Hands [Custom Ability One-Shot]

[nova hypatia vector]

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September 2nd, 2011

Chocolate chip cookies. That was easy enough for Nova to bake on her own. She had watched her Aunt Decima make them loads of times from the moment she was tall enough to peer onto the counter in the bakery’s kitchen (sometimes with the help of a step-stool). The actual process her aunt went with usually used magic, and she knew that there were spells involved, but didn’t know what they were exactly. Her aunt was usually quiet throughout the whole thing, quickly mixing and baking everything necessary for the day in a matter of hours. Any extra time in the morning was spent allowing Nova to try her hand at it, and despite wanting her own wand – which was still three long years away – she was being taught how to use her hands. According to her aunt, the basics had to be learned the normal way. The way boring muggles did things. She hated that though because it made a mess of things, and watching the elder Vector woman effortlessly swish her magic stick back and forth to do her baking only made Nova want to skip all the messy, annoying steps.

Today she felt a little more lonely than usual, with her brother leaving for school the day prior, and her aunt being busy with the bakery. She was allowed to work on whatever she wanted, whenever she felt like it – that was her training. All the ingredients were within her reach, and she was encouraged to try whatever she wanted, because there was no telling what could come out good. The only rule was that she wasn’t allowed to operate the oven on her own. For that, she needed Aunt Decima.

Her aunt’s baked goods were the best she had ever had, and the customers were always saying that too. Supposedly her grandfather, who she had never met and whom ran the bakery before that, was the same way. According to her aunt, Nova had the same ability with her cooking. She had difficulty believing that because all goodies and meals tasted good in the Vector household. The chocolate chip cookie dough she was currently kneading certainly didn’t taste any better than her aunt’s.

And that was when it clicked. She needed a wand! It was usually kept somewhere in the kitchen, mostly because that was the only place it was used, and Nova spent the majority of the morning searching for it. Eventually she realized that it was stuffed into the pocket of one of her aunt’s aprons, and she greedily picked it up with her sticky, flour-covered hands. This was a real prize, and she was lucky that her aunt didn’t hear the scream of joy as she ran back to her baking station and started poking at the cookie dough with the wand.

Of course nothing happened, and with that, frustration ensued. She poked the dough, set the bowl on the ground and waved the wand at it, and even threw it at the bowl at one point. When she finally started to give up, she angrily cussed at it with a word she had heard an old warlock in Diagon Alley use once upon a time, and a flash of red sparks shot out at the dough. Believing this to be enough ‘magic’, she ran out of the kitchen and into the shopfront of the bakery, where she found her aunt just finishing up with a customer. Tugging on her sleeve to get her to put the dough in the oven, she had completely forgotten that she still had the wand clutched in her hand.

Except there was no look of disappointment. Maybe a brief glint of concern, like the one time she accidentally lit half the kitchen on fire, but there was never any chastising or words of discouragement. That’s how things were around her dad and her newest step-mother. But Aunt Decima wasn’t like that. When the cookies finally came out, she said they were the best. Nova thought they were simply good. Clearly she needed to get the wand again and put more magic into them!

nova hypatia vector ● 686 ● Ran Before The Storm by Roo Panes

MADE BY VEL OF GS + ADOX 2.0