Closeness through Cooking

Closeness through Cooking

---

The story so far (and what happened since the last story):

It was seven months now since the trio had left Hogwarts. Hermione, who was now dating Harry, had moved into number twelve, Grimmauld Place in December, sharing the house with Harry and Remus (still quite innocently). In January, she had been accepted for a job with the Department of Mysteries, to her delight. Harry was reserve Seeker for the Falmouth Falcons.

The post of Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher at Hogwarts was currently vacant. The school was having to use other teachers whenever they had free time in their own schedules. The confusion of different teachers was making classes hard to follow. Professor McGonagall had replaced Dumbledore as Headmaster, as he wanted to return to just teaching, and she had been trying to find a teacher.

---

Wednesday the 20th of January

Remus looked up from the letter the owl had brought. 'This looks promising. Minerva's been discussing me with the school's governors, and she thinks Hogwarts can get round the restrictions.' Remus had been unable to get a job due to the Ministry's restrictions on werewolves. 'She wants me to come up for an interview with a couple of the governors.'

'How can they?' Hermione asked, sitting down with a plate of toast. 'I know the rules didn't apply when you taught us, but aren't they really strict now?'

'It's because I taught you. It means they'd be re-employing me, not giving me a job for the first time. That's if the Ministry honours its own loophole.'

'That'll reassure Ginny,' said Harry, finishing a bite of his own breakfast. Ginny, now in the seventh year, had mentioned her worries about her NEWT studies to them when they'd visited the Burrow on Boxing Day.

Remus added, 'I'll be staying at Hogwarts for several days, as it'll give me a chance to visit the school for a change of scene. I'll go up there this afternoon.'

*

'It feels odd, with only the two of us here for the next few days,' Harry said that evening after he'd returned from Quidditch practice and Hermione had got home from the Ministry. He was wondering if Remus was deliberately leaving them alone together.

'It does. It's ...' she looked around the kitchen, as if trying to see a word that fitted, '... more personal, I think.'

'As long as Remus is away for a few days,' Harry started to turn red, 'how about if I invite you back to my house one day before he gets back, and cook you a candlelit meal?' Due to Harry's odd hours, caused by the Falcons' training schedule, they usually each prepared their own food. 'I haven't been very romantic lately, have I?'

'How about if I invite you back to where I'm staying, and cook you a romantic meal?'

Harry laughed. 'Either way, I know where we'll be eating.'

After a friendly argument, they finally settled on jointly cooking the meal, which they arranged for the Saturday. Hermione mentioned in passing that she also thought Remus had left them alone deliberately for these few days.

*

Harry and Hermione were sitting together in the kitchen looking through some cookery books they'd borrowed from Mrs Weasley. They'd agreed the main course ought to be either beef or lamb.

'I ought to get some of these books,' said Harry, turning the page. 'Baked steak with bananas?'

'What's that?'

'It seems to be a banana sandwich with steak used a bit like pita bread. Oh, and it's topped with bacon.'

'Seriously?' She laughed. 'How about this one -- "Hamburg steak" -- it's basically a hamburger. It says you serve it with chips, baked tomatoes and fried onion rings, but it doesn't mention the bun. That must be a Muggle addition.'

'This is interesting, but I'm very tempted to get some newer books,' said Harry. 'Some of these recipes sound very old-fashioned.'

'This one does too -- it sounds like breakfast -- a bacon and egg pie. Oh. There's another recipe for egg and bacon pie, with more eggs than the first one. Maybe they're meant to be eaten for breakfast.'

'They do sound like breakfast, don't they? At least these recipes sound easier than potions ones -- I should be able to avoid any disasters. I thought the only things you got as "croquettes" were potatoes, but there's a recipe for ham croquettes. Ah, but it includes potato.'

'I think we're having more fun looking than we will cooking.'

'Look, don't cook,' said Harry, smiling at her. 'Yes, there's some odd-sounding things in these. Like pigeon pie -- it just makes me think of all those pigeons hanging around statues.'

