Food Glorious Food (A Vanderberg Thread)

Hunter's moods changed a lot nowadays - it had been over a month since "the incident," and his attitude usually depended on whether he had a lot of classes with Aoife and the way he felt when he woke up in the morning. A lot of the time, Hunter was actually fine. As long as he had his friends around, it wasn't so hard to not let Aoife's presence bother him. And it didn't hurt that he'd been spending a lot more time with Seren lately.

But right now, Hunter wasn't in a good mood or a bad one. He was just - hungry. That wasn't unusual though - hungry was a mood, right? In Hunter's opinion it was, anyway. Dinner had ended over an hour ago, and Hunter was in the mood for more sustenance than sweets could provide, so he had no choice but to go all the way down to the kitchens. Really, why did they have to be so far away from Gryffindor tower? The way down was never bad, but then Hunter had to make his way all the way back up when he was done. Must be nice to be a Hufflepuff, Hunter thought to himself when he finally made it to the basement floor. Lyn could just walk out of her common room and be at the kitchens in half a minute! That would be highly convenient in Hunter's case.

Of course, the moment he stepped foot in the kitchens, half a dozen house elves rushed up to him asking how they could serve him. Hunter was never sure what to think of the house elves - who got that excited over making some random, moody teenager a sandwich? But it was at least nice that Hunter didn't have to make it himself, so he didn't mind them all that much. "How about a turkey sandwich and a pumpkin juice?" Hunter asked, moving over to the counter and helping himself to a seat. The little creatures were used to him by now - he spent a lot of time eating. "Thanks," he told them when they'd gotten him his food, instantly bringing the sandwich to his mouth and taking a huge bite. "Oh, d'you have any cookies left?" Hunter asked them through his mouthful of food. Eating was so awesome, because he could just focus on how amazing food was and forget about everything else.

At one point during the year, Lyn remembered accidentally falling asleep in the Hufflepuff Common Room and waking up suddenly to find a weird creature behind the sofa. Needless to say, she had be-friended the thing. She had learned that Hogwarts had a bunch of things like it, called House-Elfs. That one house elf, called Rosey, told her that they cleaned and cooked around Hogwarts. Lyn disliked the idea, because Rosey was wearing nothing but a rag dirty with weird food stains. She thought that Hogwarts was breeding a race that was brainwashed to do whatever the students and teachers wanted, which reminded her of a TV episode she had seen once. When she said so to Rosey, the house elf had invited her to the Kitchens instead. Lyn didn't remember how to get in there, though, as she didn't remember much. Something about a picture and a pear.

That day, when she was supposed to be studying for the exams, Lyn decided to be like her brother and procrastinate. She quietly slipped out of the Common Room and looked around the corridor. Something about a picture and a pear... well, she needed to find a picture of a pear. The basement had dozens of pictures on the walls, so Lyn decided that it shouldn't be hard to find one of a pear. She walked up and down the corridor several times, without finding one of a pear. Most of the pictures included famous wizards or witches, wizard landscapes, fruit... fruit! Lyn perked up at the thought, and quickly walked back to that picture she had seen of a bowl of fruit.

If her theory was right... as soon as the picture came in sight, Lyn searched it for the pear. Yes! Yes, there it was! Okay, now what? she wondered. Maybe it worked like her Common Room, maybe she had to tap it with her wand in some kind of beat? Hesitantly, she pulled out her wand from her robes and tapped it on the pear. Nothing happened. She tried tapping it in the beat of "Kitchens", like Hufflepuffs did for their own house, but still nothing happened. Pulling her wand back in, Lyn decided to try knocking. The simplest thing a human being could do was basically knock. She did so, rapping on the painting with her knuckle, but nothing happened.

What could she do now? She tried poking the painting with her index finger. Nothing. She tried poking the pear with her finger. Nothing. "Ugh!" Lyn muttered loudly, and scratched her forehead. She stared at the painting for a bit, until she saw a bit of dirt on the pear. Slowly, she put her finger on it and stroked it as she tried to get the dirt off. As she did so, the painting suddenly disappeared and was replace by a door. "Yes," Lyn murmured to herself as she opened the door.

