Red shot Rayna a sharp look when she giggled during him talking. "You think that's funny?" He drawled a little annoyed.

Dugan rolled his eyes and smacked Red on the shoulder. "come on man, it is funny. You are way too nosy for your own good."

Red grunted and sat back in his seat and folded his arms over his chest and glowered back at his roommate.

Lou laughed at the exchange between the boys.
"sheesh guys, no need to fight. Any of you want to come and share in teaching Rayna's baking lesson?" She asked standing up.

Red shook his head no. Dugan just waved them on. Henric and Jace however stood up with eager smiles on their faces."Sure! Sounds like fun." Jace said and Henric agreed.

Lou grinned. "Excellent! You guys can take turns as look outs." She cackled and led them all off to the school kitchens.

Rayna was a bit taken aback by Redd's annoyed tone. She was thankful when Dugan smacked him, it let her leave his question unanswered.

Rayna had to laugh at Louvenia's prescribed job for the guys. Even Louvenia's cackle was quite adorable! She smiled all the way down to the kitchens before nervousness took over. She felt a bit apprehensive about baking. What if I set the oven on fire? What if the food doesn't turn out right?

Soon they were sneaking into the kitchen and Rayna stopped, letting her jaw drop in amazement. It was a lot bigger than she had thought it would be. There were so many interesting looking tools, gadgets, bowls, and canisters everywhere. "Woooooow," she breathed in amazement.

Louvenia had noticed that Rayna had been startled by Red's tone and the glare he had shot at her. Thankfully Dugan had managed to deal with him rather effectively. "Don't mind Red too much. His bark is much worse than his bite." She said.

This caused Jace and Henric to burst out laughing behind her. Lou shot them a look.
"Did you guys know he has two younger twin sisters that he lets put bows and barrettes in his hair?" She asked pointedly.

the two boys gawked at her in surprise.

"Oh crap, I wasn't supposed to say that," Lou said her face going red. "Forget what I said, he'll kill me if he knows I told you that."

"Our lips are sealed Lou," Jace and Henric echoed at the same time. "Jinx knock on wood!" They both exclaimed at the same time knocking on the kitchen door.

Lou sighed and rolled her eyes.

She could feel Rayna's nervousness and wrapped an arm around the other girl's waist and drew her close. "Don't worry about the oven, I'm in charge of that. What you have to worry about is following directions. I'll demonstrate and then you get to do what I do. I think we should start out with something simple. Like cookies." Lou suggested.

She flitted around the kitchen pulling ingredients out with her hands or with a levitation spell if it was too high for her.
"Now we just need eggs." She said and went to grab a few from the gigantic fridge in the corner of the room.

"Henric, will you grab some aprons?" she asked the tall boy. Henric nodded and went to pull them down of the hooks where they were hanging. "Here," He said handing one to her and another one over to Rayna. "Do I get to help then?"

Lou nodded, "For now. Jace, please go keep an eye outside..try not to look too much like you're watching for teachers." She said with as sigh.

Jace snorted. "I've been a look out before. I know how to do it." He pulled a huge book out from behind his back and went back out to do his job.

Lou rolled her eyes. "What is with you guys being so snippy lately?" She asked no one in particular.

Henric gulped nervously then laughed. "No reason.." He hedged.

Lou rounded on him poking a wooden spoon into his stomach. "SPILL the beans NOW!" She demanded fiercely.

"Owww! Fine..he has a crush on you."

Lou's eyes widened and she dropped the spoon on the ground. "He what?!"

Henric looked miserable. "I think he's liked you since third year." He told her.

Lou digested this news with blazing pink cheeks. "Well..enough about that..let's get to cooking."

She carefully laid out the measuring cups and the recipe in front of herself. "Okay Rayna this is what we need to do first. I want you to carefully measure out the dry ingredients into the red bowl. First you'll need the flour."

They proceeded with mixing up the dry ingredients, with a little spilling but not a big mess. Then they moved on to the wet ingredients. That was a little more difficult. Lou was smart enough to have Rayna crack the eggs in a separate smaller bowl first and then pick out any shells that ended up in the eggs before adding it to the rest of the wet ingredients.

"Okay now for the fun part, we mix them together using the mixer."

Rayna listened to the exchange between the three of them. It was interesting to learn that Red let his younger sisters put bows in his hair, she grinned at the thought. They way Jace and Henric echoed at the same time made Rayna wonder if Louvenia often spilled secrets to them and that was how they normally responded, or if they were just that close of friends that they were that in sync with each other, or perhaps a bit of both.

