Everything but the Kitchen Sink

NatiFcs28

Rating: R
Genres: Romance
Relationships: Harry & Hermione
Book: Harry & Hermione, Books 1 - 6
Published: 20/03/2006
Last Updated: 20/03/2006
Status: completed

Harry and Hermione have an argument about a bogey-flavored bean. But is it more than that? In response to a challenge. Rated R for swear words.

Chapters

1. Everything but the Kitchen Sink

1. Everything but the Kitchen Sink

Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter, yada yada.

Summary: There's a tiny disagreement over a bean… A story about hormones and what they can do to a woman's mind. One-shot, AU, Harry/Hermione.

Everything but the Kitchen Sink

By Natali K. A.

It all started with Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans. To be more specific, a bogey-flavored one.

Currently, Hermione was chucking a vase—a vase Harry happened to like quite a bit—at his head, screaming at the top of her lungs, cursing body parts Harry didn't even know he had.

“The one thing I wanted, asked you to do, Harry, and you couldn't do it!”

“I told you I was sorry. It was an honest mistake, Hermione!” He ducked and a second later he heard the shattering of that pretty blue vase into a million pieces.

“All you do is sit around on your arse all day. I get it, I understand it—you don't feel comfortable working anywhere. That's fine, really. But then I have to come home and clean up after your mess and cook you dinner and—”

“Hermione, I've offered to do those things, and you told me that I shouldn't worry about them!” he snapped, losing his patience. What was her issue anyway? Every time he started to make dinner, she'd come over, said he was doing something wrong, and take over.

“You know I hate the bogey-flavored ones, Harry. I told you I thought it was bogey-flavored, but you insisted that it wasn't. And now I've had a bogey-flavored bean!”

“So get over it! What's the big deal?”

“I don't like them, Harry! And you're missing the point here. I asked you to do one thing for me, Harry, and you proved what I've been thinking for a while.”

“What?” he asked. What could she possibly be thinking?

“It was so easy to get me that now you don't value me.” Hermione lowered the kitchen knife she'd picked up—yes, she was emotionally troubled at the moment—and covered her face with her hands. “You treat me like some girl you'd take to a hotel to shag. Probably the sort of hotel with a coin-operated vibrating bed and a mirror on the ceiling!”

Harry stared at her, wondering where this had come from. As far as he'd been concerned, they'd been happy, in love, and without a care in the world. The Dark force had been defeated and they'd gotten married a few months ago. Had Hermione finally cracked? Had reading Hogwarts, A History so many times finally gone to her head?

“Hermione, you're my bloody wife. I do not treat you like some whore,” he insisted softly. “I love you, you know that.”

“It's not that I don't think you love me, you just… you just… Oh, for heaven's sake, look at how Remus treats Tonks! He almost lost her and he realizes that. He values their every moment together. You can see that in the way he looks at her. He watched her suffer under the Cruciatus Curse, Harry. His goal in life is to make her happy.”

Harry felt wounded. He'd almost lost her too, every day they'd been in that long, painful war. He took a moment to step back and look at their life. Their modest home with little trinkets here and there, pictures of their friends and family on the walls and tables…

“Sorry,” he mumbled and turned around to go into the other room.

“Where are you going? I'm not done here,” Hermione called after him, hands on her hips.

“I am, Hermione. I'm sorry I made you eat a bogey-flavored bean. Now leave me alone and go read your Bib—I mean Hogwarts, A History.”

They didn't speak for the rest of the day.

*~*

“I lost it,” Hermione admitted, covering her face with her hands the next morning at work. Ginny had come over for a lunch break, and Hermione hadn't been able to keep quiet about her row with Harry. “I just had such a bad day at work and then with the news…”

“It's alright,” Ginny soothed, handing her a glass of some foul-smelling beverage that would probably burn Hermione's esophagus on the way down. It was supposed to help soothe her stomach. “It happens to everyone. Did you tell him?”

“No, of course not,” Hermione muttered, shaking her head. “I wouldn't be surprised if he performed a Fidelius Charm with Ron and hid away from me for the rest of our lives. Or maybe we'll meet up tragically when one of us is dying from some evil disease and we'll make up, only to be separated by death just days or weeks later.”

“Hermione!” Ginny gasped.

“What? It's true,” she grimaced. She massaged her head. “Bloody hell, I haven't felt this bad since I got part of my hair singed by those Blast-Ended Skrewts Hagrid used to have, and I accidentally threw it at Parvati Patil's face. She's had that nasty scar across her cheek and neck ever since.”

“She got it fixed, trust me,” Ginny rolled her eyes. “She paid a pretty Galleon or two or a couple hundred to have them patched up with magic. I wouldn't let the guilt eat away at you too much.”

They were quiet for a moment before something popped into Hermione's head. “Did you know, Gins, that—”

“Shite, you're going to say something having to do with that idiot book, aren't you?” Ginny groaned, hitting her head with her hand. “Why me?”

“—it is technically against the rules written up by the four founders to have a Blast-Ended Skrewt or any other relative of the manticore on school grounds? The reason, or so I've read in Hogwarts, A History, is because of a battle fought on one of the islands off of the African coast in the 1200s where manticores killed every person there. Because of that, they are considered vermin and a disgrace to society.”

