Delicious Disastrous Date
The war was over. It had been for a while. The relief that we all felt was tinted with grief and sadness by all those we had lost. Lupin. Tonks. Fred. It was all too much. It sent me into a fit of rage, followed very closely by sadness. Through all the tears and the emotions, Hermione had stood by me.
After that kiss in the castle, nothing was ever really said. When things were finally over, we just were. We were Ron and Hermione. Everything I had hoped for since I was eleven.
Now that things had finally settled and I was back to being somewhat normal, I wanted to do something that would let Hermione know how much I appreciated her. How grateful I was to her. How much I loved her.
The only thing that I could really come up with was a date. I knew what they were, I had heard other people's dates described in great detail at Hogwarts, and I may have even been on a few of them with Lavender. Ugh. But I wanted this date to be special for Hermione.
Ginny told me that traditional Muggle dates consisted of dinner and a movie, something that she no doubt heard from Hermione. Since I had no desire whatsoever to go to those cinemas that Hermione and Harry had talked about, I guess dinner was the only option I was left with. But how to get it... that is the question.
The sound of my best friend's voice pulled me out of my thoughts.
"What are you thinking about so hard? Stop it, you might hurt yourself"
"I need your help" I say realizing that I really can't do this alone. If I want this to be a perfect night for Hermione then I need to make sure nothing goes wrong which means that I need all the help I could get in the kitchen. Harry would definitely not be my first choice for a cooking dilemma such as this one but I refuse to ask any other member of my family. They would mock me to no end.
"Wow, this must be serious if you didn't even get mad at my witty, albeit juvenile jab at your intelligence".
"Shut it, I really do need your help, its urgent!" I plead.
"What could possibly be this urgent?"
"I need to cook Hermione a meal" I say hoping he'll understand and simply go with it. I should have known better because Harry immediately started laughing.
"Are you telling me that you want to cook?" he asks between a fit of giggles. I've never wanted to punch him more. "Not only that. But are you telling me that youwant my help? What makes you think that I can cook?"
He's right, I know he's right. Neither one of us has skills in the kitchen that we can be particularly proud of unless you count not burning it down. Unfortunately this particular skill will not help me with my current predicament.
"Ugh, forget I even asked. This is hopeless" he must sense my disappointment because he interjects. Harry being Harry never wants to disappoint the ones he cares about.
"Now hold on. I'm sure we can work something out. But I know for a fact that we can't possibly do it alone"
"So what do you suggest?"
I'm almost afraid to ask.
"Ginny what are you looking for?" This was the third time I had asked this question since we had first explained the situation to Ginny and she had run off to her room. She still hadn't answered and so we were left standing in the doorway of her bedroom waiting for her to finish whatever it is she was doing. She finally finished rummaging through her things and turned around to reveal a rather large book. Harry and I stared at her in confusion wondering how a book would solve our problem.
"It's a cook book you idiot" she says "It's one of Hermione's. She brought it here a couple of summers ago and she forgot it. I knew I had seen around here somewhere"
"That's brilliant! But how am I supposed to choose which recipe to make? There must be hundreds of them in here!"
"Well it seems that Hermione has taken care of that as well" she says while I just look on with confusion. "She's bookmarked her favourite recipes"
"Look at that. It's like she wanted you to cook for her" Not helping Harry.
I turn to the first page that's bookmarked and read the title on the top left hand side.
"Macaroni and Cheese?" I ask incredulously. "This is Hermione's favourite meal? That's not special enough!"
"Of course it's special enough, she likes it doesn't she?" asks Ginny.
"It has the added bonus of being simple enough that even we can pull it off"
Harry did have a point. As I scan the recipe, it doesn't seem like it would take much effort on our part to put the meal together. There's also a minimal amount of steps that we have to follow to get the ingredients to look as perfect as the picture. But I still can't help but think that something as simple as this wouldn't be good enough for Hermione.
