While she didn't know the Keeper of the Keys and Grounds very well, Ami figured that she would have to seek him out once they got back to school, because she had a feeling that they would've been very good friends, indeed. Could a professor be friends with a student? Sure! She was friends with Cy, wasn't she? Therefore, she should be able to befriend whomever she wanted, even if they were wrinkly old adults who had to pay taxes and got stress migraines. The letter she had received from Professor Dunaid was both confusing but intriguing, and she couldn't but wonder if the stout professor knew that he'd owled a, uh... vegan household.

Not that vegan food was bad! In fact, it was usually quite good. Ami had never been someone who'd been very into meat (which was probably the direct opposite of every single American stereotype, ever), so making the decision to turn vegan at age 7 was an easy one. Her mother, ever the health-conscious one, had readily converted over when her daughter moved back in with her, and the two had been vegans ever since. Lucas, Ami's father, strongly disagreed and believed that he would literally die without burgers, but Ami and Abella couldn't care less.

Letter clutched in her hand, Ami burst into her mother's office, where Scout was chewing on his blanket in his crib while Abella furiously hammered away on her laptop. "Mom," she whined, rapping her knuckles on the dark oak desk. Scout burst into excited babbling, clapping his chubby hands together at the sudden appearance of his sister, although Ami didn't appear to take any notice of the 16-month-old. "Mom, mom, mom, mom-"

"Ami Charity Procoppio, I am going to vanish your mouth off your face one of these days," Abella sighed, her rabid typing pausing only for a moment before she returned to the furious click-clacking of her fingers across the keys. Ami knew, of course, that it was an empty threat, especially considering that she hadn't even told her to get out, so she thrust the letter in front of her mother's face insistently. As Abella's gaze shifted from the screen to the parchment in front of her, she glanced at Ami with a confused expression. "I didn't know Hogwarts hired a new Groundskeeper."

"Guess I forgot to mention it," Ami said with a careless shrug, crossing the room to gather Scout into her arms as Abella read the letter again. Her brother tugged on her hair harshly, extracting some yelps of pain from the Hufflepuff, but looked rather pleased that he had been lifted from his mini-dungeon. "Can you help me?" Ami asked, bouncing Scout in her arms slightly. "With the baking?" Obviously, Ami was not the best with anything in the kitchen, even if she'd written up a few of the Headliner and Hufflepost's recipes in the past. But the step between writing about recipes and actually making them was huge, and she certainly didn't trust herself in the kitchen.

"I'm busy," Abella said curtly, tossing the parchment aside on her desk as she rubbed her neck tiredly. Truly, Ami could see the dark circles under her mother's eyes, which were more pronounced than ever, so she bit her tongue and stayed quiet. Her mother was a good-tempered woman most of the time, and Ami really didn't feel like aggravating her today. "You have a phone. Use it." Glancing towards her children, she added, "Take Scout with you, I can't focus with him in here."

With a sigh, Ami carried Scout into the kitchen, making sure to shut the office door behind her. Their London flat was far from impressively or ginormous, but Abella made sure to make it feel like a home. Setting Scout in his high-chair and taking care to make sure that the safety strap was fastened, Ami leaned against the counter-top as she scrolled through "vegan baking recipe" search results on her phone, with Buzzfeed-worthy results like 20 Vegan Baking Recipes You're Sure to Love! or Vegan Desserts even Non-Vegans HAVE to Try. Finally settling on a simple-enough recipe for cinnamon rolls, Ami starting retrieving the necessary ingredients while Scout watched with a critical eye... or, as critical as a baby could be. Rather, he seemed fascinated by his sister's movements, clapping wildly each time she pulled something out of the fridge or a cupboard.

"Alright, Scout," she muttered, staring at the spread of ingredients laid out before her. "Let's do this, shall we?" Some excited babbling from her brother spurred her on, and rolling up her metaphorical sleeves (it was the middle of August! of course she was wearing a tank top), she set to work.

After writing several recipes for the Headliner, Ami certainly knew the concepts of baking and cooking. She knew and understood the terminology and understand the theory behind the techniques, but she'd never actually tried her hand at it before. However, she figured that she'd be pretty decent; she had always been good with her hands, and seemed to have a natural affinity for anything that required manual labor rather than intense thinking.

Yeast and water was up first... if she'd been doing this at Hogwarts, Cy certainly would've had something to say about the science behind it. Alas, Ami was free from the nerdy Transfiguration teacher's grasp now, so she simply dumped the yeast into the 100° water. She wondered just why her mother actually had all of these ingredients, and if Abella had actually picked up a hobby the past few years. After all, between Hogwarts and summer camp, Ami rarely actually spent quality one-on-one time with her family; she was sure that there were plenty of things that she didn't know about her mom and her brother.

Once the coconut oil was melted and the flour and salt were mixed, Ami dug out a little divot in the center of all the flour, pouring the wet ingredients in with a flourish. Again, Scout applauded as he babbled, "Ami go go! Go go Ami!"

"Yeah, yeah, Ami's going..." she muttered under her breath, kneading her dough hesitantly. The sticky, tacky sensation felt weird and unnatural, but she soldiered on regardless. The whole process was actually pretty therapeutic, and Ami really felt like she could get on board with this whole "baking" thing. Placing her ball of dough in a separate bowl to proof and leaving it on top of the refrigerator, she climbed on top of a chair to grab the only bottle of whiskey in the flat.

Of course, with her luck, her mother had emerged from her office just as Ami began to measure out the whiskey. The smell of the fermented drink nearly made her gag, but she managed not to vomit into the mixing bowl. "So you're drinking, now?" Abella asked, seemingly amused. "I didn't know you were gonna take after your father so young. The Three Broomsticks must've been really good, yeah?"

"Dad doesn't drink," Ami shot back, pouring the whiskey out of the measuring cup and into a saucepan. "Are you here to help me or are you just going to annoy me?" With a light laugh, Abella side-arm-hugged her daughter tightly before going to pour herself a glass of whiskey. "You look like you've got this in the bag, love, so I'm just gonna-"

"You want me to disgrace our family by sending Dunaid burned cinnamon rolls?" Ami challenged, raising her eyebrows. The threat of "disgracing their family" was one that always worked with Abella, and like magic, her mother paused just as she was about to return to her office. With a sigh, Abella set her now empty glass in the sink (what an alarming sight) and took a glance at Ami's phone, taking in the recipe at the speed of light, her eyes darting across the screen. "Alright, then," she said with a sigh. "Let's get this done, then."

The two worked in tandem to finish up the cinnamon rolls, with Scout clapping along and nibbling on some spare peaches. But the spiced peaches were cooked, the filling was made, the rolls were baked, and the icing was cobbled together. Finally, about 40 minutes later, a steaming hot pan of whiskey-peach vegan cinnamon rolls was ready to go, with a jar of icing and a scrap of parchment with some hastily scribbled reheating instructions.

Handing Evers the package, the European eagle-owl eyeing the heavy package disdainfully before clutching it in his talons and taking off.

"That wasn't so bad!" Abella said encouragingly, patting Ami on the shoulder. "Maybe Dunaid likes vegan food."

"I highly doubt that, mom."

thread finished.