A/N: This world and its content is, of course, JKR's, although this story is mine.
Ravenlaw. Short Story. Prompt: "Cleaning up." And I'm Head of House! Thanks everyone. :)
Standing in the kitchen scrubbing dishes, Ron Weasley was not at all happy that his best friend and sister were going to be visiting. His dear wife, preferring muggle methods, had begun cleaning a week before and Ron couldn't lie—the house had looked amazing. But it was just a house wasn't it? What did Harry and Ginny care if it was a mess?
Unfortunately, little Rosie was just getting a grasp on her magic and pulled pranks that would've made Fred and George proud. In this case, the result was a blown out and totally NOT clean Granger-Weasley house. Frustrated, Hermione had repaired the disaster and left to purchase new food from the supermarket ("Honestly, Ronald, you should know by now that food is the first of the five Principal Exceptions to Gamp's Law of Elemental Transfiguration."). Worried that Ron might foul up or that his use of magic might encourage Rosie's, she had insisted he wash the dishes by hand.
Ugh.
So Ron was standing in the kitchen, scrubbing a pot he'd never even seen Hermione use, and swearing under his breath. He supposed Rosie would probably start swearing soon, too, but didn't care too much. James was already saying "bloody hell" and he was only a year older than she was. He supposed Ginny's mouth was just as bad as his.
Ugh.
Scrubbing a particularly grungy bit of food off the pot, he managed to splash soapy water all over himself and the floor. While Rosie's giggle meant SHE thought it was funny, Ron did not see the humor. Muttering under his breath, he pointed his wand at the soapy stain on his shirt.
"Evanesco," he gritted.
Rosie's laughter doubled when her daddy's shirt disappeared.
Ron supposed he should be grateful he didn't manage to vanish all of himself. Swallowing hard, he decided he would try more simple spells. The risk was worth if it meant he didn't have to do muggle chores.
"This is your fault, Rosie," he said, patting her on the head as he walked by. Standing in the door frame, he pointed his wand at the sink of dishes. Thinking better of it, he picked up Rosie and her bouncer and moved them to a safer place, and then pointed his wand at the sink of dishes.
Pondering for a moment, he resolved to a spell and aimed. "Scourgify." A shocking amount of soap poured from the tip of his wand, soaking not only the sink and the dishes, but also the floor and his trousers.
Groaning, he aimed again. "Tergeo!" The water disappeared but foamy bubbles dried in place and hardened into powdery puffs, coating most everything in the kitchen. "No! Bloody hell. Uh…" He looked down at his bare chest and closed his eyes for a moment, shrugged, and looked back up. "Evanesco."
The dishes disappeared.
He smiled a small smile. Well, they weren't dirty anymore, were they? Remembering Lockhart saying nearly the same of Harry's arm bones, he shuddered, but returned to the task at hand.
But water cleans soap, so a small amount should suffice. "Aguamenti!" A massive stream of water erupted from his wand, flooding the kitchen as he tried to flick the spell off. "No no stop!" The flow halted and he sloshed through the kitchen to open the back door, glad he had thought to take Rosie off the carpet.
The carpet!
"Impervius!" He shouted, aiming at the fuzzy green flooring. Finally, a spell worked! But his problems were unresolved, since the kitchen was still soaked and Hermione would be back anytime. What would they serve dinner on if there were no dishes?
Well, she would fix something up.
Sighing sadly, Ron put his hand against his head. Setting down his wand, he retrieved the strange looking broom Hermione called a "mop," and began cleaning the floor. Most of the water he pushed outside, but some soaked into the mop and he squeezed it into the sink. Satisfied, he retrieved a towel and dried the floor, an effort that was only somewhat successful considering the state of his trousers and socks.
Frustrated, he unbuckled his jeans and threw them aside, careful to make sure his knickers were dry and appropriately covering anything he wouldn't want his infant daughter to see. Returning to the floor, he dried the rest as best he could and put the towel up to dry.
Finally, he returned to the sink. The fateful starting place of an entire disaster. Checking the cupboards, he was happy to discover that only the dishes in the sink had disappeared—although he was pretty sure one of them was his Chudley Canons bowl, a thought he didn't much like to consider—and that dinner would be okay.
Stepping back, to admire his handy work, he was surprised to hear the squishing sound of footsteps in the soaked mud outside. Realizing Hermione must be back, he slipped into the broom cupboard to wait, hoping to surprise her with a bit of fun before their guests arrived.
Snapping shut the door just a moment before there was a light knock on the open kitchen door, he covered his mouth to suppress a giggle. When he heard the first step onto the kitchen tile, out of sight with the door open but none the less very audible, he sprung from the cupboard and jumped in front of his lovely wife.
And Harry Potter stared back at him, one hand on the door knob, another on the neck of a bottle of butterbeer. Looking him up and down, once, he swallowed hard.
"Am I, ah, overdressed then?"
Embarrassed, Ron couldn't help laughing, and soon they were both red, doubled over with guffaws.
"You can't go shirtless, what will Rosie think of the hippogriff tattoo?" Ron giggled, returning to where he'd left his trousers.
"Oh, but I should go in my knickers though?"
They laughed for a few more minutes until Ginny arrived at the doorstep carrying James and a small basket. "You were supposed to help me, Harry, is everything—oh hello, Ron—is everything—oh. Hello, Ron." Her eyes wide, she stared at her brother for a moment before bursting into giggles herself.
Winking, Ron left to fetch himself a shirt and Harry and Ginny set about getting glasses for all of them. When Hermione's squishy footsteps finally approached, Ron had returned and was playing with Rosie and James while Ginny cut up the meat she'd brought and Harry told Ron about his recent efforts with the Ministry.
"Ron?" Hermione called, stepping up into the kitchen with a bag of groceries in her arms. "Oh, Ron!" She exclaimed, staring at the floor with a strange expression on her face.
Harry and Ron exchanged a glance and Ginny smiled the mischievous smile that siblings get whenever their brother or sister is going to get in trouble.
"Ron, you cleaned the floor! You mopped!" Hermione beamed, setting the groceries on the counter and giving Ginny a half-hearted hug as she walked by. Ginny's face fell but it had nothing to do with the quality of the hug and she returned to her cutting board and a block of cheese ready to become sliced cheese.
"That was so sweet of you!" Kicking off her shoes so as not to get the floor dirty, she approached Ron with her arms open. "And you changed! This is much more suitable." Ron stood to return the hug and managed to knock over James' cup, the contents of which harmlessly bounced off the carpet. "You even protected the carpet?"
"I—uh—yeah—I—" Ron stammered, his face red again as he hugged his wife.
She turned again to face the kitchen and took in the clean counters, sparkling sink, and absence of dirty dishes. Noticing the towel, she pointed her wand and flicked it gently. "Let me just get that, I really appreciate all this, Ron. Evanesco." The towel vanished. "Oh dear," she frowned.
Harry, stifling a laugh, feigned a shocked expression. "Hermione! You really should use muggle methods."
