| “ | There was only ever one choice, and we all knew it was me. Why do you think they cheer for the other schools? Because they’re mad that they were wrong and I was right. Truth hurts, unfortunately. | ” |
–Emile to Irina Krum | ||
Emile was the Beauxbatons champion during the 2023-2024 Tri-Wizard Tournament. He took second place in the tournament. He died in the Beauxbatons carriage explosion.
Personality
Émile isn’t the nicest person in the world; if anything, he’s a complete jerk to everyone and isn’t pleasant to be around. Because of this, he doesn’t have too many friends, and if he does, they’re just as bad as he is. He doesn’t prefer to be a lone wolf, always wondering why others wouldn’t want to be on his team in activities or classes, but it happens because no one wants to deal with his attitude. Working on his own so much, Émile has become very confident in his own abilities, leading him to strive to be the best possible in everything.
This extreme cockiness exists in everything he does, not limiting it to just sports and studies. Everything to him is a competition and winning is the only option. When he does lose, which happens more often than not because he’s narrow sighted and an awful partner (especially in team competitions), he’s a sore loser about it. Often found whining to professors after mock duels or in pick-up Quidditch matches when things don’t go his way, he’s hammered numerous nails into the coffin known as his social life. The one plus of this though is that he’s always determined to do better the next time, thus leading him to re-evaluate strategies so that he can win the next time he’s presented with opposition.
Cold and calculated, arrogance is solidified with his family’s wealth. Émile grew up in a rather cushy, upper-class lifestyle. The one thing he hated about this was that his father hired only muggle help, something Émile thought they were above. Not enjoying his rather “muggle” upbringing, especially as a pureblood, he looks towards the majority of muggles with disdain. He believes that having magic, whether pureblooded, half-blood, or even muggleborn, makes witches and wizards a superior race. This hatred isn’t to be mistaken with hating muggleborns though; any kind of magic makes a person ok in his mind. If he were to ever make friends with others, their blood status would not be hindrance, but his dislike of their muggle parents might.
History
Marc Chevalier, a young wizard from France, had just graduated from Beauxbatons when he made a trip over to America to learn the ways of non-magique business. Always being extremely interested in how the non-magique became successful without the use of magic, he quickly figured out the American way of business, and met his future wife, Lucy. The two of them soon fell in love, and married. For the next five years Marc began to build his new chain of non-magical hotels, a more lucrative business than anything he could have done in the wizarding world. He hoped that one day his young family would be able to live an easy life without much use of magic, something he had grown to dislike as he had adopted the non-magique way of life. Lucy, on the other hand, wasn’t too keen on giving up her roots. She insisted that their children should be taught magic, and that they needed to go to Beauxbatons in France. Not happy with this decision, but not wanting to hold his family back, Marc and Lucy moved back to his native France where he made a bold business decision: opening non-magical hotels that also allowed witches and wizards to attend, albeit under magical lock and key. This way the Chevalier family could be supported in both the mundane and magical world with money.
Soon after moving back to France, Lucy became pregnant with their first child, aptly named Émile after Marc’s grandfather. Two years later, a girl, Madeleine. Elated at having another child, Marc did his best to grow his business so that Lucy and his children could live an easy life. The next 11 years were odd for the Chevalier children. Not knowing how to understand this as a young child was very confusing to Émile. He was meant to act like a non-magique when the hired help was around, and when they were in public; but he was anything but normal. His family had magic. That had to have made them better than those who didn’t, right? Struggling with this concept for most of his childhood, he strove to show that he was better than the normal children that lived around him. Finally, the fateful day came where he was enrolled in Beauxbatons School of Magic, his father’s alma mater. This was his chance to become better than the non-magical children he had grown up with, and he was more than elated to expand his magical horizons to prove how great he was.
The next seven years of magical education were probably the worst way to encourage and teach an arrogant, pampered child that he was better than non-magique. The more he learned, the more Émile became hell-bent on the fact that he and other witches and wizards were simply better in every aspect. His family noticed this strange shift in attitude and tried to confront him about it. Émile promised time and time again that he would change, mostly for his father’s sake, but he never followed through with it. He felt that would mean he had to admit that his magical blood wasn’t better than that of non-magical folks. With this idea of superiority, he soon became a target for non-magique born students, the kind that believed him to be a blood elitist. Émile struggled to maintain friendships throughout his school years, and it was soon known amongst everyone that he only cared about himself and being the best. Even his sister started to distance herself from him, especially at school, afraid that the problems he had with other students would eventually fall on her too.
