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Molly was a Weasley before she married Arthur. She was his third cousin, on his father’s side. They met for the first time at a family reunion three weeks before her first term at Hogwarts, and Arthur’s second year. He was tall and awkward, with freckles like hers (and everyone else’s), and silly little glasses that perched on the bridge of his nose. He was also horribly mischievous. Molly thought he was by far the cutest of her cousins. And she had many, many cousins. By the pond in back of Arthur’s shambling house, Molly learnt how to hypnotize frogs by rubbing between their eyes and how to make her wand spout gray, fowl-smelling smoke. Arthur was a walking wealth of information who was far better company than her parents. Then school started. And summer had never happened, at least not to Arthur Weasley. He was a second year, with friends and other girls who didn’t vaguely resemble his mother. For a good month, Molly was heartbroken. Or at least as heartbroken as an eleven year-old girl can be. The year passed, summer began and Molly visited friends. She grew taller, formed curves, and even though they carried the same last name, Molly forgot Arthur entirely. The beginning of her second year held far more exciting things than a boy with her father’s eyes.
They didn’t meet again, truly meet again, until Molly was a seventh year and Arthur was a young Wizard beginning his career at the Ministry. Everyone’s eyes spoke of war then. The thinning of lips told of it more than words ever could. In November, Hogwarts closed for the second time in history. Dumbledore’s gathered allies came to decide, plan, save and the students went home. Many chose to stay there. The dark mark heralded death more frequently and Molly went to Wizarding London. Her parents had died during the summer. And so, so she spent long days in her small rented room at the Leaky Cauldron (“the safest establishment in Diagon Alley! Cheap prices for troubled times!”). Days passed. Then weeks. Soon it was nearly a month and Hogwarts had not yet reopened its doors. The attacks on Wizarding establishments where Half-bloods frequented became so regular that Diagon Alley was forced to close its walls. Lock itself away from Muggle London like a small fortress. Molly was trapped, trapped even more so than she was in her small room. “The war is affecting all of us,” the other patrons said. Molly nodded sympathetically with them. She sipped her tea. Slowly she became more and more claustrophobic. Then, on a sunny December afternoon, Arthur came to take lunch and as if he were a white knight or the ghost of her father, Molly felt saved. She reintroduced herself. He smiled crookedly at her breasts and shook hands with her like they’d never met. “You know me!” She wanted to shout. “Oh Arthur, you know me.” It didn’t really matter though. Because soon, with people dying one town over or sometimes just outside the Cauldron (Wizarding refugees gathered outside the locked doors, they slept in piled blankets, sat like prey for the Dark Lord to make examples of) Molly and Arthur became reaquainted. They slept together for the first time when Daily Prophet wrote that Hogwarts would be closed indefinitely. Arthur traced shapes from the freckles on her lower back. Molly put his glasses on and did impressions of the sullen expression he wore when he was reading. Together they made gray smoke with their wands (the kind that didn’t smell) and waited for the war to be over. So they could start their own family. End. |