What do you want, a cookie?

Ever since Meridian Chang was asked to step aside from active duty at Azkaban while her case is opened in front of Wizengamot, which caused her to gave up on her apartment where she lived for years and return to her family's home, 12 Grimmauld Place has become her second home. It became a place where she would run after having another fight with Cho that reminded her of the exact reasons why she moved out of her mother's house when she got her first salary.

This time, Cho nagged her daughter calling her passive. Stating that she should and could do more to help the investigators find the truth and close her case sooner then they both predicted. Maybe it was because Meridian secretly agreed with Cho but still hated the fact that her mother felt the need to point that, young Chang could now be found in the kitchen in headquarters of the Order baking cookies.

Other Order members have already accustomed to seeing her in the kitchen  pretty often since she returned home months ago and they knew better than to approach her while she was baking because it was only time when this ex-Slytherin showed her snarky side. She liked to be left alone, covered in flour with her hair in a messy ponytail with only two dark bangs that escaped the band and were surrounding her face.

Some people liked to go hitting a punching bag when they were pissed, in Meridian's case baking cookies had the same effect. She could even say baking had a therapeutic effect. Somewhat like yoga, only much more useful because she'll, as well as every order member that visits the kitchen, have a bunch of cookies fresh out of an oven.

The cookies sometimes even tasted good.

The woman opened the oven and using her wand, levitated a tray of finished cookies our of the oven and let them gently land on the table before raising another tray of cookies that waited to be baked in the air and sending them in the oven. While humming the melody of some old song Miles used to listen occasionally when she was young, she moved cookies on a paper napkin that covered bigger half of the table and which was mostly filled with cookies she baked earlier that day. Considering she was baking from the early morning and it was almost noon now, there was plenty of cookies for every Order member, even if we ignore the fact that there are still four trays of cookies waiting to be baked.

When she turned around to take a bowl filled with cream she planned to separate into smaller sections and colour them in different colours than decorate the cookies with it, she found the bowl almost empty that made her frown, pursing her lips in disapproval.

Chang marched towards the kitchen doors and poked her head out.

"Hey! Which one of you dumba*es ate my cream?“ She shouted staring at empty hallway, knowing full well that there are other Order members in the building.

He wasn't one to be found in Grimmauld Place often, unless there was supposed to be an Order meeting going on sometime that day. He'd heard that there was something that was supposed to be going on that night, but he wasn't so sure as there hadn't really been anything to notify them of any type of meeting. But he'd decided that it was better to hang around just in case.

He'd had things to take of most of the morning and once he'd decided to go back to headquarters, the Vampire was greeted by a shout filling the hallway. Something about someone having eaten cream or something. A chuckle escaped the ex-Hufflepuff's lips, causing his shoulders to shake slightly and he walked down the hall toward the kitchen, having recognized the voice coming from the room.

He poked just his head in originally, his gaze falling upon a baking Meridian Chang, before moving so his entire body was in the doorway and he leaned against the side of it. "What's that about cream?" he asked, looking at the woman with basically one eye as his bangs fell into his line of vision, obscuring one of his light brown eyes.

Another laugh escaped his lips as he moved from the doorway, entering the kitchen and walking toward the counter opposite of Meridian and taking a cookie from the plate full of them. "Do I need to beat someone up?" he asked her, bringing the cookie to his mouth and seemingly sinking his fangs into it before snapping it in half.

[OOC: Bleh, sorry. Lame and short post.]

Meridian bumped into a table almost knocking down a roller for preparing cakes. Two months off her job and she were already getting rusty enough that she haven't noticed she had a company before hearing his voice. She turned around and tried to wipe off some flour but ended with only adding some more onto her cheeks, she then leaned back on the table and realizing too late that that will leave her with flour on her clothes, Meridian gave Ryo her best scowl like he was the one to blame for all this.

"Someone ate bigger half of the cream I needed to decorate the cookies. Everyone's suspect." She walked towards him, her heels clicking on an old wooden floor, and sniffed him. "You're innocent, though." No vanilla. The cream was full of it. She walked back to the table and turned her back to him, Meri took the remaining cream and divided it into smaller containers, and added a few drops of different food color in each container, "do you know who ate it, Ryo?"

