HP: Molly Weasley - Scene, "In the Event of War"
The table, Molly thinks, is probably at least seventeen generations old. It was an old Prewett heriloom, kept in a relative's attic somewhere when none of Dad's siblings had a family large enough to warrant such a giant piece of furniture. Molly's does, though, with the advent of a third son, and so she's just finished polishing it after a round of bread-baking. It cleans off nicely, she notes, the nicks and carvings aside, and if there is anything that pleases Molly Weasley more, it's something with multiple uses.
This week has been hotter than usual, and the oven breath from the window blowing over Ottery St. Catchpole prompts Molly to sit on a nearby bench, over-pregnant squat practised and measured as her hands ease up on the edge of the table. Everyone's napping as a result, of course, but Molly can't justify a snooze in the middle of the day. However, she can justify surveying a job well done before she's to get back at the cleaning again, all busy hands and perfecting, before the children wake up and are asking for dinner.
It is with the confidence of one long accustomed to the familiar green fire and the long descent to The Burrow that Gideon steps into the fireplace and emerges sooty yet quite victorious in his sister's sitting room. One lone cough betrays his presence as he places his hands on his hips and surveys the scene.
The house is Molly's in every way possible. He likes her particular style laid over the building, making it more like home than his own sterile flat. He coughs again to betray his presence. The house is quiet and his nephews are, he can only think, napping. Seeing her; toast and tea; maybe even a cake or two; these were the joys that he so deeply relies upon.
"You've soot all over my best rug, Gideon," but Molly says it as if it's her standard greeting, all smiles and kind eyes as she directs Cleaning Charms to the offended carpet and crosses what little space separates kitchen from sitting room with as much grace as the pregnant and swollen can muster.
Her eldest brother gets Molly's special treatment, with tongue-clicking and shoulder-dusting onto the hearth. "Oh, you're wearing the nice robes that Mum got you last Christmas," she says absent-mindedly, fussing over Gideon's mop of a haircut before waddling over to her second hearth, obviously utilitarian from its trappings, with a kettle in mind.
She Accios it over, hardly looking as she fills it with water and places it to boil. "I've just washed your cup, too, Gideon. Sit, sit."
Not following Molly's direction (or feeling guilty when she scolds, for that matter) is not written into Gideon's genetic code. He can't help but do what she asks. A grin. "Hallo, you."
He does, however, stop her with a hand on the back of the shoulder as she puts the kettle on. "Would you sit for just a moment? I didn't come to bring you more work, you know. Let me help."
The request makes Molly hesitate, an unusual reaction in her kitchen; she's unused to the concept of idle hands in the proximity of tea kettles, and not by Arthur's request, either. Still, she turns to Gideon though, the smile this time tired, and acquiesces her control with surprisingly minimal squawking. There is a bit, though, as it would be not Molly without a, "Honestly, Gideon, I'm just seven months pregnant, not ill," out of her, snickering making her voice wobble just a bit at the end.
Hands folded predictably on the top of the baby's belly (will I have a pretty girl to dress in pink this time?), Molly calmly directs Gideon to the drying rack with an idle finger, serene in the way that pregnant woman are wont to be. "If you've a mind to insist, get my pink cup with yours and the Lady Grey. It's the one I've been favouring the last few evenings." She nods as she says this, fingers drumming as she thinks of her luck; such good lads in her life, she has, even if those with the name of Prewett have a penchant for trouble that leads to more than a wee bit of torn knees and the like.
Such thoughts, of course, force Molly's face to take a temporary (she hopes) neutrality: "But yes, and speaking of 'hallos,' you, what's bringing you to get a cuppa?" She hopes it isn't what she probably might be guessing, considering her brother's Aurorship and the impending political atmosphere. Nothing would make her revisit morning sickness more than the idea of her brother and a high-profile promotion...
As she sinks into the chair he deposits a kiss upon the top of her forehead and carefully moves hither and thither about the kitchen, slow and awkward in his brotherly gallantry. Her neat kitchen unsettles him into a fear of doing something wrong. Each article of tea taking is ever so gently deposited upon the table before her as if his very fingertips might break the china.
