Hollow's Hearts Bakery

Hattie sipped at the cocoa, whose soft mountain of cinnamon-coated whipped cream vandalized her cupid’s bow in the most satisfying of ways. It was Christmas: a hot-and-cold drink faux mustache was mandatory. Even so, the Slytherin rather quickly fisted a couple of napkins and wiped her face clean, managing to avoid sweeping away her pale rose lipstick with it.

The makeup was new, something she’d been coveting for ages and which Mum had finally taken her to buy on a big mother-daughter trip to London. It went so beautifully with her rose-gold eye shadow that Hattie had somehow been wearing a full face by the time she’d filled her arms with gifts for her sisters and a fabulous new shaving brush for Papa. It was a look she repeated now, albeit a little glossier. She was thrilled to see the magic priming formula work as promised: she could eat and drink and exert herself to her heart’s content, and still keep her lips in mistletoe shape.

Round two of shopping had been a quainter affair, and a solo one. Mother had to be surprised by her gift, after all. (Since it was her money.) Now Hattie sat with the spoils of retail victory, patting herself on the back for gifts well done, and delving further into winter wonderland by cozying up to cupcakes. Gingerbread cupcakes with maple cream cheese frosting, to be exact. Each had little candied reindeer horns and a red cherry nose.

From the pillowed bench seat at the antique wooden table, she had a grand view of the bakery’s patrons and the passersby in the street. She had an even better view than the baby, she thought, that tiny bundle in the cuddly bouncer hanging from the ceiling behind the counter. His mother cooed at him as she went about packing up piles of biscuits for a waiting customer. Hattie would be sure to buy some too, something to tide over her sisters as they lounged around the tree later.

A bit of parchment was laid out in front of her, one of the last letters she’d been sending to Prim before the actual holiday. Even if they were staying in the same house now, Hattie had gone through the dramatic tradition of poking her owl from its slumber and coaxing it out the window and down the house’s facade to Primrose’s. This one, she thought, she’d send from the post office in Godric’s Hollow, to make it fancy. There were a set of stamps that had caught her eye.

On the tenth day of Christmas, my true love gave to me, she began to write, one hand occupied with the quill and the other reaching for a bit of cupcake.

"No you have to let me pay for something."  Nicholas said exasperated as Molly kept not taking his money.  She'd sent him plenty of samples during the term.  He'd started to wonder if Cinnamon had time to make any other deliveries.  Of course, it had made everyone jealous of his bakery connection, but he hadn't made the trip for more free confections.  Okay, maybe a couple free biscuits, but not what seemed like one of everything.

"Okay, okay, but just the biscuits please.  I can't apparate home in a sugar coma."  Nicholas finally said with a laugh.  He grabbed the biscuits and after making some faces at Forrest, who he'd only seen pictures of before today, he made his way over to one of the tables.  He recognized the girl sitting at a table that offered a great view of everything inside and outside the bakery, but couldn't place her.  That tended to happen since he as far as he understood how everything worked, he went to school with every witch around his age.  But all he knew for sure was that she wasn't a Gryffindor and she wasn't in his year.  Though the makeup certainly made her look like she could be.

"Please tell me you aren't doing homework."  He said as he took a seat at the table next to hers.  He sat the biscuits down next to a hot cocoa.  "At least put it off a few more days."  Nicholas said with a sigh.  Not that he'd likely even look at his till he was back at the castle.

A moment of being absorbed in the letter was all it took: Hattie found herself jumping, slightly, at the sudden voice hovering beside her. Her head snapped up, yellow hair mostly behaving the laws of gravity, as it smoothed away from her cheeks— which narrowed with a soft rounding of Hattie’s lips. Only her two front teeth, bunnyish with a little gap, were visible. Her gaze was studious, if her mouth was surprised.

But it soon turned jovial at the sight of an upper year. If she wasn’t overly familiar with Nicholas Bevans, she had seen him around enough to know a couple of very important things: he was graduating soon and he was cool enough to smoke cigarettes despite the school rules.

