I don't own this stuff at all, it's all J.K.'s, and I make no money here.
AN: More cooking high jinks! The best and easiest way to humor and awkward romance. That and kittens, which later chapters may include. I'm still deciding.
Ginny bounced little Dominique on her hip some more and cooed down at her before looking up at Harry again.
"Absolutely not," she said.
"Gin, I need you there for it to work."
"You do not. You're brilliant, Harry. The youngest Head Auror in the history of the ministry. You figure something else out, because I am not setting foot back in that flat as long as Zabini is still there. And I'm sure he feels the same way."
Harry glanced over his shoulder, double checked his silencing charms. He gave Dominique a once over and decided the most they needed to worry about with her was a dirty diaper. Then he focused on Ginny.
"Alright, alright. I understand. I'll figure something else out. It would just look better if-"
"Hell, Harry. Say I was out shopping or something." She cooed at Dominique again, who gurgled and stuck some of Ginny's long, sweet smelling hair in her mouth. Harry's brows drew together.
"She hates your hair."
Ginny gave him a distracted glance. "She did. She loves it now though. Merlin knows why."
Harry stepped closer, caught some flying strands in his hand. They were in the backyard at the Burrow, presumably enjoying the weather; while Fleur and Molly were inside, gabbing about baby clothes and what the best birthday cake for an almost one year old was. Ginny started to say something and Harry ignored her, instead fingering the locks and then drawing them up under his nose.
"Harry!" Ginny protested, flushing a bright pink.
"'Arrree!" Dominique repeated, giggling and relinquishing Ginny's now damp hair from her mouth.
He dropped her hair, but pinned her with a long look instead, just as Victoire came running up to them.
"You've quit," he said in a quiet voice.
Ginny shrugged, though a tiny, smug smile played about her lips. "So?"
"Ginny…"
"I did it cold turkey, too," she replied defensively. "How's that? Proud of me?"
Without warning, Harry kissed her soundly on the mouth, in front of both children. They both squealed and Victoire ran away again, this time toward the house, screaming about Uncle Harry kissing Aunt Ginny. Ginny pulled away and Dominique giggled and clapped her hands delightedly.
"Harry, what on earth-"
"That was because I love you. Come stay with me, Ginny. These next few days while I get it sorted with Zabini. And then after, during the investigation and cleanup of your flat-"
"Harry, I shouldn't. I know I'm…better. But I…"
"You don't have to answer right away," he murmured. "Just think about it- if you decide you'd like some time away from the Burrow. Is being around everyone bothering you?"
Ginny shook her head slowly. "Actually, it's not. I feel alright, honestly. Everyone is being so wonderful, and the children…"
She paused and then looked up, that small smile still in place, but much less smug. Harry's heart beat faster.
"I'd like some, one day, I think. I really would. If it's possible."
Harry's mouth went dry and he kept his hands to himself. After all, she did still have a baby in her arms.
"I think it's more than possible," he murmured.
"You do want them too?" Her voice was hesitant, uncertain. The promise inherent in the question made him smile gently at her.
"I do, Ginny."
"Well then," she finished softly, looking away again. He watched her coo at Dominique a little longer and then placed a chaste kiss upon her cheek.
"Think about what I said- if you do want a break from this. I'd love to have you over, you know I would. And as for Zabini…I'll take care of it. Don't worry about a thing."
"Thank you, Harry," Ginny replied. She gave him a brilliant smile. "See you again soon?"
"Yeah." He lifted a hand and walked off, waving to Molly and Fleur as well, who were spying on them from the kitchen window. Then he apparated away.
Of course, in doing so he missed seeing the two women rush from the back door to confront Ginny; and demand details of the infamous kiss of which Victoire had so kindly informed them. But he was already quite familiar with the pink flush that spread along her cheeks at their interrogation.
Two days later, Harry had put the new, Ginny-less plan in motion and it was nearly complete. He'd staged Zabini's death to look like a suicide and cleared the body with one of the many younger workers at the ministry who were on his secret team of…philanthropists, if you will. Some Draught of Living Death here, some blood and hair samples there, some casually lifted wards…and since he was the one in charge of the wards and standards changed often, no one was any wiser. Suicide while Ginny was away on vacation, was the ruling in his report and no one in the ministry questioned the results, or even seemed to care very much. He did get a half-hearted call from Blaise's stepfather- if one could even call the man that- but after the usual pleasantries and line of answers, the man accepted the story. By all accounts in the papers, Blaise's mother was going to die soon, anyway. Even Molly, usually so generous hearted, merely shook her head and said it was best he made it stick; and none of the other Weasleys cared at all, though he'd been in their sister's care.
