behind all your stories is your mother's story

Location: The Burrow Date: October 23rd, early morning For: ( @mmollyweasley ) 

It still feels strange to be living in somebody else’s house. Molly has been too kind to her, too welcoming and too gentle in her careful attentions. She always seems to know when to leave Caradoc alone and when to push. Beyond all her pain and the occasional bout of frustration that she has to swallow past, Caradoc is grateful for her. 

Today, in the early morning light, Caradoc finds herself hungry for some company. It’s the worry, really. Ben being out there, in the woods, where Caradoc can’t help him if he needs it. She couldn’t sleep a wink, she couldn’t drift off even for a minute. She’s aching with the worry of it, and she thinks it might be nice to make some small attempt to get her mind off it. For once, she seeks Molly out in the living room. In her hands she holds her merger offering, a mug of tea brewed for once by someone other than Molly. She does so much looking after everyone else, maybe she’ll enjoy the gesture. 

She perches on the armchair near Molly’s spot, quiet as a mouse, and offers the mug for her. “I hope it’s okay I took the liberty.” She says, still sounding quiet and tired. “But I thought we could both use one.” 

Moments to rest are few and far between. She’s never got the time to rest, not truly, though she pretends at it here and there: sitting down for breakfast, calling the family for supper, a cup of tea with Arthur some nights before bed. Days like this, though, she has work to do and so she rises early, a quiet time of the morning just before the children wake up. Molly rarely assigns essays--potions is a practical subject, and she’s kept a careful balance of keeping her classwork at the castle so she can maintain a focus of family at home.

She’s on the threadbare couch, where she can lean toward the light, eyes dancing over words scribbled by teenagers. It’s boring, frankly, and she’s skimming for certain points and ignoring the fluff. Requirements of the curriculum her arse. Caradoc’s arrival is a cheering thing--Molly looks up with some surprise but breaks into a soft smile when her eyes shift to the mug her guest is offering.

Caradoc is a dear thing, a quiet mouse amongst all the children and chaos, a gentle shade that drifts through walls, it seems. She owes nothing to Molly and gives it anyway, a cup of tea in a silent room of secondhand things. Things chewed on by teething toddlers and hastily repaired after preteen tantrums. A house that has been thoroughly lived in but has years left in it, has years more of children laughing and running and breaking and mending.

“Of course, dear, thank you,” Molly answers, low and quiet, taking the mug in ink-stained fingers. “That’s very kind.” She doesn’t ask why Caradoc is up so early, doesn’t question her impulse to brew the tea--some things don’t require attention drawn to them.

They oblige, following the waved invitation to take a spot at the table. The art of casual conversation was something that they had never quite learned. Their own parents hadn’t been interested in that sort of thing, much too worried about their work, and then their financial struggles, the failings of each other, to truly drive home the idea that perhaps there was something to just chatting with other people. No, they had spent their childhood in the company of old intellectuals, devouring words and blocking out the sounds of shouting from their parents in the next room of their too small apartment. By the time they were at Hogwarts, it was a little late to change their view on needing other people and their trivialities in their life.

But things change, and they’re learning more and more, as the days pass without Pandora, that they cannot stay in the private world if they want a good life for Luna, and selfishly, if they want a chance at finding their clarity again. And so they offer Molly a gracious, but practiced smile and nod of thanks as they take their seat, folding their hands on the table in front of them, the energy to go put into their leg bouncing beneath the table.

“Some business can only be conducted in the moonlight, I’ve learned,” they said simply, about as much explanation as they ever offered anyone for the work they did when they dropped their daughter off at various babysitters around the village. Xeno knows well enough that they must offer something, though, or else Molly won’t be satisfied with their absence––and even then, that tone will likely never quite leave when she’s speaking with them, they imagine. “Yes, it has been quite some time. As the tides have changed, so has the nature of my work. I’ve been so busy working on a setting the groundwork for change with the little influence I do have in a very specific circle of thinkers, it scarcely leaves time for much else, especially with a child to look after on my own, I’m afraid. I’ll relish the day she’s old enough to fully understand my work, although, she’s already more intelligent than I could have dreamed a child so young could be.”

She loves her husband, mild and often strange, settled in the person he has always been. A peacekeeper at heart, because Molly Prewett needed that in her life, needed a calm counterpart like Gideon had Fabian. He was easy to love, her Arthur, and their relationship radiated the meant-to-be feeling that had prompted them to elope at seventeen. She hadn’t seen that kind of love in anyone else until the Lovegoods--somehow too suited for each other, like they had always lived in orbit of each other. And Luna, too, once she came along, the tides pushed and pulled by Xeno’s moon.

