Disclaimer: Anything you recognize belongs to J.K. Rowling. The title, 'A Recipe for Babies,' comes from Raine (on the forums). Thank you for the help!
A Recipe for Babies
Being a parent was supposed to be rewarding. Most of the time it was. Ron liked to be the 'fun' parent and let Hermione be the 'mean' parent. He didn't like fighting with his son or his daughter.
His daughter especially.
Rose, unfortunately for Ron, had always been a curious child. She took after her mother with her brains but looked more like Ron than anything. Well, she resembled Ginny to him. Sometimes when he went to hug their daughter or tuck her into bed at night he saw his little sister in front of him. His little sister saying, "Nighty-night Roland," she had been convinced that was how you really pronounced 'Ronald' from four to six.
"Ron—"
Ron eyed his wife, her face red from laughter. Their six-year-old daughter sat next to her on their bed with a frown on her face not understanding the joke between her parents.
In the many years he had known Hermione he had never seen her laugh so loudly before. She had thrown herself on the bed—definitely out of character for his wife—and laughed. She laughed and she laughed and she laughed. She had struggled to breathe as Ron's world crashed around him.
Her laughter terrified him. His wife was mad. He was going to be a single parent to two beautiful kids and have to…no. He wouldn't even think about that…no, no, no.
Ron sighed and stared at his daughter. He tried humming to himself to calm down. He was lost in the memories of his then innocent sister. She had lost her innocence when he had caught her squeezing Harry Potter's bum one night. It had sort of spiraled out of control from there and Ron had woefully realized his sister had grown-up.
One minute Ginny was a little girl who used to beat up her brother (he let her of course) and the next she was engaged, married and then pushing out kids.
Just like that his little sister had grown-up. When Rose had been born and he had first laid eyes on the wispy red hairs on her head and the blue eyes that shined at him a few months later, Ron had told himself his daughter was not allowed to grow-up.
She wouldn't be allowed to like boys (they would always have cooties, he would tell her). She wouldn't even think about going on dates or wearing revealing dresses. Interaction with the opposite sex was out of the question.
Ron knew it was insane. Ron knew it wouldn't work out. Ron knew that his daughter would one day meet a boy and that boy would corrupt his innocent angel and he'd want to throw her in a convent (because according to the muggle television shows he watched in the morning, that was the answer to everything) for protection.
He was ready for it (well…).
What he wasn't ready for was his daughter to drop a dungbomb on his head.
"Daddy," she dragged out the 'y' and kicked her legs on the bed, "where do babies come from?"
Hermione started howling with laughter again and Ron gave her a sharp look. So much for 'team parenting.' His wife had promptly said, "This one is for you," and then busted out laughing when Ron's face turned as red as a tomato.
He probably shouldn't have abandoned Hermione last night when it had taken her three hours to get Hugo to sleep with a long adventurous tale about dragons while he had only had to give Rose a quick kiss on the forehead and mumble a, 'sweet dreams.'
Ron wondered if he could tell Rose that babies didn't exist. They were a figment of her imagination. For all he knew they were a figment of his imagination.
"I…"
"You know, don't you, daddy?"
Hermione snorted. She was going to pay for her reactions later but for now Ron ignored her. Rose was always questioning his intelligence. He would blame Harry for that (again) when he saw him later. For now, his mind was reeling as he figured out something proper to say.
He didn't want to scare his daughter with the facts. Of course he knew where babies came from, he had created her, hadn't he? He didn't think it would be appropriate to tell her she was conceived after heavy consumption of muggle alcohol on her mother's end and Ron idiotically thinking that she couldn't get pregnant if she was under the influence.
"Of course I know," he snapped with a huff, "I know everything."
Rose raised her eyebrow unconvinced. She folded her hands and waited for her father to answer the question. Ron racked his brain, wishing he had read the parenting books Hermione had bought him. Instead they were collecting dust somewhere unknown to him.
What did they always say?
Tell the truth?
Rose's blue eyes shined as she stared at her father. Fat chance, he was not going to tell her the truth. The less she knew, the better.
So he said with a grin, "Babies are made…in the apothecary," Hermione stared at him with raised eyebrows and shook her head, "and then put in the tummy for nine months to grow big and strong." Rose didn't say anything, her lips were pursed together in a tight line and she cocked her head to the side, giving her father an incredulous look. Ron shook underneath her gaze and quickly blurted out, "How about some ice cream?"
Ron was certain he could use food to get out of any situation.
Rose nodded her head and hopped off the bed, yelling something about putting on her trainers. Ron grinned and gave Hermione a wink.
"Father of the year right here," he said, patting himself on the chest. Hermione rolled her eyes in response.