Rayna idly took the apron and listened to the exchange between Louvenia and the guys. She found it cute that Jace had a crush on Louvenia. She wondered if Lou felt the same or if she needed to process how she felt and discover her own feelings. It seemed to Rayna that Lou was shocked at the news.

Rayna finally looked down at the apron and stared at it like it was a foreign creature. She had absolutely no idea how to go about wearing it. She had completely missed watching how Louvenia had put her own on. She looked to Lou, embarrassed by the fact she did not even knowing how to put it on. She struggled to find the words, not wanting to sound completely foolish. "Help?" she asked quietly, failing to elaborate further, her eyes revealed that she was completely lost.

Rayna followed Lou's directions. She had started to reach for the salt rather than the sugar, but Lou was quick to spot it and stopped her from destroying the entire batch of cookies.

When the mixer started up, she had to cover her ears. She had not expected the noise that came from it. Thankfully she had not been holding anything or it would most definitively ended up on the floor.

Louvenia glanced over at Rayna when she asked for help. "Oh sorry, put the loop over your head, and pull the strings back, I'll tie it for you." She said helping Rayna with the apron.

"Henric could you fire up the oven to 350 for me?" She asked as she handed Rayna a hair tie for her long hair. Then she pulled her hair back as well.

Louvenia wasn't surprised that though Rayna hadn't had any experience in the kitchen before that the other girl took directions easily enough. She had to stop her only once, from using too much salt but other than that everything went well.

"Is the mixer too loud for you?" Lou asked seeing Rayna cover her ears. "Muffilato* Lou said pulling her wand out and putting a silencing charm around the mixing bowl. "Better?" She askeed.

"Oven is on Master Baker," Henric told her.
Lou laughed. "Grab some cookie pans, they should be over on the shelf I think. Unless they got moved."

Henric nodded and went to retrieve some pans.

"So, now all we have to do is decide what extra things we want in the cookies. Chocolate, walnuts, fruit..what are your ideas?" Lou asked her.

Rayna put the apron on as to Louvenia's instructions. She thanked her and pulled her own hair back.

She nodded, grateful for the silencing spell. "I wasn't expecting that."

She thought for a moment, wondering what all could be included in the cookies. Finally, she suggested, "How about we make some chocolate raspberry ones?"

Lou nodded and glanced at Henric who had brought several pans out. "Time to switch jobs." She told him.

Henric sighed and turned to go out and grab Jace from his watch post.

Lou busied herself looking for the things Rayna wanted to put in the cookies. "Would you like milk chocolate or dark chocolate? I'm thinking if we add some baking cocoa and a little more sugar they can be double chocolate with raspberry pieces in them."

Jace came in as she was saying this and he practically drooled over her suggestion.
"Sounds amazing to me. Need me to grab the cocoa?"

"Baking Cocoa," She said with a slight frown. "regular cocoa wouldn't work out at all."

"Gotcha," Jace said saluting her with two fingers and then went and grabbed a can out of the pantry.

Rayna nods at Louvenia's suggestion to make double chocolate cookies.

Once the cookies were baking, Rayna helped everyone clean up. "Does baking always leave this much of a mess?" she asked as she wiped up some flour from the counter, which landed on the floor. Thankfully they had not yet swept or mopped.

A moment later, they had finished cleaning up the kitchen and a timer sounded, signaling the completion of the cookie baking. Rayna watched as Louvenia skillfully removed the cookies from the oven. The smell of them was making her mouth water. "How soon until they are ready to be eaten?"

With so many hands the cleanup got finished a lot more quickly than normal. She laughed at Rayna's question as they finished up the cleaning. "It depends on what you are making. I think baking is a bit messier than cooking other things."

She directed Jace to clean up the floor once all the counters and work space was cleaned off. he complied, though grumbled a little about it.

"Jace, don't forget you'll get paid in cookies, delicious cookies." She teased him.

Jace laughed and finished cleaning the floor with a better mood. Once everything was done, the timer sounded and Lou pulled the pans from the oven and placed them on the counter to cool off. "Well we will want to let them cool for a little bit first. We wouldn't want someone to burn their mouth trying to eat them when they're just out of the OVEN!" She exclaimed as Jace grabbed one and tossed it back and forth before biting into it.