Molly’s found herself thinking, more than once, sometimes voicing aloud to Arthur, that she hopes someone like Pandora comes along to love Xeno and Luna like they deserve. Xeno is not the type to mesh themself in with the Weasleys like the Potters have or the Tonks, even--they drop Luna off and disappear, return at odd hours with no explanation of what they might have accomplished in the time. Molly worries they are filling the void of losing Pandora with something less than savory. Something they can’t in good conscience bring Luna along for. And if Luna didn’t look as well-cared-for as she is, Molly might worry more, but as she’s pointed out to Arthur before, people are allowed to have hobbies that aren’t tenable for young children, and at least this means Luna is getting socialization.

Maybe it’s her hearing, but sometimes Xeno makes next to no sense. She can’t look to Arthur for help, because he’ll have made no more sense of it than she, given his habit of half-listening when Xeno talked about his obscure works. Sometimes he’d be in a pleasant enough mood to equate it to whatever Muggle contraption he was working on enchanting and start on about that, and Xeno would--well, humor him, it seemed to Molly, but perhaps they were more interested than she could perceive. Those conversations didn’t happen frequently enough for Molly to be able to tell.

But children she can speak well enough about. Easy, to talk about children, easier than to discuss the halves of the Lovegoods’ research that she was never part of. She’d helped Pandora here and there, but she’d never fully grasped what they were working on--too late now. Xeno was far less likely to give any straight answers. “Children are often smarter than we give them credit. Luna is a credit to you and Pandora both.”

It makes sense, he supposes, that a kid who grew up surrounded by so many siblings might define themself a little bit by those siblings, and have trouble putting together a fully comprehensive identity when those siblings were no longer constantly surrounding them. But what did he know? He’d had the opposite, learning to define himself by his best friends, the friends he made as soon as he started school.

     ‘Well, I’m sure he’ll be alright, it’s only been what, a month and a half? They’ll all work it out, surely.’

He glances over at the kids around the table, Harry chatting to Ron through a mouthful of eggs, Fred and George half-whispering to one another while looking conspiratorially in Ginny’s general direction. He knows that look, the look of soon-to-be-mischief, and when one of them–Fred?–makes brief eye contact with him, he winks: your secret’s safe with me, mate. 

Her smile is faint, because she said those words, almost exact, to Andromeda not two weeks ago, about Nymphadora too. Optimism tended to be her preferred tack but she couldn’t help but struggle with it the longer this change went on. Percy’s problems she could understand, and he at least still talked to her, dropped by her office between classes now and again, came by regularly for dinners on the weekends--Nym was withdrawn, could barely even get her to speak when Molly cheerily greeted her in class.

Well, if James was an optimist, too, she couldn’t fault him that. He had a child to worry about, too. “The best we can hope is that they make friends, that first year,” she answers. “Bill and Charlie had little problem, but Percy’s not outgoing enough. I’d hoped he and Nymphadora would grow closer, that she was outgoing enough for the two of them, but--” Molly shrugs, giving her sentence a little ‘what can we do’ gesture. “Not all the students of Hogwarts have an easy time of it their first few years, unfortunately. You were lucky to have made such close friends so quickly.” She says it genuinely, without malice or anything hinting at snide. Two of those friends might be lost to the other side, but James seems the better for his friendships.

     ‘I guess you could say that,’ he answers, and maybe she’s right– he can smell mischief and conspiracy halfway down the hallway, not to mention that his own troublemaking had given him the Map, which has proven to be a powerful deterrent. No one has the heart to make dangerous mischief when their professor keeps happening to round the corner just as they’re starting to scheme. 

Upstairs, the chattering of children has quieted down; it sounds like Arthur’s begun to have some luck wrangling the kids into bed and getting them settled down. He should head back up to the castle sooner rather than later– he always does best when he’s to bed early– but he wants to enjoy the company and the peace for just a little bit longer.

     ‘Then again, they can’t put anything past you either. What about you, Molly, were you a troublemaker?’