She mixed each container until the color and cream fused together then took her wand from the back pocket of her jeans and lifted all the containers in the air, sending them towards the table, it was when she noticed that the man was eating a cookie.

BANG.

The containers fell on the floor and broke down since her concentration loosen too much.

"Crap!" The witch squeaked, looking at the remains of her cream sprayed all over the floor, completely ruined. She pushed the remain bangs of her hair behind her ears and looked at Ryo, "this has not gone the way I planned", sighing, she bent over and started to collecting pieces of glass in her hand. She could have used a spell, but the spell would remove all the mess at one and she wouldn't able to separate the glass and put in a recycling container.

"Oh, by the way, I hope you didn't plan to do anything before the meeting starts because you're helping me to make some more cream for the cookies since this one is wasted."

Was it bad that he couldn't help the smirk that had crept onto his face, pulling his lips upwards, as he watched her fumble about all flustered about her cookies and cream? In a way, it might have made him a bad person, not helping out a damsel in distress. However, he knew that Meridian was anything but that. She knew how to handle herself, and he was sure it made no difference if it was in work or in cooking. He watched her, his brown eyes following her every move as he leaned against the counter.

"Can't say I do." He replied in an almost bored tone, glancing to the side as he ate the rest of the cookie that had been held in his hand. "I just got here, had things to do all morning." He added.

As he watched her, the man couldn't help but think that she seemed just a little bit cute, something that he normally wouldn't think of her. Not because she was unattractive or anything, she was just someone who was tough enough that "cute" wasn't exactly the word he would want to use to describe her. In fact, he felt as though she would take it as an insult if he called her cute. But he was free to say it all he wanted in his mind. He soon noticed that his thoughts had trailed off and he hadn't been listening to what she'd asked of him, but he decided to just go along with whatever she'd asked.

Looking at the bowls that had fallen to the floor, or what was left of them, Ryo lowered himself beside her to help pick up the shards of glass that were now adorning the floor. "Careful not to cut yourself," he warned softly, seeing blood being the last thing he wanted. He wasn't a naïve teenager anymore though, so he had more control over the vampire now, but he didn't want to take any chances of losing that control. The vampire sighed, she'd mentioned something being ruined and he now started putting two and two together, so that must've meant that he was supposed to help her.

That was fine with him. It's not like he had anything better to do before the meeting. Aside from probably teasing her if anything else goes wrong. Ryo was a particularly good cook, now, since he'd begun to live by himself since graduating from Hogwarts.

"What do you want me to do?" He asked, dropping the glass shards into the recycling, being careful not to catch his own fingers as he released them.

"Nah, I can handle a little bloo…" Meridian stopped abruptly realising her mistake. It was foolish to think he said that because he cared for her, nevertheless of how genuine Hufflepuffs really are. Saying that simply because he was a vampire, and was, as one, attracted on human's blood, including hers. "Oh. I understand. No blood, I promise!" She glanced at him through her lashes before collecting the last pieces of glass and dumping them in the garbage.

"Now comes the best part," she walked towards the kitchen door and closed it, "but it's top secret, so you mustn't tell anyone or I'll.." she shrugged not sure what could she do if he really decided to exit the room and start yelling about it, "I'll be very disappointed, I guess." Meridian shyly smiled and pulled a bag of underneath the table, "this, Mr. Hiroku, is the way how I trick everyone into believing I know how to cook." The woman chuckled and pulled six packs of the mixture for cream where they only needed to add eggs and milk before finishing them with mixing.

"The fun part is that magic is not allowed." With that, she put her wand on the farthest cupboard and pulled two whisks from the cupboard and handed one to Ryo. "I hope you know how to use this, 'cause we're screwed otherwise since I told everyone that the cookies will be done before the meeting starts." She pulled a set of bowls and placed them on the only flour free space on the whole table, before pulling a cartoon of eggs from another cupboard. "Could you get the milk, please? Four bottles should be enough."

When all the ingredients were on the table, she looked at Ryo again. "Here's the deal: you can choose whichever colour you want if I can have the purple one, please, please, please." She jumped with every 'please' like a little girl and watching him like he told her that they moved Christmas for tomorrow. "Come on, Ryo, say you agree."