[HP Doujin] 1943

[-], summer.

Francis drove from Paris to Monte Carlo alone.It was a sunny summer day, the Germans had already retreated, and the checkpoints set up by the Muggle army would pass by from time to time on the road.He went to the hotel to get a good room, the weather was hot, he changed into a Muggle T-shirt and sunglasses, and walked to the beach.

The sky of Monte Carlo is blue and dazzling, and coming here from gloomy London is as happy as a prisoner who has been imprisoned for a long time.There are colorful parasols on the snow-white beach, children holding swimming rings, screaming and running into the sea, beautiful women in brightly colored clothes lie on blankets and sunbathe, several French women with tanned skin He smiled brightly.

Francis took off his sunglasses and stuffed them in his breast pocket, smiled politely at the women who greeted him, and headed for the row of rainbow-coloured umbrellas outside the bar.

The 16-year-old Elizabeth is wearing a white dress and a big bright yellow wide-brimmed straw hat. She is sitting alone on a high stool, turning a glass in her hand. Her curly and thick chestnut hair is like waves under the hat. Hang down.The outline of her face still has the childishness that has not faded away, but there is a tenderness and delicateness of a young woman at the tip of her brows.

She was staring at the wine glass in her hand in a daze.She didn't even notice when Francis sat down beside her.

Francis snapped his fingers skillfully to the waiter and said in English mixed with French: "Martini, double ice, shaken and not stirred, s'ilvousplait."

He grew up in France since he was a child, so he can speak fluent and pure French, and he can pretend to be a real Frenchman.I remember that in the first and second grades, he was often ridiculed by his classmates in school because of his strong French accent.

When he spoke, Elizabeth turned her head to look at him, her clear eyes were bright and bright.Holding the glass, he shook it at her and smiled.

"Bonjour, mademoiselle." He said to her in a teasing tone.An expression of impatience immediately appeared on her face.What a little girl, Francis thought, resisting the urge to laugh, she would take a man's jokes seriously.

Without raising her head, she said, "I have a boyfriend."

He wanted to laugh even more, so he shrugged: "So what?"

She looked at the ring on his left ring finger and said seriously: "You are already married."

Francis continued to tease her, with a perplexed look: "So what?"

Elizabeth shook her head, picked up her glass and walked away.Francis watched her leave with a smile, took a sip of the martini with ice, and felt an unspeakable bitterness in his heart—she still didn't recognize him after all.

"Disappointed?" Tony's voice came from beside him. Seventeen-year-old Tony looks like a complete dandy, in a white soccer jersey, dark glasses pushed over tousled honey-blonde hair.

"You told me her memory came back," Francis said angrily.

Tony leaned his elbows on the bar and asked the waiter for a glass of pineapple juice.

"So what? She's with Riddle now, and you're married. Besides, she's only recovered part of her memory." Tony smiled ironically, squinting his eyes at the eye-catching white sand beach, Her hair fluttered slightly in the sea breeze, "Do you really think she can recall everything? Even if Dumbledore intervened, he didn't discover Victoria's complicated cross-forgetting spell back then. She just remembered that when Riddle was in the third grade Something to make her forget."

Hearing the names of Riddle and Victoria, Francis' cold gray-blue eyes flashed an unquenchable intense anger and indelible hatred.

Tony stood up with the pineapple juice and picked out a bright orange straw to insert it. "I've got to go talk to my charming sister," he said casually, "and you, here alone in unrequited love."

With one hand in the pocket of his polo pants and the other hand holding the juice, Tony happily walked to the beach and sat down on the deck chair beside Elizabeth.

Francis watched his back, drank the wine in the glass, got up and walked to the parking lot, started the car and sped away.

******

His car wasn't as good as Tony's, and he knew it.As long as he doesn't kill people and set fires, Mr. Randall will not care about Tony no matter how much he spends money and money.His father, Charles Stuart, was a typical old-fashioned British gentleman. He continued the low-key and stable style of the Stuart family, and regarded strict self-discipline as the primary criterion for educating his children. No matter how rich the family was, he would never allow his children to Show off outside.

Francis was the only son in the family, so old Mr. Stuart was very strict with him.When he was a student at Hogwarts, he never had the most dazzling broomstick in the whole year like Tony, and he wore black robes custom-made by extraordinary tailors, with endless galleons in his pockets.Even for a long time, he was always the laughing stock of his Gryffindor house classmates--uncoordinated, too thin, always silent and solitary.

After graduation, other students who entered the Ministry of Magic started as humble employees, but he directly entered the Department of Transportation and became the director of the broomstick management office. Only then did his friends know his extraordinary family background.

A month before he married Laura, Jacqueline had visited him in London.They met at a Muggle café on the Strand.

