Fic: Old Mother Hubbard
Story title: Old Mother Hubbard
Prompt: Food (Triatharon)
Rating: R/NC-17
Pairings/Characters: Ron/Hermione
Contains: Stongly implied smexing, lack of dialogue, general weirdness.
Length: ~1600
Summary: The Cupboard Does Not Have Shoulders - Blaming The Dursleys - The Other Ginger - Ice Sucks - Relieving The Pain
Author notes: Many thanks to tehgiantsquid and shocolate for beta-ing and general support.
Initial Posting: 3.10.07
~ Originally written for the triatha_ron ~
~*~
The cupboard was bare.
That was what started the whole thing. Full responsibility could be placed on its shoulders, if it were animate and had shoulders. Of course, they were all capable of giving it shoulders, and making it animate, but it seemed a bit frivolous. The cupboard didn't need shoulders, let alone consciousness, to bear the responsibility of cause.
We'll back up our narration here, for the sake of one of our central figures. She is a fan of order, a place for everything and everything in its place, and beginning at the beginning. None of this rubbishy starting at the end for her. He doesn’t much care where we start, anxious though he is, because he knows that the ending is the most important part, and no matter how we get there, we’ll get there.
So.
The cupboard was bare, and all three of them knew it.
Hermione knew it, dimly, in the back of her mind, knew she would need to do some shopping, but there were so many things that needed doing first, and they were really so much more important.
Harry knew it, and didn’t care. Though a decent cook, he’d given it up, having discovered the joys of take-away, and refused to even open a tin of soup. Hermione believed it was because he was lazy, but had quickly learned it did no good to pester him about it, because then he would refuse to do his share of the dishes. Ron blamed it on the Dursleys, and all the cooking Harry’d been forced to do for them. (Ron blamed Harry’s more unusual idiosyncrasies on either the Dursleys or Voldemort, and he figured it was rather unlikely that Voldemort had come back from the grave to put Harry off his cooking. That would be a bad plan, even for him.)
When it came to noticing empty cupboards, Ron was quite the different story than his flatmates. He was the son of Molly Weasley, a former student of Hogwarts, and was used to having good meals everyday, though he now made them himself. So when he found himself wandering the flat, munching on the stale crisps that were all the cupboard could provide (perhaps, had they imbued it with consciousness and legs, it could have gone to the market itself?), he knew that the lack of food would not stand.
He wanted to fill the cupboard, and he wanted company while he did it.
Harry was no help. He didn’t see much point in going along to buy food he wasn’t going to eat, and no amount of pleading on Ron’s part would sway him. Finally, he simply nicked a crisp from Ron’s dwindling supply and walked out the door to whatever it was that he did with himself all day.
Despite Pig's incessant fluttering, Ron prefered human companionship to avian, so he asked Hermione next. He would only take Pig with him if Crookshanks refused. Hermione was working, and at first it seemed that she was going to be as stubborn as Harry. Pleas to her better nature failed. Nicking her quill was equally unsuccessful, as she apparently kept a spare holding up her mass of hair. The reminder that she was always careful to get food for Crookshanks when he was hungry, and the suggestion that she should extend the same courtesy to the other ginger in the flat did get her out of her seat, but ultimately only earned him a light swat for his troubles.
It was only when he casually remarked that without food, he might be unable to make breakfasts for the next month or two that she finally agreed to accompany him. Faced with the prospect of cooking her own eggs (the crispy remains of her last attempt still smoking in her memory), a shopping trip suddenly jumped to the absolute top of her list of priorities.
It didn’t take but a moment for a burnt-food-shy Hermione and a rather-pleased-with-himself Ron to fetch their jumpers and cloaks and head out the door. The bag of stale crisps lay forgotten and forlorn next to its co-conspirator, the cupboard.
Ron and Hermione’s business inside the shop was much like anyone else’s business inside a shop (fantastically dull to narrate), so the author hopes that the lady of the story will forgive the skipping over of their sundry purchases, and the jumping ahead in their tale to the walk home.
