[kitchens | mp] a little dream of mine [hyacinth]

The little box she’d decoupaged had seemed, after she’d finished it, rather pathetic, so she was coming down to swipe some Ginger Newts to put in it as a bonus. She didn’t know the recipient of the gift, a Ravenclaw the year above her, very well -- truthfully she’d sort of hoped to get a boy, as she’d always had good luck giving baked goods to boys -- and so she wasn’t sure quite how much effort she was meant to put into this. A price limit was one thing, but the guidelines for handmade gifts had been more vague.

Maybe it would be be better just to scrap this plan and get a self-stirring stick or something -- Moon liked potions, she was pretty sure -- that would set her back about five sickles, and then she could give the decoupaged box to someone she didn’t have a cost limit on.

But she’d come this way, and she didn’t have to make biscuits if she didn’t want -- there were always biscuits in the kitchens.

And when she got into the kitchens, grabbing some Ginger Newts out of a cupboard and dipping was even more appealing: there were a couple Ravenclaws in one corner huddling over a pot of ominously billowing, green smoke -- Donna didn’t care about them -- and there was Hyacinth over at another worktop.

Donna breezed past as breezily as she could -- she wasn’t sure she liked Hyacinth anymore now that she was hanging around nutjob Isaac Hackney and his nutjob friends -- but couldn’t help a double take. “Ooh,” she said with interest, “What are you making? Is that for Christmas?”

She shook her head to clear it, though -- “I’m just getting some Ginger Newts.”

@Hyacinth Reed

Hyacinth pulled her hair back into a ponytail and washed her hands before she started working on the cookies she planned to make her secret snidget. It was her for her friend Donna, a Gryffindor in the year above her. She liked Donna, despite them competing in quidditch. She thought she was tough—well it didn’t take much for Hyacinth to find someone tough—but she was still nice, and that made the Hufflepuff happy. She also gave her the time of day, which, as an older student, she didn’t really have to. She was making a basic shortbread cookie, as she knew it was one of Donna’s favorites.  She had been slaving away over the batter for awhile, trying to get it just so. She was good with exact measures and times, and baking was, more than cooking, a science. She had-wrote her recipes, but she followed them carefully every time.

She was surprised when Donna came in, and blushed, instinctively trying to hide her batter without realizing that Donna couldn’t immediately know what they were for. “Ahh—Hi Donna, you scared me.” She chuckled. “I’m making cookies, how are you?” She asked, trying to smooth over her awkward initial reaction. “They’re for my secret snidget.” She confessed. “Want a taste of the dough?” She asked, carefully spooning a bit from the bowl to give her.

She and Donna hadn’t been as close this year and Hyacinth wasn’t entirely sure why, but she wanted to try hard to make sure Donna still liked her. If it meant giving her a taste of (her own) cookie dough, why not?

“Ooh,” said Donna, with more interest. She knew it was none of her business, but she’d been trying to figure out who was whose secret snidgets ever since assignments had come out, because some of the pairings were hilarious, and because she wanted to know who had her. It had been slow going; most people were much more secretive with their secrets than Donna herself was.

It was bad form, of course, to ask outright, so her first tactic was divulging her own gift’s recipient. She wasn’t sure she trusted Hyacinth to keep her confidence, with the company she kept these days, but she said anyway, lowering her voice conspiratorially, “Mine’s in the year above me -- Alis, I think her name is -- one of those Ravenclaws.” It didn’t seem necessary to explain what she meant by that -- surely Hyacinth knew enough Ravenclaws to assume. Donna liked the few Ravenclaws she was close to, but they were a tiresome lot.

Hyacinth offered her a bit of the dough, though, and Donna shook her head quickly -- “No, I couldn’t,” she said. For all she knew these were Hackney’s biscuits. She found a stool nearby and positioned it underneath the shelf she was looking for, climbed on top to reach the Ginger Newts; she took a handful and dropped them into a drawstring bag, then climbed back down and nudged the stool back under the table. It felt rude to leave immediately, though, so she propped her elbows onto the worktop next to Hyacinth and watched her working at the batter.

“Is it shortbread?” she added; now she really hoped it wasn’t for Hackney.

