Saturday, 3:30 PM

It was the first Saturday of the new school term and already Serenity had been consumed with homework from all the classes she had signed up for. There were few people in the Great Hall that afternoon because almost the entire student body had decided to go outdoors while they had the chance. She couldn't blame them. A refreshing breeze blew in through the entrance hall, carrying the laughter of older students and the sound of splashing in the lake. If only she wasn't stuck doing her homework...

The table around her was littered with scrolls of parchment, teetering piles of books thick and thin, a quill, and an ink well. Since there was no one whose opinion she cared for, she sat among the chaos with her glasses on and hair held out of her face by a headband. Serenity was scribbling away on a roll of parchment with her quill. It seemed silly not to use a pen, but she supposed the professors wanted their homework done in actual ink rather than the ingenious muggle invention.

An owl swooped in and settled down on the table delicately. She did not notice it until it gave an alarming squawk, causing her to jump and spill ink everywhere. Napkins conveniently appeared on the table for her to mop up the mess, which she did all the while muttering furiously. The owl gave another shriek to get her attention then pecked at the parcel it had delivered.

"All right, I see it," she said heatedly. "Go on, then."

The owl took an angry nip at her fingers before flapping its wings until it had scattered her rolls of parchment all over the place and then took off. She glared after the owl, knowing full well it had been her fault for infuriating the creature. Serenity got to her feet to gather the scrolls and set them back on the table in a jumbled mess. She had no idea at this point which one was what homework!

"You'll just have to sort it out later, Ren," she recited to herself, mimicking what her mother would have told her.

Her attention turned to the package. It was round and puffy with a letter attached. She snatched the letter off and opened it.

Dearest Ren,

I made you something. Sorry, perhaps I should start at the beginning. Your Aunt Ingrid sent me the most useful thing: a recipe notebook with cards! She said to write down my recipes on these cards and put them in the notebook for easy organization. The cards have owls on them! I sent you one enclosed. Oh, yes! The reason I am telling you this is because I decided to go through our giant box of recipes last night and write down our favorites. You do like the meatloaf, don't you? I found your recipe for those Skyrim Sweet Rolls and I had never had a sweet roll like this so I decided to bake some. I made a dozen in case you wanted to share some with your friends and I also copied the recipe on to the card in case they want that, too! Hope all is well.

Love,
Dad

Serenity checked the envelope and pulled out a recipe card with illustrations of cooking owls. She suddenly felt guilty for giving the owl such a hard time. Perhaps she could visit it in the owlery later. Setting the card aside, she opened the parcel to reveal a cupcake holder filled with a dozen sweet rolls that looked absolutely delicious! She beamed. They looked exactly like they did in the game! Her father was a magnificent cook, though sometimes he got meals wrong. He was much better at baking sweets.

She helped herself to one, the troubles of her homework and spilled ink forgotten at the first taste. Serenity would definitely have to find her dad a thank-you gift for baking these. Her mind drifted back to the letter about her sharing with her friends and she wondered what they would think of these. They were probably off having a good time playing in the lake or something. And then it dawned on her. Did she even have a dozen friends to share these with? Philo was the only friend she really had.. And maybe Timothy Pepper. A flush crossed her cheeks as she thought back to Platform 9 and 3/4 and seeing Timothy Pepper for the first time this year. She and him had both been teased by the older students about being his girlfriend. How silly... Serenity couldn't imagine being anyone's girlfriend. She certainly did not like the idea of snogging!

When it came to recipe based packages to students, the act of sending one was nigh universal regardless of the home origin of the sender and sendee. Heliotrope, for example, had her own package delivered this moment. It took a moment for the significance to dawn on her as she rarely got packages. Yet here was a package, wrapped in paper crinkly from damp and dry-out, bound up with kelp length instead of string. Smudged note as well though reading smudged was a skill Heliotrope had if smudged was ever considered a legitimate form of script.

As for her package contents: even for having spent her early life in a loch Heliotrope had a long moment of trying to determine what it was she had been mailed. Something greyed and tough, wrapped in more paper. Butcher paper this time. Grilled grindylow. Which did resurface a memory about telling her mother about the former caretaker's cooking of grindylow as a meal. Unheard of in Loch Lomond, grindylows were more anomalous to sheep for the colony in that it was grindylow tempered kelp they values enough to put up with the pest water demons.

Her mother must have attempted to cook a grindylow that had not been sold off to the Diagon menagerie last summer. Heliotrope picked up the almost jerkified grindylow flank. Even though most on the Hufflepuff table had grown accustomed to the fact that one of their number could stomach raw wriggling fish, there were a few winces along the table when she took an experimental bit.

Chewy. And for Heliotrope's rating of flavors outside of the despised cheese the spectrum was one of chewing consistency. Absent-mindedly, forgetting that she was not in the common room within throwing range of the waste bin or fireplace, Heliotrope crumpled up the paper and lake greens of her packaged and tossed them away.

Right to bop on the head of Serenity Lee Blackthorne.