Work Text:
"I just wanna get some rest
I'm oh so tired of bein' wired all the time"- Day Gaunts by Days n Daze
The clamour of the kitchens doesn’t pause or slow at all, but it does change timbre when I open the portrait and step through, Harry following on my heels. A house elf hurries over, wringing its hands nervously as the other elves listen curiously even as they continue their work.
“How can Tappy be helping young miss, sir?”
I smile down at him, “Hello, Tappy. I was hoping I could borrow a work station to do some cooking.” Tappy tugs at one of his ears, and I hurry to explain, through my own embarrassment and anxiety, before he can say no, “I’ve been feeling a bit homesick, and I was hoping I could make something to remind me of home.”
The elf squirms uncomfortably before sighing, “What will young miss be needing for her cooking?”
“I’ll need some flour and water, first,” I list out the ingredients, pausing in the middle to make sure I have everything in mind, “And I’ll need a frying pan with a lid for steaming the dumplings, and a dough cutter about this big. Oh, but if you don’t have something approximately the right size, I can probably transfigure a cutter. I’m not as confident for the pan, though.”
Tappy shifts from foot to foot, wringing his hands and turns to look behind me, “What will young sir be needing?”
Harry waves his hands, “No, no, I’m just following her, I don’t need anything, I was just going to sit while she cooked, I think.”
Tappy finally sighs and snaps his fingers, some cookware hopping off racks or shelves and floating over, “Tappy will be clearing a space for young miss and getting a stool for young sir.” He waggles a bony finger below my nose, “Young miss will be careful not to hurt herself, and will be safe and clean, yes?”
I agree, and follow Tappy to a section of counter complete with burner and sink, where the cookware and ingredients have gathered. Harry scrunches down onto a low stool that Tappy waved over, and I start washing my hands.
The elves around us have gone back to their various tasks, no few of them shooting furtive glances our way as they do. I set some water aside to boil and cool, and start measuring out flour.
Harry sits in silence for a long time, watching me portion out the meat, add spice, and prepare the cabbage—rubbing salt into the leaves before wringing them out so that they’re slightly wilted and easier to mix into the rest of the filling for mincing.
I move the water off the heat to let it begin cooling, but it’s as I pick up a ginger root to start grating some into the filling that Harry finally speaks up.
“I don’t know if I miss cooking the way you do.” He picks up one of his legs and rests it on the lip of the chair, so he can lean his chin against it as he watches me, the other leg curled about the stool and out of the way of the elves.
I try not to let my pace falter when he breaks the silence, scraping more furiously at the ginger root to try and cover my stumble. “I wouldn’t have expected to miss it either,” I confess, even as I judge the ginger to be enough and switch to folding the filling together and mixing it. “It’s something I did when mom pestered me into it. I’ve always enjoyed the results, of course, but a lot of food, this stuff especially, just seemed like—like a lot of work to put into something that was only going to be eaten.” I pause, and glance at the elf working to my left, “Er, no offense meant?”
The elf smiles and flaps a hand at me, even as Harry chuckles at me, and my ears heat up with embarrassment.
Harry clarifies, after the moment passes, “I cook because my Aunt and Uncle want me to contribute around the house. It’s never really been fun.”
Checking the temperature of the water I boiled, I glance at him and wash my hands again, then start portioning out the flour I need to roll into dough. “I’m guessing it never felt like a communal chore, either? Like something you did together?”
“No, more like something they made me do so they didn’t have to.”
I nod, and try to ignore how down he looks about it, as I knead the flour and water into actual dough. “For me, it was always something my family did together. Mostly for dishes like this—once the dough and mince are ready, I’ll be putting one into the other, and that takes time.”
Harry watches me spread flour on the counter and cast a non-stick charm on the workspace and the rolling pin before tucking my wand behind my ear.
As I start getting the dough flattened out, I try to break the silence, “We’d sit around the table and talk while folding the dough around the filling.” Smiling, I recall, “Sometimes we’d talk about pleasant things, but my mom would always be after us to do the best we could—scolding me for hiding away in my room and neglecting my friends, or my brother for falling asleep in school. It felt like such a pain at the time, but I know it was because she loved us.”
Silence falls between us again. Silent as a working kitchen can be; I can hear the work of the elves around us as the go about preparing dinner.
Harry has a look in his eyes that I don’t know if I can name. Tentatively, I label it longing.
“I didn’t know you have a brother.”
The rolling pin slips off the dough and cracks loudly against the kitchen counter. The kitchen quiets a bit as quite a few elves look over in concern. I wave at them, try to smile and let them know I’m fine, then I go back to looking at my own workstation.
The dough has crumpled up where the pin slipped, and I gently try to smooth it out. My hands aren’t shaking, but only because I’m moving them so carefully.
I try to look at Harry without meeting his eyes.
“I don’t.”
I rub at my ear, trying to make a ringing noise go away, then glance at my hand with a huff and run the sink to wash my hands again. My chest hurts, like something’s squeezing my ribs.
There’s a dough cutter, to make the wrappers all the right size, but it’s the wrong size. I hold it, and pull my wand from behind my ear.
I tuck my wand back behind my ear, and hand the cutter to Harry, “Could you make this smaller? About this big around?” I run my finger along the imaginary rim of a cutter the appropriate size, miming where I need it to be, and Harry performs the transfiguration for me.
Cutting the dough seems to take forever, and when it’s done, I’ve got a stack of wrappers, a bowl of mince, and I’m wrung dry.
The wrapper drapes over my hand, just slightly too big to fit neatly, and I grab a teaspoon of mince to fill the dumpling. Folding it over, I pinch it close, and finally meet Harry’s eyes.
“Want to help me fill them?”
Harry leads me to a tapestry on the second floor, and we duck behind it to emerge on a roof on the west side of the castle. The wall swings shut behind us, and we settle against it, bowl of gyoza between us, while the sun sets. The sky is clear and the weather is mild, the wind whispering quietly and barely rustling the leaves of the Forbidden Forest.
We take turns munching on the bowl of dumplings, less only the ones I asked Tappy to take (when he tried to refuse, I explained that I wanted him to have them, and if he didn’t want to eat them himself, he should make sure they got to someone who needed a warm snack—he took the plate I gave him). Eventually, the gyoza run out, and so do meaningless conversation topics like homework and quidditch.
“I’ve never had a brother. You can ask anyone.” I wave my hands at the open sky, trying to illustrate a point as much to myself as to Harry. “I’m the only child my parents ever had.” I fold my hands over my stomach, “But I dream, sometimes. Of another family, with different traditions, different names. I had two brothers, then. A twin, and a younger brother.
“I miss them.”
Harry curls his knees to his chest, and rests his cheek on them, watching me. “I have an album of pictures. Hagrid got them for me. My parents, their friends … it’s all I really have of them. I don’t think I’ve ever dreamed of them.”
“But you miss them .”
Harry nods, and we sit in silence as the sun goes down.
I wipe a tear from my eye before the night can freeze it against my cheek, “Do you think it’s silly, to miss my family when I have a mother and father in real life?”
Harry shakes his head, “If the recipe was real,” he taps a finger against the empty bowl, “then maybe your family was too? Dream or not.”
“Thanks, Harry.”
After a long time sitting in silence, just before I might have decided to head inside, Harry asks, “Do you think I could dream of my family, too?”
I stand, stretching to get the kinks out of my back, and offer Harry a hand up. He takes it, and we look out over the Forest, together.
“I don’t see why not.”