“It is shortbread!” She agreed, “That’s your favorite, isn’t it? Go on, taste.” She encouraged. She smiled widely at her, looking at the girl’s pretty face and admiring her a little. Donna was very pretty, even though she didn’t seem to try quite as hard at it as other girls. Hyacinth, in particular, tried very hard to be pretty. She felt like she needed to be decent to look at in order to get anywhere in this life, but she envied the other’s ability to be pretty with what seemed like no effort.

“How have you been? It’s been a while since we caught up. I figured you didn’t like me anymore.” She teased lightly, though it was her way of trying to alleviate her own fears. Maybe Donna would just say she was busy and then Hyacinth would feel better.

“Did you get a secret snidget this year?” She asked. “I know not everyone picked one, but I think it’ll be fun this year. I think mine will like what I am making them. My shortbread cookies are great, though my vanilla sugar ones are my specialty.”

Donna swung her bag of Ginger Newts by its drawstrings, watching Hyacinth mix the batter. “Close enough,” she grinned, “My favourite biscuit, at least.” Her favourite desserts -- well, she probably had too many of them to classify, but she was partial to fruit tarts and fudges. She put her little finger in to swipe a bit of the dough off Hyacinth’s proffered spoon -- “Mm,” she said. “Delicious.”

She was about to snatch up her Newts and go, but Hyacinth wanted to talk, so she plopped them down on the worktop, opening her mouth to rattle off something meaningless -- you know, school, Quidditch, whatever -- and was caught off guard by the tail end of the sentence. “Oh, no, of course not,” she said uncomfortably, “I just figured you’re busy with your other… friends.”

This was not much of an answer. It was also not true. Donna was definitely avoiding Hyacinth. Not because she didn’t like her -- she liked Hyacinth alright -- just not the company she kept.

She shook her head to clear it. “Yeah,” she said with surprise, “Moon -- year above me, Ravenclaw. Why, who’s yours?”

Hyacinth could tell there was a little discomfort in the way Donna said no, and it hurt her feelings just a little bit. She liked Donna, valued her friendship just about as much as the others—they weren’t exactly best friends, but they were friendly and Hyacinth knew, if asked, she would do whatever was in her power to help Donna when she was needing help. Of course, Hyacinth felt that way about most people. She moved through the world with an innocent sense of naiveté, valuing every person she met as a good friend until proven otherwise. For example, she would never again mistake her sister Iris as a friend, but Donna was not Iris by a long-shot. She felt bad that she might have done something wrong. 
 
Of course, with Hyacinth’s naiveté, there came a vulnerability and gullibility. She was easy to fool, by nearly anyone with any modicum of skill. She thought that her lost Slytherin boys were just that, lost. They needed a feminine touch, care, and compassion and then they could blossom into strong, good men. This is what Hyacinth believed, and they let her believe it because it was beneficial to them to be mothered. She didn’t mind it, but it made sense that some others would find her attention to the dark, mean boys to be ill-placed. Hyacinth simply thought they could be better than they were if only they had a little love to protect them. Love conquered all, right? 
 
She smiled despite herself, and accepted the response. “I always have time for you, Donna.” She promised. “Want another bite of dough?” She asked, careful. She hesitated a bit when Donna asked who her secret snidget was, contemplated avoiding the question, but ultimately decided the game was up. “Ahh, actually.” She began. “I hope you really do like them, because they’re for you, after all.” 

I always have time for you, Donna. Hyacinth was making it really difficult to be snippy at her, which was absolutely infuriating. For a moment Donna wavered between saying outright that she didn’t like the boys Hyacinth was hanging about with all the time (she was too nice to them and they were taking advantage of it – either Hyacinth was morally colourblind or she was really, really dumb) and carrying on with passive aggression. She said, vaguely, “Well, I don’t really get along with that Isaac Hackney, anyway – doubt he’d want me hanging around.”

She took Hyacinth up on the offered dough (feeling half-guilty that she was depriving Hyacinth’s mystery Secret Snidget of it) and was still sucking sugar off her pinky finger when the other girl admitted it was for her. Donna’s eyebrows shot up – “Oh!” she said. “Well, I do like them, very much – brilliantly done.” It made her want to offer Hyacinth something she was baking (the shortcoming of the methodology of a gift exchange like this one was that she didn’t get the opportunity to reciprocate the way she would have liked to; she’d have to figure out when Hyacinth’s birthday was and make something then) but, of course, all she had were Ginger Newts and they were for Alis Moon and she hadn’t even baked them, just taken them from a tin on a shelf.

