Louis Valois vs. Sébastien Évreux
January 07, 2017 11:18 AM
Showdown. by Louis Valois vs. Sébastien Évreux
Louis sighed as he sat down in the music room. That morning, he’d received an owl from his father, informing him that he would be joining the other society youths at the dunes that summer. For years, Louis had wished for the freedom that the other children and teenagers had, but his father had insisted on his son spending his time at home, citing his need to understand the family affairs. What sort of father expected an 11-year-old boy to come to grips with the business world? And now, Louis finally had his chance to gallivant off in the dunes with his peers, and all he wanted to do was stay in Paris. He didn’t want to spend his summer with stuck-up elitist society brats. He wanted to see JB, Manu and all his other muggle friends.He was just starting a nice sulk about the whole situation when Sébastien Évreux strolled in rather inexplicably, looking surprised when he noticed the other occupant of the room. Since the holidays, Sébastien had been trying to avoid Louis, expecting some kind of a dressing-down from the other boy, but he wasn’t going to turn and flee. That would be cowardly, and nothing would convince Sébastien to look cowardly in front of Louis.
“Terribly sorry, Louis, didn’t see you there,” he smiled, attempting casual friendliness. Maybe Louis hadn’t actually been annoyed about Sébastien’s gossip-mongering? Acting as if nothing between them was wrong was at least worth a try.
“Oh, it’s you.” Louis looked up from his pile of sheet music. He was tired, for once not at his most polite, and definitely not happy to be confronted with Sébastien Évreux. “I never got round to thanking you for spreading those false rumours about me and Ingrid over the holidays,” he added, sarcastically. Louis had never been one to avoid confrontation.
“I'm sorry, I hadn’t realised that you two are still together,” apologised Sébastien snidely, knowing full well that had never been the case.
“We were never together, just friends, why can’t anyone understand that?” asked Louis, frustrated with how quickly everyone seemed to leap to that conclusion. Even his mother had seemed to think that he and Ingrid had a romantic relationship!
“Friends who don’t seem to spend so much time together anymore.” Intrigued as to what was actually going on between the two, Sébastien couldn’t resist probing further.
“No, well, friends who…who don’t always have to spend lots of time together.”
Bastien was fed up with Louis’s idiocy. Surely he’d been through enough that he ought to know the entire story? For starters, his parents hadn’t been impressed when they’d found out he had completely made the story up, and then Madeleine had spent a good five minutes laughing at him when they returned to Sonora. Despite what everyone said, Sébastien knew his theory wasn’t too far off the mark. Something had happened, and he wasn’t going to put up with any more of Louis Valois’s nonsense.
“So, what was the problem, then?” There had to have been a problem. Louis and Ingrid were definitely not as close as you could expect, considering that they'd attended the ball together, and Sébastien was going to find out why. “Was Louis Valois not good enough for Miss Wolseithcrafte?”
“No- not- that’s not what it was at all,” Louis protested, knowing perfectly well that Bastien had actually provided a disturbingly good summary of the situation.
“Well, I suppose it’s hardly surprising,” continued Bastien. “Given the company you keep nowadays. Sharing a bedroom with a Newell, muggleborns on your Quidditch team, and even Emilia-Louise Scott isn’t the finest of company.”
Louis went red. That was not on! Sébastien was not allowed to just insult his friends like that. The younger boy definitely had a thing or two to learn about the world.
“I think you’ll find, Évreux, that there are more to people than just their social status,” he replied disdainfully.
Sébastien frowned. “I think you’ll find, Valois, that social status is actually the most important thing.”
“But why?” Louis asked, almost pleadingly, a sudden shift from his previous defensiveness. He was always given this response, and no one seemed prepared to satisfactorily justify their reasoning. “It makes absolutely no sense to judge somebody based on the family they were born into, or on their blood status.”
“I don’t see why you’re complaining,” retorted Bastien, scowling back at him. “You’ve been dealt a fairly good hand on both fronts. Surely you should be the one advocating social status and blood purity?”
Louis just looked at him coldly. He didn’t understand the younger boy. He didn’t like the younger boy, and Sébastien’s remarks were not helping.
“You see, Louis, some people are just better than other people,” explained Sébastien. “It won’t do the lower orders any good if we let them think that they can rise above their station and be better than us. It’s the natural order of things. It’s how the world works, Louis. You’ve just got to learn to take advantage of it.”
“Don’t call me Louis,” the older boy replied, seething. Who did Évreux think he was, to come in and start patronising Louis with all his rubbish about superiority? Frustrated that his time of relaxation had been interrupted with supremacist ideals, Louis stood up. He refused to participate in such a bigoted conversation.
“You’ll have to do better than that if you want to convince me.”
And that was that.
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Louis Valois vs. Sébastien Évreux
Showdown.
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Louis Valois vs. Sébastien Évreux
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