Chapter Text
"Grandma… do you really have to go?”
Whispering those words, hugging the wide skirt of her dress, was a child with huge eyes as blue as the sky; his little hands wrinkled the fabric of the large dress of the woman sitting in front of him. Queen Mother Mary, a woman with an austere air but with sweet eyes every time they rested on her grandchildren's faces, leaned towards the little one to leave a caress in his blond hair. It was a night of celebration, the last one before she returned to Paris; princes, princesses, counts and dukes danced to the rhythm of waltzes, a kaleidoscope of colors and rustling of clothes, of laughter and singing.
“My beloved… you know I can't stay here too long. Important matters await me in France”
The boy, Prince Henry, stuck out his lower lip in a pout, prompting an amused laugh from his grandmother. She couldn't stop herself from pinching his cheek.
“But… I have a little gift for you, to make our distance less painful. Do you want to see it?”
Henry opened his eyes wide, joy lighting up those irises as deep as the sea, and nodded vigorously; when Mary placed a small music box in his hands, Henry watched it enraptured.
“Listen…” the woman whispered, taking what looked like a necklace pendant between her fingers. It was actually the key to activate the music box: when she turned the gear, a sweet melody spread through the air around them, a familiar music to the little prince's ears. Mary saw him smile, that smile capable of lighting up the world with his purity.
"Grandma! It’s our lullaby! ” he exclaimed happily and the woman nodded, tears on the edge of her eyes. The hardest part for her was always parting with her grandchildren. They were her joy and her pride.
“You can listen to it when I'm far away and imagine that it's me singing it, what do you think?”
The music continued and Henry closed his eyes, lulled by it.
“On the wind, cross the sea, hear this song and remember…”
“Soon you’ll be home with me, once upon a dicember!”
Their voices merged as the song ended and Henry burst out laughing, leaning over to sit on his grandmother's lap; with a caress in his hair Mary then handed him the pendant and with amusement watched her nephew twist it between his fingers.
“Read what it says”
The little boy concentrated on the tiny writing that ran in a circle around the edges of the necklace and when the woman saw the boy's eyes widen in surprise she knew he had finished reading. “Together in Paris? Grandma, really?!”
Henry leapt to her neck, hugging her tightly, and it would be nice to say that it was. That Prince Henry joined his grandmother in Paris, perhaps with his siblings. That he would have parents to return to once his vacation in the city of love was over. But those endings are for fairy tales, where princes and princesses fight a villain with the power of good feelings. But that was the reality. And that reality turned into tragedy. That night, the same night Queen Mother Mary gave Henry the music box, the royal family was almost completely exterminated. Queen Catherine and King Arthur perished in an attempt to save the lives of their children Philip and Beatrice, failing (apparently) in their attempt. Several other families found themselves caught up in the wrath of Jeffrey Richards, a man so fueled by anger and vengeance that he sold his soul to dark forces in exchange for evil magical powers. But if everything had gone according to his plan that night, we wouldn't be here to tell this story. Prince Henry and Mary managed to escape: a servant boy, aware of a secret passage, saved them, risking his own life. Unfortunately, fate, already cruel, decided to be even more so: Mary lost her grandson in the escape and the little prince hit his head on the cold December soil of London.
And this is exactly where our story begins.
1
About fourteen years later
“Listen to me! They're waiting for you at the fish market, okay? When you reach the crossroads go straight to the right, the road will take you… Hey! Are you listening to me?”
The headmistress of the orphanage where H had grown up moved her bony index finger under his nose and the boy crossed his eyes to follow it. He was distracted to greet the children from the window, crowded together by the glass so they could look at him one last time, there, wrapped in his crumpled jacket and that now partly worn scarf. H, that was the only thing he knew about his name and everyone had decided to call him that, felt a wave of pain as he looked at their sad faces. He had become a brotherly figure to them and they were everything to him. Having arrived there as a child, H remembered nothing about his family: he had no idea what had happened, who his family members were, what his full name was. He only had two certainties: the H, due to a bracelet they had found on his wrist, and a necklace with a very particular pendant bearing the words "together in Paris". How many nights had he spent lying on his uncomfortable bed turning the necklace between his fingers, wondering if there was actually someone waiting for him in Paris. Some relative who was looking for him, someone who perhaps mourned his passing. And like every time he thought about it the same way he shook his head. Those were silly dreams, made for those who believed in fairy tales. Not for people like him, who were thrown out of the orphanage where they grew up to be thrown into the wild.
“Ah, you've always been ungrateful... You don't even listen to me. We gave you food, blankets..."