He was wearing a well-tailored black suit, the top was open casually, and the collar of the white shirt was ironed without any wrinkles.After listening to the news of her pregnancy calmly, he skillfully lit a cigarette, took out a checkbook from the inside pocket of his jacket, and only asked one question: "How much do you want?"

Jacqueline is the daughter of Mr. Pierre, the former butler of the Stuart family.Monsieur Pierre had come from France with Frances's mother, Mrs. Valerie Stuart, and he was so loyal to Mrs. Valerie's family - the French pure-blood family du Boer - that Stuart The manor is kept in order.Jacqueline was his only daughter, and after his wife died, he took her from France to Stuart Manor.

Seeing Jacqueline's pale face, he smiled and said, "If you really want to make a fuss, just go and expose me. I can assure you that no newspaper in the whole country dares to publish my surname." Come out. Nobody's stupid enough to mess with Stuart unless they don't want to run the business anymore. I advise you to wink and knock the kid out and never show up in front of me again. What happened to us that night was a mistake , I was wrong, as much as you want."

Jacqueline stared blankly into his eyes.Her eyes are so blue, like the brightest color in the Mediterranean.He suddenly remembered that when he was young, he always pronounced Jacqueline's name in French, syllable by syllable: Jac-que-line, so her name should be pronounced "Jacqueline", which is A beautiful name should belong to a woman who loves to dream.

Stuart Manor is like a deserted island isolated from the rest of the world.If it weren't for Jacqueline, Francis would have spent every summer of his childhood alone.What he feared the most since he was a child was loneliness and darkness, so he was lucky to have a playmate of Jacqueline's age in Stuart Manor.

Before entering Hogwarts, Francis had been living in his grandfather’s house in Paris. His strict father, Mr. Charles Stuart, only allowed him to return to Stuart Manor every year for seven or eight months to practice unfamiliar English and get acquainted with his two older sisters.The eldest daughter of the Stuart family, Victoria, is 15 years older than Francis, and the second daughter, Clarissa, is eight years older than him. In addition, Francis grew up in Paris. He and his two sisters are completely strangers when they meet. .Until many years later, he still remembered the awkward appearance of standing in the living room with his hands behind his back in a brand new robe.He raised his head, tried to open his eyes wide, and kept the appearance and manners of the two sisters firmly in his mind. He was careful not to make any mistakes, for fear of offending these two young ladies who seemed very scary to him.

In Francis's childhood memory, every summer vacation is an ordeal.Victoria laughed loudly at his English, which was mixed with French, and Clarissa always followed him, deliberately imitating his flustered and shy demeanor... In the whole manor, only Jacqueline A person is friendly to him.

Francis saw a shadow of himself in Jacqueline: a child who grew up in France, spoke poor English, and was not welcome at the estate.He felt that he had lived like a shadow since he was a child, and so did Jacqueline.

He remembered that it was the summer when he was 10 years old, he and Jacqueline slipped out of the mansion, lay side by side on the grass, quietly staring at the boundless darkness.No one spoke.The evening wind in midsummer blows through the valleys in the low-lying areas, and the air is full of the unique humidity of red earth, the salty smell of sea water, and the clear aroma of plants such as pines, cypresses, and ferns.He heard Jacqueline sigh softly and whisper, "I thought of a poem, listen—"

She turned over and lay on her side with her chin propped up with one hand, her blue eyes filled with a layer of melancholy from the soul.

"My night will be remembered for a star more than the sunshine of all human days."

Her voice was melodious and sad, and the words read from her mouth sounded like singing.

"Rupert Brooke, "The Greatest Lover." Francis said calmly with his eyes still closed, facing the huge and endless night sky with his hands under his head.

Jacqueline giggled and lay back down again.

"There's never a book in the world that you haven't read, is there?" she asked cheerfully.

"I don't think it's a compliment," said Francis sullenly. "There's never real life in books."

But Francis never fell in love with Jacqueline.She's a good friend, yes, but why is this woman always so confused, doing stupid things to ruin their good friendship?

To be married is one thing, to be a lover is another, but to be in love is quite another.There was only one woman he had loved in his life. When she smiled, her eyes were crescent like crescents, and her innocent face was full of childishness, which made him really want to lean in and kiss her.Thinking of her warm and unconcerned smiling face, his cold and serious face, which has been suppressed by life for many years, will show a rare gentle look.

He signed the check and threw it to Jacqueline, never looking back at her.

Sitting in the speeding car and recalling these long past events, Francis felt a burst of deep melancholy.The cloud of the past hung over his mind, making it impossible for him to think quietly.He came to France this time not for Jacqueline, not for Elizabeth, but for his wife Laura.

Last month, after another violent row erupted between them, Laura did something he didn't expect: She ran away from home.He delayed his departure for France for several days, only to discover that she was not in Paris.Where did she go?