CHALLENGE #52 - LOST AND FOUND
Title: Who Took The Lemon Drops?
Rating/Warnings: G; No warnings
Characters/Pairing: Gen. Albus Dumbledore
Summary: Where are Albus Dumbledore's lemon drops?!
Word Count: 711
Registered purchases?: Nada
Dumbledore slumped down in his chair. He was slightly depressed. He was old, very old, and he was once again facing a war. Not to mention he was the headmaster of a huge school for wizarding children. That isn’t to say he didn’t love his job, of course, because he did. He loved the castle, which had been his home for longer than he could remember. He loved the children, with their optimism and strength in looking at the future. He loved the staff, even the ones a lesser man might have smacked a few times. But Albus Dumbledore was tired. He couldn’t even find what he used to keep his mind off his troubles! Somehow his lemon drops had disappeared, and this was quite an odd occurrence.
Now, usually Dumbledore had his candy in one place. His mother had taught him that if he wanted to keep track of something, to have a place for everything with everything in it’s place. He stuck by this rule religiously. He had a large, silver ceramic dish that he kept on the right corner of his desk to offer the people in his office, and to snack on himself while he worked. He kept a larger bag in one of his desk drawers to refill the dish. Even the bigger bag was gone! The ceramic dish sat empty and lonely looking on the desk.
By this time, Dumbledore’s twinkle was quite lessened in degree. You’d have to look twice to see it! He didn’t want to fire-call the house elves. He might have been a supporter of House Elf rights, but the way they fawned over him got quite old, and he was constantly having to remind them that they shouldn’t feel the need to punish themselves. It didn’t help that he needed to be doing paperwork; Fudge was planning on passing more absurd laws and Dumbledore had to send paperwork to everyone high up in the Ministry to try to get him shot down. This took a lot of planning and thinly disguised threats. Unfortunately, fire-calling the house elves was exactly what he’d have to do if he wanted to get his candy back.
He knelt in front of the fireplace, the stones pressing into his old knees and making them ache almost immediately. “Hogwart’s kitchens,” he told the fireplace after tossing in a handful of the green powder. He dusted his hand off absent mindedly on his purple robes.
“Ooooh, Professor Dumbly-dor! How can Dizzy be helping yous?” Asked the exuberant House Elf.
Dumbledore smiled politely at the creature. “It seems all my lemon drops are gone, Dizzy. My bag isn’t refilling, either. I have no clue what’s wrong with it. Will you please send me some through?”
“Just a second, Dumbly-dor!” Dumbledore watched as the head disappeared from the fire, presumably to get him lemon drops from the supply he had the kitchen stock. He sighed contentedly. He’d get his candy, and he’d be able to get back to work and stop Fudge from ruining the country. All would be right in the world.
Dizzy’s head popped back up in the fire. The elf was twisting his large, flapping ears roughly with his hand. “Oh, professor Dumbly-dor, Dizzy is so sorry. Dizzy does not know what is wrong. They is missing, Dumbly-dor! Dizzy looked everywhere!! They‘re all gone!”
Dumbledore frowned at the elf. “Stop it, Dizzy! Calm down. It will be okay.” He assured the elf, trying to stop him from further punishing himself. He knew it would come to having to stop another elf from causing bodily harm to itself.
He closed out the floo connection.
Why in the world were his lemon drops missing? Had a student stolen them as a prank? Had Voldemort found another way to anger him? Did an elf take them?
Dumbledore’s eyes narrowed in annoyance. He’d have to go all the way to a muggle town to buy the blasted things. Honeydukes didn’t carry the candy, as they weren’t wizarding sweets.
He grabbed his favorite hat with the bright flashing stars on it from the desk and jammed it on his head to protect it from the cold.
Small yellow candies came raining down from the hat that sat on the headmaster’s head.
711/30 = 23.7 points for Hufflepuff!!
Ashlee/Hufflepuff