Day Nineteen - Baking

When invited to join the Weasley's in some Christmas baking, Narcissa Malfoy offers the larger kitchen at Malfoy Manor for the task. Molly Weasley accepts, so the Weasley's arrive at Malfoy Manor during the Christmas break for some holiday baking fun.

Molly Weasley, accompanied by Arthur, Ron, Ginny, and Harry Potter, arrived at Malfoy Manor shortly after midday. Flooing into the drawing room at the agreed upon time, they were greeted by Narcissa Malfoy who gave Molly a welcome hug and before gesturing for them all to follow her.

'I hope you all don't mind getting a bit messy,' Narcissa told them all. 'I'm not entirely sure what I'm doing with baking, as the house elves normally make all the food, but I wanted to give it a go and I'm sure I'll just make a mess.'

'Oh don't worry,' Molly assured her. 'None of these lot know what they're doing and they're bound to make more of a mess than you.'

'Well, thank you all for coming over, anyway. I've been wanting to get on better with other families and as yours is the one we have always held the most animosity to, I wanted to invite you all over for what will hopefully be a fun day. And Draco and Lucius are under strict orders to be on their best behaviour, but I do apologise if they are rude at any point. I'm still trying to teach them to let go of the old prejudices.'

'It was lovely of you to invite us all over, Narcissa. The twins would have loved to join, but they're so busy at the shop at the moment, they couldn't get away, and the other boys are all abroad for work so they couldn't make it,' Arthur explained. 'Regardless, it's nice to finally have the chance to get to know you all and leave the past behind us.'

Once situated in the kitchen, Narcissa handed out aprons and told them they were going to make some sugar cookies and a couple of gingerbread houses.

'Let me go and fetch Draco and Lucius and we can get started. I have some recipes here from the house elves,' Narcissa handed the recipe cards over to Molly, 'and we'll help get the ingredients out in a few minutes. The house elves are here to help out if we need it and to help us find things, since they run the kitchen.'

Narcissa disappeared and returned a few minutes later with a grumpy looking Draco and Lucius in tow.

'Not excited for some fun, Christmas baking, Malfoy?' Harry asked Draco with a smirk.

'Shut up, Potter,' he grumbled in response.

Draco and Lucius both greeted Mr and Mrs Weasley much more pleasantly, as they had been instructed to by Narcissa, and after a quick mumbled hello to the other Weasley's they all got to work.

They all worked together to gather the ingredients, with a little help on locating them from the house elves, and managed not to make too much of a mess mixing everything together for the baking part of things. So far, things were going well and everyone seemed to be getting along well enough.

Once the sugar cookies and the gingerbread were cooking in the oven, they got to making the things needed for decorating. They had plenty of icing for the cookies, and some separate white icing for the gingerbread, plus lots of sweets to attach to them.

'Molly, you're fantastic,' Narcissa complimented the Weasley matriarch. 'I would never have known what I was doing on my own. I'm so glad we had you all over.'

'Oh, well, when you've been baking for seven kids every Christmas you get the hang of it all eventually,' Molly laughed.

'What colours are we using for the sugar cookies?' Ginny asked. She had looked to the food colourings ready for the next step. 'Obviously green for the background, since they're trees, but are we adding more colours?'

'I'd say we do some blue, yellow and red for lights and stars to decorate them once the green is on,' Narcissa suggested.

'An excellent idea,' Molly agreed. 'Pass me the mix and I'll separate it out.'

Molly separated the icing for the cookies into one larger portion and three smaller ones.

'I'll add the red,' Harry announced, taking one of the smaller amounts.

'I'll to the yellow,' Ron took the second one.

'I'll do the green for the trees,' Ginny claimed the largest portion of icing.

'I guess that leaves me with the blue,' Draco announced, taking the last one.

The four adults took the cookies and gingerbread out if the oven and set them aside to cool.

'I have plenty of sweets to attach to the gingerbread houses,' Narcissa told them as she began pulling out different sweets from a cupboard in the corner. 'I went and bought these especially. Some I even got from a muggle sweet shop in London!'

'You went into muggle London alone?' Lucius asked sharply. 'You should have at least taken Draco, I would hate for you to go wandering alone amongst them.'

'Oh Lucius,' Narcissa laughed at her husband, 'there's no need to worry! The muggles aren't nearly as terrifying as you make them out to be. They were really quite friendly and helpful.'

'Really?' Lucius was obviously surprised. 'Well, who knew?'

'A lot of us, actually,' Harry snarked back.

Everyone took a sharp intake of breath as they waited for Lucius' response, waiting for him to get angry. Harry suddenly realised what he'd said.

'Sorry, Mr Malfoy, I didn't mean that to sound so rude, I was only joking!' He tried to backtrack quickly.

There was another moment of silence before Lucius started laughing.

'Oh Mr Potter, we have been deprived of your ridiculous humour all these years,' he joked back.

Everyone let out the breath they were holding in. Narcissa was clearly relieved that the interaction hadn't gone terribly. She had panicked slightly when she brought up the subject of muggles, but thankfully it had gone fairly smoothly.

