Takes place after chapter 117
"Does anyone else think that Auntie Luna reads us some strange stories sometimes?" Hailey asked.
"You don't like her stories?" Hadley gasped.
"I didn't say that!" Hailey pushed Hadley and they got into a shoving match. "I'm just saying some are really strange."
"I'd believe that there is a pipe that plays music to attract rats," Dahlia said diplomatically. "Hedwig dances when there's music."
"Well yeah that's believable," Hailey said. "But the whole kidnapping children after with music is sorta weird and creepy."
"They should have kept their agreement though," Hadley said. "Agreements are binding."
"But it wasn't the children's fault," Hailey argued. "They're being punished for something their parents did. That's the bad part."
"Okay yeah, that's true," Hadley conceded. "What do you think, Dally?"
"That our parents wouldn't ever do anything like that," Dahlia said firmly.
"Well duh," Hailey and Hadley said together with unshakeable conviction.
"And I'm thinking about pies," Dahlia said after.
"Why?" Hailey asked.
"Because the story was about the Pied Piper."
"I don't think those are the same pies," Hadley mused.
"Probably not, but I'm still thinking about pies," Dahlia said.
"Now I'm thinking about pies," Hadley said.
"I'm not." Hailey flushed after intense scrutiny from her god-sisters. "Okay maybe I am shut up."
They continued walking down the path away from Luna's home.
"We're going to be making pies, aren't we?" Hailey asked.
"I mean, you don't want to?" Hadley asked.
"No, I'm not against it. We just do this a lot, don't we? We do something, one of us gets hungry, and then we make something that's sorta related to what we did."
"Sounds like us," Dahlia giggled. "You made those awesome hand pies forever ago for Daddy's favorite food competition."
"Oh yeah!" Hailey smiled. "They were tasty weren't they? Though I mostly rolled them and folded them. Mummy made the dough and the filling."
"Wait, is baking the same as cooking?" Hadley asked. "Remember the stone soup incident?"
"Oh right." The girls stopped and thought hard.
"What did Papa Harry say exactly?" Hadley asked.
"He said no cooking without an adult present and literally present, like super nearby," Hailey said slowly.
"Oh uhm...immediate vicinity," Dahlia said.
"Yeah that's it!" Hailey exclaimed.
"Okay. Well, Mummy is at home working," Hadley said. "Auntie Luna is here and so is Auntie Daffy. We can ask to use the oven in one of those homes."
"Wait, did we ever learn if Hedwig counts as an adult or not?" Hailey asked.
"No," Dahlia said glumly. "Daddy and Auntie Luna and Auntie Hermione got into a long debate about it. Something about how age is relative to...lifespan and how Hedwig is technically an adult in owl years but it doesn't count for when we need an adult for some reason."
"Well that's dumb," Hailey grumbled.
"We still need to figure out if baking is the same as cooking," Hadley said.
"Let's call Auntie Hermione and ask if we can use her library to check the definition," Dahlia said.
"Why don't we just ask her?" Hadley asked.
"Because she'll probably figure out what we want to do and tell us not to do it," Dahlia said.
"Oh right. We can call Grandpa Ted too," Hailey suggested.
"Good idea," Dahlia smiled.
-0-
"Hmm, I can't find anything about definitions of cooking," Dahlia said, looking through the very large book of legal terms they pulled off Hermione's library bookshelf. She had paged through it and did not find any of the information she was looking for.
"Auntie Hermione doesn't have any cookbooks or books about food really," Hadley said, looking along the shelves.
"We have plenty at home, let's go," Dahlia said and carefully put the legal glossary book back. The bunnies traipsed back to the Potter home. They pulled down the various cookbooks and paged through them.
"None of these say if cooking and baking are the same or not," Hailey huffed.
"Let's call Grandpa Ted," Dahlia said. She took the main mirror off of the stand and held it in both hands. "Grandpa Ted," she said brightly and clearly. The mirror's surface shimmered like oil on metal and after a few moments, Ted's image appeared. "Hi Grandpa!"
