Summary: AU! After Book 5. Hermione tries to Give Harry back a childhood. Welcome to Chez Harry! Now serving: Cookies...
Inspired by J.K. Rowling's characters and Laura Joffe Numeroff's children books. Not mine.
If you give a Dark Lord a cookie, he's going to ask for a glass of milk...
"Happy Birthday, Harry!" Hermione, the Weasleys, most of the members of the DA, and the other members of the Order of the Phoenix exclaimed to the messy-haired wizard as he entered the kitchen of 12 Grimmauld Place. To his amazement, even Snape was there, lurking in the background and scowling. After an entire month at the Dursley's, Harry was glad to once again see his friends for himself, and to see that they were okay after the Department of Mysteries fiasco. Harry admitted to himself that it had been partially his fault, but he also had realized, while pulling weeds out of Petunia's garden under a hot sun, that others had played a part in his beloved Godfather's death. Looking around at his pseudo-family, he knew things could have been much worse.
Fred and George popped up behind Harry, and started pushing him towards a chair energetically. "Come on, old chap- it's time for presents!" They exclaimed gleefully as they forced him to take a seat, and passed him the most brightly wrapped of the presents that formed a good-sized stack. Take that, Dudley! Harry thought smugly, because he was certain that there were more than thirty-nine packages there.
What followed was a small waterfall of gifts being pushed upon Harry, who was working hard to unwrap one before the next was handed to him. Exclamations of 'That's mine', 'Wish I'd thought of that gift', and 'Why on earth would you give the boy underwear?' filled the air. In a little less than an hour, Harry had opened up the entire stack, and was eating cake. "This is brilliant, Mrs. Weasley," he commented- for she had remarked earlier that she had baked the cake especially for him- "I wish I could cook like this."
Beaming from the compliment, the flattered woman smothered him in a hug, then murmured, "I have a few starter books you could look at, if you'd like. I bought them for Ginny, but she's never showed interest in them..."
Looking over at Ginny, who was straddling Dean Thomas and snogging the daylights out of him, Harry had to admit that the redhead was probably not very interested in the culinary arts at this stage of her life. "That would be grand, Mrs. Weasley." He said politely, before standing up to say goodbye and thank you to all of his guests.
For some time after all the guests had left, he stayed up talking to Mrs. Weasley about baking, and finally climbed the stairs clutching a few books on baking for beginners to his chest. He sleepily entered his and Ron's bedroom, grabbed some night clothes, turned to get into his bed, and found...
"Hermione!" He squawked. "What are you doing on my bed!?" The bushy-haired witch, practically dressed in a pair of light blue pajamas was sitting criss-crossed on his bed, a stack of slim books clasped tightly in her arms.
"Hi, Harry!" She said cheerfully. On the other bed in the room, Ron grunted, turned over, and went back to sleep. "I came by to drop off some extra birthday presents."
"More of them?" Harry asked, puzzled, perching on the end of the bed. "But you already gave me those large volumes on Occulmency and the Potter Family."
"I know," Hermione retorted, smiling mysteriously. "Here." She plunked the books into his arms, and then made to stand. The one on top is the first in the series... I know they're short, but they're classics- every kid should read them at least once." With that, she clambered off the bed and retreated to her own room.
Harry stared down at the first book's cover, which featured a cartoonish mouse and large words proclaiming "If You Give A Mouse A Cookie". Sighing, he settled down under the covers and began to read.
Hermione woke in the morning to the sound of pots clanging. Yawning widely, she squinted at the clock and was disgruntled to find that it was only six a.m. Stumbling out into the hall, she greeted the various other teenagers that were glancing suspiciously down the stairs.
"Who do you reckon it is?" Ron asked, scratching his belly slightly as he stretched. "Mum, perhaps?"
"Nah," One of the twins responded- Hermione wasn't sure if it was Fred or George, as it was too early to distinguish between freckle patterns- "Even Mum isn't that crazy... besides, she knows we don't usually wake up this early, and she likes to have the food warm and fresh when we go to eat it."
"Maybe she's trying to wake up us early because she wants us to do some chore for her?" Ginny suggested. "She did say she wanted to clean out this house, since it's so dirty."
A second later, a large clatter from downstairs destroyed all their theories, because it caused Molly Weasley to poke her head out the door of the master bedroom. "What on earth is that noise? Fred, George, did you do anything?" For once, when the twins were shaking their heads, they were in earnest.
"I'll go look." Ron volunteered, then clomped down the stairs before anyone could stop him. A second later, he stampeded back up the stairs and grumbled. "S'ok... it's just Harry."
"Harry?" they all exclaimed, before hurrying downstairs to see what the boy-who-lived was doing in the kitchen.
