Hermione opened the door. Inside, she found a weary Ron, head bobbing at the table. Paperwork lay uncompleted in front of him. She came over to peer over Ron's shoulder. His head kept going up and down every time he took a breath. Hermione sighed. It had been awhile since they spent any time together. Work had kept them apart, and if it wasn't work then it was the kids. Both were finally at Hogwarts, not here to bother them. She kissed him on the cheek. He works so hard…

"Ron," she said as she shook his arm. "Ron, wake up. I don't want your drool to ruin all that work."

He awoke with a start. "That's not funny, Hermione." He rubbed his eyes and looked around. "What time is it?"

"Time to go to sleep."

"You're just rolling them out today, aren't you?"

"Um, I love you too?" She kissed him again. "So, are you coming upstairs, Mr. Grumpy?"

"I have to finish this first." Over half the table was covered in papers. "I'll be up there in a bit." It didn't seem like that to Hermione.

"Alright then, goodnight."

"Goodnight." He turned his head back to the pile in front of him and took the next paper from the stack. Hermione walked upstairs, glad to reach the comfort of the bed. She was off tomorrow, unlike Ron. It wouldn't matter if she woke up late.

*~*~*~*~*

Regardless, she still woke up early, despite being off. She couldn't go back to sleep and wandered downstairs. It was around four when she looked at the clock. She knew Ron would wake up at about five. Hermione made her way to the kitchen and decided to have an early breakfast. She took some orange juice from the fridge and poured herself a glass. Thinking about what to make, her eyes fell on the pancake mix. Sure, why not?

She succeeded not burning them on the second attempt. Proud that she had some cooking ability, Hermione set the plate of pancakes on the table, next to her orange juice. There was a tall stack of them, just waiting to topple over at the first drip of maple syrup. She took a seat and quietly surveyed the tower. I think I made too much batter…She knew she couldn't finish all of them. Hermione sat thoughtfully. I don't think Ron eats breakfast. He's so sleepy. I don't want to wake him. He would have finished them all if I didn't stop him. She got up to get a separate plate and as Hermione sat back down she took the first two pancakes and placed them on top. Taking the syrup, she drizzled it on in a swirl, making the pancakes appear like a large snail shell. After finishing her breakfast, she looked over once again to the remaining stack of pancakes. She wasn't exactly keen on putting them back in the fridge and she didn't want them to go to waste either. Maybe I can make something out of them. With a spur of the moment idea in her head, Hermione went over to the drawer where she kept a bundle of cookie cutters. Smiling, she continued to get out some eggs and sausage to fry and soon prepared her pan for another cooking scheme, hoping that she could make them all before her husband woke up.

When completed with her task, she sighed in content. Hermione placed her creations in a brown paper bag along with other articles of food, plus napkins, and left it in the fridge for Ron to discover. Leaving a piece of paper behind in the bag, she went back up stairs, after cleaning the pans, plates, forks, etc., deciding that she wanted to sleep in just a bit more.

*~*~*~*~*

Ron woke up at five thirty. Cursing his way out of bed, he took a quick shower, dressed in a hurried fashion, and kissed his wife gently on the cheek, who appeared to be having a pleasant dream. At that point in time he envied her as he raced out of the bedroom. Wishing that he could at least have some coffee even though he no longer had the time for it, Ron opened the fridge, hoping that he could bring something to snack on before he went to work. Starving, as he did not eat dinner the night before because of that dreadful paperwork, he found a granola bar inside which he took and rushed over to his briefcase to make sure all of those stacks of paper were stuffed in neatly enough that none would fall out. He was about to apparate when he remembered seeing something in the fridge. He went back in the kitchen, risking being late, and opened the fridge door again. Ron found a brown paper bag on the middle shelf with writing that said "Ron's Lunch" in Hermione's neat script. He found it very odd. Nevertheless, he took it and went on his way.

*~*~*~*~*

That granola bar seems so long ago, thought Ron as he pulled out the brown paper bag. He examined it more closely, staring at Hermione's handwriting. After a minute of scrutiny, he took it with him to the tables where everyone was happily enjoying their lunch break.

As he sat down, his coworkers stared at the paper bag. "Didn't know you made your own lunch."

"Course he didn't make his own lunch, Jared. Does that look like his scrawl on the bag?" With that, they laughed and Ron proceeded to open his lunch.

"Whose lovely handwriting is that, Weasley?" asked Darrell.

"My wife's"

"Since when did your wife pack you lunch?"

"She's never made it before." He was about to stick his hand in the bag when Jared looked at him seriously.

"Better be careful then. Never know, it could blow up any minute. I remember one time ---"

"Just go ahead and eat it Ron. Jared has a billion stories where his wife did something terrible to him and look at the guy. Still married. Still claims he loves her."

Jared gave a pout. "Now don't you go on about my stories. What about yours? You say the same thing about your wife."

"I don't repeat stories until people have memorized them."

Oscar, an older gentleman sitting next to Ron muttered to him, "Just goes to show who the old coots are at this table. Go on, eat your lunch."

Smiling, Ron finally plunged his hand in the bag and took out a bundle of napkins. A note fell out. He didn't notice until Oscar pointed it out to him. Surprised, he read the piece of paper.

Hey Mr. Grumpy,

I was thinking of you while I had breakfast downstairs and I thought you probably don't eat any in the morning. I doubt you even ate dinner before you went to sleep; you had so many papers on the table. Also, you did not react very nicely, or at least did not show your usual smile, when I came home. You seemed… grumpy. So anyway, to be more to the point, I felt you needed something to take your mind off things. I thought that, along with no breakfast, you would probably get some fries and chips and soda, and eat that for your lunch. Not that that's an extremely terrible lunch, as you could also skip lunch as well, but I suspect you have that close to everyday so I thought I'd change that. I apologize in advance if your lunch seems below your usual standard, but I sincerely hope that you might come home feeling a little better today.

Love, Hermione

Ron couldn't believe that she could fit that much writing on the small piece of paper. Nor could he believe that she woke up earlier than him and thought to pack him a lunch when she looked so peaceful upstairs before he left. Then again, this was Hermione. His smile only widened at the thought of her trying to pack his lunch. Sweet of her. He finally reached in again to pull out whatever was in the bag. Finding something to take out, he tugged it loose from under a heavy water bottle and looked at it. Wrapped in foil, his coworkers watched as though Ron was giving a demonstration on how to unwrap things, and looked in wonder.

Inside were… pancakes? Hermione made him pancakes? No, it smelled like more than pancakes to him. Eggs? Sausage? He continued to look at the package and, realizing it was a somewhat large package, realized that they were many small pancakes… But between the pancakes were the eggs and sausage. He could smell maple syrup coming from the food. On closer inspection, (If he was to be honest, he never really inspected his food. He simply ate it. So for him this was out of the ordinary, studying his food.) he looked at them and saw that they were many small pancake sandwiches that were in the shapes of snitches and broomsticks… like the cookie cutters in the drawers they rarely used. Now eager to see the rest of his lunch, he took out the water bottle. It was not filled with water. It was filled with orange juice. The last thing he pulled out of the bag was a cup of strawberry yogurt plus spoon. He grinned childishly at his breakfast-like lunch.

"What in the world?" Darrell took in a whiff. "That smells good! Nothing exploded I hope." He glanced at Jared. "I think we're safe from harm."

"Wish my wife made me lunch," muttered Jared.

"Yeah," said Ron happily as he tucked in, starting to stuff his face with the pancake sandwiches. "I love my wife."

AN: I got sidetracked from my other stories so I apologize if you're waiting for me to update those. Review please, and thanks again for reading!