Snape's Niece

Five

An hour later they (Emma, Draco, and Bill) walked out of the Infirmary and down to the Great Hall.

"Well Miss Snape, that was a stimulating conversation about the uses of Butober Pus in Memory Potions. Hope to finish it, but I must dash." Bill fled.

Emma turned to Draco and smirked. "It only took and hour of the virtues of Butober Pus in potions to get rid of him." She sighed. "I'll have to try Killer Unicorn Fly poison next time."

Draco grinned and slipped an arm around her waist as they passed the Gryffindor table, he sneered at the Dream Team when he saw them glance up, while Emma gave them a courtesy smile. They arrived at the Slytherin table, sitting at what seemed to be Draco's seat. "Move," he said pointedly to Pansy. She pouted and he pulled his wand out. Her eyes went wide and she moved to the other end of the table. Emma was sitting down and she noticed something. Three men were looking at her. Draco Malfoy, Harry Potter, and Bill Weasley--Professor Wealsey, she reminded herself. Interesting.

"So what do you eat for lunch? No wait let me guess; three cucumber sandwiches, and a carrot slice. Am I right?" Draco said in a playful tone, eyebrows rose.

Emma glared at him and sniffed. "No. I eat a lot at lunch, actually." Then she piled her plate with five PB&J sandwiches, and basically three of whatever else they had. Draco had two PB&J sandwiches and an apple. She was half done by the time he had cut his apple into slices.

"Wow," he said amazed that she could fit and entire half sandwich into her mouth at once. "You really do eat a lot at lunch! Almost as much as I eat at breakfast."

"I don't need much to get going in the morning, and I have a fast metabolism. If I don't eat this much, I'd lose three pounds by tomorrow. My mother was jealous of me." She put another sandwich into her mouth chewed, and swallowed. "Mmm. That is a good PB&J, my compliments to the chefs."

Draco stared at her in unbelief. "Even I can't fit that much into my mouth," he said.

"I have a mglphorth, excuse me, a big mouth. Literally," she said mouth crammed full of ranch-dipped celery sticks. "I inherited it from my mother. Mghphagwer gave me the fast metabolism." She swallowed. "Most people learn not to talk to me during lunch. Even at my high school in America, I ate a lot. And their food is stuff like 'Chef's Surprise' or 'Gray Lumps of Unidentified Meat Product in Brown Sauce'. We had several thousand kids at our school, so that was what we got to eat almost every day. Occasionally they'd have pizza or spaghetti, or something but it would look disgusting. But," she said with a sigh, " I still ate it. A tip: Don't eat Brown Lumps of Unidentified Meat Product in Green Sauce. It will give you food poisoning." She shuddered at the memory, obviously unpleasant. "After I was in the hospital for two weeks, because of the food poisoning, and the cafeteria ladies were warned. We never had Brown Lumps of Unidentified Meat Product in Green Sauce again." She smiled slightly.

"Which high school did you go to? I mean, which muggle high school did you go to? And what is 'high school' anyway?" Draco looked (and was) puzzled.

"High school is a form of secondary education that is mandatory in the United States of America. It starts at ninth grade and goes to twelfth. When you get into high school, you are a freshman. It goes freshman, sophomore, junior, senior. After senior, you graduate and usually you go to some form of college, or as you Brits call it: University. The high school I went to was Lake Braddock, it's in Virginia, which is one of the fifty states", Emma explained as she was gulping down another five celery sticks; she shoved a brownie into her mouth after looking in front and to both sides of her.

"How do you retain all of that? How do you remember states' names and everything?" Draco asked, bewildered.

"Mmm, chocolate...Oh, did you say something Draco?" she said torn out of her chocolate reverie. He repeated his question. "Oh, that. Well, you memorize it for starters. Then, years later your teacher will ask: What state is Albany the capitol of? Most people don't even bother to answer; they don't know the answer. But the smart kids will say the answer: New York. How do you Brits remember all the provinces in your country? There's like Darborshire, Yorkshire, shire, shire, and shire. It's kind of confusing." She looked at the rest of the food on her plate, grinned and picked a fried tomato up and crammed it into her mouth. Fifteen minutes later she had finished and the bells rang.