FIC: Molly for cindergal
Title: Molly
Author: aras_fixation
Written for: cindergal
Prompt: Christmas at the 12th Grimauld Place (OotP era)
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Late night talk between Remus and Molly at the kitchen table. (Yes, dear reader it’s about *that* sort of talk. )
Disclaimer: All the characters of the Harry Potter books are creations of J.K. Rowling.
My humble thanks to molsymo for her help.
Molly
She sat alone at the table, stirring her steaming chamomile tea in the green cup emblazoned with an ornate ‘B’ while her other hand caressed the white ‘P’ of a green jumper lying on the table. Hearing Remus entering the kitchen, she looked up, the mask of the ever-busy housewife sliding back into the place.
“Remus, my dear, can’t sleep? I can make you some warm milk. Or would you prefer a nice cuppa?”
He held up his hand and pressed her gently back into her chair. “Not necessary, Molly.”
“But…”
“I can make myself some, thanks.”
She stopped protesting, her face puzzled though, and instead, her never-resting hands started folding the jumper. Each move was a loving caress paid to the green wool and white letter.
Remus turned away and started to pour water into the kettle, unwrapping the tea bag then casting a simple heating spell. The kettle chimed shortly. Remus poured the boiling water into his cup.
What a simple ritual; one that lets people calm down and forget the current unpleasantness of life just for a single moment. All you need is to take a breath, put the kettle on, and the solution could appear almost out of thin air.
Now, the tea needed to steep for the next two minutes.
Remus placed both his palms next to cup as if bracing himself for the conversation with Molly that was surely going to start as soon as the tea was ready.
Christmas can do strange things to people. It is all hype about peace, harmony and happiness, the rush to please beloved ones at any cost, the stress to make things perfect and nothing less. Then, if just one little disturbance comes, and the happy, shiny bubble could blow straight into the face of the one who tried to create it.
Molly, Remus knew too well, had her own vision of a merry Christmas. A vision which certainly didn’t include this gloomy house, a seriously injured Arthur and her own son rejecting his mother’s present.
Disposing the bag, Remus added some milk and sugar to his tea and returned back to the table.
The green jumper was resting in Molly’s lap, now. Her own cup with tea remained untouched.
“I wanted to talk to you,” Remus said, once he sank into the chair opposite her.
“What’s troubling you?” Molly leaned closer, her hand resting on Remus’ forearm - the epitome of the caring mother, ready to counsel any of her seven children 24/7. Remus withdrew carefully, trying to stay as polite as possible.
The scene he witnessed today in the kitchen between her and Sirius was rather an ugly one. The children and Arthur were, luckily, upstairs in the drawing room, enjoying their Christmas presents, while their mother down in the kitchen was seasoning the turkey and potato salad with her tears, stirring the sauce with a rather vicious motion of her hand, her whole body tense like the harp string ready to snap any second.
A few words from Sirius - no more than a short comment dropped in passing - were enough to loosen her the knee-jerk reaction; her response was enough to leave the man thunderstruck, his face pale, and strangely quiet for the rest of the Christmas day.
Remus grabbed his teaspoon, then let it fall again.
“Sirius was right, you know?” he said, gesturing towards the folded-up jumper in Molly’s lap. “What Percy did to you wasn’t… nice.”
“What does Sirius Black know about family?”
“More than you think.”
Molly kept staring into her cup. “He might be Harry’s godfather. Still, it doesn’t mean he can talk about things he has no idea about. I wonder about Harry’s parents, really. I might understand that you couldn’t be chosen because of your condition but really? Was there indeed no one else?”
“There isn’t any law prohibiting werewolves to become godfathers. I’m sure the Ministry hasn’t ever considered the possibility.
“I assure you, Lily and James knew what they were doing. Personally, I would be a rather dreadful godfather, too afraid for the lad’s well-being to ever let him breath on his own.”
Molly snorted, dismissing Remus’ statement. “You should cut yourself more slack, Remus.”
Now it was Remus, his gaze sliding toward his own cup, who was unsure of how to deal with this sudden confirmation. On the one hand, Molly was right, and she knew when she hit home, turning the conversation towards a direction Remus didn’t want to follow. On the other hand, Remus didn’t intend to give in tonight.
“Whatever,” he waved his hand in the same dismissive manner, that Molly had a minute ago. “That’s not the topic I wanted to talk with you about.”
“If you want to talk with me about Sirius then I’m asking you to forget it.”
Molly’s sober words made Remus blink. “I don’t understand.”
“Oh come on. You know too well that we both don’t get along.”
