The Devil in the Batter

Untitled Part 1

Hermione Granger was a Muggle - well Muggle born witch - but she grew up Muggle. Everyone knew that. Only a few really understood it though. Harry Potter understood, for the most part. He didn't know the obscure traditions that many families had - his aunt and uncle were not that type of people. But Hermione was. She was the typical British lady. She had grown up going to church on Sunday, she remembered watching the Royal family on the telly, her dad obsessed over footbol and cricket. She had the stereotypical British Muggle life.

Then she found out she was a witch and her world did a few somersaults only to right itself after the Battle of Hogwarts.

So here she is, the brilliant Muggle born witch everyone talks about, in the kitchen on a seemingly random Tuesday morning with about thirteen different batters going.

"Molly, you know I love you like my own mum, but I can do this. I feel like I need to do this." She couldn't say that the piece that needed to do this was the last remnant of her Muggle-hood that she desperately held ahold of. She lived every day as a witch, but on those few occasions - like today, she needed something to ground her to the Muggle world.

Today that thing was pancakes. And beignets. She had crepes going too.

In all the different bowls were different flavors - be it double sinfully chocolate chocolate chip pancakes, banana walnut, apple spice which actually was turning out more like apple fritter rings than pancakes, pumpkin pecan, orange cranberry, and the flavors went on.

Molly Weasley on the other hand worried about this poor girls mental stability. Who in their right mind would make so many different forms for pancakes and fried breakfast breads as she felt she needed to?

"Just tell the boys to either set the table or go play a game of quidditch. I can do this," Hermione said with a false air of confidence. "I can do this," she said softer and to herself.

Harry came into the overly busy kitchen, his green eyes searching for his best friend in the mass of floating mixing bowls hovering around the already cramped space. "Molly, I've got it," he said with a gentle squeeze to the older woman's shoulder. "It is something she needs to do. Let me talk to her." Molly nodded and left the two friends together, only the mixing of the bowls and the frying of the food as the methodical background hum. "It's Pancake Tuesday, isn't it Hermione?"

She nodded, instead focusing on the beignets that were in the deep fryer and the bacon on one of the griddle pans. "I almost forgot. Harry I almost forgot Pancake Tuesday."

"But you didn't and that is what matters. I floo called all the Weasleys, and a few others - Neville, Seamus, Dean, Padma and Parvati, and Luna. They all are coming over for a pickup game of quidditch later. They'll be enough pancakes to go around." Harry pulled her away from the stove and into an embrace. "And tomorrow you and I will go to church. Just the two of us. Deal?"

"Deal."

"And Hermione, I promise that I will never let you forget Pancake Tuesday. Even if it is just the two of us when we are a hundred and forty, and only semi-senile," Harry promised her.

And Harry never went back on his promises to Hermione.