Summary: Scorpius was often left in the care of the family house-elf, but the two made the most of it to pass the time.

Rated: K

Genre: Family

Warning Tag: References Doctors/Hospital

Competition/Challenge Block:
Written For: The Houses Competition (Year 7); Monthly Challenges for All (Year 3)
House/Class: Slytherin/Muggle Studies
Task (Prompt): Drabble (Coffee Mug)
Word Count: 802
Beta(s): VanillaAshes, shy-n-great

The Art of Crafting

Arts and crafts were one of several ways Scorpius warded off boredom. Dizzy the house-elf was often left to plan and entertain him when his parents were preoccupied with other things or when they had to travel to St. Mungos for his mother's appointments. This meant he was alone regularly—well, alone with Dizzy—and had too much time on his hands and a too large empty mansion to be isolated in.

He already explored the nooks and crannies of the oversized home, even discovering secret passages that had now been thoroughly investigated and played in. Tutoring lessons only took up a small portion of the mornings, and the garden, despite the endless acreage the land around his home had, was mostly off limits and undeveloped.

Dizzy knew how to pull his interest into things, and this time around it was arts and crafts. To Scorpius, there were endless options that hid under this blanketed term, and he was curious and determined to try as many as possible.

This particular day was a lonely one, his parents were going to be gone most of the day due to a long, important appointment his mother had to attend, so it was a good day to practice one of the harder crafts.

Scorpius sat in front of a pottery wheel for what felt like hours now, his complete focus was on the mound of wet clay that spun in its center as he concentrated on forming it into what he envisioned it to be—new coffee mugs for his mother and father.

Scorpius' plans went well, he would have a beautiful matching set for his parents to enjoy their morning coffee in while they sat in the solarium enjoying their omelettes and toast.

"Add more pressure. Don't be afraid," Dizzy instructed, pointing to his thumb that acted as a shovel where Scopius was trying to move the clay to the sides by making an indent to hollow out the area of the mug.

"Yes, good. Wonderful!"

He tried to ignore the abandoned blobs of clay sitting on the counter he could see just in the corner of his eye. Dizzy ensured that perfection was not mastered in a day even though she had made a sample mug for him with such skill and efficiency he almost forgot to listen as she talked through the demonstration. She had placed the failed attempts in order of "completion" so he could see how he had improved the design each time to help build his confidence. That was six mugs ago. Seven was a magic number, right?

Scorpius subconsciously stuck his tongue out in the corner of his mouth as he now steadily carved out the inside and smoothed the edges. The excess he trimmed out would be crafted into the coffee mugs handle. Once he stopped the spinning wheel, his eyes lit up at the end result.

"It's perfect!" he exclaimed, jumping to his feet. "Look, Dizzy! No bumps or dents!"

The elf nodded approvingly. "Now, the hard part."

He nodded and quickly jumped in on molding the handles shape. Binding pieces was the difficult part because it ran the risk of an air bubble getting locked in the binding areas and it exploding in the kiln. Scorpius made sure to cross hatch the lines on both mug and handle before he turned it a quarter one way before adjusting it back where it needed to go. This was done on both the top and bottom. Then, Scorpius gently spread the clay out around the connection areas, smoothing it into the coffee mug so it would appear seamless and one piece.

The results were remarkable, and he couldn't wait for the mug to dry so he could glaze it and put it in the kiln.

"Onto the second one," Scorpius said, placing another good amount of clay on the pottery wheel to craft another one.

This one didn't take as long as the other, or perhaps Scorpius simply lost track of time, but he soon found himself placing his dried and glazed coffee mugs into the kiln so Dizzy could set it to cure and harden the mugs for use. Now he could only hope that they didn't get blasted to pieces from air pockets.

He sat there on a stool in the basement where they worked and waited, listening for any sounds of the pottery breaking. Nothing of the sort seemed to have happened. Finally, Dizzy pulled the finished pieces from the kiln and presented the twin coffee mugs to their maker. Scorpius beamed at how shiny the purple was on one and how sheen the blue-grey turned out on the other.

"Your parents will love these. Wonderful craftsmanship, Scorpie," Dizzy praised, turning them in her hands carefully before handing them to Scorpius. "What shall we try for tomorrow?"