Written for the first part of the Diagon Alley Fic Crawl Challenge set by dimitrisgirl18 at the HP Fanfiction Challenges Forum.
This is for Flourish and Blotts and uses the prompts: home, Marauder's era, sad and cupcakes. I changed the cupcakes to fairy cakes because no one in England in the 1970's knew what a cupcake was!
Fairy Cakes, Tears and Hope for the Future
"What are you doing?" Fabian could not have sounded more astonished if he had come home to find Dorcas entertaining the entire England Quidditch team to tea.
Dorcas looked up, and wiped her hands on her apron. There was a smudge of chocolate on her cheek and flour in her hair. Fabian thought she looked adorable.
"What do you think I'm doing?" she demanded irritably, dispelling the air of adorableness in an instant. "I'm baking. Fairy cakes."
"Oh." Fabian was at a loss what to say. His mother used to bake cakes. His sister baked cakes. Dorcas had never, to his knowledge, baked a cake in her life. He ran an experimental finger around the side of the bowl and licked it.
"Not bad," he said, tentatively.
Dorcas brandished a wooden spoon at him. "But?" she asked. "You were going to say 'but', weren't you?"
Fabian spread his hands wide. "I wasn't!" he protested. "I wasn't!"
Dorcas banged the wooden spoon down on the table and picked up the bowl. She walked over to the sink and began to wash it up, without magic, her back turned to Fabian.
"You were going to say they weren't as good as Molly's," she said, and Fabian knew she was crying. He knew why she was crying, and it was nothing to do with her baking ability. He walked over and took her by the shoulders, turning her round to face him.
"Love…"
She buried her face in his chest, crying in earnest now.
"I just wanted something to be normal!" she sobbed. "Something in this stupid crazy world that isn't to do with fear and war and our friends dying!"
Fabian pulled her closer, feeling the tears he had been holding back since they received the news this morning starting in his own eyes.
"Oh love…" He kissed her hair and rubbed her back. There wasn't anything to say.
Dorcas pulled away from him and opened the oven, putting out a hand without thinking to take out the tray of cakes and crying out as she touched the hot tin.
"Here." Fabian waved his wand to remove the cakes from the oven, floating them effortlessly over to the table. He had to admit they looked a little sad compared to the cakes that Molly made. Burnt around the edges in places, and sunken in the middle.
"See! I knew they'd be no good!" Dorcas wailed, cradling her burnt hand, tears streaking her face. "I can't even bake fairy cakes properly! I can't do anything!"
"Dorcas! Now you're being silly," Fabian said firmly, taking her poor hand in his and applying a cooling spell. "You're the brightest and bravest witch in the Order, and you know it. And I love you. Who cares if you can bake fairy cakes or not?"
"I do," Dorcas sobbed, leaning into his chest. "If we have children, I want to bake cakes for them." She gulped. "Like Molly does for hers."
Fabian sat down and pulled Dorcas into his lap. She buried her face in his shoulder.
"Don't say it!" she commanded. "Don't say we can't think about having children now. Don't say we might not live to have them!"
Fabian shook his head and kissed her gently. "I'm not saying it," he murmured. "You know I want kids too. Lots of girls to balance out Moll's tribe."
Dorcas managed a watery smile. "When the war is over," she said firmly. "When we've won."
Fabian smiled and kissed her. "That's my girl," he said. "Once all this is good and over."
Dorcas nodded. Then: "Why did they have to kill the children too?" she asked in a small voice. "Little Emma was only four."
Fabian felt an unexpected jolt in his chest at that. He had known that Edgar's wife and children had been killed with him, but he hadn't known any of the children's names before. Nor how young – how very young – they were. Percy was four. He swallowed hard, then pushed Dorcas gently off his lap onto her feet.
"How do you make icing?" he asked. "These cakes need icing."
Dorcas looked at the sad little cakes doubtfully. "Do you really think so?" she asked. "I was going to throw them in the bin."
"No way!" Fabian was rummaging in the cupboard, and produced a packet of icing sugar and some jelly sweets with an air of triumph. "We're going to ice these cakes, and then we're taking them over to The Burrow for tea."
"Are you sure?" Dorcas still didn't look convinced. "They're nowhere near as good as Molly's. Do you think the boys will like them?"
Fabian grinned. "Percy might turn his nose up at them," he conceded. "But Billy and Charlie and the twins will eat anything." He brandished the sugar packet and looked at her questioningly. "Now, how do we do this?"
Dorcas smiled despite herself, and came over to the table to show Fabian how to make icing.
One day they would do this for their own children.