She opened the door a few inches and then poked her head in. She wanted to be sure that she was walking into the Kitchens and not some kind of bomber area. After a few moments, she knew that she wasn't. Lyn walked in and closed the door behind her. She was in some kind of hall as big as the Great Hall, with clone tables in the same positions. It was weird, because in this replica there were stoves and fridges and ovens all around the perimeter of the hall. But the weirder part was the house elves in there. There must be at least a hundred in there, cooking rapidly and jumping around. And they looked happy. All they did was work, Rosey had told her.

In a split second, Lyn spotted Hunter in there as well, eating at one of the tables. Quietly, she walked over to her brother and asked, "Isn't this slavery?" without any bother of saying hello. Hunter was usually ruder than she was being. She sat down next to her brother as a few house elves sprinted up to her and asked what she would want to eat. "Nothing, thanks," Lyn replied shyly. "Are you sures, Miss? We has just done a batch of chocolate chip cookies and we will has plenty of leftovers!" one house elf exclaimed, but Lyn shook her head. "We cans makes you a piece of cakes, Miss, if you wants?" another one offered. "No, I'm sure," Lyn insisted, but the house elves kept offering more and more. Finally, she ended up saying yes to an offering of a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. She had never tasted one, but she'd heard of them on the telly. It would be nice to know what it tasted like.

Lyra was in the mood to do something. After dinner, she badgered Aoife to try and persuade her to go outside or something. They ended up sitting under a tree, talking about sheep. Then Aoife announced that she had to go to work and left. So she was left all alone near the lake, with nothing to do. For a few minutes, she sat there to make a start on her DADA homework, but then she got bored of it. Homework was such a stupid invention. There were so much more interesting things to do. Like cooking! Or eating! Yes, she’d go to the kitchens!

Ever since she’d found out from Hunter where the kitchens could be found and how one got into them at the beginning of the year, she had spent a LOT of time down there, eating. If she wasn’t in class, her dorm or the common room, she was generally here. The house elves were awesome cooks and their cookies were the greatest cookies ever. Sometimes Lyra made it her mission to go down there and cook something herself. It never turned out quite as well as house elf food, but on occasion it was edible enough for her to actually share it with her friends and housemates. That was always nice.

Now that she’d come to the conclusion that she was hungry, she was very, very hungry. And when she was hungry, she had food as soon as possible. She was a real VanDerberg. If measure of VanDerberg-ness was based on what Hunter and Jack were like. Naturally, it only took her a few minutes to run at top speed towards one of her ultimately favourite places at Hogwarts: the kitchens.

Tickling the pear had quickly become a second nature to her. Lyra skipped through into the kitchens. As usual, she felt awkward as she was bombarded with suggestions for food from the house elves. “I don’t… actually, can I have some of that chocolate cake, please?” she smiled, nodding towards the big cake she could see over on the counter. As the elves fetched her a serving and a fork, she looked around the room. Hey, Lyn! And Hunter. VanDerbergs, yeah. They should plot to take over the world. There were enough of them.

After taking the plate and thanking the pathetic little creatures, she made her way over, stuffing her face with cake all the while. “Lyn!” she exclaimed happily. She hadn’t seen her sister in AGES! They were not going to completely ignore each other again, she was determined to make sure of it. “I missed you!” Lyra needed to tell her about the Haoife evidence. And argue that Senter couldn’t happen, even if it was happening right now.

Then she remembered Hunter was there too. It wasn’t such a big deal. She’d seen him the other day when she was snooping around in his room and stealing butterbeer and chocolate. She saw him most days. And talking to him was pointless because he was so often moody and annoyed by everyone and everything. She smiled at him too, though, because she was such a nice person, just as nice as all the Hufflepuffs everywhere.

