Errand A Magical Bake Off Solo Finished

The Salvatore House | New Forest | August 20th

Although the temperature had been warmer than usual for this time of the year, it wasn't the heat that woke Scarlet up that morning, her cat Ashur, who was really her mum's, decided for her that it was time to get up, as he began to rub against her face. It was when she felt the tingling of fur on the edges of her nose that she finally got up, lifting the brown tabby cat from off her chest, she dragged herself from the comfort of her bed. Her mother must have heard Scarlet moving about upstairs, because soon enough the smell of eggs began to drift upstairs, Ashur clearly smelt it too and followed his nose ahead of her to the kitchen.

"Has Dad already left?" Scarlet asked as she finished off the last of her eggs.

Her mother galnced at the clock, "about an hour before you woke up, it's good Ashur has taken to waking you up or you might still be asleep when he gets back." With a wave of her wand, her mother started cleaning the plates; Scarlet couldn't believe she was less than two weeks away from starting Hogwarts and finally learning how to cast spells of her own. The gentle tapping of an owl's beak against glass brought Scarlet back from her thoughts of the school. On the window ledge, an owl was peering into the room, her mother pushed open one of the glass panes and the bird hopped onto the inner ledge. Scarlet assumed it was one of her parents usual letters from the Ministry about work and so started to make her way to the den at the back of the house to get some of Ashur's toys.

"Scarlet, it's an owl from Hogwarts I think, you've got a letter!" Her mother shouted after her. Scarlet ran back into the kitchen, why would she have gotten a letter, her father hadn't said anything about getting a second letter from the school, what if they were withdrawing her place - do they even do that? Her mother must have noticed the worry on her face and she spoke quickly to reassure her.

"I don't think it's anything to worry about, it could be as simple as a change to the supply list," she suggested as she handed over the letter. With a quick glance at the familiar Hogwarts wax seal, she tore open the envelope and quickly scanned the letter to ensure she still had a place.

"It's from someone called Gargott Dunaid, he's the Keeper of Keys and Grounds at Hogwarts... he wants to judge a student bake-off, and is asking if I want to take part!" Scarlet exclaimed excitedly.

"That sounds like a lot of fun... any idea of what you might like to make?" Her mother asked as she began looking through cupboards.

Scarlet's head started filling up with all the sweet treats, of both magical and muggle origins, that she could remember being told about, but she soon encountered a problem, "I've never actually baked anything before, what if it ends up being really rubbish?"

"It won't be, you've got all day, and I happen to have made the odd cake and pie over the years," her mother gave her a reassuring smile before continuing, "why don't you use one of the recipe books so we at least have some instructions to follow." Scarlet grabbed the mauve-coloured baking book from the small bookcase at the other end of the room and, opening it on the rectangular island countertop, started to flick through the recipes within.

"I've found the perfect thing... goey chocolate brownies!" Scarlet turned the book towards her mother who, after quickly reading over the required ingrediants, gave her an enthusiastic nod. With the book in one hand, Scarlet moved over to the cupboards taking out all the necessary items for the bake, resulting in an assortment of cooking utensils and ingrediants spread across the countertop.

Scarlet started by melting the chocolate into a silky viscous liquid over their emerald range oven, favouring magical methods of food preparation, her parents had rarely used it. Knowing that Gargott had requested entries from students only, Scarlet had refrained from asking her mother for help to speed up the process. In two seperate bowls she mixed together what she was told were 'wet' and 'dry' ingrediants, to the wet she added her melted chocolate and later the dry ingrediants. Upon final addition of a few handfulls of white chocolate chips, she poured the mixture into a tray and put this into the oven.

Still licking the remaining chocolaty mixture from her fingers, Scarlet sat herself on the cool stone floor infront of the oven, her eyes fixed on the tray, "how long does it say till they will be ready?" She called back to her mum.

"About twenty-five minutes. You might as well go see if Evie is back... I sent her out with parcel for your aunt this morning." Scarlet couldn't believe it, 'twenty-five minutes' she repeated to herself, she wondered how muggles found the time to do any cooking at all. After quickly cleaning herself up a bit, she ran out into the garden and towards the wide oak tree that her father had made into a home for the family owl. There, a brown and white feathered tawny owl sat pecking bits of muck from between her feathers.

"Hello Evie, want to make a special delivery for me?" The owl perked up at the sound of Scarlet's voice, untucking her head from her body. Scarlet grabbed some food for the bird and soon had Ashur trailing behind her for something to eat too, the cat's cries finally ceasing when she placed a bowl of tuna at his feet.

Scarlet soon heard her mother calling her to get the brownies, on returning to the kitchen she found her mother had already cut the brownies into even slices and was in the process of packing them into a brown parcel. Scarlet broke off a corner of one of the extra brownies, "they are looking pretty good for your first attempt at baking,' her mum said to her. They tasted quite good to, Scarlet thought as she finished off her sample piece.

After helping her mum to tie a neat bow in the string around the parcel, she called Evie to the open window, "to Gargott Dunaid, at Hogwarts." The bird gave a small hoot before taking off through the woods around the house, Scarlet couldn't wait for Gargott to taste her brownies, hopefully he liked them!

Word Count = 1110/800

Errand Complete