As the kettle sings, he removes it from the heat and pours the liquid into her cup and his. Out of his jacket pocket comes a box of (only slightly dented biscuits. Smiling, sitting, he finally sighs and leans back into the chair's deep grasp.
"It's not enough to see one's glowing sister, hmmm?"
"Oh, those new ones from Honeydukes!" Molly, in her "delicate state," is certainly never above noticing a new sweet shop creation and so is already fast at work at the box, its lid being surprisingly difficult. Being knee-deep in toddlers, however, means that Molly knows not the meaning of giving up; biscuits are in her hands and mouth in time, approval making its noise shortly afterwards.
Sweet goodness, however, does not deter Molly's observation, nor the offering of a hot spot of tea. "A mother knows," she says simply, strands of hair breaking free from her messy ponytail and floating over courtesy of that parched breeze traveling from kitchen window to front door. "Doesn't matter whether I'm your mum or not, I just know."
"Besides," she says practically, looking her brother square in the eye, "you rarely kip over for tea when I'm supposed to be feeding you for dinner. You've news, Gideon." Good, she hopes, whether by her definition or his.
He nods a little, allowing himself to be impressed with Molly's incredible intuition. Yes, he does have something to say; something to share with her. Though he can selfishly say that he would rather have a story of her last few days, beforehand ...
"Maybe a little. But won't you tell me," he asks in a tone that could be almost a wheedle (almost). "Tell me something you've done today."
Gideon drives a hard bargain, Molly will admit -- mostly because it's a Prewett trait through and through. So, she takes a long drink and ponders as to what could be exciting enough to warrant tea time chatter.
It doesn't take long.
"Well, a few nights ago, Arthur gets these daft 'krah-yons' from the office and brings them home. You know how it makes me fuss when he does this, of course," and Molly's hand goes to pat her stomach in predictable twitterpation, "but he says they're charmless and all like the Muggles use them, so I let him have his way. You know he gets," Molly says with a sigh that Gideon most likely knows well, all indulgent despite trying desperately to object, "with that face and so I figured it wouldn't be that much of an issue."
Her hands press on the surface of the table, then, just shy of slamming down, and Molly's eyes are about as wide as her best china saucers. "So today, I walk down, and I suppose I should be proud that it's moving, but Bill and Charlie went and scribbled over the entire bloody wall!" Hands fly over her head, the tongue is clucking, and Molly looks as if she's hopeless. "Have no idea what to do with them sometimes."
But she's grinning like an idiot, just a wee bit.
"Krah-yons?" he makes a face, wrinkling his nose and wondering what sort of contraption makes something that Muggles use to decorate walls of all things. "How did the boys get them on the wall? Is that what they're used for ..."
Though the latter comment, the statement on his nephews' magical talents, makes him grin from ear to ear. "That's fantastic. Oh, I hope you saved it. Please tell me you did. How could you not?"
"They're these waxy things, a bit like... well, they're not quills, but you write with them, at any rate. Like charcoal, graphite, the like. Anyway," Molly says with the air of a woman who thought he'd never ask, "of course I did. At least until this evening."
So she takes her brother's hand and even though Molly is swollen with child and waddling, Molly feels six years old again and she's showing Gideon the most excellent little craft that she made one afternoon while he was off outside doing Merlin-knew-what. "It's by the stairs," she says softly, a finger to her lips, "so we've need to be quiet, since Bill and Charlie are still sleeping."
It's a little picture of men, dragons, and a good lot of nebulous blobs; whether one was fighting or playing with the other was not certain, but it was terribly animated nonetheless, as much because of the color as the actual movement.
"There it is."
He smiles, making that motion that good uncles make when they are propitiously attempting to be good uncles in the wake of wild and or weary nephews.
... and the mural is a masterpiece. Silently, he exclaims and points out a few of his favourite scenes (the man who was either tickling or skewering the dragon with fireworks) before turning to kiss his sister on the cheek.
"The artistic talent is my genetic contribution, you know," he whispers.
