As she stepped into the light flooding from the Entrance Hall, she was revealed to have a handsome, olive-skinned face, large, black, liquid-looking eyes and a rather beaky nose. Her hair was drawn back into a shining knob at the base of her neck. She was dressed from head to foot in black satin, and many magnificent opals gleamed at her throat and on her thick fingers. p214 Chapter 15-Beauxbatons and Durmstrang, from the GoF, UK version.
Those bloody skrewts. Now I was late for the welcoming feast for the Beauxbatons and Durmstrangs. I had missed them arriving too. Damn those bloody skrewts.
The Great Hall was noisy when I snuck in through the back door. The feast had already started. I took my usual seat at the table and looked at disgust at the dish in front of me. There seemed to be fish and shells swimming in, what looked like, orange gloop. That was the only way to describe it. Gloop. I searched to see where my usual plate of dragon meat was. I found it in front of the woman next to me. To my surprise – and horror – she was pushing the plate away, turning her nose up at it. The plate was now only inches away from the edge of the table.
“No!” I bellowed, quickly reaching forward, only to knock of the bowl of orange gloop.
“My bouillabaisse!” she yelled, quickly rushing forward to try and save her bowl of orange gloop, only to succeed in knocking my beloved dragon meat off the table, as well.
They both hit the concrete floor with a huge “crash”. I cringed at the noise. To my amazement, the woman next to me began to laugh, a huge, booming laugh which shook the glasses.
“What a right per of muppets, we are,” she said, clutching my arm, rolling her “r”’s with her rich French accent. I grinned sheepishly, taking a good look at her for the first time. She was beautiful; the hair…the eyes…the nose…the eyes…the skin…the eyes. I had never seen a woman like her before, like me before. I whether she was…
“Olympe Maxime,” she said proudly, holding out her hand. “’eadmistress of Beauxbatons.”
“Erm…Rubeus Hagrid,” I stuttered, taking her offered hand. “Gamekeeper an’ Care o’ Magical Creatures teacher ‘ere at Hogwarts. But yer can call me Hagrid.”
“Ah,” she exclaimed. “So your ze one who is looking after my ‘orses.”
“Erm…yeah, I ‘pose I am,” I said, completely at awe with this women and trying hard not to stare at one part of her for too long.
“Well, zey only drink single-malt whisky,” she said.
“Yep, we’ve got lots o’ dat.”
I nodded my head, wondering whether the horses she was talking about were the golden ones with the fiery-red eyes that nearly gnawed my hand off before when I passed them.
Olympe shivered slightly, pulling her fur collar up and fastening it tight across her neck.
“It’s getting late,” she said, standing up. “We must be getting back to ze carriage.”
“Oh, I’ll take you,” I said quickly. In my hurry to stand up, I nearly tipped the whole table over, earning me some very dirty looks from the other teachers. Olympe laughed again.
“Oh, you are a clumsy one, ‘Agrid,” she said, hitting me playfully in the chest and striding towards the Ravenclaw table to gather up her pupils. I stared at her, open-mouthed; the touch of her hand still resonating heat into my chest. A voice shrieked up to me.
“Oh for heavens sake Hagrid, shut your mouth. You’re drooling all over me!”
I jogged down through the tables towards the Entrance Hall to where Olympe was standing. She smiled; a smile that instantly turned legs to jelly.
“Come on zen, ‘Agrid,” she teased. “I zought you were escorting me back to my carriage.”
She held out her arm and after a moments hesitation, I took it. The Beauxbaton pupils ran, trying to keep up with us. We marched in silence across the grass; the carriage was too close to the school for my liking.
“Wellm it was nice meeting you ‘Agrid,” she said, pulling her arm away from mine.
“Erm, why don’t yer come over to mine tomorrow night,” I offered, pointing over to my cabin. “To make for ruinin’ yer dinner.”
She kissed me on both cheeks; I could feel each cheek burn. How I was thankful that it was dark.
“It’s a date zen,” she said, turning away.
“Seven o’clock then?” I shouted after her.
“Seven o’clock,” she replied without turning back around.
Wow.
This bloody bouillabaisse. Why does she have to like something that is so difficult to make? I don’t even now what goes in it. Damn this bloody bouillabaisse.
There came a soft knock on the door; I hurried to answer it.
“Hermione!” I exclaimed, pulling her in. “Have yer got it then?”
She pulled a huge recipe book out from under her cloak.
“This took me ages to find,” she said. “It’s called “Foreign recipes made easy”. This should be relatively easy to make then. What time’s she coming over?”
“’Bout seven,” I replied, opening up the book.
“So we’ve got one and a half hours then,” she said, looking through my cupboards. “Let’s get started. Have you got everything on the list?”
