Hunger Pangs and Half-Baked Ideas

[Aurora Night]

Rory stuck her head around the side of the door and peered into the room, narrowing her eyes as she took in the contents. Satisfied that she had the right place, she entered the kitchen and began looking around in curiousity. Even though she vastly preferred the meals at Hogwarts to those at home, after the first couple of days Rory had been unhappy to discover that she wasn't able to snack whenever she felt like it. When she went home over the holidays she was going to have to hoard all her Christmas chocolate and bring it back with her. That's if she could stop herself from eating it all in two days flat.

Marching over to the nearest cupboard, Rory pulled the door open and looked in. Seeing only vaguely unrecognisable kitchen implements, she shut the door and pulled open the next one. She had originally come down here looking for food, even though dinner hadn't been too long ago. Rory had spent so much time busy talking to her friends that she had hardly eaten anything, and then all the food had disappeared. That was a lesson she wasn't going to forget in a hurry. Shutting another cupboard door, she straightened up and looked around for something that would yield more promising food results.

 

[Andi Forstrom]

Andi always seemed to have an insatiable amount of hunger, and dinner at Hogwarts did not help this fact. She constantly ate to her heart's content at home, but at meal times while in Hogwarts she was made to eat less for the sake of sharing with everybody else. It caused her to feel hungry every night when dinner was over. So much so, that she had developed a habit of sneaking into the kitchens when everyone returned to their houses. It was the perfect opportunity for her to eat properly and the way she wanted without worrying she was being too much of a glutton in front of her peers.

That night didn't seem like it would turn out in Andi's favor, however, when she walked into the kitchens to see none other than Rory, her friend and dorm mate. She tilted her head to one side as she walked up to the girl. "You hungry too?" She asked, then looking around the room for a house elf. When she couldn't see any around, she looked back to Rory. Usually a house elf was there to whip something up for her but this was clearly not the case that evening. "There's usually house elves that can make food, but they've all gone." She stated, shrugging. It seemed like she would be left to make her own food that night. This realization bothered her as it would be a lot of effort, but feeling full after a long day of learning and exploring the castle was worth it. ​

 

[Aurora Night]

Rory turned as she heard footsteps behind her. Seeing Andi, she grinned and abandoned the empty container she'd been looking in. "Hey! Yeah, I'm starving. I never realised I talked so much." Tipping her head to the side in consideration, she let out a short bark of laughter. "Do you think people will be grossed out if I start talking with my mouth full? I think it's the only way to solve the problem." She didn't pin much hope on talking less, not when she spent every meal surrounded by her friends. And she definitely wasn't about to give up eating in favour of talking. Maybe she'd try and spare her friends and just not chew in their direction.

Andi's comment about the house elves made her look around in interest. She hadn't realised there were any at Hogwarts, and suddenly some of the kitchen's dimensions made a lot more sense to her. "Really? Wonder where they went?" She eyed the furthest corners of the room before turning to look back at her friend, a grin starting to spread across her face. Having free run of the place was particularly appealing because she never would have been allowed such a privilege at home, where her mother chased her out of the kitchen on a regular basis. Placing her hands on her hips, Rory looked from Andi to the surrounding surfaces. "We'll just make it ourselves then - what do you wanna eat?"

 

[Andi Forstrom]

Andi grinned as Rory said she was hungry, holding back the urge to laugh at the other girl's predicament of talking too much during dinner as it was so similar to her own. However instead of talking the whole time and forgetting to eat, Andi instead talked to keep herself from eating too much. It caused her stomach to rumble dramatically whenever she returned to the common room after dinner, thus the reason she always ventured to the kitchens every evening and the reason that night was no exception to this habit. Andi had never seen Rory in the kitchens before but so far she was enjoying the company of a friend even though they had barely said two words to each other and were far from beginning to cook. Andi smiled as she said "Just eat! Who cares if other people get grossed out. Food is worth it."

Soon her attention was returned to the lack of house elves that were usually in the room and the issue of having to cook and eat without their help, or even their guidance. Andi hadn't cooked alone before but she figured now was as good of a time as any, especially since cooking was their only option without any cooked food readily available. "I'm kinda feeling like mashed potatoes, what about you?" Andi said as she stood on her tip toes to retrieve a pot hanging above her head. She had watched her mum make mashed potatoes before and knew that it at least required boiling potatoes in a pot. Anything further than that was a mystery to her, but she was willing to figure it out with a little trial and error. ​

 

[Aurora Night]

Rory grinned at Andi's agreement to the solution of her dinner problems. Raising her hand to make a finger-gun pointing motion at the other girl she said, "I knew I was friends with you for a reason." Rory quite liked Andi; they enjoyed doing a lot of similar things, and the fact that Andi seemed to share the same opinions about food and impressing people (or rather, failing to) only made Rory like her more. Watching the other girl reach up to grab a pot, she quickly copied her friend's motion. Rory had never cooked before in her life, and Andi looked like she knew what she was doing. "Potatoes are good, but if we're eating vegetables then we have to have pumpkin too." Or at least, Rory had to have pumpkin. She knew some people didn't like it, but she had no clue as to why. She considered pumpkin to be her favourite food.