'Now, once the gingerbread is cooled we'll assemble it into houses,' Narcissa gestured to herself, Lucius, Molly and Arthur, 'and then the rest of you can decorate them when they're done. In the meantime you can decorate the sugar cookies.'

They waited a little while longer for everything to cool and then the kids gathered the sugar cookies on one side of the kitchen while the adults started assembling the gingerbread on the other side.

Ginny decorated them all with the green icing to start with and then passed them around to the others for them to add their respective colours. It was going very smoothly for them, however the same couldn't be said for the adults, who were having a little trouble remembering which parts were for where and getting them to stay stuck together properly.

Once the sugar cookies were fully decorated, the kids sat themselves down to watch the adults struggle.

'No, this piece goes here.'

'It keeps falling over!'

'You've not stuck it properly, that's why!'

They were all arguing amongst themselves. Molly knew what she was doing, having done it before, and Narcissa was clearly good at following her instructions. It was Arthur and Lucius who were the problem, only half listening and still not doing as they were told.

'Right, that's it!' Narcissa finally announced. 'You two go and get some festive drinks together instead and we'll finished this off.'

She dismissed her and Molly's husbands with an impatient wave of her hand and they sulked off to go and find some liquor and soft drinks. With the men out of the way, the two women had the gingerbread houses up and ready for decorating in no time.

'There we are,' Molly announced as they put the houses in front of the kids. 'Get decorating and we'll clear up.'

'Then we can all gather in the drawing room to eat the sugar cookies and have some drinks,' Narcissa told them kindly.

They kids set about gathering the sweets together and decorating the houses. There were 2, so Ginny and Ron worked on one while Draco and Harry worked on the other.

'Stop hogging the muggle sweets, Potter,' Draco complained, reaching over to pull some towards him.

'I wasn't hogging them, I just assumed you wouldn't want them.'

'You should never assume, Potter, it just makes you look like an idiot.'

'Can you pass the icing sugar over?' Ron asked the arguing pair.

'How did you do that so quick?' Harry asked them, passing it over.

Ron and Ginny's gingerbread house was now fully decorated except for a sprinkling of icing sugar. There were jelly tots and Bertie Botts beans along the edges of the roof, chocolate buttons used for the tiles, a candy cane either side of the door, and pepper imps surrounding the base of the house.

'We've been doing this for years,' Ginny shrugged as she sprinkled the sugar over the top.

'And you two are too busy arguing to get yours done,' Ron sniggered.

'Shut up Weasley,' Draco snapped.

'Draco! Be nice to our guests,' Narcissa admonished.

'Sorry mother,' Draco mumbled.

He and Harry continued to work, though in silence this time, and Harry made sure to leave everything where they could both reach it. By the time they'd finished, it looked much like Ginny and Ron's, if slightly messier due to their inexperience with the task.

'Finished mother,' Draco announced as he went to go and wash his hands. The others followed suit.

'Excellent! Me and Molly will take them through to the drawing room, if you lot could come through with the sugar cookies?'

They all nodded and followed the women carefully carrying the plates piled with sugar cookies.

'There they are!' Arthur announced proudly as they all entered the room.

The two men had clearly had a couple of drinks themselves already, as they were both a little red in the face and looking very jolly.

'We have some egg nog here, some fire whiskey, a few butter beers, and some pumpkin juice,' Lucius announced, gesturing to the table laden with drinks and glasses.

'Thank you, dear,' Narcissa chuckled.

They placed the gingerbread houses carefully on one of the tables followed by the sugar cookies. Everyone took a separate small plate and a cookie and went to grab a drink before making themselves comfortable. The two sets of parents sat themselves on the two sets of love seats, while the kids arranged themselves on the sofa, with Draco taking the remaining arm chair.

'Well, I wasn't a fan of the idea, but I have to admit, mother, today was fun,' Draco told her kindly.

'Thank you, darling!'

'It was lovely of you all to have us over,' Molly gushed.

'Oh please, it was lovely of you to come over,' Narcissa responded.

'What do you say we finish these cookies and go mess around outside with the spare brooms? We all like Quidditch, right?' Draco asked the three Gryffindors across from him.

'Yeah, sure!' Ron jumped at the opportunity.

They finished their biscuits quickly and followed Draco outside.

Arthur and Lucius were sat quietly nursing Fire Whiskeys while their wives chatted happily.

'It's very lucky you know what you're doing when it comes to baking, Molly.'

'Thank you! I'd be happy to teach you any of my recipes whenever you like.'

'Oh, that wold be wonderful! Baking today has been such fun, I'd love to do it more instead of always relying on the house elves.'

After a long conversation from the adults and some Quidditch fun outside for the kids, they came back later on to finally demolish the gingerbread houses, all pleased with the day's baking results.

'We should definitely do this again,' Narcissa told them all as they left at the end of the day.

'Yes, we really should,' Molly said, steeping through the Floo last.

'Well, I think that was very successful,' Narcissa said happily.

'Very, dear, even if it was with Gryffindor's,' Lucius told her as he draped an arm over her shoulders.

'Oh Lucius!'