It wasn't long before a huge batch of chocolate chip cookies was plopped down in front of him by one of the awesome house elves. "Thanks!" he exclaimed, instantly reaching out to grab one. Really, it was a miracle that Hunter wasn't obnoxiously obese by now, considering how much sugar he consumed every day. He wondered momentarily how he was even still hungry - it wasn't like he'd skipped dinner, and he'd just had a sandwich. But the cookies were so good that he grabbed three more at a time once he'd finished the first.

A small voice to his left disturbed him while he was mid-cookie, but Hunter didn't need to turn and look to see who it was. He'd recognize the sound of Lyn's voice anywhere. "Nah, they love it," he replied through a mouthful of food, turning to smile at his sister. He watched in amusement as she tried to say she didn't want anything, only to finally accept a sandwich. "They wouldn't know what to do with themselves if they couldn't get you something," he told her. Because the house elves were weird, but weird in a good way.

Soon, another person entered, and this time Hunter heard the portrait swing open. Still, he didn't look to see who it was - it didn't matter, anyway. It was probably someone that he didn't feel like talking to. It could even be Aoife, which Hunter wasn't prepared to deal with right now. But it turned out that it was just Lyra, which was just fine. He even gave her a grin without having to force it, which wasn't typical of him anymore. For some reason, he was in a good mood at the moment. "VanDerbergs unite?" he suggested with a laugh, realizing how stupid it sounded. "We just need Jack!"

Hunter's grin faltered a little as he looked between the twins, but he instantly plastered it back onto his face so that neither of them would see it. But really, when was the last time he's seen the two of them together? Hadn't Lyra just said she'd missed Lyn? Why weren't they spending time together? Hunter realized that he'd gotten so caught up in his own problems that he hadn't been paying nearly enough attention to either of his sisters. He'd have to make an effort to change that. "Lyn, let's trade common rooms," he said. "I'd give anything to be this close to the kitchens. I have to go all the way back up to Gryffindor tower every time I'm done. It's exhausting," he said a little over-dramatically. Maybe the trip up and down was the reason he wasn't obese.

It looked like Hunter didn't seem bothered by the house elves thing at all. In fact, he barely looked up from his half-eaten cookie when he replied to her. Lyn knew it would be that way, though, because she was sure that Hunter might love food more than he loved Seren. Which was serious, and made her Seren/Aoife war with Lyra at stake. Tempted to bug out her brother, she snatched one of Hunter's cookies and bit it. It was good and warm, straight from the oven. At that realization, Lyn felt more sorry for the house elves. They had to cook a whole batch of cookies from scratch just to satisfy a thirteen-year old's needs. She slowly finished her cookie, reluctant to do so. When a house elf rushed up to her with a plate of a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, Lyn let it sit in front of her and untouched. The house elf didn't notice, it was too pleased with itself for helping someone.

Then Hunter commented that they wouldn't be happy unless they got you something, and Lyn shot him an angry glare. "But, but isn't it even natural?" she asked quietly, scared that the house elves would overhear and chase her out of the kitchen with forks and knives or something. "They think that for them to be happy, they have to cook for a whole school and clean the common rooms every night... I mean, don't they eat at all?" It was so weird, the whole thing.

At that moment, the door to the Kitchens swung open, and Hunter looked up to see who it was. Lyn did the same to find, "Lyra!" Her voice came out with a tone of surprise. The sight of her sister made her melt inside. The two of them hadn't spoken in ages, and the last time she remembered actually interacting was when they met at the library. Even then, Lyra was kind of rude and mean, but now her twin was beaming. Maybe she was having a bad day back then. Without hesitating, Lyn moved to go and hug Lyra but ended up tripping on the table's legs. She fell down and quickly shielded herself with her arms.

Roughly, Lyn then stood up and laughed as Hunter said something about VanDerbergs unite. "I bet he's too busy crushing over that girl he was talking to on the platform," she said teasingly. At the beginning of the year, Lyn had spotted Jack talking to an older girl on the train platform. She guessed that the girl went to Hogwarts, since she had had a trolley and a suitcase and an owl with her.

