if i could fly, then i would know [emile]

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Cecelia was flying. Sometimes she swore she forgot that she was a Quidditch player, since there were so many other things that she defined herself as - Gryffindor, prefect, sister, friend. But other days, there was nothing that Cecelia could think of other than flying. Anyone who knew her beyond just the surface level knew that she loved the sky, so it wasn't really much of a stretch to believe that she would love being as close to the sky (and the stars) as she possibly could be. Being a Beater was a good way to get out some of the anger that she had occasionally bubbling beneath the surface. Practicing alone with the Bludgers probably wasn't the best idea, especially since one of Hufflepuff's team members had taken a tumble recently, but Cece very rarely got alone time... Mostly because she didn't seek it, unless she wanted to stargaze. Cecelia shook her head a little, trying to clear her head. It wasn't good to be distracted when there were iron balls flying around. Cecelia focused herself, slamming her bat into the Bludger that had been trying to take advantage of her distractedness, smiling to herself as she sent it hurdling towards the ground... and apparently someone who had just appeared on the pitch.

@emile

[Deleted]

@cecelia

Émile had spent quite a bit of time away from Hogwarts’s Quidditch pitch lately. Especially after the incident that Ripley had on it. Not that he suddenly disliked the sport. If anything, he loved it more, because there was a reason for him to attend the house matches here. He knew some would call that dedicated to something he had just begun, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t go because he wanted to. Émile knew he would have ended up at the Hogwarts matches regardless of whether or not Ripley would be playing in them. That was just how much he enjoyed watching and critiquing the high speed sport. The closest he got to an actual match here was during pick-up games put on, and sometimes there was a general consensus that he shouldn’t play because he couldn’t risk getting hurt and having to drop out of the tournament. That was all bull in his opinion, and they were simply trying to get him away from their games. Émile couldn’t understand why, because he was probably the greatest asset a team could have in the air. He could be a team player, contrary to popular belief.

Today he decided to go for a walk though, and it was late enough in the day that he assumed the pitch would be void of practices, or even stragglers for that matter. Approaching the structure, there was no sign of anyone in the air, so Émile strode through the gate that lead to the pitch. There was no reason to sit in the stands when he could have an open, grassy field at his disposal. Unfortunately he had made a few mistakes upon entering. The first was not watching the sky long enough before entering. Had he done that, he probably would have seen the person zooming around on the broom. The second was that the gate to the field was unlocked. In all the times he had tried to get in on his own, it had been locked. There were other ways to get around that of course, but Émile had neglected to see the gate being unlocked as an issue. Because of these mistakes, upon entering, he was greeted with a bludger hurtling towards him from seemingly out of nowhere. Diving to the side as fast as possible, Émile was narrowly missed by the ball as it crashed into the ground where he had just been standing. Maybe exactly where he was standing was a little generous. It was more like a couple feet in front of him. Still, flying bludgers without the appropriate tools to stop them were dangerous. Ripley was just an example of that, and she had been fully prepared for the worst.

Getting back to his feet, Émile eyed the twitching bludger cautiously as it rocked back and forth in the ground. It was stuck. That was good. He didn’t need it trying to break every bone in his body right now. Looking up at the person on the broom, he made some motions with his hands to try and get their attention. “You do know who I am, don’t you? That would have been a mistake.” Hopefully that didn’t sound to threatening. If he had been killed or injured by the bludger, the person on the broom probably would have been sanctioned heavily for taking out a champion.

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Cecelia was always aware of where the Bludgers were on the pitch. Being a Beater, she had to have that kind of awareness. – partially because she was the one who needed to hit the Bludgers, but partially because if she wasn’t in the correct position to deflect the metal balls, she could at least shout at her teammates to get out of the way. So she was all too cognizant of the fact that the Bludger she had hit was speeding towards someone who was all but defenseless. Cecelia leaned down on her broom, diving down towards the pitch, though why she didn’t know. She wasn’t fast enough to outrun a Bludger, and the best she would be able to do would be to help the person she had hit if they were injured. Luckily, injury wasn’t in the cards, because the boy on the pitch had dived out of the way. Cecelia pulled up out of her dive, but landed her broom as soon as she was down to a safe speed, jumping off and sliding her wand out of her sleeve to cast an immobilizing spell on the Bludger, though it looked like it was already stuck somehow in the ground. Served it right, Cecelia thought, even though it was really her fault that this had happened in the first place.