"Look Ron, if it makes you feel better you could always make her some dessert as well. See? She's also bookmarked the recipe for chocolate chip cookies" Ginny turns the page to the back of the book where indeed Hermione had saved the page that read Chocolate Chip Cookies.
"Alright, let's do it. How hard could it be?"
An hour later, after getting all the ingredients necessary and after inquiring as to what a bay leaf was and why I was required to use kosher salt instead of the plain old regular salt that we had handy, the three of us were standing in the kitchen ready to cook. Ginny was in charge of reading out the instructions for the tasks that Harry and I would follow in order to make the meal. My sister also thought that Hermione would appreciate it more if the meal was prepared the good old fashioned way. No magic.
"It says that once the milk has infused, remove the onion and bay leaf with a slotted spoon. Add the butter and sift in the flour" Ginny read.
"How do I know if it's infused? And what the hell is a slotted spoon?" I yelled in frustration.
"I dunno. I think it's this" Harry pointed to a regular looking spoon and, deciding that I didn't want to debate over spoons, I agreed. The infusion of the milk in the pan may or may not have be taking place. I have no idea. So I just go ahead and add the flour anyways.
While Harry stirs my infused milk as instructed, I grate the cheeses. After the required five minute stirring time, Ginny tells me to stir a quarter of a teaspoon into the concoction. A quarter of a teaspoon? Who even knows what a quarter of a teaspoon is? Deciding on an appropriate amount, I dump it into the mixture and wait for further instruction. When everything's done, Ginny reads out the last step which consists of baking our casserole for thirty minutes.
"See? That wasn't so hard was it?" Ginny asks just as I closed the oven door.
"Speak for yourself. All you had to do was give orders" I mumble.
"Let's get started on those cookies shall we?"
The cookies just finished baking and I was taking them out when Ginny and Harry reappeared from doing God knows what. Honestly, I didn't want to know.
"How'd they turn out?" Harry asks while peering over my shoulder to get a better look at them.
"Well they don't look bad, do they?" I ask hopefully.
"No they don't, let's try them"
Here goes nothing
We all reach for a cookie while I pray that we had pulled this off.
"Oh my God Ron, these taste awful!" Ginny exclaims "How much salt did you put in these?"
Harry was in process of spitting his out. I, thankfully, had not yet taken a bite out of mine.
"A quarter of a teaspoon, just like you told me to!" This was not my fault.
"How much is that? Show me!"
I pick up the spoon and grab the salt. I pour the appropriate amount on to the spoon while Harry and Ginny look at me in horror.
"What?" I ask "Is this not a quarter of a teaspoon?"
"Hello? Is anyone here?" We all whip our heads towards the front door where we know Hermione had just come in from.
"Well then, good luck with that. Let us know how it goes, will you?" Ginny and Harry take off towards the stairs and leave me standing there with my sad, pathetic, salty, cookie just as Hermione walks into the kitchen smiling.
"What's going on in here? Are you cooking?" she asks in disbelief.
"Well I tried. You see I wanted to do something for you. Something special. You've been so great to me while I've been dealing with my... stuff, and I just wanted to say thank you by taking you on a date. But I didn't actually want to go out and thought that we could stay in so came up with a plan to cook for you but of course that went terribly wrong because I'm me and so –"
I never get the chance to finish because her lips find mine, effectively cutting off my rant. Thank god. When she pulls away she takes my hand in hers and smiles up at me.
"What's that you've got in your hand?" she asks me
"Oh... that. Um..." I just stare at the useless baked-good in my hand "this is the result of my cooking. It tastes awf – No! Don't eat it!"
But it's too late. She's already snatched it from my hand and put it in her mouth, chewing with difficulty.
"Hermione spit it out! It's horrible, you don't have to eat it" I plead. I watch in horror as she swallows it. "Why did you do that?"
She smiles at me before touching her lips to mine again. "You went through all that trouble to make it for me, the least I could do is eat it"
I love her. I really, really do.
"Even if it is the worst thing I've ever tasted"