βSorry, man. Maybe my ears were damaged in the blast,β Emerson said while smiling and probing his left ear with a finger. As Felix walked over to his cot, Em sat up folding his legs indian style and listened to Felix as he sniffed the air perfectly determining their lunch menu. The matron came and left the food, but Emerson was slightly amazed. βThat's, uh, quite the sniffer you have there, spot on,β he said, repulsed by the awkward...compliment he offered. He knew of the slew of magical traits uncommon to most witches and wizards and an impossible sense of smell wasn't a very good sign, but he stopped himself there. Felix's sense of smell was nothing that Em had any right to speculate on so he focussed on his soup instead.
While spooning mouth fulls of soup and slurping up noodles he decided that it was time to get anecdotal. Silly stories about one's past were always a great way to encourage friendship.
βSo, one time in elementary school we had chicken noodle soup,β he started, βI promise that's not the whole story, see there was really mean kid, like typical movie-style bully and I hated him. He would always tease me for hanging around girls and weirdos too much or the way I didn't always get the movie reference or how to work all the Muggle stuff. Anyway, one day I was so upset I went out and bought a potion from a gag shop that makes whoever drinks it act like a chicken, for about 20 minutes or something like that.
So the next day we were having chicken noodle soup for lunch and I did that not-so-casual-walk-by-and-pour-in-the-potion thing and it worked, I think because he was a little preoccupied dealing with someone who looked at him funny. When it started working I was back at my table with a bunch of girls and weirdos and I chuckled when he started pecking around and stood up to scratch at the floor, but then he started screeching out horrible chicken noises and I cracked up mid soup drinking and one of those long thin Campbell's noodles went up my nose. I laughed even harder then with a noodle dangling out of my left nostril, you know ten year old comedy....wait, no, I'd definitely find that funny right now. So he kept acting like a chicken all day (probably because I put it in chicken noodle soup) and he got in big trouble. It was one of my proudest moments.β
With his awesome soup story over he saw Felix look to the doors behind him, Em turned back to see what it was but after Felix spoke he said, βYeah, if a bright smile and kind words could beat down doors. She'll probably be out there with Justin, who, from the sound of his shouting match with the nurse, he nearly did break in. He didn't look very happy when we...left Potions.β Emerson smiled, Justin was furious, for whatever reason, he probably was just upset because he could have easily prevented any of that, he probably could have made the whole class' potions long before the class was over.
When the matron came in Em was nibbling away at his salad like a rabbit and lifted a hand to his brow and found that the swelling had gone down and that a few patches of fuzz had started to grow back in. He marveled at how assertive Felix had been, Em had never pegged him as the type to talk back to authority but he supposed that there were different sorts of quiet. Speaking of which he thought of Felix and Rosie, sure he and Summer hung around a lot but they didn't sneak off like he and Rosie did. He figured he might ask, hopefully prompting some of Felix's own stories or defensive coverups, either way worked. With the huffing healer gone he asked with his mouth full so to sound casual, β I see a lot of you and Rosie together, what's that about?β He wiggled the fuzz patches before swallowing and going on, βI specifically see the two of you running off to some undisclosed location whenever a bunch of people show up in the common room.β He kept up the fuzz exercises and was grinning at the other Cervus. Em wasn't big into romance and stuff like that but he hoped it would get Felix talking and he couldn't help the prying middle school girl part of him that just plain wanted to know about people's private affairs.