So none of it mattered very much.
Now he was standing on the platform at Waterloo International, Zabini in full disguise next to him, as they waited on the train. Blaise kept shifting nervously and Harry finally had to cast a quiet calming charm to get him to stand still. He scanned the small crowd around them and turned back to Blaise.
"That should help."
"Did you fucking cast another spell-"
"It's for your own good. Look, there's nothing to be nervous about, Zabini. No one you know is here- trust me, even the muggleborns rarely use this train."
"What the hell is a chunnel, anyway?"
"I already explained all this, Zabini."
"Explain it again. Maybe my terror at being suddenly crushed to death by a trillion tons of water will distract me."
Harry sighed. "Look, when you get to Paris, someone will meet you- another young wizard. From there, you'll spend a night and then catch another train out to the Russian border. You'll go through a few different countries to get there and you'll have to stop and change trains more than once and you'll take an overnight here and there, by yourself. But you have all the letters of introduction, the maps and directions, train tickets, the list of names and friendly faces to ask for help, plenty of emergency money. All that will help if you get lost. And you know to call me directly if you run into any trouble. Once you've passed the final inspections, you'll be directed through to Moscow and finally on to your destination village."
"Fucking Russia."
"You said you were taking this chance, Zabini. Stop giving me attitude. You only make yourself look more pathetic the more insults you spew."
"Your confidence in me is thrilling, Potter."
Harry rolled his eyes and then pointed down the tracks. "It's coming now." Zabini's eyes went slightly wild, but his feet remained glued to the ground, his hands still. The charm was working for him physically, at least. Harry actually felt compelled to give his shoulder a good pat.
"It'll take you two weeks to get to the village, even with all the high speed travel. But my muggle contact out there will meet you at the station and take you the rest of the way via car- or bus, whatever he's driving these days."
"You don't even know?"
"He's a goat farmer with a growing family, Zabini," Harry replied. "He might need the extra storage. Now here's the train. Come on, I'll take your bags in for you."
Harry'd worked up some magical tickets that would allow him on the platform, even if he wasn't traveling, and he used them for occasions such as this: seeing off escaping wizards. Grown men who were terrified of the big, wide, magic-less world. He helped Zabini find his seat, stored his bag for him, and then clapped him on the shoulder one last time.
"I'd better get off now. I expect to hear from you and your contacts soon. Safe travels, Zabini."
Blaise merely gripped the arms of his seat and stared straight ahead of himself. A light sweat broke out on his brow and Harry departed, suddenly feeling less than hopeful. He jogged along the outside of the train and waved a hand to the other man. Through the tinted window, he could just make out Blaise, turning and pressing one hand to the reinforced plexi-glass before the train started moving. Harry slowly lowered his own hand and watched as the train gathered speed and left the station.
It was too late for doubts, now. Zabini was on his way, for better, or worse. But even though Harry wished he could have brought him to justice, he knew the man deserved this second chance. The past was over with, his best friends were finally recovering and ready to put it behind them…and he could be, too. He could welcome whatever the future held.
Good riddance, Zabini, he thought. I won't miss you, but I hope you accept your new life. Otherwise you're going to be one miserable bastard. And with only a somewhat lightened heart, Harry turned and walked from the station.
"Right, and now I stir it counter-clockwise?"
Hermione gave Draco an exasperated, albeit amused, look and put her hands on her hips so she wouldn't be tempted to pull the bowl full of cake batter from his hands. It was the end of another week, four days after Zabini's getaway, and she was enjoying the peace and companionship their shared decision had brought them all. Now she was trying to give Draco more basic cooking and baking lessons…mostly unsuccessfully. Honestly, Lucius' casserole several nights ago had been topnotch compared to Draco's attempts.
"Draco, this isn't potions class, you won't explode the batter if you accidentally count the turns wrong. It's just plain, old white cake-"
"It may be that to you, but to me it's new and exciting and I'm terrified it will come out burnt."
"It only burns if you leave it in the oven too long, Draco. Whether it burns or not has nothing to do with how many stirs you give the batter."
"But it does have something to do with what you put in the batter," he confirmed, pulling the spoon out and eyeing the glop that dripped from the end of it. "Are you sure we can't just buy-"
"One of those pre-made ones you saw in the bakery the other day? Absolutely not. Now behave yourself. It's your father's birthday and I won't have you mucking it up," she said, finally pushing him out of the way and taking over the stirring. (She'd also had Draco, at least, back into town with her a few times- an experience he was much more excited over now that he knew he'd be joining such a community soon, himself.)
