Between Coffee And Cigarettes

-23-

In the course of the day more and more letters came in. Alice wrote about the beauty of France and how well Frank's and her parents got along with each other. She sounded happy and content and it warmed Lenny's heart a bit. She also found out that Lily was apparently spending Christmas with them; obviously James had invited her. Lenny looked forward to it.

She wrote them all back and it was almost evening when she finally got out of her room. Her stomach growled in protest and she quickly made her way into the kitchen to satisfy the craving and hunger. Their house elve Creedy greeted her. "Does Miss Lenny have something specific on her mind?", he asked when she went to the fridge. She turned around and smiled down at the elve, who almost reached to her hips. "No, not yet", she answered thoughtfully, "But you don't have to stay here. How about you take a break while I make myself something to eat?"

He stared up at her, eyes wide. "Oh... that would be very nice, but-- but Master James and Master Sirius told Creedy to clean up their rooms today", the elve stuttered lowly. Lenny rolled her eyes. Of course they would be too lazy to clean up their rooms on their own. It would be a shame if they had to do it by themselves this time she thought to herself. With a horribly hidden grin she looked at Creedy again and said: "No, Creedy, you don't have to. I will talk to them. Take a break, you are already doing so much for us". The elve was about to protest, but she quickly put a 'I demand it' behind her previous words and with that the elve thanked her andtrotted off with a small smile on his lips.

After staring into the fridge for a little while, she fished out a few ingredients she thought would go good together and then she took out a few more from the cupboard and placed them all on the counter. She actually enjoyed cooking in the kind of weird way. She never followed a recipe and never had. Most of the time she threw some things into a pan, some things into a pot and improvised. Always without a plan and somehow most of her meals came out pretty good. 

Lenny liked to do it that way. Every time she finished cooking it was a small miracle and a nice surprise, when the food actually tasted good. And it made her feel kind of powerful and secure that things without a plan could actually turn out good and sometimes she hoped that she was like her cooking; planless going through everything and still turning out fine.

When she finished cooking, she wanted to take her food up with her to her room, but as she went upstairs, the door to Sirius room was bust open. Lenny shrieked and jumped at the sudden movement. Her plate almost flew out of her hands, if she hadn't stabilized it enough. 

Sirius looked the hall up and down, his hair swaying dramatically as his head swung around with such force that she thought he would break his neck any second, until his gaze landed on her.  He looked pissed. She stalked up to him, eyes narrowed and began yelling: "Are you mental?! I almost dropped my plate and wasted my food!"

He took a step forward, his mouth turned downwards and his eyes narrowed too. "I'm mental?!", he also began yelling, "Why did you order Creedy not to clean our rooms! What have I done to you?!" Lenny stepped closer to him so that their noses almost touched, the plate being the only thing that was between them. She looked up at him with an expression that said are-you-completely-stupid. Even though she was smaller than him, in this situation she looked quite intimidating, but still, he didn't back away. "Are you seriously mad at me for making you clean up your own mess?!", she spat, "I'm sorry that I wanted to spare Creedy for having to pick up your dirty socks and crusty underwear! Honestly, I can smell them from my room!" Now Sirius looked furious and glared down at her. 

"As if you are the one to talk", he sneered, "your room always looks like a Niffler had swept through it! Your floor is most of the time not even visible!"

Lenny's expression faltered a bit. Sirius was right. Her room was almost never cleaned up and was, most of the time in a horrible state. Sometimes Euphemia and Fleamont would scowl her for that, but it didn't matter how much they did, she never asked Creedy for her to do it. First of all, because of the cigarettes he could find eventually, second of all she would find it a bit cruel. Lenny liked to spare the elve from as much work as possible, even when it meant that it would be more work for her. Still she composed herself quick enough to let her believe that he didn't saw her getting insecure for a second. She braced herself once again, pushing her chin up a bit more to make her appear bigger.