“Erm, yeah. I think so,” I said, looking at the ingredient list. “We need 675 g o’ assorted fish fillets with skin, 6 king prawns with shell left on, 12 Mussels, 2 chopped medium sized onion, 1 fennel bulb, 2 chopped small leeks, but only using the white part, 4 chopped cloves of garlic, 560ml o’ fish stock, 2 skinned and chopped medium tomatoes, 1 pinch of saffron strands, 2 or 3 sprigs of thyme, 1 piece of orange peel dat’s cut into strips, 1 teaspoon o’ chopped red chilli, 1 tablespoon o’ chopped flat leaf parsley, salt, black pepper, cayenne pepper, olive oil, 1 chopped medium sized potato, 1 chopped carrot, 1 chopped stick o’ celery, 1 bay leaf, 1 small bunch o’ parsley, 12 black peppercorns, 150ml o’ dry white wine, 300ml o’ water, fish head an’ bones an’ 6 cooked prawns with shells. Hermione, how am I ‘posed to make this? I don’t even know what half dis stuff is.”
Hermione emerged from the cupboard, looking dishevelled and covered in flour.
“Well it doesn’t really matter whether you know what it is or not. The only thing that matters is that you have all the ingredients and it tastes nice at the end. Right what have we got to do first?”
“Put all the vegetables into for the stock in a large pan with the water, bring to the boil and simmer for 20 minutes.”
“Done it,” Hermione said, chucking the vegetables into a pan.
“Now what do we do?” I asked, confused.
“Now we wait,” she said. “You’ve got to be patient when you’re cooking.”
Twenty minutes later.
“What’s next on the list?” Hermione asked me, looking in the big pan.
“Add the fish heads and bones and the prawns to the vegetable stock, bring it back to the boil and simmer for another 20 minutes. So have we got to wait again?”
“No, doesn’t it say something else below it?” Hermione asked, flinching as the hot water spat back out. “Something about “whilst all this simmering is going on” or something like that.”
“Oh yeah,” I said, finding the place that she was talking about. “Take another large pan and pour enough olive oil in it to fill the bottom. Heat gently and add the chopped leek, onion and about two tablespoons of chopped fennel bulb.”
“Why don’t you do that bit?” Hermione asked. She looked at my helpless face, pleading with her. “I can’t do all the cooking for you. It’s not me who said they were cooking the dinner, it was you.”
Nervously, I lit the stove. What if I do this all wrong? Maybe Olympe will never want to see me again? While I was too busy worrying, I found myself adding too much olive oil and Hermione had to grab my hand to stop me pouring any more in.
“Watch what you’re doing!” she exclaimed.
I added the leek, onion and fennel bulb to the pan. Hermione lent across and turned the heat on the stove down.
“It says to heat it gently,” she pointed out.
Oops.
Twenty minutes later, I turned up the heat, bringing the soup to a rapid boil. Hermione had left about five minutes ago, saying that she had to go and finish some homework off. Somehow, I didn’t believe her. I added the fish to the pan and stirred the soup, watching the clock. Only twenty minutes to go before she would be arriving. The soup would be alright while I got dressed.
I reached into the wardrobe for my favourite hairy brown suit with it’s checked yellow and orange tie. Great. Now for my hair. Bill Weasley always got women noticing him when he had his hair in a pony-tail. I reached for the axle grease. My hair just would not tame down into one pony-tail. Annoyed, I compromised and tied it into two bunches. Not bad. I opened my box of newly brought after shave. Eau-de-cologne it was called. How much after shave are you supposed to use? I gave myself another douse of spray just to be on the safe side.
Black smoke filled my nostrils. Oh no! I reached towards the pan to find the soup bubbling ferociously like an erupting volcano. I quickly turned the heat down and glanced at the recipe. “Do not be tempted to stir the bouillabaisse.” Oops.
There was a knock at the door. Quickly, I whipped out two bowls and placed the fish in them, wincing as it burnt my fingers. The soup will just have to do. I poured the burnt black soup over the top. Oh well, maybe she won’t notice the difference.
Straightening my tie out in the mirror, I opened the door. Olympe stood there, her shoulders covered with a thick fur coat. I ushered her in.
“’ere, I’ll take yer coat,” I said, gently pulling the coat off of her shoulders. She was dressed to impress tonight. A deep rich blue off-the-shoulder dress fell almost to the floor. Her arms were covered by lacy black gloves and at her neck, lay pearly white jewels. I pulled a chair out for her, kicking Fang out from under it.
“Sit,” I said. “I made yer…er…something to eat.”
I placed the two bowls down on the table and lit two candles.
“Bull-a-bass,” I pronounced. “Erm…my own version.”
To my surprise, she picked her spoon and began to eat happily, only stopping when the last morsel was gone.
“The truth is,” I admitted. “I absolutely hate fish. I can’t stand it. What do you think o’ it?”
“Ze Bouillabaisse?” she asked. “No offence, but it was absolutely revolting.”
She laughed her booming laugh again. This time I laughed with her. At least, she was in good spirits about it.
“I’m glad that yeh liked it,” I teased. “’Cause I’m not makin’ dat again. Too much hard work. I get easily confused.”
“Confused is sweet,” she purred, gazing into my eyes
I blushed.
“Erm…do yeh wanna go for a walk around the lake?” I asked, offering my hand.
“I would love to,” she replied, taking my hand.
Oh, it was going to be one perfect night…no matter how much I burnt the bouillabaisse. Damn that stupid bouillabaisse.
I hoped you enjoyed the story. If you are interested in trying bouillabaisse out for yourself, then the recipe is on www.suppertonight.co.uk/bouillabaisse.htm
Personally, it doesn't attract me...