"You're only being nice because we're leaving in another three weeks," he accused as he relinquished the bowl, but not the spoon, which he promptly began licking. Hermione started to protest his remark, noticed his tongue making streaks in the batter upon the spoon, and turned bright pink. She grabbed blindly for a new spoon, hit him with it a few times, then brushed it off on her apron and started stirring again.
"Ok, ok!" he laughed, protesting her abuse and scooted away from her, the original spoon still firmly in his grasp. When he ran low on batter he reached over her shoulder and tried to procure more from the bowl. She hit him again, this time her spoon clearly batter laden. His jaw dropped and some of the flying batter landed in his mouth. He licked his lips and then grinned predatorily.
Hermione backed up, bowl still in the curve of one arm, other hand wielding her own spoon. It occurred to her the abuse may have been a bad idea, no matter how satisfying it was at the time.
"Now, now," she murmured. "This cake is for your father."
If she thought reason would work, she was dead wrong.
"You have plenty of the ingredients still," he replied, stalking her slowly about the island, then the table. "You can always make another."
"Draco…"
He made his move and before she could react, he'd dipped one long index finger into the batter and deposited his prize down the middle of her face. She went cross-eyed to see the batter dripping off the end of her nose and her eyes narrowed as she refocused on him.
"You are going to regret that," she replied, her voice cool. Then she dipped her spoon into the bowl and launched more batter directly at him, flinging it across the kitchen. She caught him square in the chest and he yelped and turned to run, as she continued to barrage him with batter missiles. He reached for the bowl of icing she'd helped him mix up only minutes before they'd started on the cake, and started scooping out globs of the stuff and flinging it right back at her.
She shrieked as some landed right in her hair and she flung a particularly large spoonful at him in retaliation. Some of it landed on his shoulder as he dodged. The rest splattered across Lucius, who'd just opened the door.
The older man raised one eyebrow and took a deep breath as he surveyed Hermione and Draco, who'd both frozen at his appearance. Lucius wiped his hand along his face and then sniffed delicately at the mixture there. He glanced back up at them.
"White cake?"
Hermione pressed her lips together to keep from bursting into laughter. Draco had a harder time keeping a straight face.
"Yes," she finally said when it looked like Draco wouldn't be coming up for air anytime soon. Merlin, he was crying, he was laughing so hard. She felt herself starting to snicker as well and bit her lip. Lucius gave his son a pointed look, then turned to Hermione.
"I prefer yellow," he replied, then smirked.
It was like a devil took over. She really didn't know what was wrong with her.
"Oh?" she murmured. "I'm terribly sorry. I'd better start over, in that case. But then, what on earth shall I do with the rest of this batter?"
"Make cupcakes?" Lucius replied politely, not looking at her as he inspected his shirt and the batter there. Which of course meant he didn't see her moving closer.
"That's a good idea," she admitted. "But so is this."
And she flung more batter at him, quite deliberately. He looked up in time to see it coming, but not in time to move, and it caught him in the side of the face and neck. His jaw dropped as his son's had earlier and Hermione giggled maniacally as she looked from father to son, both now covered in batter. Draco was now pointing at his father and laughing even harder and Lucius looked utterly gobsmacked.
Until the gleam she'd seen in Draco's eyes transferred to his father and the older blonde turned to her, smiling coldly.
It was a completely evil, dastardly smile. She shivered and took refuge behind the island.
"Now, now," she murmured and Lucius continued to approach her. She flung more batter at him and he ducked. It hit Draco, who yelped again.
"Dad!" he said, still laughing.
"A mere casualty," Lucius replied, waving a hand as he huddled behind the table for shelter. Hermione peeked over the top of the island.
"Where are you?"
"He's behind the table," Draco called and a second later another missile of flying batter was lobbed in that direction. Lucius barely dodged it.
"Traitor!" he hissed at Draco, who grinned, shrugged, and scurried around the corner of the island.
Hermione looked over, prepared to let fly with more batter. Draco waved his hands.
"I surrender!"
She relaxed some. "Where's the icing?"
A chocolate blob flew over the top of the island and landed at their feet.
"That explains that," she muttered and Draco snorted. "Be serious!" she whispered, then grinned. She tried desperately to straighten her face out again and failed. "This is war."
He took in the batter smeared along her own face, the icing in her hair and on her clothing, and felt himself blush. He smirked to cover it up and mock saluted her.
"Aye-ay, Captain," he replied and this time took his old spoon and flung some batter over the edge of the island. They heard a loud swear from across the room and Hermione giggled again.
"Ready to surrender?" Draco called.
"Never!" Lucius roared and Draco turned back to her, shrugged, rolled his eyes.
"What's our strategy?" he whispered and Hermione leaned forward, which he really thought was a terrible idea. He wondered if she knew there was some batter hanging to her upper lip.