(The lady does pipe up and insist on pointing out the recipe charm cards she purchased in an attempt to prevent future food suffering a similar fate under her wand, but on the whole agrees that the story will not suffer from the leap in time. The gentleman in question, always anxious to get to the end of things, doesn’t care about said purchases for reasons soon to be established, and wishes we could hurry along with the establishing.)
They walked. It was cold, but sunny, and not an altogether unpleasant day for carrying things along the street. So they walked, mostly avoiding the icy patches along the way.
I say mostly, because about halfway home, Hermione slipped on one. She managed to catch herself, but her bag was not quite so lucky. It landed on the stone, splitting open and spilling its contents. Eggs smashed, jars cracked, and various vegetables were bruised and muddied beyond repair.
Amidst a flurry of Oh dears and Buggers, Ron bent to retrieve the items that had survived the fall.
And promptly fell himself.
His bag fared even worse than Hermione’s had. Everything made of glass shattered. Luckily, he had not landed on any of the shards, having instead flattened a loaf of bread with his rear. He had also managed to irrevocably damage or destroy everything from Hermione’s bag that had escaped the first fall. When the dust settled, the sole survivor of the incident was a single bag of crisps.
Ron looked to Hermione, expecting her to be in a state. She was, just…not the one he’d expected. Her gaze fixed on the solitary bag of crisps, Hermione was laughing as if the laughs would split her open if she didn’t free them. If she hadn’t been leaning against the wall behind her, it’s likely she would have joined Ron amidst the carnage of their groceries.
Relieved that she wasn’t upset, Ron tried to get up. His futile attempts to stand on the patch of ice merely served to make Hermione laugh even harder. Soon, Ron was laughing as well, and then…
Later, Ron would explain that he couldn’t help it. She was standing there, laughing like a maniac, her hair was blowing in all directions, tears were streaming down her face, her head was thrown back, her mouth gaping open, spatters of egg and jam speckling her front and she had never looked more ridiculous and he just couldn’t stop himself.
He kissed her.
It wasn't a fantastic kiss. Certainly not one for the history books. Her face was wet, she was laughing too hard, her hair was in his mouth, and in her surprise she banged her head hard against the wall.
But then his hands came up to cushion the back of her head and he ducked a little and she tilted just right and…there.
It wasn’t everything he’d ever imagined. His knuckles were getting scraped and her hair was still in his mouth but she was clutching at his arms, his waist, his back, and her lip was between his and their teeth were clashing and it was real. Her hands were creeping under his jumper and his shirt and they were icy cold and he wouldn’t have traded them for a million warm-handed Dream Hermiones because she was real, here, and kissing him back with as much force as she could.
And when his hips began to pin her against the wall, and hers met his with equal fervor, and her leg locked around his knee, they reached an apparent psychic agreement and Apparated away, leaving the mess of their groceries behind, strewn across the street.
Quite frankly, neither of them was all that hungry anymore.
They sustained a few more bumps and bruises when they arrived home. Still locked together, arguing over whose room to go to (his had a larger bed, but hers was farther from Harry’s if he had returned), they bumped into quite a few walls and pieces of furniture before stumbling into the nearest bedroom.
They knocked even more things over once inside, including a picture frame that cracked and Hermione wanted to repair, but Ron neatly snatched her wand away while pulling her hips into his and falling onto the bed.
They then proceeded to kiss better the various ice-scrapes and furniture-bruises before moving on to the parts which, while not hurt, still felt all the better for being kissed. And licked. And fondled none too gently.
Ron was pleased to learn that Hermione’s appreciation for good ‘marks’ didn’t end when their clothes hit the floor. And from the stream of profanity issuing from her mouth while his was more pleasantly occupied, Ron discovered that he had rubbed off on Hermione more than he had thought. And who knew that nothing quite erased the pain of a sudden collision with the earth like Hermione clutching his bruised arse and using it to pull him deeper inside her.
Later, when they were temporarily sated, and getting down to the serious business of giggling, whispering, and caressing, Ron’s stomach remembered that it was hungry, and made that fact audible.
In the kitchen, its door slightly ajar in an almost human smirk, the empty cupboard waited.
~*~fin~*~
This fic was a part of the 2007 triatha_ron winning team!
