(Around 5:00 p.m., the day of the Not the Bacon thread).


Fauna stood in front of the still-life on the wall, staring miserably at the apples, pears, bananas, and other fruit as if they’d congregated in one painting just to laugh at her. She lifted up her hand and tapped the pear reluctantly. It shivered, let out a shrill giggle, and then transformed into a door knob.

She swung open the painting and stepped into the kitchens, a place she’d visited many times before. Those times, however, she’d chatted with the house elves while snacking on muffins and other leftovers. Fauna liked most of the house elves and knew some of them by name, though she hadn’t visited them in a long time. Now, the kitchens were empty and silent, except for the large cracking fireplace on one end and the two house elves wearing dishtowels on the other, waiting for her with folded hands. Four work tables sat in rows, with chutes hovering above them, so that when the food was cooked it would appear on the House tables in the Great Hall. She looked around at the cookware and saw it in a new light. Instead of brass pots and pans, she saw torture devices, and she needed no further imagination for the stacks of knives. Tonight was her first night of detention. Fauna felt ready to crawl under one of the preparation tables and never come out.

Unfortunately, they were low tables, built for house-elves, and she wasn’t sure she’d fit. Fauna shook her head of her dismal thoughts and shuffled over towards the two elves. The shorter one smiled at her weakly.

“Hi,” she greeted them, gingerly tucking a piece of hair behind her ear. Just this morning she’d been covered head to toe in a nightmare casserole, and she still hadn’t gotten over the feeling of sliminess.

“Um, so… I’m supposed to be here, for detention,” she explained. The word ‘detention’ did not roll off her tongue easily. She’d only been in detention once before, and she wished that all she had to do tonight was write lines! “I’m sorry,” she blurted out. “I know you like cooking, and well, I’d let you if I could.”

The taller elf huffed sulkily, but handed her a folded piece of parchment. Fauna opened it and began reading, her frown growing more and more pronounced with every line of the instructions.

Unbelievable. Simply because Ava had retaliated when some stuffy-faced Gryffindor by the name of Nina Morales chucked rotten food all over her, having already suffered pancake to the head, Ava was expected to help cook every meal for two weeks with the rest of the rif-raf who had joined in.

She sighed, relishing her last moments of freedom as she made her way slowly and morosely through the winding corridors from the Slytherin common room towards the painting of the fruit bowl. Everything was silent, and only the gently snoring of the pear in the fruit bowl could be heard. Nothing gave Ava the indication that someone had already been through the portrait, as the fruit were all completely still.

Ava stopped with one eyebrow raised and her shoulders slump. "A pear? Who came up with the ridiculous idea of tickling a pear?" The pear 'harumph'ed huffily, but couldn't help but let out a loud, high giggle as she used the tip of her nail on her right forefinger to scrape across its 'belly'. She rolled her eyes as the pear turned into a doornob, and grasped it letting the portrait swing on its hinges.

She had never been in the kitchens before. Everyone knew how to get into the kitchens, but not everyone tried. Ava rather wished she didn't need to right now. Cooking was not her forte - much as though she was good at potions, therefore technically should be good at following a simply recipe, she simply couldn't produce edible food. One of the many reasons her mother looked at her with despare on every occasion.

She looked around. She had always imagined a high-ceilinged room. However this room had an extremely low ceiling. Tall enough for Ava to stand up in, but bearing in mind the only other people who tended to come into that room were house elves, the ceiling didn't need to be particularly high.

There were four tables set out next to eachother, each with a different house badge hanging at the end of it. Four chimney-type structures towered over the tables. Obviously that was how the food got to the right tables...That could be interesting she thought, mischievously imagining something disgusting mysteriously arriving in the Gryffindor's food.

She was brought back down to earth as she heard a slight shuffle from over next to the fire. She looked up, and saw Fauna Blake awkwardly shuffling from one foot to another as she read from a piece of parchment. Ava made her way over to the girl, intrigued to see what the parchment said. "They would be insane to eat any food we make." Ava said, running her finger along the top of the mantle - spick-and-span, as most of the castle was. She suprised herself - the words that had just left her mouth hadn't sounded rude or conceited...they had actually sounded...dare she think it? friendly...