Enter 6th year. Returning once again to Beauxbatons and still dealing with his own demons, news soon arrived that students at Hogwarts, non-magique born ones at that, were being killed. Personally, Émile thought this was horrible. The loss of magical blood was always something to be mourned. Other Beauxbatons students didn’t believe him though. He had generated enough negative ideas about him over the years, that everyone thought he would be elated that these students were being murdered in cold blood. It was too late to back peddle on his ideals, and so he let them say what they wanted about him. He was better than them in his mind, and that was all that mattered. Not having a very enjoyable 6th year, Émile looked forward to his 7th and final year, hoping that the previous year’s events wouldn’t repeat themselves and he wouldn’t be targeted again. Instead, the students of Beauxbatons were notified that the Triwizard Tournament was going to be held again, this time at Hogwarts. The ultimate competition of skill and talent. It was too great for Émile to pass up, and he chose to go, in the hopes of possibly becoming the champion of Beauxbatons, and maybe, just maybe, proving to his fellow students that he can do some good.
The Triwizard Tournament
Much to his classmates annoyance, Émile was officially selected as the Beauxbatons champion. While he had a few capable classmates, he believed that he was the chosen one from the very beginning, and being picked by the Goblet of Fire only fed his ego more. To make it better, the champions were granted advisors to assist them along the way. His own backed out early on in the tournament, and the other Beauxbatons students refused to help him during the period running up to the First Task. Which, after doing a lot of research on past tournaments, he was not surprised to hear that it involved a maze. Compared to his competitors, Durmstrang's Elias Greyback and Hogwarts' Anna Weasley, he was confident in his athleticism and magical knowledge, enough that he figured the maze would be a breeze.
The First Task
The First Task of the tournament started off slow for Émile. After a series of uneventful turns in the maze, he was eventually presented with a tree that blocked the entirety of the path. Unbeknownst to him, this was a Wandeater Willow, a tree that saps the magical essence out of anyone that makes contact with it. Émile first attempted to burn it down, casting Incendio, before realizing that the tree simply absorbed the spell and reflected it back at him. Assuming it was only a tree that bounced spells back, he foolishly climbed over it, immediately starting to feel the draining effects take hold. Luckily for him, he managed to flip himself over a low-hanging branch and land on the other side, but had to pause for a short break to gather himself before continuing.
The fork in the path that immediately followed the tree led him to an area blocked by a freezing spell. Utilizing his jacket, he managed to cover most of his exposed skin so that he could safely push through, only losing the use of his right hand for a brief period of time after.
Concerned about the onset of his magical frostbite, Émile took another turn and stumbled upon a boggart. Fortunately for him, his worst fear was being poor and destitute, and the mirror image of himself that the boggart took on was laughable at best. While it took him a bit to realize the other version's true nature as a boggart, he had fun taunting the poor Émile, tossing galleons at it as it wailed and dragged itself on him. With a simple cast of Riddikulus, the boggart dissolved into a pile of dirt, and Émile continued on his way.
At the next turn, Émile almost ran into the Hogwarts Champion, Anna Weasley. Watching her slowly walk with her hand on the hedge wall, he realized she had lost her vision to something. Doing a giddy little dance around her and without announcing his presence, he ran off down the path to make the next turn. He felt great in how he was progressing at this point, and the freeze spell on his right hand had even started to thaw out.
He needed it too, because the next challenge that presented itself was a manticore. With a lethal scorpion tail, Émile knew his first priority was to disable that. Casting Conjunctivitis Curse at the manticore, he briefly blinded the beast and jumped by, narrowly escaping a stab from the tail. In a series of Incarcerous spells, he managed to entangle the tail and one of the manticore's claws, buying him enough time to retreat to a safe distance. From there, the manticore freed its leg and bull-rushed the Beauxbatons champion, taking a Flipendo charm and Confringo curse head on with little effect. Getting too close for comfort, Émile managed to cast Expulso at a close range, causing him to launch backwards, and knocking the manticore out cold. After standing up from the daze he put himself in, he cast a few more rope charms to tie up the legs of the creature, hopefully keeping it from chasing after him once it awoke.
After a few uneventful turns, Émile wandered onto a pathway covered with chizpurfles, crab-like insects. They immediately tried to climb up his legs, forcing him to cast Immobulus to freeze them, and then Avis to summon a flock of birds, and Oppungo to make them attack the horde. He easily crunched his way out of the insects, and onto the next turn.
Which was blocked by a wall of fire. By sheer luck, the champions were allowed a potion to bring in with them, and he just so happened to pick one of fire protection. Émile had brought it with him as more of a defense for when he cast his fire spells, though obviously it was more useful here. Drinking it, he effortlessly and safely stepped through the fire wall, and around the corner to the finish line. Finishing the maze with a brisk jog, he placed first in the First Task.
