[dahliental] les nuits étoilées || prosper

Although the young wizard had much unexplored wanderlust that he had been waiting to dig into all year, by the end of the term he had found himself back in Dahliental, much more comfortable at home than he would have felt anywhere else. He had never really enjoyed the idea of standing still for too long but there was an undeniable consolation that came with being surrounded by the people who knew him best, those who truly cared about him. It was at least the only time he could feel like himself again, not the sort of character he had constructed on his own during his time at Beauxbatons. Being yourself was much easier said than done after all and for someone that had played the role of the charming clown for such a long time, revealing a different side of himself so close to graduation felt much more work than it was worth.

His mother had not been pleased about the bruising on his face at all but it had been easy to shrug it off with a laugh and say he was doing his best at Quidditch, hence the injury. Léon wasn’t sure if she actually believed him but she didn’t make much of a fuss after that and the more people he told that story, the more he started to believe it. It had been his first fight, one he lost but deep down his self-importance had led him to believe that he had not been the one to walk away and in turn, that made him the winner for it. Nevertheless, it was a memory he quickly wanted to forget, one he felt surprisingly guilty for. He might’ve said too much, it was a bad habit of his, but punching Séverin had not been the right thing to do. Not to him, at least. It wasn’t self-defense at that point, it had been anger—the type of anger that Léon wished to never experience again.

By the time Prosper came to visit, his thoughts had consumed him so much he knew that he needed to speak to someone about it. About something, anything was better than all of this thinking he was doing. After dinner, most of which he remained uncharacteristically silent for, he approached Prosper on his way upstairs with a smile, “Welcome home,” he said again, “Meet me on the roof in five?” it was more of a request rather than a command. Finding a bottle of wine the two could partake in during their little conversation, Léon made his way to the roof, climbing out through the attic window as he sat there, admiring the night sky.

@Prosper Lachapelle

Over the last couple of years, Prosper had been visiting his family home less and less. It was normal, he thought. Everyone was getting older, not just him. His baby brother was an adult now, for Merlin’s sake; Léon was surely just a year off of joining Prosper, Pierce and Adrien out in the real world. As an adult, Prosper had favourites. He was always more interested in seeing Adrien, Léon or his mum than he was seeing his father, for example, and he hadn’t even seen Pierce in what, two years almost? Léon and Adrien visited him in Paris quite often, comparatively. Clearly Prosper wasn’t the only one with favourites, he thought.

So it was a bit of a novelty to be here, eating dinner with his parents and his brothers. More of a novelty to do it without Ariane, who was on some kind of weekend training camp for work. And it was nice that Léon approached him as he was helping his mum clean up the table, because it had been a long time since he’d sat on the roof with his little brother, talking about anything and everything. When Diane gave him a look that told him to go, he gave her a quick hug and a kiss on the cheek. “Thanks mum,” he said, pocketing his wand and taking the stairs two at a time.

“It’s been a while, baby brother,” Prosper said, stepping lithely through the window and taking a couple of quick steps along the roof's slats to where his brother was sitting. "Or, not so baby anymore," he corrected, flashing a charismatic half-smile at his brother, his eyes twinkling. He wondered if Léon felt any different now that he was four months into adulthood.

“Hasn’t it?” Léon smiled in return, “You never come home these days, must be having a lot of fun in Paris, huh?” he asked playfully. Never was an exaggeration but he hoped that Prosper would understand that the less he visited home, the more he was sorely missed. In terms of age, the two brothers were not particularly far apart but in lives, it almost felt as if Prosper lived on a completely different universe. Adulthood was strange, he decided, and it was not something he was particularly looking forward to. Beauxbatons was no longer as exciting as it had been in his first or second year but it felt safe, a bubble of pretty, sophisticated folk where he could be whatever he wanted without ever having to worry about things like the future. 

What did he want to be, anyway? Almost in seventh year and he had no idea. He envied his brothers for having it all figured out so soon and here he was waiting for something to push him in the right direction. There had to be an event, a person, a thing that would force him to leave the childish things behind, and to grow up. But he felt nothing, no matter how close he was to being an adult, he felt the same he had felt last summer: lost and a little confused about who he was. “Still kinda feel like a baby,” he said with a grin, but it was a pretty honest statement coming from someone like Léon. “Also kind of sad that you didn’t bring your girlfriend home, I think we made a connection,” he stated, only half-joking. Ariane had visited at Christmas and Léon had been completely enchanted by her, she probably thought he was a bit of a fool but he liked to believe he made a memorable impression.

