A/N: Yes, almost two years later, an update!

24 December

10:00 A.M.

Kitchen

Bloody freaking out!

Oh. Sweet. Merlin. What am I to do? Am standing like an imbecile in the middle of the kitchen in the Burrow holding a wooden spoon and wearing some bizarre chef's hat George dug out of the closet. Am attempting to watch what Mrs. Weasley does and copy when she has her back turned, but is becoming difficult as she wants to see my incredible baking skills in practice. George keeps peeking through the window and pointing and laughing at me. Wanker.

I close my eyes and throw some flour in a bowl of orange peels and sneeze when it lands in my face. Mrs. Weasley blinks at me and I do a taste test of the mixture left on my face, stand on one foot, hop in a circle, and then look at her hopefully.

"You certainly do have unorthodox methods, dear," she says uncertainly. "But George insists you're the best, so you must know what you're doing…"

"What did George say?" I blurt out ridiculously, my grip on the wooden spoon increasing so much I feel splinters digging into my palm.

"Oh, just that your bouillabaisse kept the entire school coming back for more," she says absent-mindedly as she turns back to her own cooking. I whirl around and wildly attempt to copy her actions. "And that Professor Dumbledore particularly enjoyed it."

I roll my eyes. My bouillabaisse had kept everyone who tried it in the toilets the entire day. Fred had the trots so bad he missed an entire week of classes. Oddly, though, George hadn't been lying about the Professor Dumbledore bit. He had liked my bouillabaisse. Mind you, he's a weird bugger.

"Oh yes," I agree, prodding the mixture with my wand while her back is turned. "Come on, you useless hunk of shit!" I hiss. "Do something."

It just sits there. By the way, thoughts book, I have no idea what it is I'm meant to be making. George informed his mother, with tears of laughter in his eyes, that I would be baking an original recipe. I keep telling everyone it's going to be a surprise. Fred turned this weird shade of green and ran up the stairs and hasn't been heard from since. Angelina is off pouting somewhere now that I am the new favourite, and George is alternately harassing me through the window and playing with fireworks in the front yard with his brother Charlie. Yes, thoughts book, playing. I'm dating an eleven-year-old.

Suddenly, the dough starts erupting in pockets, and shooting out steam. I gasp and attempt to sit on it, while Mrs. Weasley turns around to investigate. "Everything all right, dear?" she asks cautiously.

"Yes!" I screech loudly. "But um…"

I try to think of an excuse that will allow me to leave the kitchen, escape the house, and possibly establish a small colony in Nova Scotia.

"I need more peppercorn!" I cry triumphantly.

"Oh well that's just here…"

"No!" I yell. She raises her eyebrows. "I meant um…I need some…hippogriff eggs. That's it. I'll just pop 'round to the shop then…"

And I attempt to escape, but she grabs my collar. I turn around guiltily in a manner that I've seen George do all the time. "Yes?" I say as pleasantly as possible.

"I wouldn't want you to have to go all the way through the snow to the village," she says kindly. "Why don't I go, and you can hold down the fort here?"

"You trust me to do that?" I gulp. "I really don't mind—"

"I trust you entirely," she says. "Now you just keep an eye on the pie, the ham, the cordon bleu, the chicken salad, the bouillabaisse, the baked beans…"

And she rambles off this whole list of things I didn't even know were in this impossibly tiny kitchen and points them out, which I will never again be able to identify. Before I can protest again, Mrs. Weasley disappears and I am left with fifty boiling and/or baking things all for tonight's big meal.

Okay, I tell myself. I can do this. No problem. The goal is obviously not to touch anything.

Except I can't help myself.

Figuring that baked beans were probably the easiest food item to conceptualize and thus base some sort of recipe off of, I lean over the boiling pot and peer inside. Looks fairly harmless. So I pick up the spoon and stir them around a bit. They make a simmering noise and then die down again. Interesting. And, thoughts book, they smelled so good. Good enough to eat, in fact.

I glance surreptitiously around the small kitchen, and then through the window over the sink. George is currently entertaining Charlie by shoving small fireworks down his pants and pretending to fart. Good. He is clearly distracted, and as a bonus, I won't have to worry about being impregnated by a Weasley if anything goes wrong there. So I decide to try a little taste.

And this is the part where everything goes horribly wrong.

Not particularly realizing that what I am inserting into my mouth came from a boiling pot on a very hot stove, I shove the spoonful of beans directly down my throat, shriek in horror at the burning sensation making its way to my stomach, and dive for my wand, trying to think of some spell to save me from dying from the inside out. Sadly, I never get the chance to get there, because my wand flies straight from my grasp and starts shooting off sparks in all directions.

All at once, everything begins to explode. I swear on Godric Gryffindor's holy ghost that I was not purposely intending to burn the Weasley's house down, but it is now seeming like a real possibility.

Yelping and nearly in tears, I grab hold of my maniac wand and start shouting every spell I know, from Lumos to Engorgio.

Oh shit.

ENGORIGO?

I whirl around wildly to see what the very misjudged spell hit after it rebounded off a metal pot, and notice that—of course—it's my original recipe. And then…like a slow motion scene out of one of those war films we watch in Muggle studies…as the baked beans, bouillabaisse, turkey, ham, chicken salad, and cordon bleu continue to explode and bounce off the walls in short little bursts, I watch in horror as the original recipe grows to the size of a hippogriff.