“Yes, but…”
“I’m assuring you, Remus, I tried. Ok? I really tried. But the way he is behaving…”
“It’s not like…”
“His arrogance, his childish sulking…”
“Molly, I swear…”
“…and especially his utter ignorance! The man has absolute no idea!”
“You are wrong.”
Molly hit the table, the china rattled. “What does this man know about love?”
“More than you think!”
“Oh come on, Remus. Perhaps there was once a sweetheart in the school. Although considering the way he had looked back then, I bet there were at least four or five of them.
“What I’m talking about here is relationship, about sharing your life with the same person for years. I’m talking about every day’s hard work, about choices you have to make, about compromises being done anew and anew.
“So I’m asking you again: what does Sirius Black know about this all?”
“More than you…”
“Aw, come on, Remus!” Molly’s laugh sounded bitter and hollow. “You know too well, there isn’t any such person in his life. How could there be? The man is permanently stuck here, sulking like a big baby, because he can’t get out.”
“Because he isn’t allowed to get out.”
“Whatever is preventing him to find himself a woman! The point is, he doesn’t have any idea because there isn’t any partner who would have made him understand how I feel!”
“I’m his partner, Molly.”
“What?”
Remus himself had to blink, realising that his own words slipped off his lips as matter of fact. He had made no careful calculations to predict ahead how the opposite party might have reacted. Actually, facing his unexpected coming-out to Molly Weasley, Remus felt perfectly calm and composed.
“I’m his partner,” he said, “since the school.” And he wished he had a camera.
An utterly speechless Molly, gaping like a fish, was indeed a rare sight.
“Each time,” Remus went on, “I go out there, I sense his concern for me, his desperate wish to follow me, so he can protect me. I feel his silent prayers for my safety, with me the whole time. I know, though Sirius would never admit it. How else can I explain why nothing has happened to me up to now?
“And it is my wish to return back home, unharmed, so not to sadden the man I love. The one who loves me back.”
Molly kept staring at Remus, her thumb still caressing Percy’s jumper.
“Once, we were a family, Molly. Lily and James, Peter, Sirius and I. And when Harry was born, we all were besotted with joy. We all had either lost out parents or had been at odds with our own relatives. But we had each other.
“We both, Sirius and I, never thought our family would ever fall apart. Ever! Yet it did, at last, though betrayal.”
“My Percy is not Peter Pettigrew!”
“No, he is not. Still…” Remus gestured toward the jumper in Molly’s lap. “Still…”
He chose to not finish the sentence. Molly knew the bitter truth anyway, although she, unlike Sirius, couldn’t find the strength to openly state the most obvious fact. That Percy Weasly chose a career over his family.
Molly licked her lips, the words coming silent from her mouth. “But… you thought he was a traitor.”
“Yes, I did.”
“Hated him even…”
“Sirius… forgave me.”
“He did?”
“Yes, he did. What should I say? I’m a lucky bastard.” Remus’ voice was trembling faintly. He smiled at Molly but she didn’t smile in return.
“And now you both are together. Like… together…”
“Yes, we are.”
Molly averted her face in disappointment. Strangely, Remus didn’t care.
“Molly,” he put his hand on her arm, causing her to look at him again. “I know, you wanted to spend your Christmas in your home, with your family, with Arthur unharmed. With Percy back. But what happened to your family is not Sirius’ fault.”
“What do you want from me, Remus?”
“Just for you to understand that Sirius was happy to have you all here.”
Molly said nothing more. She only looked away again, which Remus understood as the end of their conversation.
He stood up, putting his cup into the sink.
“Good night, Molly.”
She looked up for a moment, her gaze unsteady, disturbed and strangely vulnerable.
“Good night,” she said without her ever-present, overly-bright smile.
Remus found he liked her better, this way.
~*~
There was light, coming from the drawing room.
Pushing the door farther apart, Remus found Sirius sitting on the carpet just under the lit-up Christmas tree. Remus slid down as he approached, embracing Sirius from behind.
“Hey!” He whispered into the tousled hair. “Couldn’t sleep?”
Sirius shook his head and leaned back into the embrace. “I woke up and you weren’t here, so I went downstairs to look after you. I heard Molly yelling at you in the kitchen… I … I just didn’t want to go there and make things even worse. Call me a coward.”
“Don’t be silly. Molly and I, we had a rather cleansing talk.”
“What did she say to you?”
Remus tightened his arms around Sirius’ chest. “The more appropriate question would be what did I say to her?”
Sirius turned to get a better look at Remus face. “Moony, stop talking in riddles.”
“I told her about us.”
“You didn’t…!”
Remus sighed. “I’m sorry, it came rather unexpected. She went on and on with her tirade and I didn’t know how to make her shut up, so I told her.”
