"Good afternoon, Mrs Pomona."
Alice gave the kindly plump woman a sweet smile. "Mr Truman said you might need some help over here."
"Yes, some of the fruit trees in the orchard are ripe. Cho plans to take the children over to help."
As she spoke, Mrs Pomona had already opened the broom shed and taken out the old brooms inside, handing one to each of them.
"Why are you giving us brooms?" Daphne asked, staring at the old broom in her hands in confusion.
"So you can fly up on them to pick plums, of course," Mrs Pomona said as though it were only natural.
"You ride brooms to pick fruit here?"
"Where's Hagrid? Did he go back to Hogwarts?"
Alice remembered that Hagrid loved taking the children fruit picking. His great size always came in handy at times like this.
She vaguely remembered sitting on Hagrid's shoulders more than once when she was little.
"Hagrid went back to the school. I think he said something had come up there."
Mrs Pomona pulled out her wand and pointed it at the brooms. Several ropes automatically bound them all together, and they floated at Pomona's side.
The three of them left the broom shed together and headed for the orchard beside the park. They quickly found several plum trees laden with red fruit.
After Mrs Pomona set down the Flying Brooms hovering at her side, she conjured a pile of little woven vine baskets out of thin air.
"This place can't possibly be..."
Daphne looked around with her mouth slightly open. She had never expected Avalon to have such a vast orchard.
"That's right. They're all fruit trees. You can find most British fruits here." Alice raised her wand and pointed it at a branch heavy with red fruit, bending