She’s been an angry child. Hard to believe, given who she was now, but Molly Prewett had been less of a spitfire and more a fledgling spark in a dry forest. A passionate child with bad hearing and endless misunderstandings, never lacking for bullies, a habit of following around her siblings and throwing herself into the mischief they got up to. A childhood of bruises and scrapes, getting into furious arguments at Gideon’s side and Fabian drawing her away to calm her down. At Hogwarts, throwing kicks or curses, whichever came faster, whenever she heard her siblings insulted--challenging everyone who dared speak out against the Prewetts. Molly had not been popular--none of the Prewetts had been--but with her struggles in class and penchant for lashing out when upset, she hadn’t been so much of a troublemaker as just a difficult teenager.

“I was trouble enough,” she laughs. “Nothing like you and your friends. No pranks. I started a lot of fights.”

“Apologies for dropping by unannounced,” they nod, although it’s more of a pleasantry, a thing they know they should say, than anything they truly feel. A small smile does slip over their lips as Ginny grabs Luna’s hand and pulls her inside. They’re grateful that Luna has been allowed to grow up surrounded by other children, it takes some of the pain away from losing Pandora, they think, makes it easier than it would have been if it had just been the two of them left.

They purse their lips, considering the invitation that always tends to come when they stop by to drop Luna off. After they had met Pandora, even when things were just beginning––although, it was impossible to call any part of it less than intense––she had started taking them places, introducing them to her friends, asking them to do things like stay for tea. It wasn’t something they felt was particularly necessary, had never really bothered with anything of that sort before, when there was so much work to be done always, but they did it, because it made Pandora happy, and they learned to sometimes enjoy it as well.

It was easy to revert, though, after she was gone. No reason to keep that sort of thing up when all it did was remind them that she wasn’t here, and it was likely their fault. Better to focus on solving the mystery, and finding the diadem. The mundane, ordinary interactions of everyday life could come back into focus once they had a solution. 

Unfortunately, though, Xeno was realizing more and more lately that perhaps they wouldn’t be able to have what they needed without help. So maybe a short stop could be helpful, instead of a hinderance.

“Alright. One cup of tea, then I truly must be on my way,” they concede, gesturing to follow Arthur and the gaggle of kids inside.

Arthur shuts the door behind Xeno, and while he’s situated behind their visitors he gives Molly a look that is distinguishable only in the language of a couple married for nearly twenty years. A look that says one cup of tea only, Molly, because he knows his wife and Molly will keep Xeno for a multi-course teatime and pudding too. Whether that’s out of sheer inability not to overstuff her guests or obligation to Pandora--or both--is anyone’s guess.

Molly doesn’t return the look, keeping her grin as she waves Xeno towards the table--there are always empty chairs there, now, with three children gone at the castle, and their live-in guests rarely join for family meals, preferring the solitude of leftovers later in the night--and goes to prepare the tea. And biscuits, of course. She considers that included under the umbrella of a cuppa.

The Lovegoods have been a topic of conversation multiple times in the Burrow, especially since Pandora’s death. Or disappearance, as Arthur darkly said once, when it was just them talking in the kitchen, an opinion never repeated after Molly’s returning glare. Arthur might have a point that the circumstances around her death were odd--Molly herself insisted that Pandora wasn’t careless enough to get into an accident like Xeno described--but Molly refused to believe anything against her old friends, no matter what oddness Xeno sank into without Pandora around. They are grieving, Molly has always insisted. Pandora had been a wonderful person, and it was no surprise that coping with a small child and no spouse is difficult for them.

“Working late tonight?” Arthur asks conversationally, settling his hands on his stomach and leaning back in his chair. Supper mostly concluded, Molly waves her wand to start the cleaning up and joins them at the table with steaming cups. “It’s been too long, dear,” she adds, and if a little bit of guilting them slips its way into her tone, she’s certain Pandora would forgive her.

He’s ashamed to admit to himself that he’s relieved to hear Dora isn’t the only kid struggling with the adjustment to Hogwarts, in the midst of everything else going on. He’s been worried, since his conversation with Ted, about her, but Molly makes it sound like at least she isn’t in it alone. And he’s glad Harry isn’t alone, too – there had been some brief conversation, back when Harry was still a baby, between him and Lily, over whether or not they ought to have another, conversation that had come up, come to no conclusion, and then been eclipsed by other conversations, ones about work and babysitters and the Order. It was a hard world to manage priorities in, so many things gone forgotten because the world could hardly give Lily the space to breathe around all the work they had to do. 

But there are enough kids, in the village, that it’s easy to make sure Harry’s never really alone, not in the same way James had been as a kid. 