It felt rude to ditch the conversation now; it wasn’t like she was in a hurry. She leaned against the bench and tilted her head, now watching Hyacinth’s baking with a touch more interest. (She had every right to; she was going to eat it.)

“Where’d you learn to bake?” she said, curiously. “Do you do it with your mum?”

Hyacinth sighed a little bit, starting to realize what was going on. Donna didn’t like her friends. Hyacinth knew, to some degree, that her boys were not nice people. She just thought they were little lost boys, like in Peter Pan, and she was Wendy. They needed someone to show them better, and do it with kindness, and she thought that this was a good thing to attempt. She wasn’t ready to write them off as bad people just yet, even if they did sometimes take advantage of her naïveté. She wasn’t completely stupid, just very optimistic and always looking for the good in people. She wanted to think Isaac and the others could be saved, somehow, the same way she felt about Rowen. 
 
This was only further complicated by her family’s dark reputation. While Hyacinth looked little of a Reed on the surface—kind and gentle-hearted and optimistic—she was still born a Reed. Her sister, Iris, was a Death Eater and everyone knew it. She had been tried very publicly, and only managed to get off by a technicality due to the family’s very good lawyers. While her mother and father weren’t necessarily Dark Lord sympathizers, she knew her cousins were. Linden, in particular, was almost definitely another Death Eater, as well as his father. As far as Edan was concerned, she wasn’t sure if he was a sympathizer or not. He was closer in age to Azalea, her youngest sister, and the two of them were rather close. She didn’t think Azalea to be a dark witch, so possibly Edan was safe. Even so, one Death Eater within a family was one too many.  
 
Hyacinth was afraid that everyone saw and knew and suspected Hyacinth of being dark and evil, too. This was why she had gravitated, in the beginning, towards other people of similar backgrounds and status as her. Rowen never berated Hyacinth for having a Death Eater in the family. She never begrudged Hyacinth’s family their wealth. She had taken to darker friends and Slytherins originally just to keep herself safe from bullying, but had started to branch out and collect damaged people like birds with broken wings. She wanted to help them learn to fly. 
 
She sighed a little more, shifting her weight nervously. “Isaac isn’t that terrible when you get to know him.” She offered, not one who knew him as well as, say, Magnolia. “I think he just needs a little care and some direction.” She shrugged. “Either way, we don’t need to hang around with him, if you would rather not. I swear I don’t spend all my time with Slytherin boys.” She responded playfully. “You enjoy quidditch, I remember. Maybe we could plan a field exercise and do it together. Do you ever run, or just fly? Perhaps a race around the pitch would do both of us some good, on foot or in the air.” She smiled brightly. Hyacinth ran every day. It was one of her favorite times of day. It released endorphins for her, it left her a moment of peace inside her head. Also, she frequently paired up to do it with Benjamin Danvers and she really liked his company, despite knowing that it was destined to stay platonic. She knew enough about boys, barely, to know when one liked her—or so she thought—and Ben definitely gave the overprotective big brother vibes to her, rather than the jealous potential-boyfriend vibes. He didn’t like her other friends, Isaac and his friends, either… but it stemmed from a place of worry for her safety than romantic liking. She appreciated it anyway. She knew he had told his best friend, Alexander Zhen, that she was off-limits, too. Alexander was nice, but never loved girls for long. Hyacinth would be quick to fall for his games, though, should he try them. Even she knew it was for the best that he steer clear. 
 
When it came to love and liking, Hyacinth was a novice. She had never really had that many crushes and had zero experience to speak of, either with girls or boys. She found the Lovell girl, a Hufflepuff in the year above her, extremely beautiful and charismatic, which confused her. Still, most of her liking had been towards boys who were objectively handsome and who she thought she should find alluring. She also found herself a bit nervous around Rowen, but doubted greatly that it was attraction. It might have just been fear coupled with Rowen’s obvious beauty, which, in Hyacinth’s opinion, surpassed her own. 
 
