A/N This is my themed submission for round 4 of the houses competition Year 2
House: Ravenclaw
Year: Year 3 stand in
Category: Themed
Prompt: Cookies
Word count: 2050
I sat outside, bored beyond belief, my legs swinging in the air as I traced the path of a blue butterfly flying above me, watching as it swooped and dived in a figure of eight above my head before fluttering off.
"Luna! Make sure you have some suncream on if you're staying outside!" Mum called from her office come laboratory on the second floor of the house.
"Yes Mum!" I hollered back before sighing. I wish I had someone else here; with mum focused on her new experiment, researching some kind of permanent polyjuice potion effect, and dad who was working on the magazine, there was nothing to do.
I lay there, basking in the warm sunlight for a while as the wind tickled at my bare feet. I watched as a family of hedgehogs made their way across the long grass that dad should probably cut but never really has the time to. I cocked my head as the lead hedgehog, perhaps the mother, raised its nose in the air and sniffed for something, sensing for danger. Maybe it could smell her? How powerful was a hedgehog's nose, did it use its nose more so than its eyes? I made a mental note to research it later, before returning my attention back to pondering on ways to alleviate my boredom. A few moments passed and the butterfly returned and for a while, I was content just watching the world go by, before my boredom also returned full force.
I huffed again. How do I get their attention? I wondered. Don't get me wrong, I understand the importance of both my mother and father's work, but all I'm asking for is twenty minutes. They both say one of my best qualities is the amount of independence I show for a nine year old, hanging out the washing, looking after the chickens and sometimes making the family meal when they both forget. It's not hard - cooking for a family of vegetarians makes the risk of a nine-year old cooking easier. Plus it was fun. But being an only child even with a "very active imagination" like myself can only put off the boredom for so long before it starts creeping back. Could I get them to come and play outside for a bit? It was a beautiful day after all...that might take too long...I have it! Cooking! Doesn't take much time but is fun. What to cook? A stew? I could go get some mushrooms growing in the orchard close by and some other vegetables from our vegetable patch and I have a particular soft spot for dumplings...wait, we had stew last night...maybe not...A lemon drizzle? It was her mum's favourite after all...but what about dad? Surely it would be a family thing and he didn't really like lemon cake...Cookies! Mum loved them and Dad could even take some to work when he's at the office on monday, perfect.
I stood up, quickly brushed off the dry grass that stuck to my skin and clothes and bounded inside. "Mum, Dad, can we make some cookies?"
***
Of course they agreed. Both Mum and Dad take their jobs really seriously but that doesn't mean they don't make time for me, especially when I ask and we go about the process of baking up some sweet treats.
"What are you going to put in them, Looney?" Mum asked.
"In mine? I was thinking about some chocolate chip ones or red velvet ones!" Dad and I tried that variation last time we made cookies together and they were scrumptious.
"Oooh, that sounds interesting," she said, her eyes sparkling at the thought. It was a feature about my mother that I loved, whenever someone said something that interested her, her eyes seemed to brighten and dance with the light.
"And yours, Mama?" I asked, half expecting the answer that was about to come, it would be double chocolate chip for sure.
"I thought I would try making lemon drizzle ones!" she said with delight.
"But mum, that's a cake, not a cookie!" I laughed at my mother's ridiculousness.
"Well if you're allowed to make red velvet cookies, which was a cake long before it was a cookie, then I'm allowed to make lemon drizzle ones." I just giggled as my mother folded her arms and pouted, pretending to be in a huff.
"What's the racket down here then?" My dad, Xenophilius Lovegood, said, strolling in wearing a pink robe. I read an article once in the daily prophet saying my dad was one of the only wizards that could make pink look "bizarre but fashionable."
"Mum wants to make lemon drizzle cookies."
"Well why not, they sound lovely."
"What cookies do you want to make dad?"
"Hmm...peanut butter and jam"
Mum lightly pushed at dad and said "No wonder people don't think we're normal, we can't even choose normal cookie flavours," she laughed as Dad and I both said in unison.
"Who'd wanna be normal?"
The kitchen was a bombsite, an aftermath where cookie dough hung from the ceiling and cookie cutter carcesses lay strewn everywhere. The trays of cookies now sat in the oven and we sat there looking at the carnage in front of us. Not with horror, as some people may have looked at the mess but kind of admiring our handiwork. We had had fun and that's all that mattered.
At least, until the phone rang.
"I've got it," dad said, his face immediately going into business mode.
"Okay, okay, one minute." He said down the end of the receiver, "Sorry to leave you guys with the mess and all but do you mind if I take this call?" and with that he walked out of the kitchen and back up to his office to sort out whatever drama he had to deal with.
