Moments

14. A Baking moment

A/N This moment was requested for by @x_xdrarryx_x who seems to have a bit of thing for Harry in leather trousers and prefers a 1st Person narrative.

(993 words)

I pull on my leather trousers, smoothing them over my thighs. I like the cool feel of soft leather against my skin. Nice clothes are a novelty after so many years in Dudley's second-hand clothes and not bothering when I eventually started shopping for myself.

Valpus is watching the rain pelting against the windows and gives a disgruntled hoot. He's fed up at being unable to leave the room. He disappears under my bed. The heavy downpour is forecast into the weekend. I sympathise with him, I have timetabled afternoons off on the weekends despite the pending exams: I need to escape the castle and from revision.

Mione's flapping; believing she's a failure because she hasn't committed the entire contents of the library to memory. Ron is faithfully supporting her, albeit miserably. Whenever I pack up my books to leave, he looks at me like a traitor for deserting him, but there's only so much I can stand. At least Malfoy has promised to help me revise Pepper-Up Potions for the morning and I head to the Potions Lab that Slughorn has set up for his N.E.W.T. students. Slughorn's finally beginning to see, with some despair, that I'm not the prodigy he thought.

I don't do half-badly. Malfoy just watches, asking me questions about ingredients or why I'm doing things as I go along. He only has to prompt me once when I nearly put the Mandrake root in before the Bicorn horn, I won't do that again after a half-hour lecture on the potential reaction between Mandrake root, pepper, and camomile without the Bicorn horn to balance the pH levels.

'Just like cooking fucking Brownies,' I mutter under my breath.

'Like what?' Malfoy says sharply.

'Nothing...' I mumble.

'Merlin, Potter, what's got your fucking knickers in a twist?'

'I don't wear knickers.'

'Then stop acting like a girl with PMT!'

'I suggest you don't say that near any girls if you want your bollocks intact!'

'You haven't answered my question, Potter.'

I sigh and look out of the window. 'I'm going stir-crazy. Even a Shield Charm doesn't seem work against this rain. Yesterday, I tried walking around the Black Lake and half the path is flooded, I can't see to fly, and I don't fancy the walk to Hogsmeade.

'Oh,' Malfoy falls silent.

I pack up. It's nearly lunchtime and I'm hungry.

Malfoy asks, 'what are Brownies?'

I'm in disbelief, 'how have you never heard of Brownies?'

'Are they muggle?'

'Yes, but Wizarding food is mostly the same as muggle food, just with more pumpkins.'

'But what are Brownies?'

I smile. I know what I'm going to do with my afternoon now.

I drag Malfoy off to lunch before Slughorn traps us for yet another hour chat about his precious Slug Club. He looks disappointed at our quick exit but he's trapped in a conversation with Mione.

After lunch, we go down to the kitchens. Kreacher rushes over. 'Hello, Master Potter,' he says enthusiastically.

Kreacher is something of a figurehead amongst the elves. Not only is Harry Potter his master but he was hailed a hero after leading the elves into the Battle of Hogwarts. He has remained at the kitchens, though he occasionally visits me at Grimmauld Place and shows delight when I visit him.

Malfoy raises an eyebrow and whispers, 'master?'

'What is I getting you? Was lunch not to your liking, Master.'

'Lunch was wonderful. No, I wondered if I could do some cooking?'

Kreacher is aghast. 'Some cooking! But Master Potter is not needing to cook. We is doing that.'

'I thought baking might de-stress me, Kreacher.'

I've made Brownies that many times for Petunia I know the recipe by heart. Kreacher submits unwillingly, sending elves to fetch ingredients and to line a square baking tray for me.

I'm watched closely, not just by Malfoy, but by the elves too, who are curious about what I'm baking.

We start by melting the chocolate with the butter and adding in cocoa powder. I watch closely as Malfoy sticks a finger in the mix and licks it off. My mouth goes dry as his eyelids flutter shut, his long pale eyelashes brushing against his skin. I look away, feeling surprisingly bashful.

He tells me, 'you've chocolate down your trousers.'

I curse and use my finger to scoop it up into my mouth even though it's probably disgustingly unhygienic. Malfoy watches.

I whip the eggs until they're frothy and add the dark sugar, then the melted chocolate is folded in before adding the chocolate chips. I pour it into the tray and slam it in an oven.

'Half the pleasure of cooking is licking the bowl,' and I wrestle the mixing bowl back from an elf who is determined to clean everything up instantly.

I hand Malfoy a teaspoon.

'But raw eggs?' he says.

'You'll be fine.' I feel as if I'm watching something intimate as Malfoy puts his spoon in his mouth. I'm sure he doesn't realise how obscene it looks because there is a look of pure pleasure on his face. I want to look away again but I'm drawn to watch every moment, he seems so natural like this; all the masks have fallen away.

When the Brownies are ready, I take them to the table and cut them while they are still warm. I'm pleased that they are perfectly goey in the middle and crispy on the outside.

Malfoy moans lightly as he takes a bite. 'Fuck, Potter! That's some magic.'

I smile gently, greedily watching his every move as he finishes the Brownie in case he has something to critique but all he shows is undiluted desire. 'Can I keep these?' he asks quietly.

I nod, at a loss for words. I feel like I've just run a marathon.

Amusingly, that evening, desert is Chocolate Brownies with strawberries and vanilla icecream and there is an excited ripple throughout the Great Hall amongst muggle-borns and purebloods alike.

*****