Memories of murals in the back of closets make Molly snicker as she walks back to the kitchen, where she has a mind for a few more sips on her cuppa and biscuits galore. "Yeah, definitely my side of it is where they get it, if I remember what you lot did when you were little." Her easing into the chair is easier this time, with a modicum of grace. "Definitely."
She looks up at her brother, eyes all serious as she's nursing her tea, and tries to affix a comforting smile on the front. "I'm afraid that after that incident, I've all ran out of thrilling stories at Castle Weasley, lest you count in the dashing tale of Molly Weasley, Laundress combating the Dread Spot Marmalade on her beloved's work robes. I believe it is time for me to be all ears now, yeah?"
Molly hopes, above all else, that maybe it's only that Gideon has a girl for the family to meet. She can deal with that sort of stress any day. With finesse, even.
His big, rough hands with their calluses and their thick knuckles taper down to slender fingertips that encircle and meet on the other side of the warm porcelain. Bowing his head, he grimaces into the liquid, willing himself to do as Molly asks and bring his thoughts into this sanctuary.
"Well," is strung out with a hiss. "You know about the attacks. The ones on the Muggles and everyone. The ones that are buried in the paper."
"On C17 if it's a slow news day?" Molly pats Gideon's hand just so, almost by reflex, before gently gesturing with her wand to a small bundle of Prophets, all ready for some secondhand destiny at the hands of the Weasleys. But Molly has no qualms in picking through the stacks, only stopping when she finds a particularly dog-eared issue.
"The seventh," Molly breathes with that shared tension as she moves to hold her brother's hand all the more properly, "was the last time I found anything in here worth clipping to read over later." She flips to the back, then, showing a tiny hole near some obituaries and classified adverts. "It wasn't much."
The Prophet is abandoned in favour for focusing exclusively on drinking her tea, but Molly's hand squeezes Gideon's a little tighter. "So yes. Yes, I do know." If she possessed sickles for every wish to the contrary, Molly Weasley reckoned she'd be rich.
"There's ... well," his index finger hooks around her thumb. "There's an organisation who keeps their eyes on more than just the papers. And more than our lot does in the Auror department." As she slips her hand into his, he squeezes firmly and lets his gaze level at her.
"I'm joining up. Molly. I just wanted you to know. I don't see Fabian far behind. It's all on the up and up. Just quite secretive. You've got to keep it for me."
The news is, to Molly's surprise, worse than she had predicted.
She closes her eyes on instinct, breath hissing through teeth so that she won't wake the children and burst a vessel, and squeezes the mug. She is not Gideon's mother, after all, nor Fabian's (she'd have a lot to explain if that was the case), but Molly can already feel the fretting in her bones nonetheless. She gets the fretting from Mummy, she's sure, and Molly's eyes are shut a while longer.
When she stares Gideon in the eye, her jaw is set most perfectly. "Consider me mum on the subject, absolutely mum." It's hard for Molly to say anything else without stomping and shrieking, but the horrrid, horrid deed is done, so instead she chokes out a small, "I won't breathe a word of it to Arthur, even."
Her lip must be chewed, it is imperative. She needs the children to rest.
A lock of her copper hair is twirled around his index finger as he smiles in what he hopes is his best dashing smile (a wrinkling of the nose, a sparkling in the eye and all teeth showing). "Someone must, I'm afraid, do something about all this riff-raff.
The snap of her wrist as she swats Gideon's hand tells one thing: the sparkling smile of her brother's is certainly not working.
"I know your justification just fine." Molly's voice is on the verge of cracking somewhere, those tiny tears carefully hidden under fire and fierceness. "You're a bloody Prewett, Gideon. Prewetts and good fights are as bloody close together as tea and biscuits, or--"
Molly swallows and looks her brother straight in the eye, terribly proud of her suddenly terribly brave front. "You two will handle this nonsense impeccably, I wager. That's what you two do." She hopes.
That hand immediately reaches for her cheek, offering a conciliatory twist of his lips and a sheepish wrinkling of his nose. "Molly," he says, elongating the vowel as a string of pearls.
"There is no cause for worry. We're doing what's right and maybe, if we succeed, the world will be better for those ..." his chin tips roofward.