“A roof over your head…” H murmured in a low voice, completing the headmistress's rant. The woman glared at him and without saying anything else opened the gate for him. The road ahead was completely covered in snow; it wasn't strange at that time of year but it had always had a charm on him. The snow was white, it was pure, it gave him a sense of serenity that he had always searched for and never fully achieved.
“Go now. And don't deviate.”
Henry glared at her before turning back to the windows; he raised a hand to greet those who had been his family for all those years and then, with a deep sigh, passed the threshold of the orphanage. The gate closed behind him and when the woman went back inside she didn't even once turn to look at him behind her.
You’re alone with yourself, H.
He looked up at the sky and its whiteness responded to his gaze. They had found him a job in the village fish shop a short distance from there, reachable from that mysterious road on the right. And it was something safe, something concrete to start with, without a shadow of a doubt. And yet… and yet why, as he began to walk alone towards that crossroads, his feet digging into the snow, could H not stop thinking about Paris? He was really stupid. A necklace couldn't lead him anywhere, could it? However, nothing could stop him from dreaming: of the warm arms that were waiting for him, that were looking for him, the warm smile of the family happy to see him again... it was a thought so overwhelming that his heart throbbed painfully. And before he could realize it he found himself in front of a pole, on the end of which two arrows indicated different directions: on the right the village he had to go to, on the left… London.
“It wouldn't be bad to take a detour… no one would know,” he whispered to himself, focusing his blue eyes on the road towards the city. His blond hair was getting stained by the fresh snow that had begun to fall. “This would really be the time for a sign. Literally anything!”
And H… found himself on the ground. Suddenly, without warning, because something had tugged at his scarf and that something seemed intent on nibbling at the edges and pulling the fabric towards itself.
What the…?
H narrowed his gaze and in the middle of a cloud of snow a small dog appeared, a beagle, who was trying in every way to pull the scarf towards itself with its little face. It seemed determined to want to play, so much so that when it pointed its big eyes at H it started wagging its tail and whining. The boy chuckled, reaching out to pet him, and the little dog leaned towards his fingers with eagerness.
“How cute are we, ah? Are you here all alone, like me?”
The dog barked and in response jumped between his legs, placing its wet and frozen paws on his chest. And H's heart was full of tenderness.
“You're asking me to take you with me? No, because its working” he murmured softly, then leaving a small kiss between the puppy's ears. H had always loved dogs as long as he could remember. It often happened that strays passed through the garden of the orphanage, and he had lost count of how many times they had asked the director to keep one, even just one, in order to save it from the winter cold. They had always been told no. Maybe those big eyes looking at him were the sign he had asked for?
“Hey little one. Do you think I should go to London?” The dog barked again in response and H laughed, scratching under its muzzle. “Then… London!”
*
Of course, going to London was definitely a first step towards his immense desire to reach Paris. He couldn't have done it from the village, so hidden and hard to reach, without stations, without transport, without anything. But once he arrived in the city, shivering from the cold and with a dog hidden inside his jacket to at least keep it a little warm, H didn't know what to do. He hadn't set foot in London for years. Once the people in charge of the orphanage had decided to take them, moved by some kind of benevolent spirit, on a little trip. At that time he was about twelve years old and he remembered that day as one of the best in his life (or at least in the life he could remember). And now he was there, in the bustling traffic of a city that never stopped, lost, alone and with a hungry dog. Maybe it was a bad idea. Maybe he should have followed his plans and gone to the village to work in that fish shop. What did he have to find someone in Paris, after all? What did he even have just to get to Paris? He had no money, he had no name, he had nothing. He only had himself and now a puppy that was licking his neck from inside his jacket. H giggled and sat on a bench. The light was beginning to fade behind the buildings, the whiteness of the sky covering the sun anyway, and he got lost in the dim lights of a city ready to see its inhabitants fall asleep, but determined to stay alive. It was beautiful. He may have been as lost as the child he had been fourteen years ago, but he was happy to be able to enjoy the sight.
“Kid? Hey, kid!”
H turned quickly towards a voice that had come from his right, finding himself in front of a middle-aged lady. When had she arrived? She was sitting next to him on that bench and she was looking at him with a worried frown.
“…milady?”
"What are you doing sitting here like a codfish?"
H blinked, opened his mouth to answer, then closed it without saying anything. What did this woman want from him, exactly?
“Did you get lost?”
No. I'm an orphan, alone, I would like to go to Paris but I only have five pounds in my jacket pocket.
H eventually smiled at the lady and shook his head. “No, milady. I'm just trying to figure out how to get the money for a ticket to Paris."
The woman looked at him strangely and she leaned forward. “And what the hell do you want to do in Paris?”