And:
Prompt: Food (Triatharon)
Rating: R/NC-17
Pairings/Characters: Ron/Hermione
Contains: Stongly implied smexing, lack of dialogue, general weirdness.
Length: ~1600
Summary: The Cupboard Does Not Have Shoulders - Blaming The Dursleys - The Other Ginger - Ice Sucks - Relieving The Pain
Author notes: Many thanks to tehgiantsquid and shocolate for beta-ing and general support.
Initial Posting: 3.10.07
~ Originally written for the triatha_ron ~
~*~
The cupboard was bare.
That was what started the whole thing. Full responsibility could be placed on its shoulders, if it were animate and had shoulders. Of course, they were all capable of giving it shoulders, and making it animate, but it seemed a bit frivolous. The cupboard didn't need shoulders, let alone consciousness, to bear the responsibility of cause.
We'll back up our narration here, for the sake of one of our central figures. She is a fan of order, a place for everything and everything in its place, and beginning at the beginning. None of this rubbishy starting at the end for her. He doesn’t much care where we start, anxious though he is, because he knows that the ending is the most important part, and no matter how we get there, we’ll get there.
So.
The cupboard was bare, and all three of them knew it.
Hermione knew it, dimly, in the back of her mind, knew she would need to do some shopping, but there were so many things that needed doing first, and they were really so much more important.
Harry knew it, and didn’t care. Though a decent cook, he’d given it up, having discovered the joys of take-away, and refused to even open a tin of soup. Hermione believed it was because he was lazy, but had quickly learned it did no good to pester him about it, because then he would refuse to do his share of the dishes. Ron blamed it on the Dursleys, and all the cooking Harry’d been forced to do for them. (Ron blamed Harry’s more unusual idiosyncrasies on either the Dursleys or Voldemort, and he figured it was rather unlikely that Voldemort had come back from the grave to put Harry off his cooking. That would be a bad plan, even for him.)
When it came to noticing empty cupboards, Ron was quite the different story than his flatmates. He was the son of Molly Weasley, a former student of Hogwarts, and was used to having good meals everyday, though he now made them himself. So when he found himself wandering the flat, munching on the stale crisps that were all the cupboard could provide (perhaps, had they imbued it with consciousness and legs, it could have gone to the market itself?), he knew that the lack of food would not stand.
He wanted to fill the cupboard, and he wanted company while he did it.
Harry was no help. He didn’t see much point in going along to buy food he wasn’t going to eat, and no amount of pleading on Ron’s part would sway him. Finally, he simply nicked a crisp from Ron’s dwindling supply and walked out the door to whatever it was that he did with himself all day.
Despite Pig's incessant fluttering, Ron prefered human companionship to avian, so he asked Hermione next. He would only take Pig with him if Crookshanks refused. Hermione was working, and at first it seemed that she was going to be as stubborn as Harry. Pleas to her better nature failed. Nicking her quill was equally unsuccessful, as she apparently kept a spare holding up her mass of hair. The reminder that she was always careful to get food for Crookshanks when he was hungry, and the suggestion that she should extend the same courtesy to the other ginger in the flat did get her out of her seat, but ultimately only earned him a light swat for his troubles.
It was only when he casually remarked that without food, he might be unable to make breakfasts for the next month or two that she finally agreed to accompany him. Faced with the prospect of cooking her own eggs (the crispy remains of her last attempt still smoking in her memory), a shopping trip suddenly jumped to the absolute top of her list of priorities.
It didn’t take but a moment for a burnt-food-shy Hermione and a rather-pleased-with-himself Ron to fetch their jumpers and cloaks and head out the door. The bag of stale crisps lay forgotten and forlorn next to its co-conspirator, the cupboard.
Ron and Hermione’s business inside the shop was much like anyone else’s business inside a shop (fantastically dull to narrate), so the author hopes that the lady of the story will forgive the skipping over of their sundry purchases, and the jumping ahead in their tale to the walk home.