     ‘Percy’s not doing well either? Merlin, I suddenly feel like I got off so easy when my biggest problem in school was that my crush didn’t like me back, or that I got put in separate detentions from Sirius.’

Molly is friends with too many Order members to not know half of the goings-on that she should not be aware of. But Albus was always dropping hints here and there, never tempering his conversation with Minerva with Molly in the room, and secrets held within Hogwarts’ walls weren’t secrets from those who lived within the castle, too. Molly should think of Sirius Black as a Riddle loyalist, given the news years back that he’d returned to his family, but she was friends with Andromeda, and Harry was too young still to know better than to mention his visits to his godfather--she barely batted an eye at James bringing up Sirius with that fond tone in his voice. It might bring up complicated feelings in the pit of her stomach, but Molly is used to moving past those feelings in mixed company, and she keeps her eyes on her children rather than meet James’ while they pass.

Thoughts of Percy bring different feelings to replace them--some guilt, concern, all the regular parental emotions made complicated by the changes at the school. “It’s difficult to grow up with so many siblings and then live without them,” she says, though in truth that’s just a guess she masks with a sure voice. “Percy’s whole life has been sandwiched between Charlie and the twins, and now he’s finding himself a bit adrift.”

“No worries,” Marlene interjects, before Ginny can whine any more or get more upset. “I’m more than happy to play with you. Teach you a few things.” Explosions, of the minor variety, Marlene can deal with. Especially if it takes Ginny’s mind away from flying or just running around. Movement of that time Marlene is fairly sure they’ll need a few more hours to recover before.

They muster up a dark look and nod their agreement. “The pepper-est of pepper tastes.” And then, at the mention of a breakfast, they perk up instantly, sweet smile on their face. “Oh, I prefer that as well. Would you make me one of your famous ones, Molly? Have you got the time?” They make their eyes big and begging – thought it’s mostly for show. With so many children, Molly is more than immune to such pleas.

Molly’s grateful for people like Marlene. Grateful her Ginny has people like Marlene to look up to. There’s Dora, of course, the children all love Nymphadora Tonks, but she’s off at school now and troubled besides--Ron and Ginny have friends in Harry and Luna, but it’s reassuring to have Marlene around to teach them things their parents can’t and their friends aren’t old enough to know yet.

Molly laughs at their excitement about breakfast. “I’m sure I can whip something up for you, dear.”

He’s half listening to her as he follows her through the home, his attention pulled in so many different directions as he takes in the place. He’d heard before of the amount of children the Weasleys had in their brood, but hearing it and seeing the evidence of it around the home, still left him a bit mind boggled. Molly was probably at least a good five years younger than him, yet still in that short time she’d managed to build quite the life and family for herself. He was almost envious, having never had anything close to a solid family life growing up, that was until he thought of the sheer size of laundry that had to be done every week. 

When she stops in front of the empty room his attentions pull back towards her. “Oh, no, no,” he shook his head at her offer of additional improvements. She could have thrown him in the attic with a cot and he would have been thankful, let alone give him his own room with a private entrance. “This is just fine- perfect even,” he assurs her. The room wasn’t much larger than his cell, but far cleaner, with a bed that didn’t make his back cry in protest at the very sight of it. 

Moving around her, he steps further into the room and sets his duffel bag on the bed. At the mention of Cardoc, his eyes glance over Molly to the door in question across the hall. It was more comforting than he’d realized to know she’d be that close. Thye’d spent the last week in fairly close proximity to one another, this being the furthest and longest even he’d gone without seeing her since they first left Riddle’s. His dependency on her couldn’t last, he knew that, but at least here it wouldn’t be such a swift break and more of an ease out of the habit. 

“I can uh get settled in for a little bit and then meet ya out there if that’s alright,” he offers. He’d been on the move ever since he left the infirmary and had been looking to rest a minute, on the other hand he wasn’t one to turn down a warm meal either. “But uh, Molly,” he adds, as he looks over to make sure she was still there, “thank you… for all this. This is um… this is really kind- what you all did here. Thank you.” 

It’s amazing to hear her talk – neither of them had intended to become teachers, both of them pulled into their jobs by the needs of Hogwarts and its students in the face of this prolonged war – but he suddenly feels startlingly aware of how much better equipped for it she is than he. He was alright, at helping the kids understand how to do magic with their hands, and he was even alright at comforting them when they’d had a bad day, nothing a cup of tea and a few biscuits couldn’t fix. But actually thinking about what it was like to be a kid, the way they were, to think about what they needed and why they did what they did… it was a level of self-reflection he hadn’t managed to have, that maybe the wolves had taken away from him. And his experience with kids had been minimal before Harry. 

