winona and cora are navigating life the best they can. winona's life teeters on the edge as she attempts to balance a bakery and the safety of her infamous teenage nephew, while cora aims to maintain any sense of normality as it comes crashing down...
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Cora can feel the familiar buzz of a headache trembling inside her skull, a reminder of a little too much champagne consumed the previous night at Harry's thirteenth birthday party. It takes some dutch courage for her to approach a crowd, and she'd always been particularly prone to hangovers. Even so, she has learnt to work through them, and forces herself up and out at just gone five in the morning.
The bakery is dappled with early rays of morning sunlight that peek through the blinds, casting shadows onto the hardwood floor. Cora is the first in today, having promised Winona a well deserved lie-in after the chaos of the recent news. She wonders how her friend will tell her nephew, and although she supposes it isn't really her business, her heart aches for the little family she has come to know so fondly over the last few years. She can see the terror in Winona's eyes, even as she hides it so well in front of Harry for the sake of his childhood innocence, which seems to be rapidly declining with every passing year at Hogwarts.
Despite the hangover, she enjoys the peace. There is little time to think for yourself when you are shoveling pastries onto plates and perfecting latte art for pensioners, Cora thinks, and she relishes the time spent kneading dough and checking oven temperatures as she bakes her way through the café's menu. This is her passion, after all, not customer service, which she finds herself dreading more and more with each awkward customer.
She always keeps to the kitchen through the back where she can help it, finding the quiet thrum of the dishwasher a welcome break from the heavy flow of patrons that shift through the store every few minutes. She likes it back there, with its thin floral curtains and flour-dusted countertops, which are a gorgeously rustic spruce wood when freshly cleaned. On the wall, there is a noticeboard which Cora often inspects as she works, stamped with minuscule reminders in Winona's neat handwriting and grainy photographs, of both the magical and muggle variety. Harry features largely, and there are plenty of old polaroids from their school days, but Cora's favourite is hiding in the corner, a moving photograph of herself and her brother, Connell, shimmering with summertime sweat and squinting against the sun, but delighted all the same.
She is staring at this photo in particular today, daydreaming about her elder brother and his magically superior lifestyle, when there's an interruption at the back door. Harry Potter pokes his head around the frame, hair sticking up in stiff peaks not dissimilar to the meringue mixture she plans to create later that day. When his eyes land on her, they light up, satisfied, and he clears his throat comfortably, alerting her of his presence.
"Morning, Cora," he says, padding across the floor in his old, scuffed trainers. It is evidently the first time he has spoken today, as she can hear the scrape of new mornings at the back of his throat.
"Hi, Harry," she replies from behind her mixing bowl, sparing him a rare glance of returned eye contact. "You're up early."
"I suppose. Aunt Winnie's gone back to sleep, though."