H lowered his gaze and started stroking the little head of the puppy in his arms. He didn't have this much desire to explain to a stranger why he wanted to go to France. It was… a private matter. It was different in the orphanage: everyone had had the same fate in there, united by something painful that those outside could hardly fully understand. And the lady seemed to sense his discomfort, because she waved her hand and changed the subject.
“Never mind. However, without a ticket and without an exit visa you can't go anywhere"
H’s brows furrowed and he turned completely towards the woman, panic starting to grip his insides. Exit visa? Why had he never heard of it, what document was it? He had nothing. Nothing at all…
“Exit… visa?”
At that question the woman looked even more perplexed and he saw her tilt her head in total dismay. “My boy, have you lived on the moon until now?”
Goodness, I feel so bad.
She finally sighed, moving even closer to him; she motioned for him to lean in her direction and H obeyed without hesitation, a sense of unease so strong in his heart that it took his breath away. Like it or not this lady was his only help at the moment and he was starting to perceive her as a lighthouse in the night.
“Look... if you need to get out of the country but you don't know how, there's always another solution” she murmured cautiously, looking around. “Look for a guy named Claremont-Diaz. You'll find it in Buckingham Palace. But don't tell anyone that I was the one who gave you this information, okay?”
Claremont-Diaz? Buckingham Palace? But…
“But wasn't the palace completely closed years ago?”
The lady giggled and left him a strange yet unexpectedly sweet pat on the cheek. “Oh my boy. There is always a solution for everything, trust me."
*
When H arrived in front of the building he felt decidedly stupid. It was an impressive, majestic building, a reminder of what it had once been. But his was a dead majesty and that too was a reminder of what had happened in there: a terrible extermination, an act so dark that even now people couldn't talk about it. Therefore, how on earth did he hope to find anyone in there? Every door was barred, as was every window: the only inhabitants of that place must have been ghosts.
“What do you think, little one? Did our bench lady make fun of us?” H asked the beagle at his feet. It looked at him without making the slightest noise and, wagging his tail, approached the doors and windows, smelling something. All of a sudden H saw it sprint towards the right wing of the building, so fast that he almost escaped his gaze.
“Hey, you!” H started running after the dog, along the lawn that had not been taken care of for years, then observing its tail slip directly between two broken wooden planks. The puppy disappeared inside the building and the boy felt panic.
“Furryball, hey! Come back here!” he shouted into the boards and bent down slightly to try to see inside the crack. Only darkness responds to him.
"This situation is becoming a joke..." he whispered to himself as he began to pull the aforementioned wooden planks with his gloved hands. There might be no one in there but he wanted his dog back. He would never have let it get lost in that immense palace, full of who knows what dangers after all those years of abandonment. The first plank gave way without problems, ruined by rain and time, and it took H little to unhinge the other one too and to create enough space to bend down and enter the building.
The dust welcomed him. He found himself coughing to catch his breath and began looking around. It was... weird. H would not have been able to explain the feeling that came over him as soon as his eyes fell on the room in which he ended up. It was immense: it extended for meters and meters, wide, surmounted by a beautiful ceiling adorned with two crystal chandeliers; the walls were covered in paintings, also dusty but still still majestic. There was little furniture, all covered with white cloths, as if before being closed that place had been wrapped in a sheet of pain. A pain that H suddenly felt so strong inside his heart that it took his breath away. His blue eyes moved along the walls, along the floors, and he began walking towards the center of the room as if caught in a dream. He could see how the place had once been full of life… he could see people dancing in circles, he could hear the laughter soaring to the ceiling. He could feel everything so intensely that without wanting to he began to twirl in the center of the room, humming a sweet and melancholy melody. A melody that returned to his mind every now and then like a memory, something that...
…Once upon a December…
Once upon a December? Yes…
H closed his eyes and almost felt like he was being touched by various movements of air, by people moving around him. The familiar sensation of a perfume, a perfume that reminded him of long, voluminous hair and a little girl's laughter. The playful whisper of a man, a flash of blond on eyes as clear as the sea…
"Goodness, get out of there!"
H's eyes widened and all the magic seemed to break suddenly; those whispers, like the memory of a dream, disappeared in his mind and the chill of having been caught breaking into an abandoned historic building ran down his spine. He knew it, he was in trouble. Damn old lady on the bench–
But when he turned around he didn't find himself in front of a policeman or a guard, as he had imagined. And not even someone to be afraid of. Instead, what his eyes caught was the figure of a young boy about his age, he must have been in his early twenties, and he was the most beautiful human being H had ever seen in his life. Dark hair was shown in soft curls around an amber face with such splendid features that it left him astonished; he must have been shorter than him, and his body looked perfect in those dark brown trousers and cream shirt tucked carefully into his belt. The stranger stared at him with wide eyes and H found himself so stunned that…
“I beg you. Get out of there. Those chandeliers are shaking like my nerves at the moment, I don't want any deaths on my conscience!”