“And then she did? I mean, she did shut up then?”
“Oh yes. You should have seen her face.”
Sirius blinked for a moment then buried his head into Remus’ shoulder, his body trembling.
Remus started. “Padfoot?” But then he heard Sirius’ stifled guwaffs. Relieved, he tightened his arms around his lover once more. “I don’t know how to describe it. She just sat there, her mouth open… She … wasn’t happy, hearing about us. Well, to be honest, she isn’t happy at all.”
“Yeah. She has been working whole nights on that bloody jumper for that idiot…”
Sirius’ head turned, its temple appearing just below Remus’ lips. He couldn’t resist but to plant a kiss there.
“Unfortunately, we can’t sort it for her.”
“No, we bloody can’t.”
“Perhaps, she will get all right again.”
“In some way, yes.”
They both were silent for a while, watching the Christmas tree shine into the darkness - an illusion of joy, happiness and hope, of things staying bright and shiny for ever and ever.
The clock on the mantelpiece chimed. It was two o’clock in the morning of Boxing Day.
Remus shivered from cold. He yawned.
“Bed?” Sirius suggested.
“Good idea. I still need to unwrap my Christmas present.”
“Which one? As far as I can recall you opened yours exactly 24 hours ago. Couldn’t wait to wear those new slippers, could you?”
Remus laughed and drew his hand under Sirius’ robe. “I mean this one.”
“Moony - the insatiable.”
“That’s entirely your fault. It was you who ordered that thing from the magazine.”
“Ok, ok. Guilty as charged.” Sirius stood up, helping Remus to get on his feet. “Let’s go, then. The sooner you get it out of your system the better…. hhhmpf.”
Remus silenced him with a kiss. “…the better for us both to start all over again.” He finished the sentence.
Sirius laughed, dragging Remus upstairs towards their room.
~*~
There was a shy knock on the door, the next morning. When Remus opened it, however, he found only an enormous tray hovering in the air, loaded with the most delicious things. Eggs, crisp bacon, coffee, porridge swimming in cream and brown sugar, strawberry marmalade and fresh scones.
These, Remus knew, were Sirius’ favourite and Molly’s baking skills have been always legendary.
Mouthing a ‘thank you’, Remus levitated the tray inside, closing the door behind him.
- The End -
Author: aras_fixation
Written for: cindergal
Prompt: Christmas at the 12th Grimauld Place (OotP era)
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Late night talk between Remus and Molly at the kitchen table. (Yes, dear reader it’s about *that* sort of talk. )
Disclaimer: All the characters of the Harry Potter books are creations of J.K. Rowling.
My humble thanks to molsymo for her help.
Molly
She sat alone at the table, stirring her steaming chamomile tea in the green cup emblazoned with an ornate ‘B’ while her other hand caressed the white ‘P’ of a green jumper lying on the table. Hearing Remus entering the kitchen, she looked up, the mask of the ever-busy housewife sliding back into the place.
“Remus, my dear, can’t sleep? I can make you some warm milk. Or would you prefer a nice cuppa?”
He held up his hand and pressed her gently back into her chair. “Not necessary, Molly.”
“But…”
“I can make myself some, thanks.”
She stopped protesting, her face puzzled though, and instead, her never-resting hands started folding the jumper. Each move was a loving caress paid to the green wool and white letter.
Remus turned away and started to pour water into the kettle, unwrapping the tea bag then casting a simple heating spell. The kettle chimed shortly. Remus poured the boiling water into his cup.
What a simple ritual; one that lets people calm down and forget the current unpleasantness of life just for a single moment. All you need is to take a breath, put the kettle on, and the solution could appear almost out of thin air.
Now, the tea needed to steep for the next two minutes.
Remus placed both his palms next to cup as if bracing himself for the conversation with Molly that was surely going to start as soon as the tea was ready.
Christmas can do strange things to people. It is all hype about peace, harmony and happiness, the rush to please beloved ones at any cost, the stress to make things perfect and nothing less. Then, if just one little disturbance comes, and the happy, shiny bubble could blow straight into the face of the one who tried to create it.
Molly, Remus knew too well, had her own vision of a merry Christmas. A vision which certainly didn’t include this gloomy house, a seriously injured Arthur and her own son rejecting his mother’s present.
Disposing the bag, Remus added some milk and sugar to his tea and returned back to the table.
The green jumper was resting in Molly’s lap, now. Her own cup with tea remained untouched.
“I wanted to talk to you,” Remus said, once he sank into the chair opposite her.