He wanted to do very dirty, naughty things to that batter. And her lips.
"I don't have one," she whispered back, then snorted and broke into more laughter. She peered around the edge of the island and glanced back at him. "I figured I'd throw batter until I was out, or he cried for mercy."
"A brilliant plan," Draco agreed a little too loudly and Lucius swore again, though they heard laughter in his own voice.
"Turncoat!" he yelled.
"You taught me well, Dad!" Draco replied and Hermione gasped and snorted again.
"Oh, god, stop, it's killing me-"
"Let me help," he said and took another spoonful of batter. "How about we both fire on him at the same time?"
"Oh, oh, let me get ready-" she wiped the tears from her eyes and turned about, scooping out batter as well. "Ready? One, two…"
"Four!" Draco yelled.
"Three!" Hermione said, laughing so hard she couldn't see. They flung the batter anyhow and heard simultaneous plops followed by a cry for mercy.
"Bloody- ungrateful children!" Lucius swore again. "I surrender!" he called.
"Hurrah, victory!" Hermione yelled, waving her spoon about. She turned to Draco and gave him a bone crushing hug he returned enthusiastically. "We won the battle!" she declared in his ear and as she pulled away, bouncing up and down from their position on the floor, holding his hands in hers. He cheered with her.
"How shall we celebrate?" she asked, still laughing and gasping for breath when she finally pulled one hand free from his to wipe some batter from her face. She only succeeded in smearing more along her brow and deposited some chocolate icing along her cheek as well.
Draco laughed and reached a hand up, wiping her cheek for her. He also deposited more icing and batter; and that one teensy, tiny blob of it was still clinging enticingly to her lip; though it had migrated to the corner of her mouth with all the laughter.
His eyes narrowed, his heart sped up…and before he could stop himself, he was cupping her face, running his fingers along her cheeks, up into her hair. And then he dragged her forward and licked the batter from the corner of her mouth. He kissed the spot gently and captured her lips again, properly.
Hermione didn't move, didn't say a word. Perhaps her eyes widened some as she realized what he meant to do. Perhaps her breath came shallow as she saw the way his eyes turned that wild color. But she didn't protest, or try to stop him. The only evidence that she was unsure of what she wanted was the way her hands came up midway through the kiss to grab at his shirt front and pull him closer before pushing at him; but even they stopped in their movement after a few blissful seconds.
He came up for air, hands still cradling her face, her eyes full of anything but confusion. There was desire there to match his own, he knew, and he would have captured her lips to his again in the next heartbeat if they hadn't both heard his father in the same instant.
"Where are you upstarts? And what are you doing? Plotting your next attack? I said I surrender-"
And then his legs were in their line of sight.
Draco scrambled back from Hermione at the same time she moved away from him and they looked up. Lucius glanced down at them and eyed them suspiciously. There was a long pause and then Lucius leaned over and swept the bowl of batter out of their midst.
"Ah-ha!" he crowed. "Who surrenders now?"
And he proceeded to dump batter all over both of them. Hermione sat there, drenched in the gooey stuff, hair matted down, mouth open. She looked as shocked and appalled as Draco did. Then she bent over at the waist and began laughing again.
"You bastard!" she yelled and launched herself at Lucius' legs. He wasn't quite fast enough and she managed to coat batter all down one leg before he struggled free from her grasp. "Draco!" she commanded and, spurred by the order, he collected himself and then crept around the other side of the island to corner his father between them.
"Now, we wouldn't want to make more of a mess," Lucius attempted to reason.
"Oh, of course not," Draco murmured and Hermione nodded pertly.
"That would be quite beyond us. Honestly, at our ages…" She watched Lucius grow hopeful and then swiftly reached behind her for the extendable spray faucet, threw the tap on, and began blasting the two men.
"Mercy!" Draco cried. "I'm on your side, remember!"
"Oh, no, you don't," Lucius shouted and pinned Draco's arms at his sides, holding him in the spray as Hermione continued to rinse them off, chortling gleefully the entire time.
She knew the kitchen would be a bitch to clean later; and they wouldn't get the cake done until tomorrow, they'd be so tired from scrubbing; but somehow, in that glorious instant, it all seemed worth it. Even that spontaneous, wonderful kiss. These moments…they were all precious gifts, no matter what the underlying causes. Whether it was hidden aggression or pent-up emotion behind it, it was all beautifully, simply worth it and Hermione refused to look another gift horse in the mouth. Never again.
Carpe diem.
She giggled again and turned the spray up higher, delighted beyond belief to hear the shouts of surprise and loud protestations that signaled how alive and in the moment they all were.
AN: Awwww. :)