He wondered if Ariane had been Prosper’s sign. “How are things with Ariane, by the way?” Forever the bachelor, not by choice, of course, Léon was always curious about the state of other’s relationships. 

Truthfully, Prosper hadn’t been spending much time in Paris at all lately. He’d been in London a lot, staying at Ariane’s place. A couple of weeks ago he’d booked a hotel near the tower bridge for a few nights impulsively. It had to have been longer than that since they’d spent a night apart, actually. “I came by once or twice while you were at school,” he countered, bumping his brother’s shoulder lightly with his own. He missed his mum too much if he stayed away too long.

Prosper reached for the wine that Léon had brought up here himself, reflecting on the first time he’d brought Léon out here to drink, and talk. His brother had really been a baby back then, maybe thirteen or fourteen? And he’d been upset about something - Prosper couldn't quite remember what it was - and Prosper was newly an adult. Ah, he thought suddenly, that had been it. It had been the summer he’d moved out of home, and Léon was upset that he was going.

“Is that right?” He asked, unscrewing the bottle, knowing full well that Léon had been quite enamoured with Ariane. He wondered distantly if Léon had just enjoyed her because of who she was - gorgeous, clever, so very grounded - or if his opinion of her had been influenced by the fact that Prosper was absolutely smitten with her. Léon’s perspective had always seemed to mirror Prosper’s. He took a sip of the wine, smirking a bit when he recognised the flavour as one of their father's more expensive bottles.

He smiled. “I’m thinking about bringing up the idea of moving in together,” he admitted. They’d been together for what, a year and a half now? And they spent most of their nights together at one of their houses, anyway. If she didn’t want to move to Paris, he’d move to London, no question. It wasn’t like the commute was that bad, and at this point, he just wanted to be together.

He was slightly hurt that his brother had not ventured out to Chatoeil to visit him more often, wondering if he might have done the same should there be a younger Lachapelle to look after. There had been many times throughout the year that Léon had really needed someone to rely on, someone that wasn’t any of the friends that he had made over his time at Beauxbatons. He couldn’t talk to them like he talked to Prosper, and that had added to his overall frustrations at school. But he couldn’t blame Prosper either. He had his own life, and no matter how much it made him uncomfortable, Léon knew he needed to learn to figure things out on his own.

“Yes, I’m the youngest and the most handsome, that’s got to count for something,” he responded but meant very little by it, even his tone had lacked the characteristic pomposity with which he spoke. Léon might have been narcissistic but even he knew there was a very distinct difference between him and his older brother which probably explained what made Prosper so likeable. His older brother made being charming effortless, on Léon, charisma felt like a sweater that had been purchased two sizes too small with the hopes that one day he’d be able to fit it just right. He envied him for that but in a way, it was the reason why he looked up to Prosper so much more than any of his other siblings; he was extremely likeable.

Léon figured that someone like Ariane was completely out of his league but if he brought down his expectations a few notches, wouldn’t he have his choice of girls to choose from? Apparently that wasn’t how it worked. “That’s a big step,” he noted but only said it because he was sure it was something he was supposed to say. Léon was impulsive, the type to ask a girl to marry him after three days because it seemed like a good idea at the time. “But I hope she says yes, I think you two look good together, and that way she can come around more often,” he added. “You think you’ve changed? Since the two of you have been together I mean,” he continued.

Prosper had never seemed like the type to ever settle down but maybe things had changed, maybe he had reached adulthood through this relationship.

Prosper gave him a look, like he was a scientist inspecting a specimen. He narrowed his eyes a little, then shrugged. “A mostly harmless delusion I suppose,” he concluded. Prosper used to compare himself to his brothers when he was younger too - it was one of the narcissistic habits he’d actually grown out of around sixth year or so. He knew that collectively, they were all a very good-looking family.

Well… he’d almost grown out of it. He didn’t do it anymore, but when he’d found out about Zoé and Pierce, he’d done a lot of comparing. He didn’t think very much about that these days.

“I hope she does too,” he said. Now that Zara had moved out of their shared loft conversion, Prosper wasn’t sure what he was doing there anymore. He’d had a couple of short-term roommates since she’d moved in with Diederik, but it wasn’t the same as living with someone you loved, even a friend. “If you were a year older we might be living together,” he mused out loud, a bit of teasing in his tone. He’d bet anything that Léon would kill to be a year older right now.