"Hi Dally! Hi girls!" Ted said with a broad smile. "Is everything okay?"
"Yes, Grandpa. Sorry to bother you, but we had a question. Do you have a moment?"
"Of course, you caught me at a good time, I'm between clients. What can I do for you?"
"Is baking and cooking the same?"
Ted blinked a few times. "Uh...I don't know honestly. I assume so."
"But it's not clearly the same right?" Hailey asked. "Or we'd call them the same thing. You don't cook something in an oven."
"That's true," Ted said slowly in his solicitor voice. "But cooking is a preparation of raw ingredients into a cooked form, transforming them essentially and baking is more or less the same principle."
"But 'different processes to attain similar results aren't exactly the same'," Hadley said, saying the words with careful repeated precision. "Mummy says infusing versus blending can do the same thing but they aren't the same thing at all."
"No, that's true too," Ted said. "I suppose the argument would lie in whether or not if they process to obtain similar results are the same literally or in the spirit of the process."
"So if someone said no cooking but we baked instead..." Hailey said slowly.
Ted chuckled richly. "That would be a loophole."
"Works for me!" Hadley smiled triumphantly.
"Legally, I would caution you," Ted smiled. "From a grandparent perspective, as long as you are safe, then go for it. What are you making by the way?"
"Pies! We're going to make you a big one," Dahlia beamed. "What's your favorite?"
"Ooh, well, I love a good pork pie," Ted said happily. "Do be careful, won't you?"
"We will," they trilled.
"Bring Nana Andi too please," Dahlia asked.
"Of course and she loves pork pie too."
"Oh one more question," Hailey said.
"Go ahead."
"Does Hedwig count as an adult for purposes of needing one?"
"That will require more research and I better have that conversation in person," Ted said after some thought.
"That's fair, thank you Grandpa!" Dahlia said. "Love you!"
"Love you Dally! See you and the girls later!" He waved and laughed and his image disappeared.
"I think we can bake then," Hadley said.
"To be safe, we better not cook any of the ingredients then," Hailey said.
"Makes sense to me. I know how to make pie dough, Daddy taught me. And you're great at rolling it out and making them," Dahlia said. "Where should we bake?"
"Let's do it at Auntie Luna's," Hadley said.
-0-
"Hello girls," Luna smiled when the girls came in. "Oh, are we making something fun?"
"How did you guess?" they asked.
"I was reminded of you coming back after reading stone soup together," Luna said brightly.
"You got it," Dahlia smiled. "We want to make pies and be pie pipers. May we use your kitchen?"
"Of course! I need to finish something but as soon as I do, I will come over to help and provide proper adult supervision." She hugged them in turn and waved them on to her kitchen before going back to her painting.
"Flour, water, salt, and butter for the pie dough," Dahlia said, putting everything on the counter. "Oh no."
"What?" Hadley asked.
"We need hot water for the pie dough," Dahlia said.
"Oh uhm, we can use a kettle," Hailey said. "Heating up water isn't cooking either or else making tea is cooking and I'd argue against that."
"I agree," Hadley nodded.
"Good point!" Dahlia filled the kettle with water and set it on the stove to boil. She began mixing flour with butter and salt and when the kettle sang, she poured the hot water into it, protecting her hands with a towel. When the dough was cool enough to work with, she kneaded it in the bowl first before pouring out the shaggy mixture onto the floured counter and kneaded it smooth.
While she was doing that, Hailey and Hadley prepared the other ingredients. They mixed pork mince with spices and set it aside. They then trimmed up some steak and chopped potatoes and onions and mushrooms to make steak and mushroom pies. "Should we ask anyone else for their favorite pies?" Hadley asked.
"Oh good idea. Auntie Luna!" Hailey called.
"Yes?" Luna called back.
"What's your favorite pie? We already are making pork and steak and mushroom."