“What’s troubling you?” Molly leaned closer, her hand resting on Remus’ forearm - the epitome of the caring mother, ready to counsel any of her seven children 24/7. Remus withdrew carefully, trying to stay as polite as possible.
The scene he witnessed today in the kitchen between her and Sirius was rather an ugly one. The children and Arthur were, luckily, upstairs in the drawing room, enjoying their Christmas presents, while their mother down in the kitchen was seasoning the turkey and potato salad with her tears, stirring the sauce with a rather vicious motion of her hand, her whole body tense like the harp string ready to snap any second.
A few words from Sirius - no more than a short comment dropped in passing - were enough to loosen her the knee-jerk reaction; her response was enough to leave the man thunderstruck, his face pale, and strangely quiet for the rest of the Christmas day.
Remus grabbed his teaspoon, then let it fall again.
“Sirius was right, you know?” he said, gesturing towards the folded-up jumper in Molly’s lap. “What Percy did to you wasn’t… nice.”
“What does Sirius Black know about family?”
“More than you think.”
Molly kept staring into her cup. “He might be Harry’s godfather. Still, it doesn’t mean he can talk about things he has no idea about. I wonder about Harry’s parents, really. I might understand that you couldn’t be chosen because of your condition but really? Was there indeed no one else?”
“There isn’t any law prohibiting werewolves to become godfathers. I’m sure the Ministry hasn’t ever considered the possibility.
“I assure you, Lily and James knew what they were doing. Personally, I would be a rather dreadful godfather, too afraid for the lad’s well-being to ever let him breath on his own.”
Molly snorted, dismissing Remus’ statement. “You should cut yourself more slack, Remus.”
Now it was Remus, his gaze sliding toward his own cup, who was unsure of how to deal with this sudden confirmation. On the one hand, Molly was right, and she knew when she hit home, turning the conversation towards a direction Remus didn’t want to follow. On the other hand, Remus didn’t intend to give in tonight.
“Whatever,” he waved his hand in the same dismissive manner, that Molly had a minute ago. “That’s not the topic I wanted to talk with you about.”
“If you want to talk with me about Sirius then I’m asking you to forget it.”
Molly’s sober words made Remus blink. “I don’t understand.”
“Oh come on. You know too well that we both don’t get along.”
“Yes, but…”
“I’m assuring you, Remus, I tried. Ok? I really tried. But the way he is behaving…”
“It’s not like…”
“His arrogance, his childish sulking…”
“Molly, I swear…”
“…and especially his utter ignorance! The man has absolute no idea!”
“You are wrong.”
Molly hit the table, the china rattled. “What does this man know about love?”
“More than you think!”
“Oh come on, Remus. Perhaps there was once a sweetheart in the school. Although considering the way he had looked back then, I bet there were at least four or five of them.
“What I’m talking about here is relationship, about sharing your life with the same person for years. I’m talking about every day’s hard work, about choices you have to make, about compromises being done anew and anew.
“So I’m asking you again: what does Sirius Black know about this all?”
“More than you…”
“Aw, come on, Remus!” Molly’s laugh sounded bitter and hollow. “You know too well, there isn’t any such person in his life. How could there be? The man is permanently stuck here, sulking like a big baby, because he can’t get out.”
“Because he isn’t allowed to get out.”
“Whatever is preventing him to find himself a woman! The point is, he doesn’t have any idea because there isn’t any partner who would have made him understand how I feel!”
“I’m his partner, Molly.”
“What?”
Remus himself had to blink, realising that his own words slipped off his lips as matter of fact. He had made no careful calculations to predict ahead how the opposite party might have reacted. Actually, facing his unexpected coming-out to Molly Weasley, Remus felt perfectly calm and composed.
“I’m his partner,” he said, “since the school.” And he wished he had a camera.
An utterly speechless Molly, gaping like a fish, was indeed a rare sight.
“Each time,” Remus went on, “I go out there, I sense his concern for me, his desperate wish to follow me, so he can protect me. I feel his silent prayers for my safety, with me the whole time. I know, though Sirius would never admit it. How else can I explain why nothing has happened to me up to now?
“And it is my wish to return back home, unharmed, so not to sadden the man I love. The one who loves me back.”
Molly kept staring at Remus, her thumb still caressing Percy’s jumper.
“Once, we were a family, Molly. Lily and James, Peter, Sirius and I. And when Harry was born, we all were besotted with joy. We all had either lost out parents or had been at odds with our own relatives. But we had each other.
“We both, Sirius and I, never thought our family would ever fall apart. Ever! Yet it did, at last, though betrayal.”
“My Percy is not Peter Pettigrew!”