(The lady does pipe up and insist on pointing out the recipe charm cards she purchased in an attempt to prevent future food suffering a similar fate under her wand, but on the whole agrees that the story will not suffer from the leap in time. The gentleman in question, always anxious to get to the end of things, doesn’t care about said purchases for reasons soon to be established, and wishes we could hurry along with the establishing.)
They walked. It was cold, but sunny, and not an altogether unpleasant day for carrying things along the street. So they walked, mostly avoiding the icy patches along the way.
I say mostly, because about halfway home, Hermione slipped on one. She managed to catch herself, but her bag was not quite so lucky. It landed on the stone, splitting open and spilling its contents. Eggs smashed, jars cracked, and various vegetables were bruised and muddied beyond repair.
Amidst a flurry of Oh dears and Buggers, Ron bent to retrieve the items that had survived the fall.
And promptly fell himself.
His bag fared even worse than Hermione’s had. Everything made of glass shattered. Luckily, he had not landed on any of the shards, having instead flattened a loaf of bread with his rear. He had also managed to irrevocably damage or destroy everything from Hermione’s bag that had escaped the first fall. When the dust settled, the sole survivor of the incident was a single bag of crisps.
Ron looked to Hermione, expecting her to be in a state. She was, just…not the one he’d expected. Her gaze fixed on the solitary bag of crisps, Hermione was laughing as if the laughs would split her open if she didn’t free them. If she hadn’t been leaning against the wall behind her, it’s likely she would have joined Ron amidst the carnage of their groceries.
Relieved that she wasn’t upset, Ron tried to get up. His futile attempts to stand on the patch of ice merely served to make Hermione laugh even harder. Soon, Ron was laughing as well, and then…
Later, Ron would explain that he couldn’t help it. She was standing there, laughing like a maniac, her hair was blowing in all directions, tears were streaming down her face, her head was thrown back, her mouth gaping open, spatters of egg and jam speckling her front and she had never looked more ridiculous and he just couldn’t stop himself.
He kissed her.
It wasn't a fantastic kiss. Certainly not one for the history books. Her face was wet, she was laughing too hard, her hair was in his mouth, and in her surprise she banged her head hard against the wall.
But then his hands came up to cushion the back of her head and he ducked a little and she tilted just right and…there.
It wasn’t everything he’d ever imagined. His knuckles were getting scraped and her hair was still in his mouth but she was clutching at his arms, his waist, his back, and her lip was between his and their teeth were clashing and it was real. Her hands were creeping under his jumper and his shirt and they were icy cold and he wouldn’t have traded them for a million warm-handed Dream Hermiones because she was real, here, and kissing him back with as much force as she could.
And when his hips began to pin her against the wall, and hers met his with equal fervor, and her leg locked around his knee, they reached an apparent psychic agreement and Apparated away, leaving the mess of their groceries behind, strewn across the street.
Quite frankly, neither of them was all that hungry anymore.
They sustained a few more bumps and bruises when they arrived home. Still locked together, arguing over whose room to go to (his had a larger bed, but hers was farther from Harry’s if he had returned), they bumped into quite a few walls and pieces of furniture before stumbling into the nearest bedroom.
They knocked even more things over once inside, including a picture frame that cracked and Hermione wanted to repair, but Ron neatly snatched her wand away while pulling her hips into his and falling onto the bed.
They then proceeded to kiss better the various ice-scrapes and furniture-bruises before moving on to the parts which, while not hurt, still felt all the better for being kissed. And licked. And fondled none too gently.
Ron was pleased to learn that Hermione’s appreciation for good ‘marks’ didn’t end when their clothes hit the floor. And from the stream of profanity issuing from her mouth while his was more pleasantly occupied, Ron discovered that he had rubbed off on Hermione more than he had thought. And who knew that nothing quite erased the pain of a sudden collision with the earth like Hermione clutching his bruised arse and using it to pull him deeper inside her.
Later, when they were temporarily sated, and getting down to the serious business of giggling, whispering, and caressing, Ron’s stomach remembered that it was hungry, and made that fact audible.
In the kitchen, its door slightly ajar in an almost human smirk, the empty cupboard waited.
~*~fin~*~
This fic was a part of the 2007 triatha_ron winning team!
And: