Author's Note: Neville can't cook, but Ron is learning!
The Houses Competition (or THC) Round 3
Story Type: Themed
House: Slytherin
Class: History of Magic
Prompt:The inclusion and significance of food, [Action] Cleaning
Word Count: 2325
Disclaimers/triggers: Ronville? Nevald?
Beta Love: StoryPlease
Neville sighed as he dragged his weary self through the door of the cottage. It had been an unbelievably long day. Three second-years had gotten into the venomous tentacula during their lesson and had managed to not only receive several bites each but wreck the back half of Greenhouse three while they were at it. The mess had been astounding and the paperwork harrowing, but nothing had been worse than dealing with Minerva McGonagall in high dudgeon.
He had the worst headache.
After placing his briefcase–a gift for his fortieth–in the mudroom, he walked into the foyer proper…and paused.
It smelled like cooking.
This did not bode well.
Bracing himself, Neville walked into the kitchen to confirm his suspicions. Sure enough, a beautiful roast with garden vegetables sat at the centre of the table alongside several fluffy Yorkshire puddings under stasis. The food looked heavenly.
The kitchen looked…less heavenly. Rather, the kitchen looked like a troop of nifflers had rummaged through every drawer and cabinet while some sort of horrible flour and steam monster had exploded on top of every available surface.
In short, his kitchen was an unholy mess. Neville stared at it in terror.
"You're home! Finally," an indulgent voice said behind him before strong, flour-coated arms gripped him in a front-to-back hug. "Surprise!"
"Er. Hi, Ron," Neville managed. "I see you've been cooking." He could tell that his tone of voice was not going to convince anyone of his enthusiasm.
"I have!" the man chirped, scooting around his lover to press a peck to his cheek. "I'm pretty sure I got Mum's recipe right this time. It's hard to tell with her writing. I didn't know if I was supposed to use tarragon or thyme in the au jus, so I used both. Might be good, might not." He shrugged. "You must be famished. Come on, tuck in!"
Neville gave Run a strained smile as he did as he was bade and sat at the table. He didn't speak as Ron lifted the stasis charm and started to slice the roast, giving them each a healthy portion before seating himself. A quick pat on the knee and Ron dove in, leaving Neville staring at his full plate.
He'd never felt less hungry in his life. Honestly, he just wanted to drink his wine and retreat up to the bath to nurse his headache and attempt to soak away the day. One look at Ron told him this was not an option.
He slowly cut a bite from his roast, placed it in his mouth, and chewed mechanically. It tasted…odd.
"Did you put mustard in this?" Neville asked.
Ron replied without bothering to swallow. "Oh, yeah. Tastes kinda unique, doesn't it? Mum must've meant marjoram." He kept eating. With gusto.
Neville felt rather ill.
He speared a piece of turnip.
It's not that he resented Ron's attempts to learn how to cook. The entire Weasley family had been looking for ways to cope after Molly's sudden death the summer before. They'd all seemed to assume a part of the matriarch's personality. George had learned to knit while Ginny had decided to collect Molly's home remedies into a book that was even now working its way through the publication process. Bill had become an avid gardener while Charlie had dedicated himself to becoming a Celistina Warbeck superfan–he'd even met her during a backstage tour. Percy, the poor sod, had become so obsessed with cleaning that he was just a few days away from opening his own cleaning supply business, "Efficlean," a portmanteau of Efficient and Clean. Ha, if two words ever described Percy!
Ron, food-obsessed as he was, had decided to learn to cook.
He'd come home a few weeks after the funeral with a crate of handwritten recipes and overflowing notebooks. It also became abundantly clear that Ron's atrocious penmanship was an inherited trait.
And so Ron had dealt with his grief by cooking his way through his mother's recipes. Neville hadn't minded so much as it had given him an excuse to expand their cottage's vegetable garden and put in an herb bed. It kept Ron's mind and hands occupied and made him feel close to his mother.
As Neville's prowess with a stewpot matched his prowess with a cauldron, he simply resigned himself to eating the results. And the results were often…odd.
He grimaced as he removed a carrot green from his mouth. "Pretty sure you're supposed to chop those off, love," he murmured as Ron served himself seconds.
No, the problem wasn't Ron's cooking, "creative" as it was.
The problem was the cleaning.
It seemed that his partner wasn't capable of cooking without using every pot, pan, utensil, and clean dishcloth in the house. Often there were ingredients flung to the heavens. Sometimes there were also small fires. As Neville and Ron's long-standing rule had been "he who cooks does not clean," Neville was left with the cleanup.
He'd come to loathe cleaning. He didn't care what Molly had thought, cleaning with magic left a residue that only hand-scrubbing could remove. That, and he'd never really mastered any cleaning charms to begin with. More often than not, he'd end his day at the school only to arrive home to an unholy mess in his cottage. He'd spend the better part of his evening cleaning it by hand and be left with almost no leisure time of his own before he'd need to go to bed and wake up for another day of teaching the little terrors masquerading as students just up the hill.
All work and no play and all that. It was no longer "starting to wear" and had now blossomed into a Problem in his relationship. Worse, he'd never had to tackle a true problem before and had no idea where to start. The last time there had been any issue in his relationship it had been fifteen years ago and he'd told his girlfriend he was gay. Luna had pecked him on the nose, said "of course you are!" and proceeded to show him her latest watercolour fuzziwhig pingbins.
Or was that fizzybag pengbuns?
He'd had a talk with his erstwhile girlfriend over tea between classes. "I don't know what to do with these feelings," he'd said. "It just seems smarter to shut my mouth and clean the kitchen."
Luna had shaken her head and continued petting the fuzzy thing in her lap–a crossbred something or other she'd brought to show Hagrid. "You have needs and feelings too, Neville, and they're just as valid as Ron's. You should talk to him. Surely the two of you can sort out a solution?"
Neville turned his mind back to his dinner and the conversation he was ostensibly having with his lover.
"—and then she just blew up!" Ron said while sopping up gravy with a piece of spongy bread. He put the final piece in his mouth and licked his fingertips with gusto before wiping them on the serviette. "Hey, you've hardly touched your Yorkshire!"
"Uh…not hungry. You can have it if you like," Neville said, gesturing toward his plate. No sooner had he spoken than the pastry was snatched away from him. Sometimes he wondered how Ron didn't weigh twenty stone.
"You're quiet tonight," Ron commented as he cut into the pudding with a satisfying crunch.
Neville braced. "Well, there's something I've been meaning to talk to you about, actually. If that's alright."
Ron looked at him and actually swallowed before answering. "Why wouldn't that be alright?"
"It's about the cooking."
Ron looked puzzled. "I know I overspent the budget last month, Nev, but I told you that buying that half beef would keep us for months. And look!" he waved his arm at the remains of the roast. "That's just a little piece."
"No, no, I believe you about that. Honestly, it's fine. Really, the budget is more of a guide anyway. It's not like we're hurting right now."
"Well, what then?" Ron asked, forking up another mouthful and chewing away.
"It's just…the cleaning bit. I'm glad you're cooking, really. It's saving us a small fortune on takeaway. It's just that I'm so tired most days and…could you use fewer dishes, maybe? Or be more careful with the ingredients? I spent an hour scraping gooseberry preserves off the ceiling last night," Neville finished in a rush.
"But had no problem eating the bloody pie!" Ron snapped. "Ungrateful, that's what you are. You're not the only tired one, Neville, and I spent two hours making that pie and the rest of the dinner that you barely touched last night. And I worked a full day too!" He dropped his fork to the plate with a clang and pushed back from the table. "We agreed. If you ever got it in your daft head to cook, I'd do the cleaning and I wouldn't bloody complain!"
Neville's brows drew together. "Yes, you would! You complained the last time I made one of those frozen pizza things that Harry recommended and all I used was a baking sheet and a knife. And you whinged for twenty minutes! And you didn't even clean them properly. I had to go back and rewash them both by hand."