As Donna mentioned her baking, she smiled a little wider. “Oh! No, no. My mother never lifts a finger around the house.” She responded, a little playfully. “She lets the house elves do most of the cooking, but every now and then my father and I would bake together. He’s a potioneer, or, well, was before he retired and left the shop to my oldest sister, Cassia. He always said that baking was a lot like potions. It’s an exact science.” She laughed. “Potions is one of my better subjects, though, and I think I can contribute that to my attention to detail and patience that I developed by baking with my father.” She smiled.  
 
“I imagine that, after I graduate, I’ll go work in the shop with Cassia and Iris…. If they’ll have me. Of course, I’ve always been more interested in the herbology side of things than the potions side, but herbology is important to a good apothecary, right? Maybe they’ll let me do something like that. Or, maybe I’ll want to work with animals instead, who knows?” She shrugged. “You have any idea what you want to do after graduation?” The batter was done now, and she had carefully shaped it into cookies to place in the oven. She offered Donna a full cookie’s worth of dough, if she desired. 
 
“Professional Quidditch?” She offered. “I know you’re good enough for it. You’ll definitely be quidditch captain next year, you know.” She knew that she, herself, was the Hufflepuff quidditch captain, but she was rather humble about it. She was pretty sure it was because she was the most senior person on the team and not because she was the best. She was a good player, and a very kind leader, but she could be more competitive and a little stricter. Hyacinth was nice, but she was often “too nice” and let things go that she really ought to have not. She was great at morale boosting, but not great at really taking the reins for anything. She had hoped that the position would have made her a bit more assertive, and in some ways it had, but she was still not sure she was the best for the job. Aase would have been a better choice, and maybe she could even be co-captain (or, even, in her dreams, prefect) if the school leadership still wanted her to be in a leadership position.  
 
“Looks like these are ready for the oven.” She smiled, as the pre-heating timer chimed, and Hyacinth put the cookies into the oven. “I hope I did well for secret snidget.” She managed, still chattering. “I was pretty sure shortbread was your favorite, but of course I’m willing to bake with you whenever you like.” 

“Isn’t he,” said Donna, who was fairly positive that Isaac Hackney was scum. A little care and some direction – well, Donna cared little for him and wanted to give him a swift kick in some direction, how was that? (She did not say this aloud.)

It did sort of sound fun to run around the pitch, although Donna wasn’t one for structured races so much as mad, violent dashes; her siblings had stopped playing tag with her very early on. She said, “Well, I s’pose. If you’re absolutely sure we won’t have any of the creeps hanging around.” Benjamin Danvers was less off-putting than Isaac Hackney was, to Donna, but his attitude still irritated her.

Hyacinth’s mother didn’t lift a finger around the house; Donna, fighting back the very strong urge to say the most guilt-tripping thing she could in the poshest accent possible, said, “Oh, I see.” House-elves, plural, well, Donna didn’t have anything to say about that. Her family sold eggs to make a few extra Sickles a week. “I s’pose they are a lot alike,” she admitted grudgingly (to admit this was to admit that her potioneering skills were poor because she didn’t try) – “Course, if you cock up a fruitcake, it’s less likely to blow you up like a balloon, or turn your ears into figs, what have you.”

Now they were onto their plans after graduation, which Donna didn’t want to think about mostly because she didn’t have any yet. She honed in on Hyacinth’s instead: “Well, what’s this about letting you? They ought to let you have your own say in what you do, it’s your family business too.”

The other extended a whole patty of dough; Donna hesitated but then swiped it, and bit it in two. She said, through a mouthful of sugar, “Nah – I like Quidditch for fun, it wouldn’t be fun if it was work. Y’know?” Just the words ‘training drills’ exhausted her. “I’ll probably go and work with my mum at first – she works with animals, grooming crups and the like – at least ‘til I get something else.” Donna wasn’t so much of a mama’s-girl that this was her long-term plan, but she wasn’t so much of an overachiever that she had any other ideas.

Besides – she had a whole year yet.

“Well, I’ll probably see you around here then,” she said. This was indeed the nicest conversation she’d had with Hyacinth in a long while, anyway (the fact that she had been avoiding Hyacinth was not relevant to this metric.) “You did fine – I told you, it’s my favourite biscuit.” Would she lie?