"I love ham and chicken, I have both in my ice box. You can chop them up with some vegetables and I'll come out to help cook the mix," she called back, her smile evident in her voice. After some time had passed, she came out, wiping her hands clean and she smiled at the bunnies. "Such lovely kitchen bunnies."
"Thank you for helping!" they trilled together.
"Of course! No need to get into trouble while doing something good," she praised as she set a pot on the stove. She took the chopped chicken and cooked it with sauce ingredients, making it thick and savory, before setting it aside. They then cooked the vegetables until just done and combined it all with the ham before pouring the mixture onto a pie crust Dahlia prepared. It joined the small pork pies they made and the larger steak and mushroom one in the oven.
"We called Grandpa Ted," Hailey said. "We think baking and cooking aren't technically the same even though they do the same thing."
"Hmm, so you are allowed to bake without supervision for now," Luna mused. "Be prepared for that to be amended in the rules."
"We figured," the girls sighed.
Luna giggled. "Want to try some other pies?" She wandered to her bookshelf at their eager nods. "I got my own copy of an American cookbook Harry let me borrow a long time ago. The pies they make in the States are usually sweeter and more flaky. They eat pies for dessert mostly."
"Oh that's fun," Hailey said brightly. She had a terrible sweet tooth.
Luna flipped through the book. "A sweet potato pie sounds tasty. As does apple. I think I have enough of both here. Let's give it a try!" It took them longer to prepare the ingredients, as it does when trying a new recipe for the first time, but they popped them into the oven eventually.
"We made a mess," Hadley said, looking around Luna's kitchen.
"Easy enough to fix," Luna said. She waved her wand and the kitchen began to clean itself. A bottle flew about, spritzing water and soap onto surfaces while cloths wiped and scrubbed. Scraps of food were gathered and flew through the air to join the compost pile and soon the kitchen was sparkling clean.
"Mummy and Daddy make us clean by hand!" Hailey said, affronted.
Luna smiled and hugged her. "It's still good to know how to clean by hand. It can be a bit more satisfying and thorough that way but I'm being lazy."
"I like when you charm things," Hadley said. "You make them dance!"
"It does make them more fun, doesn't it?" Luna smiled. Her expression became soft and dreamy and she stared off into space for a moment.
"Ooh you're thinking of something fun, aren't you?" Dahlia asked eagerly.
"I am!" Luna summoned some parchment and a quill. She started writing out runes, humming lightly.
"A runic array? For what?" Hadley asked.
"For dancing objects," Luna explained. "When I charm things to float, I want to see them dance so I think about that as I cast. For some spells it works, like how you can change the colors of lights when you summon lights. It doesn't work for everything though, so that's where runes come into play. You can figure out a runic array that works how you envision it, and it's easier to modify and tweak it. There are some limitations of course, you can't do everything with runes sadly, but sometimes, you can think of something with enough flexibility and out of the box perspective."
She finished writing and looked at it carefully. "A little messy, but it should work." She stuck the parchment to the bottom of a wooden bowl and tapped it with her wand.
"What's it going to do?" Hailey asked excitedly.
"Dance, hopefully, depending on the sound." Luna whistled a little and the girls cheered when the bowl rose into the air a little. When Luna whistled at a higher pitch, it flew a little higher. When she lowered her pitch, it went down a little.
"That's so cool!" the girls said, clapping their hands. They laughed when the bowl seemed to bounce due to their applause. However, the bowl suddenly fell, making them exclaim from disappointment and alarm.
"Did we ruin it?" Hadley asked sadly.
"Not at all," Luna said comfortingly. "It was a rough idea that needs a lot more refinement, but that's how we learn, through experimentation." She flipped the bowl over and started scribbling on the parchment again. "I can add a sound blocking rune to block anything but a specific sound. That will keep it from behaving erratically to something different."
After some more modification and experimentation, they finished the runic array and the girls cheered when the bowl and a few other things flew around the kitchen, dancing to Luna's sprightly whistling. "How fun," Luna smiled, clapping her hands. "Now we can make you three proper pie pipers!"
"I'm still not great at whistling," Dahlia said, pouting a little.
