Will and Ross
The devil went down to France.Will answered Ross almost automatically in French. “Bien sur. I lived here for a little while.”
“Wow, fascinating,” Ross said, his voice rising with characteristically feigned sincerity. An odd pause followed before Ross picked up the ball again. “What was that like for you?”
“Well, I was only about six or seven, so I’m sure I’ll be seeing a different side of it this time around,” Will responded, dodging the full truth but still hinting at it. He turned casually to tinker with his briefcase. “By all accounts, it was better than England at the time.”
“Oh, yeah, certainly,” Ross agreed. “Around when I fled for America, I imagine.” He stopped and looked distantly out the window across him as he recounted the past. “But neither place was exactly untouched by his influence, per se...”
Will caught Ross just as the Ravenclaw began to trail off. “It wasn’t so bad, you know. My dad kept his head down and I picked up French pretty quickly, so I didn’t have to,” Will cut in, beaming with a smile that stole Ross from whatever the blond was feeling, and turned the tables on Ross. “I see you picked up some American on your own travels.”
Ross turned red, his face flushing slightly as he stared at Will’s stunning smile and was taken aback by it. He couldn’t stand it when Will pulled that on him. It reminded Ross that no matter how annoying he found Will, Ross could never escape that bit of infatuation he had with the oblivious Will. He paused to gather his thoughts, and he slurred into his next words to shrug off his tinge of adoration. “...Yeah, I did. I guess. Still got the stubborn London in me, but I default to American.” He picked some of the clothes off the bed, and with no use for them anymore, he stuffed them back into his trunk again nonchalantly. Ross turned his glance to Will, the trademark twinkle in his eye, and asked, “What is there to do here, anyhow?”
“Well, if you’ve never been here before, La Place itself is pretty spectacular. There’s usually something going on right under your nose. All your usual cafes and bars and museums and such - there’s a particularly good museum to duelling. Classical European duelling - the kind we know - technically originates in France.”
“A museum sounds awesome,” Ross interjected between Will’s words as he caught Will start to pace about.
“Haaang on,” Will continued speaking, a look of thought crossing his eyes, and excitedly pulled a calendar out of his robe. “Oh hold on…” With disbelief in his voice, Will exclaimed, “No! How did I not realise? Tomorrow is the start of Le Voltour Massif! The atmosphere when I saw it before was incredible.”
“What’s that?” asked Ross in the spirit of inquiry. He had never seen nor heard a thing about Le Voltage Mastiff in his life. Perhaps it was because he had never lived in France. Or he had never cared to find out, and the opportunity to do so had never presented itself. Will seemed extremely interested in it though, and Ross found that somewhat cute. The douchebag.
“It’s amazing. Basically, a mass of crazy fliers fly from La Place Du Fourmilier to the Alps - near Beauxbatons, if memory serves. But nobody cares about who wins or anything: but everybody comes out to see the fliers off. Banners, crowds, music. I only saw it once and was too little for it, really, so, this time, I’m not missing it for the world.”
Ross swished his tongue around in his mouth as if he were imbibing the idea. “That actually sounds like a good time. We have to go tomorrow. Or tonight, if you want to camp out by the route,” he suggested, jokingly emphasising the word ‘camp’. “Well, that just leaves today free. What do we do then?”
A bang like a gunshot on the door interrupted Ross with incredibly good timing. Beck’s shouting boomed through the timbers of the door unmuffled: “Courtesy call for bar crawl! Five minutes, by the front door!” Will hit his face with the palm of his hand with a bit of embarrassment and a lack of surprise.
Will answered Ross’ question.
“We make sure we’re in a fit state for tomorrow.” ❦
