Cookies and Elves

[Tabitha Theirin]

If there was one thing Tabitha missed most about home it was helping her mother cook dinner every night. They may not have always had the best or most expensive food, but they always had something. When she had first arrived at hogwarts a month ago all the rich, and heavy food had made Tabitha ill, but she was mostly used to it now.

However she had been curious about all the people who were cooking the food. The teachers always are with them, but she never saw anyone that looked like a chef around the castle. So one weekend Tabitha decided to ask one of the older students for directions to the kitchens. She wanted to meet these chefs. Maybe they would let her help out sometimes. Imagine how surprised her mom would be of she came back with those skills! Tabitha made her way down to the kitchen thinking up all kinds of questions she could ask. When she pushed open the door she was surprised to see not wizard chefs, but what appeared to be tiny little gnomes dressed in dish towels. Tabitha stood there shocked for a moment, but before she could say anything one had already made its way to her.

"Does the young miss need anything?" The elf asked politely. Tabitha stood there for another moment before she could think of anything to say.

"Um hello. Yes I was hoping I could do some cooking of my own." She told the tiny creature. "What are you? Are you the cooks around here?" She asked not even realizing she might be being rude.

"We are the house elves miss. We do many things around the castle including cooking, and cleaning." The elf told her. "If the young miss would like to cook we can spare some room, but please try not to get in the way of the others. They are busy preparing for supper." He added while grabbing on to her cloak and leading her to a space of her own. Tabitha nodded dumbly to the elf. It was so odd seeing the house elves do their work. They worked harder, and faster then anyone she had ever seen, but they seemed content almost. Tabitha decided she was being rude starring like she was so she set to work finding the ingredients needed to make her favourite chocolate chip cookies. She had the recipe memorized because of how many times she had made them. Once she had gathered all her ingredients, and watched the funny little elves some more, she set to work. Maybe if these turned out well enough she could send some to her mom.

 

[Amy Westwood]

Amy's stomach rumbled again as she entered the kitchen with her little brother, Donald. The 13 year old now regretted dinner, but she supposed that it was worth it. The Westwood siblings had been spending the time catching up with each other, they had spent 2 years apart so had a lot of catching up to do. However it comes a time when you have to eat and, for the sister and brother, that time had came. Besides, the two could always continue their catch up over food.

The 13 year old Ravenclaw wasn't surprised to see elves in the kitchen, it was the same in the British Hogwarts, but still it didn't mean that she had to like the situation. The young girl was, though, surprised to see another student down here. She supposed that maybe she shouldn't have been too surprised as herself and Don were down there to raid the kitchen themselves. This little girl however seemed to be cooking food herself.

This made Amy feel even more guilty about going down her to ask the elves for food. Maybe she could prepare her own food, and that of Donald's, too. The 3rd year girl just looked at the first year of a while. Should she interrupt her? Maybe it be best for her and Donnie to turn around and come back again a bit later?

The rumbling of her stomach gave her the answer. "Errr....Hello? I hope that we are not disturbing anything?" she asked looking around the elves, and at the Gryffindor in particular. "Oh no miss" said the elves, "You miss and sir could never disturb us" Amy flinched at being called miss in such a deferential manner. The 3rd year disliked the thought of being above or more important than anyone, because she didn't think she was. The elves, after all, deserved just as much respect as everyone else.

Amy smiled at everyone in the room warmly "I am Amy, by the way...." she said brightly "....and this is Donald, my brother" she said pointing to the spiky haired boy next to her. They didn't ask for anything yet though, they wanted to make sure that they were not disturbing anyone, not even the 1st year.

 

[Tabitha Theirin]

Tabitha's head snapped up when she heard another girls voice. The first year had been so focused on her task that she hadn't even seen the two students entering the kitchen. In fact that only time she had paused after she had started was to take her robe off because she had gotten flour on it. It was the first time Tabitha had taken her robes off outside of her dorm room. She hand't wanted to show off her obviously second hand pants, and shirt. She had to deal with thrift shop clothes at home, and her school robes were the first new clothes she had gotten in a long time.

"Hi I'm Tabitha." she told the girl, and the boy. Amy was definitely a few years older then her, but Donald looked to be around her age. Tabitha wiped some flour off of her face with her sleeve trying to look at least a little bit cleaner in front of other students. "I don't mind if you're here. It's the elves kitchen after all, and if they say it's fine it should be fine." Tabitha told the girl. "You know it's funny. In a lot of muggle movies or books they describe elves to either be very tall, and beautiful, but human like, or they are just short humans like the ones who work for Santa. House elves look more like muggle goblins, and the goblins who work at the bank look like dwarves." Tabitha told the two as she got lost in thought. Perhaps some muggle had seen these creatures, and made up names for them when he wrote a story about them? Tabitha told herself she would look it up later, but would probably forget.