"Well no problem. You're going to be a pie piper, not a pie whistler," Luna smiled. "Let's go to the creek and get some reeds. I'm going to show you something I learned a while back when I was traveling with my Daddy."
-0-
"I think I know why Mistress gave us this task," Alicia said. She was staring at a couple of texts floating before her with a look that suggested the texts had personally insulted her.
"She knows we are neighbors," Daphne said. "And that we work well together and between us, we have a fully functional potions laboratory. That and we both are fluent in French." She smiled. "We are also very stubborn and have a superiority complex."
"Yes, that's what I'm referring to," Alicia snorted. "If I had a time-turner that would let me travel to when this idiot was alive, I would pay much for the opportunity to spend even a few moments with them."
"To ask them what the hell they actually wrote?" Daphne asked.
"Yes. After I kicked him in the goolies," Alicia said, making Daphne laugh brightly. "I swear, he must have been drunk when he wrote this recipe. It makes no bloody sense."
"Well he was French in the 1800s," Daphne said. "Ample reasons to be soused with wine. Fleur comes back this weekend, we can have her help us to make sure we are not missing something in the translations."
"Sounds good to me," Alicia said tiredly. She rubbed her eyes. "What's that noise?"
Daphne looked over to the corner of the potion lair. Heather, Melanie, and Iris were together in a special play and nap area the witches had made. Iris was napping while Heather and Melanie were playing with stuffed animals, making happy noises as they gallomped the toys around. "It's not the babies."
Alicia opened the window and stuck her head out. "I hear music and...Daphne, come here and take a look to make sure I'm not mad."
Daphne looked out too. "Do you see dancing pies?"
"Yes."
"You are not mad or we both are." Daphne smiled when she saw the bunnies marching out, playing on reed whistles. "Oh my, look at that."
"I wonder what all this is about." Alicia opened the back door and stood in it with a smile on her lips. "And what are we doing now?"
"We're pie pipers!" Hadley said proudly.
"It certainly looks like it," Daphne smiled, as the girls marched to them, playing their whistles and the pies came dancing after them. "What brought this about?"
"The girls wanted to bake pies," Luna said, skipping along behind them. "And they were tangentially inspired by today's story."
"Which was?" Daphne asked.
"The Pied Piper of Hamelin."
"Why did you want to be like the Pied Piper?" Alicia asked, eyes narrowed. "Hardly a good role model."
"We aren't, that's why we're pie pipers," Hailey said truculently. "We play for pies and share them."
"That is better," Alicia conceded. She frowned. "Wait a second, where did you bake them? I thought we said no cooking without adult supervision."
"Cooking, not baking," Dahlia said cheerfully.
Alicia groaned and covered her eyes with her hand while Daphne started to giggle. "Oh no, not this. We are not splitting hairs about the semantic differences between cooking and baking!"
"We called Grandpa Ted and he said it was a loophole!" Hadley cried.
"You bothered your grandfather during work to ask him about this?!" Alicia said loudly.
"It was a legal question and that's his job!" Hailey said. "And he said we could ask whenever, just that he might not be able to answer immediately!"
"And we baked them at Auntie Luna's," Dahlia said.
"They did," Luna said serenely. "They were very good and it inspired me to make this new runic array." She took a pie off a plate and flipped the plate over and handed it to Daphne.
"Oh, this is fun," Daphne said, looking at it closely. "Walking on wind for dancing, responds only to wind sounds, specifically tied to a run on the whistles? Very elegant."
Alicia sighed; a deep sound borne from long-suffering. "Well, alright then." She smiled once more when the girls danced off, playing their whistles and the pies danced behind them. "At least they are very good at entertaining themselves with a little help here and there."
"And entertaining us," Daphne smiled.
-0-
"Perfect pie crusts," Harry praised as he ate.
The families ate together that night outdoors, joined by Ted and Andromeda. The final tally of pies was varied: steak and mushroom, pork, ham and chicken, a Hedwig special, sweet potato, and apple. Harry had thrown together a quick salad for some freshness and everyone ate hungrily, congratulating the bunnies that soaked up the attention.