Once she had the pot on the bench, she looked over to see what Andi was doing. Seeing no further actions to copy, she decided to take charge of the next step, which was obviously finding the pumpkin. Craning her neck around, she looked for some sort of pantry, which if she remembered right was where her mother kept those sorts of vegetables. Turning back to her friend, she said, "Okay, you've been in here before. Where do they keep everything?" She was really glad she wasn't here by herself, she felt like she would have been reduced to gnawing on a wooden spoon if Andi hadn't turned up. "Are we just looking for potatoes and pumpkin, or do we want something else as well?"

 

[Andi Forstrom]

Andi gripped both sides of the pot with her hands as Rory said they should be eating pumpkin too. That, she wholeheartedly agreed with, though she did not see the idea of adding pumpkins to mashed potatoes appealing. Instead, she thought it would be good to make separate mashes of both pumpkins and potatoes that they could alternate between and quickly opened her mouth to suggest this. "Yes! Pumpkin! How about I make mashed potatoes, and you make the mashed pumpkin?" Andi noticed that Rory had already grabbed a pot of her own which meant they were one step closer to eating food.

As Rory asked about the pantry, Andi looked behind both of her shoulders before walking to the far end of the room where two large wooden doors were situated. She figured this was the pantry as she regularly saw the house elves walking in and out of it, and to and from it when they were cooking. She reached to one of the door handles and opened it, her jaw dropping in kind when she saw what was inside; a pantry charmed to be much, much bigger with an endless supply of food, bags of potatoes and whole pumpkins included. "Found it!" Andi shouted before she walked inside the pantry, dragging out one of the sacks of potatoes, unfortunately not with ease as it was extremely heavy. "There are pumpkins in there too." She said, continuing to exercise all her might in an attempt to drag the sack of potatoes to the table where both their pots were standing. "I don't know if we need more with this many potatoes." She joked.

sorry this took so long!​

 

[Aurora Night]

No problem!

Rory grinned, glad to know that she had found a fellow pumpkin enthusiast in Andi. She didn't base her friendships on food preferences, of course, but it was good to know where you stood. Nodding at the other girl, she drummed her fingers on the side of the pot excitedly. "On it." Now that she was picturing a specific meal in her mind, Rory could feel herself getting hungrier in anticipation. She hoped making the food wouldn't take too long. Watching as Andi walked off to the other end of the room, she quickly followed as soon as the other girl shouted that she'd found the pantry. Pausing to gape at all the food inside, it was almost enough to make Rory want to forget about cooking altogether, and just grab something off the shelf. But then she spotted a pumpkin about as big as her head, and her enthusiasm returned. It may have been her favourite food, but it's one drawback was that you just couldn't eat it raw.

Lifting the pumpkin off the shelf, she staggered a little under its weight and turned to watch Andi trying to pull the sack of potatoes back to the table. Releasing a little huff of laughter, she caught up with the other girl. "Especially not if we're having this much pumpkin too." Grinning, she kept pace with her friend. "Do you want some help with that? Only, I'd have to put this down first," she said, tapping one of her fingers on the vegetable in her hands. The skin felt quite solid, which was something about pumpkins she had never taken too much notice of before. Being banned from the kitchen at home most of the time meant that she only had a passing interaction with the majority of foods in their natural states, and she suddenly wondered if cutting up the pumpkin was going to be harder than she had thought. But almost as soon as the thought had crossed her mind she shook it off. It couldn't be that hard. Knife, pumpkin, cut. Simple.

 

[Andi Forstrom]

"Nah, I'm good. You just carry your pumpkin." Andi said. She eventually managed to drag the sack of potatoes to the table, and dropped it on the floor with a thud. She then dusted her hands together and looked to Rory. "Alright, let's get this started." As she said this she dug her hands into the potato sack, pulling out two potatoes at a time and placing them on the table until there were six. Hopefully that was enough to satiate both her and Rory's hunger in addition to the pumpkin. Andi rummaged in a nearby draw for a knife and lined all of the potatoes up, eventually beginning the task of cutting them all into quarters because she was not sure what size she should actually make them. She never thought to watch the way her mother cut the potatoes when she made them at home and wished that was something she had paid attention to. She was happy to wing it but still didn't want to make a beginners mistake and fail miserably. That would mean neither of them would get mashed potatoes and that their attempt at cooking was a total waste.