"Oh god Luna! I just realised, I have some rather exotic chemicals I left in the water bath!" I'll be right back." Mum said, as she ran out of the door.
I wasn't particularly bothered by it, my parents' work is important, it pays the bills and I got a temporary alleviation of my boredom….ooh I wonder whether the pixies are back by the toadstools. I run out the kitchen, leaving behind the mess, and the cookies, temporarily.
I emerged out of the treeline that bordered on our house, having found the pixies I was looking for, which seemed to be using toadstools as sun loungers as they warmed themselves in the sun. I only observed them from afar, knowing what tricksters they could be. Once, dad had left the lawnmower in the garden for a minute to get a drink, the next thing he knew, it was chasing him round it for about an hour. Another time, mum left the window open to her lab, a pixie came in and froze itself in some liquid nitrogen, it was a miracle it had only found that and not tried mixing chemicals together and made the whole house go boom. I wonder if it was the same lot of pixies?
As I wondered up the track to our house, I saw black smoke erupting from the kitchen. I knew immediately what had happened and ran the rest of the distance, shoving the door open and making my way to the kitchen.
"Muuum, daddd," I yelled, up the stairs as I quickly put a pair of gloves on and took the now aflame cookies out of the oven, only to then drop them when I realised they were alight.
My dad came running in "What is that sme- Oh merlin," his eyes widened at the fire, "Luna get out of the way!" he shouted, taking out his wand.
"Aguamenti," and with that, a jet of water exploded out of the end of his wand.
My mum rushed down at this point. "Oh Looney! Are you okay?" she said, pulling me into a tight embrace. Meanwhile, I just looked at the now, sodden black cookies on the floor. I was slightly annoyed at my parents not to come down for five minutes to take them out, I was only nine yet they treated me like an adult. Still, I guess it was my fault in a way, last one out of the kitchen and all that. If only those pixies hadn't distracted me. I didn't say anything, just turned into my mother's embrace.
My father came over and got down to eye level with me, knowing something was wrong. "What's wrong Luna, dear?"
"The cookies, we had all made..are gone."
"I'll buy some more in town on Monday."
"It's not the cookies dad, we had worked so hard on them, without magic, without anything, just us as a family and now they're ruined...because...because," it was all coming out now and I couldn't stop it, the tears burned at my eyes. "Because...sometimes you seem to love your jobs more than you do me!" I didn't mean it, I knew I didn't but I was angry at them, I was angry at the world and I was angry at the cookies. I twisted out of my parents grasp and ran up to my room, this being my first real outburst in years my parents were probably shocked. I hugged at my toy Hippogriff and just sat there, fuming.
***
A couple of hours later, I heard a faint knock on the door.
"Come in," I said meekly.
My mum entered, quietly and padded over to the bed, where I lay. She sat down on the edge and started stroking the side of my head.
"Luna," she started, "you know we love you more than anything, right? If you were feeling unloved you should have just said something."
I turned to look at her. "It's not that, it just, we couldn't even spend 20 minutes together without you two having to run back off to your jobs."
"I know, what we do is important but you are more important, I couldn't wish for a more beautiful talented, intelligent girl and sometimes you're so clever I forget you're only nine years old. You're so independent and thoughtful that actually you probably take better care of your father and I then we do you, and that's wrong as a parent so I promise we're going to spend a lot more time as a family from now on, ok?"
I just sniffed and looked up at her, not really sure how to reply.
"Why don't you come downstairs and see you father with me for a bit, yeah?"
"Okay," was all I said.
"Turn that frown upside down missus or I'm going to have to do it by force," my mother said, a playful smile on the edges of her lips as she started tickling my sides. I couldn't help but giggle and squirm. Eventually we settled down and she again asked me if I wanted to go downstairs, I nodded this time and took her hand and we walked down the stairs together, immediately I was hit, not with the smell of burnt cookies but of warm vanilla and chocolate.
Three batches, of perfectly cooked red velvet, lemon drizzle and plain looking cookies with swirls of dark brown and jam inside that was sprinkled with roasted peanuts, lay on the the countertop.
Her dad came round the corner smiling. "I've got the day off tomorrow and so has your mother, and these here," he said, pointing to the cookies "Are all for you."
I hugged my dad, and he whispered into my ear, "We love you Luna, never doubt that."
"I was thinking perhaps we could invite Aunty Mavis and her clan around tomorrow, it seems right if we're celebrating being a family, not to do it alone don't you think Looney?"
"I think that sounds fantastic!" I beamed at my parents, the anger and upset I felt earlier all dissolved at the thought of spending time with my family.
"It's such a nice day still, why don't we all go outside for a bit." My dad said, the smile on his face, matching my own.
"I'd like that very much," I said, and we all went outside, leaving the cookies on the counter.