„Move it, Prewett! We don’t have all day here!“
Fabian laughed and spun out of the way of his sister’s frantic movements, choosing to jump on one of the kitchen counters instead of risking the wrath of Molly. “You realize that your last name is Prewett too, right?” he asked, ducking under the halfhearted swing with a dish-washing towel that Molly had had to hand and instead leaning to the side to very blatantly steal some of the fruit she was cutting up and put it into his mouth.
The Prewetts weren’t poor by any means, but a few gambling ancestors had guaranteed that they didn’t have access to the kind of family fortune that most other pureblood houses could boast of. That coupled with the millions of cousins and semi-adopted friends that tended to find their way into their house at one point or another meant that everybody had to help out when it came to dividing chores, and Molly had chosen to brave the task of making dinner during everybody’s first day back from Hogwarts.
Fabian had absolutely no reason to be in the kitchen other than to annoy his sister and steal half of the food before it ever made it on the table, but he was shirking his duties and knew that nobody would be silly enough to interrupt Molly while she was stressing out about food. Except for him, obviously, but he’d decided that dying because of his older sister was generally preferable to shoveling snow, especially because he wasn’t allowed to do it with magic yet.
“You know, Fabs,” Molly began, voice worryingly soft as she watched him steal another cherry and throw it into his mouth, “I have a lot of work to do here, and I haven’t seen my boyfriend in ages-“
“Stop right there, I’m not gonna help you with dinner. And you haven’t seen your boyfriend in ages because he’s a total prat,” Fabian said, completely unrepentant even while she glared at him. “Come on, you know it’s true! You only get to see him, like, three times a year – why don’t you date somebody who’s, y’know, actually young enough to be at Hogwarts? Date the Weasley. Never enough red hair in this fam- ow!”
Had Molly just actually thrown a cherry at him? An offense like that could not be tolerated. Slowly Fabian inched his hand towards the remaining pieces of fruit, his eyes focused on Molly who started to look more and more worried. “Don’t you - don’t you dare!” she said, right in time with Fabian throwing a cherry right at her forehead.
What then followed would later be known among family and friends as The Great Kitchen Debacle of 1977, which ended with both of them completely covered in various sauces and foodstuffs and resulted in the entire Prewett clan having toast for dinner that night.