Lord, his accent.
H swallowed and slowly walked towards the boy, freaking out with every step; the closer he got, the more handsome that boy became. What witchcraft was that?
“Did no one teach you not to enter abandoned buildings? What are you doing here?" the young man asked and H knew that he should have felt stung by that incredulous tone, but he couldn't. He was too dismayed by that face, by those warm eyes and by those damn long eyelashes.
However, he couldn't stop his mouth. “I guess I can ask you the same question. You are here with me"
The stranger stared at him for a few moments, in complete silence, so much so that he began to feel a little uneasy; that look of his was scanning him from head to toe, but in the end H saw a bright smile appear on the other's face. Maybe that was even more devastating than everything else.
“Touché. For real man, what are you doing here? No one comes here in the old palace"
His tone was softer now, although still perplexed. And with that question H remembered that his new canine friend was still out of his range and that he had to look for a guy for documents. And a doubt suddenly struck him.
“My dog ran in here through a loosely locked door and… I was looking for a man. I was told I would find him here. Are you… by any chance Mr. Claremont-Diaz?”
Mr. Curls tilted his head, his smile now had an amused twist, and H saw him cross his arms over his chest, his muscles tense under the fabric. And he really wished he hadn't noticed.
“Well, it depends on who's looking for him. You are…?”
A bark interrupted the conversation and H turned to his right, where the little beagle was running towards him with its tail in the air. He let out a sigh of relief and immediately welcomed the puppy into his arms, holding it gently to his chest.
“What a fright you gave me… don't ever do it again”
“Is this the culprit of the infraction? What is its name?”
H looked up at the boy in front of him and realized he hadn't given the tail-wagging puppy a name. His mind worked so fast and so panicked that before he knew it, he spat out the first name he could remember.
“David?”
“David? Goodness, that sounds like the name of a tax attorney. Do you love this dog or do you want to condemn it?”
“Excuse me? David is a beautiful name!”
H realized too late that the stranger was giggling and he was painfully beautiful as well as painfully ready to be slapped. Was he making fun of him? He felt his cheeks blush slightly.
“Okay sweetheart, I'll stop. I'm Alex. Alex Claremont-Diaz. And now that we've established that I am me and the dog is David, we just have to figure out who you are”
H tried not to notice the way the boy's - no, Alex's - accent had curled on every single word and lifted his chin a little to try to compose himself. Who was he after all? That question was always the worst.
“I'm… H”
“Your name is H? H and that's it? As the letter of the alphabet?”
He nodded, clearly uncomfortable, and something seemed to shift inside Alex's eyes, because his perplexity melted into something softer.
“Okay H. And tell me, what brings you to this abandoned building looking for me? How can I help you?”
H hesitated on his feet and scratched automatically behind David's ears. Alex seemed really young to be someone capable of providing him with obviously false documents - he wasn't a child, it was clear what that lady had suggested to him that afternoon - and above all he didn't seem like someone ready to commit a crime. But never say never, right? And he really needed to get to Paris. So he cleared his throat and like every time he tried to give himself some sort of attitude that he didn't have, he raised his chin and cooled his gaze.
“Someone told me I should ask you for a way to get to Paris”
Alex then stared at him in amazement, as if he couldn't believe his ears. It was an almost funny expression on his face, but the sparkle that lit up his gaze was so beautiful that H couldn't help but drown in it.
“Follow me”
What?
Alex didn't even wait for him and motioned for him to follow him towards a corridor that opened to the left, dimly lit by a light coming from a neighboring room. H almost ran after him, trudging with little David in his arms, until the boy made him turn right again and opened the door of a small study. The room was heated by a burning fireplace and the firelight was also the only source of light inside. It looked like a... disused environment: some furniture was stacked on top of each other, except for two armchairs and a small table in the centre; the only window was completely obscured by a heavy curtain that seemed saturated with dust and H supposed it hadn't been opened for years. The floor, tiled and refined, was scratched by chair scrapes and mud footprints. It looked almost like a refuge. H opened his mouth to speak, but his intent was blocked by a foreign voice; he hadn't noticed, when he entered in there, the boy who was sitting in a corner, on a chair that was miraculously not stuck in that mess.
“Alex? Who is this… oh my goodness”
The stranger stood up and faced H; his chocolate, beautiful brown skin was highlighted by a light layer of makeup, which made his features even more stunning. His dark hair was kept short and every nuance of the young man was brought out by the dark red silk shirt he wore. He seemed nice and H felt an instinctive friendly movement towards him.
