Following death, there were certain traditions that needed be followed, and there were certain personal traditions that needed be followed. Minerva had seen to the first - cool heads were looked to in a crisis - and now as summer stretched on over the wizarding and muggle world alike, she saw to the second.
All the windows in the old Victorian townhouse were open, and Minerva wiped the sweat from her brow. Her hair was damp and hanging into her face. The oven had been on all day. Her back ached from bending, her hands were cramped from gripping wooden spoons, but there were some things that needed to be done by hand. And she had turned to her task with the same professional determination she had shown when making funeral arrangements. Though there was a certain tenderness to the set of her mouth and the way she tucked stray wisps of hair back behind her ears.
The long wooden dining table bore testament to Minerva's actions. Food covered its length, all manner of rich dishes and handmade sweets. She bent once more to remove a tray of shortbread biscuits, the final batch, and blinked the mist away from her eyes.
Albus had always been particularly fond of her shortbread biscuits.