It was only when on the ground that Cecelia finally good look at the person she had almost hit. Naturally, it had to be Émile Chevalier. Cece was already prepared for his scathing remark before he even spoke. Some people had changed since she had left Beauxbatons at the age of thirteen, but some stayed the same. Émile fell into the latter category, if his question was anything to go by. Cecelia sighed a little, but smiled wanly at the Beauxbatons Champion. “Of course I know who you are, Émile.” She said patiently. “Question is, do you remember me?” Cecelia asked with an arched eyebrow. Most of the students she had talked to at least recalled seeing Cecelia before, even if they couldn’t remember her name. However, the Gryffindor was unsure as to whether Émile had even noticed her when she was at Beauxbatons, because that would require him to look someplace other than a mirror.

@emile

[Deleted]

@cecelia

Aside from the fact that the person on the broom had tried to outrun the bludger, Émile was still rather frustrated that the ball had barreled towards him in the first place. He could probably assume that the one on the broom was a beater, or at least trying to be one. Had they been halfway decent, they would have been able to stop the bludger before it had gotten anywhere remotely close to him. That was their job during a match after all. If this was a match and he was a chaser, that dodge could have potentially meant that he would have missed the quaffle, and possibly another point. Every goal mattered in Quidditch. At least the person had enough of a brain to come down and land near him. Émile expected some kind of apology from them, considering they had almost taken his head off mere seconds before. Had he not been as quick-witted and agile, well, he didn’t like the think of what-ifs in situations like this. He was good at what he did, and that had aided him as he dove away from the bludger.

As the person approached him, he was finally able to tell that it was a girl. And for a second, he thought maybe he had been hit in the head, whether it was from the bludger or on impact with the ground. Were his eyes deceiving him? The girl stated that she knew who he was (and who didn’t these days?), but she wanted to know if he remembered her. “How could I, Cecelia,” Émile smirked. The last time he had seen her was…four years ago now? Had it really been that long? Though this was the first time he had seen her in that time frame. Her name, or family name rather, had been all over the papers for the last year. “So sorry about your sisters. Sad that Desirae choose the path she did. Clearly wasn’t worth it in the end.” That was right. The Rousseau family was filthy rich too. But they were the different kind of magical rich. They were the ones that were high and mighty about blood purity. He didn’t have time for that these days. Cecelia though, he was unsure. She was always different from the other two girls after all.

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Émile Chevalier had always intrigued Cecelia, if she was honest. He was so unlike anyone else that she had met, because he was egotistical, but unlike everyone else, he seemed to have no qualms with flaunting his ego. It meant that he wasn’t the most popular among their classmates, but seeing Émile reminded Cecelia of the times when life was simpler, and she was just a pureblood girl who talked to pureblood boys for no other reason than their blood purity. When she was younger, there had been talk of her being married off to Émile, but nothing had ever come of it but gossip. Merlin knew that, however bad the gossip mongers were at Hogwarts, the ones in the French pureblood circles were even worse. So, Cecelia’s relationship with Émile was complicated, to say the least. It didn’t feel that way, though, with him smirking at her. It just felt like being thirteen again… in all of the best and the worst ways.

At the mention of her sisters, Cecelia’s smile faded. Émile said that it was sad that Desirae had chosen what she did, and the Gryffindor just shook her head. “Desirae died for what she believed in. What more can anyone ask for in a death?” She asked, voice slightly quiet and somber. She hoped that it was implied that Desirae’s beliefs were not the same as Cecelia’s, but the point stood that someone dying for what they believed in was not a horrible way to go. Cece had thought that Braelynn had done the same, when she thought that Bay had died. It made the Gryffindor wonder what beliefs she had that she would die for as gladly as Bay would have died for Zander and Desi died for the Purifiers. “Speaking of death, looked like your competitors came close to it in that maze.” The Greyback boy had almost been eaten by flesh-eating slugs. “You just zipped through though, didn’t you?” She asked. If there was one way to make good conversation with Émile, it was to stroke his ego, hence the question.