“No, he is not. Still…” Remus gestured toward the jumper in Molly’s lap. “Still…”
He chose to not finish the sentence. Molly knew the bitter truth anyway, although she, unlike Sirius, couldn’t find the strength to openly state the most obvious fact. That Percy Weasly chose a career over his family.
Molly licked her lips, the words coming silent from her mouth. “But… you thought he was a traitor.”
“Yes, I did.”
“Hated him even…”
“Sirius… forgave me.”
“He did?”
“Yes, he did. What should I say? I’m a lucky bastard.” Remus’ voice was trembling faintly. He smiled at Molly but she didn’t smile in return.
“And now you both are together. Like… together…”
“Yes, we are.”
Molly averted her face in disappointment. Strangely, Remus didn’t care.
“Molly,” he put his hand on her arm, causing her to look at him again. “I know, you wanted to spend your Christmas in your home, with your family, with Arthur unharmed. With Percy back. But what happened to your family is not Sirius’ fault.”
“What do you want from me, Remus?”
“Just for you to understand that Sirius was happy to have you all here.”
Molly said nothing more. She only looked away again, which Remus understood as the end of their conversation.
He stood up, putting his cup into the sink.
“Good night, Molly.”
She looked up for a moment, her gaze unsteady, disturbed and strangely vulnerable.
“Good night,” she said without her ever-present, overly-bright smile.
Remus found he liked her better, this way.
~*~
There was light, coming from the drawing room.
Pushing the door farther apart, Remus found Sirius sitting on the carpet just under the lit-up Christmas tree. Remus slid down as he approached, embracing Sirius from behind.
“Hey!” He whispered into the tousled hair. “Couldn’t sleep?”
Sirius shook his head and leaned back into the embrace. “I woke up and you weren’t here, so I went downstairs to look after you. I heard Molly yelling at you in the kitchen… I … I just didn’t want to go there and make things even worse. Call me a coward.”
“Don’t be silly. Molly and I, we had a rather cleansing talk.”
“What did she say to you?”
Remus tightened his arms around Sirius’ chest. “The more appropriate question would be what did I say to her?”
Sirius turned to get a better look at Remus face. “Moony, stop talking in riddles.”
“I told her about us.”
“You didn’t…!”
Remus sighed. “I’m sorry, it came rather unexpected. She went on and on with her tirade and I didn’t know how to make her shut up, so I told her.”
“And then she did? I mean, she did shut up then?”
“Oh yes. You should have seen her face.”
Sirius blinked for a moment then buried his head into Remus’ shoulder, his body trembling.
Remus started. “Padfoot?” But then he heard Sirius’ stifled guwaffs. Relieved, he tightened his arms around his lover once more. “I don’t know how to describe it. She just sat there, her mouth open… She … wasn’t happy, hearing about us. Well, to be honest, she isn’t happy at all.”
“Yeah. She has been working whole nights on that bloody jumper for that idiot…”
Sirius’ head turned, its temple appearing just below Remus’ lips. He couldn’t resist but to plant a kiss there.
“Unfortunately, we can’t sort it for her.”
“No, we bloody can’t.”
“Perhaps, she will get all right again.”
“In some way, yes.”
They both were silent for a while, watching the Christmas tree shine into the darkness - an illusion of joy, happiness and hope, of things staying bright and shiny for ever and ever.
The clock on the mantelpiece chimed. It was two o’clock in the morning of Boxing Day.
Remus shivered from cold. He yawned.
“Bed?” Sirius suggested.
“Good idea. I still need to unwrap my Christmas present.”
“Which one? As far as I can recall you opened yours exactly 24 hours ago. Couldn’t wait to wear those new slippers, could you?”
Remus laughed and drew his hand under Sirius’ robe. “I mean this one.”
“Moony - the insatiable.”
“That’s entirely your fault. It was you who ordered that thing from the magazine.”
“Ok, ok. Guilty as charged.” Sirius stood up, helping Remus to get on his feet. “Let’s go, then. The sooner you get it out of your system the better…. hhhmpf.”
Remus silenced him with a kiss. “…the better for us both to start all over again.” He finished the sentence.
Sirius laughed, dragging Remus upstairs towards their room.
~*~
There was a shy knock on the door, the next morning. When Remus opened it, however, he found only an enormous tray hovering in the air, loaded with the most delicious things. Eggs, crisp bacon, coffee, porridge swimming in cream and brown sugar, strawberry marmalade and fresh scones.
These, Remus knew, were Sirius’ favourite and Molly’s baking skills have been always legendary.
Mouthing a ‘thank you’, Remus levitated the tray inside, closing the door behind him.
- The End -