Hunter's expression seemed to change for a moment, then go back to his old goofy smile. Lyn noticed it, but didn't mind it. "I missed you too!" she exclaimed, turning to Lyra. "How are you?" She hugged her sister, quite tightly, but let go after a few moments. Then, Hunter was telling her about switching common rooms. Lyn reckoned that it'd be great to share a dorm with Lyra after ages and ages of them being apart, but then... "Hunter, it's not even allowed..." Lyn murmured, looking at the ground.

“VanDerbergs unite?” she snorted. “That’s so stupid!” Hunter was so stupid. Everyone was so stupid. Lyra was clever. And pretty, kind, friendly, very modest. Still, he was right about something. They were nothing without Jack. He was the second best VanDerberg, so without him they had no oldest, wisest sibling. Hunter wasn’t a good substitute. “Yeah, why did he have to be a muggle?” If Jack had come to Hogwarts first, everything would be great. They’d all be Gryffindor except Lyn and they’d regularly talk to each other. Wow. That would be so different to what things were like at the moment.

When Lyn fell over, she held back a giggle. Her sister was so clumsy. She, on the other hand, was graceful, elegant and had perfect posture. Sort of. Her smile faded a little bit when Lyn asked how she was. It was painful to think about how they barely had any contact with one another. They’d always been so close, in sync and together, but Hogwarts had divided them, with the stupid house system where you couldn’t be roommates with someone in a different house. It was unfair to the people who had spent their whole lives together and never were seperated previously. Lyra hugged back tightly. “I’m good,” she said gently. “How are you?”

Wait… Jack? Romance? What? “Jack’s crushing on a girl he met on the platform?” she questioned. “Are you sure they aren’t just friends?” She expected more from her brother than for him to be in love with some random witch girl who probably wasn’t even that pretty. She didn’t thing Jack was even the sociable, get-in-a-relationship person at all.

That was a good point her brother had there. “Yours is in a so much better place,” she agreed. “But ours has… a nice view of the stars?” That was all. Some stars. Yes, they would need to relocate here next to the kitchens. “There’s no point swapping, anyway! If we dress up and pretend to be Hufflepuffs, Lyn can be with us as well!” Perfect plan, was it not? But maybe it wasn’t quite realistic. “We should have a huge multi-house sleepover! In the Great Hall! Or outside in summer!” That would be so cool!

"You should eat it, you know," Hunter told Lyn, indicating her hardly-touched sandwich. "Otherwise, they'll think you don't like it and make you another one." He raised an eyebrow as she said it wasn't natural in a typical Lyn fashion. "Of course they eat! And they don't think that they have to cook and clean to be happy, Lyn. They actually have to cook and clean to be happy. They like to. They're miserable otherwise."

Lyn seemed particularly excited to get to Lyra - enough that she tripped and face=planted into the ground. "Careful!" Hunter exclaimed in shock, sliding from his stool to help her back up. But she didn't need his help, and was up before he even got to her. With a shrug, Hunter returned to his plate and continued eating while the twins went through with their reunion.

"Well, you come up with something better then if it's that stupid," Hunter retorted when Lyra insulted his phrase, but a grin was still present on his face. "But I suppose you're right," he admitted after a minute, laughing. Hunter agreed with Lyra about wishing Jack wasn't a muggle, but for reasons of his own. Because Jack would be able to help him with Aoife. And Seren. And just about anything else, if he were only here.

"Girl on the platform...?" Hunter repeated in confusion. "What girl on the - Oh!" Hunter cut himself off, remembering that when Hunter had gone to say hello to Kynan before boarding the train, Jack had seemed to be familiar with Kynan's sister. "You mean Aylee," he told them. "I guess he ran into her in Diagon Alley last year - literally, and made her spill her books everywhere - and remembered her." But Jack didn't have a crush on her. That was ridiculous.

