I don't own Harry Potter and this idea was katja134, I'm doing the Ginny challenge. Also my 'Fleur Delacour's Little Secrets' inspired by her.
Can't Cook, Won't Cook
"Ginny will you pay attention?" Ginny snapped out of daydreams of her beautiful wedding (no matter how much of tomboy she was, she still wanted a big white wedding) to see her mother with her hands on her hips glaring at her.
"Sorry Mum, just thinking about the wedding." She said sheepishly and her mum's face softened. She was looking forward to the wedding almost as much as Ginny.
"Well since you are going to be married, you really should learn to cook. I know I've tried to teach you over the years but that was...." Molly trailed off and Ginny tried to fill in the blank space,
"A complete and utter disaster?"
"A bit of one yes. But don't worry I taught all your brothers to cook so if I can do them, then I can definitely teach you." Molly added firmly as if Ginny had suggested that she couldn't. "Now just cook the bacon." Ginny looked down at the bacon as if it was about to leap up and bite her. This could not go well.
As she watched her brothers choking down the bacon flambé under the threatening glance of her mother, she wondered why she had ever needed her Bat-Bogey Hex when the there was always her cooking.
The next person to try and teach her was Hermione.
"You just think you can't cook Ginny, but it is not impossible to learn." Hermione said practically as she placed all the ingredients for a cake on the kitchen surface. "No person cannot cook."
Later she would swear that she mixed everything in the correct amounts and did exactly what the instructions said but somehow the cake managed to come out burnt on the outside and undercooked on the inside.
"I'm not quite sure how you did that." Hermione said, bewildered as she stared down at the wreck of a cake.
"And you were watching me the whole time, you would have told me if I had done anything wrong." Ginny pointed out and Hermione nodded. At Ginny's look, she rolled her eyes and said reluctantly.
"Fine, I admit you can't cook." Ron came in and went straight back out again at the sight of Ginny and the cake. At Hermione's questioning look, Ginny giggled and explained.
"Mum made them all eat my bacon last time trying to convince me that it wasn't that bad. I think he was worried that I would make him eat it again." Hermione laughed as well and they started to clean up.
After their honeymoon, Ginny let Harry in on her little secret.
"I can't cook. At all. Not even toast. So if you want the kitchen intact you will keep me away from it like Teddy is kept away from easily breakable things." Harry wrinkled his nose at her and looked puzzled. Which she thought looked adorable but learned not to call guys that.
"But how can you not cook anything? I mean toast is easier, you just put it in the toaster." At Ginny's blank look Harry grinned. "Oops, forgot my audience. Basically you put the toast in, set it to however cooked you want it and then put the lever down. I think Hermione gave us one as part of our wedding present from her."
"Don't let Dad get a hold of it otherwise not even Hermione could put it back together again." At Harry's laugh she was confused. "What?"
"Just remembering the Humpty Dumpty rhyme. I'll tell it to you later." Harry sat up slightly. "Look I'll teach you to cook, I learnt at the Dursleys." Ginny went still.
"The Dursleys taught? I thought they wouldn't want to learn anything that would be useful in later life." Ginny said casually and Harry smiled sadly, because he knew what she was doing.
"It was more their benefit than mine. I cooked for them along with Aunt Petunia." Ginny scrunched up her face and asked slowly,
"How old were you when this started?" Harry ducked his head.
"Three." He answered quietly. Ginny did not press him anymore, even an idiot could tell he didn't want to talk about it anymore. Instead she sat down in front of him and hugged him tightly, trying to show that he had other family now and that he wasn't alone. He hugged her back, just as tightly and slowly relaxed. "So how about those cooking lessons?" He asked cheerily and Ginny smiled.
"You go and warn Kreacher, I'll be down in a second." Harry nodded and left the room. As soon as he was out of sight and earshot, Ginny's calm face descended into a snarl.
"Those disgusting excuses for human beings!" She half whispered-half shouted, not wanting Harry to hear but needing to express her anger somehow. "How dare they do that to any child yet alone their own nephew! Those dirty pathetic idiots! I should go and Bat-Bogey them all right now....but I won't. Right now." She hissed to herself before rearranging her face back into the calm mask and followed Harry out of the room.
Kreacher bowed to her as she came into the room.
"Please Kreacher, no bowing." Ginny said hastily, as his back cracked.
"As Mistress says." He stood up and shuffled nervously from foot to foot. "Mistress won't burnt down Kreacher's kitchen will she?" He half-muttered, half-said and Ginny smiled. Looks like either one of the Weasleys had filled him in or Harry had told him exactly what she said upstairs.
"Don't worry I'll try not to. Plus that's why Harry is here." She smiled gently at him and he scooted out, casting nervous glances behind as he did so. "Did you have to terrify him so?" Ginny asked as she approached the cooker.
"I didn't, I just told him you would be learning to cook. Of course he asked why couldn't he do it, and didn't I like his cooking but I told him that was a life skill."
"Well he's obviously been terrified by tales of my cooking before. Must have been Ron." She replied absently as Harry got out some bread and cheese.
"Now will be making toasted cheese sandwiches. Now I'll put the bread in the toaster while you start putting the cheese on the other slices." Ginny did as she asked with the strange wafer thin slices of cheese, which she was sure were Muggle in origin.
"This isn't so hard." She said happily and Harry grinned back at her but before he could say anything the food in the saucepan caught fire.
"How....?" Harry asked, flabbergasted.
"Doesn't matter, just put it out!" Ginny replied hastily as she lifted the frying pan away from the curtains. Harry pointed his wand at the frying pan and a jet of water quickly dealt with it.
"Ginny I think you're meant to take the plastic off the cheese." He said in an amused voice, looking down at the contents of the frying pan.
"Don't mock me Potter." Ginny threatened as she emptied the pan into the bin.
"Of course not. Don't worry, it's an easy mistake, let's try again."
To be fair, it wasn't so much Ginny who destroyed the kitchen but Harry with his wand putting out the small fires that kept erupting. When Kreacher walked in to the waterlogged kitchen, he almost had a heart attack.
"Don't worry Kreacher." Harry said hastily. "I'll just get rid of it. Evanesco." The water all vanished and Kreacher stopped his fast, panicky breathing.
"Mistress Ginny must not cook." He said firmly and Ginny piped up,
"Too right. If you and Harry are fine with doing all the cooking, then I am fine with doing none of the cooking." Harry and Kreacher agreed to her terms and they both set about making the toasted cheese sandwiches. Ginny hid her smile as she watched the small house elf and the Chosen One work together to quickly make enough sandwiches to feed an army and she finally conceded defeat, which strangely didn't feel all that bad as she watched her small (at the moment) family work on lunch.
Review please!