(A/N) This is my second story for Les Misérables. I decided this time to focus solely on a character we really know little about - Grantaire. All that is said of him is that he is a cynic, a drunk, and that he adores Enjolras with all of his heart, but there has to be a story lurking in the background. I adore Grantaire as a character, but I felt like there could be so much more to him. Please, enjoy and definitely review!

The dark-haired boy played in the street. He couldn't have been more than nine, laughing and having a grand time with the other children. His nice clothes were dirtied, but he paid no mind. It wasn't until his mother came running and hurried him away that he began to wonder if he'd done something wrong. He looked back, watching the other boys continue their game without him, dressed in their stained, torn clothes as they were.

"Mama," he said as he dragged him toward his family's home, "I wasn't doing anything bad, I promise. We were just playing ball."

"Yes, and just playing ball is precisely the problem," she snapped cruelly, "I told you to stay in the yard. You are not to go play ball again, do you hear me?"

Tears were filling the little boy's eyes. He stared at his mother, hair graying and mouth pursed in a tight line. "But – but – but why? They're my friends," he questioned quietly.

She stopped dead and wheeled on him. She let go of his hand and knelt down to his level. "André Alexandre Grantaire, I raised you better then to play with those urchins from the gutter! They are not your friends and you will not play with them again, do you understand?"

The boy was crying now. "But Mama -," he started, but she cut him off.

"Do you understand?" She snarled.

He nodded and she stood back up and took his hand roughly again in hers. They walked a few hundred meters, out of the limits of the tiny town of Séry-Magneval. She tugged him roughly down the road, back to the extensive grounds that belonged to the Grantaire family. The drive was lined with massive pine trees, and at the end, the trees gave way to a massive home that was all white. Nearly a thousand acres of land were attached to the home. Mostly, André felt lost in all of it – all of the bustling maids and the huge property and the pristine order of everything – so he slipped off to the town whenever he could to find kinder company. He adored the boys there, and they'd welcomed him so willingly into their games. André's mother, however, would have none of it.

"Go upstairs," she ordered when the butler opened the front door. André gave his mother one last look, hoping for some sort of pity, but there was none. He hurried up the right side of the beautiful spiraling staircase, his shoes losing traction, just as they always did, on the perfectly polished floors. As soon as his feet hit the upstairs landing, he allowed himself to cry. His mother was always so strict and stern.

She doesn't even love me, he thought between his sobs.

As she picked his way down the hall to his bedroom, a voice called to him from behind one of the mahogany doors. "André, is that you?" It was his father's voice.

André pushed a door open and stepped into his father's study. It was his favorite room in the entire house. Books lined all of the walls, and great windows cast light over it all. A soft red rug with gold embellishment covered the floor, and on top of it, a pair of the most comfortable sofas André had ever sat on (and bounciest he had ever jumped on). His father sat behind a dark wooden desk, pen in hand. He looked up as his son entered the room.

"What's the matter, son?" he asked kindly.

André shook his head, not wanting to speak about it. His mother always got upset if he told his father when they had had a disagreement.

Monsieur Grantaire put his pen down and pushed his chair back. He patted his lap and his son smiled. André walked over, already stopping his tears, and climbed into his father's arms.

"Now, tell me, what did you and Mama disagree about today?" Monsieur Grantaire asked.

His son still did not reply.

"I promise, I won't tell her you told me," he said with a smile.

André looked at him with too much sadness in his eyes for a little boy. "She'll know anyway. She always knows."

Monsieur Grantaire laughed. "Aye, your Mama has that way about her, but I promise I won't let her get upset with you for telling me what happened."

The boy sighed. "She says I'm not allowed to play with my friends in the village."

Monsieur Grantaire smiled knowingly. "She just doesn't want you to get your clothes dirty."

André shook his head. "I wore the clothes Mama doesn't like. See?" he said, gesturing at his outfit. "She even lets me ride Max in this." Max was the boy's horse, an expensive Lipizzaner stallion imported directly from Italy. The horse had cost Monsieur Grantaire a fortune, but his wife had assured him that she would ride the horse every day, and so he paid. That was eleven years before, and now, the horse had been passed on to their son long after she had lost interest.

"Well, that's very silly of your Mama, then." Monsieur Grantaire said. "Of course every young boy needs to have friends. I'll have a talk with her about it."

"No! You promised you wouldn't tell!" André stared at his father with a look of horror on his face.

His father smiled. "And I also promised that I wouldn't let her get upset with you. Now, run along. I have to finish some things up, alright? Then you and I will take the horses out. How does that sound?"

André gave his father a hug and a kiss on the cheek and then ran to his bedroom, a new spring in his step.

He had always loved his father best. His father was never coarse or angry, even when André did something foolish. He was soft-spoken almost all of the time, unless he was arguing with Mama. Together, father and son would spend whole days at a time out riding horses or on fishing trips or tramping around out in the woods, searching for deer trails. They were inseparable unless Monsieur Grantaire had work to attend to – he was, long ago, a general in the French military, but now, he mostly stayed at home, doing paperwork. In the evenings, he read stories to his son before the boy fell asleep. It was he, and not the boy's mother, that tucked little André into bed, and it was he that kissed him goodnight. He was a good man with a big heart and lots of kindness about him, and there was nothing he was more proud of then his child.