"NOOOOOOOOOOO!" I bellow, running and then sliding across the floor as I fall to my knees, throw a metal bowl over my head for protection, and then take shelter under the table.

There is an enormous boom, and then everything is quiet.

XxX

Later…

11:30 A.M.

Kitchen

Lying on Floor in Ruins

And then…

Rather Loving George Weasley

I have barricaded myself into the kitchen, henceforth to be known as the seventh circle of Hell, and am not ever coming out again ever. I have no idea what I will do when Mrs. Weasley gets back—maybe stage a stand off of some kind. Lord knows I have enough ammunition. I am the bloody apocalypse and the Kingdom Come.

At least Ange will be pleased. She'll be favourite again.

I lie on the floor with bits of egg (what had egg in it?) in my hair and red hot rashes from the exploded baked beans on my skin. I'm still wearing the upside down metal bowl. The remains of my concoction hang from the ceiling while the rest of the overturned baked beans are dripping onto the floor. Drip drop, drip drop…drip…drip…drip. Yes, Katie. Just listen to the nice sound of the delicious ruined side dish as it counts down your demise. Drip drop, drip drop…drip…drip…drip. Oh God. I really am done for.

Or at least that's what I think. Because at that moment, George suddenly appears in the kitchen .

"Bloody hell!" I shout, not caring that I sound like stupid Ron. I sit up a little. "How did you get in here?"

"People can still apparate, drongo," he says, rolling his eyes. "That two by four you blocked the door with is probably smarter than you."

I collapse again and begin to cry.

"What's the matter with you?" George asks, picking up the torn chef's hat that's lying at my feet. It's as though he hasn't realized his family's kitchen is covered in shit. "What are you crying for?"

"There's all this stuff on the floor!" I wail incoherently.

He laughs. George actually laughs, thoughts book, the bastard. I would have gotten up and pummeled him but I was too distressed.

"How can you be that way?" I moan, rolling over to the fetal position. "I've ruined the kitchen and the delicious smelling baked beans and my original recipe is dead, even though I had no idea what it was to begin with! And now your family with hate me and mock me even more, and Ange will go back to being favourite even though she's the bloody shagger, not me, and there's NO CHRISTMAS DINNER! Your family will force you to chuck me, and then where will I be? Just a no good mulberry bush, that's who."

At this point, it is impossible to tell whether George's laughter or my wailing is louder, and in retrospect, I wonder why no one came down to the kitchen to investigate. Probably pulling crackers or shopping for hippogriff eggs for an original recipe that doesn't exist. It is Christmas Eve, after all.

Anyway, George eventually recovers enough to sit down on the floor next to me and take the metal bowl off my head, sit me up, start pulling the bits of egg out of my hair as I bury my face in my hands and get out the rest of my tears. When I finish, I peek at him through my fingers. He's still smiling, but not in an obnoxiously rude kind of way that says "Well isn't this predictable?"

"Are you feeling better?" he asks.

I open my mouth to say No, as a matter of fact I'm not and I'm going to pack my bags and move to Nova Scotia now, thank you very much, but I realize it's pointless so I just nod.

"Good," George says, standing up and offering me his hand. He helps me up and then moves over to the table and pulls out a chair that somehow managed to stay clean during the food coup.

"Sit down for a minute," he says, practically forcing me into the chair. I limply fall into it. George brushes off the chef's hat and puts it on his own head. He looks like an idiot. I say so.

"Thank you," he replies and draws out his wand.

"What are you doing?"

"Cleaning up."

"HOW?" I can't help but blurt out. "It's the bloody Bermuda Triangle in here!"

"If it were the Bermuda Triangle," George says calmly, "all of this would have disappeared. And don't be a moron, Fred and I grew up here. This kitchen has seen far worse. Although," he added with a hint of mischief to his voice (he can't even stand to be decent for five minutes together), "I must say this is an impressive record even for you, Kates."

I bang my head on the table repeatedly until George casually flicks his wand and ribbons emerge out of nowhere tying me straight back to the chair.

"Hey!" I shout, but he ignores me as he views the room in various aspects through a frame he makes with his hands. Then, muttering something I can't hear and making a big flourish, the mess is gone in two seconds. The original recipe gathers together from where it hangs on the ceiling, slides down the wall, and returns to the bowl. The baked beans flow up from off the floor and the pot rights itself. The bits of ham come together and return to the oven, and the chicken salad is no longer plastered to the door. It looks exactly as it did when Mrs. Weasley left.

My mouth forms an "o."

Mrs. Weasley returned within the next few minutes and George took the hippogriff eggs from her before dismissing her from the kitchen, explaining that I had deputized him as Kitchen Assistant. She doesn't seem to notice I'm tied to a chair with ribbons, but when she leaves, George vanishes the restraints and together we make a very credible hippogriff egg omelet and then hide the previous attempt at my original recipe in Percy's shampoo bottle.

And the best part, Thoughts Book?

When we returned to the kitchen and George continued to monitor all the food, he served me up my very own bowl of steaming and delicious baked beans. And this time I did not burn my esophagus.

I sort of like George…mind you, I'm ignoring the fact that he didn't look the least bit surprised when he first appeared in the hellacious kitchen, but…yes. I sort of like him.

XxX