The Yule Ball
An uneventful night for Émile. He took a Hogwarts girl that was in Hufflepuff. He summarized the ball at a later date as being "subpar compared to what he was used to attending with his parents back home in Paris."
The Second Task
The second task of the tournament entailed bringing a XXX magical creature through a series of tasks safely, and reuniting them with their family. For Émile, he was connected with a murtlap, who he affectionately named Napoleon. Over the course of the month of February, preceding the second task, Émile researched murtlaps and the potion that could be created from their tentacles, called Murtlap Essence. Spending time to get to know Napoleon better, Émile entered the second task confident about getting through it.
The first zone Émile and Napoleon entered was a jungle. Thick underbrush and unbelievably overgrown, they trudged through the entanglement resiliently. Napoleon took a few large bites of the passing leaves, and genuinely enjoyed the humidity of the jungle. After a while, they eventually reached the door, and passed into the next zone.
The second zone was a blindingly white, snowy forest, inhabited by a yeti. Approaching an igloo village, he and Napoleon were attacked and trapped within a hole of snow, the body temperature of the murtlap plummeting with each passing moment. Utilizing a series of Expulsos, Émile escaped the hole and sprinted towards the door to the next zone. He got caught by the yeti in another series of igloos, prompting him to hide inside one, and then blast his way out through a back wall when the beast approached him. Tripping while climbing through the hole he created in the ice, he became separated from the freezing Napoleon, and had to lead the yeti on a chase through the igloo village to draw it away from his friend. Émile eventually slowed the yeti down enough to scoop up Napoleon and jump through the door to the third zone.
The third zone consisted of two islands, separated by a vast, murky lake. The only way to reach the door on the other island was to swim. Following his murtlap friend through the icy water, Émile encountered kelpie, a hoard of grindylow that pulled him underwater, and several merpeople. He luckily managed to escape each, though every encounter brought him closer to failing.
The fourth and final zone was reminiscent of the murtlaps natural habitat - a breezy, chilly coastal cliff. The nest he had to take Napoleon to was at the bottom of the cliff, and an oncoming storm threatened to make the climb down even more dangerous than it already was. To get Napoleon safely down, Émile cast a levitation charm on him and lowered him all the way to the ground, before carefully following the murtlap by scaling the cliff. Dropping from a considerable distance to save time, Émile landed poorly and may have broken his leg, which he immediately cast Brackium Emendo on just in case it was. Feeling like he was in better shape, he followed Napoleon to the nest, where he received the jewel from his friend, and completed the second task in second place.
The Third Task
Disheartened and discouraged about his loss in the second task, Émile became frustrated that he wouldn't have total victory as he had hoped. He either had to place first in the third task, or make sure that the Weasley girl placed third, but she was proving to be more capable than he had initially believed her to be.
During the course of the third task, Émile struggled to collect the fairies that were required for points, aimlessly wandering across the foggy terrain. He eventually bumped into a snallgaster when the arena changed with the second phase of the task, and it bit into his right arm immediately and lifted him into the air. He was only released when he realized the snallygaster was more interested in the fairy he was holding onto. Using the distraction, he stumbled back to his base injured and exhausted, where a healing potion awaited him.
With the sound of the next gong, he got up and continued, albeit slowly, to the next area full of fairies. He grabbed a number of them and turned to return to base, when he got slugged in the face by a Hidebehind. When he came to, the creature was dragging him by his arm. He managed to escape, though only briefly before he was caught again and tossed onto the ground, and then picked up and thrown a considerable distance. Stupidly, he stood up and tried to face the unknown creature even though he couldn't see it, managing to blast it with Diffindo right as it tackled him to the ground. Limping away with at least a broken arm and nose, Émile returned to his base without any fairies once again.
He spent the next round recovering and allowing the additional healing potions to kick in, making it a total of three missed rounds for fairies. By the next gong, he was able to pull himself to his feet and hobble off to bring a couple fairies back, finally.
The following round was...fruitful, to say the least. Émile happened upon a niffler, which was trying to steal the fairies. Managing to stun it, the Beauxbatons champion returned to his base and started dumping out the fairies the niffler had captured, totaling at twenty-two. Surprised by his luck, the task ended just in time.
And he didn't win.
Post-Tournament & Death
Disappointed by his loss, Émile spent the remainder of his time at Hogwarts in a slump. He, along with his fellow Beauxbatons students, loaded up on their carriage and left the British school behind. Awoken by a loud noise, Émile found himself amidst chaos and a burning, exploding carriage. Unable to move or think fast enough, the next blast killed him.