'Yes, that would put me off. I've just got up to "Hearts need long, slow cooking to make them tender".' She looked at him with a smile. 'I suppose that's advice on cookery, not romance.'

Harry smiled back. 'I think mine needs slow cooking.' He suddenly realised what he'd said. 'I mean ... it's like what I said before, about not knowing what love is. I don't mean I'm hard-hearted.'

'I know you aren't. I think the effort's worth it, anyway.'

Harry reddened, and looked down at the page in front of him. 'I didn't realise you could cook so many parts of an animal. There's pig's cheek in this one.'

'Nor did I. I'm not sure why I'm surprised -- Mum never cooked most of these, but we did sometimes have kidneys, or ox-tongue.' She looked at the front pages of the book. 'Oh, this one was published in 1948. I suppose the meat rationing after the war didn't just affect Muggles, then.'

Harry turned the pages in the book he was holding. 'That would explain it. Ah, here's a whole chapter on curries. Pumpkin, nut, lentil ...'

'A vegetarian option? Actually, one of those might be interesting another day. I've found something called "Italian Soup" in this one.' She slid the book towards him. 'What do you think about that, as a starter?'

He looked at the description. 'I'll put it down,' he said, writing the idea and its page number on an otherwise blank sheet of parchment. 'You know, at this rate, by March we'll have decided on the whole meal.'

Hermione laughed. 'We are supposed to be cooking this the day after tomorrow. I suppose we shouldn't get so distracted -- but it's interesting, looking at them.'

'Besides, if we don't look through all of them, we might miss something we'd like.'

She turned the page and skimmed down it. 'Like mushroom stuffing for vegetables? All we need to do is decide what vegetables go with the main course -- which we haven't chosen yet either.' She grinned at the book. 'I just turned over two pages at once -- I thought for a moment they were suggesting chocolate sauce for vegetables, not for ice-cream!'

'That would be one way to get children to eat their vegetables,' Harry joked. They both looked up from the books at that point, and their eyes met for a moment; then, both blushing, they looked down at the books again.

'Er ... scalloped parsnips?' Hermione asked, trying to find her place in the book again.

'That doesn't sound too bad,' said Harry, trying to concentrate on the meal rather than thoughts of possibly being a father one day. 'Though we haven't decided on the main meat dish yet, and we're already trying to decide on the vegetables to go with it.'

'Roast sirloin?' Hermione suggested. 'Beef loaf?'

'The roast sounds good. Shall we agree on that?' They did, and he added it to his list. 'How about staying with simple vegetables this time? We can be more ambitious another time -- if we don't give ourselves food poisoning this time.'

'OK,' she said, laughing at his pessimism. 'Do carrots, peas and croquette potatoes sound all right?'

'Yes, they do.' He added them too. 'I've just realised, that soup can be a broth for the too many cooks to spoil.'

She grinned and shook her head. 'We'll have to decide in advance who's cooking what.'

'I suppose so.'

They worked through chapters on puddings. Hermione ended, 'Chocolate bananas, ice creams, sorbets -- maybe not, as it's still winter.'

'Let's do this again in summer, and try those then.'

'Why not?' There was a pause while she turned some pages. 'There's a chapter in here about savoury dishes, rather than sweet ones, for dessert.'

'All right, let's hear those. This one's got cold chocolate cake and cold lemon cake -- you need to make them with Chilling Charms, rather than baking them.'

'Cheese straws, ham and gherkin rolls, devils on horseback, savoury mushrooms ... these don't sound very substantial. We'd have to make a lot of them.'

'This one's got a recipe for croissants, and lots of cakes. Oh -- how about strawberry cheesecake? That might go better with this meal.'

'Yes, it might -- and it'll keep if we're full after the rest of this.' She turned some pages. 'Mulled wine? What do you want to drink with the meal?'

'I hadn't thought about it. Wine would fit, wouldn't they? We could get enough to have some mulled later, too; that's good in winter.'

'OK, let's put that down. The last few chapters of this book are about jams, preserves and pickles, so there's nothing else here. Have we got enough on your list?'

Harry looked at the list. 'There's no dessert. Did we agree on strawberry cheesecake?'