-x-
The hard thing about parenting wasn't the awkward questions and explanations about growing bodies, raging hormones and curiosity. The hardest thing for Ron was keeping an eye on his daughter. He could blink and Rose would be gone, leaving him to search frantically for her when all she ever was, was a step ahead of him.
Ron licked his ice cream cone and worriedly searched through the throng of witches and wizards that were crowding his view. The ice cream was melting on his hands thanks to the sweltering sun but he didn't care. He hoped once he found his daughter his sticky hands would glue her hand to his.
His blue eyes targeted a running girl with long red hair. Ron shoved past a group of witches who glared at him, he mumbled an apology from knocking one over but didn't move his eyes from his daughter.
She was standing outside a shop and peering at the window of the apothecary in Diagon Alley.
A feeling of horror swept through Ron's body as she turned to walk towards the closed shop door and go inside.
"Rose Weasley!" he shouted, throwing his hand out towards her. He missed her arm by a mere second. The bell to the door jingled and Ron turned white as she walked inside.
He rushed in behind her and quickly gripped the back of her shirt, making her unable to walk forward.
"Daddy? Daddy, I want to see the baby-making potion! Pleeeeease," her blue eyes watered, trying to get out of her father's grip. Ron turned red as the other patrons stared at him, snickers on their faces as his daughter rattled on about babies.
"No," he said quickly, "come on…how…h-how about some ice cream?"
Rose's eyes landed on Ron's ice cream cone and said nothing. Food really was his answer to everything. She bunched up her face, making it turn red and glared at Ron. He knew that look. That was the look preserved for Hermione whenever she told Rose she couldn't do something. Ron let her get away with just about anything. Any second now he was going to hear the familiar wail of her scream.
Scared, Ron let go of Rose who pushed past her father and rushed out of the shop. He weakly grinned at the others who were staring at him and then cursed, almost stumbling into a stand as he rushed towards the door again.
He nearly crashed into his daughter who was standing outside the door with a sweet smile on her face, all traces of anger gone as she stared up at a large angry looking man.
"Hey Mister, when are you having a baby?" she asked. Ron's body froze as Rose leaned forward and poked the man's protruding stomach.
His dark angry eyes told Ron everything and he firmly planted his hands on Rose's ears, turning red himself at the colorful language that poured out of the man's mouth.
-x-
Rose Weasley was less than amused when she found out her father had been lying to her. She kicked her legs that dangled from the wooden chair in their kitchen and crossed her arms, glaring at her father.
She resembled an angry Hermione and that was one person Ron really never liked to see upset.
"Rose…" he mumbled, trying to think of something to say. Hermione had refused to help Ron out.
"Daddy," she said with a scowl, "you lied. Mummy says lying is bad, mummy says that only bad people lie and that—"
Ron held up his hand to silence his daughter. He cursed in his head, clearly Hermione said too much. "Rosie, I'm not a liar. Daddy is the only man you can trust. Remember that. Look," he said with an exasperated sigh, "what do you want to know."
She shook her head and very slowly said, "Where do babies come from?" Rose figured her father really didn't know either. "How do they get here?"
Ron paused trying to think of something to say. His eyes dropped to the plate that was on the table in front of him and he popped a piece of chicken in his mouth, chewing slowly as Rose watched him. He tried to think about how he had learned all about sex and babies but that just made his ears turn pink and he shifted uncomfortably in his seat.
That had been one awkward conversation with old Aunt Muriel.
"Ask me again in forty years."
"I want to know now!" Rose shouted hotly.
Voldemort was really no match to his daughter's temper tantrums.
Ron groaned in defeat and then scooted away from his daughter. He didn't know if it was appropriate for him to hold her little hand and say, 'Well honey, the truth is mummy and daddy have…' he couldn't even think of the proper word in his head. Not around his little daughter.
"Well," he began nervously. Rose watched him with a stern eye and pouted her lower lip. "When a mummy and daddy…err…get married…they have babies and everyone is happy," he clapped his hands together to signal that was the end of the story and grinned. "How about some cake for dinner?" he asked brightly.
Rose scowled. "But how?"
Ron thought for a moment. He wondered if he could say from 'magic' but even he knew that was a terrible explanation. He also didn't want his daughter to be nervous when she started Hogwarts, swishing and flicking her wand with worry that she would easily get pregnant.
"You know," he mumbled. By the angry look on Rose's face, he guessed she really didn't know. "They meander about…take a stroll through the park and just…snatch some babies," he blurted out.
Rose scrunched up her nose in confusion and Ron sighed. He really wouldn't be worried if his daughter was afraid to go to the park anymore. Most of the time he was afraid to go to the park. All the other mother's glared at him and wondered why their husbands didn't take their kids to the park.
It made for awkward conversation for Ron. He always felt like a piece of eye candy and was constantly getting hit on for his fathering skills.
"I'm confused," Rose said with a sad cry. Truthfully he was too.