     ‘Yeah– I think if our professors hadn’t given us some leeway, we might’ve burnt the entire place to the ground out of spite. Or something like that. Almost killed Snape once, we did–’ And after everything that had happened since, Remus has found himself wondering more than once if the would would’ve been a better place if he did, but he won’t say that part out loud, not to Molly Weasley.

She gives him a sharp little look, at that. Shrewd, the way a mother’s is, and she’s one seven times over, more if you count the others she’s taken in and let go over the years. Adoptions that didn’t stick, she considers some of them, sometimes, when she stops to consider them as children and not war-prompted guests.

All children have their rivalries, though, and looking at Remus’ face she decides to give him the benefit of the doubt. Almost killed someone, in the context of school, she doesn’t want to consider might be a serious allegation. She knows Remus has likely killed someone, in the role Dumbledore had shackled him to for so many years, but before that? No, Remus is not a killer by nature. Not a violent man.

Someone like Remus Lupin may not have meant to be a teacher, but his skills are obviously not misused in the role. “Gives you a unique perspective, then,” she answers. “Former troublemaker, now professor, students can’t pull anything on you.”

21 october, after sunset, outside of the weasley home        ( @mmollyweasley )

It wasn’t a rarity, for them, to feel a sudden dramatic and impossible to ignore burst of inspiration that would take them from the comfort of their home. It had happened more often, yes, when they knew the whereabouts of the diadem, but somehow it was becoming more and more frequent again. And while before, they would have perhaps been willing to take Luna with them, after everything, after Pandora, they refused to put another person they loved so deeply at risk of danger, especially when the castle itself seemed to have another foe afoot. 

Somehow, their mind had made a connection. The attack, the message, they felt in the very fabric of their being that they were related to the lost treasure they so greatly craved, just as certain as they had been of the strange connection with Caradoc, when they first laid eyes on her. Some things were beyond human understanding, but Xeno had always been fond of giving it a try, anyway.

And so tonight, after a small dinner, they had gathered up their things, and their daughter, and asked her if she wanted to stay at the Tonks house, or the Weasley house tonight while they did their work. The answer had been emphatic, and so they found themselves at the front door of the large family.

They knocked on the door, and waited, Luna holding their hand obediently, other hand playing with the strange blue ribbon hanging from her neck, a used cork on the end.

“Will there be biscuits?”

“Perhaps, my love, and if they don’t, I promise we’ll pick some up tomorrow. But I’ve got important business tonight, and whether they have biscuits, or not, I’m certain you’ll have a lovely time. You can show Ginny what your necklace does, yes?”

Unannounced visitors are common at the Burrow, but not usually after supper has already started. She doesn’t hear the knock, occupied with spooning out stew into bowls (and sending those bowls to the table safely), but a flicker of lights on the wall has Arthur up and at the door before their guests can consider them rude.

“Xeno!” Arthur sounds surprised, but he covers it quickly. “And Luna, how nice of you to stop in.” Ginny’s by his side in a second, earning her an “oi!” from whichever twin whose toes she stepped on to get there.

“Luna!” Ginny grabs her fried’s hand and tugs her inside. No reticence here, with her long hair and quick feet. “You can sit by me.”

“You too, Xeno,” Molly calls, and Arthur echoes her. “Sit, have tea at least.”

Things have changed, since Pandora’s loss. Xeno has changed. They’re expected to, grief being what it is, and the Lovegoods had been such a connected couple. Losing that kind of love--well, it was unfathomable. It should make sense, Xeno’s altered state, but somehow--Molly hasn’t managed to reconcile things, yet. Even with the grief, they seem more changed than they ought to be.

But it wouldn’t do to disrespect Pandora’s memory and neglect them. Nor Luna, of course, dear little thing. No, Pandora had been her friend, and Molly was going to do everything in her power to make sure Xeno was taken care of.

     ‘I think it’s really good for them,’ he says, between bites of the toast and eggs she’s provided him with – he’d be a fool to say no to Molly’s cooking, even if he’d already eaten. ‘I didn’t have a best friend til I was eleven, and I love Sirius to death but at least it seems like Ron and Harry are good influences on each other.’