'Yes,' she said, standing to look over his shoulder at the list. 'I agreed with all of those.'

'OK. I don't have any training tomorrow, so I'll get what we need then. We can finally use the dining room for this meal -- it's about time we used it, after all the time we spent the other year cleaning it up.'

*

When Hermione got home from her job on Friday evening, Harry greeted her. 'I got everything on the list.'

'Good. It occurred to me we could make the cheesecake this evening, since it's served cold anyway.'

'Oh, yes. OK, we can experiment with being too many cooks. We'd better have something to eat first, though, or we'll end up eating the ingredients.'

After a meal, they started to make the cheesecake. The preparation and cooking went quickly, and they put the completed cake into the pantry, which was kept cool, as always, by magic.

'That worked out all right,' said Hermione.

Harry agreed. 'We didn't get in each other's way, even though that was only one recipe. It's a good start, isn't it?'

'I used a newer book for the recipes at my party. Mrs Weasley's got lots of them.' Hermione sat down at the table, and looked at the unused strawberries. She took one and nibbled at it. 'Strawberries in winter -- it doesn't seem like winter, does it? I suppose they're grown in enchanted greenhouses or something.'

'I suppose they are. But there's no snow anywhere around here, anyway. We're just too used to snow at Hogwarts. London's too warm for it to stay on the ground.'

'Why don't we Apparate to Hogsmeade tomorrow morning, just to be nostalgic?' she suggested. 'We'd still have time to cook the meal itself when we got back.'

Harry sat at the table too. 'Yes, we could. That'd be nice. I don't suppose it's a Hogsmeade weekend.' He grinned. 'I don't mean we'd get detention, just that it wouldn't be too crowded.'

She smiled at him. 'I promise not to give you a detention, even if I see you there.'

'In that case, let's do that.'

*

Harry and Hermione got up early the next day, had breakfast, and Apparated to Hogsmeade. Dressed warmly, in warm Muggle clothes, wizard robes and warm hooded cloaks, they strolled around the village. It was snowing lightly, and both had their hoods up. Harry'd pulled his forward to make it harder for people to see his scar, as he didn't want to be recognised.

'You two, lower those hoods,' said a strange voice. They looked around to see that a man and a woman had come over to them, holding their wands ready. The man was holding up the Aurors' emblem, so they obeyed. The man looked at the scar on Harry's forehead, and frowned. The woman, who was dark-haired, and had a nose that looked as if it had been broken, smiled slightly and glanced at the man, who continued, 'Harry Potter? That's a well-known face, and you might think we wouldn't suspect you wearing it. Can you prove who you are?'

'If not,' said the dark-haired woman, looking at Hermione, 'who else, apart from you, asked for requests -- like this?' Her nose shrank to resemble Hermione's.

'Ginny did,' said Hermione with a smile. 'Hello, Tonks.'

'What about this man?' the other Auror asked.

Tonks thought. 'Er ... how did you pack when we came to get you from your relatives' house? Or: Hermione, is this really Harry?' she added, smiling.

Harry said, 'I didn't pack; you did, using magic.'

'He's Harry,' said Hermione.

'I've met them both before,' Tonks told the Auror, 'and they're really them.'

'All right. Good.'

'I thought the rest of the Death Eaters were meant to be in hiding now,' Harry told the Aurors.

'Hiding includes being in disguise,' the man pointed out. 'It's just luck that Tonks here knows you.'

'How's Ron doing with his training?' Hermione asked Tonks. Ron had been so busy with his training that they hadn't seen him since their New Year's Eve party at Grimmauld Place, which all the Weasleys had been at. They wrote to each other, but didn't often meet.

'I think his training's going OK -- I don't see him all that often, only if we're both at the Ministry at the same time.'

'Good, that's the job he'd wanted for years. I'm glad he's doing OK. All he says in his letters is that training's going really slowly.'

They talked to Tonks a little while longer, while her partner kept an eye out for more suspicious characters, and then another familiar figure appeared. 'You two are supposed to be at home, being romantic!' Tonks grinned and glanced at the newly-arrived man.