“Alex, cherry, where did you find him?”
“He's actually the one who found us”
H frowned and looked at both of them.
"I’m sorry?"
“Is this impressive? This boy more identical to the prince than the prince himself?”
"I know. Pez…”
“We must take him with us”
"Excuse me?" H snapped and the two boys turned to him at the same time. “Could you kindly let me in on the discussion, since you are talking about me? Same as who, how, where? What would I be perfect for?”
He didn't like the smile that appeared on both their faces at all. Before he could even realize it, they took him by the arm, one on one side and one on the other, and dragged him back towards the hall from which he had come.
“You know H… we would actually have a ticket to Paris. And an exit visa. There's just one very small detail” Alex began to explain.
“Our ticket is for Prince Henry of England” continued the other young man - Pez? - almost following his friend's words.
“Prince Henry?”
“That's right”
“The prince missing for over a decade?”
“Yes!” Pez exclaimed, stopping the whole group in front of a huge painting. “And we absolutely can't give it to anyone else.”
“Unless…” Alex murmured, placing an arm on his shoulder. H raised a brow. “Let me be curious H. Why do you want to go to Paris?”
That question settled on his heart like a boulder and he found himself reflexively stiffening. Alex seemed to sense that nervousness and H didn't miss the light caress he left on his shoulder. “Paris is the only clue I have to finding any of my family. I grew up in an orphanage and…” he stopped, wetting his lips with the tip of his tongue. “And I remember nothing of my childhood. Nothing at all. They call me H because when they found me I had a bracelet with that letter on my wrist."
“It's… perfect,” Pez exclaimed and Alex glared at him.
“Perfect?”
“Sweetheart, we are about to reunite the prince with his beloved grandmother. And she's actually in Paris,” Pez stated and two fingers gently grabbed his chin to turn H's face towards the painting in front of them. “And... you look absurdly like the prince”
“No one knows what happened to him,” Alex added. “And you don't know what happened to you.”
“Plus you have the Fox blue eyes”
“And Catherine's hands!”
“The same proud expression as the Queen Mother Mary!”
looked at them both, bewilderment written on his face. They couldn't be serious. They couldn't believe that he was the lost prince of the country.
"You're joking, I hope”
"Absolutely not"
“How can you think it's me? I'm just… a lost kid with nothing to take with me. Certainly not an unlucky prince part of a fairy tale”
His tone failed to mask the hurt. H had spent his life pretending, pretending to be fine, that the immense hole in his memory wasn't something that scarred him deeply in the end. But that was all a lie. H dreamed of a family, he dreamed of someone's arms holding him, he longed for someone who would love him completely for who he was. Possible? Could a family that had been exterminated years before be where he came from? That a grandmother was desperately looking for him, probably the only survivor of that drama? It was ridiculous. But a part of his heart burned at the possibility.
“Let's imagine you're right…” he finally whispered and both Alex and Pez turned to him with eyes stained with hope. “I could come with you. And if I wasn't this prince… it would be an honest mistake, right?”
Pez nodded. “But if it were really you, my sweet cotton candy, then it would mean that you will have found your family again. And it would be wonderful, don't you think?”
Pez patted him on the cheek and for some absurd reason he felt comforted; it had been such a nice and unexpected gesture, for him who craved gestures like that, that he inevitably trusted him. He trusted them. Even that beautiful boy with soft curls, who was now giving him a smile as bright as the sun. He felt burned by that heat.
And it was really nice warmth.
*
"IMPOSSIBLE!"
His bony hand threw the glass he was holding into the air and it shattered against the wall of darkness surrounding him. Richards observed with wild eyes the scepter, the source of his power, placed on the table: green streams of smoke came out of the corners, signs of a vitality that until then seemed to be dormant. And that vitality could mean only one thing...
“How did he survive! Impossible!”
The man, or what was left of the figure he had once been, shuffled towards the mirror posted nearby and observed the decrepit reflection that responded to his gaze. How many years spent reveling in revenge... only to now discover that he hasn’t achieved his goal!
"Master... it's impossible that any of them are still alive!"
A little voice behind him spoke up with those words and Richards turned to his bat.
“Magic never lies”
The sorcerer's fingers lifted and the surface of the mirror vibrated in front of them: the face of a beautiful boy appeared, his blond hair blowing in the wind, walking towards the London station together with two other men. His resemblance to King Arthur was so obvious it made his guts twist.
“Prince Henry…” he growled at that reflection, keeping himself from shattering it. “Enjoy these snowflakes. They will be the last thing you will see."