@emile

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@cecelia

That was a strange way to explain someone’s death, specifically a siblings. Then again, the newspapers had done a damn good job outlining the fact that Desirae was one of those freakish blood purists running rampant. Had anyone asked Émile about her years ago, he probably could have said she was a bad egg. Cecelia had been her sister’s little follower too, though clearly not this time. “True. You watched the First Task obviously,” Émile stated as he stepped closer to her so that they didn’t have to talk as loudly. “If I were to die during this tournament, and that’s a big if, mind you,” he stated as he placed his hands behind his back and paced slowly, “it would have been against that manticore.” He shrugged as he came to a halt in front of her. “Maybe that’s just me. The tournament is a little lackluster for my tastes. That beast was the only shining moment so far.” The maze had been interesting, to say the least. Looking back on it now, Cecelia was right, he had breezed through it with barely a scratch. The aforementioned manticore had been the only truly difficult part, and even then he had a relatively easy time defeating it. The same couldn’t be said about the other two champions. While the Hogwarts girl was close, she had sustained far more physical damage and mental trauma than he had. Finding her wandering around the maze blind was enough to prove that true. And Greyback? Well, Émile was starting to think that the cup had made a mistake. He was no Viktor Krum. “We can’t all be the best, Cecelia. The other two champions, your sister, they were all given that tiny glimmer of hope that they would stand out,” he shrugged again. “But look where we’re at now.”

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Cecelia nodded when Émile said that she had obviously watched the first task. She didn’t know of anyone from any of the schools that hadn’t watched the tasks – it was really the only interesting thing going on nowadays. She was tempted to make another comment about how brilliant it was, but she thought that might have been laying it on a little thick… not that Émile would have cared. The Gryffindor was surprised to hear that her former classmate had even considered that he would meet his demise in the tournament. Everyone else seemed to have considered it long before the Tournament even started, Cecelia included, but to Émile, it sounded like a recent realization. He said that the cause of his death would be the manticore, and Cecelia raised an eyebrow. “I doubt that they would use the same beast twice.” She said. “It would give you too much time to prepare.” She was certain that Émile had now researched how to be a more effective manticore hunter. Since the tasks were all about challenging the champions and pushing them to their limits, anything that could have prepared them for what might happen wouldn’t be appropriate.

Émile said that they couldn’t all be the best, and Cecelia smirked at him. “What, does this mean that I’m the best somehow?” It was possible that he considered the best of her family, since she was the only one of her sisters not to have died – or “died” as the case would be. “Rumor has it you’ve been hanging around the Krum girl?” She asked. Émile was sure to know which Krum girl she spoke of, even though there were three of them. Cecelia’s only relationship with Ripley Krum was through the girl’s older sister, who was Cece’s roommate. “She’s not the best.” Her older brother was a Quidditch star and her older sister was a clairvoyant who looked to have a promising future (as much as it made Cece uncomfortable to think about). Cecelia didn’t know how Émile and Ripley got involved, but… she was curious to hear more.

@emile

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@cecelia

Cecelia had an interesting concept there. Fighting the manticore twice would be a blast. Immediately following the task, Émile had looked up the possibility of there being a job that fought dangerous beasts. Aside from dragonologists, he hadn’t found much. But he was sure they were out there somewhere. It was like that was his calling. A second go at the manticore would be exhilarating in his opinion. “Wouldn’t that be the best surprise though? Your girl could fight a horde of spiders, and Greyback could kick and scream as slugs ate him alive again.” Unfortunately, he knew Cecelia was correct. The tournament organizers would never risk spilling their secrets prior to a task. So far they had done rather well hiding the second one from him as well. Émile had been positive that he knew what the first one was going to be, but was instead presented with a maze. Never in a million years did he think that they would almost replicate a previous task from when Hogwarts had last held the tournament. Quite the surprise that was. “I suppose you’re right though. They’re against cheating, but the advisors do a damn good job preparing their champions,” Émile pondered. “I wouldn’t know though, mine was rather flaky and left right after the selection.”

