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Post by Annalisse Childs on Jul 10, 2009 19:49:19 GMT -5
Anna was on a mission: to figure out what this niffler of hers ate. She hoped it would be an easy task, maybe he'd eat almost anything like her puppy. Even if it wasn't going to be soo easy, it'd be a whole lot easier if Anna had an entire kitchen full of food at her disposal. So that brought her down to the dungeons, carrying her niffler over to the portrait of the fruit and tickling the pear. With a giggle the portrait swung open and they were allowed in. Now that they were out of the dreary darkness of the dungeon corridors and in the nice bright kitchen, Anna sat Humphrey down and let him putter around since he could be seen easily in here.
First things first, Humphrey would first taste test Anna's favorite food -- grapes. As always the elves had a plate ready for her almost instantly after she entered, so she took it with a thank you and chased the niffler down. "Here you go little guy, try this," she said with a smile, holding a single grape in front of his nose. To her excitement he took a bite, but after that he refused any more. At least he'd tried it, right? That was all she could ask for. So now they'd tried fruits, it seemed like a good idea to try another food group. "Hey, Mister Elf. Do you have any leftover chicken or something laying around? Even a little tiny sliver is fine," she asked, smiling kindly and eating a few of the leftover grapes as she waited for the elves return.
The chicken was also a no-go, Humphrey wouldn't even try that one. Next she tried a roll, which he munched on and seemed to like, but he didn't loooove it. Anna scribbled that down on the list she had been keeping throughout the testing. Vegetables were a bust, he was like a kid in the way he avoided those things. What other foods should he try? More grapes for brainpower, and Anna was in the zone. Pizza, EVERYONE liked pizza. That was a bit harder for the elves to find, so instead of making them do her dirty work, she got to work and made her own pizza. She searched the kitchen and found a recipe, then ran around to find the ingredients. All the while Humphrey was continuing to munch on the bread she had left for him, obviously pretty hungry. Gosh, had Taryn been feeding him?! No wonder she was trying to get rid of the things.
Anna was enjoying herself as she made her pizza, and as soon as she slipped it into the oven and noticed a scratching sound coming from the other side of the kitchen. Raising an eyebrow, she looked around and saw Humphrey clawing at the counter, looking as if he was trying to climb up there. "What do you want, bub?" she asked, tilting her head as he looked at her with eager eyes. Shrugging her shoulders, she lifted him up and sat him on the counter. In a flash the niffler had raced across the counter and jumped onto a candy bar that was wrapped in a shiny wrapper, ripping the thing apart. She should have thought about that before.. another thing everyone liked was chocolate. Well it didn't hurt that it was also wrapped in something that the niffler was naturally attracted to.
Humphrey scarfed down the chocolate, avoiding the wrapper even though it probably looked good enough to eat to him. Then again.. they didn't eat the shiny stuff they found, so maybe it was just.. eye candy? Ah, the inner workings of a niffler were too complicated for her to think about on an empty stomach. The pizza she was cooking could soon put a stop to that, and by the smell of it it was going to be deeeelicious.
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Anna Almeida
Ravenclaw
First Year
steady as she goes.
Posts: 8
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Post by Anna Almeida on Jul 11, 2009 19:46:14 GMT -5
Anna had heard stories of the kitchens at Hogwarts, and how house-elves would immediately provide you with a bunch of food if you were to get inside. Unfortunately, her friends who'd told her these stories had never told her how to get in. Anna wasn't sure if they didn't know how themselves, or if they just didn't want to give the secret away to too many other students. Regardless, her curiosity had been sparked, and the young Ravenclaw girl was determined to figure out how to get inside the kitchens.