'Hello, Remus,' said Harry, smiling at him. 'So you are staying away deliberately?'

'You caught me. But why are you here?'

'Nostalgia,' said Hermione. 'It's not winter without lots of snow.'

'We're having the morning off before we start arguing this afternoon,' Harry said with a smile. 'And it'll be your fault.'

The three of them bid Tonks good-bye, and started walking along the street, with their hoods back up against the snow. 'I'm sorry,' said Remus. 'So you're driving each other mad?'

'Harry's teasing you,' said Hermione. She explained about the friendly argument they'd had days earlier, about the meal they were going to cook.

'Good, so it did work, leaving you together.'

Harry and Hermione looked at each other, and smiled again. 'If we get stomach aches,' Harry told Remus in a threatening voice, 'I'll double your rent for this.'

Remus laughed. 'That's not much of a threat, with your generosity.' As Remus hadn't found a job yet, Harry wasn't charging him any rent.

'He's the good one,' said Hermione. 'He's not very good at threats.'

'You're saying that more often than he is, now.'

Harry shrugged. 'You both know it, I don't need to keep claiming it any more.'

'I'll leave you alone, then. I'm supposed to be meeting Filius in the Three Broomsticks -- unless you want to join us?'

'We shouldn't be too long, we want to get that meal cooked.'

'We could just join them for a short while,' suggested Hermione. 'It's still early.'

Harry agreed, and they joined Remus and Flitwick in the Three Broomsticks for a drink. They told their former Charms teacher about their jobs.

'Oh, Hermione, that's wonderful!' he said when he heard about her working for the Department of Mysteries. He seemed to have a much better grasp of what the Department did than either Harry or Remus. 'And I'm glad for you too, Harry -- especially now you're not competing against Ravenclaw,' he added with a smirk. Harry grinned back.

After a while, the two teenagers said good-bye and Apparated back to Harry's house.

'I'm glad somebody understands what your job is,' Harry told Hermione.

'So am I,' she said, 'I was beginning to think that nobody outside the Department understood.'

'Well, it must be a compliment, when you're so clever you're doing a job nobody else understands.'

'I suppose so, but I wish my parents knew the point of what I'm doing. I tried simplifying it for them. 'As the newest employee of the Department, she was doing mostly simple tasks, but she was also learning how these tasks related to the overall projects.

'Did you simplify it for us, too?' Harry asked her. Hermione had spent almost twenty minutes trying to explain the Department's work to Harry and Remus, before giving up. They'd grasped that she was mainly monitoring progress, but not the point of the progress.

'Yes. Sorry.'

'Oh, well. I think I can cope with those recipes, anyway.'

*

'All right,' said Harry, after all the ingredients had been arranged on the kitchen table for convenience, 'the first step is "Kiss Hermione".'

'Well, if that's what it says,' she said, putting her arms around him to pull him closer. He kissed her. Then she said, 'Wait a minute, it doesn't say that! We'll have to un-kiss now.' Un-kissing turned out to be remarkably similar to kissing. 'Now, the real first step is "Kiss Harry".' She did so. 'We're never going to get this meal done this way.'

'I suppose not,' Harry said reluctantly, letting go of her.

They managed to cook all the recipes correctly, with only occasional added kisses and hugs, while waiting for a stage to finish cooking.

Once all the dishes were ready, they took them up to the dining room and placed them on the sideboard. Harry lit two candles in candlesticks, and put them on the table too, then doused the main lamp in the room.

'I suppose it's more romantic for Muggles to eat by candlelight, than for us, since we always have flickering lights, like those lamps,' he admitted.

'It's the thought that counts.' They sat in the centre of the long sides of the table, which meant they were closer together than they would otherwise have been.

'This does taste nice,' she said, as they started eating the soup.

'Yes, it does.' He finished his starter, waited for Hermione to finish too, and put the bowls and used soup spoons on the sideboard to take downstairs later. He took the main course from under the covers that were charmed to keep it warm, and put it on the table. It was the roast sirloin, with croquette potatoes and steamed vegetables in large bowls for them to help themselves from.