“No, of course not,” she denied, as if she were being interrogated by an auror. Ballerina pink nails cupped over the parchment, hiding the freshly inked words. Hattie knew her letters had far more substance than Neely’s diaries, but they were still private, sort of.

A sisterly tradition. She sat back, slipping it smoothly off the table and onto the seat next to her— farther away from the boy. Perking up, she added, “Just some holiday mischief.” Her eyes roamed to the biscuits he’d set down, and back up to the boy. “That doesn’t look like homework, either. But I bet you don’t even bother, since you’ve only got to worry exams and then… freedom.” There was a sigh, almost. Hattie envied the older students.

Another smile spread on her lips. “Are you shopping, too? Buying gifts for anyone?” The words that she hadn’t added seemed to float between them like a song. Special. Maybe Nicholas Bevans had a secret romance, and Hattie would be the first to know.

Godric's Hollow. What a quaint place, with all its' small shops and small minded people. It was a tiny area, but a good enough place for her to rest in peace in her retirement. She had heard from her house elf that Hollow's Heart Bakery was the place to put an order in for pastry gift baskets for the holiday. Her beloved Patricio had passed away last year, and he had always made cookies for the grandkids (and great grandkids). Charlie had never been a cook, and she didn't want to put her poor house elf to work baking. After all, Wheezy was busy wrapping everybody's gifts and decorating the home.

Adorned in a giant, furry red coat that looked like it was plucked off of elmo's still-warm corpse, the elderly witch apparated in front of the bakery before putting her wand back in her cane and hobbling inside.

She made her way to the counter and confirmed her order-- as well as ordering a cup of coffee, sliding some coins to the obnoxious young bakery worker. From the corner of her eye, she spotted some teenagers chatting with each other. It made her miss her teaching days... But she had earned her retirement. The girl had a sweet look about her, and a large forehead. The boy on the other hand, looked like a complete buffoon, Arrogant and so self assured. She hoped that the girl had sense enough to crush his spirit.

“Are you shopping, too? Buying gifts for anyone?”


Charlie rolled her eyes so hard you could practically hear it. 

Coffee in one hand, she hobbled in their direction, making herself look weaker than she actually was.

"YOU. Children!" She exclaimed, motioning in their direction with her coffee, the liquid threatening to splash out of the mug. "Be decent human beings and help this rickety old woman to a seat!" Charlie barked, knees wobbling as she supported herself on her cane and inched closer to a table. "I have top secret information about a Hogwarts professor if I deem you worthy. Hurry, now!" She was Rick and Shona's grandmother, who delighted in making sure Rick suffered as much as he possibly could.

Nicholas did his best not to laugh as the girl jumped.  But he couldn't keep the smile off his face.  He picked up a biscuit and took a bite while she hid what she was working on.  So it either was homework or one of those things girls seemed to never want anyone else to see.

"If only the professors saw it your way,"  He sipped the cocoa, still too hot but he didn't want to spit crumbs all over her.  Then again, he'd never done much more than he needed to do to pass.  And he wrote big.  "Nope, just visiting Molly and Forrest."  He looked over at the baby.  "I interned—"

"YOU. Children!"

He'd been looking at Forrest and nearly toppled out of his chair at the old woman's  interruption.  He was suddenly very thankful he hadn't laughed earlier when Hattie had jumped.  You, Old bag, was on the tip of his tongue but he strangled the response.  He wasn't about to say something like that in Molly's shop.  Where she could hear him.

He stood, doing his best to not look like he was rushing to help, though he was indeed getting up to help.  He pulled a chair out from his table and took a few steps closer to her and offered her his arm.  "Which professor?"  Please say Storm, he thought.

Molly and Forrest? Maybe they were recent graduates. Hattie racked her mind for a Molly, wondering whether Nicholas Bevans had a secret date with one or the other. She had no idea that he meant the bouncing baby and the woman behind the counter.

She waited intently for some dangerous tale of internship-- she would soon have her own impressive summer gig, she thought. Well, in half a year, anyway.

