Delicious

I watch Ikumi as she prepares our food. She manages to make cooking look sexy.

After a while I ask her, "How long will it be before you're done cooking?" "Just a few more minutes" she replies, "I'll get the others then. I trust you, don't do anything stupid."

I get up and walk out of the kitchen and up to Hermione's room. I knock on her door and then open it. Hermione is lying on her bed reading the first Harry Potter book.

She looks up. "What's up?" she asks a bit moodily. She must be enjoying the book. "Dinner will be ready in a minute. I'll pick you up today and explain everything after dinner."

Hermione's stomach growls. Reluctantly, she puts the book aside and stands up.

Hermione's POV

I hope the food will be good I think to myself as I walk out of my room.

"How far have you gotten with the book already?" I look at my 'host' grimly. "Harry's at the mirror for the first time right now."

When he still refuses to give me my answers after dinner, I'm freaking out. However, he leads me past the stairs that lead to the lower floors and walks with me to the back of the hallway. What does he want now?

We stop in front of one of the doors, he knocks on the door like he did with me and opens it. Unfortunately, since he blocks the view of the room, I can't see inside.

"Dinner is almost ready, I'll take you downstairs and then explain everything" he says into the room. This must be the room of one of the other two he told me about yesterday.

I hear some rustling from the room and take a step back as he too walks out the door into the corridor. Now I can finally see who lives in the room.

It is a girl about my age. The special thing about her, however, is that she has pink hair and wears a maid uniform.

"I'll introduce you right after dinner. For now, follow me to the table."

I look at her and she looks back. It can be seen in her look that she too is a bit confused and doesn't know what is going on.

I walk after our host and the other girl follows me.

We walk down the stairs and into the dining room. This is set for 4 people. Why did he only get the two of us and not the last one too?

This question is quickly answered when a door opens and another girl our age enters the dining room. She has a few plates in her hands. She sets one down for each of us, placing our host's plate a little rougher than ours.

She then sits down next to me. "So now that everyone is here, I wish you a good appetite" he says and opens the cloche of his plate.

Hidden underneath is a true gourmet dish. On a mountain of rice, a flower of meat is enthroned. The pink-haired girl also looks at the plate in amazement.

"What is this?" she asks our host. "You'll have to ask Ikumi here not me." He points to the blonde girl who has sat down next to me.

"This is a beef roti don" she explains to us, her face showing both some displeasure and pride. "With better meat, I could probably make it even better, but I couldn't do it in a hurry" she says, starting to eat some of her dish.

I now also open the cloche and start eating. What kind of food is this? It tastes delicious. Even the house elves at Hogwarts couldn't cook this well.

The pink-haired girl and our host seem to be doing similarly, because they both dig in quickly.

After a few minutes, I put the fork aside. My plate, as well as the plates of the others, are completely empty. "I've never eaten anything as good as this", says our host. "I can only agree" I say and lean back a little. I notice his gaze on me and quickly sit down again normally.

Since no one says anything and I'm getting impatient, I say to him.

"You were going to tell us what is going on after dinner" I say to him grimly. "Tell us now."