He grinned at her as she seemed to understand what he was getting at. “Well, you’re the only one alive, right? The strongest survive. I could care less about the methods used, but those not cut out for it fail.” It wasn’t a hard concept to grasp at, and he was sure Cecelia could figure that out. While it was rather morbid to be equating her strength to survive to that of her sisters’ deaths, Émile knew he wasn’t wrong. The conversation switched to Ripley though, and Émile decided to pay closer attention than he had before. “Hanging around? Something like that. Dating is another word for it I suppose.” He recalled having quite a few questions about it following the Yule Ball. One champion bringing the daughter of a former champion to the dance? Possibly unheard of in the modern tournaments. It had been easier to tell the news outlets the truth over letting them spew whatever nonsense they wanted about him and Ripley. While he was completely fine with them twisting his own words around, anything about her was off limits. And he made sure of that. “Not the best? Her pedigree says otherwise Miss Rousseau.” It was like they were talking about dogs. What determined whether Ripley was good or bad? Émile liked her. That was all that mattered. “You’re not the jealous type are you?”

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Cecelia just shook her head when Émile asked if repeating their previous battles would be the best surprise. “Anna is not my girl.” She said flatly. They were friendly, but the idea of being associated with her still made Cecelia a little uncomfortable, if only because she knew word of that would get back to Elaine, considering who Anna’s cousins were. The comment about Greyback made her smile, though, if only because the image was a little bit ridiculous. She nodded smugly when Émile said that she was right – he would have done the same thing if he had proved her wrong, after all. “It doesn’t seem like the advisers are playing much of a role.” She agreed. If only there was a peer advisory board of some sort – that would actually make things interesting for the students who hadn’t been selected.

Émile made a comment about Cecelia being the only one alive, and she nodded despite knowing that it was a lie. She wasn’t allowed to tell anyone that Braelynn was alive, which was… difficult, but necessary. “I’m not the strongest so much as the least opinionated.” Cecelia said. Both of her sisters had hovered at extreme ends of the spectrum – believing in the Purifiers so much that Desirae was willing to die for them, or despising the Purifiers’ ideals so much that they would rather die than follow them. Cece had been a good follower, but not a great one… and arguably, that was the reason that she was alive. The Gryffindor didn’t say anything about Émile and his dating – the argument about whether or not she was the best was so much more interesting. “Our pedigrees mean nothing if we don’t back them up with our own actions and beliefs.” Cecelia shot back. What good did it go to rest on the laurels of the family name? She wasn’t going to argue that the Krum family was impressive enough, but the point still stood that Ripley was not her family, and it wasn’t like she had done anything to make her father or brother Quidditch players. Cecelia had no plans of letting her family’s name guide her through her life – in fact, she was planning on doing quite the opposite, though it was dangerous to say so in Émile’s presence, since Cecelia wasn’t entirely sure what his allegiances were. She hadn’t seen him at any of the Purifiers meetings that she had attended, but that didn’t mean that he wasn’t sympathetic to them and the cause, and thus would be upset if she planned to deviate from the Rousseau family name. Cecelia doubted that someone could date a Krum and be a Purifier, but stranger things had happened. Cecelia snorted when Émile asked if she was the jealous type. “What is there to be jealous of?” Even if she and Émile had been betrothed to each other, Cecelia considered that more of a business arrangement than a love one. Expecting someone to love you when you were forced upon each other seemed naïve at best, and stupid at worst. And that was even before Cecelia got to the point of the fact that there was nothing about Ripley that Cecelia could be jealous of. Cece was a prefect, Quidditch player, and club captain – she didn’t covet any of those titles on Ripley, because she already had them. The only thing that anyone could argue that she wanted of Ripley’s was the family, and even then Cecelia had had a family that she was close to. Granted, it had all fallen apart, but she had had it.