“For sure, man,” Prosper said. He took another sip of the wine straight out of the bottle, his grey eyes focused somewhere in the starry distance. “In all kinds of ways.” Prosper handed the bottle to his brother, then leaned back, resting on his hands. He crossed his long legs at the ankle. "I love her," he said, his voice ringing with certainty. "Really love her. That'll change you." He was quiet for a moment, sitting in the feeling that declarations like that brought up.

"How about you, though?" he asked, not looking at Léon as he fished a bit for the reason he'd been summoned to the roof - a place that existed solely for deep and meaningful conversations. "Any Mrs. Léons I should know about?"

Delusional was probably right but it didn't make him think any less of himself. Léon perked up at the thought of living with Prosper. Though it was very likely that his older brother was just making fun of him, it was an idea he had considered for a long time. Every time the younger boy had ventured to Paris to spend time with his brother, he had enjoyed himself immensely, so much so that when it was time to go back home or to school, a feeling of sadness settled in the pit of his stomach and he considered how much he would have loved if things were always that way. “A year will be over in no time,” he said with a grin, though mostly in consolation to himself, “But you’ll at least let me visit, right?”

He watched the way Prosper stared out into the night sky and assumed it was the sort of expression someone had when they were in love. He couldn’t remember ever seeing his older brother that enchanted with a girl for long, or at least he had never spoken that way of any of his exes, not that he could remember. Taking the bottle from his brother’s hands, he took a sip of wine, before taking another more generous gulp of the red liquid. Léon had been infatuated many times over, which was evident by the different girl he often talked about in letters to his mother or brothers or even when speaking with close friends back at school, but love, he had never experienced it. Of that, he was certain.

“I can tell,” he agreed with him, “I’m happy for you,” he replied genuinely. He wondered if they would eventually get married and have kids because it seemed like the think people in love did. But he refrained from asking, probably a little too early for him to think that far ahead. Instead, he handed the bottle back to his brother, laughing at his question.

“Keeping my options open,” he said sarcastically. He considered telling her about the pretty English girl he had met at the nightclub but in comparison to what he had just talked about, it seemed a little frivolous. “Hoping these battle scars will attract all the girls unless they heal up over summer break,” he joked, gesturing towards the fading bruise along his face and his split lip. But it was hard to joke about it. After pausing for several moments he spoke again, running his hands through his hair as he sought to clear his head. “I think I really messed up, and I don’t know what to do.”

“Of course you can visit,” Prosper said with a half-smile. He had never wanted to be like Pierce, who he had utterly idolised, and who had left so cleanly as soon as he had graduated. Prosper wasn’t the best at writing letters, and it was true that he often forgot about people if he didn’t see them for a long time, but he wasn’t about to cut Léon out of his life. “I’m going to a party this weekend,” he offered, “wanna come? Baby’s first big-boy party,” He shot Léon a lazy smile, teasing glint in his eye.

“Classic Lachapelle move,” Prosper said, even though “keeping options open” was really only something he’d done and not something his older brother or father had seemed to ever have much interest in. Well, whatever. Prosper didn’t mind being the Lachapelle blueprint.
                           
“Was wondering about that,” Prosper said, resting his elbows on his knees, forearms dangling casually between them. “Also wondering why you didn’t just use some murtlap essence, idiot.” He said the term with affection, but thinking about the way his father had looked at his little brother, Prosper really did wonder if he’d gotten all the brains out of the Lachapelle sons. “Go on,” he said, looking at Léon for the first time in a minute, inspecting his wounds more closely. Prosper had no idea what the context was - aside from a snide new look?, he hadn’t commented or asked about it at all tonight. This was their first moment alone.
                                                 

“You don’t have to ask me twice,” he grinned in return, the thoughts of what the weekend might bring for him much more exciting than how he was feeling at that very moment. “Anyway how do you know? I go to plenty of big boy parties at school,” he joked, obviously there was no such thing at Beauxbatons but the thought was appealing anyway. He and his roommates often talked about going to parties and picking up girls, accounts that Léon might have overexaggerated when he spoke of the times he had visited his brother in Paris. But the prospects were looking good now that Prosper had a girlfriend, maybe he had a fighting chance at wooing one of the man pretty brunettes his older brother often surrounded himself with.

Léon shrugged a little, not really sure when had been the last time he had really devoted himself to one girl in particular. He did his fair share of flirting, even if it was often one sided, but was never interested in them long enough to stick to one. They were all pretty faces at this point, and the longer he held on to his charade the harder it was for him to express genuine interest in other people. Maybe it was because he knew that eventually he would have to show more of himself than he was willing to express and that fear alone was enough to prevent him from pursuing the situation altogether.