Ginny glared at Hermione. “There's more, isn't there?”

Her friend blushed. “No, that's all. The book didn't go into all that much detail. Actually, I found out the dates from another book.”

Ginny smiled gratefully. “I don't know what got into Hagrid, cross-breeding those monsters. You couldn't even hex them or anything, really, since they were half-manticore. Oh, Hermione, I can't tell you how many times I simply wanted to raise my little wand and Avada Kedavra those things to hell.”

“They're entitled to life, too! You know, it's just that sort of thinking that—”

Ginny jumped out of her chair. “Go home, Hermione. You need your rest. And your alcohol.” Ginny giggled. “Oh, that's right. You can't have any!”

“Kiss my arse, Ginny!” Hermione yelled after her, but the door to her corner office had already been shut.

*~*

“Harry?” Hermione asked timidly and she took off her hat. “Harry, you home?” She felt helpless. As helpless as when Lucius Malfoy had put her under the Imperius Curse. She'd broken out of it in time to save Harry—she'd had her wand raised and everything—but it was such a feeling of helplessness… She wanted to tell him everything, but didn't feel she could. She hated worrying Harry.

“Kitchen,” he said flatly. She went in that direction. When she stepped around the corner that separated the kitchen from the front parlor, she felt as if someone had Confunded her.

Her kitchen was covered in bogey-flavored beans. Or at least, everything but the kitchen sink. In the sink there sat a giant red bean—strawberry, she supposed. Strawberry was her favorite. It was half a meter high and just as wide.

Whatever was she supposed to do with that thing?

“I figured you'd be so pissed at all the bogey-flavored beans that I'd get you one of your favorites too,” Harry muttered from his mound of beans. He seemed very comfortable. “It took me quite a few hours, but I eventually got all your bloody beans in here and piled. They're everywhere. In the cabinets, our pantry, between dishes, in the glasses, in the garbage can, in the salt and pepper shakers, in—”

“I get the idea.” She stared at the giant bean in the sink. “Never had one that big before.”

“I had a buddy of mine at Bertie Bott's do it for me. Are you pissed off? Or do you finally realize how ridiculous your little outburst yesterday was?”

She blushed. “You didn't have to tell me `I told you so' the moment I walked into the house, Harry. I get the idea. I overreacted.”

“No. Overreacting is yelling at Ron when he says something mean about house elves. You absolutely lost your mind. You are not healthy.”

Hermione glared at him. “I came home with the intent to apologize. If you're going to be a prick about it, Harry, forget it.”

“The giant bean in the sink is my apology too.” His look softened. “I'll clean this up. Take your bean and have some fun. I've set up your special edition copy of Hogwarts, A History in the bedroom along with your favorite drink.”

“Bloody Mary?” she asked, feeling a pang of guilt.

“Yep. I went to the Hog's Head for it and everything. I know how you like it from there.” Harry averted his gaze. “And you don't have to apologize. I know you didn't mean any of it. It just hurt and I wanted to make a statement.”

Hermione raked her messy hair with her fingers. “Erm, Harry, there's something I need to tell you. There's going to be some big changes around here.”

At this, Harry jumped up from his bean-chair and ran towards her. “You're not leaving, I won't let. I'll tie you up and you won't be able to leave. It was just a disagreement, Hermione, and I really didn't think it was a bogey-flavored bean. I'm sorry—”

“Harry, that's not what the change is!”

“—I knew I shouldn't have done this bean thing. It's stupid. Please, I'll make it up to you. I need you. You can't leave me!” He hugged her to him and held her tightly. “You're not going.”

“I know!”

“I'll tie you up if—What? You know?”

“I'm not planning on leaving you, Harry!” Hermione said with a sigh of exasperation. “Goodness, you're bloody mad!”

“Then what's the big change?” Harry asked cautiously.

“I'm fucking pregnant.” She rolled her eyes. “Leave you. How utterly ridiculous. It was the hormones yesterday, or so I hope.”

“These are going to be a hellish nine months, then,” Harry groaned before the reality sunk in. “Hang on. You're… You… There's… You're positive?”

“Yes.” She smiled. “Very positive. Forgive me for yesterday?”

“Do you forgive me for making a mess of your kitchen? We'll be finding beans for years to come.”

“I forgive you.” She wrapped her arms around him. “And don't you ever do that again, Mr. Potter.”

“So long as you never ask me for one of my Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans ever again. If you want them, you get them yourself, Mrs. Potter.” There was a mischievous gleam in his eyes that made Hermione giggle.

“Upstairs?” she whispered.

“Upstairs,” he whispered back, giving the corner of her mouth a quick peck. “We're really having a baby?”

“Yes,” she said shyly.

“Then yesterday wasn't a problem. Make up sex is always so much fun.”

*~*

A/N: This was written in response to a challenge on WitherWings. So… This is my first ever challenge response (White Houses doesn't really count... I didn't follow the guidelines…).

I hope you all enjoyed it. I enjoyed writing it. Love you all.

NKA

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