'I hope this is OK,' he said nervously. After a couple of bites, he relaxed. 'It is, isn't it?' Hermione nodded, her mouth full. 'Good.'

When they'd finished that course, he fetched the cheesecake from the sideboard. They each had a small slice, which they ate slowly, then Harry took a second slice.

After that, they were both full. 'Well, we can have the rest of the cheesecake some other day,' said Harry, putting it back under its cover. They took the other used dishes, plates and glasses down to the kitchen, and started them washing up, then they kissed again a few more times.

'We could just sit in the lounge and talk. It's more comfortable in there.'

They sat next to each other on the couch in the lounge, and put their arms around each other, drawing close to kiss again.

'Now that's where the TV could go, if it could work here,' she said, pointing across the room.

'It would be convenient to watch. Are you really that bothered?'

'No, not really. I got out of the habit of watching TV at Hogwarts. Watching it at Christmas reminded me. What about you?'

'I only saw what they wanted to watch, and if I wasn't having to do something else,' he said, refusing to even name the Dursleys. 'So I don't miss it.' He didn't want to think about all the times he'd been locked in the cupboard under the stairs.

'Anyway, it's nice just sitting here like this, doing nothing.'

Harry reddened slightly and looked at Hermione.

'Er ... I don't know if ... I mean, I wondered ...' He stopped and took a deep breath. 'I didn't know if you were expecting anything after the meal.'

'Right now, I'm too full even to cope with a cup of coffee,' she said. 'That was a nice meal. It makes me hope that Remus does get that Dark Arts job.'

Harry smiled. 'Yes, but ... I don't quite mean that ... I didn't know if you were expecting ... er, well, something more, er, more on the romance side.'

'Oh. I wasn't expecting us to go to bed together, if that's what you mean. I'm sorry if I gave you the wrong impression.'

'Good,' he said, with a loud sigh of relief.

'So, you weren't either?' she asked, smiling.

'No. I just ... it's like I said, I don't really know how ... I mean, I don't really know what love is. I don't know how much people expect, or what you expect.' He looked at the blank wall, to avoid meeting her eyes. 'When I started thinking about girls, I didn't know if I'd even live much longer. I spent too much time thinking about Voldemort.' He sighed again, this time reluctantly. 'When I should have been daydreaming about this sort of thing, I was thinking of what I could do about him -- and whether I'd even live this long.'

Hermione nodded, just letting him talk.

'Now that I've killed him, I ... well, you know I don't really know how to live "happily ever after".'

'I know,' she said gently. 'I think we're still only at the hugging and kissing stage, though.'

'I can handle that -- I think. I'm just worrying I'm doing the wrong thing -- going too fast, or too slowly, or ...' He shrugged, hoping she'd understand what he meant.

'You were managing all right when it was the first part of the recipe,' she said, smiling.

'I'm sorry if I upset you.' He clarified, 'Not with the kisses, with the question. I don't want to rush you -- or me. I wasn't ... well, I've already said that. I'm not making much sense here.'

'You're doing all right.'

'Anyway, I suppose what I mean is, I don't think I'm really ready to go further. It occurred to me while we were cooking the meal -- partly because of what Remus said earlier. And now I'm messing up the mood the meal put us in, by talking like this.'

'No, you're not.' Hermione then suggested, 'Maybe Remus is expecting us to go faster than either of us want to. I'm really not expecting you to rush -- and I don't want to rush, anyway. We've been friends for years, and I don't think we need to act in haste and repent at leisure. It's not just because of my parents -- but we did tell them this was all innocent, and I'd like to keep it that way, at least for a while.'

'Now you want to be the good one,' he teased.

'I don't want to feel as though I lied to them, even though they wouldn't know.'

'All right.'

'It's probably just as well you did bring that up, about us going to bed. Now we know we're both not ready for it.'

'Oh good, I put my foot in my mouth for a reason, then.'

Hermione laughed and hugged him. They were so comfortable there that they fell asleep like that.

---

Coming next: Valentine's Day plans are disrupted, but not actually changed.

---