Molly's head snaps the other way in prescision time, the perfect display of a woman's cold civility and of placing a man in his place by smooth physical denial. Her eyes are cold slits now, mouth all small. The front has fallen.
"Don't you Molly me, Gideon, don't you even dare and then tell me not to think nothing on this!" Now her eyebrows raise, eyes widen in the indignant flare of a Prewett woman's careful rage, all pratised and tense. "I know that these are good actions and the right thing and that a future for my children without the spectre of all this nonsense is something worth fighting for, but if you think that I don't know that you won't be having nice little tea parties to discuss our 'differences,' you're wrong in every sense of the word!"
This is hissed between clenched teeth as Molly takes the cups up hastily, ready to refill as it is the only thing she can do: "'There is no cause for worry' -- Gideon, please. I may just be a wee housewife, but I'm not a bloody idiot."
Pinching the bridge of his nose between thumb and forefinger, he shakes his head vigourously and takes a few steadying breaths. He should expect her anger; her worry that manifests itself in this.
"What do you want me to say, Molly?"
Plunging herself into the actions of houselife gives Molly an opportunity to centre, and so she sucks in a breath and takes stock of what she has before her.
"Don't be making me hollow promises is all I'm asking here, Gideon." She places his mug before him and shoves her hands into a tea towel, wiping methodically despite perfectly tidy hands. "You're good at what you do, love, brilliant, but..." She can't look at him, can't look at that shining brother of hers, and so she goes to the sink and grips the edge as if she's about to drown in air.
"It's like when you told the family you wanted to be an Auror, Gid. I love you, I'm proud of you, but I'll be worrying about you if I damn well please to, because there's nothing else that I can do."
Quick to her side, he slides back from the table and presses a palm firmly between her shoulders. "I love you so. You're amazing, Molly, a strength and a ..."
His kiss lingers on her cheek. "By all the gods, Molly, you could lick twenty Death Eaters just by furrowing your brow."
"If looks could kill, then?" and there's a small laugh, shaking from the release of nervous energy, as Molly looks up to regard her brother just so. "I'm no Gorgon, but Bill says--"
For a moment, Molly holds breath; she needs insurance that the name doesn't conjure and her sharp ears hear footsteps, but it's only the ancient mouser that came with her Burrow, mewling pitifully in the heat. It makes her laugh a little more when she says, "But Bill says I can turn things to stone when he's in trouble, and perhaps I can."
She walks to the cat's sad bowl and fills it idly. "If you're to do this, do it well," Molly asks, voice somewhat calm after her flaring bit of temper. "Do it terribly well. Earn your Sunday dinners. Speaking of," her voice dictates as she points, "check on the dutch oven in the coals if you want to make yourself useful."
It's now his turn to grip the edge of the counter, the small of his back just hitting all of the sharp points. Bill's observance gives him cause to effect a laugh. "And gorgons are considered protectressess as well as beings of fear. I reckon Bill probably knew of that, when he made his comment ..." Said young nephew is (if Gideon were ever to admit it) a favourite of his and he is quick to defend or aggrandise anything on the young boy's behalf.
"I will, Molly," is thrown over his shoulder as he indeed turns swiftly to check the oven and stoke the coals
"Did you know," Molly says airly, enjoying the feel of old Mrs Tabitha against her ankles as the tabby laps at her milk, "that he insisted I ask you to bring some book on ancient history to the next supper after we were tutoring on Thursday?" She sighs, placing hands to hips after she says this, all flustered as she says, "Then I forget, of course. I do hope he doesn't bother me about it tonight. It's only that I've been ever-so busy, as have you..."
Her eyebrow raises as she twists about. "State of the roast, Gideon?"
" ... and it's to be done, he'll have his book (as I know the very one he'll have asked for) by supper without a hitch." Hearing the cat's bowl being filled he can't help but smile into the warmth. That cat was, he thinks, one of the finer selling points in The Burrow. More than the stairs that creak, at least. For her fur is soft and her purrs are comforting (and she does not suffer much from nosy, adventurous little hellions).
Pause. "State of the roast? Oh bloody hell ..." he manages to lift the lid on the oven and peering at the contents inside, he turns to give his sister a most wonderous gaze.