When the potatoes were cut and put into the pot. Andi picked it up, looking around for a tap or something she could use to fill it with water. She couldn't see anything nearby and didn't know if it was in plain sight or if she needed to search around. "Do you see a tap or something, for water?" She asked Rory, continuing to look around to no avail. She was enjoying spending time with the other Gryffindor, and wondered why they hadn't cooked together sooner. Even if there was a huge chance their efforts to cook would become a disaster, Andi was happy to have fun with Rory. It certainly beat cooking and eating alone which was normal for her routine.​

 

[Aurora Night]

The pumpkin had grown quite heavy by the time Rory finally let it drop out of her arms onto the table. She stood with her hands on her hips, looking at it for a second, before she turned towards the knife drawer she'd seen earlier. The pumpkin was huge, and so she scoured the drawer for the biggest knife she could find in order to attack it properly. Liking the look of a large smooth-edged triangular shaped one, she hefted it out and immediately began trying to saw away at the top of the pumpkin. After a few movements back and forth, Rory frowned as she realised she wasn't really getting anywhere. She briefly tried speeding up the sawing motion, but quickly gave up from the amount of energy she had to expend. Even with that frenzy of action she had still hardly made any progress, and she stopped with the knife embedded partway through the pumpkin's skin. "How the heck am I supposed to cut this thing?" she said, turning to gaze somewhat wistfully as Andi finished slicing through the rest of her potatoes. Nice, simple, easily cut potatoes. Rory cursed them internally.

At Andi's question, however, she forgot about the pumpkin for a moment and looked around to try and locate a sink that she thought she'd seen earlier, when she had been digging her away along the cupboards and shelves of kitchen instruments. "Yeah, there was one..." Running her gaze along the wall behind Andi, Rory succeeded in spotting the dip in the counter-space she had only glanced over before. "There!" she said, raising her hand to point past her friend and direct her towards the requested tap. Once she was satisfied that Andi had seen the sink for herself, Rory continued her attack on the pumpkin, this time stabbing it with the knife and then cutting from there, which seemed to gain her a lot more ground. By the time she'd hacked at every part of the vegetable she could find, there were plenty of misshapen pieces of pumpkin in the pot, but to be honest it looked like most of it had ended up on the table, and floor. There was skin, seeds, and stringy pumpkin bits everywhere, and as Rory put down the knife and scrubbed her arm across her face, some bright orange flecks even stuck themselves into her hairline. She'd never realised preparing a pumpkin was so difficult. "How does Mum make this look so easy?" she wondered aloud.

 

[Andi Forstrom]

Andi stifled a giggle as she looked over to Rory who was having trouble cutting the pumpkin. Luckily for Andi, potatoes were easy to cut. She hoped they would be just as easy to cook and eat despite how little knowledge he had on making mashed potatoes. The knowledge she did have had got her this far yet she knew nothing past filling the pot with water and bringing it to a boil. The amount of time she needed to wait and what she needed to add afterwards besides mashing the potatoes together was a complete mystery to her. She was annoyed at herself for not paying closer attention to her mother's cooking but she was happy to wing it and see where her attempt at cooking potatoes herself would go.

She turned around as Rory's eyes scanned the wall behind her, spotting a sink when Rory pointed towards it. "Thanks!" She said, turning back around to pick up her pot and move it to where the sink was, placing it under the tap. The sounds of Rory cutting the pumpkin were soon drowned out by the sound of running water as Andi turned the tap on, waiting for the pot to be filled. She struggled while returning the pot to the bench with the added weight of the water though managed to carry it, heaving it onto the bench with a thud. She looked over to Rory again and dusted her hands, giggling properly this time at the sight of the girl with pumpkin flecks along her hairline. "You seem to be doing alright." Andi commented while peering into her friend's pot. The bench and floor was a mess around them, but there were pieces of pumpkin inside the pot which was a victory in Andi's opinion. "Did you want help or are you going to add water to your pot now?" She asked, curiously. The anticipation of nearly beginning to cook the vegetables caused her stomach to rumble quietly.​

 

[Aurora Night]

Also peering into the pot to see just how much pumpkin she had ended up with, Rory was initially disbelieving at how little seemed to be in there, considering how cutting it all up had been such a mission. It felt like it had taken forever, how wasn't the pot overflowing? Would it even be enough? Still, on second thought, there would be potatoes - it would be fine. Even if her stomach was currently trying to tell her otherwise. Looking up at Andi, Rory laughed. "Well, I'm glad you think so, I'm sure as heck not cutting up another one." But she was still having fun, regardless of her battle with the pumpkin. If she ever missed dinner again, she was definitely going to try and drag her friend down here to cook with her again.

As she picked up the pot, Rory said, "I'll add the water to it, but then I'll probably need some help with the bit after that." There was something about heating the food, obviously, to cook it, but as to how that was done exactly she didn't have much of a clue beyond turning the stove on and placing the pot on top. Maybe Andi did. Lifting the pot, Rory made her way around the table and over to the sink, calling back over her shoulder,"Where's the stove?" as she did so. She busied herself filling the pot with water while the other girl answered, although she was momentarily unsure as to how much water she should use. Filling the entire pot was probably a bit too much, she decided, so she tipped some water out, considered the contents of the pot for a moment, and then tipped out some more. It would be fine.