like the rest of the family. He had been seven at the time.

    But he was eleven now and had perfected the smile so well that it had convinced every adult in the room, his parents included. But his brothers could never be fooled, not Jean, who had been the one to see him crying in his room after his father had chastised him. Not Francis, who had been the one to report to Jean that he was practicing a smile in his bedroom mirror. Not his two younger cousins, Gaspard and Olivier, practically his own brothers, who always run up to him and tried to smoothen out the tight lines of his fake smiles and the harsh lines of his constant frowns.

    "You seem to be enjoying the party."

    He looked up to find one of his father's friends smiling down at him, a glass of something Anatole himself wasn't allowed to drink in his hands. For some reason, he couldn't seem to conjure up his smile when looking at this man, instead looking up at him with his usual sadness, a pit settling in his stomach as he stared up at him, knowing fully well he would mention to his father about how sad his son looked when he spoke to him.

    Then he would get a lecture about being grateful for all the work that his mother put into the party, about how he should stop being so sad when there was no reason for him to. He was young, he didn't understand what it meant to truly be sad. He could feel himself growing tired at the thought alone.

    But the man didn't leave. Instead, he sat down next to him and pointed towards his plate. "If you won't eat it, I'll be happy to."

    Anatole breathed a laugh and handed it towards the man, trying to discern how he knew him, but he was eleven and didn't have the best memory when it came to the countless people who had given his smile to over the four years he had been attending his family's parties with an ability to remember them; he should have been introduced when he was able to walk around by himself, but he was much too sad of a younger child to be shown to the people without whispers being spread about.