Chapter Eleven: Brie

Brie’s alarm went off at 7:30. He’d told everyone that he was a morning person. He was not. He went into the bathroom, combed his hair, and shined his Hufflepuff emblem before putting on his Hufflepuff vest and heading down to the kitchen.

He wondered when the daily prophet would come in, there was a court case he was interested in, concerning the ministries anti muggleborn position. They had one muggleborn per department. Exactly. 

Brie walked into the kitchen. 

Natsuki and Gale were shouting and writhing on the floor. “The cappuccino is mine!” Gale yelled, doing a summersault and flipped.

“I’m winning this fight!” Natsuki shouted, grabbing his foot as he flipped and Gale fell to the ground. Natsuki stood up and grabbed the cappuccino running away. “Brie, restrain him!”

“Uh-”

Natsuki ran out of the kitchens and Gale went running after her. “You’re cheating!”

“I won! You just didn’t admit it!” Natsuki yelled back at him, taking sips as she ran.

Emilia walked into the kitchen. “There was a lot of yelling, but I didn’t really understand what was going on, since Natsuki said she would share the cappuccino, so I stayed out of it.”

Brie laughed. “Probably a good idea.”

“I got you a smoothie! Question: do you want mango chunks in it? It’s a mango yogurt chia seed smoothie, not to worry, the dairy is from cows that lived happy lives, I checked myself.”

Brie nodded. He would not have coffee, caffeine was an addictive drug. “Hm, that’s a lot to think about, the mango chunks could modify the texture negatively, but at the same time they could complement the smoothie giving it the necessary umph.”

Emilia clapped her hands, like she always did when she was excited. “Yes! I thought about that too. You know how eggs that have eggshells in them are the worst thing that ever happened to this world? Well, I’m really hoping that the sudden change of texture isn’t like that. I want it to be like boba in bubble tea.”

“Let’s do a controlled experiment to see which one is better,” Brie suggested.

Emilia nodded importantly. “Let’s do that. I’ll get the test materials ready.”

***

Breakfast was delicious. Emilia was picking out all of the kiwi pieces from the fruit salad. “It’s so slimy!” She said, repulsed. “Why does anyone like the seedy slimy fruit?” She shuddered.

Gale, who was for some reason sitting at the Hufflepuff table, took the kiwi pieces off of her plate and ate them. “Delicious. You can put the rest of them on my plate from now on.”

Emilia’s face lit up. “So I won’t have to see these abominations anymore!” 

“Yes, operation make sure Emilia doesn’t see the kiwi pieces.” Gale said, taking another kiwi piece. 

Emilia nodded. “It makes me lose my appetite.”

“Speaking of losing my appetite, did you hear that the Head of Dragon Conservation still has not been charged with obstruction of justice and illegal trophy hunting?” Brie said it all in one breath. 

“No, I did not, because that is the epitome of uninteresting.” Gale reclined and took more Kiwi.

Natsuki glared at Gale, “show some interest, newcomer.”

“It’s your fault, I didn’t have my, I care about the world cappuccino this morning.”

“I clearly won the fight, and for some reason you just kept on fighting?” Natsuki handed him normal coffee. “Feel the manliness, have bitter sophisticated people’s coffee.”

Gale took the coffee nervously before swigging the coffee. “Aw, shit. I burnt my tongue.” He handed the coffee to Blue. “Here, you’re manly and sophisticated.”

“Thanks.” Blue said, taking the coffee.

Gale burst out laughing, and Blue confused started laughing too, spitting out the coffee. 

“It’s all over your food-” Gale choked and continued laughing. Brie considered taking a sip of the coffee, but he didn’t want the caffeine. 

Emilia was assorting a new dish for Blue and thrust it onto his plate. Blue then looked up to Gale, “what was so funny?”

“Just how confident you were in your manly sophistication.”

Blue’s face turned red. Instead of responding, he took another sip of coffee.

“That won’t change you.” Gale said, he grabbed another cup of coffee, “don’t worry, you’re fine the way you are.”

“He actually isn't,” Brie said. 

“I agree.” Emi said quickly. 

Brie cleared his throat. “Blue has many flaws that he should work through.”

“You’re also flawed!” Blue snapped. “Like- you’re always correcting people and it’s the worst!”

“It’s actually fascinating.” Gale reprimanded.

“I’m just trying to make people more self aware, when someone messes up I should tell them why I think they messed up and we can debate about it.”

“One of Brie’s main interests in life is debating,” Emilia translated. 

“Yes, it is.” Brie smiled at Emi. “Thanks, Emi!”

Blue rolled his eyes. “I get it, you all grew up with perfect lifes and you’re all faking it to be so perfect.”

Gale put his arm around Blue. “Chill, dude.”

Blue stood up. “Why are you pretending to be one of them, Gale?”

Gale cringed. “I’m making friends. These people are cool.” Gale turned to Brie, “feel free to criticize him right now. He could really use it.”

Brie stood up. “I’m not perfect. We’re not pretending, I guess you just aren’t used to this kind of environment.”

“Are you insulting my family?”

Sort of. “Listen Blue, you’re acting out. Please just breathe.”

Blue sat down and took another sip of coffee. “What makes you think I wasn’t breathing?”

Natsuki let out a laugh. “Thanks Blue. Thanks for sitting down.”

Blue’s face went red and he took another sip of coffee. The bell rang. The first class was about to happen. Excitement filled Brie. He turned to them. “Let’s try our best!”

“Yeah!” Emilia said.

It struck Brie that the bell ringing had meant that the class had started. Brie bolted to Herbology.