Thankfully Nico’s classroom and office was not far from the Kitchens, and he always seemed to be there anyhow, grabbing a snack or two (or three, or four… or five) from the all too obliging house-elves, occasionally running into a few students, which he only took points from if he knew they were playing hooky.  They were still a weird race to him, but very kind!  Anyone who was happily feeding the giant in his belly was kept close to his heart, and he still seemed to eat like his 18 year old self.  Must be his spastic metabolism…

On occasion he would cook something Muggle-specific up for the folk and give them a taste, often left wringing their hands in anxiety to see their reactions.  The first few times he found himself in a horrible depression as the elves spat out his delicious goodies, so much so that he thought he had done the recipe wrong!  Thankfully, he figured out that their palates were just not used to their culinary style once he ate his concoctions himself before serving it, to fix this he would combine the flavors with traditionally house-elf approved dishes which eased them into it.  Now when he walked in with treats, they would crowd him, and some of the more spritely ones started trying to climb up his skinny legs.

With a saddened expression he found himself in the room with two ornery looking house-elves who were probably going to supervise with him and two very sad looking students.

“Hey, kids,” he said, he himself sounding downtrodden, a very odd tone for the man.  Looking at his watch he sighed, “I’ve been instructed to start taking off points once we hit a quarter after.  We’ll start when everyone is here so you two don’t have to do more work than the rest,” he smiled wanly.

From the back cupboards, a noise began to rise.  The sound of frantic squeaky voices and that of an increasingly frustrated wizard's baritone.

"Please!" rang out the booming voice of the Headmaster.  "Please, this is important.  You must allow them to help you.  Mizzy and Foggle, please stop hitting yourselves - none of you are in trouble.  Everyone always really enjoys breakf-"

The voice was cut off by a crash. 

"No! Merlin's b- No! Your new job for the rest of the month is to help the students fix meals.  But don't do all the work for them, they need to learn.  Please stop crying. Plea-"

The high-pitched voices were now keening loudly in lament that they were not allowed to do the cooking.  The Headmaster had not anticipated this.  The elves thought they were being punished, to be deprived of the activity they cherished most.  And nothing Knox had been able to say had convinced them otherwise.

He emerged from the back pantry, having to duck low to get out the door.  He was not surprised to see that Fauna Blake had arrived right on time.  And good, Nicodemus was there as well.  Knox was ready to wash his hands of this.

"Keep those elves away from the stoves.  Have them scrub chandeliers if you need to, oil hinges.  Anything to keep them from helping to the students.  They will try."

Fauna saw Ava come in, but she didn’t say hello because she just assumed the girl would roll her eyes or make a rude comment anyway. So, she stared down at the instructions and pretended to read them while her feet fidgeted awkwardly. When Ava made her way over to her and actually spoke, she looked up in surprise.

"They would be insane to eat any food we make."

Her use of the word ‘we’ was even more shocking. Ava wasn’t trying to be insulting, for once. Fauna raised her eyebrows, nodded, and showed the recipe to her. Whatever was going on with the girl probably wouldn’t last very long, she thought. She didn’t want to respond enthusiastically and then get teased later.

Then Nico walked in. He had the same look on his face that he got during her fourth year in potions, when someone had stolen the supplies out of his office so no one could complete their final exams. The professor never became upset when students blew things up or made mistakes; in fact, mistakes seemed to fuel his excitement because then he could demonstrate how to correct them. She only hoped he’d have the same pleasant attitude about the cooking. Fauna gave him a weak smile. He probably had better things to do than supervise them. Of course, she had a zillion things she would rather be doing, too.

Fauna had no problem at all waiting for the other students to show before they began preparing the meal. She didn’t want to have to do more than her fair share of the work. However, as the minutes ticked by, and no other students walked through the kitchen door, it became clear that Ava and Fauna were the only ones on time. Her face reflected her misery. She stared at the door like a bored puppy waiting for the humans to arrive.

One human did finally arrive, but it wasn’t  a student. She heard the commotion before she saw anything, and her head perked up, straining to hear.

"No! Merlin’s…”

Merlin’s something. Poor guy. Everyone was always making fun of his underwear or his beard.

