Disclaimer: These characters do not belong to me.
Notes: This is written for -TheSingingBlob-, and it really took me way too long to write it, sorry Sarah. :) You all should go read the wonderful Jack/David Newsies fic she wrote me, called "Feel Heartbroken". Be warned, this fic here will give you a sap overload, but my Ron/Hermione fics tend to come out like that. :D
The title is from a quote by Harriet van Horne, "Cooking is like love. It should be entered into with abandon or not at all."
In my personal canon, of all the Weasley children, Ron is the only one who got Molly's cooking talent, and Ginny couldn't boil water if her life depended on it. :D
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There's a vast difference between the steady drill of making a potion, and the comfortable ease of cooking in a warm kitchen; the difference is spelled out in the furiously bubbling, exploding messes Ron usually ends up with in his cauldron, and the perfect dishes he can set out on the table, each and every time. It's a difference no one in his family seems to understand, when they ask him, Well, it's the same thing, isn't it? You add a mess of things together and stir it all up. No one in his family understands except for his mum, who smacks the back of his head when he brings home less-than-perfect marks in Potions, but smiles at him understandingly when he leans against the counters in their kitchen during summers and holidays, and watches her chop vegetables with a steady flicking of her wand.
With potions there are rules, there are instructions, a precise list of what you can and cannot do, and Ron does not follow lists well. He does not know by instinct when to stir clockwise as opposed to counter-clockwise. He knows what a pinch is in terms of pepper but cannot measure the same in powdered beetle's eyes. Potions do not come to him by instinct, and Ron works with instinct alone.
Cooking, for him, needs no recipes, no instructions beyond what he learned from his mum in the bustling noise of their kitchen while growing up. To create the perfect meal he measures definitely in pinches and dashes and does not taste as he goes, trusting in himself behind the stove as he never can behind a cauldron. Ron adds his ingredients and follows them with a splash of hope for his family's safety, a twist of love, and the resulting meal is far more potent than any potion he could ever create.
It's no different now that he has his own house, his own kitchen, and the food he cooks is mainly for two. Hermione watches his surety in the kitchen with a little bit of bemusement and oceans of love, whispers in his ear, You're brilliant and I'll let you handle all the cooking, all right? with eyes amusement-bright. They've reached an age where they can comfortably admit their own failings, Hermione without a defensive explanation, Ron without red-eared resentment. Maybe it's that whatever failings they find in themselves, they can rely on each other to make up for them; two slightly imperfect halves embracing to make a perfect whole.
Hermione tucks her chin over Ron's shoulder, eyes intent on his deft hands as he cracks two eggs, mixing them in with butter and flour with a swirl of his wand. Her hair brushes the side of his neck; her breath is warm on his ear. Ron makes a cake with Hermione's arms encircled around his waist, and knows it can't turn out anything but excellent. Not with the warmth beating from his heart, spreading through his body, from the top of his head to the tips of his toes.
"First taste for me," Hermione tells him when the cake is done, tangling her fingers into his, and when she kisses him with the taste of chocolate thick in her mouth, Ron wonders at his own happiness, consuming him from the inside out. The second bite goes into his mouth and melts on his tongue like happiness and Hermione's sweet kisses.
It's perfect.
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