Work Text:
The young woman looked up at the portrait, all her trailing through ancestry records brought her here in a seculded section of a small gallery on the outskirts of Paris.
She idly twirled a lock of her hair around her finger, her snowdrops slowly blooming as she gazed up at the young woman sat in the center of the painting, her blonde hair a match for her own.
Her family. She'd been able to follow the Pontmercy line futher than this point but her many times great grandmother and the two older gentlemen behind her remained a mystery.
"Amélie Pontmercy?" A voice from behind shakes her from her thoughts. A gallery attentdant emerges from a nearby door and hands her a diary.
"This was submitted at the same time as the portrait and by the same people. You're welcome to look through it but we must insist that it stay in this room"
The attendant looked around slyly "Don't tell anyone but, if you need to take photos you can do"
Amélie sat down at a nearby table and began to leaf through. She flicked through diary entries, letter and pressed flowers for infomation and stories of her family.
She learnt the names of her relatives, that the white-haired gentlemen adopted Cosette when she was a small child after her mother died. The later pages of the diary were dedicated to her friends and family, small sketchs of her children along with their first flowers pressed between the pages and there, finally the last piece of the puzzle.
Inspector Javert. A friend of Cosette's father who became close to the family about the time of a minor rebellion.
Amélie looked up again at the portrait, closely studying the men in the background of the painting. They seemed to be ignoring the scene around them and were gazing at each other.
"Friends," she thought "with those lilacs, they were more than just friends."