14Bad Cooking
Author's Note: I wrote this quick little three-chapter story in 2006 before book 7 to try something a bit different at the suggestion of my Muse. It's a romantic comedy from Ron's Point of View after Hogwarts or more specifically a single male's point of view about a romantic dinner that goes horribly wrong and hopefully right at the same time.
Also need to mention I jumped a bit off cannon by having Harry die in this one.
Disclaimer: All characters are the property of J. K. Rowling, and Time Warner. This is strictly for non-profit Internet entertainment use and if they sue me, I do not have a dime to my name.
Chapter 1 - The Dating Scene
Admittedly, Ron was feeling a bit nervous. Not that he wouldn't enjoy having a romantic dinner at Hermione's new flat in London. It was worth seeing her again, even if he would have to spend half the night trying to force himself to eat her Merlin-awful cooking. Luckily, that was going to be the easy part. The hard part would be while pretending to like her cooking; he would have to find a way to get Hermione to reconsider taking him back.
"Ugh!" Ron groaned at how bad things had got between them.
He refocused to see himself fidgeting in front of his mirror in his bedroom at The Burrow. The image was of a successful attractive muscular man with red hair, who was a twenty-one-year old Auror for the Ministry of Magic. However, the images only showed the outside appearance. If the mirror had been a true reflection, it would have shown a miserable lonely boy who still lived with his parents.
"Ron, you're going to be late!" hollered his anxious Mum downstairs.
Ron frowned as he tied on his Muggle tie while thinking of what got him in this situation. After all, he had been dating Hermione Granger since the end of sixth-year. They were inseparable even throughout the war, Harry's funeral and the first few years that he was in Auror training and she, in Healer training.
Ron thought of the time apart that led to their breakup. That was what ruddy started it, she was constantly at the Hospital and I was always in the field.
To say he was surprised that it happened in the first place; he wasn't. Hermione was always the type of girl that wanted to spend her time talking or sharing her and his feelings together. Ron was more of a we-can-talk-after-sex type himself. Needless-to-say, they rarely did enough to satisfy either one of them then one massive row later, the fall-out led to a breakup over nine months and counting.
Ron frowned again at his reflection before putting on a secondhand brown Muggle sports coat and slowly made his way downstairs to face the music. He started descending as he recounted the reasons in his head why he was going back to Hermione.
Celestia Warback. Ron immediately started shivering as he remembered his first date after Hermione.
At first, he felt nothing but freedom and relief after his breakup with Hermione. What bloke wouldn't? He could see and date whoever he wanted and he certainly wouldn't pick some arrogant, bossy know-it-all. No sir, he was determined to learn from his past mistakes and pick a really cute girl with a good head on her shoulders. To that end, he made his first mistake. He done something so stupid that even to this day he couldn't believe he did it. He foolishly trusted Fred and George to hook him up.
Oh, they hooked him up all right! They coupled him with a sixty-year-old hag with a huge wart on her nose and a swollen hump on her back. That was her more appealing side to her. The unappealing side was the stench from her mouth as she tried to French kiss him throughout the date. The stench was so bad that it was a cross from stale old decaying fish and moldy tobacco that she smoked endlessly. To this day he could still feel his nose-hair burning. It also didn't help that she was more than eager to drag a very reluctant Ron into her shanty old house to have sex on their first and only date. He had to physical fight her off in a tug-of-war as she tried to pull him inside and he lost his pants in the process. A smirking Ginny keeps offering to get them back for him if he promised to go out on a second date with her, so she could take pictures.
Bloody Ginny. If his older twin brothers were bad, his little sister was the devil. She was adamant from the beginning that he was an idiot and went out of her way to prove her point. So on his second date after he took the matter of finding the right girl for himself, Ginny completely and utterly destroyed it before it even started.
Amy Fields. She worked at the Ministry of International Cooperation and she had all the prerequisites that he was looking for in his ideal date. She was pretty, funny, smart and had a nice set of knockers that make a randy bloke forget about all his problems. It also helped that she thought he was funny too and was more than willing to go out on a date with him. Unfortunately, she was untested against the practical jokes of Fred and George's products and Ginny's sneaky nature.
Ron had taken Amy to a nice restaurant and hadn't even noticed that Ginny had secretly followed them there wearing Harry's old invisibility cloak. That was until she rudely introduced herself at his table and blatantly took a seat next to Amy. It was Hermione this and Hermione that and before he could angrily tell her to get lost she had managed to slip a few of Fred and George's Ton-Tongue toffee into Amy's salad. They had to spend the rest of the night at the St. Mungo's hospital reducing her six meter green and yellow polka dot tongue back to normal. To make matters worse, Hermione was the one who was sent in to heal his date.
Ron groaned again as he remember the surprised, hurt and angry look he got from Hermione that miserable night. Shortly thereafter, he learned from an unapologetic Ginny that Hermione was dating one of the other Healers at St. Mungo's.
"Mickey," he stewed out in jealousy, as he descended past Ginny's quiet bedroom and made his last flight down the stairs.
Healer Mick Lloyd was everything he wasn't. He was rich, super smart, well spoken and one of those sensitive blokes who were more than willing to cry in front of a girl if he so much as stump his toe or ordered the wrong dish at some snobby restaurant. He loathed jerks like that. Get a pair of balls, you tosser.
