Errand Baking Toukmonds as well as Bread Solo

Toukmond Residence
Sunday, 23 August, 2020

It was a summer day. Not one of the nice summer days, with the sun shining, children playing, and a general feeling of happiness. No, this was one of those other summer days, the ones you have every summer, but try to forget in favor of the nicer days. The sun was most definitely shining, without a cloud in sight or even a hint of wind to interrupt its angry rays' trip to the ground. The humidity was overwhelming, making it feel easier to drown in the air than breathe. To make it worse, the sun was exactly in the middle of the sky, meaning that unless you were directly under an overhang, there was no shade.

At this moment, Robert was cooking like an oversized, red-headed lobster on the Toukmonds' porch. Thankfully, he'd been allowed to lather up in sunscreen before being rudely kicked out of the air conditioning by his parents, otherwise he'd be an oversized, red-headed, badly burned, lobster. As for why he'd been rudely kicked out in the first place, that was probably his own fault. Every day since getting back from Diagon Alley, he'd been holed up in his room, pouring over his new textbooks. For some odd reason, his parents didn't think this was healthy, so they chose this beautiful day as his day to "get some nature." Robert did not enjoy getting some nature.

Not much had changed between today and the other days since Diagon Alley, other than the boy's new sweat stains. He was still avidly reading the textbooks, just with a bit of a different change in scenery. He was currently about halfway through Hogwarts, A History and happy as a clam. In fact, he was so engaged in his book that he almost missed the owl that was perched on the railing. In fact, he only noticed it when the owl hopped off its perch and pecked his ankle. And even then, he didn't look up, assuming it was a bug with a taste for seafood. He only became fully aware of its existence when he went to swat the bug, and found a much larger, much hairier, flying creature there instead.

Startled to find an owl in broad daylight, poking a random human, his first instinct was to call for his mother. If anyone knew what was going on, it would probably be the resident biologist in the family. After a couple exchanges through the screen door, she eventually realized this wasn't a ploy to get inside, and went out to see the bird for herself. Although she could offer no scientific reason for the bird's presence, she was able to find a detail that Robert had missed, an envelope tied to the bird's leg. "Might as well open it," she said with a shrug.

When opened, everything suddenly made much more sense. It was a message from a staff member at Hogwarts, meaning that owls were probably just another oddity of the wizarding world. Apparently, a Mr. Gargott Dunaid wanted the Toukmonds to bake something for him. At first, Robert's mother was quite adamantly against this idea. It was very hot outside, and she really did not want to run the oven, making it hot inside as well, just to satisfy the cravings of a man she'd never met. However, after much pleading on the part of her son, she eventually caved. After all, he was a professor at Hogwarts, it would probably be better to get on his good side if Robert was going to spend the next nine months with him.

Which is how Robert went from being toasted by the sun's unforgiving rays to be boiled by the excess heat of the Toukmond oven. He tried to think of it as if he were wrapped up in a blanket, cocooning him with its warmth, but that in order to make the analogy work, the blanket would have to be laced with hot wires and covering up all the holes he needs to breathe. Needless to say, it was not comfortable in the Toukmond residence that day. However, despite the heat, Robert and his mother persevered. After a couple hours of mixing, kneading, sneakily eating unused chocolate chips, cleaning, and waiting, they finally pulled a perfectly baked loaf of pumpkin bread from the oven.

The final problem was how to send the pumpkin bread back to Professor Dunaid. However, it was quickly solved when the two Toukmonds looked outside and saw the same owl from before waiting on the ledge, looking both bored and dying from the heat. As they walked outside, it fluttered off the ledge and over to the screen door, as if eager to take its package back to where it came. Robert and his mother, unsure on how to proceed, offered the carefully wrapped loaf to the owl, hoping that if it was smart enough to stay, it was also smart enough to convey the package instead of eating it. To their relief, it grabbed the package with between its talons and took off, flying away, hopefully back to Gargott. As Robert was still not allowed back in the house, and his mother thought it was probably, surprisingly, more comfortable outside than inside, they stayed on the porch, watching the slowly dwindling speck in the sky until it was out of sight.