the secret of Erised {s.b.}

chapter 10: memory

"Mer ! Come downstairs !"

"Coming !"

Esmeralda shut her book and left her room. She walked down the cold stairs and headed to the kitchen where her aunt was trying to bake a dessert for the Christmas party they were hosting the next day.

"You called ?" Esmeralda said as she sat down in a stool on the other side of the table where Perla was kneading a very dry dough that kept falling apart.

"I need your help with this thing," Perla answered pointing at the dough, "I don't know why I offered to make dessert if I have no clue how to bake."

"Auntie, you know you can use magic to bake, right ?"

Perla looked at her niece and threw a little bit of flour in her direction.

"And where would the fun in that be ?" she said, "I want our guests to see that I put effort into this."

She kept kneading the dough with more force than was necessary. The dough was dry and falling apart, and the fact that Perla was still trying to get it to stick together was a little bit concerning to the young witch. Esmeralda could see that her aunt was not well and had something in her mind that was bothering her.

"What's wrong ?"

Perla sighed and wiped the dough from her hands. She walked to the other side of the table and sat down beside Esmeralda on another stool.

"All of our guests are muggles, and I don't want to take advantage of my magic and take the easy way out and let magic bake," she said, "I already used magic to set the table and the decorations, but Mr. Williams called and said that they might be a little late tomorrow because the turkey is going to take a while to cook in the oven. I know that with magic I could cook that turkey in no time, so I just thought that I would at least put a little bit of effort into something instead of using my magic."

"That would be so sweet," Esmeralda said, "If you were actually kneading the dough the correct way."

Perla smacked her in the back of the head and handed her the apron she was wearing.

"I thought that you were being nice to me," she said in a fake hurt tone, "You finish the dessert if you know so much about the proper way of kneading dough."

She stood up and began to walk away but Esmeralda grabbed her shoulder and pulled her into the kitchen.

"You have to learn how to do it," Esmeralda said, "I'll teach you. Now, please make this awful dough disappear."

Perla got her wand out and made the dough disappear.

"Fine," she said, "Where do we begin ?"

When Heliodor died Perla decided to move out of her old house. She used to live in a village where only wizards lived, but she was too afraid that a dark wizard would find out where she lived and attack her so she decided to move to a muggle only village. Her house was in the middle of a giant field at the edge of the village. It was mainly made out of rock so it would get really cold during autumn and winter.

For the first time in sixteen years Perla had decided to invite most of her neighbours for a Christmas dinner. She knew that some of them would not be doing anything for Christmas, so she figured that she would finally have some of them over. Everyone was going to bring something for the dinner even though Perla insisted that she would cook all the food. She hadn't realized how nice and generous muggles were. Sure, when she would go to the local market for groceries she would socialize with them, but she never imagined that they would be willing to cook for a dinner with a neighbour that they barely spoke to.