“But …do all the work. They need….” A wail rose up from the back cupboards, blocking out the rest of the Headmaster’s words.

“Please stop crying…” The noise soon drowned him out completely, and the cries made Fauna cringe.

The Headmaster walked in, instructing them to keep the elves away from the kitchen. Fauna gave him a look. They were supposed to concentrate on cooking, but now they had to supervise the house-elves too? As far as she was concerned, a little help wouldn’t hurt anyone, especially if it kept the elves from crying, which she felt horrible about.

She opened her mouth but shut it quickly and nodded at him. He did not appear to be in the mood for arguing.

Fauna glanced at the recipe again and tried to pick the least painful task. It didn’t look too difficult, it was just a watered down and plain version of soup, but knowing her she’d find a way to make it inedible.

“I’ll start cutting the vegetables,” she volunteered with a sigh, turning and almost running over an elf. The elf held up carrots in one hand and celery in the other, and Fauna took them both with a thank-you.

She set the vegetables down on the counter and reached for a knife, when a clanging sound  made her jump. Looking over her shoulder, she saw one elf set a huge pot on the stove, while a second elf saw her staring and quickly hid something behind his back, freezing in place.

“Wait!” Fauna left the counter and stood in front of the two elves. She heard the cabinet door squeak and noticed ten weepy pairs of eyes blinking at her. Fauna ran a hand through her hair.

Crouching so she was almost eye level with the elves, they waited and looked at her obediently, and Fauna thought she saw a chicken leg peeking out from behind one of them.

“Look, I’m sorry, but we have to do the cooking ourselves….”

The elves’ chins started to tremble and tears welled up in their eyes. Fauna swallowed. If this was going to continue for the whole dinner preparation, Fauna would soon be in tears too.

“But! You can, um, the silverware needs uh, polishing!”

At that, an army of elves rushed out of the cabinet and towards the drawers of silverware, working with an efficiency and desperation that both alarmed and impressed Fauna. She glanced between Professor Gunnar and Ava with a dumbstruck expression. How were they going to get through this tonight, and survive?


((Students are still welcome to walk in late, by the way. I'm just trying to get this moving, hehe))

It was obvious by Fauna's feeble nod at Ava that she wasn't all too comfortable being there. Well, Ava wasn't either. She was terrible at cooking, tired and with someone who - under normal circumstances - she wouldn't spend any time with. But this was her life for two weeks now. She would just have to deal with it. Fauna held the recipe and instructions out, and Ava took it from her reluctantly. This simple piece of parchment made it all so much more real than before. Vegetables. Different types of meat. Bread [cooked from scratch, she noticed with horror]. Lots of different typed of desserts. Fauna looked up and spotted a couple of house elves peeking from under the table, their large worried eyes blinking with expectation. Ava almost felt guilty for the fact that she and the other students involved would be causing unecessary pain to the elves, simply due to the act of stupidity they had all participated in that morning.

Ava heaved a big sigh, and was about to speak to Fauna and the newly arrived [and extremely antsy looking] Professor Gunnar, when some crashing pots and pans and raised voices could be heard from round the corner in the kitchen. Ava heard a horrific squeel of pain and a raised voice, a bellow that could only belong to one person: The Headmaster. He came round the corner look quite flustered, his mane of unkempt hair looking partcularly wild. He obviously wasn't in the mood for consoling house elves, So Ava listened to his instructions and looked at Fauna.

“I’ll start cutting the vegetables,” Fauna looked defeated as she slinked away to the bench with the chopping board. The pile of vegetables on the table was like a mountain. A very daunting task for anyone. "I'll help..." Ava chirped up, her voice a little higher than she anticipated. "That is...if you want? I mean....there's a lot...a lot of vegetables there...and, well...four hands are better than two...right?"

Ava felt the watchful eyes of about half a dozen house elves on her as she spoke. Their polishing of the silverware slowed down to almost a stop as they stared at her - obviously they were as confused as she was. A Slytherin actually being nice to a Hufflepuff? Offering to help? Now that was not normal.

"This whole cooking malarky has gone to miss' head!" she heard one of them whisper to another. The other nodded fervently in agreement. Ava scowled at the two, and they immediately dropped heir heads and began to polish furiously, like there was no tomorrow.