@emile

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@cecelia

“Who’s Anna?” Émile asked, keeping a straight face through it. He knew who she was, but it was better to not place a name to the Hogwarts champion, because that meant acknowledging her abilities. Cecelia had a great reaction to his first comment though. “Not a fan of her either? I thought lions tended to stick together. Quite the interesting group you have.” Ripley’s sister was another one of those strange ones. They all had strong personalities to boot, which probably had something to do with it. Though the Anna girl seemed to be lacking in that department. There had to be something there though, if the Cup picked her as a champion. “There’s that newspaper one too. Makes sense that he doesn’t stick to your little pack. Maybe he’s the smart one,” Émile shrugged. He shook his head as Cecelia responded that she hadn’t really seen the advisers around either. “Their loss really. They get as much glory from their champion winning as the school does.” It didn’t matter to him anymore that he didn’t have one. He had never asked for one to begin with. Apparently they thought he would have issues talking to the media. So far the newspapers had been doing a pretty decent job of covering up what he was really saying to them.

Émile contemplated her ideas about not being the most opinionated. He was hoping he understood that right. “You made the decisions to stay alive though. Or maybe you didn’t make enough decisions. Like I said, you’re here, they aren’t. Doesn’t take a genius to figure it out.” The point he was trying to make was that she clearly made the correct choices somewhere along the line to not get killed. He could care less what those were, but there was no reason to be conflicted over it. What was done was done, and moving forward was the only way to truly achieving anything. Those that lost were simply lessons to learn from. The conversation had shifted to Ripley though, and Cecelia seemed to harbor some negative feelings towards the Hufflepuff. Émile could see that happening. Ripley did what she pleased, which would rub any stuck up pureblood the wrong way. “Speaking from experience, are we?” He smirked. “I’m sure if you said that to her face you would be more than surprised by what she’s capable of.” She was a Krum after all. The same way he was a Chevalier, and Cecelia was a Rousseau. There were still genetic programs built into them that made them better than others. Some would call it the pureness of their blood, Émile liked to think they just had the propensity for greatness where others fell short. If it had to do with blood, then the other Rousseau sisters would still be alive and kicking. And they weren’t. “Nothing, I suppose,” he responded to her question on jealousy. “I’ve just had enough of the old families start to reach out now that I’m in this position. I suppose I was due for it.”

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A derisive laugh escaped Cecelia’s lips when Émile asked who Anna was. Leave it to him to be competing against someone and not even know her name. She doubted that he knew the Greyback boy’s first name, either, though Cecelia hardly could blame him, since she couldn’t recall it off the top of her head, either. But Anna had at least given Émile a run for his money. The Greyback boy hadn’t done anything other than be eaten by slugs and lose. Damn, being around Émile was already beginning to rub off on her, Cecelia thought, shaking her head a little to loosen some of the less pleasant thoughts that she associated with being around Émile. “I’m not not a fan.” She explained. “But Anna doesn’t belong to me, and vice versa.” Anna wasn’t Cecelia’s girl, as Émile had said, nor did Cecelia feel like she owed the other girl anything because they shared a house. If the Third Task somehow involved astronomy or starts, then Cecelia would gladly help Anna research, but she would do the same for Émile, if he ever swallowed his pride quickly enough to ask someone else for help before it was too late. The Beauxbatons boy mentioned the newspaper boy, and the muscles in Cecelia’s shoulders tensed. He was talking about Grey, and for some reason that made Cece distinctly uncomfortable. “Don’t talk about Grey.” She half-said, half-commanded. She didn’t want to know what Émile thought about Grey, because he was one of the only people whose opinion Cecelia actually cared about and would say something negative about the boy she had come to care for. She didn’t want to hear about how he was an insomniac loser who couldn’t do anything better with his life than write, because she might actually believe it. Or, more likely, she would punch Émile in the face and end up in the headmaster’s office for assaulting a foreign student who also happened to be a Champion. “Not everyone is interested in glory, Émile.” Cecelia said breezily. For her part, she would be fine living under the radar for the rest of her life, content to be forgotten but unbothered by the ghosts of her past – figurative and literal.

Cecelia wished that she could command Émile to drop the subject of her sisters. She had already bossed him around once, though, and she doubted that trying it a second time would be advantageous. She decided instead that she just wasn’t going to respond to what he had to say on the subject, and the conversation would move away from it naturally. “I’m not surprised that she could be stupid enough to fall off her broom.” Cecelia said breezily. Maybe that was a little antagonistic of her, but she didn’t care. She disliked that Émile had been reduced to licking anyone’s boots, and especially so that it was because some girl had managed to charm him. Cece knew that Émile was better than that, and she just hoped that he saw reason before he was roped into a relationship that wouldn’t benefit him as much in the long run as he hoped. “What, are your parents trying to marry you off again now that you have another gold star beside your name?” Cecelia asked. Her own parents had thought better of marrying her off to Émile, but maybe someone else’s parents hadn’t been as wise.