Eyes on Nicholas Bevans, Hattie (by some miracle) didn't notice the vision in vintage red. A phoenix-crimson coat Neely would have coveted. On the woman (as Hattie would eventually see), it appeared more freshly aflame phoenix than spritely young chick.

The cranky interruption to flirtations with the Traceless were a Christmas travesty for Hattie. Daydream clouds of detailing (and embellishing) the cornering of seventh years to Esther were popped by the pin screech of her demands, one by one.

The sweet little gap between the Slytherin's teeth barred themselves in a less-sweet grit, and she turned, hair once more turning with her.

If Hattie had been raised to respect old people in ostentatious cloaks, Mum wasn't exactly here, was she?

But then... that little sentence changed her attitude.

Hattie swallowed her annoyance and raised her brows. "What sort of information?" She inquired, standing up and slipping out of the booth, dawdling in place while the boy took her warm. She looked to Nicholas, and reached for the woman's oh-so-hot-and-heavy coffee. "Which professors?" She asked, at almost the exact moment her schoolmate said nearly the same thing.

That was the most important part. Who cared if it was about someone boring?

There was nothing like the promise of information about an authority figure to make kids listen and obey. Charlie accepted Nicolas' arm, muttering something about worthless boys who were slow to be polite. Quiet enough to make it seem like it wasn't supposed to be heard, but loud enough for poor Bevans to understand. She was not a soft-hearted woman. She never had been. No. Her dead husband, Patricio, had been the soft, gentle one in their relationship. But he was sturdy and sure, and sharper than most men were.

The girl took the coffee. Good, otherwise Charlie would've tossed it in her general direction for being so useless.

"My name is Charmaine Donovan." She began, making her way to the seat that Nicolas was leadingher to. With effort, she sat down. She waited for Hattie to bring her the coffee before she continued. "I am Shona and Garrick's beloved grandmother." With a sly look, she took a sip of her coffee and waited for them to react.

Why would someone's 'beloved' grandmother share gossip about her grandchildren?  Especially to their students.  Nicholas had been expecting maybe a jilted lover.  Or annoying sibling.  Not grandmother.

"So you're Professors Donovan's grandmother?"  He said warily.  He did not have Shona, and while she was gorgeous, it was the tall muscular Donovan that he had lusted after since the first class he had with the man.  "Wait, his name is Garrick?"  Nicholas never really understood using a shortened version of a name.  He hated it when people called him Nick. Other than a few very specific people who got to call him that.

"That bloke on the boat, are they together?" Nicholas asked.  He hadn't been on the trip but he'd heard enough about it.  As much as he'd enjoyed his time with Casper and Molly, he had still been disappointed at not being able to go on the trip.  That and there may have been some bets made earlier in the year about the professor's proclivities.  Bets he wouldn't mind winning or losing if it just meant some answers.

The word Donovan was like audible gold, and immediately Hattie thought of the sheen that Professor Donovan’s skin seemed to take on when he stood in front of the windows in the Charms room at just the right angle, at just the right part of the afternoon. All tall, dark, and frowning, silently promising a class as pretty as it was instructive. If his classroom rules had sunk in and were not especially daydream-worthy, it was a small price to pay.

And then the word Garrick followed, and pillowy lips spread to reveal dangerously gleeful teeth.

But Hattie’s sizable head spun from Charmaine, upon whom her eyes had seemed to be Spell-o-Taped, to the seventh year, who added something about a boat. Professor Donovan had a boyfriend?

Did they want a Hattie sandwich?

She thanked Merlin Prim hadn’t become a Legilimens.

“What blo—” She thought quickly, eyes swinging back to the old woman. Her tone changed, less demanding and more judicious. Careful, as if a chess-move tone would get her the gossip she desired— and wanted to share with Esther over a round of peppermint cocoa after another shoe shopping spree. “Which wizard do you mean? Does he work at the school? I wasn’t on the trip…” Innocence dripped from her inquiries if her own ears were the judge. Hattie knew her parents had created a winning pair of ears: as they sat there tucked behind blankets of blonde, with little festive trees poked through each, they were perfectly cute and likable, the sort of ears that one chose to bestow with stories of evasive professors.