“I think girls find it pretty sexy,” he retorted with a small chuckle, but more realistically Léon was using the bruise as a way to punish himself, to remind himself that he had gone too far and that wasn’t him at all and that he shouldn’t do it again. It was stupid now that he thought about it, and his jaw still ached, but for a couple of days it had meant something to him. He couldn’t easily forget it. “I got in a fight,” he said after a few moments. “Well, it wasn’t really a fight per say, one of the kids in the other house attacked me because he got jealous we won the Quidditch cup,” he confessed, this was no time for pride after all. “And when it was all over, I punched him, and really it wasn’t even in self-defense and I wasn’t even angry  I guess—” he shrugged. “I don’t know but I feel like shit for it.”

“You can’t say “big boy parties” and “at school” in the same sentence,” he replied with an eyeroll, reaching for the bottle again. Prosper took a long sip, then held it by the neck between two fingers and a thumb, his forearm resting casually on his knee. He always teased his little brother like this; it was the sort of thing he probably would have appreciated more from his older brother, or even his dad. And Léon answered exactly like he would have answered at the same age.

Prosper didn’t say anything when his little brother confessed to getting into a fight. That wasn’t so weird, he thought. And if Léon was anything like Prosper, then he probably had a temper hiding somewhere under all that bravado. Not that Prosper condoned violence like that, of course - he was absolutely a lover, not a fighter, and had always thought Léon took quite closely after him. But it wasn’t strange for a sixteen - seventeen - year old to do dumb shit like that. He was interested to hear the details, though he figured he'd ease into it.

“Good Job on winning the cup,” Prosper replied after Léon had finished talking, taking another sip before handing the bottle back to Léon. He thought for a moment, his grey eyes focussed somewhere in the far distance. “We never talked about that time I almost got expelled, did we?” he asked, tilting his head to the side as he glanced back at his brother.

Léon only gave his brother a grin at his response, his mind almost immediately going in the direction of schoolgirls and big boy parties. He thought about insisting that in that case, those words would go perfectly together and it’d be a pity to miss such a party. Though his mind had almost immediately detoured from the conversation at hand, he was able to get it back on track as soon as Prosper congratulated him for winning the Qudditch cup.

“Thanks,” he noted, “I’m getting pretty good at Quidditch—probably all those good leadership skills I have,” he said a little proudly. He hadn’t had much to do with the team getting the cup, he was always too busy looking out for pretty girls in the stands or complimenting himself to reach his full potential but there had been some improvement. “But I guess the team did alright too,” he added as an afterthought, remembering how all of that talk of how good he was had gotten him punched the first time around.

He looked over at his older brother curiously, reaching for the bottle of wine, “We didn’t but do tell!” he said, wondering what Prosper might have done to ever get into that sort of trouble at school. The first thing that automatically came to mind was a fight but Prosper didn’t seem the type to ever be able to make someone angry enough to start a fight, he’d probably just charm his way out of it. Taking a sip from the bottle, he listened closely, extending his legs and crossing them at his ankles to get more comfortable.

Prosper smiled when Léon talked about quidditch. "I'll have to come to a game," he said, not that he'd remember he'd said it in a few months from now. Prop had been quidditch captain too, not that he and Diederik had done much winning in their heyday. Mostly, they'd just spent their time hanging out with their friends and chasing girls.

Ah. Well, then. “It was about Zoé. Of course.” Prosper rolled his eyes at himself, a lot more self aware now than he had been a couple of years ago. It was always about Zoé, back then. “This guy…” he trailed off for a second, not wanting to frame it like he’d done exactly the right thing, even though in some ways, he still thought he had. “He kind of hurt her? Like, physically. Shoved her. And she was crying…” He shook his head, remembering finding her crying in the stables, and the fire he’d felt inside when she’d said what had happened.

“So I uh, took a couple of friends - Diederik and Caspar...” Léon knew them. Prosper scratched the back of his head, feeling a bit self conscious. “...And uh, I beat the shit out of him.” Prosper raised his eyebrows, staring ahead for a moment before looking at Léon with mild disbelief. It still felt sort of fictional to him, like he hadn’t really been the one to do it. But he had. And his friends had been involved, but it was almost entirely just… him.

“And I still feel like I did the - no, that’s not it - I mean I still feel like I felt the right way? I just cared about her, and he was such an asshole…” He trailed off and shrugged. “I knew I’d fucked up straight away though. I felt like I wasn’t myself. And we outnumbered him three to one..."

“I don’t know if you can relate to any of that,” he added with a shrug, “but I think I get what you mean... feeling kind of shit after."