@emile

[Deleted]

@cecelia

Sounded like they were on the same page when it came to the Hogwarts champion. Émile could care less about who she was as a person; none of that mattered when they were competing against one another. He was there to win, and that was it. Anna was simply in his way of that. Funny how that worked, considering the fact that he thought Durmstrang would be the difficult one. Probably the home advantage. “Look how much we have in common still. Maybe things would have worked out if they went differently,” Émile shrugged. In reality, that was just as ridiculous of an arraigned marriage as this current one was. At least the current one he actually knew how the girl was now, whereas Cecelia was completely different from the last time he had seen her. Losing two siblings probably did her in. How sad. He couldn’t recall the last time she was snappy like she was when telling him not to talk about the reporter boy. That was certainly some fire. “Maybe I was wrong,” he commented. “Looks like you do have a pack.” So the boring one was her type. Complete opposite of himself. That made sense. Émile laughed at her as she said that not everyone was into glory. “Fine with me. Let’s me take out the ones that think they’ll have a shot at it.”

Cecelia seemingly ignored his comments and went straight into going after Ripley again. Émile didn’t care about what problems the two of them had; it wouldn’t change his opinions on either of them. They certainly could both handle themselves. “Think you’d fare better? Interesting…” Émile knew the details of the accident, but relaying them to Cecelia after her mind was already made up wouldn’t make a difference. The conversation had shifted to the arraigned marriage again. “Something like that. They weren’t fans of my response either.” A resounding no had come from him. That was a decision he didn’t feel like making until after the tournament was over, when he could put all his time and effort into it. Right now though, the answer was more than likely going to say the same. “Well, it was enlightening to catch up again with you, Cecelia. I’ll send Ripley your regards,” Émile smiled as he turned to leave. Telling the Hufflepuff about their conversation and the Rousseau girl’s opinions on her probably wouldn’t hold over well. Last thing he wanted to do was jump into the middle of a cat-fight. Death by psycho girls didn’t sound that enticing.

[Émile End]

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Émile pointed out that they still had a lot in common, and Cecelia didn’t comment on that. She wasn’t sure how many of their commonalities lay in their actual personalities and how many lay in the fact then whenever Cecelia was around Émile, she seemed to revert back to her twelve-year-old self, just with a bit of the headstrong nature that she had developed since the beginning of the school year. That sounded like someone Émile would want to marry – a respectable pureblood girl who wouldn’t bow to just anyone… though Cece did wonder whether or not he would appreciate that she wouldn’t bow to him either. Cecelia didn’t back down when Émile said that it looked like he did have after all. She wasn’t going to apologize for protecting grey, nor did she want to. Émile could think whatever he wanted to think – unlike Grey, he wasn’t in her life with any sort of permanency. The Beauxbatons boy seemed to drop in whenever he felt like it, and then immediately left again when he felt like it. Émile might not have thought so, but he was selfish. Yet Cecelia still tolerated him – liked him, even – as long as he wasn’t insulting the people that she actually cared about.

Cecelia didn’t comment when Émile asked her if she thought that she’d fare better. She knew that she at least wouldn’t fall from her broom – she’d probably just find a way to crash it with the minimum amount of damage possible. It didn’t matter, though. She couldn’t care less about any of the Krum children anymore – they were some of the people that she would be glad to be rid of when she departed Hogwarts. All of the people with famous surnames would be out of her life, and she wouldn’t have to deal with Potters or Weasleys or Krums or anyone unless she wanted to. Again, Cecelia found herself wishing for that quiet life on a hillside somewhere, away from all the chaos of the world. Émile didn’t seem to be happy with the direction she had lead the conversation, giving a vague answer about him being betrothed and then immediately departing. Cecelia sighed, wondering whether or not it was worth pushing. Probably not. With one last look at the retreating Champion, Cecelia mounted her broom and kicked off, wondering if he was telling the truth with his final words.

@emile