"They were fine. You're just persnickety! Too many years living with that finicky old grandmother of yours–"
"Stop," Neville said firmly. "Stop there. You're tearing into Gran."
Ron sniffed, bright colour high on his cheeks. "We've been using this system for a decade, Neville, and suddenly it doesn't work for you. I can't help but think that maybe it's something else that's suddenly not working for you."
"What?" Neville asked, eyes wide.
"Oh, like I haven't noticed you pulling back. Not eating at meals. Coming home late. Those teas with Luna. I know you wouldn't cheat, Nev, but I can't help but wonder if you're not starting to look further afield." Run swallowed. "Like maybe this isn't working for you anymore."
"Who put that foolish idea in your head?" Neville asked quietly. "When have I ever indicated I wasn't happy here, with you?"
Ron didn't answer, but just stared glumly at the table.
Neville felt his heart begin to race and his breaths shorten. "I…I need to go. For a bit. I need to go." He turned toward the door, not entirely sure where he was going, but thinking to turn back and say, "Please be here when I come back."
He was out the door before he could see Ron's nod.
When Neville returned several hours later, the cottage was quiet. He slipped his boots off in the mudroom and moved through the darkened rooms one by one, looking for Ron. He couldn't help but notice that the kitchen was…well, not spotlessly clean, but certainly cleaner than it had been.
He winced.
He made his way up the stairs to the half-story of the house in which their bedroom and the primary bath nestled. A quick glance at the bathroom showed it empty, so Neville nudged open the door to their bedroom with his foot.
He breathed a small sigh of relief. Ron was in their bed, illuminated by a sliver of moonlight and clearly wide awake.
"So you're back then."
"I am. Sorry."
A snort. "Why're you sorry? You needed to blow off steam. I know how that goes."
Neville tilted his head to the side. "Less steam for me. I just needed to relieve some of my frustration."
"And that took four hours?"
"No. That took about an hour. I needed to go and see someone." He sat down at the foot of the bed and rested a hand on Ron's shin.
Ron sighed and moved his leg out of Neville's grasp. "How's Luna then?"
"Not Luna."
"Then who?" he asked, rolling over onto his side to avoid Neville's gaze.
"I went to see your brother."
"Bill?"
Neville smiled into the dark. "No, Percy."
"Whatcha need to see him for?" Ron asked sulkily.
"Well it occurred to me that we both hate to clean."
Another snort sounded from Ron. "Yeah."
"And that you love to cook."
"I really do," Ron said wistfully.
"And that I love you–" a rustle as Ron turned his head toward him. "And because I love you, I want you to do the things that make you happy."
"Right. I'm following."
"But–"
"Always a but," Ron sighed.
"Hush. But, I want to have time for the things I love too. Like spending time in the garden. Or a hot bath at night. Or a book. Or, goodness, maybe even a snuggle with my favourite person on this green earth."
"Hagrid?"
Neville laughed dryly. "Yes, Hagrid. We've been having a torrid affair. I meant to tell you over dinner. We're going to raise skrewts together."
Ron snickered now. "Ew."
"Yeah." They were silent for a moment.
"So how's Percy your solution to finding more you time?" Ron finally asked.
"I'm officially your brother's first subscriber."
Ron sat up, interested now. "Subscriber to what?"
"To his 'Clean-In-A-Can' deliveries. Seems he and George have teamed up to create a…I don't know what you call it. It looks like a fizzy drink can. You shake it up and put it in the middle of the kitchen and it cleans the whole thing for you. Magically." Neville smiled at his partner, feeling rather proud of his solution.
"I thought you hated cleaning the kitchen magically," Ron said with a raised eyebrow. "Something about residue."
Neville shrugged. "I decided you're right; I'm too exacting on kitchen cleanliness. I'm willing to let up a bit on that, and maybe do a deep clean of the kitchen once every few weeks in exchange for more time in the garden and more time with you. Does that work?"
He could see Ron's smile even in the relative dark of the room. "Yeah. That works for me. So do you. Come to bed?"
"Best offer I've had all day."
