BREAKFAST
Disclaimer: To sue or not sue – that is a totally pointless question as I'm a broke student so therefore it wouldn't ever be worth the effort.
Ron Weasley descended the stairs towards the kitchen in Grimmauld Place slightly perturbed by the lack of general hustle and bustle going on around him. He had been woken unreasonably early this morning by Ginny, looking to borrow a schoolbook or something, but having been thoroughly woken he had decided that he might as well get up and get some breakfast. It must be early, he thought to himself as he entered the kitchen to find no one, not even his mother there, but then again there had been an Order meeting the previous night. This train of thought was disturbed however when he took the time to actually look around him. Every surface he could see was covered with baking racks, all of which were laden with what smelt like freshly baked goods. There were loaves of bread sitting on the workbench next to the Aga, and shortbread and scones on the kitchen table along with something that looked kind of like white fudge. Along the window sill were about a dozen jars all filled with what looked like raspberry jam, and on the cooker itself sat his mother's soup pot that they had emptied the previous lunchtime. Ron was still standing in the doorway a little flabbergasted, when the sounds of other feet made it known that the rest of the house's inhabitants were awake.
"Do I smell what I think I smell?" Moody's gruff voice asked as he clumped down the final step into the basement kitchen. Looking around, Ron was stunned to see the look of sheer joy that flitted across what was left of the former aurors face. "Tablet!" He exclaimed and made a bee line for the fudgy stuff. He was fairly certain that the morning couldn't get any weirder than this. "You really have to try this lad," He began, tossing a centimetre cube of the stuff at him "– nothing compares to…" he never finished though as several other people had arrived now including, much to his irritation, Snape.
"Oh in Merlin's name – I hadn't realised that it was that bad!" The Slytherin said, stopping and taking in the room much in the same way that he had when he had arrived.
"Good gracious." Was all his mum seemed to be able to get out. After a moment's shocked silence though there was a flutter of activity as everyone began digging in.
"Molly – stop trying to box it all up and have some breakfast would you?" Said Remus Lupin who seemed to have arrived at some point. "Ooooooh she put sultanas in the scones."
"Warm drop scones anyone?" Snape drawled, pulling a ceramic dish out of the Aga and placing it on the center of the table that was now a little clearer.
"This is not a proper breakfast." His mother protested as Ron seated himself next to the newly arrived twins hoping to get something out of them as to what had happened.
"Do you know what this is all about?" He asked as Fred poured tea out of the pot that someone had just planted in front of them.
"Not really." George said before handing over an inch thick slice of fresh bread and pushing the jam in his direction. Lupin it seemed was a little more knowledgeable about what was going on.
"This is one of the few benefits of an exceptionally irritated Minerva McGonagall." He said while busily attacking a scone.
"Oh – so this is what Moody meant when he said 'repercussions'?" Tonks asked seating herself next to Remus and across from the other three of them.
"If you're quite finished with the poppy-seed loaf Mr. Weasley…" Came the caustic call from the bottom of the table. George lifted it up and was about to lob it at their former Potions Master but their mother grabbed it from his hands before he had a chance.
"So what exactly happened then?" Asked Ron again, still not certain what any of what he had heard had to do with the copious amounts of home baking that seemed to have appeared overnight.
"Professor McGonagall and the Headmaster had something of a disagreement last night." Lupin said between mouthfuls. Ron chewed slowly on his bread and jam and had to admit that they were both stunningly good.
"Disagreement?" Fred scoffed. "I swear I don't think I've seen anything like that ever. At one point I thought she was going to draw her wand on him!"
"Now, now, don't exaggerate."
"Well in any case," George continued. "Dumbledore told her that she wasn't going to be allowed to do any field work."
"Cause she suggested that it might be easier for her to go by and check on Harry, you know – as a cat, rather than all the palaver we were going through with invisibility cloaks and stuff."
"In any case, he didn't like the idea and it seemed to escalate from there."
"Yeah – it was odd. Snape was the one who put an end to it." Ron obviously looked as shocked as he felt at this.
"Put a silencing charm on both of them." This time he had to struggle not to laugh with his mouth full of tea, and ended up snorting in a rather ungentlemanly fashion.
"What happened after that? And what exactly does it have to do with all this?" He asked after he had calmed down a little.
"Oh, she gave Snape the look then stormed out." Fred told him buttering another slice of bread.
"Then when Dumbledore got his voice back he concluded things and decided that it might be a fairly good idea to leave the Professor to calm down a little. So he headed back to the castle."
"Riiiight. And the baking?"
"Like I said Ron," Lupin continued. "a stunning by-product. Minerva is the best cook of this kind of stuff I think any of us has ever met. However, she doesn't bake often and usually only when she's angry with something or someone. A kind of stress-relief mechanism"
"In which case she was monumentally hacked off last night." He inserted.
"I think that just about covers it bro."
"Well, where do you reckon she is now?" He asked lowering his voice and looking around, half expecting his Head of House to jump out at them from the shadows.
"Oh I suspect she's doing what she suggested in the first place and was going to do no matter what anybody else said." His mother said appearing behind him. Ron just hoped that Harry wasn't doing something he ought not to. Well, there was nothing he could do about that now, so stretching down the table he grabbed a couple of drop scones and started lathering them with syrup.
When Harry woke up it seemed that this day was going to be no different from any of the others he had spent with his relatives this summer, until he saw something sitting on the windowsill. Opening the window carefully he leaned out and picked up the package carefully and hoisted it inside. Carrying it over to his bed, he carefully unwrapped the brown paper to see what it was. After having done this he realised that perhaps he ought to have been more suspicious of mystery packages. However, it seemed that this one was fairly innocuous. Inside there were several Tupperware boxes containing everything from scones and shortbread to tablet, all of which, from the smell of them, were freshly baked. Slightly confused he got back up and headed for the window to see if he had missed a note or something telling him who his mysterious benefactor was. Though there was no parchment in sight, when he looked down he spotted a familiar tabby cat sitting bolt upright on the garden wall. It inclined its head a little and Harry smiled back at it before it gracefully leapt onto the pavement and made its way back along the road. Sometime later that day he realised that though the parcel this morning was a little out of character for his professor, it was more comforting than all the letters he had received since school had broken up for the holidays.
A/N: Yeah – it's an odd one, but then again so am I.
This was a bunny that I woke up with one morning and was so rampant that it was this or decapitating myself grin
Please let me know what you think
xLx