"State of the roast. Ah. Meaty, yes. And vegetable-like. Quite possibly done, as the gravy seemed to suggest it." He stands, pushing off from the ground with his palms and brushing the dirt from them on the sides of his trousers.
This week has been hotter than usual, and the oven breath from the window blowing over Ottery St. Catchpole prompts Molly to sit on a nearby bench, over-pregnant squat practised and measured as her hands ease up on the edge of the table. Everyone's napping as a result, of course, but Molly can't justify a snooze in the middle of the day. However, she can justify surveying a job well done before she's to get back at the cleaning again, all busy hands and perfecting, before the children wake up and are asking for dinner.
It is with the confidence of one long accustomed to the familiar green fire and the long descent to The Burrow that Gideon steps into the fireplace and emerges sooty yet quite victorious in his sister's sitting room. One lone cough betrays his presence as he places his hands on his hips and surveys the scene.
The house is Molly's in every way possible. He likes her particular style laid over the building, making it more like home than his own sterile flat. He coughs again to betray his presence. The house is quiet and his nephews are, he can only think, napping. Seeing her; toast and tea; maybe even a cake or two; these were the joys that he so deeply relies upon.
"You've soot all over my best rug, Gideon," but Molly says it as if it's her standard greeting, all smiles and kind eyes as she directs Cleaning Charms to the offended carpet and crosses what little space separates kitchen from sitting room with as much grace as the pregnant and swollen can muster.
Her eldest brother gets Molly's special treatment, with tongue-clicking and shoulder-dusting onto the hearth. "Oh, you're wearing the nice robes that Mum got you last Christmas," she says absent-mindedly, fussing over Gideon's mop of a haircut before waddling over to her second hearth, obviously utilitarian from its trappings, with a kettle in mind.
She Accios it over, hardly looking as she fills it with water and places it to boil. "I've just washed your cup, too, Gideon. Sit, sit."
Not following Molly's direction (or feeling guilty when she scolds, for that matter) is not written into Gideon's genetic code. He can't help but do what she asks. A grin. "Hallo, you."
He does, however, stop her with a hand on the back of the shoulder as she puts the kettle on. "Would you sit for just a moment? I didn't come to bring you more work, you know. Let me help."
The request makes Molly hesitate, an unusual reaction in her kitchen; she's unused to the concept of idle hands in the proximity of tea kettles, and not by Arthur's request, either. Still, she turns to Gideon though, the smile this time tired, and acquiesces her control with surprisingly minimal squawking. There is a bit, though, as it would be not Molly without a, "Honestly, Gideon, I'm just seven months pregnant, not ill," out of her, snickering making her voice wobble just a bit at the end.
Hands folded predictably on the top of the baby's belly (will I have a pretty girl to dress in pink this time?), Molly calmly directs Gideon to the drying rack with an idle finger, serene in the way that pregnant woman are wont to be. "If you've a mind to insist, get my pink cup with yours and the Lady Grey. It's the one I've been favouring the last few evenings." She nods as she says this, fingers drumming as she thinks of her luck; such good lads in her life, she has, even if those with the name of Prewett have a penchant for trouble that leads to more than a wee bit of torn knees and the like.
Such thoughts, of course, force Molly's face to take a temporary (she hopes) neutrality: "But yes, and speaking of 'hallos,' you, what's bringing you to get a cuppa?" She hopes it isn't what she probably might be guessing, considering her brother's Aurorship and the impending political atmosphere. Nothing would make her revisit morning sickness more than the idea of her brother and a high-profile promotion...
As she sinks into the chair he deposits a kiss upon the top of her forehead and carefully moves hither and thither about the kitchen, slow and awkward in his brotherly gallantry. Her neat kitchen unsettles him into a fear of doing something wrong. Each article of tea taking is ever so gently deposited upon the table before her as if his very fingertips might break the china.
As the kettle sings, he removes it from the heat and pours the liquid into her cup and his. Out of his jacket pocket comes a box of (only slightly dented biscuits. Smiling, sitting, he finally sighs and leans back into the chair's deep grasp.
"It's not enough to see one's glowing sister, hmmm?"
"Oh, those new ones from Honeydukes!" Molly, in her "delicate state," is certainly never above noticing a new sweet shop creation and so is already fast at work at the box, its lid being surprisingly difficult. Being knee-deep in toddlers, however, means that Molly knows not the meaning of giving up; biscuits are in her hands and mouth in time, approval making its noise shortly afterwards.
Sweet goodness, however, does not deter Molly's observation, nor the offering of a hot spot of tea. "A mother knows," she says simply, strands of hair breaking free from her messy ponytail and floating over courtesy of that parched breeze traveling from kitchen window to front door. "Doesn't matter whether I'm your mum or not, I just know."
"Besides," she says practically, looking her brother square in the eye, "you rarely kip over for tea when I'm supposed to be feeding you for dinner. You've news, Gideon." Good, she hopes, whether by her definition or his.
He nods a little, allowing himself to be impressed with Molly's incredible intuition. Yes, he does have something to say; something to share with her. Though he can selfishly say that he would rather have a story of her last few days, beforehand ...
"Maybe a little. But won't you tell me," he asks in a tone that could be almost a wheedle (almost). "Tell me something you've done today."
Gideon drives a hard bargain, Molly will admit -- mostly because it's a Prewett trait through and through. So, she takes a long drink and ponders as to what could be exciting enough to warrant tea time chatter.
It doesn't take long.
"Well, a few nights ago, Arthur gets these daft 'krah-yons' from the office and brings them home. You know how it makes me fuss when he does this, of course," and Molly's hand goes to pat her stomach in predictable twitterpation, "but he says they're charmless and all like the Muggles use them, so I let him have his way. You know he gets," Molly says with a sigh that Gideon most likely knows well, all indulgent despite trying desperately to object, "with that face and so I figured it wouldn't be that much of an issue."
Her hands press on the surface of the table, then, just shy of slamming down, and Molly's eyes are about as wide as her best china saucers. "So today, I walk down, and I suppose I should be proud that it's moving, but Bill and Charlie went and scribbled over the entire bloody wall!" Hands fly over her head, the tongue is clucking, and Molly looks as if she's hopeless. "Have no idea what to do with them sometimes."
But she's grinning like an idiot, just a wee bit.
"Krah-yons?" he makes a face, wrinkling his nose and wondering what sort of contraption makes something that Muggles use to decorate walls of all things. "How did the boys get them on the wall? Is that what they're used for ..."
Though the latter comment, the statement on his nephews' magical talents, makes him grin from ear to ear. "That's fantastic. Oh, I hope you saved it. Please tell me you did. How could you not?"
"They're these waxy things, a bit like... well, they're not quills, but you write with them, at any rate. Like charcoal, graphite, the like. Anyway," Molly says with the air of a woman who thought he'd never ask, "of course I did. At least until this evening."
So she takes her brother's hand and even though Molly is swollen with child and waddling, Molly feels six years old again and she's showing Gideon the most excellent little craft that she made one afternoon while he was off outside doing Merlin-knew-what. "It's by the stairs," she says softly, a finger to her lips, "so we've need to be quiet, since Bill and Charlie are still sleeping."
It's a little picture of men, dragons, and a good lot of nebulous blobs; whether one was fighting or playing with the other was not certain, but it was terribly animated nonetheless, as much because of the color as the actual movement.
"There it is."
He smiles, making that motion that good uncles make when they are propitiously attempting to be good uncles in the wake of wild and or weary nephews.
... and the mural is a masterpiece. Silently, he exclaims and points out a few of his favourite scenes (the man who was either tickling or skewering the dragon with fireworks) before turning to kiss his sister on the cheek.
"The artistic talent is my genetic contribution, you know," he whispers.
Memories of murals in the back of closets make Molly snicker as she walks back to the kitchen, where she has a mind for a few more sips on her cuppa and biscuits galore. "Yeah, definitely my side of it is where they get it, if I remember what you lot did when you were little." Her easing into the chair is easier this time, with a modicum of grace. "Definitely."
She looks up at her brother, eyes all serious as she's nursing her tea, and tries to affix a comforting smile on the front. "I'm afraid that after that incident, I've all ran out of thrilling stories at Castle Weasley, lest you count in the dashing tale of Molly Weasley, Laundress combating the Dread Spot Marmalade on her beloved's work robes. I believe it is time for me to be all ears now, yeah?"
Molly hopes, above all else, that maybe it's only that Gideon has a girl for the family to meet. She can deal with that sort of stress any day. With finesse, even.
His big, rough hands with their calluses and their thick knuckles taper down to slender fingertips that encircle and meet on the other side of the warm porcelain. Bowing his head, he grimaces into the liquid, willing himself to do as Molly asks and bring his thoughts into this sanctuary.
"Well," is strung out with a hiss. "You know about the attacks. The ones on the Muggles and everyone. The ones that are buried in the paper."
"On C17 if it's a slow news day?" Molly pats Gideon's hand just so, almost by reflex, before gently gesturing with her wand to a small bundle of Prophets, all ready for some secondhand destiny at the hands of the Weasleys. But Molly has no qualms in picking through the stacks, only stopping when she finds a particularly dog-eared issue.
"The seventh," Molly breathes with that shared tension as she moves to hold her brother's hand all the more properly, "was the last time I found anything in here worth clipping to read over later." She flips to the back, then, showing a tiny hole near some obituaries and classified adverts. "It wasn't much."
The Prophet is abandoned in favour for focusing exclusively on drinking her tea, but Molly's hand squeezes Gideon's a little tighter. "So yes. Yes, I do know." If she possessed sickles for every wish to the contrary, Molly Weasley reckoned she'd be rich.
"There's ... well," his index finger hooks around her thumb. "There's an organisation who keeps their eyes on more than just the papers. And more than our lot does in the Auror department." As she slips her hand into his, he squeezes firmly and lets his gaze level at her.
"I'm joining up. Molly. I just wanted you to know. I don't see Fabian far behind. It's all on the up and up. Just quite secretive. You've got to keep it for me."
The news is, to Molly's surprise, worse than she had predicted.
She closes her eyes on instinct, breath hissing through teeth so that she won't wake the children and burst a vessel, and squeezes the mug. She is not Gideon's mother, after all, nor Fabian's (she'd have a lot to explain if that was the case), but Molly can already feel the fretting in her bones nonetheless. She gets the fretting from Mummy, she's sure, and Molly's eyes are shut a while longer.
When she stares Gideon in the eye, her jaw is set most perfectly. "Consider me mum on the subject, absolutely mum." It's hard for Molly to say anything else without stomping and shrieking, but the horrrid, horrid deed is done, so instead she chokes out a small, "I won't breathe a word of it to Arthur, even."
Her lip must be chewed, it is imperative. She needs the children to rest.
A lock of her copper hair is twirled around his index finger as he smiles in what he hopes is his best dashing smile (a wrinkling of the nose, a sparkling in the eye and all teeth showing). "Someone must, I'm afraid, do something about all this riff-raff.
The snap of her wrist as she swats Gideon's hand tells one thing: the sparkling smile of her brother's is certainly not working.
"I know your justification just fine." Molly's voice is on the verge of cracking somewhere, those tiny tears carefully hidden under fire and fierceness. "You're a bloody Prewett, Gideon. Prewetts and good fights are as bloody close together as tea and biscuits, or--"
Molly swallows and looks her brother straight in the eye, terribly proud of her suddenly terribly brave front. "You two will handle this nonsense impeccably, I wager. That's what you two do." She hopes.
That hand immediately reaches for her cheek, offering a conciliatory twist of his lips and a sheepish wrinkling of his nose. "Molly," he says, elongating the vowel as a string of pearls.
"There is no cause for worry. We're doing what's right and maybe, if we succeed, the world will be better for those ..." his chin tips roofward.
Molly's head snaps the other way in prescision time, the perfect display of a woman's cold civility and of placing a man in his place by smooth physical denial. Her eyes are cold slits now, mouth all small. The front has fallen.