A nice view of the stars. Hunter snorted. "I'd rather have a short walk to the kitchens," he said. "And since when does it being allowed have anything to do with it?" he said to Lyn with an amused smile. "You two look almost exactly alike anyway, so I doubt you'd get caught if you went into each other's common rooms."

It seemed that Lyn's argument with Hunter was pointless, so she grabbed the sandwich and took a bite out of it. "Actually, you're right, I don't like it," she said as she stopped chewing and set the sandwich back on its' plate. Why did people like this stuff? It was horrible. She vowed never to eat a peanut butter and jelly sandwich ever again. Instead, she grabbed one of Hunter's cookies and ate it instead, to get the bad taste out of her mouth.

Then, Lyra was insulting Hunter's cool VanDerbergs Unite slogan. Lyn was trying hard not to laugh at that point, and when Lyra wished that Jack was a wizard as well, she said, "Maybe because he's stupid, too?" She burst out laughing, and clutched her tummy as she did so, so she didn't fall off the bench. When she finally managed to calm down, she said, "Maybe he would've been a Hufflepuff..." She still wasn't over the fact that her siblings were all Gryffindors and she was a Hufflepuff. As she realized what she then said, she exclaimed, "Nope, I totally doubt it! He hates everyone. And Toby."

When she fell down, she heard Hunter get up to help her and Lyra giggle, but Lyn managed to quickly get up again. Then she was hugging Lyra. "I'm great," she said. She had missed her sister, honestly. As they pulled apart, Lyn did a funny kind of jump with a sudden burst of excitement and exclaimed, "Can you believe we'll be third years soon, so we can go to Hogsmeade together! Then we can go buy sweets and ice-cream and butterbeer and prank stuff that we can use to turn Jack's hair pink!"

Since Hunter seemed so confused about her Jack and the girl on the platform theory, Lyn started to describe her, "Oh, she's got brown hair and blue eyes, and she looks older than you d-" Hunter then realized that he knew who the girl was. Lyra asked if she wasn't sure that they were just friends, and then Hunter was saying how the two had met, and Lyn cut in and said, "Have you seen the way he looked at her? He kept scratching the back of his neck! Jack's my brother, I know what he does, and he only scratches that spot when he's nervous!" It was a bit of a long speech, but Lyn was pretty serious about Jack liking a Hogwarts witch. "And who's Aylee?" she asked.

The conversation turned back to the switching common rooms thing. Lyra was saying that they could have a sleepover somewhere, or that her and Hunter could pretend to be Hufflepuffs. Then Hunter said something about them looking practically exactly alike. "We can do a switcheroo!" Lyn exclaimed loudly, turning to Lyra. "Like Mary-Kate and Ashley always do, for that TV show! Or like from Liv and Maddie!" She admitted, she kind of liked watching TV shows and movies that involved twins. Mary-Kate and Ashley were her favourite actresses, because they were twins and almost always were in movies as twins.

"What if we switched places for a week?" Lyn asked Lyra kind of seriously. She actually liked the idea. The two looked almost alike, and Hunter was probably the only one who would notice the difference. "I could be Lyra for a week, you could be Lyn for a week?"

No, she couldn’t think of anything better at the moment, but wasn’t anything better than “VanDerbergs Unite!”? Yes. “Do we really need a cheesy slogan?” Lyra ate another forkful of her sickly, over-chocolatey chocolate cake. She couldn’t really eat anymore of this without making herself sick. She handed her plate to an eager house elf and impatiently declined all the food they offered her next. It was sweet and everything, but really annoying how desperate they were to help. “I’m always right, Hunty.” Hunty? Could she take that back?

When Lyn called Jack stupid, she laughed, maybe not as hard as her manic sister. “Hey!” she grinned. “Don’t insult my favourite brother, Lyn!” Her laughing slowly faded down, but she had to hold it back when she mentioned him being a Hufflepuff. No, he was a Gryffindor, totally. But he could be a Slytherin too, because like her sister said, he hated a lot. Not the twins, because the twins were awesome. Who in their right mind would hate the twins?

