Mrs. Weasley sighed audibly and placed her mug of tea down on the table with a loud clunk. But there was no one home to hear it. Ginny and Harry were off doing God knows what on some romantic island. Ron and Hermione were with them. George and Angelina were living at the joke shop…together. Fred… Fred was dead. Her son, dead, by a curse unseen to him. His last smile etched forever on his face that was too young to die. She sat remembering Fred for a couple minutes, or maybe it was a couple hours, she didn't really know… or care. Percy. Percy and Penelope had gotten back together and were working for the ministry in France. France was very far away. Charlie was still working with dragons in Romania. Romania was very far away. All her children were drifting away and she missed them. And then there was Bill. He, Fleur, and baby Victoire were all very happy and Shell Cottage. And finally Arthur, not to come home for several more hours. She was alone, and she didn't like it. She'd been alone before, when the children were at school, but they'd always come back from school for vacation. But now, she didn't know when they'd be back. She was lonely and it made her sad.
She lifted up the mug again and took a huge sip. As the warm liquid filled her body, a new feeling entered her. It trickled in slowly and she didn't realize what it was at first until it had fully consumed her body. Resentment. She loved her children but what had they done for her? They ruined her once slim figure; they dashed all her hopes of being a healer at St. Mungo's. And since when had Arthur stopped calling her his, pretty young lady, and started calling her Mollycoddles? No, she told herself. And she felt ashamed for thinking those horrible things. She loved her children and her husband more than anyone would ever know. They were her life, her world. "Is that my problem?" She asked herself. And then she was crying, dry sobs wracking and jiggling her corpulent figure. "No, Molly, No! You've overcome so much!" Why should one day, spent all alone bother you like this?
She reminded herself that her children loved her; they came to visit regularly. They tried to repay her for raising them the way she did. She was the best mother they could have wished for. And yes, she realized, they did try to repay her. But they would never, never be able to repay her for all she had done for them. She had not only sacrificed her body and her dreams for them. She had sacrificed her life for them. She and Arthur together had sacrificed their lives for their children. They had sacrificed their lives to make a safe comfortable niche in the world where, together, they could raise them. And somehow, she had been repaid. Somehow, after six sons, she'd ended up with her Ginny. Her special daughter. Her beautiful pearl. Yes, she had been repaid, after years and years of punching fights, and kicking, and screaming, she had gotten a jolly little girl who would sing and make her laugh. Ginny was the calm after the storm that was raising six boys. And she meant that in the best possible way, she loved her sons. But had it not been for Ginny, she might have given up long ago.
She stirred herself from her reverie and set about making dinner… for two. She heard a knocking at the window and went to let the owl in. It was bearing many scrolls, all from her children. She laughed a little to herself. "Oh how selfish you were Molly, they care about you. They're not letting you out of their lives. They want to share them with you." And when Arthur came home gave her a quick squeeze and a peck on the cheek she almost overflowed with happiness. She had been repaid. She was repaid every day. She was repaid in hearing from her children, seeing how happy they were. If she had been a lesser mother they might not be this happy. She was repaid when she got to see them. Yes, it was less frequently but it just made their time together even more special. And most of all, Arthur repaid her, with his cute little squeezes and pecks and gimmicks. She smiled at him and the two of them, just the two of them, sat down to a nice, quite, refreshing dinner.