"It's not too hot." he said opening his mouth slightly to let cool air into his mouth before he started chewing.

There was a double knock on the door and Lou froze. "Shit, that's the signal. Quick, grab that empty flour bag Jace!"

Jace's face paled as he grabbed the bag and held it open so Lou could dump the three cookie sheets inside of it. "At least we've got everything cleaned..well save for the pans." he said glancing around.

Lou used a cleaning spell to clean the pans and then levitated them back to where they needed to go. "Come on Rayna, we got to scoot before we get caught." She said grabbing the girl's hand and dashed out the door with Jace right behind her.

Rayna nodded again at Louvenia's explanation. She was excited to learn even more about cooking and baking. Her mind started wandering towards what spells she might need, listing them in her head. It kept her mind occupied while they continued to clean up.

She laughed when Jace's attitude improved at Louvenia's comment about being paid in cookies. She laughed again when Jace picked up one of the very hot cookies, juggled it, then bit into it. It was a funny fight to see.

She was startled at the knock on the door. Louvenia and Jace seemed to have the remaining clean up in order. She glanced around the room to double check that everything was back in its original place. The only thing was, she was not 100% sure of where everything went. To her, it looked correct. She followed as Louvenia grabbed her hand and pulled her along out of the kitchen.

Once they were safe, she commented, "That was a lot of fun! Thank you so much for teaching me how to make cookies! We should do that again sometime!"

Lou was glad to see Rayna excited about learning how to bake. She figured if she were to teach her something new every week, pretty soon Rayna would have a new skill under her belt. Which Rayna could use in the future.

She couldn't help but smile at her when Rayna laughed at Jace's antics. "He's like an annoying little brother isn't he?" She asked not noticing how Jace's face fell when he heard her say that. Truth was when she had heard Henric say that Jace had a crush on her that had freaked her out. Mostly because she couldn't see herself ever dating someone that was a close friend of her cousin's. It would have been like going out with a brother.

The three of them joined Henric outside and raced down the hall, easily avoiding the teachers that were headed towards the kitchen. "Whew, that was a close one." Lou said when they stopped a good distance away. She smiled at Rayna. "I think we've corrupted you!" She giggled. "We should definitely do it again. Hey now, give me that bag of cookies!" Lou exclaimed seeing Henric and Jace scarfing down cookies.

She swiped the bag out of Jace's hand before he could move it out of her reach. She glared at them. "I think that you two should ask before just eating the cookies we slaved over." She said with a frown and handed the bag over to Rayna. "I'll let you decide how to divvy them up."

Rayna wasn't sure how to answer Louvenia's comment about Jace being like an annoying little brother. If there wasn't a large age gap, she didn't generally consider people like a little brother or sister. All of Lothar's room mates seemed like good friends to have. Maybe Louvenia was nervous about the earlier comment. Either way, she let the question go unanswered.

Once they stopped a safe distance away, Rayna laughed. "I've already been corrupted. I am a Slytherin after all," she joked good naturedly.

Rayna looked around and spotted a bench against the wall. She moved over to take a seat, setting the bag of cookies on her lap. She opened it and passed two of each cookie type around to everyone, giving Jace one less. "You already ate one of that flavor," she commented when he complained, "Right after it came out of the oven." She left a couple cookies in the bag for herself and Lothar. She turned to Lovuenia, "How's that? Pretty even?"

Lou was glad that her comment about Jace had been ignored by Rayna. She hadn't really meant to say that bit out loud. It had kind of just slipped out. Truthfully she thought of all of Lothar's friends as brothers, not love interests. She just didn't know how to go about telling Jace that and not hurting his feelings. Which she figured she probably had already done.

Lou giggled at Rayna's joke. "Slytherins aren't all bad though," She told her.

She followed Rayna over to the bench and sat down next to her. Jace and Henric followed after them and sat down on the other side of Rayna. Jace bit back his complaint at her explanation and bit into one of his cookies. "We'll just have to make more." he mumbled with cookie still in his mouth.

Lou laughed and nodded to Rayna. "Yeah that works. Thanks. Come on, we'll let the guys go do their thing and we can go out for a walk. I'm hot after being in the kitchen for so long." She said getting up and waiting for Rayna to join her.

"See you later Rayna, nice to meet you!" Henric said with a smile and a wave.

"Yeah, nice to meet you. Have a nice day." Jace added with his mouth full of another cookie.