“Yeah, it’s going to be so cool!” Lyra agreed enthusiastically. “But shouldn’t Hunter already be supplying us with free prank stuff?” He had a job at that prank shop, so why wasn’t she regularly receiving free packages with lots of pranks to use? And free ice-cream from Aoife? She’d have to bring that up to her other working friend. “I think we should change his hair to more of a mauve, violet sort of colour. Just so it stands out more!” Humiliation when he walked along the road and people looked at the previously normal looking teenager weirdly was what they wanted.

Oh. “I didn’t see,” she shrugged. That sucked, because if she had proof with her own eyes she could make fun of Jack for it. “Oh, I think I know who that is!” The Aylee girl from some classes. “If he was rubbing his neck like that, then he’s definitely in love with her!” That fact just immediately told her that what Lyn was saying was completely true.

For the first time in… well, forever, Hunter said something smart. That they looked almost identical and nobody would notice if they switched. Lyn seemed to have the exact same thought as her and an evil smirk took over her features. This could be the best twin prank ever. Lyra VanDerberg, temporary Hufflepuff, yeah?

“Ew, Liv and Maddie, I hate that show,” she said without thinking about the rest of the sentence. “Yes! We should! It will be so much fun! I get to be right next to the kitchens and you get to share a room with a whining depressing teenager. Sounds good to me!” She probably got the better deal. Food, lots of food. But Lyn got stairs, Hunter, Aoife and some stars. That was totally fine, why not? “So we HAVE to do it, definitely!”

Hunter rolled his eyes. "You're so picky," he told Lyn, reaching over to grab her half-finished sandwich and taking a bite. Honestly, who didn't like peanut butter and jelly? It was a classic. Hunter ignored his sister when she took a cookie, finishing her sandwich off rather quickly. "Do you want me to ask them to make you something else?" Hunter already knew the answer was no. His sister wouldn't want to make the house elves do any more work than they had to.

"I bet Jack would've liked my slogan at least," Hunter retorted, laughing. But his laughter stopped immediately at Lyra's next words. "Do not call me that," he said to her, a serious tone to his voice. But then, the memory of Vanessa calling Blake "Blakey" in their second year came to mind, and Hunter burst into laughter once more. Between his own laughter and Lyn's, Hunter couldn't even bother glaring at Lyra when she mentioned that Jack was her favorite brother.

"He'd be a Slytherin," Hunter said matter-of-factly. "He acts nice, but he doesn't want anything to do with anyone if he doesn't really like them." Not that Hunter was much different now. And not that Jack would necessarily be in Slytherin because of that. Hunter thought that his brother might be in Gryffindor too, but didn't want to say that because it could potentially upset Lyn.

"Okay, first of all, I don't get it for free," Hunter said when Lyra commented on prank things. "And I supply you with butterbeer - and if I don't you sneak into my room and take it anyway - so you shouldn't be complaining." They wanted to prank Jack over the summer. Hunter would have to be sure to watch out so that they didn't get him, too. "If you make Jack's hair pink, he's gonna kill you," Hunter warned them.

Hunter looked back and forth between the twins as they went on about how Jack was in love with Aylee. "He is not in love with her," Hunter said, rolling his eyes. "Even if he was rubbing his neck. He's only met her twice." Although Hunter had to admit that the neck-rubbing thing was a sure sign that his brother was nervous or embarrassed or something other than normal. It was Jack's equivalent to Hunter's running his hand through his hair. "Aylee Walters," Hunter clarified. "Maybe you know Kynan, she's his sister. Ravenclaw, seventh year."

Hunter tried not to seem too interested when Lyra mentioned having to share a room with a whining, depressing teenager. Never in a million years would he have thought Aoife to be described in that way - but he tried to keep his face disinterested. "You two should definitely do it," he agreed.