Ron, constantly overshadowed by his more boisterous siblings, and Harry, who spent more time alone than a child his age should, especially lately. They each gave the other a space to figure out their place in the world, gave Ron a space to be the center of someone’s attention for once, gave Harry a space to develop some stronger, healthier social skills than he’d gotten just following Dora around and idolizing her.

Molly has certain opinions about childcare, ones she doesn’t hold anyone else to, but she’s an opinionated type and her habit of making snap judgments is something Arthur is always on her about. She worries about Luna, worries about Harry and Dora--all the only children of the neighborhood. Molly does not usually agree with parents who choose to raise a child without any siblings.

So she’s more than happy to make them part of her family. She has nothing against them, these children, it’s not their fault they’re alone, but it makes her happier to see them amongst her brood. Children need specialized attention, yes, but there’s something so special about a family.

“It is good for them,” she says decisively. “Ginny--utensils, dear. Fork. Please. Children are always good for each other, no matter the age, though eleven years old is challenging on anyone. Just look at Dora Tonks--lovely child and even she’s struggling. And Percy’s a wreck. Begs to come home every other week, poor thing.”

Marlene tosses a grin to Molly, and a shrug. “Sure, of course.” Reaching over, they easily ruffle Ginny’s hair. “She never gives me any trouble, do you, little bit?” With that, Marlene makes a show of turning so Molly can’t see them and makes a monstrous face for Ginny to laugh at. “What do you say, Ginny? Once I’ve gotten myself together a bit more, maybe we can try and teach you Exploding Snap once more?”

At the mention of James, Marlene rolls their eyes. “No. He had work this morning and made sure to locate a Pepper-Up potion. I’m sure he’s feeling bright and fine.” There had been something of a disdain for the hangover remedy when they were younger: considering it cheating, considering it a weak way out. But they were all adults now, with jobs and kids and wives and whatever all else. 

“I did, yeah,” they assure Molly, mustering up a smile. Times like these indeed… It had been nice to let loose a little, to romp about with James like they were back in Gryffindor Commons. But the reality of the world permeated, too. It was in Sirius’s absence, and Lily’s and Remus’s even. It was in the toasts, and the ounces that were spilled along the floor for fallen friends. It was in the way the real world has crashed back down around their ears this morning. The hangover is maybe a fitting bit of poetic metaphor. 

Ginny grins, something surprisingly devilish for someone so young. Her hair sticks up in strange places after Marlene’s touch--but then again, her hair is always sticking up in strange places, Molly reflects. Takes after her father that way. Molly’s eyes, though, that was something certain.

Where she got her spirit, though, was almost a mystery, but Molly had a theory about the distillation of hers and Arthur’s personalities in all their children. And then, of course, the influences from people like Marlene. “Exploding Snap!” Ginny repeats, wiggling around in her seat. “The boys never let me play.”

“Because you keep setting it off early,” Molly says, privately agreeing with their reasons for not including her while simultaneously grateful that she has someone else to play with. “You should play with Ron, not the twins--”

“--but Ron doesn’t like it--”

“--those Pepper-Ups can leave you tasting pepper for days if not brewed right.” Molly changes the subject, steadily ignoring Ginny’s whinging tone. “We’ll hope he’s over-spiced it, for karma’s sake.” She winks at Marlene. “I prefer a good breakfast, myself.”

His brows shot up when the child spoke, as if he he’d asked something rather complex than simply if he knew his mother or not. Of all the new quirks he’d acquired in the last year, this sudden inability to communicate properly with those under the age of ten was by far the most unexpected. Granted, he’d never been much of a kid person before, now though it was almost like dealing with an alien species, something so far removed from himself he couldn’t even begin to relate to it. 

“Erm..” he began and thankfully was interrupted by said child’s mother. Lips pressing together to form a tight faint smile, he nodded his at her welcome as he stepped into the threshold of the home. He’d heard of Molly Weasley through reputation, knew the task she’d made her own of taking in the stranded children turned war refugees. Never in his life though would he imagine he himself would suddenly become one of these lost souls. 

“Thanks again for offerin’ up one of your beds,” he spoke up, eyes wandering about the home’s interior as he did so. It was clearly the home of several children, he thought to himself, it had been well lived in, and the love that enveloped that life was clear in the cozy home that was the background to it all. Being a stranger he felt a bit like a foreign invader, come to break the happy and quaint lives of those who’ve offered him shelter with the trunk of ghosts he carried in with him. 

