More Than Just a Pureblood

Chapter Two |Year Three|

Chapter Two |Year Three|

***

Amelie sat in the same compartment as her new friends, the infamous Harry Potter, and his friends Hermione Granger and Ron Weasley. The trip had seemed amiable enough, and so they'd become her first friends. Hermione had seemed happy to welcome a girl to the group, and Amelie had been happy to oblige to their company. There was a pile of pumpkin pasties, Bertie Bott's every flavor beans, and other curious assortments of treats. Since, of course, Amelie was native to France, some of these snack she'd never heard of before.

"Oi! Amelie's never heard of these before, have you, Amelie?" Ron exclaimed casually, with pasties and treats and who knows what crammed into his mouth.

"Um, no, I don't think so," Amelie replied, smiling. Ron grinned devilishly and Hermione gave him a suspicious glance.

"Well, blimey, you haven't tried these before, then you mustn't miss out on Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans," remarked Ron, and he took out a pink one and stuffed it into his mouth. He cringed a little, and spit it out. Wiping his mouth on his sleeve, he spat, "Disgusting! That was dish washer soap, ugh,"

The three of them, Harry, Hermione, and Amelie, laughed. Ron glared at them.

"Amelie, you try one," he insisted. Amelie finally relented and popped a green one with speckles dotted all over it into her mouth. "Mmm," she said, savoring the flavor. "Frog legs,"

Hermione gagged. "Frog legs? You're kidding!"

Harry agreed. "But hey, doesn't France eat them often?"

Amelie nodded at Harry. "Oui, at my house in France, our mum steams and boils cuisses de grenouille. That is French for 'frog legs'," she said wistfully. Oh, she could feel the heat of the boiling pot of frog legs, and taste the enticing flavor already.

Hermione smiled. "I get you, I miss my mum and dad's meat loaf. Both my parents are dentists, but... they make pretty good meat loaf,"

Harry said nothing. Amelie felt sorry for him, as he had nothing to say about his parents' cooking. Or, anything, really, about his parents. After what happened with You-Know-Who and all that...

Ron started babbling about his mum's cooking. "Oh, mum makes the best cookies and stew, I reckon she'd send me a pot of stew if I begged hard enough - oh, but her Christmas sweaters are horrendous, I always get maroon, when will she get the fact that I don't like that horrid shade of red? - " Ron paused to shake in horror of the mere thought of the maroon sweater. "Fred and George always get good colors, oh, but she doesn't send Percy, Charlie and Bill Christmas sweaters, I can tell you that already. Because they're so perfect, Percy the prefect and Charlie the dragon tamer, and Bill the former head boy..." Ron talked a lot, Amelie could already see that much.

The young French girl beckoned to Hermione to join her outside the compartment to take a small walk on the outside rails. Hermione saw her, then nodded her head faintly in response.

The two walked out, and thank Merlin's beard the weather was fair. There was a slight breeze, but that didn't matter. Hermione acknowledged Amelie quietly.

"So. What - " Hermione asked, bewildered.

Amelie cut her off. "Ron was talking beaucoup, and so I wanted to take a se promener. Sorry if you didn't want to, you know, um, walk with me. I just needed some fresh air. Tu sais?"

Hermione caught the gist of the French words sprinkled into Amelie's words, and smiled. "Yes, I know. And it's true, Ron does talk a lot."

Amelie smiled. "Can you tutor me on Anglais? I don't want to be thought of as a weird, freaky, etranger. Um, a, er - oh! foreigner. That is the word," she said pleasantly, laughing at her own bluntness with English. At Beauxbatons, she had been the best in her English class. But here, at Hogwarts (or on the train, at least) she felt like an idiot.