Disclaimer: I am not JKR.
Author's Note: So I figured since there was no Sunday update, a Monday update might be nice instead.
Chapter Thirty-One
Thursday, October 13th 2022
Kitchens, Hogwarts, Scotland
"So what are we baking?" Lorcan is leaning against the wall and Grace thinks that if this kitchen is a size too small for her then he's like a giant amongst men. The house elves bustle around them, fretting about the fact that the two of them are actually here to bake and not eat. It drives them a little bit crazy, Grace knows, but it's Ashlyn's birthday tomorrow and while her sister and Leigh are on speaking terms again, it's rather tense and Grace knows Ashlyn isn't taking it all that well. So here they are.
"Her favorite is strawberry cheesecake," she looks at him. "Think we can manage that?"
"We can try," Lorcan smiles at her and Grace produces the piece of parchment with the recipe her mother had owled her.
"Right," she looks at it, "We need butter and shortbread and… eggs, sugar and vanilla sugar," her lips twitch as everything she names appears on the table instantly. It seems that the house elves are determined to make themselves useful. "Also cream cheese, whipped cream, corn starch and… some other stuff later. Oh and oil right now, too."
Lorcan rolls up the sleeves of his uniform. "So, Gracie, what should I do?"
Stop being so good-looking, she thinks, but she has enough self-control still to not let that thought past her lips. "How do you feel about turning our shortbread into crumbles?"
"You mean I'm beating it into a pulp?" he laughs before he puts the shortbread into some kind of bag that one of the house elves hands him and grabs the rolling pin off the table.
While he turns his attention to crushing the shortbread, she melts the butter in a tiny pot on an equally tiny stove. They work well together, even more so once she's simply put the recipe on the table so both of them can look at it when they need to and in less time than Grace expected they're putting the cake in the oven.
"In 45 minutes we'll need to cover it before it goes in the oven again for another 30 minutes," Grace says, looking at the recipe.
"And what are we going to do in the meantime?"
"I don't know… make cupcakes?" She looks up from the parchment and turns to him, but it would seem that the house elves are making the decision for them because the ingredients for more types of cupcakes than they can possibly hope to bake today appear on the table. Grace grins slightly. "Alright so apparently that wasn't a question. What's your favorite type of cupcake?"
"Chocolate with raspberry filling," he says, "And buttercream as a topping." He reaches his hand into a packet of flour.
"That sounds great actually," Grace picks up a bowl. "Look we even have raspberries!"
Lorcan grins at her and touches the tip of her nose with his now flour covered fingers. "You have something on your nose," he points out innocently as he takes one of the raspberries and pops it into his mouth.
"Oh really?" Grace turns and very carefully sets the raspberries back down. She dips her own hand into the packet of flour and then steps closer to him. He's watching her warily but he also makes no move to get away as she uses his tie to pull him down to eyelevel and then very deliberately lets the flour trickle from her hand onto his hair. "You have something in your hair," she whispers with an innocent smile.
They simply stand there looking at each other for a while until she sees him reaching for the flour and she turns and runs. She doesn't get very far (of course she doesn't, why are his legs so ridiculously long?) until he grabs her around the waist and pulls her to his chest. She tries to get away, but she can just barely reach the ground with her tiptoes and she doesn't truly want him to let her go even when he upends the packet of flour over her and, because he is still holding her close, himself as well. When they are both covered he lets the now empty packet fall to the floor.
"Close your eyes?" he asks her.
She chuckles, "They're already closed."
He laughs and then coughs a little presumably because he breathed in some flour. "Open your mouth." She does as she is told and he puts something in her mouth that at the very least isn't flour. "Okay, now close it," he says. It's a raspberry, she realizes then and she opens her eyes.
"Weren't the raspberries supposed to be for your cupcakes?"
"Wasn't the flour?" he retorts and she laughs.
"You started that," she points out.
"I guess I did," he lets go of her and sits on the table with a smile. She joins him. They end up not making cupcakes after all; instead they snack on raspberries and frosting as they wait for Ashlyn's cake to finish baking.
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