“Er, Caradoc won’t be ‘round til later,” he added, feeling the need to fill the silence, “Pomfrey wants to keep her a little longer.” It felt strange suddenly not having her by his side, or at least within the same room. She’d helped kept him anchored in the real world ever since they first were dropped into the middle of the English wilderness, now he felt like he was lost at sea. Another odd feeling atop hundreds of others he’d been experiencing lately. 

Oh, Molly thinks, watching Ben look around, tracking his reaction to Ron. He’s been through more than she originally anticipated. The twins are out, thankfully, and Ginny at the Tonks’--she’d figured one child was enough to burden their new arrival with while he got used to the place. And Ron was, unlike most of her others, quiet. And Ben needed to be eased into it, she figured, and it seems she was right.

“Oh, seemed prudent enough,” she answers, passing it off as if asking him and Caradoc out here was simply a matter of convenience. “You’ll be back here, in my Bill’s old room. We’ve made you your own entrance, too, y’won’t need to come through the rest of the house--” Molly leads him through the house, to one of the bedrooms closer to the kitchen on the ground floor. It was one of the few rooms that had existed as part of the house originally, back when they’d first moved in with only three children.

It’s not large by any means, but it no longer looks like a teenager’s room, the blue walls scrubbed clean of Bill’s decorations (what he hadn’t taken with him to his dorm was packed away, ready for when he returned for the summer). It was bare but comfortable and, Molly hopes, it’s good enough, better than a hospital wing. “If you need any changes, my husband Arthur, he’s the best at renovations and he’s always happy to do them. Only way we survived living here for ten years, him able to add new rooms and change things up a bit.

“When Caradoc comes along, she’ll have the room across the hall; the rest of the children--there’s four now, the other three at Hogwarts--are upstairs with me and Arthur. I can fill you in on the rest over some lunch, if you’re peckish, or leave you to settle in, if you’d like.”

Molly’s made what appears to be a five course meal, already, plates piled high with eggs, the whole kitchen smelling of food in the best possible way. He wasn’t hungry, before making his way over, had some toast and tea while he was trying to persuade Harry to get dressed and ready to go. But setting foot into the kitchen, tea suddenly in his hands and food in front of him, he finds himself hungry all over again.

He watches, for a moment, in awe as always as the dirty pots and pans drift their way into the sink and begin to wash themselves, ever dish settling down seemingly of its own accord into the right place on the table – two juice cups switching, after a half a second, between Fred and George just a moment before the two eight year olds appear ready to riot that they’ve been given the wrong cup.

It reminds him, in a strange way, of his mother when he was young: she hadn’t had nearly as many children to juggle, with just him around, but she’d made just as big an ordeal of preparing meals, spending hours in the kitchen preparing all kinds of food, the smell of cumin, clove, and coriander permeating every inch of the house all day long, the pots and pans and bowls and spoons like a symphony at her fingertips. He used to sit in the kitchen, at Ginny’s age, chewing mindlessly on naan and watching her for hours on end.

     ‘Oh, you know, we’re alright,’ he answers, doing as she says and taking a seat with his tea, next to Ginny who has forgone her fork altogether and is picking up her scrambled eggs piece by piece with her fingers. ‘Harry’s been going on and on all week about getting to see Ron.’

Her family is loud, and messy, and half the time mere seconds from erupting into a row between two or five children that’ll settle down almost as quick as it started. They’re wild and wonderful and she wouldn’t have it any other way--this chaos of children and food, eggs smeared into faces and dropped on the floor, friends absorbed into the mix. Fred and George make faces at Ginny so she’ll giggle and Harry covertly steals a bite of potatoes off James’ plate.

This is where Molly is most herself. She is a professor, yes, an educator, but she is this first: a mother and caregiver. If she could spend her days here, wiping noses and knitting sweaters, she would take that chance immediately. Molly leans against the counter, tapping her wand against the surface to clean it. “Ron, too,” she answers, grinning in the direction of her youngest son. “Funny. He’s so quiet, usually, at least quieter than these wild other ones, but when it comes to Harry--” she gestures at them. “Talks as much as anyone else. Harry brings him out of his shell.”

He can hear Arthur wrangling the children upstairs, and it makes something in his chest ache, for a second. The same way he sometimes feels, seeing Andromeda and Ted with Dora, or James and Lily with Harry. He’s never wanted children, never imagined he might have them. There are too many risks: he’s still a werewolf, after all, something he’d never wish on any other child. But seeing these families, they way they function, so different to the one in which he was raised… it makes him long for another world, one where he and Sirius could have become so in sync with each others’ needs, could have had a place to themselves and babysat Sirius’ litter of godchildren every once in a while.

