i.
Arthur - unusually for a Weasley - is an only child, and suffers the usual fate of such children: an overly developed sense of his own importance, and a tendency towards selfishness. Used to basking in his parents' direct attention for the most part of his twelve years, he finds the diffusion of their interest at family gatherings somewhat difficult to comprehend. At this reunion, the assortment of cousins, aunts and uncles - all at various degrees of removal - fails to provide Arthur with more than temporary amusement, and besides, it is a Saturday in June with glorious sunshine.
There are other things to do.
ii.
Molly crouches down behind the honeysuckle when Arthur appears behind the house. She has been following him at a distance around the garden, but each time she sees him he is accosted by another cousin who has heard about his trick with the caterpillars. It is he who spies her though; she hasn't accounted for his height when he spots her hunkered down behind the hedge.
"There you are!" Arthur cries delightedly, although they have never spoken. Timothy - seven years old, fat, with a lisp - trails off back to the house.
"Yes," she says, wiping dust off her dress, having used the same trick herself to get rid of her sisters.
"We'll go down to the pond," Arthur says, nodding decidedly and pushing his glasses back up the bridge of his nose.
iii.
Arthur approves of Molly - she already knows a few simple charms, doesn't squeal at slugs like most other girls, and gamely holds still when he rubs itching pollen on her wrist.
"Plus," he says, helping her tug on the slippery reeds, "it's good you're not ginger like me, you know, because then everyone at Hogwarts won't immediately think you're another Weasley."
Molly counts out nine reeds and wipes her hands on the grass. "What's wrong with being a Weasley?" she asks, and Arthur thinks that she probably already knows.
"I'd rather just be Arthur. Or Artie."
iv.
"Where'd you learn to make that, then?" Arthur asks as Molly twists and plaits the last few reeds together around his ankle. He even has freckles on his feet, Molly notices, although he is brown from the sun and they don't seem as startling as her own.
Molly can't remember - it's one of those things she's always known, like how to swing high, and how to copy an owl hoot with her hands.
She shrugs. "You can't take it off. It's bad luck if you do." She wants him to take her seriously, so she kisses him squarely on the mouth. He is the first boy she has ever kissed, but she doesn't blush. "It has to fall off by itself."
Arthur nods solemnly, and they both go to the front garden to get chocolate eclairs.
v.
Arthur claps hard for Molly when she gets Sorted into Gryffindor, but he doesn't wave her over to sit beside him. He thinks she's the sort of girl who doesn't need to sit by her cousins for reassurance; he remembers her scuffled sighs of discontentment during the speeches at his parents reunion.
She takes a seat five or six people down from him, and boldly sticks out her hand to shake with the other students around her. When she looks up the table he grins at her, and she smiles broadly.
In the rest of Arthur's time at Hogwarts, he has fourteen conversations with Molly, nine of which are about the food.
vi.
Molly receives the owl from Emily and Lucy the same day that her parents arrive to collect her from Hogwarts.
Dear Molly, they alternate in handwriting as identical as their faces, Australia is very hot in January and we both have peeling noses. The school here is not grand like Hogwarts but the teachers are mostly very kind. Our favourite class is Dreamtime Magic, Emily is a lizard and Lucy is a koala, which is a kind of bear. We miss you and hope that you and Mummy and Father are safe. Auntie Shirley sends her love.
Molly tucks the letter inside her blouse pocket and goes to pack her trunk. It is hushed in the bedroom she shares with three other girls; the opening of drawers and folding of robes echoes around the room. Hogwarts closes quietly, regretfully.
When Molly arrives home, the same hush seems to hang over her parents house.
vii.
The list of wizards killed - or presumed killed - in the conflict grows steadily. For a time Arthur refuses to scan the list in the Ministry foyer every morning like everyone else. It seems morbid, unnecessary; the fact that there is a war is enough for Arthur to do his job determinedly. The number of dead makes no difference. Even the names of the dead make no difference, for Arthur makes sure his own parents are safe as can be.
It is only when a colleague mentions that there are two Weasleys on the list one Tuesday that Arthur thinks about grey smoke, and eclairs, and Molly.
viii.
Clara Malkin agrees to teach Molly how to embroider dress robes - there is a demand for them, especially black - and although the work is tiring and painstaking, Molly enjoys the break from the stifling claustrophobia of the Leaky Cauldron. She sits in the weak sunshine coming through the windows of the dressmaker's workroom and tries not to think about her parents, tries not to worry about her sisters. Owls cannot be wasted on non-essential communications, so all she do is hope that the twins are safe.
Molly returns to the Cauldron for tea, rubbing her sore eyes - she has been beading black ravens all day, and in the gloom the other patrons all appear to have glimmering eyes and glossy cloaks. Then she sees Arthur Weasley scribbling at a corner table, and he seems like a sparrow, a jay, a bird from summertime.
ix.
"Your hair's gone red," Arthur says when he sees Molly in the sunlight. He arrives every day at four to take her back to the Cauldron, because even Diagon Alley has become dangerous.
"It's been red for years, Artie." Molly twines her fingers in his when they open the bolts on Madame Malkin's back door, and he squeezes her hand before they run back across the cobbles.
That night there is a fiddler in the pub. Drunk on apple brandy, Arthur pulls Molly up from her bench by the window and they dance clumsily and out-of-time. Molly kisses Arthur on the stairs and it is just as serious and firm as when he was twelve.
In her tiny room, Arthur tugs Molly's cardigan off her shoulders and kisses her cheeks until her tears turn to giggles and then to gasps.
x.
"Days and years, Molly-woppy," Arthur whispers, and Molly feels warm sun and smells summer grass before she falls asleep.
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