A/N: Hello, lovelies! I'm back with a new story. Another shoutout to Fred!
I'm with friends right now, so not going to edit. Sorry. College life leaves you without a lot of time for socializing so I'm taking advantage of it while I can.
Enjoy! :)
Four months after the war and no one was the same. But Ron was determined to make this day as normal as possible. It was Hermione's first birthday after the war; she was turning nineteen and Ron wanted to do something special, so he decided to try something he'd never done before. He was going to bake her a cake the muggle way.
He had gone from his flat in Surrey (he'd wanted to stay close to his family), to the supermarket to purchase what he'd need. As he made most of his meals by magic, or went to the Burrow, he didn't really need a lot of ingredients or utensils.
Once he had everything, he went back to his flat and started the process. It was a messy and slightly infuriating task, but he finally finished beating and mixing and spreading, and he was able to put the glob into a pan and shove it in the oven.
After waiting the appropriate time, he pulled the cake from the oven – cursing when he burned his thumb – and immediately spread the frosting onto the cake. He knew this was a bad idea when the sugary spread started melting and he couldn't do anything to fix it, so he did the only thing he could think of.
Freezing Charm.
Yeah, that helped. So now he just had to wait for it to thaw before taking it over to Hermione's. Ron decided this was the perfect time to go and take a shower and get dressed, so he did just that.
When everything was finished, he was wearing a nice, dark blue button-up and his best pair of dark jeans. He thought he looked alright, and the cake looked… well, honestly it could have been worse… if he had set it on fire…
Oh, well. He had to get to Hermione's.
Thinking of the alleyway behind her building, he Apparated.
Hermione jumped at the sound of someone pounding their fist against her door. She made her way through her flat, from the kitchen where she was contemplating something for dinner to the front door in her living room where the noise was coming from.
When she opened the door, she was more than surprised to see a soaking wet Ron holding was looked like a cake.
"Ron! What happened?" she asked, ushering him in and taking the deformed cake from his hands.
"Made you a cake," he muttered, shivering.
"Obviously," she said, taking the cake into the kitchen and gesturing for him to follow her. She set the pan on the counter and ran to her room to grab her wand, then dried Ron when she returned to the kitchen. He was still shivering, though.
"Come on," she said, taking him into the living room and forcing him onto the couch. She made him cover up with the throw blanket she kept on the couch, but she also Summoned the thicker blanket from her bed and piled that on top of him, too.
"I'll be right back," she told him, making her way back to the kitchen. "I'm going to make us some tea."
When she returned a few minutes later, Ron was flipping through the channels on the telly and he had thrown the blankets to the other side of the couch. Handing him a steaming cup of tea, Hermione asked how he was doing and checked his temperature with the back of her hand. He didn't feel feverish, but she was going to keep an eye on him just in case.
"Like a disappointment," he said, not taking his eyes off the telly. "I can't even bake my girlfriend a cake for her birthday without messing everything up." Hermione smiled softly and put her arm around him. She knew he just needed to get everything off his chest and then he would feel better.
"First, I burn my thumb when I take it out of the oven. Then, I put the frosting on too soon and it melted, so I used a Freezing Charm to cool it while I was in the shower, but I come back and it looks terrible, but by then it was too late to try and fix it, so I Apparate here and it's bloody raining, so now the cake's all soggy and disgusting and I'm just a disappointment."
He still wasn't looking at her.
"Ron, I don't care if the cake is soggy. It means more to me that you made me a cake than I can even put into words," Hermione said, leaning forward to press her lips to his cheek. She felt more than saw the blush that crept onto his cheeks, which made her smile.
"I'm sorry everything got ruined," he mumbled, turning and pressing his lips to hers in a brief kiss.
"Not everything is ruined," she said brightly. "You're still here. Would you like something for dinner?" Ron checked the telly again, for some reason that Hermione couldn't fathom, and then nodded. They made their way to the kitchen and Hermione gathered potatoes, fresh green beans, and chicken breasts. Ron watched her, claiming he didn't want to mess anything else up when she asked if he wanted to help. She was perfectly fine with that because she loved to cook, almost as much as she loved the feeling of Ron's eyes on her as she did.
Two hours later, they were both sitting on the couch, well fed and happy. Hermione was cuddled up against Ron with his arm around her and they were watching some sitcom on the telly, but Ron kept glancing at the clock. A few minutes before 9pm, he jumped up and made his way to the kitchen, leaving Hermione cold and confused. She listened to the sounds coming from the kitchen but couldn't help but smiled when Ron came back with two bowls of ice cream. He sat down next to her, handing her the bowl of chocolate ice cream, and giving her a weird look when she giggled.
"You forgot spoons," she said with a smile.
"Bloody hell, I can't do anything right!" he groaned, throwing his head on the back of the couch and closing his eyes.
"It's fine, Ron. I forget things all the time," she said, rushing to the kitchen to grab two spoons.
Suddenly, there was a surge of power and then all the lights went out. Groaning, she lit her wand and made her way carefully back to the living room. She came back to find Ron watching the telly with absolute horror.
"What's wrong?" she asked, handing him the spoon and setting her own down on the table next to her bowl of ice cream.
"Everything," he muttered, his voice breaking. "Not one thing has gone right tonight. The cake, the ice cream, the bloody movie. I give up." And then he started shoveling ice cream into his mouth, leaving Hermione utterly confused and somewhat amused.
She left him to his ice cream and went around the house collecting candles and taking them into the living room, placing them all around the room and lighting them with her wand. When she was pleased with the amount of light they had, she sat back down next to Ron, who had finished his ice cream, and faced him, her legs pulled up against her body, her arm against the back of the couch.
"Do you want to talk about it?" she asked quietly. He rolled his eyes and glared at the floor.
"Isn't it enough to just show you that I love you without having to talk about it? I'm a boy! I don't like to talk about it!" This made Hermione giggle. Of course he would react this way.
"Alright, we don't have to talk about it," she said, still smiling. "But I have a question for you." This caused Ron to stare at her expectantly.
"Can I show you how much I love you?" she asked. Not waiting for an answer, or a reaction, she leaned forward and pressed her lips to Ron's.
Even if he didn't agree, she would always think this was one of the best birthdays ever.