Tania Rowling. Now she was his last girlfriend after learning about Mickey and Hermione being a couple. Tania was a promising new Editor at the Daily Prophet, who enjoyed a lot of the same things that Ron enjoyed. She loved movies, picnics and Quidditch as much as he did, and even managed to get him inside the Chudley Cannons locker room with a Press pass. If that wasn't enough of what was great about her, then there was the fact that she was drop-dead gorgeous. It also helped that Ginny or the rest of his family couldn't easily deter her. Of course, he had to keep her safely away from his family as long as possible until his Mum forced him to have her make an appearance at The Burrow for Christmas.
Ron often wondered if his Mum had chosen sides against him, because over Christmas dinner Fred and George tried to slip Tania a Canary cream but she simply and wisely separated it from her plate to the disappointment of the on looking twins. Ginny was even deterred, as she had invited Hermione to stop by The Burrow to meet his family. Tania proved herself worthy by being nothing but pleasant and friendly to everyone including Hermione. Ron pleasingly noticed a look of jealousy from Hermione by the time she had left and a frown of disappointment from his devilish sister.
That was then… Two months of dating Tania after Christmas and it was a different story. It wasn't like the time when he wanted to break up with Lavender. No, this time it was definitely different. This time he was the one that was dumped without wanting to be.
"Ron, I'm sorry… but I think it's time we see other people." Ron had spent over three months with Tania and she had really gotten to know him. That's the part that hurts, she knew me enough not to ever want to be with me again.
He was always a good judge of character and he thought the world of Tania, so he started to wonder after being dumped by both Hermione and Tania that he might have a problem. What made it even worse was that he was feeling so miserable that he desperately wanted a comforting hug from Hermione. Instead, he rottenly noticed one day in Diagon Alley that she was too busy giving those hugs to Mickey. They had both left Flourish and Blotts holding hands with a huge smile on Hermione's face and a smug look on Mickey's. Ginny even bragged to their family over breakfast the next day at how happy Hermione was.
Great, just ruddy great.
It wasn't until he had to take his annual physical at St. Mungo's would he see Hermione again. It was a long span of over four lonely, miserable, dateless months with nothing but his barmy family to spend time with on a Friday and Saturday evenings. He started off during the exam by asking how she had been and if she was enjoying her new promotion to Healer from trainee. He followed that up with answering her questions about his family and the latest scars on his chest that he got from catching and arresting Draco Malfoy. Lastly, as he was putting his shirt back on and was noticing that Hermione seemed to be in a deep daze, looking at him, he boldly asked her if she wanted to go out for coffee. It seemed a small step considering how much past that they had shared, but it worked. At the coffee shop, he didn't row with her and he even managed to tell a joke to her about Fred and George getting in trouble with his Mum over her vegetable garden and the recent growth of a thirty-five meter long British flag colored eggplant.
It was nice to hear her laugh again.
After thirty minutes of chatting, Hermione invited him for dinner at her place on a Friday night. He couldn't think of anything else for the next two days and now that it was here he felt as nervous as he had been while waiting in a line to be sorted into a Hogwarts House.
Ron finally made the last step off the stairs and looked at his huge family waiting at the kitchen table to see him leave. His Mum was the first to respond to him.
"Oh dear, honestly all of you boys need a haircut." His Mum wetted her hand with her tongue and then started to pat down his red-hair to no avail. "Well… that's the best we can do, I'm afraid. But tomorrow, young man, you're going down to Hogsmeade and getting yourself a haircut."
"Mum!" whined Ron as he stepped back from her, and ran his hand through his hair.
Ginny, as if she had been waiting since morning for this moment was next. "Hold still, you git." She was running her eyes all over him before reaching a conclusion about his appearance. "Not too bad, but your tie is crooked. Or maybe your fat head's crooked… I can never tell."
A majority of the family including his father laughed at Ginny's sarcasm, while she straightened his tie and patted the dust off his shoulders.
"Little Ronnie, has finally come to his senses," said Fred or maybe it was George.
"Going to admit he's a right pathetic loser without her, I imagine," George or maybe it was Fred.
"Mind your own business," snapped Ron, angry at how painful and close to the truth his twin brothers were.
"Boys!" warned his Dad against fighting with one another. He then warmly patted Ron in the arm before advising, "Your Mum's got some really nice lilies in the garden and if I remember correctly Hermione seemed to like them–"
Ron interrupted his Dad with what he already knew, "Red ones. Red is her favorite color, I know, Dad."
His Dad knowingly smiled at him as he retook his seat at the head of the table.
"Good luck, Ron," his oldest brother Bill said from the table sitting next to his wife, Fleur, who seemed more interested at her fingernails.
"Go get her, tiger," a smiling Charlie added.
"If you want, Ron, Penelope and I can double-date—" Percy seriously offered.
"Thanks, but no thanks," Ron already wound up, said in reply.
With that Ron hurriedly made for the front door before it got any worse with his meddlesome family. After he made a successful exit from The Burrow, he picked up some red lilies from the garden and before he Apparated to Hermione's flat he thought of what he needed to do. He would most likely have to swallow his pride and get on his hands and knees to beg her to dump Mickey and take him back. All because he knew the alternative of keeping his pride and being without her was even worse than her cooking, and that was saying something.