He would hold him to that promise, Léon decided, hoping that his brother would have the time to come see one of his games the following year. If he was lucky, Séverin might very well be banned from playing but he had kept his promise not to tell anyone what had happened. Even as his roommates had asked when he returned to his dormitory that night, he had just shrugged it off with a chuckle and changed the subject. A part had been guilt but a bigger part had been that he did not want to get punished for Séverin’s stupidity.

Once the entire story had been explained, however, Léon determined that the situation had made much more sense and had it been done for the sake of confronting someone who attacked a girl, especially a girl he liked, well then he would not feel guilty in the least. Not that he wanted to be in that situation, after his first and only fight, Léon wished to never have to encounter that sort of circumstance ever again. “Well he made a girl cry,” he justified, as if it seemed like the only obvious thing to do. “Mom and  dad must’ve been pretty pissed,” he noted as an afterthought. But would they be truly upset? He had always thought that some fights were necessary, especially the ones meant to protect the ones you loved.

“What else were you supposed to do?” he continued, there seemed to be no other way to go about it. Then again, violence was probably not the answer, no matter how good or right it probably felt right after. “Yeah, I felt like I wasn’t myself,” he confessed, speaking slowly as he tried to gather his thoughts. “I mean I was defending myself but he had stopped, it was obvious he was—apologetic, I guess? And I punched him anyway, and I don’t know why I did it. He has a history of being aggressive, who knows what’s his problem,” he shrugged it off. If it made Séverin like that, he wanted to stay out of it.

“I’m just so tired of people assuming that I won’t do anything, you know? I talk a lot and play around but still—I’ve got my limits, I guess I didn’t expect them to lead to fights,” he added. “I don’t know if I should apologize or leave it alone—did you ever do anything else about it afterward?”

“I mean, Dad wanted me to be a healer,” Prosper said with a half smile and a sidelong glance in response to the comment about their parents being pissed. His father had been disappointed in him over and over again throughout the years. This one had been a decent blow, though, and his mum had eventually stepped in after days of being berated.

“I wasn’t protecting her though,” Prosper said. It was a distinction that mattered, and he could see that from where he was now. At the time they’d been the same thing. “I was just punishing him. And I didn’t need to. And - I kept punching.” It wasn’t really a “fight” - Matt had barely got a hit in. And Prosper had kept hitting him after he was down - not a lot (his friends had stopped him) - but enough that it was pretty messed up. He’d been all caught up in his own feelings.

“So he hit first?” Prosper clarified, interjecting, “And like, got you down or whatever?” There was no judgement in his voice, just a bit of thoughtful reflection. “Never,” he admitted. Matt had graduated, then he had graduated and he’d never seen him again. They didn’t have mutual friends. He hadn’t even thought about him for a very long time.

“You feel like you have to prove yourself to them?” Prosper guessed. To some extent, he understood. No one had taken him seriously when he’d been seventeen either. He was a popular, had a lot of attention from girls, a lot of friends… but he was also an idiot, and, like Léon, talked a lot of shit. It had taken him a while to find a space where he felt a bit more centered.

“Dad has plans for all of us,” he muttered a little bitterly, certain that the conversation of his future career would come up at least several times over the course of his time at home. His answer had always been the same to his offers, a quick shrug of his shoulders and an unmotivated promise that he would look into it. He never did. He had no plan at the moment but he certainly didn’t want someone else deciding his future for him.

He made a noise of agreement as he considered what Prosper was saying, still having a little difficult with the distinction between what had been done. It all just had happened in two different locations but the sentiment was surely the same. Either way, anyone who went around shoving and making girls cry deserved what came to them. Léon had not been there but for a moment he wished he had been.

He nodded, “I was putting the Quidditch Cup away and he came at me,” he clarified, “accusing me of thinking I was better than him or something like that, I don’t really remember what he said word for word,” he added. Léon had not given much thought to what had been communicated rather what had been acted upon. “I guess it didn’t help that I told him it was his fault—but it is,” he continued. He was still too upset about the entire exchange to take a step back and realize what he had done wrong. Maybe he would get back to it in a couple of years like Prosper had.

“But I don’t want to,” he stated almost immediately after Prosper’s question. “They all have these ideas about who I am and what I’m about and I’m too tired to prove them wrong. What’s the point? Once I graduate I probably won’t see most of them again,” he continued, feeling a little angered with his own reasoning as he explained it out loud. “You let strangers in and all they do is disappoint you anyway,” he added, his tone softer. There was no one in particular his statement had referred to but the conclusion he had arrived to felt legitimate.