A/N: Submission for the Houses Competition

House: Ravenclaw

Year: 7

Category: Drabble

Prompt: [Food] Toad in the hole

Word Count: 922

I do not own any of JKR wonderful wizarding world, I am just borrowing it for a time.

Ron loved to surprise his wife, Hermione, and today was no exception. It had all started when they'd visited Hermione's parents for the first time. Her mum made food entirely without magic! It was incredible and tasted even better than if they had used magic to make the exact same dish. So, he'd started asking Mrs Granger for cooking lessons, without Hermione's knowledge of course, as he wanted to surprise her.

As Ron had little experience with cooking, they had started small and simple: eggs, toast, pasta. Mrs Granger had assured him that food like this would not be too difficult to learn, but Ron was quickly proving her wrong.

Her son-in-law turned out to be exceptionally talented when it came to causing accidents in the kitchen. His first attempt at boiling an egg had resulted in the egg exploding. Mrs Granger had been shocked - the water hadn't even been boiling. It turned out that he had tried to speed things along with magic and found out the hard way what happens if you tried to heat up an egg like that.

Eventually, he'd begun to improve, and he was finally ready to try making Hermione's favourite dish for her. Toad in the Hole. He had received the recipe during their last cooking session - Mrs Granger had decided that she had taught him all she could and, besides, she didn't want any more damage to her kitchen, so she gave him very detailed instructions for him to try at home. The top of the page read: DO NOT USE MAGIC!

In addition to toad-in-the-hole, he was also making cauliflower cheese and gravy. He hoped that it would make Hermione happy, as it was something her mum always served for her.

He started by boiling the cauliflower -he was seriously tempted to heat the water with his wand, but he didn't. Not this time at least. While preparing the other ingredients, Ron remembered that he'd never been particularly good at potions and cooking the Muggle way reminded him of that. Still, this was for Hermione, so he would try.

Ron placed the tin of sausages and oil in the oven to heat it up, just like his mother-in-law had shown him, and he then mixed the batter. He began to smell the fragrant aroma of the sausages through the kitchen, and this made him hungry. Suddenly all thoughts of doing it the Muggle way went out the window; it couldn't hurt to speed things along just a little.

Ron picked up his wand and paused for a moment. Was this really a good idea? But, surely nothing too awful would happen. He set the whisk to beat the mixture for him while he started on the cheese sauce for the cauliflower. Ron made a basic white sauce and then added the cheese. It didn't seem cheesy enough, so he put more and more in. The spoon stuck to the sauce as he stirred. Was it supposed to be like this?

In the meantime, his sausages and the mixture lay forgotten. When the aroma turned into something else entirely, Ron swore under his breath. The bowl with the Yorkshire pudding mixture had frothed up and spilt over the counter, and the sausages were burnt. Pulling out his wand, Ron replaced the sausages and put some new ones in the tray and used his wand to heat them just enough. Then, he began pouring what was left of the mixture into the tray and placed it in the other.

"It should be alright," he muttered to himself, though not entirely convinced.

Deciding it was now or never, he poured the molten cheese mixture over the somehow still raw cauliflower in a ceramic dish and placed that in the oven too. Collapsing into a chair, he thought to himself, 'She better bloody well like it.'

An hour later:

Hermione had been running late and wondered what she would cook the two of them for dinner. Ron did not seem interested in cooking, and it was therefore left up to her to cook for them. Taking a step into their flat, the first thing that hit her was that there was a strange smell in the air. Following it, Hermione stood in her kitchen, and her jaw dropped. The kitchen looked like a bomb had hit it.

"Ron? Where are you?" she called out to him.

"In the dining room!" he called, Hermione noticed that his voice sounded nervous.

She was not prepared for the sight that met her. Ron stood proudly at the end of the dining room table and on top of it was what looked like a badly burnt toad-in-the-hole and something cheesy.

Rubbing his neck, he looked at her with a goofy grin, "I tried to cook this for you, the Muggle way that is," he said sheepishly.

For once, Hermione was speechless. "How… where did you learn to do this?"

"Your mum, she tried to teach me. She gave up though!" He chuckled. "It didn't go well. You don't have to eat it if you don't want to," he said, trying to pull her away from the food.

"It probably tastes funny anyway," he said, his ears turning pink.

Walking over to him, she kissed him and gave him a hug. "Thank you for trying, and I want to try your food. Maybe it tastes better than it looks!" She wasn't entirely convinced, but he had tried so hard.

It did taste as bad as it looked, and she ate every bite.

A/N: I don't know if Hermione does have a favourite food canon but this is my favourite :) I wholeheartedly recommend it!