"Don't you Molly me, Gideon, don't you even dare and then tell me not to think nothing on this!" Now her eyebrows raise, eyes widen in the indignant flare of a Prewett woman's careful rage, all pratised and tense. "I know that these are good actions and the right thing and that a future for my children without the spectre of all this nonsense is something worth fighting for, but if you think that I don't know that you won't be having nice little tea parties to discuss our 'differences,' you're wrong in every sense of the word!"
This is hissed between clenched teeth as Molly takes the cups up hastily, ready to refill as it is the only thing she can do: "'There is no cause for worry' -- Gideon, please. I may just be a wee housewife, but I'm not a bloody idiot."
Pinching the bridge of his nose between thumb and forefinger, he shakes his head vigourously and takes a few steadying breaths. He should expect her anger; her worry that manifests itself in this.
"What do you want me to say, Molly?"
Plunging herself into the actions of houselife gives Molly an opportunity to centre, and so she sucks in a breath and takes stock of what she has before her.
"Don't be making me hollow promises is all I'm asking here, Gideon." She places his mug before him and shoves her hands into a tea towel, wiping methodically despite perfectly tidy hands. "You're good at what you do, love, brilliant, but..." She can't look at him, can't look at that shining brother of hers, and so she goes to the sink and grips the edge as if she's about to drown in air.
"It's like when you told the family you wanted to be an Auror, Gid. I love you, I'm proud of you, but I'll be worrying about you if I damn well please to, because there's nothing else that I can do."
Quick to her side, he slides back from the table and presses a palm firmly between her shoulders. "I love you so. You're amazing, Molly, a strength and a ..."
His kiss lingers on her cheek. "By all the gods, Molly, you could lick twenty Death Eaters just by furrowing your brow."
"If looks could kill, then?" and there's a small laugh, shaking from the release of nervous energy, as Molly looks up to regard her brother just so. "I'm no Gorgon, but Bill says--"
For a moment, Molly holds breath; she needs insurance that the name doesn't conjure and her sharp ears hear footsteps, but it's only the ancient mouser that came with her Burrow, mewling pitifully in the heat. It makes her laugh a little more when she says, "But Bill says I can turn things to stone when he's in trouble, and perhaps I can."
She walks to the cat's sad bowl and fills it idly. "If you're to do this, do it well," Molly asks, voice somewhat calm after her flaring bit of temper. "Do it terribly well. Earn your Sunday dinners. Speaking of," her voice dictates as she points, "check on the dutch oven in the coals if you want to make yourself useful."
It's now his turn to grip the edge of the counter, the small of his back just hitting all of the sharp points. Bill's observance gives him cause to effect a laugh. "And gorgons are considered protectressess as well as beings of fear. I reckon Bill probably knew of that, when he made his comment ..." Said young nephew is (if Gideon were ever to admit it) a favourite of his and he is quick to defend or aggrandise anything on the young boy's behalf.
"I will, Molly," is thrown over his shoulder as he indeed turns swiftly to check the oven and stoke the coals
"Did you know," Molly says airly, enjoying the feel of old Mrs Tabitha against her ankles as the tabby laps at her milk, "that he insisted I ask you to bring some book on ancient history to the next supper after we were tutoring on Thursday?" She sighs, placing hands to hips after she says this, all flustered as she says, "Then I forget, of course. I do hope he doesn't bother me about it tonight. It's only that I've been ever-so busy, as have you..."
Her eyebrow raises as she twists about. "State of the roast, Gideon?"
" ... and it's to be done, he'll have his book (as I know the very one he'll have asked for) by supper without a hitch." Hearing the cat's bowl being filled he can't help but smile into the warmth. That cat was, he thinks, one of the finer selling points in The Burrow. More than the stairs that creak, at least. For her fur is soft and her purrs are comforting (and she does not suffer much from nosy, adventurous little hellions).
Pause. "State of the roast? Oh bloody hell ..." he manages to lift the lid on the oven and peering at the contents inside, he turns to give his sister a most wonderous gaze.
"State of the roast. Ah. Meaty, yes. And vegetable-like. Quite possibly done, as the gravy seemed to suggest it." He stands, pushing off from the ground with his palms and brushing the dirt from them on the sides of his trousers.