She went through the door on the right of the main staircase, skipped down the stairs and walked along to the corridor towards a painting of fruit, where a girl who looked slightly older than her was standing. She was about to walk up to the girl and ask her if she knew how to get into the kitchens, when she saw her reach out and tickle the pear in the painting. As the pear giggled, Anna saw a door handle materialize, allowing the girl to enter. That must be the door to the kitchens! Anna thought excitedly, aware of how lucky she was that the girl had been there. Hurrying along the corridor, Anna tickled the pear just as the girl before her had done, pushed open the door, and walked inside.
Immediately, a bunch of house-elves came up to her. "Hello, miss!" they greeted her cheerfully, each holding a plate filled with food. "Hello...oh, thank you!" she said. She took the plate from the elf nearest to her on her right- she'd never seen that particular dish before, but it looked like there were a bunch of different noodles put together, mixed with some carrots and cabbage, and covered with a red sauce. I don't know what this is, but it sure smells good, she thought. Taking a bite out of it, Anna's eyes widened- she hadn't expected it to be so spicy. "Can I...please have some water?" she quickly asked the elves, and immediately, four or five of them came back with glasses filled with water. In her eagerness to get the spicy feeling out of her mouth, Anna drank all of them.
All of a sudden, a pleasant and familiar scent caught Anna's attention. Heading further into the kitchen, she noticed the older girl who she'd seen before standing near the oven. "Hi," she said, walking over to the girl. "Are you making something? It smells really good!" Anna didn't have the shyness that usually came with being a first year- when it came to meeting new people, she was usually pretty outgoing and confident. The way she saw it, the only way to get to know people was to put yourself out there and start a conversation.
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Post by Annalisse Childs on Jul 11, 2009 20:13:09 GMT -5
Anna had been so caught up in figuring out what kind of food to feed her niffler, she hadn't even noticed the other girl enter the kitchen. It was a pretty big place though, you couldn't blame her. Plus the elves were always running around so she'd learned to tune out any excess noise. Eventually the girl made her way over to her and spoke up, finally catching her attention. "Oh, hello!" she replied with a smile. "I'm making pizza, it should be done in a few minutes." Nodding her head, she opened the oven door and peeked inside, giving it five minutes at most. "You're certainly welcome to stay and have some, by the way! I can't eat all of it myself.. or rather, I'd prefer not to." She giggled, shrugging her shoulders and scratching Humphrey's head as he scurried across the counter to where she was now standing.
"This little fellow is Humphrey. Oh.. and I'm Annalisse. That's a bit of a mouthful though so most people just stick with Anna," she said, smiling at her and then scribbling down on her paper that the niffler was a very big fan of chocolate. Not much of a surprise there though. She figured she'd eat her pizza before feeding him anything else, let him digest and all.
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Anna Almeida
Ravenclaw
First Year
steady as she goes.
Posts: 8
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Post by Anna Almeida on Jul 12, 2009 17:57:39 GMT -5
Oh, pizza! That's what the amazing scent was. "Oh, awesome!" she said to the older girl. "I'd love to have some; thanks so much for offering." That was really nice of her, Anna thought, grateful that the girl was being so friendly and welcoming towards her, as well as pleased that she was willing to share her pizza with Anna, even though they'd just met. Before she'd started Hogwarts back in September, her older brother had told her that many of the older students weren't too kind to first years, and would often pick on or play tricks on them. Anna was glad that none of this had been true in her case; all the older students she'd met so far had always treated her nicely.
A sudden movement caught her eye, and Anna turned to see a small creature dashing across the counter towards the older girl. "Oh, is that your niffler?" Anna asked. She'd learned about them in Care of Magical Creatures a while ago, and had been fascinated by their instincts to sniff out and discover shiny objects.
The girl went on to introduce her niffler as Humphrey and herself as Annalise. "Oh, my name is Anna, too!" Anna replied. "Except it's not short for anything, it's just Anna." She grinned, amused at the fact that she'd met someone with the same name. "It's nice to meet you...and Humphrey, too," she said, looking over at the niffler who was happily eating a piece of chocolate.