"Yeah, these are seriously good," Angelina smiled. "Better than our hand pies from a few years ago. Good job bunnies."
"Maybe you'll be a professional chef," Oliver smiled, kissing his daughter.
"That might be fun!" Hadley said.
"You have to be nice to rude people and you can't throw food at them," Alicia said.
"Oh never mind then. I only want to cook for people I like," Hadley said.
"Mmm, I never thought about a sweet potato pie before but this is tasty," Katie said, eating her slice with gusto. "It's so good."
"American pie crusts are very different but not in a bad way," Luna agreed.
"Oh, so, I had some time today and I did a bit of research," Ted said, sipping a glass of wine. "I wanted to see if there was any established precedent about semantics over things and firing a catapult is more or less the same as shooting a catapult where the actions are used interchangeably. That said, baking and cooking are distinctly different enough despite having yielding similar end results."
"I knew it," Hailey and Hadley said together triumphantly while Alicia and Angelina groaned in unison.
Harry chuckled. "Okay, well, as you girls get older, we can amend the rules but for now, no baking or cooking or using anything with an active fire or heat source without adult supervision in the immediate vicinity."
"I knew it," Hailey and Hadley said together glumly to much amusement. "Okay, Papa Harry."
"Okay Daddy," Dahlia said.
Harry kissed them. "But I am proud of you for wanting to obey the rules, albeit the letter if not the spirit. And it was good of you to go to Auntie Luna. And the pies are very delicious." He watched fondly as Hedwig munched on her special pie: a bacon and egg one that she gobbled happily.
Ted grinned. "I also did some digging because I was a little curious. So it turns out, there is an established precedent for nanny animals or animal guardians and that if proven to be intelligent enough, they can be legally recognized as guardians for supervision purposes. There was even a dragon that was responsible for an orphanage of sorts. And, when pressed to define adulthood or age of majority, it is actually an accepted practice that when it comes to comparing relative adulthood in beings that aren't humans, you compare them to average lifespan. Therefore, Hedwig is a legal adult and could be construed as a legal adult for adult supervision."
"I knew it!" Luna said loudly.
"I still disagree with that!" Hermione said loudly. "Hedwig is a special case! You can't put a blanket clause over specificity! Oh don't you give me that look," she said when Hedwig looked at her with eyes filled with affront. "Everyone here knows how smart and capable you are but even you can't tell me that's an inherent trait of all snowy owls!"
"But then you can argue a case in specificity," Luna argued. "And we're not trying to argue that all adult snowy owls can be legal adult supervisors. We are arguing that Hedwig, specifically, is suitable as an adult supervisor!"
"Thank you," Harry sighed to a grinning Ted. "Thank you so much for reigniting this argument. The last time this happened, Luna and Hermione went at it in spellball a few times and the argument dragged on for days."
"Sorry lad," Ted laughed. "I was legitimately curious from a legal standpoint and to be fair, it's really funny."
"You don't live here yet! That's why you find it funny," Harry laughed.
"You look me in the eye and tell me that all snowy owls are as smart as you, go on!" Hermione snorted when Hedwig turned her head away with lordly disdain. "Exactly!"
"Hedwig's singular uniqueness is a boon and not a detriment!" Luna said. "That is what we are judging and if anything, it helps with the legality and the responsibility!"
"And I did look it up the first time and it still has to be done in a legal setting. The dragon in charge of the orphanage had legal representation and it was proven in a court of law with stringent testing and we all know how Hedwig feels about tests," Hermione said.
"We can solve this the regular way-" Luna said, getting out of her chair.
Harry pulled her back down. "No spellball. We are eating dinner and you two are still banned from spellball after the last time."
"But Harry," Luna and Hermione whined together, looking at each other with surprise while the others laughed uproariously, especially the bunnies.
"You are a perfect father," Andromeda smiled, kissing him on the cheek when he gave her a look.