They found him cheerfully humming a tune as he mixed a large vat of dough. His black hair had turned grey from the amount of flour in his hair, his glasses streaked with egg yoke, and a spatula stuck behind his ear. "Hey guys," he cheerfully exclaimed, as he looked back at a book, hmmm-ed for a second, then started placing the dough in small balls on a cookie sheet.
"Harry... what are you doing, being awake at this ever-so-early time in the morning?" Ginny queried cautiously, looking at her friend like he dancing around the kitchen in his underwear, declaring his love for Snape.
"Cooking." Harry replied absentmindedly, sliding the trays with balls of dough into the oven. "I'm making cookies."
"I'm going back to bed." Ron announced with a snort of disgust. He turned and hastily made his way up the stairs. The rest of the Weasley boys soon followed, leaving Hermione and Ginny eyeing Harry warily as he puttered around the kitchen cleaning up. Eventually, they too, fled, wanting to escape Harry's offer to decorate the newly baked cookies. Behind them, the kitchen was soon again smeared with food from ceiling to floor, this time with icing.
Harry grinned as he finished the cookies. Taking out a quill and a piece of parchment, he giggled to himself as he composed a letter.
My Lord,
In anticipation of your complete victory over the mudbloods and imbeciles that support that stupid old coot, I have ordered my house elves to bake a batch of 'triumph cookies' for you. I hope you enjoy them. Long live the purebloods!
A Loyal Follower.
Voldemort frowned down at the letter and the accompanying box of two dozen cookies in confusion. In green frosting on the cookies was a smiling Dark Mark. "Wormtail!" He barked.
"Y-yes my Lord?" The Rat Animagus squeaked, approaching his master nervously and prostrating himself before the slightly insane Dark Lord.
"Here," Voldemort said, shoving a cookie at him. "Eat this."
Wormtail looked down at the happy Dark Mark, shivering, but obediently took a bite. When nothing happened to him after a minute, he took another bite- then another. Within five minutes, the entire cookie- and one of its fellows- had been consumed.
"It's - mmph- good, master." Pettigrew reported eagerly, stuffing the last crumbs into his mouth. "May I have another?" His beady eyes greedily looked towards the box.
"No!" The Dark Lord said cruelly. "Go away!"
In the face of the Dark Lord's wrath, the man quickly turned into a rat and scampered away, leaving the Dark Lord eyeing the box of cookies. "Triumph cookies', are you?" He asked the delectable-looking backed goods. "Well, here's to my triumph!"
With that, the Dark Lord fell upon the box of cookies, cramming them into his mouth and mumbling of their goodness and tastiness. Twenty minutes later, all twenty-two of them were gone.
"Those were good," The man known as Tom Riddle murmured. "Very good. I must remember to discover the identity of that loyal follower and give them a place of honor once I destroy Harry Potter and that old fool once and for all!"
Just as he was about to get back to planning a diabolical plan to somehow confront the boy-who-lived (he was thinking that near the end of the school year would be a good time to do so), a solemn house elf popped into existence, handed him a note and a glass with a white substance in it, and popped out again. Voldemort looked down at the note, recognizing that it was the same handwriting as the cookie note had been on.
My Lord,
Forgive me for forgetting to include a glass of milk with the cookies, I apologize most fervently. All Hail the Dark Lord!
Your loyal Follower.
"Well," the Dark Lord commented. "I am a bit thirsty." With that, he chugged down the glass, and fell over- dead.
Twenty minutes later, when the first auror teams would arrive, they would note two odd things about the Dark Lord's demise. The first had to do with the note they found next to an empty box:
I, Harry Potter, have defeated the Dark Lord! Feel free to thank me! (Send monetary donations to Vault 687.) Cheers!
The second concerned the appearance of the Dark Lord's body. At first a state secret, the photograph of Voldemort's appearance eventually leaked out to the public (via a certain Beetle) and was used in a widely popular campaign- concerning the picture of the dead Dark Lord's face, and a certain caption in all white: "Got Milk?"
Harry Potter did, indeed, receive many gifts and cash donations after his defeat of the Dark Lord. Oddly enough, in a best-selling memoir he would write years later, he titled the chapter on the death of Voldemort "If you Give A Dark Lord a Cookie…" Historians would puzzle for years to come over what the title could possibly mean. But for now, Harry Potter and his friends were just a bunch of teenagers- famous teenagers, but still teenagers. For a time, the kitchen once again stood silent, as Harry had much homework to do before school started up again. But when all of them came home for Christmas, Harry picked up the books Hermione had given him once more. And then… Harry again started to bake.
Like it? Hate it? Review! Next on the menu: Muffins…