Instead, he’s got his students. And it’s enough, it is, but it’s different. A different kind of life than he anticipated. 

     ‘I find myself with a sudden, unpleasant appreciation of all the teachers I inconvenienced in my time as a student,’ he admits, bemused. ‘The pranks we pulled? I’m amazed they didn’t expel us on the spot out of pure frustration.’

He pictures, for a moment, Minerva’s stern frown every time she used to look at them. There’s still a ghost of it, there, when she sees him, even now as peers, as colleagues, the ghost of that old fond exasperation shining through the gentle pity.y 

     ‘But… it’s better than the alternative, still. It’s nice, to feel like I’ve got something to do, to keep me busy. 

She’s heard the stories from Minerva about the infamous four--Remus, Peter, Sirius and James. The pranks they’d pulled and the professors they’d terrorized. Well, she was lucky she hadn’t come on until the four of them were out. Molly couldn’t promise she wouldn’t have set them to scrubbing the cauldrons every night for the rest of the school year. Merlin knows she has enough on her plate these days with the twins.

“That’s the thing about teaching,” she says contemplatively. “Y’can’t take those things personally. Mind, that doesn’t mean we have to allow it, only that it’s important to consider context. This is where they--we, once--learn to experiment with boundaries and expectations and figure out who they are and what they want to spend their energy on. In some cases,” she nods at Remus, “it riles up everyone and disrupts the environment. But Hogwarts is a home, and a home is made to be disrupted, every now and then.” The crowning part of her philosophy, raising these children: let them run. Let them try. Let them fail and fall apart and fix their approach until they succeed. Let them go wild, if that’s what they need, if that’s where their hearts have taken them. The students of Hogwarts may not be her children but that doesn’t change Molly’s philosophy.

It isn’t something shes used to, anymore. The kindness of strangers. She’d known good people on the other side, that was for sure. Not everyone who lived in the Riddle Regime was as dark as the man himself –– but giving too much to strangers in that world was a dangerous thing to do. You never knew what somebody might do. You never knew what was coming. There’d been a man who lived next to her once, in her small flat in London. He’d been kind. He’d been wonderful, and called a locksmith once for her when she’d lost her key and locked herself out. A few months later, he’d been gone, and she didn’t know where. But when people disappeared like that, it wasn’t usually a good thing. 

Molly’s confidence about the matter reminds her of her parents, gone now, even though Molly can’t be that many years older than Caradoc herself. Confident, no nonsense, like offering her home to a wounded stranger is something she does all the time. Caradoc feels scolded by it, feels more surprised than she can name. 

Privacy sounded nice. A more comfortable bed sounded nicer. A few children would be nothing compared to what she was likely to get at Hogwarts, a small army of them gawking and gossiping and wondering about her. It feels wrong to accept the offer, to lean on a woman who has more than enough on her plate already. 

Caradoc opens her mouth to say no, to politely refuse the offer. “These beds are pretty awful.” She finds herself admitting, despite herself. “But I might be stuck here for a couple of days.” 

She’s gotten very good at reading facial expressions. The minute changes in the way shadows fall across the face, the wrinkles that appear and disappear when muscles work behind the face. Molly’s fairly certain that, given the right amount of willpower, the girl would screw her face up and tell her off for pushing and repeating the offer. Molly’s fairly certain that the girl, in full health, has no end to willpower. She is, after all, still alive, and Poppy’s assessment (limited, as it was, her not being a wartime doctor) couldn’t rightly say how that was. Not everyone in captivity lived to talk about it later.

She can see the resolve shift, the words come out of the girl’s mouth like she’s not sure how they got loose. Molly capitalizes on it: “Yes,” she says, still in that businesslike tone. Kind despite all its force, a brick wrapped in furs. “Two or three, Poppy says, but you’ll be fine to travel soon enough, and we’re not far. I’ll have a room ready for you in--oh, let’s call it three days, yes? By then you’ll be out of your mind with boredom and Poppy will need the bed for the first-year flying classes. Three days, and we’ll set you up in the Burrow.” She nods, almost to herself. “What’ll I call you, dear? Whatever name you like, I don’t go much for formality these days.” Not with so many spies using new monikers, with surnames becoming dangerous, with relatives defecting and shotgun weddings and everyone running about because there’s a war on all around them.