Holidays with Dr. Spock
One of those things that I wish I hadn't written, but since I DID write it, I might as well post it.

As Harry rolled out of bed on Christmas morning, he realized -- with a twinge of guilt -- that Hermione had likely been awake for hours preparing for the dinner party they had planned for that very evening. It wasn’t as though she would have permitted him to help in the kitchen ever if he had been awake…ever since they had become man and wife, Hermione had insisted on taking up the cooking for their little household, though she left washing dishes, scrubbing toilets, and buying discounted paper towels and baking soda to him.

He shrugged into his Golden Snitch-patterned bathrobe and shuffled downstairs to find the kitchen in a state of complete and utter anarchy!

As he crossed the threshold, leaving behind threadbare carpeting for cold linoleum, he was bombarded by a mob of string beans.

“H-Hermione!” he sputtered as a boat of gravy upended itself over his head.

He watched in horror as a butcher’s knife impaled itself in the wall beside the merrily-chiming grandfather’s clock and in amusement as a squadron of unskinned potatoes skidded across floors of spilt brandy of their own accord – resisting all attempts to mash and butter them.

“Hermione, you’ve never botched this many spells in your whole life, much less in one morning!”

“I know!” she wailed, ducking as a tray of marzipan sailed past her head and smashed through the glass front of the china cabinet.

“Impedimenta!” Harry yelled, unsheathing his wand and stopping a drove of airborne Brussels sprouts mid-flight. With another wave of his wand, he sent the potatoes scrambling obligingly back into place, but he could not think of a spell to stop the gravy from oozing its way down his scalp…

“What happened?” he asked, dumbfounded. He took her lovingly in his arms and began plucking potato peelings from her curly brown hair.

“I’m just nervous, I guess,” she replied shakily, pointing her wand at the stack of now-grimy potatoes. “Scourgify!” she said, but instead of cleansing themselves, the potatoes burst into flame.

“I’ll just make dinner, shall I?” he said.

It was not an offer, it was an order. Harry guided her to one of the chairs and wiped away a puddle of cranberry sauce before sitting her down.

“Hermione – are you positive everything’s okay?” he asked, as her eyes welled up with tears.

She was often on the verge of tears these days, and he always hated to see her upset…even in their long-ago Hogwarts days, when Ron would drive Hermione to distraction with his immature antics, he had hated to see her fume and pout… Amazing, he thought, how some things never change.

“I’m useless!” she sobbed, burying her face in her hands. “I can’t even perform the simplest of spells! What’s gotten into me?!”

“Maybe you’re coming down with something – flu season is right around the corner—” he said, babbling fruitlessly in an attempt to calm her.

“Harry—”

“—or maybe it’s your wand. That makes perfect sense -- your wand could be rubbish. After all, you’ve had it for nearly a dozen years—”

“—Harry—”

“—that must be it,” he said confidently, “Don’t worry yourself about that for one moment, Hermione. I’ll swing by Ollivander’s first thing Monday morning--”

“Harry—” she said for the third time, grasping his hands and gazing up at him with radiant eyes. “I think I’m pregnant.”