"How about that cake then?" he asked, patting his stomach. He felt hungry. Parenting really made him have quite the appetite.
Rose glared at her father and shook her head defiantly. "Daddy!" she screeched.
Ron raised his hands in the air as surrender. "Okay, okay. How do I explain this?" He paused and then got up from his chair, his daughter's eyes watching his every movement. He walked over towards the refrigerator and then to the cupboard, removing bowls and different ingredients.
Rose watched him go on for five minutes, walking back and forth very slowly to the table and then to the cupboard to take something out and then put it down. He grumbled to himself, going over in his head what he was going to say.
Finally he stopped moving around and fumbled with one large silver bowl and one medium sized silver bowl.
"Having a baby is like baking a cake," he declared.
Rose's blue eyes opened wide and she stared at her father with horror. "My birthday cake is a baby—" she cried out.
Ron blanched as her blue eyes filled with tears and nervously waved his hands in front of her face as if that would stop her from crying. "No! We don't eat babies! Err…babies come from love?"
Rose glared at him, face quickly turning red and she balled up her fists with anger. "You just said they come from baking a cake," she shouted. "Liar! Liar! Liar!"
She watched as her father nervously ran his hands through his hair and then set two silver bowls next to each other, one large one and one medium sized one. He tapped the bowl with his finger and then eyed the sack of flour in thought.
"No…they do. It's…we have a mummy bowl and we have a daddy bowl, okay?"
Rose crossed her arms against her chest and gave her father a soft, "Hm."
His hands shook as he opened the sack of flour. "And the mummy bowl and daddy bowl have different…err…ingredients."
Ron was certain he was never going to eat cake again.
He watched as Rose's eyes shined with excitement and she leaned over the kitchen table, hands clamped together with interest. "Like what?" she asked, peering into the empty bowl. "Sprinkles?"
"Well," he muttered weakly to himself trying to find the best route for him to continue with his explanation. "Sure! The daddy bowl has sprinkles and," he stared at a can of whipped cream that was near him and instead grabbed the flour and sugar.
Rose watched as he poured flour into one bowl and sugar into another, her small hands scooping up some sugar and greedily shoving it into her mouth. Ron figured Hermione could deal with the after effects later.
"The daddy has flour and the mummy has sugar and…milk and they mix the two together and then…" He spilled the sugar and milk he had poured into the smaller bowl into the larger one and watched in disgust as it bubbled slightly. "In a certain amount of time the baby bakes—grows…err…grows."
With sugary hands and a scowl on her face, Rose sat back in her chair and said, "But how could Ginger make a baby if she has no thumbs?"
Ron paused, forgetting the concoction in front of him. No thumbs? He gaped at his daughter, what kind of friends did she have? A pregnant woman with no thumbs…named Ginger…now he had heard of everything.
"Rosie, who's Ginger?"
Rose grinned and crooked her finger at her father and motioned for him to follow her outside.
-x-
Ron didn't know what to think. He figured later on when he and his wife were in bed and she was complaining about how Rose wouldn't sleep because of a sugar 'high' Ron would remember this moment and he wouldn't feel bad for her at all.
His blue eyes squinted thanks to the sun that was blinding him and he put his hand up to shield his eyes and stare at the nest his daughter was pointing to him.
Inside the nest were two ugly looking baby birds and a red robin.
"Ginger is a bird?" he asked. Rose nodded with a grin. "And you want to know where," Ron silently started to connect the dots. "Rose, why do you want to know where babies come from? Where do you think they come from?"
Rose hummed to herself and then she giggled, leaning against her father's leg and hugging her arms around him. "I knew you didn't know, daddy. I don't know either. One day Ginger had eggs in her nest and the next day she had little baby birdies," her eyes twinkled with excitement as she told him the story. "Do you think she used eggs in her cake? That's why they're slimy and funny looking?"
Ron grinned and patted Rose's head with affection. "Sweetheart, Ginger laid an egg and those little funny looking birds hatched from those eggs."
Rose blanched and squeezed her father tightly. "Did Mummy lay an egg?" she asked with a slight tremble.
Well, an egg was involved. Wasn't it?
"Do I have to lay an egg?"
Ron coughed to stop himself from laughing and bent down to give his daughter a kiss on the forehead. "It won't be so bad," he said reassuringly. She stared up at him with a hopeful smile. "Think of the outcome. I got you, didn't I? You can ask mummy all about it."
According to his wife, it was more like giving birth to a watermelon.
That summer Hermione kept asking Ron why Rose would spend days collecting twigs, making nests and crying whenever her mother made scrambled eggs for breakfast.
Ron would purse his lips and shake his head in amusement. Rose, he would say, has always been a curious child.
Author's Note: This was odd. Hahaha. I just can't even comment. Hm. I love Ron. Let me know what you thought in a review. :D