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Post by Annalisse Childs on Jul 12, 2009 18:32:53 GMT -5
"No problem! It's always nice to have some company," Anna said, smiling and nodding her head. Humphrey was fun and all, but he wasn't a very good conversationalist. She imagined that she'd be here for a while, trying to find something healthy (aka not chocolate) that her niffler would like. It'd be nice to have another person to help her think of ideas, if the other Anna wouldn't mind sticking around. And if she didn't.. it was always nice to have someone to eat with. There was too much pizza here for her own good anyway.
Anna giggled as the girl asked about Humphrey, nodding her head. "Mmhm, he's a project for Care of Magical Creatures class," she told her, scooping him up in her hands and sitting him back down on the floor so he could scurry around without her worrying about him slipping and falling off the counter. Luckily for her, he was a very well-behaved little guy as long as there was nothing shiny around.
"Really?!" Anna squeaked upon hearing that she shared a name with the girl. Even though hers was more of a nickname, she might as well be named Anna. Her mom only ever called her Annalisse when she was mad. "Very nice to meet you too, Anna! Ahh, that'll be an easy name to remember." She grinned, jumping excitedly as the bell went off on the oven to signify that the pizza was done. Clapping her hands, she grabbed an oven mit and pulled the pizza out of the oven. "I guess we should let it cool for a minute, then we can eat, yummm."
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Anna Almeida
Ravenclaw
First Year
steady as she goes.
Posts: 8
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Post by Anna Almeida on Jul 14, 2009 18:40:38 GMT -5
"Oh, that's cool!" Anna replied, in response to Annalisse's comment about the niffler being a project for class. She loved learning about all the different magical creatures- well, other than the creepy-sounding ones- and there were many of them that she'd love to have as a pet and take care of. Unfortunately, she didn't know if her mother would be too keen on that, considering she was a Muggle and, although she tried, still had trouble understanding a lot of things about the wizarding world. "So, are you just taking care of him, or are you trying to figure out something particular about nifflers?" Anna was curious as to what the project entailed.
"It'll definitely be easy to remember," Anna said with a grin. All of a sudden, a bell went off- it took Anna's brain a second to register that it was the oven signaling that the pizza was ready. "Oh, yay!" she said happily as Annalisse took it out of the oven- it smelled amazing. "Yeah, we should definitely let it cool first...we wouldn't want to burn our tongues trying to eat it," she agreed. Anna was usually patient when it came to waiting for hot foods to cool; even though it was hard to resist sometimes, especially when it smelled so good, she knew that if she burned her tongue, she wouldn't be able to enjoy eating the rest of her meal as much.
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Post by Annalisse Childs on Jul 15, 2009 11:53:34 GMT -5
"Mmhm," Anna said with a smile, eying him warily as he ran across the kitchen. There were tons of things that would probably attract him in here, she just hoped he wouldn't hurt himself trying to get to any of them. "Um, well we had to figure out what they eat by ourselves, so that's what brought me here in the first place. Other than that I think it's just taking care of them, it's something to do with the final, so.." she trailed off, shrugging her shoulders. It really was a risky move, giving out life animals for a project, but Anna was immensely glad her teacher had. It made for some interesting experiences, that's for sure.
Anna nodded as the other Anna made her comment about burning their tongues, which would indeed make their pizza less enjoyable. Most of the time she was an impatient kid, but times like these, when her taste buds were at risk, she tried her best to wait. Either way, it wasn't very long before she was skipping around the kitchen, searching the drawers for a pizza cutter. "Aha!" she exclaimed when she found one, snatching it out of the drawer and racing back over to Anna and the pizza. With a smile on her face she began cutting the pizza into slices, making sure it were actually cutting it all the way through so they'd have no trouble grabbing a slice. "Okay, dig in!" she said excitedly, pulling out a slice and realizing that plates would be a good idea. "Er.. Accio plates?" she mumbled with a wave of her wand, and what do you know, two plates came zooming out of a cupboard.
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